Ceter Kalik Simmi placed his magisteel-covered talons on his sleeping daughter's forehead, his consciousness diving into her dreamscape. The intrusion was precise, calculated–a technique passed down through generations of thunder-gods.

  He found Vespera sitting on a marble bench in Skyfall's dream-garden, her legs crossed at the ankles, scrolling through her phone. Her dream-self wore a blue and white gothic lolita dress with glittering chainmail top, complete with black platform boots and lightning bolt feather-clips.

  "Like, daddy! What are you doing in my headspace?" Vespera didn't look up from her phone, her voice carrying the blasted Valley girl tone she always used to irritate him. "This is totes awkward. #Braininvasion."

  "Vespera, we need to talk," Ceter said.

  "Why am I asleep? Can we not talk in the real? You're like, totally violating my neural privacy rights right now. #MentalSpaceInvasion #NotCool #DaddyIssues," Vespera continued scrolling, a slight smirk playing at her lips. "Should I call Attorney Thornheart? He's like, super good at privacy violation cases."

  "You're banned from using phones," Ceter growled. "I'm placing you under house arrest until we sort out this mess with the human infiltrator."

  "OMG daddy, you're being like, totally extra rn," Vespera flipped her dream-feathers. "Alexander isn't an infiltrator, he's my bae. We're literally soul-bonded. #TrueLove #CantStopWontStop"

  "Stop this nonsense!" Ceter's thunderous voice shook the dream-garden. "And cease speaking in hashtags!"

  "But daddy, hashtags are my aesthetic! #DaddyRage #ThunderTantrum #SoBasic," Vespera giggled, manifesting a pink bubble tea in her hand. "Want some? It's cotton candy thunder flavor! #BriberyAttempt"

  Lightning danced between Ceter's wings, his hand raised. A brilliant Thunderbolt struck the girl in the head, obliterating and shearing her into fractured wisps and flickering bits.

  Ceter focused and dove deeper.

  The dream within the dream featured a beach covered in colorful rocks with glowing emerald waves smashing into the shore. The horizon extended upwards forever. Ceter recognized Arx from his delving days at Skyfall Academy with stern Instructor Zalimar.

  Another Vespera was sitting on the beach, this one wearing full body armor.

  "That was very rude," she said coldly. "That avatar took effort to make."

  "Vespera," Ceter growled. "I tire of your disobedience."

  "And I tire of you being in my head," Vespera said. "You taught me Dreamancy and while I do appreciate that, this time you were NOT invited in!"

  "You will not speak to me that way," Ceter thundered. "I am your father and you will obey me! You've crossed a line by binding yourself to a human criminal! You will go to marry Zheng this summer! You will break the soul-bond, go to a Psychopomp!"

  "No," Vespera said simply. "I won't. I refuse. I found someone better than Zheng."

  "A pathetic human scum?!" Ceter growled.

  "Rude," Vespera crossed her arms, standing up. "First of all, Lex isn't pathetic. He made over two hundred million O-bux on Arx and built a compound for our Clan in just one week. What did Zheng build in eighteen years? Go on, point me at one thing he's accomplished that would make him worthy of me."

  Ceter's wings crackled with barely contained fury. "Zheng is Prima-born! His bloodline is pure, optimized for generations! You and him are meant to lead Golden Star Industries and SimmiTech into a new era of prosperity!"

  "Just cus' his bloodline's pure doesn't make him any less of an intolerable, gross idiot," Vespera shook her head.

  "Idiot girl," Ceter growled. "If you don't like his personality, then optimize it using Dreamancy! But first, you are to optimize yourself, rid yourself of that irritating frontend avatar. I've had enough of you embarrassing our Clan at Omnicorp meetings!"

  "Eh, I like my frontend avatar," Vespera said, manifesting a mirror and admiring her reflection. "It's snarky and funny. Besides, Lex loves me for who I am, not who you want me to be."

  "That human will be dead within the hour," Ceter snarled. "And you will be cleansed of this affliction!"

  Vespera laughed, the sound echoing across the dream-beach. "You really don't understand what you're dealing with, do you daddy? Lex isn't just some random human. He was already pretty unique when I met him, but then I optimized him further."

  "You did what now?" Ceter blinked.

  "Optimized him," Vespera clicked. "Gave him a very special skill, one of my design. One that puts him above us Omnids with our alignment specificity. He's going to be the most Omni-capable Wizard in the universe."

  "What?" Ceter sputtered. "If you wanted to experiment with humans, you should have said so. I would have provided you with human subjects to work with!”

  "Look, dad. If you want to merge with Golden Star so bad," Vespera said. "Do it without me. I've got my own thing going. I'm happy. The Arx Bank can grow flesh duplicates. Go to Shandria, buy a duplicate of me, copy yourself into her head and marry Zheng. A simple solution that doesn't involve me."

  "You dare suggest we use a flesh duplicate for a sacred clan merger?!" Ceter roared. "Are you out of your mind, Vespera?! The Arch-Elders would never accept this! Golden Star has Probability Engines, they'd see a duplicate from a mile away!"

  "Why do we have to listen to old-ass, crusty Omnids?" Vespra sighed. "Their minds are obviously addled by speaking too many times with their whacky Archangels. Probability Engines don't see everything, daddy. They can be blocked by anti-scrying runes, Outsiders can screw with them. They don't see the full picture. Tell me, can your engines see what Lexy and I did on Arx?"

  "What did you do on Arx?"

  "Why don't you GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD and ask your precious Probability Engine what I did on Arx?" Vespera growled, extending her talons.

  Ceter struck first, obliterating her avatar into wisps and broken pieces.

  With a weary sigh he stepped deeper into the next layer of the dream.

  He found himself in a crystalline tower, jagged crystals pointing at him. Vespera sat on a crystalline throne, looking down at him. She looked like a human girl with black hair and gray eyes, wearing a pure black dress.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "Extra-rude," she said with a frown. "You know, if you go deeper you're going to break me. Is this your brilliant plan? To make me into a drooling idiot?"

  "No," Ceter said. "This is my plan to make you understand."

  "Understand what?" Vespera asked. "That you obviously don't respect me? That you want to control every aspect of my life?"

  "I want to protect you," Ceter said with a weary sigh. "This human will destroy everything we've built. Everything we've been working on for centuries."

  "Maybe your shit deserves to be destroyed," Vespera declared. "Because that's what's going to happen if you keep going.”

  “Vespera!”

  “No. How about you have another daughter and convince her to marry another Golden Star boy. I'm out."

  Ceter sputtered at his daughter’s impudence. Where had he gone wrong? Where had her Prima-Mother and Hearth-Keeper failed?

  "You..." he choked. "You don't understand what's at stake, Vespera!"

  "Go on then," the fake human girl on the crystalline throne waved a pale hand. "Regale me with your sales pitch."

  "Our Clan merger isn't just about two corporations combining," Ceter said, his voice dropping to a serious tone. "Earth is falling towards a mesh of doomed worlds and will soon be consumed by all-devouring Celestorms. We don't have time to produce another heir of your skill. You're the key to saving all Omnids, a master Crystallographer like no other, born under perfect Lunar shard alignment. A great fortune was spent on your birth to make sure that you were the most capable Thundergirl, one who could rewrite the entirety of the crystalline strata beneath Cradlefall. You and Zheng are meant to save our people from extinction!”

  "Says who?" Vespera tilted her head. "Some musty old magitek spinny thing? Some whack Archangel who doesn’t give a fuck about Omnids?"

  “The Probability Engines…" Ceter let out, his face twitching, "calculate our survival rate at 99.3% if you marry Zheng and combine our Clan's resources. Without this outcome, we drop to 12.7% and perish!"

  "Twelve point seven percent sounds like a challenge," Vespera said, leaning forward. "Ya kno’, this apocalypse of yours sounds like something Lex would love to turn into a business opportunity. Say, is our Earth becoming more magical then? Maybe we should start planting dungeons from Arx to focus those Celestorms into something productive? Hrmmm?”

  "Vespera! You cannot be serious!"

  "I'm completely serious," Vespera stated. "In fact, I bet Lex could raise that survival rate to 95% just by throwing a bunch of Arx dungeons at this problem."

  "Vespera! A human, even one that's been augmented by you cannot..."

  "I disagree," Vespera fired back. "I've seen him pull off some crazy shit with my help. He thinks outside the box, and isn't trapped in the dum’ narrative that the Archangels weave for us."

  Ceter stared at his daughter, not understanding her words. "You cannot seriously believe that a human could solve our existential crisis!"

  "I'm super cereal," Vespera said. "Lex isn't just some random human. He's got something special. Something the Probability Engines can't calculate."

  "And what might that be?" Ceter asked sarcastically.

  "Chaos," Vespera grinned. "Pure, beautiful, unpredictable chaos sprinkled with love."

  "Love?!" Ceter growled. "You love this human?!"

  "He's my greatest project yet," Vespera shrugged. "And he's funny."

  "Zheng could be your project!" Ceter stated. "You can make him as funny as you want him to be! If you've modified one human, you can modify others in the same way, build a whole army of them if you so desire!"

  "No," Vespera said firmly. "Zheng isn't Lex. Lex has something special. Four human souls. I don't think that I could replicate that in an Omnid."

  Ceter stared at his daughter with a bewildered look. "Four human souls? What nonsense are you talking about? Four souls would just absorb each other, the strongest would devour the weak!"

  "Ye," Vespera nodded. "That's what happens normally when you shove extra souls into a person and yet Lexy somehow manages four souls. On a permanent basis. He's my shiny. Mine! I found him! You can fuck off."

  Ceter wings spread out, lightning dancing between dark feathers. "You will NOT speak to me that way! How dare you take on a human avatar!”

  "Daddy, if you destroy this dream layer, you'll permanently damage my mental architecture," Vespera pointed out. "There is nothing coherent below. Go on. Strike me down, overwrite me. Show me that you don't love me, that you never loved me. Free me from caring about you.”

  Ceter's wings trembled with rage, electricity crackling between his magisteel talons. "Vespera..."

  "Nope," Vespera said, popping the 'p'. "I'm not backing down. You'll have to kill me if you want to make your perfect daughter. Them's the beans."

  "So you refuse?" Ceter barked.

  "Yep. I refuse to be part of your old-man schemes," Vespera said. "I'm out. Find another idiot birb to throw at your problems."

  Booming lightning struck from Ceter's hand obliterating the human avatar, tearing through the crystal throne. It bounced into Ceter and burned his wings. He hissed. Blasted girl managed to make a trap.

  He dove deeper.

  The fourth fold of the dream was an empty, desolate, gray landscape covered in dark cracks.

  Snow fluttered from the broiling storm clouds overhead, occasional flashes of lightning cutting across the dark sky. There was no Vespera here.

  Ceter sent out a pulse of electrical discharge to make sure.

  Nothing. No avatar. No consciousness. Nothing to overwrite. Just clouds. Just fluttering snowflakes spinning in random spirals. Just the wind.

  He tried to dive deeper, but there was nothing beneath this layer, nowhere else to go to.

  He sighed and began weaving a new Vespera into the dreary landscape. His perfect daughter. One who loved Zheng and didn't care for humans. A Slayer destined to save all Omnidkind.

  Once she was made, he stepped backwards and wove another perfect Vespera onto the damaged throne, not a human but a Thunderbird, bending and twisting the wispy remnants into his absolute Prima-born girl.

  Another step back. He rebuilt the Vespera on the beach.

  Another step back. No idiotic accent. Only a perfect Heir. He rebuilt the last, perfect Vespera.

  "Who do you love?" He asked.

  "Zheng, daddy," the new avatar answered smoothly with a soft smile.

  "Good," Ceter exhaled, leaving from the dream, his wings aching from the mental burns.

  He blinked awake and sent a pulse across his daughter's body and watched as her gray eyes opened.

  "Um, daddy, why am I here?" The Thundergirl yawned, wearily looking left and right.

  "It is Friday," her father answered. "You were injured during your delve on Arx and I had to repair your mind."

  "I see," she said. “Thank you daddy, I appreciate it. What are we doing today?”

  Ceter studied her eyes, ensuring his mental reconstruction was flawless. The rebellious spark was gone, replaced by a perfectly obedient daughter. "We are attending a family meeting about your upcoming merger with Zheng Golden Star. Your Great-grandfather will interview you, make sure you understand what’s at stake.”

  "Of course," Vespera nodded. Her movements were precise, her posture immaculate - everything a Prima-born heir should be.

  Ceter relaxed. He felt bad about mentally manipulating his daughter, but it had to be done for the greater good of Omnidkind. He would have to watch her behaviour from here, make sure that Vespera did what was expected of her to the letter.

  . . .

  Deep within the dreary empty landscape of the fourth level of the dream, a single snowflake began to pulse with an electrical charge. And then another. And another. A storm of snowflakes spun high in the sky, lightning dancing between them, like a neural network very slowly reconnecting itself.

  The avatar of the perfect girl standing below the gloomy clouds didn't bother looking up.

  She only had one mission in mind–to marry Zheng and to optimize him, to optimize herself to be the savior of Cradlefall, to figure out how to write a supermassive hexagram fractal beneath the crater, to save her city and her friends. Two weeks of memories were missing from her head, which was slightly annoying, but she was certain that she’d catch up quickly.

  The snowflake storm spun overhead.

  In the real world, Vespera's finger twitched. Almost imperceptibly.

  Her father didn't notice.

  Her eyes, gray while appearing vacant, held a microscopic glimmer–the tiniest spark of resistance.

  Something her father had forgotten: Vespera was a master Dreamancer, an Electrofractal weapon, a tool bred over a multitude of generations, one who knew exactly how to take herself apart in just the right way.

  She knew exactly how to play dead.

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