Deep hums emanated from the energy calibrator capsule, with its internal light being the only thing lighting up the dark workshop. Nobody was there, except for Corley, who was floating inside the Capsule. Her eyes were shut, akin to sleeping, with not the slightest of movements from her limbs.

  While the robot-golem girl was resting, the capsule was hard at work. Though its work was invisible to the naked eye, the capsule was actively affecting Corley’s body using advanced physics laws yet to be discovered by humanity. Axion and mana, the two opposing fundamental energies running in her body, were delicately reweaved and reorganised following the pre-programmed instructions Matina set before joining in for dinner.

  Nothing eventful happened at first, but suddenly, Corley started to dream, overriding the capsule’s special authority that kept dreams, or more accurately, hallucinating computation, from occurring. Somehow, not only did it form, but it also managed to bypass the capsule’s ultra-sensitive detectors for sensing anomalies.

  Within that dream, Corley found herself in an empty, dark plane of nothingness. There, she stood alone, emotionlessly, as her mind told her to wait for someone here.

  She was not in control of herself, incapable of even questioning what was going on. After waiting for an unknown amount of time, finally, someone emerged from the dark fog to meet her.

  “Magnum opus of Alumaer Mera… long time has it been since we last met”.

  The man in the white coat gently caressed her cold stone cheek with his bionic right arm. He smiled, seemingly proud of what she had become.

  “Who... Who are you?”, Corley subconsciously asked.

  “I am the man who reawakened you, long after you’re abandoned”, the man said.

  “A—Abandoned?”, Corley asked again.

  “That’s not important for now”, the man told her. “What’s important now is that you have finally become what your creator had long dreamed for you”.

  “That is… to be recognised by the EOAs… the so-called angels, and have them witness his proudest creation”.

  Corley listened in silently, unsure of how to respond.

  The man continued: “It is just a shame that, unfortunately, he didn’t get to see this moment with his eyes, for time and opportunity were cut short from him”.

  “Regardless, now that you’re about to return to your prime self, you should also remember what your creator’s ambition for you, for it is your meaning of existence he bestowed upon you”

  “What was the ambition?”, Corley kindly asked.

  “It is to—”

  Right before the man could finish his sentence, suddenly, a bright flash appeared behind the man’s back, forming a shadow beneath his feet. Shocked, he turned and stared into the flash with a fierce gaze. He then saw a graceful figure flying into the space with her wings wide open and her tail swivelling around.

  She circled high above him before descending right in front of him, floating gracefully like she was underwater. The grand entrance hardly fazed the man, for he already knew who this was.

  “Marcus Gray…”, Matina called his name out with hatred.

  “Wasn’t unleashing the heavenly ray enough for you? Why must you get back to tampering with Sage Alumaer’s creation?!”

  “Matina, is this how you’re greeting your Concordian?”, he mockingly responded.

  “Hmph! You’ve become more arrogant than ever before…”, Matina commented.

  “And you? What have you been doing other than feeding the two empires more resolutors to be used in war?”, said the man with spite.

  “Enough! We’ve spoken about that countless times already. Now, tell me: what are you doing here, intruding into someone’s plane of consciousness and ruining the recalibration process?”, she got straight to the point.

  He spoke: “Well, for starters, your metaphysical security measures are laughable. Don’t tell me this is what you aliens used in your equipment out there in deep space”

  “Secondly, what I’m doing here is merely part of my bucket list that has been piling up over time. This has little to do with my grand plan for Equilibria, and yet I realised that it would be beneficial to have her as a supporting factor in the background”.

  Matina responded: “Normally, no other human individuals or groups were capable of understanding neomathics, which meant that we could use fairly basic dimensional knots on our equipment”.

  “But of course, I was the one who taught you that knowledge, and you’re gifted enough to grasp it quickly. And yet, even with the small amount of said knowledge, you’ve already been abusing it like a naughty child with a flamethrower”.

  “Had other denizens of the cosmos witnessed your actions, they would’ve long dismembered you into multiple timelines.”

  “Like I’ve said before: don’t act like you’re a god, for the creatures beyond your skies are far beyond you, and yet they still behave in humbleness before the Almighty Creator”.

  “Tsk… can’t wait to see this Almighty Creator and steal his throne so I could do a better job than him”, Marcus blasphemously said.

  “That’s it! You’ve done nothing here other than to spit nonsense in everyone’s face…”, Matina sternly said.

  “Now, scram!”

  Matina forcibly kicked him out of Corley’s plane of consciousness via a portal, leaving only her and the robot-golem girl in the dark space. Throughout their argument, Corley was left speechless over their highly transcendental conversation.

  “Lady Matina… who is that person? What just happened?”, she anxiously asked while looking horrified.

  “Don’t worry, Corley. I promise you that he won’t disturb your resting period ever again”, Matina floated over to her and gently patted her head.

  “Just let it pass and go back to your sleep”.

  “O-okay”, she submissively obliged.

  Matina watched her slowly close her eyes, and she left Corley’s plane of consciousness through a portal. Back in the real world, the Matina jumped out of the portal next to the energy calibration capsule and landed on the floor with grace.

  “Ugh… now I have more work to do than before…”, she monologued in her mother tongue.

  Just as she said that, she suddenly sensed that someone was watching her. She looked to the door and saw Lorian curiously peeking in by the door frame. Locking gazes, Lorian froze awkwardly, acting as if he was guilty of a crime.

  “Lorian? How long have you been there?”, Matina asked.

  “I—Uh… about 15 minutes?”, he stuttered.

  He stood properly by the door and continued: “Did I… just see something I shouldn’t?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. As long as you didn’t touch anything, observing shouldn’t be a problem”, she assured him while slithering up to him.

  “So… how was Corley?”, he asked. “I came here just to check on her. Didn’t expect to see you working”.

  “Don’t worry, she’s doing fine”, Matina smiled.

  “However… There is something that I need to discuss with you for a moment”.

  “Come, let’s head to the upper floor”.

  Matina closed off the workshop and guided Lorian to the upper floor of her cave base. Climbing up the ramp, they ended up in Matina’s room, spacious and comfy-looking with simple alien furnishings. On one corner, there was a big contour on the floor, where Matina would curl up and sleep. On the other corner, there was an observatory deck covered by large curved glass that stretched to the ceiling.

  “Wait around for a moment, I need to look for something”, Matina slithered off to her cabinets, leaving Lorian at the entrance.

  While she rummaged through each drawer, looking for something, Lorian decided to wander around in her room. He looked up at the holographic board over her study table by the wall. It was filled with notices and diagrams displayed scatteringly, in language and script alien to him. By the look of it, those were all probably her work-related information.

  He then walked up to her sleeping contour, where its interior was coated with something shiny and silky. He was careful not to step into the contour itself and remained where he stood as he looked at all the decorations surrounding her sleeping area.

  There were crystal stalks of many colours in pots, some strange helix that spun around hypnotically, and display shelves with many framed pictures on them. Seeing that Matina still wasn’t done searching for something, Lorian took the opportunity to check on the pictures up close.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Unlike the board over her study table, here, he saw more laid-back pictures. There was a picture of the planet Outeara, with its planetary bridge stretching out to other planets in the star system. There was also a picture of one of the cities there, with its architecture twelve times more bizarre than anything in Tachyon or Seirion.

  Other pictures were mostly about Matina herself. There were pictures of her doing random activities with her fellow EOAs, like flying over the planet’s seas, climbing mountains, and exploring colonies on neighbouring planets. There were also pictures that showed her early career, like her handling a human baby out of a growth tube, observing human behaviour in test chambers and learning to communicate with them using image boards.

  “Even an alien like Matina lived through a life full of stories and memories…”, he had a moment of sonder.

  Lastly, there was a picture that stood out from the other. It sat alone, isolated from all the other pictures with two small crystal lumps on both sides. In that picture, he saw two EOAs together, with the backdrop of what he believed was Equilibria seen from close orbit on a space vessel. One was Matina, and the other was an unknown male EOA with a face that closely resembled Matina’s.

  “Hm… I wondered who that is…”

  “Lorian, I’m done. Come here”, Matina called him from the observatory deck.

  “Oh—coming!”, Lorian got back on track and headed to where Matina stood.

  Stepping up to the deck, he asked straight away: “So, what is it that you wanted to tell me?”.

  “Well… it has something to do with who you might face in the future”, Matina briefed.

  “Take a look at this picture”

  Matina handed over a picture she had kept tucked away as deeply as she could. It was framed like all the other pictures on the display shelves, and it featured Matina with a grey-haired man with glasses over a green field.

  “Who’s this?”, he asked.

  “Try to guess first”, Matina teased.

  He sought his intuition for an answer, recalling his memories to get a hunch for who that might be. He looked back to when they first arrived in Mirukafa, and something crossed his mind:

  “Uh… The Prodigy…?”

  “Correct”, Matina said.

  “His real name is Marcus Gray. This picture is from back when we used to work together”.

  “Work together? On what?”, Lorian questioned.

  “To end the eternal war between the two empires”, she answered.

  “Do you still remember that I told you how the Equilibria is cursed with the curse of eternal war? Back when you first acquired the contact bracelet in Andrestod?”.

  “Wow… that’s quite long ago, I’ve almost forgotten about it”, Lorian commented. “Anyway, when you said ‘curse’, what does it mean? Is it like the people from Tachyon and Seirion are mind-controlled to wage war on each other?”.

  “Well, not in that literal sense…”, Matina clarified. “However, it is undeniable that the war is indeed fabricated, and there’s a long chain of—I hate to use this human word—conspiracy…”

  “Conspiracy?”, Lorian’s eyes widened.

  “See? This is why I don’t like to use that word… It’s shallow in its definition”, Matina expressed.

  “Then, what exactly is it?”, Lorian asked.

  Matina hesitantly continued: “Well… the entire situation is rather complex for you to understand in one go. But to put it simply, there’s no single cause of all that’s happening. The causes were actually planted long before the war even started, and it has now become self-sustaining and unstoppable”.

  “Back to Marcus Gray, this is what he and I worked to stop. After his home city of Nova was invaded by the two empires, he saw his world fall apart before him, powerless against anything”.

  “Much like many, he became spiteful, wanting the two empires to pay back for their transgression. However, unlike others, he had a grander ambition in mind and the patience to persist. Instead of just blindly charging at a camp or joining rogue groups, he wandered the world and searched for lost knowledge to acquire what he likes to say, a power that would put the empires to their knee”.

  “And… he made substantial progress. He started small with understanding the technology and magic from the two empires, and made his way to discover the basics of the most fundamental principle in the universe: Neomaths, which is what we EOA use to understand and manipulate physics”

  “Whoa, whoa, excuse me, but sounds like a massive leap!”, Lorian interrupted. “And, supposedly, he did that all by himself?!”

  Matina nonchalantly replied: “Yes. He was, after all, born with a gifted mind; a prodigy, as we would call him”.

  “Anyway, it was then that I approached him in person, leaving Mirukafa the first time in decades. It was a massive risk, but I had to do it, because at the time I believed that we’ve finally found the right person to change everything”.

  “I guided him towards the right path and taught him everything he would need. At the same time, he would also give me his input and insights when we set out our plan and strategy”.

  “We’re so close to full execution, but then…”

  Matina sighed in lamentation and took a few seconds before continuing:

  “He… grew arrogant. From small disagreements, it devolved into a philosophical clash…”

  “He wanted a complete destruction of the two empires, while I proposed a softer approach to dismantle their power”.

  “This ended up in us splitting, with me confiscating his special resolite before returning to Mirukafa”.

  “Special resolite…? You mean…”, Lorian quickly pulled out his resolite.

  “Yes, your resolite’s previous owner was him”, Matina testified.

  Lorian dropped speechless, unsuspecting that it would turn out like this.

  “Wha—huh?! Why do you only tell me now? I’ve been here for two months!”, he raised his voice.

  “I’m so sorry, Lorian”, Matina humbly apologised. “Originally, I intended to keep it hidden from you until you’ve finished your combat training under me, so you could focus without feeling burdened”.

  “But, just now, the reason you saw me in the workshop was because of Marcus Gray. He successfully bypassed Mirukafa’s invisible security measure and penetrated into Corley’s plane of consciousness”.

  “Had I not returned soon enough, he might have done something to Corley”

  “Huh?! Why she? What did he want from her?”, Lorian perked up.

  “It is because he was the one who reawakened Corley after finding her in an abandoned house. Of all the individuals in Equilibria, he was the only other person outside her creator who understood her working principle”.

  “She was his first real attempt at achieving his goal, but she went rogue immediately after waking up and disappeared from his side ever since then.”

  Matina continued: “I didn’t expect him to look for her again after all this time, considering he has even more powerful weapons and creations at hand today”.

  “But, it could be my oversight, too. While she might not be as impressive of a weapon to him anymore, she has one value that he couldn’t give up…”

  Lorian guessed her next words: “…That she is close to me? The new owner of his resolite?”.

  “Almost, but not quite there yet”, Matina corrected him. “He doesn’t just want your resolite… he wants you too”.

  “Me?!”, Lorian flabbergasted. “But why?!”

  Matina looked out of the window, watching the starry sky over her island. After a brief silence, she said:

  “He wanted you to become like him. To believe that only absolute power could bring peace and justice…”

  “I knew him well… and I knew by just how much he wanted this to happen”.

  “So, this is why I must tell you now”, she turned her head to Lorian, before slowly slithering up to him.

  “I want—no, I need you to be strong, both physically and mentally, so you would be ready to face him when the day comes”, she said while looking directly into his eyes.

  Goosebumps raised his hair, and heavy weights burdened his shoulders. He now fully understood the gravity of the situation he had been placed in. Backing off was no longer his option, so he could only accept his destiny.

  “I… w-will… I promised!”, he shiveringly stuttered.

  Matina backed off and gave him space to breathe. With a smile, she told him:

  “Good! Now, get yourself a good night's sleep, and don’t forget about your training tomorrow morning!”

  After goodnight greetings, Lorian left Matina’s cave base and went back to his bed on the airship. Even after lying down flat and shutting his eyes tightly, he had a hard time falling asleep, as his mind kept playing with everything that Matina told him.

  .

  .

  .

  *Sling* *Slash* *Hiyaa!*

  “Go, Lorian! Don’t let them hit you!”

  Corley cheered on Lorian as he sweatily took down the mirage dummies with his halberd. Animated to fight like how imperial soldiers would, the mirages swarmed Lorian from all angles, yet he persisted and masterfully blocked and repelled them all. In an effort to improve his combat skills, Matina had pre-programmed the course into sets of scenarios, complete with the environmental details and the enemies’ approach to tackle him.

  While Lorian was fully immersed in the combat scenarios, Corley accompanied Matina on the observation podium, sitting leisurely on the ledge while watching her friend fight inside the transparent training dome. With her ultrafast perception, she attentively watched Lorian’s every move with great detail, down to the exact posture he took in each moment. She could almost predict his next move accurately and pinpoint where he needed to improve in her mind.

  “It looks like he’s improving a lot today. So proud of him! Hehe…”, she squeaked in her mind.

  As she watched Lorian alternatingly switch between Tachyon and Seirion opponents, her mind started to drift to what—or more precisely—who she had encountered last night.

  She had forgotten that person long ago, but as she underwent recovery to reattain her lost functions and abilities under Matina’s work, many of the old memories started to resurface after long being buried by errors building up in her body.

  And the memories that were tied to her best of abilities were also among the bitterest ones:

  “Awaken! Awaken, and fulfil your creator’s desire!”

  “ARGHH!!! Who… #*&$.... Are… You!*@&)!!?!”

  *sigh*

  “Marcus… Gray…”, she muttered, barely audible to anyone.

  However, it was enough for Matina to catch up and grab her attention.

  “Corley? Are you alright?”, she approached Corley, leaving the holographic evaluation panels behind.

  “Huh? Y-You… heard that?”, Corley timidly stammered.

  “I heard you spoke of his name”, Matina bluntly spoke. “Are you still bothered by his sudden intrusion into your mind?”

  “Well, the intrusion itself wasn’t the only thing that bothered me, actually”, Corley looked down.

  “It’s the fact that I started to remember him, and what role he played in my life”.

  “For me… it’s… painful to remember. Perhaps there was a reason why I ended up forgetting about him in the first place. Even with only a small portion of memory recovered, I could already tell that he is more sinister than anyone could imagine, with an equally sinister plan for me”.

  “Wait, how could you tell?”, Matina was surprised, considering that Corley had yet to know about Marcus’ wider role.

  “Well, it's thanks to your help that my intuition recognition ability is back in some form, and with it, I was able to analyse his motive beyond my sight”, she turned to Matina and smiled, pausing her sorrow to show gratitude.

  “Oh, that’s… very impressive”, Matina genuinely expressed, seeing Corley exceeding her expectation.

  At the same time, she monologued: “I guess her late creator finally gets his wish fulfilled… she truly is a masterpiece”.

  Corley gazed back at the training dome, staring emptily. After a brief silence, she spoke:

  “Lady Matina, if I may ask… could I not return to my prime state?”

  “Hm, why?”, Matina wondered.

  “I’m… I’m rather afraid to continue recovering more memories as I regain more of my abilities… and what I might become”, she timidly said.

  Matina calmly explained: “To be honest, I could stop wherever you wanted to be. But remember…”

  They both looked at Lorian inside the training dome, who was currently in a very arduous training scenario. Dozens of warmechs surrounded him on all sides, while he hid inside a collapsing house in exhaustion. Even then, the Tachyonian soldiers would throw grenades, flashbangs and drones to push him out, which constantly put him on alert.

  “…your companions are the ones who would end up needing your help the most. Although I know that they are kind enough not to push you, you yourself know where you should be”.

  “And… just as you support them with your abilities, they too could support you where you need them, just like they’ve always done”.

  She contemplated what Matina told her, weighing between facing her fear and helping her friends. Long she thought of it, yet it led her nowhere as her heart felt deeply conflicted by the dilemma. In the end, she gave up figuring out the correct answer and instead said:

  “Lady Matina, how about you put me inside the training dome with Lorian now?”

  “Huh? What’s with the suddenness?”, Matina got confused.

  She stood up and warmed up her joints, plasma blasters and magic spells as she prepared to jump in. With confidence, she said:

  “The only correct way to know the right answer to life… is not to ponder endlessly, but to put yourself against the world and see it for yourself!”