"Crusades V: adrift" Fan Fiction

"Crusades V: Adrift" is the working title of a completed fan fiction written by Echidna about the server. It is the direct sequel and "second arc" of "The Crusades," which she had previously written, which details a fictionalized version of the war between the servers.

## Full Text

It hadn’t taken long for the battle to start once more, but another instance of an infinitely-echoing voice had ordered for silence. The armies died down and separated themselves, tending to the dead and healing wounds. Peace, which had previously seemed impossible, had been achieved through the commands of the heavens.

Within the Cathedral of Madoka, the three remaining leaders of the Sayaka knights and Kyouko clan had gathered to meet with Mapopea ZeHaffen, head of both the Church and the now-separated spaceship. At the base of the Kaname Clocktower, the three stepped into the glowing pink circulator elevator that would lift them to their host.

The One was leaning against the wall the entire ride up, eyeing the other two with suspicion. Overlord was of interest because the massive warrior was an unchallenged leader and ruler of the clan, a devil who could strike at any moment. Even in the neon hues of bubblegum within the elevator his body was still obviously clothed in red, as if the smell of blood was not enough to remind the generals that Overlord had killed one of their finest men less than an hour ago.

One was also suspicious of Blaud because he had a long history with the Mapopea, which had always been a point of dispute between the two. There was always an unspoken agreement that they would do no significant harm to the church, a rule that One believed was due to a history of friendship between the general and figurehead.

“If Ze had not summoned us himself, I… would have killed you both by now,” Overlord said nonchalantly, leaning on his spear for support. He was still recovering from his earlier death, and although he had nearly been completely healed by the spirit that dwelt by his side, he still had an enveloping pain that stretched across the scars.

“I would have worn out your spines,” Blaud threatened, his voice even but his eyes communicating his intensity. One raised a synthetic eyebrow, not having knowledge of Overlord’s power and thus missing the reference.

Overlord turned his head to retort, but he was interrupted by the doors sliding open to ZeHaffen’s private chambers at the top of the clocktower. The room was decorated in pink and rainbow colors, a pristine and even-lined facade of stones and gems. Above them was a golden bell, a single large drum slowly rotating in an ellipse. The only major feature in the oval room was a silver throne on which sat the Mapopea himself, his hands wrapped on the ends of the armrests.

“Took you long enough,” he groaned, the words crawling from his chapped gray lips. His entire body was ancient in appearance, his skin grayed and barely clinging to a deteriorating body. Salt-white hair from his scalp and face was simultaneously stuck to his face like a parasite and detached from it like a ghost. His left eye was faded and lop-sided, a graying iris struggling to look past transparent eyelids. The other eye showed no such weakness and betrayed the fierceness of Ze’s soul.

“Mapopea,” the three said in unison, their differences fading away in the shadow of the great ZeHaffen--known in legends as He Who was but an Inch From Divinity.

Ze coughed, his cheeks shaking as if the force would blow them away. “The three of you are the ranking members of both the Kyouko Clan and Sayaka Knight forces, which means I want you to keep your men quiet. Anyone who tries to start something is told to shut up. Understand?”

“Of course, your excellency,” Blaud agreed, lowering his head in respect.

“As you command,” Overlord said, his voice even but harsh enough to betray his feelings for the mandatory pacifism.

“Yeah, sounds good,” One agreed, hiding his annoyance at how quickly the other two leaders had fallen before Ze.

“Good,” Ze whispered, his voice filling the room as he relied on his powers to enhance the range of his failing speech. “The next order of business is administration of this church’s forces. Since that little girl over there somehow killed Madeacon Mimee, there is a vacancy in the position.”

One was about to step forward out of irritation, but his progress was blocked by a stern hand from Blaud. He used this moment to fill the air and keep his comrade from exploding on the weary man. “Who did you have in mind, your excellency?”

Ze’s head began to bob up and down, but it wasn’t clear if that was out of interest or if he had lost focus due to senility. His single moving eye caught Blaud in its sights before he began to speak. “Mimee had a lover, did he not? A warrior trained in the infamous Sword Arts. I suggest you find him, Blaud, and inform him that he is to take the place of his lost love. And to be clear to all of you: you will defer to his judgment when I am unable to speak to you.”

The three agreed, although One and Overlord were quite bitter about the amount of autonomy they had had stripped away so quickly.

“And the final order of business for us to discuss,” Ze continued, the doors to the elevator sliding open. “Is a rumor I heard about my chief scientist.”

Sib ruffled his hair anxiously and forced himself to enter the room. “Greetings, Mapopea! My Mapopea! Oh Mapopea, my Mapopea!”

One rolled his eyes, although technically they still functioned even if the pupils were not visible, so it was only an artistic expression. “You seem calm.”

“I am calm!” Sib insisted, trying to whisper but having as much whisper as Ze’s strained voice did.

“Siberys, Chief Scientist of the Cathedral,” Ze acknowledged. “I have heard whispers during my slumber that you have brought people back to life. Is this true?”

Sib shrugged, trying not to grind his teeth. “I mean, kind of? It, um, didn’t really work out quite like I planned…”

“I would like you to take this device and show me the subject,” Ze continued, raising his hand. A floating orb appeared from a pillar and flew to Sib, landing in his hands. It was relatively heavy and cold, a fact that Sib knew would drive him insane if he couldn’t set it down. “Who was it you revived?”

“Oh, about that…” Sib laughed, immediately trying to plan an exit strategy. “Um, I’ll go and set this up for you, Mapopea!”

The scientist bolted to the elevator and frantically hit a button with his knee until the doors closed.

“The three of you are to handle your warriors and control the chaos,” Ze ordered, unphased by Sib’s behavior. “Any questions can be relayed through my new Madeacon. When I have formulated a plan to return us to the ship I will let you know.”

“Thank you, Mapopea.”

A series of clicks moved through the metal door, signalling that its owner was about to enter. It swung open in a wide arc, light flooding into the room from a library. Abandoning their silhouettes, Siberys and Syumie entered the hidden room.

“How many secret rooms do you have?” Syumie asked as Sib turned on the light. This room was made of stone bricks and had no decorations save a wooden bench, with its only feature being a set of metal bars similar to a cartoon jail cell. Sitting against the wall, wrapped in a gray straight jacket, was Fai.

“Enough for what I need them for,” Sib dismissed him, a smile on his lips as he looked over his medical marvel. “How are you feeling, Fai?”

“I’m quite good, actually,” he replied, raising his hands as if reminding them he wasn’t actually restrained and was wearing the jacket for warmth. “Thank you for your concern.”

Sib scowled and turned to face Syumie. “Did you ever meet him before his death?”

“Can’t say I did.”

The scientist sighed and turned back to the prisoner. “Fai, what do you think of Mimee?”

Fai looked to the ceiling and thought for a moment. “He’s a very nice man and a strong leader. I’m grateful that we have people like him protecting us from the harsh foes beyond our walls.”

“Mimee was one of the ones who killed him,” Sib sighed. “Since I revived him he’s been different. And he’s sincere, don’t misunderstand. If this was a ruse I could tell on the scans. No, he’s truly become a… \*nice\* person.”

Syumie folded his arms. “Is that a bad thing?”

“It means I don’t know what this process does to the mind of the revived,” Sib sighed. He approached the wooden bench and sat down, beginning to press some buttons on a device attached to his forearm. “And Ze wants to see my creation himself, and he will disintegrate me if he sees that I brought back Fai.”

“So what are you going to do?” Syumie questioned, walking up to the bars to get a better look at Fai. He could see the stitches now despite the dim lighting, dark lines highlighting the curvature of his face.

“I’m sure the mighty Ze will understand what you did,” Fai continued, assuming he somehow had a say in this conversation. “Forgiveness comes with time.”

Sib tapped a lit button, causing a display to flash in various shades of pink. “My plan is to leave Fai in this hole; someone else will be my gift to the Mapopea.”

“Do you have another body already?” Syumie asked, spinning on his heel.

“No, I’m afraid. But I do have a plan to use someone whose death can be explained but not questioned,” Sib whispered to himself, no longer clearly talking to anyone. He pressed a button and a line on the display turned red, spiking every other millisecond as if preparing to flatline.

“I don’t get it?” Syumie asked curiously, resting against the bars. In a second, his skin tightened and his hand flew to his chest. His eyes widened and a hiss accompanied steam rising from his stomach.

“I deactivated the nanites,” Sib said, straightforward in tone. “Don’t worry, I’ll see you again soon enough.”

All Syumie heard was Fai’s protests and Sib’s broken breathing until the pounding in his ears drowned that out as well. Darkness then swept into his vision and he lost consciousness.

“...in a way he’s your brother.” There was laughter. Syumie’s eyes slammed open like released shutters, the dim light searing his sight instantly. He cried out and thrashed from the agony.

Fai shook his head, looking at the body on the ground outside of his cell. It had been about five minutes since Siberys had murdered Syumie, but the time in which the scientist had spent repairing and reviving his body had felt close to a century. “This is wrong.”

Sib bit his lip to hold back his spite for his first creation. He checked the magnetic holds on each of Syumie’s wrists and ankles to ensure their strength. “Wakey wakey!”

The swordsman continued to thrash, trying to break his way out of his restraints. He looked nearly identical to how he had moments before his death, save a haphazard patch of flesh that had been sewn into his stomach to repair his wounds. Sib had no real reason to use deceased human material to repair his “zombies” instead of nanites, but he liked how it made them look like a classic movie monster.

“I will kill you!” Syumie cried, throwing his body towards Sib to the best of his ability. In that moment Sib could see the anger in his eyes, the unchecked rage of a beast.

“I’ve never seen you like that.” Sib backed up, a sense of dread and regret coming across him. He thought that Fai was an anomaly, an accident, a result of being the prototype. This, though, suggested something disturbing about the process. A single tear began to build in the corner of his eye. His voice had become a whisper as he faced his gift for Ze: “I made a mistake. I’m so, so sorry, Syumie.”

Sib pushed the patient forward, his body still restrained and his mouth gagged. His eyes and body were simultaneously convulsing, his entire being trying to escape.

“My Mapopea!” Sib laughed, stretching out his hands and spinning in a circle. “I have brought you the result of my experiment!”

Ze looked over the drooling swordsman. He closed his eyes and the stroller rolled across the room, skidding to a shaky stop in front of the throne. Ze looked directly into the deranged eyes of Syumie, thinking inwardly. “I know of this one. Has he always been like this?”

Sib shook his head, running up to try and explain himself up-close. “No, no, your greatness! Unfortunately my procedure still has, well, slight complications which at times cause it to create imperfections within the minds of the reanimated!”

“Shut up,” Ze ordered, no obvious tint of malice. “He is clearly alive, even if he’s not exactly the same. That’s all I need.”

“For what, Mapopea?” Sib asked, shifting in place. He rubbed his robed arm, feeling the buttons underneath it that, amongst other things, controlled the nanites that he had used to both save and kill his friend.

Ze’s eye locked with Syumie’s for a moment, and a smile crept onto the wrinkled face of the unquestioned leader of the church. “I want you to find as much of Mimee as you can and put something together for me. I don’t care if he’s the same. I don’t care if it’s even entirely him.”

“M-Mapopea?” Sib asked, his resolve completely dissipated. “What reason could you have to--”

“My reasons are my own!” Ze interrupted, his head actually turning to face Sib and his voice raising naturally. The lights in the room flickered and Sib briefly felt his heart stop, though he couldn’t tell if it was out of fear or if Ze had actually prevented it from beating for an instant. The Mapopea calmed down a second later, as if a flash storm had moved across the landscape of his mind, and apologized to his scientist. “You do not need to know why. Just do it.”

Sib nodded hastily and, grabbing Syumie, shot to the elevator.

“And one last thing, Siberys,” Ze warned, his voice stopping his audience dead in his tracks. “Do not trust anyone as you do this for me. Not everyone is as accepting of what you do here in the church.”

Sib looked over his shoulder, trying to pass his nervousness off as determination. “I understand fully, your majesty.” With that, he disappeared into the elevator and asked it to take him to his library, where he planned to leave Syumie before heading to the battlefield. He was completely calm and reinforced in this expectation until he heard the aptly-timed sound of bonds being broken.

Syumie went from being restrained on a metal sheet to choking Sib against the wall of the elevator in a seemingly impossible span of time. Sib began to claw at the hands now gripped around his neck, trying to cause enough pain to free himself.

“I’m sorry for what I did,” he pleaded, his voice a squeak. “I thought you would be fine.”

Syumie growled, spit simultaneously rocketing into Siberys’ face and rolling down the zombie’s face. His eyes seemed to have gotten bloodier and wilder, his pupils changing shape rapidly.

“If you wanted me dead I already would be,” Sib chuckled, black circles beginning to swarm in his vision.

“Untrue,” he said, his voice coming from deep in his chest, as if it were a demon living within him that spoke on his behalf. “Suffer.”

Syumie withdrew one of his hands and lifted it above his head, a sword beginning to materialize in a line of light. It was at that moment that Sib’s unknown guardian angel intervened, realizing that the doctor was not prepared.

The former master swordsman suddenly dropped to the ground, his arms and legs feeling as if they were tied to boulders. He was restrained once again, except this time there were no physical restraints. The area near him became hazy for a moment, as if out of focus, before a person appeared from the air. He tapped Syumie’s forehead with his sleeve-covered finger, toying with his fellow zombie.

“Fai?” Siberys demanded, rubbing his salmon-colored neck. “How did you get here? How did you do that?”

He stood up, various pieces of dead flesh writhing to follow the motion, and gave Sib a heartfelt grin and a happy wave. “Hi! Sorry I didn’t tell you, but I can just move through the bars. I also followed you into this elevator.”

Sib bent down and administered a sedative from his belt into Syumie’s neck, putting him to sleep. He then reactivated the elevator, which Syumie had apparently had the time to activate the locking mechanisms for. He then turned to see Fai, his dark hair well past his shoulders and his eyes alert and cheerful. “So you still have the powers, huh.”

Fai shrugged, looking down at his uncovered feet. “I was surprised too. I knew I could vanish still, but that was it. I’m sorry you had to find out like this.”

“It’s fine,” Sib dismissed him. “I’ve done worse things today for less sensible reasons.”

Fai, absorbed in his kindness, jumped forward and hugged Sib, almost toppling him. “What would you like me to do now, Sib?”

“Just, uh…” his victim stammered. “Be stealthy and follow me back to the lab. I need to see if I can… fix whatever happened to Syumie.”

“I’d be happy to,” Fai nodded, his eyes sealed shut to show his glee.

Overlord approached the Kyouko camp, which had been built on one half of the bridge near the cathedral. There were fears that the bridge itself could collapse from the damage already done, so both the knights and clan had situated their sleeping arrangements near one another. The Executioner stood in the center of a swarm of brutes and knocked the stone ground with the butt of his spear. “My Elites! To my side!”

The clan members seemed to flow backwards away from their leader, giving him a wide girth. Moments later, Nightshade was the first to arrive, landing by Overlord’s side with a bow. “My lord.”

The next Elite to arrive was Kiken, nearly as massive in stature and strength as Overlord himself, a walking tank with salvage wrapped around his flesh as armor and a mane of black hair flowing around his neck. He also bowed, although he was taller than many members of the clan even when he was lowered. His voice was somewhat raspy, a completely unexpected voice given his stature. “My lord.”

“My lord!” a light, youthful voice announced before its owner had even appeared. Joyanne, smaller than a normal human and imp-sized in the thralls of the clan, pressed her way past the warriors and entered the clearing. She was clad in shining silver armor, almost like that of the Sayaka knights, and she wore a red cape that flowed regally behind her. Her eyes were both gray, a sign of her blindness, but a set of red gems pressed into her forehead acted as replacements.

“All of you are here, save…” Overlord began, an annoyance creeping behind a layer of command.

“I am here, my lord!” Lightning shouted, climbing over a man whose feet had both been replaced by morning stars, forcing him to use canes.

The Exeuctioner sighed as his fourth Elite arrived. The four Elites, like all members of the clan, used magic that tied into the natural strength of nature. For most, this was used as a means to augment the body to become a more destructive killing machine. For the four Elites, however, they possessed the ability to access the chaotic forces that brought pain to humanity. They were each also gifted the power to transform. As such, Nightshade could command fire and become a falcon, Kiken could command sand and become a lion, and Joyanne could command water. Joyanne had yet to transform, and Lightning had never accessed the power of the storm nor had he shapeshifted. There were times when Overlord questioned his status as an Elite entirely, but it was impossible for there to be another explanation.

“As you are… aware, we have a temporary truce,” he reminded them. “You four will tell the… troops that we are not to attack.”

“Yes, my lord.” The response was robotic, a nigh-inhuman show of devotion.

Overlord nodded in satisfaction to their response. “I must return to the Mapopea now. If there are any disputes, you… will handle it.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“And if I send any orders, even if they involve cooperation,” he continued. “You \*will\* follow it.”

“Yes, my lord.”

With the understanding reached, Overlord marched away to rejoin the Mapopea.

“Why were you late?” Nightshade demanded, sliding in front of Lightning.

He scratched the back of his head, his mechanical fingers squeaking. “I was in the pit.”

The rest of the Elites, of course, knew of what the clan called the pit, which was actually a building with private restrooms. For whatever reason, people had dubbed it a pit so they could say it was a latrine and “grittier” than toilets.

“I don’t really care if he was late,” Joyanne shrugged, twirling her cape around her finger. “He gave us a job to do and I’m going to get to it.”

“Agreed,” Kiken growled, dropping to all fours and becoming a dirt-colored lion. He looked like he wanted to roar, but destroying the eardrums of everyone in the immediate area was not in compliance with the Executioner’s orders. He and Joyanne both ran off in two directions, leaving Nightshade and Lightning temporarily alone as the other clan members began to fill in the circle they had left.

“I’m keeping an eye on you,” Nightshade whispered into his comrade’s ear. “Anyone who can’t kill when told to kill is a traitor in my eyes.”

In a flash of red, the now-falcon shot upwards and flew in a direction parallel to the other elites. Lightning did a brief breathing exercise before heading in the direction opposite Nightshade, knowing that this was in the direction of the knights. Therefore, he had the highest chance of having to halt a reignited war.

Lightning had piled some stray bricks together to make a seat, and he was quietly watching the knights only a few hundred meters away. He could see them, most with their armor now removed, polishing weapons and adjusting augmentations. Most of his brethren saw cyborgs in any form as being disgraceful, a perversion of the natural order that was the source of human strength. This meant that Lightning had an additional target on his back, which combined with the presumption that he wasn’t fit to be an Elite meant that just about everyone in the clan was a suspect if they ever found his body decapitated in the pit.

Sometimes people would walk past him, traveling along a makeshift path that had been carved through the not-yet-disposed-of corpses and trash left behind from the battle. Most were probably medics, looking for soldiers the armies had accidentally missed, but others appeared to be scavengers, dragging wagons behind them. One individual in particular caught his eye.

“Hey, you!” Lightning called to a man in a pink apron.

“Me?” the scavenger replied, clearly shocked that anyone had bothered him.

Lightning approached him, his hands buried in his red jacket’s pockets to hide their true nature. “I’ve seen you before.”

“I’m the head scientist for the church,” Siberys quickly explained. “I get around. Now, if you’ll excuse me--”

“I’ve heard the rumors,” Lightning cut in, putting out a metal hand to stop Sib. “You’re not going to look for shrapnel to build some gun with, are you?”

The doctor looked around nervously, half-expecting Lightning’s allies to jump out and rip his body to jerkey. “And what if I’m not?”

“Then I want to go with you,” Lightning laughed. “I’m bored and I want to see if what they say about you is true.”

Sib folded his arms, letting the handles of the cart rest against the stone ground. “Why would I do that?”

“Our people are meant to work together,” Lightning reminded him. “And I’m going to follow you whether you want to or not, so you might as well invite me.”

Sib bit his lip and reluctantly accepted the terms. He had to admit, it would be nice to have some company, and this cyborg seemed less brutish than the others of his kind that Sib had met.

“What do I call you?” he asked, pulling the cart along the path.

Lightning scratched an itch on his cheek. “I’m Lightning, Elite of the Wind of the Clan of Kyouko.”

“That’s long.” His traveling partner seemed unimpressed. “Call me Sib.”

The two walked together, mostly silent as they approached the primary war zone, a place where the bricks had been scrubbed away by explosions and replaced with a desert of ash.

Sib sent out a wave of nanites to collect genetic material. The sand would occasionally shoot into the air in small jets, signalling that the robots were using a large amount of power for something.

“This is pretty advanced for a church guy,” Lightning mused, rebooting his left hand after it got stuck in a position. “I thought all of you were about spells from the heart or something.”

“Spells from mental impulses,” Sib sighed. “Yes, that is where we’re meant to get our powers. Seriously, though, you of all people should understand reaching into the realm of mechanics.”

Lightning conceded and turned to look at the cathedral, a shimmering glow against space. An asteroid struck the shield and exploded into powder, rolling over the dome like a cloud.

“Who built those?” Sib asked, his eyes still on his wrist-mounted control device.

Lightning looked down at his palms, which were beginning to show further damage from the battle. He had blown out the bulbs during the battle with Overlord, and his repair job hadn’t been able to fully make them operational. For all he knew he couldn’t even generate anything from them. “We captured a knight. I lost my hands in an accident, a few weeks before my Ceremony of the Ground. The options were to make him replace them, which would make it impossible for me to alter my physical structure without damage, or attempt to face the Executioner in unarmed combat without hands.”

“I was really only interested in who built them,” Sib said, resisting the impulse to roll his eyes. “I knew someone who built things like that once. He was in the church, though.”

The nanites returned, a pool of silver collecting at Sib’s feet. He entered a code and the nanites disappeared into his shoes. Sib closed his eyes and looked forward, as if in a trance.

“Where do those go?” Lightning inquired.

Sib turned to face him, opening his eyelids. Two silver spheres had briefly replaced both of his eyes, and after a second they returned to their normal constitution. Lightning was frozen, not entirely sure if he was watching something intentional or natural. Pupiless, colorless. They were empty, like the soul of Siberys had been temporarily drained to give room for the nanites to dwell within his body.

“So… uh… where do they go?” Lightning asked once more, not sure if he wanted an answer.

Sib laughed. He always enjoyed it when people found out about his relationship to the nanites. “They go where I need them.”

Lightning was going to ask another question when Sib’s body began to quiver, almost like he was mid-seizure. A moment later he looked frantically to his companion, his eyes shifting between silver and organic. “I’m picking something up. The readings are like those of--”

Sib’s lips kept moving but there was no sound. Lightning tried to say something to him but he too had become mute. Lightning tried to run back to the camp, intending to find someone to help with whatever was doing this, but he was stopped by a field of some sort.

“You found me,” a voice noted, feminine but ominous, an echoing hiss. A set of purple eyes appeared near them, a transparent symbol positioned between them. It was that of the Cult. “I’m going to enjoy shrinking this box and watching you become a cube of meat.”

“The three of you are to handle your warriors and control the chaos,” Ze ordered, unphased by Sib’s behavior as he stumbled into the elevator. “Any questions can be relayed through my new Madeacon. When I have formulated a plan to return us to the ship I will let you know.”

“Thank you, Mapopea.”

It was an awkward half-minute until Sib had completed his elevator ride, at which point the three rivals began their own descent.

“I will… return to my soldiers and instruct them not to attack yours,” Overlord said, his voice trying to display a diplomatic tone but only sounding like he was raising his pitch.

“I will do the same to my own,” Blaud responded, saluting out of respect.

“ \*Our\* own,” One jabbed, his lips twisted into a look unflattering of the face of beauty he had chosen for himself.

The other two exchanged a look and then both, in a disturbing semi-metallic unison, laughed.

“Robot girl, you can go find the new Madeacon for us,” Overlord said with a sense of authority One wasn’t sure he had the power to back up.

“It’s a good plan, One,” Blaud chuckled, rubbing his chin. “We don’t actually know where this Steph is. It may take you a long time.”

The cyborg clenched both of his fists, using his cybernetic brain stem to calculate ways to kill both of them should a fight break out. His primary consciousness, however, was more political, and he accepted that they were not taking him seriously due to the body he dwelled in. “I understand.”

The halls of the Cathedral of Madoka were bustling with workers and warriors, many still reeling from what had happened on the bridge. A few people came up to One to ask frantically about what had occurred and who had caused it, prompting him to insist that this was classified. Unfortunately, he had no idea what the cause had been himself. He wasn’t even sure if Ze knew. There were suspicions, of course, but nothing concrete.

“Hey, you’re General One, right?” Luminous asked, his hands in his pockets and his glasses cracked on the right side.

“Yes?” One questioned, not sure why this priest was asking him.

Luminous gestured for him to follow towards the barracks. “One of our patrols found something. Since you seem to have a good line to the Mapopea, I figured you may want to be one of the first to know.”

One nodded and followed after Luminous, who had a noticeable cut across his exposed forearm from where it had apparently been ripped off. Mimee’s aid had been near the fight where One had slaughtered the former Madeacon, but Luminous knew better than to hold grudges about what takes place during a war. He had, after all, been the reason that One was forced to live his life as a cyborg.

There was a small room underneath one part of the barracks, usually hidden by a moss-covered trap door. It appeared to have been dug by magical means, as the walls were virtually perfect and the room itself was a cube. There was a mattress of some design, a box of rations, and two buckets of material One did not wish to think about. There was no light and no obvious means of recreation.

“Who was living here?” One asked, stunned that anyone could be in a place like this.

“That’s why I called you,” Luminous explained, removing the sheet from atop the uneven mattress.

Resting on the mattress was a purple banner with the circular symbol of the Cult.

“Tell nobody of this,” One quickly ordered. “Get your troops to swear to secrecy who saw it. There will be panic if they know.”

“Of course,” Luminous replied with a bow. “Do you have a plan to find who was here?”

One left the cube through the ladder to the trapdoor. He did not have a plan.

Confidently, One turned to look at the priest and, with a grin, stated: “Of course.”

One and Luminous kept their distance from each other as they waited for the elevator to arrive. It was apparently held up by something, as they had been waiting far longer than the max time it would take to travel up and down the chute to the top of the Cathedral.

“Do you think the…” Luminous started to speak, stopping himself to collect words. “...the camper has something to do with this?”

One raised an eyebrow, briefly taken aback but then understanding the code. “Maybe. They could be making a play at the Mapopea, but they’d have to be stupid to try that. He’s much too powerful.”

Lumi nodded, pressing his hands together and sending a quick prayer. “What are his powers? Everyone speaks of them, but they only say that they’re so strong he’s practically a god.”

“I’d tell you if it wasn’t classified,” One admitted.

“Why is it classified?”

One shrugged, a few small motors hissing in protest within his left shoulder, which was still repairing after an injury sustained in the battle. He truly had no idea why Ze kept his powers a secret, but there was no way he was going to question it. Less than a dozen people had ever witnessed him actually use his power to its full potential, and most of them were dead or sworn to secrecy. One of them in particular had been killed because of his intention to reveal the nature of Ze’s power, but that was after a series of events that had already made him a target to those close to the Mapopea.

The doors finally opened and Siberys, carrying Syumie’s unconscious body, stepped out. “What are you looking at?” He ran off without another word or waiting for a response.

“That was weird,” Lumi whispered, not intending to get anything out of his temporary partner. One stepped into the elevator without making a sound, leaving Lumi to have to run through the doors before they sealed shut. He would have protested, but that was pretty much what he expected from the general.

“Why do you seek an audience with the Mapopea?” a voice asked, emanating from the walls and ceiling of the lift. It was mechanical, an artificial intelligence designed to weed out intruders, people with insignificant problems, and those who had gotten lost.

“I am General The One of the Knights of Sayaka,” One explained. “I have information on the Cult of Homura for Mapopea.”

The AI paused before replying seconds later. “Your request has been granted. The Mapopea will see you soon.”

Ze seemed to be in an even worse state than One had seen him earlier, both of his eyes now closed and a line of drool hanging from the side of his mouth. “One. Luminous. What have you learned?”

Luminous had been expecting to need to recount a full list of pleasantries and royal praises before speaking to the Mapopea, resulting in any words he had in his throat being caught there at Ze’s straightforwardness.

“We found a hideaway that we believe was being used by a cultist due to a piece of cloth with their symbol,” One explained, producing the material in question from his pocket.

Ze exhaled through his nose, the hair around his mouth shifting lightly. “Assuming this is not a coincidence, I suppose that confirms what many had already suspected.”

“What would that be? One prodded, not being up-to-date on gossip and hearsay.

“The cult was responsible for the explosion,” Ze stated matter-of-factly, as if he didn’t doubt that this is what had happened. “And one of them is somewhere on this island.”

One and Luminous had split up, taking a small band of informed soldiers to search the island for any signs of the cultist. One, wielding a shotgun primarily but having secondary weapons stored away, was patrolling the area near where he had killed Mimee when he saw Lightning and Siberys curled into balls in the sand.

“What are you two doing?” he demanded, turning up his speech volume.

The two of them looked to him and tried to scream, but even One’s fine-tuned ears couldn’t hear anything. Suspicion quickly lead to instinct as he ducked forward, narrowly dodging a hissing set of blades. He turned around to see the form of a woman appearing, a small creature in what appeared to be a fur gray coat. Her brown hair was crudely cut close to her scalp and the pupils in her eyes were almost invisible, both of which were likely the result of living in the room that Luminous had found. One fired his shotgun, and the cultist seemed to snake through the bullet shards like water, appearing in front of him and sliding a set of claws into his chest. They seemed to be held in her hand by something, extending three-inch spikes through each knuckle. While they didn’t do any damage at the moment, One was still taken aback by the swiftness she exhibited.

One had seen the power of a cultist first hand, though he was unsure if this one was merely affiliated with them or was actually a High Worshipper. There had only been twelve of the elite members of the Cult of Homura before The Sealing, and two of them had betrayed the cult part of the way through and allied with Madoka. Each of them had incredible power they could access only by damaging a willing soul, sapping it of its life and innate beauty. The High Worshippers got their power from the thralls of cultists beneath them, removing energy from their souls until eventually they would die. Part of the way through the Great Crusade, the first time in which a faction declared war on another, it had taken the combined might of every non-cult faction to fight through the thralls designed by Valkyrie and steal the power from their shield generator.

This cultist, then, was either an additional High Worshipper or one of those who had yet to be turned into a soulless beast. One decided that the most straightforward plan was to ask. “Who are you? Are you one of the High Worshippers?”

She laughed. She tried to stab him again, but he ripped his body out of her other claw and spun just out of reach. His chest began to repair itself, but it was slowed by something. When she spoke her voice was light and clear, a calming and bubbly voice that was most likely designed to lower the defenses of her target. “Do you like these? I made them especially for you.”

She lunged again and One responded by summoning a spiked mace, swinging it at her while it was still forming. It was very expensive for him to generate an item while also moving it relative to him, but a cultist deserved the best he had to offer. The result of sending a half-formed mace into her face meant that the other half formed inside of it, and the cultist was knocked to the ground with a slice of her cheek missing.

She looked back at him, her eyes bloodshot and her literal fangs bared. She threw her weapons aside and her nails seemed to transform into actual claws. One had seen shape shifting similar to this amongst the clan, transformations that were derived from beasts but only gave part of the body to it. The frightening part about it was that the mind was wholly given over.

“Can I at least know your name before you try to kill me?” One laughed, trying to start diplomacy with a quip.

She giggled. “I don’t have one anymore. Call me Ratty.”

“It fits,” One muttered as the rat-human hybrid went straight for her neck with her teeth.

One spun away from the cultist, dirt swirling into a cloud as he ignited his boosters and briefly shot into the air. He had to land a second later due to his depleted power core, but he managed to put a few extra meters between him and his foe.

Ratty leaped at him and he jumped over her, intending to land behind her as she hit the ground. His plan was changed when she grabbed the end of his hair mid-jump, tugging it with such force that One was smashed against the sand. She immediately went into a frenzy, scratching into his back with her claws. He could feel his mechanical body trying to repair itself, but something was definitely wrong. Every attack felt somehow more permanent than the attacks usually did, almost like she was slowing what he could actually accomplish.

One didn’t want to test the limits of her claws and rolled over, fighting through his shock to push her off of him. He immediately pounded her shoulder with his mace, but aside from a shriek she didn’t seem injured. She jumped at him and bit into his neck before he could respond, biting into his artificial vocal chords. He could feel the box go haywire and a small amount of fluid pour down into his stomach. He used this moment to continue attacking with his mace while trying to buy time for his energy levels to raise high enough. He only needed a little bit more power before he could use his gatling gun, which for a close-range fighter like Ratty would surely be her death.

Unfortunately, her claws were now on his face and scratching at his eyes. He fruitlessly tried to scream as he lost vision in his left and then right eye, seeing nothing but flashes of blue and a series of error messages.

Now blind and mute, One had nothing to do but try to rely on his remaining senses to keep her off of him long enough for the gun to come online. He had come to the frightening conclusion, however, that she knew exactly what she was doing by going for his head. One, as a cyborg, only had one remaining organic component in his body, and it’s relatively easy to get to the brain through an eye socket.

He could hear her breathing, smell the stench of a dungeon-dwelling cultist slashing into his face. Eventually he felt his mechanical nose detach, which also meant the end of any olfactory sense. A few moments later and his ears were removed as well, leaving him completely closed off save the tactile sensation of pain that was coursing through his cyborg form.

Unbeknownst to One, a meteor was crashing from the heavens. Dressed in blue and armored from head to toe, his brother-in-arms crashed down in the scar of the battlefield with his sword drawn and his metal jaw clenched. Blaud dashed forward, each step tossing sand and debris into the sky as if afraid to be underfoot of the general.

There was a blue glow in Blaud’s eyes, a glow that he hadn’t displayed in a long time. There was a power within him, but a power that was only brought out when he was truly acting in the defense of a friend. Seeing One’s body, a metal skeleton with half a face, writhing like a worm, Blaud was defending the honor and life of his fellow general.

“Cultist!” he warned, still running towards her. His body seemed to become partially-transparent, his arms gaining what appeared to be clones that moved independently. He was accessing a host of alternate realities, each feeding into this exact moment. Their voices were a chorus together, the might of a united multiverse of Blaud.“You have one swing of my sword to surrender, or your death will be absolute!”

Ratty looked up and grinned, thinking that she could get a sneak attack in on Blaud like she had on One.

To an onlooker, it would appear like Blaud had transformed into a blob, a blue mass overtaking the cultist in a second. The army of many versions of the general had acted together, a thousand swords swinging at Ratty’s exact spot, every possible measure and countermeasure she could perform being countered at once. When the swords cleared and a single Blaud was left standing above his friend, there was nothing left of the cultist except a streak of blood on his sword. The rest had been absorbed into the multiverse.

“Let’s get you back to--” Blaud began, reaching down to help his friend. He was cut off, the sound disappearing. When he tried to grab One, he was blocked by an invisible wall.

“You killed Ratty. There is no mercy for you.”

Higanbana, one of the original twelve High Worshippers of Homura, rose from beneath the sand, her body levitating into the air as strands of purple stretched from the ground to her hands and feet. Blaud could see her but was unable to warn One; both would have been paralyzed with fear if they knew who it was had been orchestrating the events thus far.

Higan was, as she had been during the first crusade, a relatively small woman who dressed in black form-fitting clothes, the sort of thing some people would wear for pajamas. Her arms and legs were held together by transparent purple chains, violet links surrounding her like a cocoon that attached to the ground. Her face was sculpted in sharp angles that made it appear as if her eyes were always targeting a victim. Her black hair flowed behind her head as if she was underwater, occasionally becoming entangled in one of the chain links like an exploring eel in a series of caves.

She raised her face upwards and her eyes began to shimmer. “General Blaud, you will make a good battery. Consider it your punishment.” A chain flew from her and struck Blaud in the chest, the general unable to dodge anything in the invisible box he was kept in. The chain wrapped around his heart, passing through vital organs as if they were only illusions. The pain he felt, however, was physical despite the chains being ethereal. He dropped to his knees and attempted to cry out, feeling Higan drain energy from his soul. A blue spark floated up the chain and eventually landed on the cultist’s forehead, disappearing into her mind.

“Your power is appreciated,” Higan laughed, her voice now echoing in a way that Blaud felt eerily accustomed to after his dealings with ZeHaffen. She turned, still hovering in the air, and looked to the masses of cultists, knights, and churchgoers before her. None of them had noticed her because she had been hiding herself, but that was no longer necessary. Projecting her power, Higan encapsulated every single being on the island in a prison. The immediate silence was terrifying to them all, as if a flame had been killed as it was reaching its apex. The emptiness that followed was broken only by Higan’s laugh. “Do not misunderstand, I am still angry. However, seeing all of you this vulnerable does leave me a certain satisfaction.”

She turned to One, who she had intentionally left free to move about. She lowered to the ground, her chains slithering under her until she seemed to be a snake head rising from a coiled pyramid. A chain lifted up One’s head, wrapping around his neck to get a good footing. He opened his mouth to speak but was reminded that he no longer had a voice box.

“This is not how I remember you,” she sighed. “To think all it took was a warrior who I engineered to kill you specifically… pathetic. Where is your confidence now, One? I seem to remember you professing your love in the heat of a battle. I was impressed by you then, almost to the point that I considered your offers. Now? Oh, silly robot, I’m so unimpressed with you I didn’t even bother to trap you.”

One could feel only the chain around his neck, and although he wasn’t sure if it was Higan who was holding him at the moment, he figured there was no harm in using one of the only forms of communication he had left with such limited power. He shakily raised both of his hands, aiming for where he thought she was, and delivered a message in a pair of raised fingers.

“So it’s going to be like that,” she sighed, clearly irritated. A chain flew from her mass and constricted One’s wrists, snapping them both off in a single fluid motion. He seemed to wince with what remained of his synthetic skin, losing access to his arms. Higan looked down to see that, even detached, One’s hands were still arranged in the crude gesture. She smashed them both repeatedly for good measure. “Giving you no mercy was too generous."

Steph delivered a line of punches to the walls of his prison, dealing no damage to anything except his own knuckles. The distinguished fighter and lover of the deceased Madeacon had been emotionally distraught since the passing of Mimee, and he had been patrolling the destroyed area looking for any sign of his love. He had been running his hands through dirt when Higan had sprung up and attacked, and from his vantage point on a small hill he could see the unfolding of events up to One’s disarming.

He was robed in a knee-length pink jacket that folded around his side and legs. He had, at some point, ripped his shirt out of frustration, leaving a scar down the center of the black fabric that exposed his scarred chest. He looked down at the emblem of the church resting on top of a red marking, an injury sustained in battle that had nearly killed him. It had been Mimee who had saved him, pulling his body from a pile of corpses and dragging him to safety. After that Steph had fought until he met the Madeacon once again, a meeting that eventually lead to something powerful between them. Now that connection was severed, causing a flood of emotion internally.

As he saw One’s execution begin to take place, Steph couldn’t help but feel a sense of pleasure. He didn’t want to see a member of the cult triumph over two major figures in the knights, but if one of the two was the slayer of his love he didn’t mind it as much as he could have. Steph sighed, pressing his palms into the dirt and coming to terms with the idea that he had a duty to perform.

Higan’s prisons trapped all physical elements, but the soul was ethereal. Steph practiced the Sword Arts, a soul projection technique whereby he could extend the majority of his spiritual energy outside of his body in the form of a blade. This blade could attach to someone else and fuse their consciousnesses, allowing Steph and the host to act as a single combined fighter with double the magical potential.

Against Steph’s better judgment, the only person who wasn’t in a prison at the moment, and therefore the only person who had any chance at getting a hit on Higan, was The One. Steph grit his teeth as he extended his influence before him, a black sword appearing in the air. It was a longsword adorned with golden fire and a shimmering hilt, a weapon forged from Steph’s own soul.

The sword flew through the air, a streak of light that spun past One and in a fluid motion shattered the chains around One. The hilt of the sword began to glow, a glistening pink hand appearing that extended into a forearm. It rooted in One’s severed shoulder and initiated a connection between their two minds.

“If I had a choice I wouldn’t be in your head, believe me,” Steph said, the thought laced with his obvious annoyance.

“Who? What?” One demanded, stunned at the sudden additional voice in his head.

“This is going to be tricky,” Steph admitted. “You should be starting to read the outside world because of our connection. Just follow what I do and we’ll both get out of here alive.”

Chains struck from the dirt and coiled around One in a spiral, the circle shrinking in diameter rapidly. One threw the sword outwards and spun around, the sword striking through the chains and shattering them. Links of energy dropped to the ground and hissed like dying snakes as their connection to Higan was lost. When he steadied himself following his twirl, the two-minded cyborg blasted into the air with full force, the boosters shattering completely with that leap.

A chain came from the left flank, aiming for the chest, but the mid-air One was ready and cut it into ribbons before it could make impact. With the swing of the blade he was poised to strike Higan’s torso, the black point of Steph’s soul poised to tear through her chains and flesh. This plan was thwarted by the appearance of the second chain from the opposite direction, a purple set of links snapping around One’s neck and stopping him on his ascent.

The robotic body was thrown back by the shock and One was briefly stunned, his magically-aided senses struggling to process the change. The sword was hanging limply by his side, only attached to his hand because they were both a projection by Steph. More chains surrounded him until he was completely constrained, and he began to frantically try to saw through the chains with the sword.

“Is that you in there, Steph?” Higan asked, her pale face stretching into a grin. She seemed paler, somehow, as if it was straining her to summon so much matter. “I recognize that sword anywhere. So you and One are together now, huh? Funny, I thought I saw him kill your little boyfriend just a few days ago. Hmm.”

The link between the two began to become strained. Rather than acting as a single mind inhabiting one body, they were torn apart into two minds trying to battle for supremacy in a weakened physical form. Their minds were personified as being in a stone room, each sitting at the end of a wooden table at least ten meters long. Steph was the same as how he usually was save that his hair was knee-length, whereas One was completely different. Both of them appeared as they had during the crusade against the cult, two of them allied together as part of a united front. This had been before the series of events that forced One to take on his cyborg identity, a disaster that would occur during the crusade itself.

“We can’t let her divide us!” One insisted, his voice sharp and pointed, a striking contrast to the voice of Reina he usually used. His entire appearance was refined and perfected, sharp edges lining his cheeks and eyes, casting a dark shadow over the purple irises. He wore blue robes with metal armor on his shoulders, forearms, and lower legs, each infused with a small battery that gave him a shield in combat. By his side was a warhammer with a two-meter handle, a prototype of the weapon he would later use in his fateful battle with Mimee.

“I know,” Steph said, weak in tone. He was shaking, as if the anger inside was literally building pressure in his body. Tears cascaded down his gentle cheeks and hit his palms, scarred instruments gripped to the table like he was hanging to a cliff face with the world strapped to his back. “I can’t shake it. You did kill him. You took him away from me.”

One had to fight back his own tears. He could control when he cried as Reina, usually, but as a general in a cellar he was weak to his own feelings. “Yes. I did. He’s gone now and I did that.”

Steph laughed, gripping the table so hard that he actually snapped a piece of it off. He threw it against the wall and it shattered into a cloud, though it was not clear if this was because they were in an image that represented their consciousness or if he was actually that physically strong in his anger. “You aren’t going to apologize, I guess?”

“No.” The response was firm. “It was war. We all killed people who were loved and who loved. We fought because at the time we thought it’s what had to be done for our safety and for the safety of those left behind us. Now, for both of us, the only way to keep everyone left alive is to be united.”

Steph wiped his tears on his sleeve and chuckled, cracking his knuckles. “Yeah. Mimee would have wanted me to kill you, you know.”

“I know,” One grinned.

Steph looked his partner in the eyes as his face lit up with spirit. “But I think he would have wanted me to kill the cultist first.”

One, the chains peeling the remaining synthetic flesh off his neck, thrust the sword into Higan’s shoulder. The blade cut through the chains around it and severed them, sparks tossing from her body as they dissipated into energy. The shock caused Higan to let go of him, her chains recoiling and letting One free-fall towards the ground. He was still gripping the sword when he began to fall, and it tore from her shoulder in a ghastly cloud of blood and fabric. The pain was enough to stun her, leaving her unable to react to the immediate threat presented by One.

Higan came out of her shock an instant later and used another chain to grab One by the leg, the immediate momentum jolting through his body. Fluid from various internal organs ranging from oily substances to synthetic blood slashed through cracks in the metal exoskeleton and pooled underneath the hanging cyborg.

She tossed the still-recovering body into the air above her face and wrapped it in a legion of chains much like the ones she used to move herself around. She covered every part of the android body save One’s head, where she was well aware the organic brain was located. She constricted the body, juicing it like a fruit so that the blood, oil, and unprocessed nanites arced out and splashed across the sand.

The cultist dropped One and let his body crash to the dirt, a mangled mass that bore more resemblance to a discarded straw wrapper than to a human body. The sword, virtually indestructible, was still attached to a series of wires that were likely all that was left of One’s right arm.

“It’s your turn,” Higan purred, lifting the sword to be eye-level with her. Chains slithered around it and coated it in a layer of purple links. “Shall I kill your soul outright or absorb it to fuel me even further?”

The sword seemed to vibrate in response, as if Steph was trying to say something despite being a mouthless soul blade. Higan grinned in delight and prepared to crush the blade when she suddenly found herself flattened against the ground beneath her.

The cultist tried to move her chains but discovered that they had disappeared. Any attempts she made to resummon them lead to them shattering before anything could be truly visualized. She cried out a demand: “What is this!?”

A gloved hand picked Steph’s sword off the ground and rubbed a finger over the now-bent blade. The newcomer approached One’s body and placed the hilt in the thumbless palm of his left hand, the power of Steph’s soul activating to attach to it.

“You have to kill her,” the new arrival said, her voice and body quivering. “I can’t keep the gravity field up much longer.”

Within their temporarily-shared mind, Steph and One were struggling to comes to terms with who had saved them. One was pacing around the room where they both acted together, pulling out his hair and dropping strands into comically-large piles, although the image of him never changed. “She’s using her powers… does that mean she--?”

“She drained someone’s soul,” Steph sighed. “Why would she do this?”

“Go kill her,” the ex-cultist insisted, a tear sliding down her cheek and finding its way to the sand beneath her shifting boot. “Quickly.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Steph whispered, although since they shared a mind One could easily hear it.

One’s avatar shook its head with such intensity that if his real body had done so it may have become dislodged. “Is this the price of victory? Innocent people tarnish their souls?”

“She is not and never has been innocent,” Steph said, wiping his own eyes. “She knows we’ll have to kill her after this. She’s doing this for all of us.”

One nodded, willing his body of shrapnel to move towards Higan’s incapacitated figure. “First we kill Higan and then… then we kill Echi.”

A crater had formed around Higan because of the increased gravity Echidna was putting on her. One tried to slide down gracefully to her but was imbalanced by the damage to his body, and he and Steph both rolled over each other on their way to the helpless cultist.

“Even in your victory you are weak,” Higan hissed, raising her head against the strain. Her eyelids seemed to be drooping, as did her mouth which was hanging in a ghastly shape. Her hair was no longer weightless behind her head, instead plastered to her neck as if she had washed it with glue. She was still frantically trying to create chains, but her efforts were useless and she was left without a means of transportation or combat.

As One raised to his full height the gears and various motors that still possessed life whined in protest, a few stray sparks shooting out from overworked pieces. He lifted Steph’s sword and pulled it back, preparing a stabbing motion into Higan’s head. The shock of this image, however, was enough to briefly shake Echi’s resolve. Higan sprang to life, a fury of chains first flattening One to the ground and then propelling her into Echi, flattening her onto the sand before the ex-cultist regained composure and forced gravity back onto the still-cultist.

Higan was once again helpless, her useless arms and legs half-vanishing into the dirt as Echi pushed her away. She sat in the sand, her hands shaking as she forced a gravity field onto Higan once again. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry?” Higan laughed, unable to close her eyes as the skin on her face began to stretch off of her and pool into a sheet beneath her head. “Liar. You like the … strength. It’s what you … desire.”

Echidna couldn’t help but feel a sense of guilt as her former sister in the cult strained even to find words she could say as the skin around her mouth disappeared as well. “I don’t like doing this. I wish I didn’t have to.”

Higan cackled as a small cut on her cheek ripped open into a gaping wound. “Liar!”

One lurched forward, his right arm now fully gone and a hole in the dome of his skull showing a wire-wrapped brain. The sword in his hand was bent into a small spiral, and a bite-shaped chunk had been ripped from the edge near the blade’s base. The robot took positions through a building streak of smoke, carefully aiming the sword on Higan’s helpless forehead. She was still laughing as the cyborg turned off the majority of the motors in his body and put his full weight onto the sword, allowing it to push through her head. She still had the same malformed grin even in death; her eyes were vacant but still pointed directly at Echidna.

“You’re going to execute me next, right?”

One collapsed next to the corpse, a strip of metal peeling away to reveal the nanite-controlled heart in his chest. Even with self-repairing and replicating machines such as the nanites, the damage to the organ was extensive. It hardly even resembled a heart at that point, and at first Echidna thought it was an oddly-placed appendix. Even in those few moments that Echi looked at the heart she could see a piece of it become silver and wash away, losing integrity with the rest of the heart.

“Oh. You can’t kill me,” she sighed, more concerned than relieved. “You’re dying.”

Freed from the traps, Blaud charged forward and scooped One into his arms. His eyes were slightly glazed over and his legs seemed unsteady, likely from having energy drained forcefully from his soul. “I will take him to the medics for healing.”

“Hopefully they can fix it,” Echidna sighed, agreeing with the general tone of worry that Blaud’s robotic voice couldn’t display. She brushed dirt off of herself and sat down, looking at the lifeless body in front of her with the intensity of a watchdog. Higan was powerful, but Echi supposed that she hadn’t been able to drain enough from Blaud’s soul to make her invincible. His present life was proof enough that Higan hadn’t been able to finish him off, and not having a full soul of power essentially meant she was pitiful.

Pitiful for a High Worshipper, however, was powerful enough to crush moons.

“Echidna,” a voice spat, level but full of vitriol.

She turned around in the dirt to face Steph, who seemed exhausted even from a first glance. His left eye was sealed shut as if he had been punched there repeatedly, and she could see that one of his hands was twitching in a repeating motion. The other hand, which was the hand gripped on the hilt of an emerald green sword, did not show the same shakiness. “I helped write the law on draining souls, you know.”

Steph wasn’t sure how to respond when she laughed with a sword pointed at her. He approached her and raised his sword as if knighting her, but both of them knew what the blade was intended for. “You should have picked out a kinder punishment if you meant to break it.”

“Probably,” Echi grinned, brushing her bangs in front of her eyes. “Okay. I’m ready.”

Steph exhaled to steady himself and then tried to swing the sword onto her, but something was holding him back. He struggled for an instant before he caught a figure out of the corner of his eye.

“Mapopea!” Steph cried, falling to a knee and lowering his head out of respect. ZeHaffen, his every action as fast as a snail and as steady as a Jenga tower, approached them both and put a hand on his worshipper’s shoulder. Echi looked out from behind her curtain and froze before bowing as well.

“You may stand,” Ze said, his lips seeming to split in a thousand places. He was still relying heavily on his powers to project his voice, even moreso now. The jagged fingers gripping the round head of his cane were shifting as if looking for any sort of texture to grab onto. His eyes were both closed, suggesting that blindness had fully set in to both. “It was I who Echidna stole soul energy from. We were the only two who could not be contained by the cultist, so I told her to use my power, as my physical body could no longer contain it.”

“So is she to live, Mapopea?” Steph asked, trying not to sound relieved or alarmed.

Ze shook his head. “The Law of the Church is specific. Echidna, former cultist and a user of souls, must end.”

“I understand, your excellency,” Echi whispered, mostly wanting it to be over already. The length of the proceedings was killing her almost as much as the sword would.

Ze turned to face her and thought for a moment. “Your power is strong, child. Both your natural gift and the one the cult gave you. I will not kill you because we will need that strength and your possible connections to members of the cult.”

“You just said--” Steph protested, trying to wrap his head around what was going on.

“I will do as you begged me to the first time you joined us,” Ze continued. Even his telepathic voice sounded like it was losing strength, and every word seemed to make him visibly wince. “I will use Complete Reformation to end Echidna as she is.”

Both of them were silent, as were the onlookers who had begun to file in. It was extremely rare to see the Mapopea outside of his tower, and virtually nobody was invited to join him there. An execution of an ex-cultist was an even greater treat. None in attendance had expected that Ze would announce the use of one of his most unsettling abilities, a power strong enough that it could reshape the physical, mental, and spiritual elements of an individual.

“Mapopea, I must--” Echi started, tears in her eyes as she looked up to him. Before she could form another word she was bathed in pink light that etched across her skin like a laser. An instant later the light vanished, leaving behind an entirely different person where she had been.

Echidna, her hair now starch white and her eyes a vibrant pink, tried to stand up. She had little control of her balance and plummeted to the ground, squealing as if she wasn’t expecting the pain. “What’s going on?”

“Even her voice is different,” Steph muttered, trying not to show his disgust in front of his Mapopea. It was vile what he had done, erasing her identity and forcing a completely random one on her. Death would have been better than that, but she was apparently too valuable for her raw power. “Mapopea, what now?”

Ze turned to Steph and opened his eyes, showing him the lifeless facade they had become. The Mapopea pressed his lips together and formed a single set of words, blood trickling from a cut and rolling onto his parched chin as he did so. “You will be their Mapopea now. Guide them.”

He pounded his staff against the ground and the entire island, which had been floating aimlessly in space, began to rocket through the cosmos. Streaks of light tossed by members of the three factions and bits of debris sometimes struck someone in the face and added them to its collection. A meteor flew overhead, its form phasing in and out of reality, and struck through the belltower of the church. A mountain of concrete, likely debris from the main ship, collided with one of the ten-story turrets along the cathedral’s perimeter, knocking fire and metal upwards. Distorted screams met the ears of everyone on the island, though nobody could tell if they were hearing those of others or their own muffled, chaotic wailing.

All at once the motion stopped as the island collided with the main ship exactly where it had originally been, stone fusing together as the Cathedral was haphazardly reattached. That entire section of the ship was no longer at a proper angle and it looked like the warzone it had been, but it was unlikely that anyone on the main ship would care.

As their eyesight steadied and their nerves dispersed, the surviving members of the church, knights, and clan were met with a horrifying sight. The Soul Steeple, a formerly golden tower dedicated to the power of the human spirit, had been transformed into a purple monstrosity with five towers protruding from its peak like a gnarled hand. The symbol of Homura shown above the palm, a rotating holographic image to clearly display who was in control of the sacred grounds.

“Someone has redecorated,” Overlord stated, planting his staff in the ground next to Steph.

Steph held back a tear as he looked from Ze’s body to the monstrosity before him. He nodded several times and readied his sword, raising it above his head. He could feel an ounce of Ze’s power working in him, projecting his voice to everyone nearby. “Warriors! The Mapopea gave his life to give us a chance to defeat the cult! We will honor him! We will honor ourselves! We will honor our goddesses! Today we will march forward and we will not cease until the only recoloring they can do is staining the floor with their blood!”

There was mixed response to the war cry, but it was strong enough to spur them forward to battle. A mixed wave of pink, blue, and red warriors charged across the tattered landscape with their sights set on the stolen headquarters of the Cult of Homura.

End V