“Did you get what you wanted?”

  “Yes, Tendo.” Vanessa removes her beret. The bck tassel touches her heart as her cape flutters in the dry wind.

  She gazes out into the empty crater of rock below, where a city once stood. Where people once stood.

  Some of those people were hers. A number of Republic tourists and soldiers came to Rome to watch the wedding. They expected a peaceful union. Those people are all dead now. They were necessary sacrifices for what is to come.

  Vanessa sighs, answering her husband’s question again. “I did.”

  She pces the beret back on her head and grips Nadeden’s arrow. “There’s only one thing left to do.”

  She marches back to the mess of cement and shattered gss that was once the towering Division Pza.

  Tendo was able to create a barrier just moments before the bst. That barrier saved the lives of everyone within it. Gelmidas was one of those lives. Cassandra was another.

  She scurries away from the wreckage of the Pza, hiding behind a ruined wall of cement. Ashes hang in the air, fluttering down around her as she gasps for breath.

  She grips her knees. Her hair crashes against her shins as she gathers herself. Standing tall, she glimpses past the wall to view her parents approaching the helpless Gelmidas.

  He crawls over a crumbling sb of wood while clinging to his fractured gsses. Even inside Tendo’s barrier, the impact of the fall still affected everyone, and Gelmidas appears to be the one most worse for wear.

  Vanessa holds the arrow over Gelmidas, preparing to plunge the blunt weapon into him. Cassandra clutches a fist. Her eyes narrow as she scowls and rushes out from the rock.

  The punch shocks Vanessa. The arrow slips from her fingers, and spit flies from her busted lip.

  However, her beret does not fall. Its bck tassel swipes at Cassandra as Vanessa stumbles backward.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing.” Vanessa snarls as she paws at her mouth.

  “I know exactly what I’m doing,” Cassandra grunts with equal ferocity. She leaps out to tackle her Mother, only for her Father to put a wall between the pair.

  “Enough,” Tendo states, recalling the solid blue light with but a flick of his wrist. He picks the arrow off the ground of ash and twirls it in his hand. “We’re a family. All of this,” He holds out his arms towards the crater that was Rome. “All this death was to kill the Division. To ruin it. To ruin him.”

  Tendo points the arrow at Gelmidas, who struggles to speak.

  “So let’s be done with it and go home.” Tendo thrusts the weapon at Gelmidas.

  Cassandra cries out in arm.

  Vanessa’s eyes widen in approval.

  Gelmidas braces for the inevitable.

  And Nadeden sms a chunk of concrete into Tendo’s skull.

  The arrow unches into the air as the rubble shatters on Tendo’s head in a sptter of blood and dust.

  Nadeden doesn’t wait for Tendo to recover. She grips the uniform on his chest, cwing into the cloth. She uses the leverage to knock the man into her knee.

  Tendo coughs out blood as Nadeden pulls her leg from his stomach and strikes him to the ground with a hard right hook.

  “You next, bitch?” She spits at Vanessa while cracking her knuckles.

  “I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Vanessa scoffs with regret and disgust in her eyes.

  Nadeden’s gray hair slips over her scorched eye as she smiles. “Out of all the utter bullshit you’ve spewed, that is the smartest thing that’s come out of your ugly mouth. Now, are you gonna fight me yourself, or do you need your pathetic manservant to do everything for you?”

  Vanessa screams with all her might as she rushes at Nadeden. Cassandra covers her ear at the wailing screech and closes her eyes at the sight of Nadeden unleashing a series of furious strikes on the President of the Republic of humanity.

  Vanessa takes every blow Nadeden gives her. The woman is completely defenseless, and yet she cws and scratches at Nadeden like the wild animal she believes the Scorched Archer to be.

  The truth is that both women are full of nothing but pure hatred for each other.

  When Vanessa first heard the legend of the Scorched Archer, she was just a girl tending to her Father’s crops while he was away at war. Three months ter, her family received the news that her Father had died on Quandroiz.

  His stomach had been cut open by an arrowhead. The medical officers said he was dead before he hit the ground.

  Vanessa Soryu crawled her way to the top. A common farmgirl turned politician, people ughed at the thought. Yet Vanessa never let the ughter get to her.

  She pushed on. She refused to give up. She believes in the Republic. She believes in the ideals her Father died for, and secretly, in her darkest, most vulnerable moments, she dreams of meeting that Division archer and spilling their red blood over her white sleeves just to show them the colors of the Republic.

  With each strike that spills blood upon her white uniform and cape, Vanessa Soryu now has a thought that she once dismissed. Nadeden is the one who killed her Father. She is the one who dismisses not just the Republic but the Division as well. She is the Scorched Archer, and she is going to kill Vanessa Soryu.

  No.

  Vanessa refuses to die here. Not on this Division pnet. Not at the hands of this evil woman. She is going to fight till her st breath. She is going to murder Gelmidas Atheneum and rule over all of humanity herself.

  Because if she doesn’t? Her whole life, everything she’s worked so hard for, was all for nothing.

  Vanessa snatches Nadeden’s arm after the next punch and rams her bloody head into Nadeden’s brow.

  The two skulls smash into each other with a violent thud that disorients both their owners.

  The bck tassel of Vanessa’s beret crosses between the eyes of both opponents. Blood drips onto Nadeden’s scorched eye and battle-worn face as Vanessa stares at her with her own smashed beauty.

  “Tendo!” She shouts out as Nadeden tears away from her grasp and kicks her neck.

  “D-d-do someth- … thing!” She chokes as Nadeden strikes her again.

  Tendo scrambles to his feet. Cassandra crashes into him. “Dad! Don’t!” She tugs at his arms, which are already glowing blue.

  Tendo tosses her aside without so much as a single word. He aims at Nadeden and contorts his fingers into a grasping motion. A fsh of blue light crackles out of them and springs into a construct that bsts from his palm.

  Nadeden hurries to dodge the attack, yet the projectile redirects itself and traps her in its grasp. She struggles against the barrier of light as Vanessa marches forward.

  “Arrow.” She mutters with a piercing focus. Tendo throws the arrow to Vanessa. She catches it and raises it over her head.

  Gelmidas watches Vanessa’s expressionless face step toward him, marked in ash and drenched in blood.

  He hasn’t been able to stand, and crawling would be pointless now. There’s no escape.

  Gelmidas Atheneum knows that he is going to die.

  He thinks that he spots Davon next to Nadeden as he looks over to her. Her face is unburnt, and Davon’s hair is in a ponytail.

  They are both just as they were back on Quandroiz and the rest of those magical years before he became Emperor.

  Yet that was not the best time of Gelmidas’s life, and that is not what he wants to think of in his final moments.

  He wants to think of his son.

  He wants to ugh at Adamus’s jokes and see the smile on his face. The smile he got from his Mother.

  Gelmidas smiles, gripping his gsses, he blinks one st time as he looks at Nadeden.

  He doesn’t get the luxury of st words.

  He doesn’t get the chance to say to her, to ask her, “Can’t we try again?”

  The arrow stabs into his heart.

  Vanessa’s busted lip smirks in satisfaction.

  It’s over now.

  Nadeden screams and cries as Tendo’s barrier disappears.

  Cassandra is silent.

  Tendo looks to the sky as something small and fast darts across it.

  “They’re here for us,” Vanessa states as Nadeden colpses, overcome with grief.

  The Symbiotic Republic ship descends over the ruins of the Pza. Its door opens. Vanessa steps on board without looking back.

  Tendo follows her but holds his hand out to Cassandra. “Come on, kiddo.” He says with a weary smile. “Let’s go home.”

  Cassandra is in pure disbelief. Tears stream down her face as she sps her Father’s hand aside. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” She states, standing her ground.

  Tendo shrinks inside the ship. “Vanessa,” He mumbles, “Shouldn’t we bring the Scorched-”

  “Why do you think I used the arrow?” She huffs. “Whoever finds her will kill her. Now, let’s go before that happens.”

  Tendo gnces at her, then at his daughter. “You’re going to regret this, but I know I can’t fight you.” He shakes his head and sits down inside the ship.

  Cassandra watches as the craft speeds away. She grips her hands into fists before turning to Nadeden. “He’s right, we need to get out of here.”

  Nadeden lifts her tired head. She wipes away her tears as she speaks. “No. You leave, I’m staying.”

  Cassandra steps toward her. The debris cracks beneath her feet. “Why?”

  Nadeden stands, hanging her head. “This is my fault… Everything that’s happened is because of me. Ever since I met Gerry… I…”

  Cassandra can’t tell if Nadeden is holding back the words or searching for them. She pces a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worship me, kid.”

  Nadeden removes her hand from Cassandra and walks toward the corpse of the man she loved. “I’m only human.”

  Cassandra wants to stay. She wants to say something to reassure the woman she’s idolized her whole life.

  Yet as Nadeden kneels down to Gelmidas’s body and touches his lifeless cheek, Cassandra finds that she feels nothing but sorrow for her.

  She remains stuck in pce for a full minute before walking off into the ruins of the Pza in search of her violin.

  She finds Mystic instead.

  “I thought that you would have left by now.”

  “We can’t find Smith.” Anvil states from beneath his suit of bloodstained armor.

  Mystic sighs. “We’ll just have to go without them.”

  “Go where?” Cassandra questions.

  Anvil holds up a steel sword. The bde is marked with runes. The same runes of ones and zeroes on Tendo’s arms. “I tried speaking with this metal and got no answer. It doesn’t want to talk to me. But the pce that its form might have answers.”

  “And where is it from?” Cassandra asks.

  Mystic answers, “Ourobeel. Squideel homepnet. If they deciphered the ancient code, then I might be able to make sense of what I saw in the basement.”

  Cassandra squints, wiping her face. She’s still in shock. Still trying to recover from what she just witnessed. “My Father is one of you. I-” She sighs, gripping her arm. “I need to know why he did what he did, why he is what he is, and what I am.”

  “I’d like to know that too.” Mystic hops off the mound of rubble and snatches something from behind it. Cassandra is relieved to see that at least one part of her made it through all this.

  She takes her violin case and gives Mystic a strained smile. “So what was in the basement?”

  Mystic raises her hand and prepares to snap her fingers as she looks into Cassandra’s eyes and mutters, “A God’s prison.”

  She snaps, and the three vanish in a fsh of blue light.

  Smith and Adamus do not see the fsh.

  They only heard the screams a few minutes ago and are now making their way towards them.

  Both are far too tired to run. So they slowly walk through the stone of the crater, and with nothing else to do, they talk.

  “You got a name?” Adamus asks, with the broken Republic sword in one hand and the other supporting Smith, who mumbles out an answer to the best of their ability. “Smith.”

  “Just Smith?”

  “Do I need anything else?”

  Adamus weakly chuckles. “Good point. So, just Smith, did you see what caused all of, well…” Adamus’s voice trails off, extinguished at the sight of his dead home.

  Smith shakes their head. Gripping Nadeden’s bandana, they say, “I saw you. Or that thing that’s inside you at least.”

  Adamus’s eyes widen. “No.” He presses his arm to his bare chest.

  The beast is silent.

  “No,” Adamus says again before repeating “No. No. No. I… It couldn’t have…”

  His thoughts freeze. His fears spiral.

  He knows so little about the creature that lives inside of him. It isn’t capable of all this destruction, is it? What exactly is this thing?

  How long does he have until it comes out again? He thought he controlled it, but is it possible?

  Is the beast the one using him?

  He walks in a lingering silence with Smith after that until they finally ask.

  “Is Nadeden really your Mother?” They already know the answer.

  Adamus looks enough like how Nadeden described him for them to know, not to mention that, save for the green eyes and brown hair, he’s nearly the spitting image of her, minus the burns.

  Adamus squints at Smith. “No.”

  He mutters as he continues forward. “She very well may have given birth to me, but that woman has done nothing for me. She’s just some lunatic my Father slept with.”

  Smith shoves Adamus off them.

  “What was that for?”

  Smith shoots a finger out at Adamus. “That lunatic crossed the universe with me, all so she could get revenge on your Father for taking you from her. She loves you more than anything. Your life is the most precious thing to her! It has been since before you could even walk! SO DON’T YOU DARE SAY THAT SHE ISN’T YOUR MOTHER!”

  Smith’s hand trembles at the sound of their own voice. They’ve shouted louder than they ever have before, but Adamus can only shrug and yawn at them, “Kinda sounds like she’s yours.”

  He takes Smith's shoulder once more and helps them walk forward. Smith had never thought of it that way. How could Nadeden be their Mother?

  It doesn’t make sense. They were an annoyance to her. An afterthought. They may have travelled with her, but her mission was always about revenge. About Adamus.

  Wasn’t it? Nadeden had done a lot for them, but being a Mother? A caretaker? A friend?

  Smith’s thoughts shift. I care about her. I know that much. She went to the Forge with me, but wasn’t that just because she thought Adamus was truly dead?

  They look at Adamus’s face again, that face that is so much like Nadeden’s.

  Smith isn’t sure what to think about anyone anymore. They certainly can’t imagine calling Adamus a friend, much less a brother.

  “I have no Mother. I’m a Machinist, forced into a human body by the Rusting. A pacifist who makes weapons from their own blood. A bleeding, naive heart surrounded by cruelty. I’m nothing else. I have nothing else…”

  Adamus’s foot reaches the slope of the crater. He carries Smith up it.

  “No.” He huffs as he pulls Smith, “You're dramatic. And, I’m Adamus Atheneum. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  The pair pnt their feet atop the head of the crater where the Division Pza once stood. “Now let’s find my Father and your Scorched Arch-” As Adamus turns, he sees Nadeden.

  She’s holding an arrow in her hand.

  An arrow that was just in Gelmidas’s heart.

  Adamus’s blood runs cold, and the beast stirs once again.