Chapter 147 - Cartful of Calm

(Marvel, DC, images, manhuas, and every anime that will be mentioned and used in this story are not mine. They all belong to their respective owners. The main character "Karito/Adriel Josue Valdez" and the story are mine)

Plaza Las Américas breathed like a living thing—glass atriums pouring morning light onto marble floors, palm fronds swaying under AC vents, a hum of laughter and rolling suitcase wheels. Peter, Ace, and Artoria drifted in from a side entrance, taking in the storefront map like tourists who'd somehow saved the city and immediately decided to buy socks.

Ace stopped dead. "Hold up. Is that a Cheesecake Factory?"

Peter followed his sightline to the gold-lettered façade. "Yup. USA classic."

Artoria squinted. "How would Qiyana even—?"

Peter shrugged. "At this point I assume she has admin access to Adriel's secret library."

Artoria nodded solemnly. "A woman in love moves mountains."

Ace, still staring at the menu panels like stained glass, muttered, "Only other time I saw one was that 'Existence' dimension I got yeeted into."

Peter blinked. "The webtoon world? Where the MC had every animal's instincts?"

"Yeah." Ace rubbed his neck. "Kid reincarnated through the whole damn food chain. Army tried to smoke me. People hated powers. Total mess."

Peter gave a low whistle. "So... not Cheesecake-and-chill."

"More Cheesecake-and-run-for-your-life." Ace slapped his cheeks lightly and grinned. "Anyway. We shopping or philosophizing?"

They stepped inside. The mall was a hybrid: Runeterran ateliers with shimmering threadwork shared space with 21st-century staples. A Ixtali tailor offered "enchanted hemming in ten minutes," right across from a sneaker wall that looked like a pantheon of foam.

They ducked into a clothing store that somehow sold both bomber jackets and ceremonial capes. Each grabbed an armful and hit the fitting rooms.

Ace came out first and leaned on the mirror's edge like he'd been born under a ring light: black slim jeans, a charcoal tee with a tiny flame icon over the heart, light denim overshirt open at the front, and white low-tops. His freckles popped; his grin did the rest.

Peter cocked a brow. "Influencer-core. Do you do unboxings now or...?"

Artoria circled him, arms folded, pretending to judge like a royal clothier. "Functional. Minimal armor class, maximal swagger. It suits you."

Ace tugged the overshirt hem. "Breathes better than a duster on a lava ship."

Peter disappeared and reemerged in classic Parker casual: blue jeans that had seen things, a soft red hoodie over a navy Midtown-style tee, scuffed high-tops, and his ancient backpack slung one-strap. He pushed his sleeves up, that old quick grin slipping into place.

Ace smirked. "Grandpa sweater speedrun."

Peter pointed at him. "This is heritage."

Artoria's mouth tilted. "It is... familiar. In a comforting way." She thumbed his hoodie. "Sturdy knit, though ill-suited to swordfighting."

"Working on a sword-friendly hoodie next patch."

Artoria hesitated at her curtain, then stepped out wearing Ace's pick: a white cropped tee under a light sage bomber, pleated navy skirt to mid-thigh, white sneakers, hair ribboned back instead of armored. It was simple—unfairly so—and it stole the fluorescent lights for itself.

Silence. Peter recovered first and clapped once. "Clean. Ten out of ten, would protect in a food court."

Ace forgot English for a second.

Peter leaned over and flicked his ear. "Hey. Earth to Matchstick."

Ace jolted. "I— yeah. It's good. Like, really good." He cleared his throat. "You look... happy."

A flush touched Artoria's cheeks. "Then it is the right one." She was about to retreat when Peter sidestepped and lightly smacked Ace's cheek—just enough to make a percussive pop.

Ace stared, scandalized. "What the hell was that?"

"You were buffering."

Artoria laughed. Not a polite court laugh—a real one that bent her shoulders and made her hide her smile behind her wrist. The boys froze, traded a small, satisfied look, and let it stretch a moment longer than necessary.

"Okay, fashion jury—what did I miss?"

Miss Fortune—Sarah—strolled up with Lux and Kayle in tow. Sarah's eyes flicked over Artoria and warmed. "That's the one. Effortless and lethal."

Artoria's smile softened. "Thank you... Sarah."

Lux beamed. "It's cute without trying too hard. You should totally get it."

Kayle crossed her arms, unaffected except for a near-invisible nod. "Acceptable."

"High praise," Peter stage-whispered.

They merged into a small parade of hangers, laughs, and mirror checks. Sarah tried on amber-tinted aviators; Lux stacked bracelets up her forearm; Kayle pretended not to enjoy a clean black windbreaker and failed. Ace found a hoodie with a stitched little wolf; Peter found one with a tiny star; they swapped without comment. Artoria discovered scrunchies and quietly purchased three, like contraband.

Shoes happened. Ace tested running sneakers with a bounce that made the floor creak; Peter debated low vs. high-tops like it was constitutional law; Lux grabbed pastel trainers; Kayle, after five minutes of stoic staring, picked white court shoes and said nothing. Accessories followed: Sarah fixed a pendant on Artoria and said, "There—now you're dangerous." Artoria looked strangely pleased.

Hunger struck as they rounded a second-floor balcony. The food court was a bright horseshoe of neon menus and steam. Kiosks hawked frappés, pastelillos, bubble tea, and something labeled Ixtali Spice Bowls next to a churro stand.

Peter scanned. "Okay, options include: poke, skewers, sushi, empanad—"

"Sizzler," Ace said, already pointing at the buffet sign like a prophet.

Peter slanted him a look. "Because your fat ass needs terrain advantage."

Ace bristled. "Say that again, web-twig."

They were halfway into round three of bickering when Sarah cut a look at Artoria. "Ready?"

Artoria cracked her knuckles, then bonked both boys lightly—thonk, thonk. "Peace. Or no dessert."

They behaved.

Peter snagged a long table; trays and tongs followed. Plates piled up with grilled chicken, rice, salads, mac and cheese, roasted veggies. Peter wandered off and returned pushing an entire tray of pizza like a contraband sled.

Lux's eyes went wide. "You can just... take the whole tray?"

Peter set it down in the middle, shameless. "If anyone asks, I'm doing a public service."

A chef glanced over, recognized him, and gave the world's tiniest salute. The tray refilled at the station two minutes later, crisis averted.

Ace, meanwhile, manifested three plates that looked like geological formations.

Peter didn't even look up. "Exhibit A."

"Metabolism is a miracle," Ace said, already forking steak.

Artoria's plate was... also ambitious. Sarah leaned on her palm and grinned. "So the legend's true. Two bottomless pits."

Artoria sniffed, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her. "Fuel is vital."

Kayle picked through grilled fish and a simple salad with ascetic care. When Peter and Ace's forks clacked midair in a tug-of-war over the last mozzarella stick, her lip twitched—then smoothed like it had never happened.

They ate and drifted into the kind of nothing conversation you only get after surviving too much.

"Favorite store so far?" Lux asked, tearing her garlic bread in perfect halves and handing one to Artoria without looking.

"The shoe wall," Ace said around a bite. "Felt like a dragon hoard. But for feet."

"Enchanted seamstress," Artoria said. "She mended a hem and gave me a sweet."

Sarah tapped her aviators. "Sunglasses kiosk auntie told me I have 'pirate bone structure.' I'm choosing to take that as a compliment."

Kayle sipped water. "The tea stall. Efficient. Clean."

Peter thunked his tray down. "Photo booth."

Lux perked. "Oh! We have to do that later."

"We already did." Peter slid a strip across the table. The first frame: Peter and Ace doing thumbs-up. Second: Artoria awkward but trying. Third: Ace pulling Peter into a headlock. Fourth: Artoria accidentally smiling, eyes closed, Ace and Peter both mid-yell.

Artoria stared at it, quietly storing something away. She tucked the strip into her pocket like a relic.

Ace pointed his fork at Peter's hoodie. "You going to keep pretending you're not cold-resistant and insist on a jacket everywhere?"

"It has pockets," Peter said gravely. "Heroes need pockets."

Sarah jerked her chin at Ace. "And you—flame motif, huh? Subtle."

"It's a tiny flame."

Lux leaned toward Artoria. "So... scrunchies."

Artoria glanced down, almost guilty. "They are... practical."

"Cute," Lux sing-songed.

Kayle prodded the pizza tray Peter had dragged over. "Is it... customary to take entire vessels of food here?"

Peter, without missing a beat: "Only if you say 'please' to the gods of carbs."

She blinked. "I shall... consider it."

They spiraled into the kind of debates that matter in a mall: best cheesecake flavor (Ace: guava; Peter: Oreo; Artoria: "original, with strawberries" pronounced like a decree), optimal sneaker lacing method, whether the arcade counted as "training" if you only played racing games (Ace: yes; Peter: double yes; Kayle: no).

Lux and Sarah tag-teamed Artoria on makeup testers at a nearby kiosk ("No, it's not war paint, Saber—close your eyes." "I am closing them." "Tighter!"), while Peter returned from a frappe stand with three plastic domes and the absolute worst timing.

He set one down in front of Artoria. "Strawberry."

She blinked. "How did you—"

"You said it twice," he said, and shrugged like it cost him nothing.

For a while, that was all it was: the clatter of forks, the squeak of chairs, the kind of laughter that bubbles up from nowhere. People watched the Guardians with a mixture of awe and relief and then—slowly—went back to their own lives. The normalcy spread like warmth from a heater vent.

Ace leaned back, hands behind his head. "So. Cheesecake Factory after this?"

Peter groaned. "You're gonna fold space-time in your stomach."

"Worth it."

Artoria looked across the table at her small, unruly family—Sarah's easy smirk, Lux's bright eyes, Kayle's almost-smile, Peter's pizza heist, Ace's three-plate mountain—and let herself believe this could be a day that stayed simple.

"Very well," she said, lifting her frappe like a toast. "To frivolity."

Sarah clinked hers. "To receipts."

Lux giggled. "To photo booths."

Peter tapped his cup. "To pockets."

Ace bumped his gently, grin wide. "To seconds."

Kayle considered, then raised her water. "To... enough."

They drank. And for a little while longer, in the bright, ordinary heart of a mall that shouldn't exist, "enough" was exactly what they had.

...

They wrapped their Sizzler raid groaning and grinning, chairs scraping back, napkins dropped into a loose pile. Shopping bags crowded the floor—shoeboxes, garment sleeves, a few Runeterran-etched boxes that clinked faintly.

Peter lifted a hand. "Dump the haul on me. I'll stash it."

"Backpack?" Sarah asked, amused.

"In Adriel's gamer system," he said, and a faint HUD bloomed in his eyes. "Party inventory."

They passed everything down. Peter's fingers pinched and slid through invisible panels, thumbnails flicking into a neat grid only he, Ace, and Artoria could perceive. One by one, the bags winked out of the physical world and into shared storage.

"Travel light," Peter said, dusting his palms. "Let's walk the other half of the mall."

Before they hit the escalators, the group drifted toward the third-floor bridge that jogged across to the parking structure. From here, they could see the multi-level garage stacked in concrete bands, and—far across it—a separate glass entrance back into the mall.

"Hey," Sarah said, pointing. "This was where Qiyana said she'd tie in vehicle access."

"Vehicle?" Lux echoed.

"Cars," Sarah corrected. "She wanted to integrate cars into Ixtal. But—" she wrinkled her nose, repeating the phrasing, "—electric car models only."

Peter heard the small puzzled tilt in Sarah's voice. He could practically picture Qiyana slipping through velvet-rope access into Adriel's secret stacks, reading until dawn, connecting dots no one else had the chalk for. With that pipeline, she was light-years ahead of most minds in Runeterra even before the war—would've been one of the world's greatest engineers if Mangog and the Darks hadn't detonated history. And, well, Guardians like Peter, Ace, Artoria, and Adriel lived with the Nexus of Knowledge and Imagination at their backs—if the Nexus were a browser, it held the whole internet of stories. You could port ideas, tools, entire technological trees from any media that existed online.

Good that Adriel hard-throttled the library to 21st-century books. Jump further and Runeterra would whiplash straight into a type-IV civilization—wrong era, wrong vibe.

He realized he'd been mumbling that last part out loud. Ace and Artoria tracked him fine, courtesy of Passive Guardian Knowledge. To everyone else, it sounded like polite gibberish.

Sarah snapped her fingers in front of him. "Professor. Explain the car thing without, you know, summoning a star map."

Peter smiled. "Electric cars run on big rechargeable batteries instead of burning gasoline. No exhaust, way quieter, and you don't leak fumes into the groves. For Ixtal, that means less impact on plantations and the canopy. Qiyana probably wants them for short hops—district to district—so roads don't chew up the roots."

"Charging?" Lux asked, eyes bright.

"Plenty of options," Peter said, warming to it. "Solar on rooftops, magi-tech in the paving stones, leyline induction pads so you park and power up. She'll have her smartest folks blueprint something that blends with the jungle instead of fighting it. I know teleportation exists, but cars are good for everyday, scalable movement."

Lux slipped closer, basically hogging Peter's attention as they crossed the empty upper deck. "Regenerative braking—that's when it charges while slowing, right? And range anxiety is just... the fear the battery dies halfway? Also, if we paint them pastel, are they faster?"

"Pastel is the fastest color," Peter deadpanned. "Science."

Kayle watched Lux giggle like a schoolgirl, the sound lighter than it had been in months. It should have made Kayle only relieved. Instead, some small, assessing part of her clicked awake.

Ace eased up alongside her, hands in his pockets. "She knows he's already in a relationship, yeah?"

Kayle kept her eyes forward. "He made it obvious in Demacia. The safehouse—remember?" She let the memory surface without tremor: the ruined hotel entrance where she and Ace had spoken in low, practical tones; deeper inside, Peter sitting with a Lux who'd been hollowed out by despair.

Ace tipped his head. Star Guardian bleed-through? Could emotions from a different Lux track across the fused lattice? Hard to swallow—except Anansi had been remixing League's cosmology and the entire omniverse like a bored god pulling threads. Why push the verse structure that far?

"Portgas," Kayle said, gentle but cutting through fog.

He blinked. "Yeah. Sorry. Zoned."

She studied him a heartbeat, then let it slide. "She does... change when he's near."

Ace sighed. "Then it's bleed-through. He'll notice. He's himself again—AM's control and Red Goblin's junk are gone."

Artoria stayed a pace behind, content to watch the eddies of talk swirl ahead. After years of ending things, simply walking with friends and letting conversation braid around her felt like a gift she didn't know how to hold yet.

A warm nudge at her shoulder. Sarah.

"Tried to spook you," Sarah said, grin crooked. "Failed spectacularly."

"You did," Artoria said, deadpan. But her eyes were amused. Sarah fell in step, bumping her lightly again.

"How are you feeling, Saber?"

"Content," Artoria said, honest as steel. "I do not remember the last time I... spent a day like this. As a Dark, I destroyed entire realities. After converting, I have only been repairing, atoning. Not... shopping."

The slight sag in Artoria's posture was small, but Sarah caught it and stepped in without making a show of it. "I've seen you work," she said. "You keep choosing the better version of you. That's the whole trick." Her mouth twitched. "Bilgewater made me into things I hate. When that demon tore through my city"—she still didn't know Shinra's name; 'demon' was as close as language got—"I swore that wouldn't be the only story I let live in me. I'm here, in Ixtal, because I chose new ones. Ace saving me helped. You being here helps."

Artoria's throat tightened. "I thought only Ace, Peter, and Adriel would ever call me friend. I did not imagine anyone from Runeterra would, not after the atrocities I committed here."

Sarah took her hand, warm, sure. "Adriel believed you could be redeemed. I trust his read—and I trust mine. So, yeah. We're friends." Then, because she was herself, she added lightly, "Perk: I will always tell you if your shirt needs a half-tuck."

"You ruin the moment," Artoria said, but she was laughing, soft and unguarded.

They reached the far glass doors and stepped back into conditioned air, the atrium opening like a cathedral of steel and sunlight. On one flank: Dave & Buster's, neon humming, cabinets chirping, basketball hoops thudding, prizes glaring in bright plastic. Opposite: a broad, two-story library, all warm wood and amber lamps, a central oculus dropping a coin of daylight onto long tables. The sign above the library arch simply read Library in brushed bronze.

Peter stopped at the crossroads and pivoted on his heel. "Call it. Scholarly silence or arcade chaos?"

"Library," Kayle said immediately, already angling toward the hush.

"Book me," Sarah chimed, shooting Artoria a smile. "We can pick out something to make you cry in a dignified way."

Artoria considered the racing rigs, then the warm patience of shelves. "Library," she decided.

Lux looped an arm through Peter's. "Games. And you'll be me toys when you lose."

Peter stiffened at the contact. Slightly bothered.

Ace cracked his knuckles. "Time to set high scores so no one thinks I've gone soft."

Peter pointed, one hand to each team. "Okay: Kayle, Artoria, Sarah—ink and paper. Ace, Lux—buttons with me. First group to finish waits outside. If we miss each other, recon at the fountain. Then we keep sightseeing."

"Deal," Sarah said, already steering Kayle with conspiratorial energy. "Come on, Saber. Let's find you poetry and a leather jacket—metaphorically speaking."

Kayle added a quiet, "Understood," and gave Artoria's elbow a small, companionable touch as they peeled off.

Lux tugged Peter toward the neon. "Hurry, hurry—the drift bikes are free."

Ace clapped Peter's shoulder. "Loser buys cheesecake."

Peter glanced back with a crooked grin. "Your funeral."

They split, three and three. One current flowed toward the hush of pages and the promise of being remade by words; the other toward the bright noise of tickets and competitions that didn't matter and mattered precisely because they didn't. And underpinning both was the same simple agreement: whoever finished first would wait for the others—because after a year of surviving hell, waiting together was part of how you healed.

...

Dave & Buster's is a neon jungle—coin jingles, synth bleeps, fryer oil, and carpet loud enough to make your eyes itch. The three of them stop just inside the arcade proper, eyes bouncing between a snack counter stacked with pretzels and the rows of cabinets.

"Food first?" Ace asks, already clocking the nacho cheese dispenser like it owes him money.

Peter side-eyes him. "We literally just ate. Your fatass wants round two already? Poor future wife."

Ace squints. "Future—what—" He looks at Lux, then at Peter. "Say that again."

"Games it is," Peter says, strolling off.

Lux bites her lip to hide a smile. "He does that on purpose."

"Yeah, I know," Ace mutters, but he follows, bait successfully taken.

They wade through cabinets. Light guns, rhythm pads, a row of basketball hoops cycling endlessly. Lux stops dead in front of a crane the size of a carriage house, packed with oversized plush—seals, cats, a murderous-looking hamster.

Her eyes go soft. "Ace."

"No."

"Ace, please."

"It's a scam."

She lifts a practiced puppy-eye. "It's... lore-appropriate."

Ace drags a hand down his face. "Don't weaponize canon at me."

"Pretty please?" She adds the half-tilt of her head and a tiny fidget with her fingers—pure Lux.

Peter is already pulling his phone up, grinning. "Documenting this for posterity."

"Put that down," Ace says, stepping to the joystick. "One try."

It takes six.

On the fourth, he swears the claw is sentient. On the fifth, he learns the trick—tap-tap the drop, feather the swing, compensate for janky gravity. On the sixth, he snags a giant seal and the hamster together, both teetering until the last pixel of their lives, and dumps them in the chute. Lux squeals, clapping once so hard it echoes, and Ace—cursing softly—just keeps going. Ten minutes later he's a human rack of plush, seven huge animals balanced across his arms and chest, chin braced on a whale.

Peter can barely film through the laughter. "Bro. You look like a very cuddly hydra."

"Hold these," Ace says, already losing a panda.

"Can't," Peter says, backing away while recording. "Journalistic integrity."

Ace lunges. Peter takes off between cabinets, camera swinging, Lux's laughter trailing them.

"Come here so I can make you hold something!" Ace yells.

"Fuck you—ow—who put a ski ball there?" Peter's reply dopplers over the arcade, then fades into machine noise.

When they finally reappear, flushed and breathless, Lux is at the photo booth with the curtain half-drawn.

"Truce," she says, pointing at the bench. "Souvenirs."

They cram in. First strip: normal smiles. Second: peace signs and a wink from Lux, Peter doing a dumb eyebrow thing, Ace trying and failing to look serious. Third: Peter shoves Ace's face toward the lens at the last second; fourth: Ace retaliates, palming Peter's head and slamming him forward so the camera catches an up-close, startled Peter like a wildlife cam. The booth makes a tired grinding sound it's probably not supposed to make.

"Time to go," Peter says, eyes wide.

"Fast walk," Lux agrees, clutching the strips.

"Strategic retreat," Ace says, already moving.

Bowling feels like a different climate—quieter, slick wood lanes, the sweet smack of pins. They grab a lane, trade their shoes for something questionably disinfected, and claim the low couch. The world is all neon and varnish.

Ace drops onto the cushions. Lux mirrors him, tucking a leg up. Peter wanders the ball racks, testing finger holes.

Ace watches the scroll of colored pins down the lane, the gentle rebounding hum of the ball return. "When was the last time we did this?" he asks finally. "Just... chilled. Like we're allowed to."

Peter finds a ball that bites just right and turns it in his hands. The question lodges under his ribs. "Feels illegal."

"Feels fake," Ace says, not quite a laugh.

Peter steps up to the lane, breathes, lines the dots. "After what you did for me, we're due." He rolls. The ball glides clean out of his hand, curves, kisses the pocket. Strike. Pins scatter like paper.

"Okay, fancy," Lux says, clapping once, bright.

Peter walks back, shrug-smug. "Textbook."

Ace points at him. "You've been practicing in secret, nerd."

Peter's grin thins a fraction. "Most of my practice has been... different." And then the edge of memory: clean uniforms rotted by corruption, friends forcing him to the ground with eyes that weren't theirs, Wakanda's sky ripping open. He shakes his head, physically, like water in his ear. "I don't wanna go there."

Lux leans in, listening without interrupting.

Peter sits, the ball cradled in both hands. "I used to keep moving so I didn't have to think. Me and Adriel. Always a new mission. Like if we never stopped, the quiet wouldn't catch us." He looks at Ace. "You dragged me out of that hole. Out of AM. If you hadn't—"

"I would've," Ace says, simple. "Every time."

Lux's voice is soft. "You saved me too, you know. Different kind of hole."

Peter's mouth quirks. "Occupational hazard."

Ace snorts and stands, grabbing a ball that looks too heavy on purpose. He waits while the pins reset, then fires down the lane; it hooks late and bangs out eight. He watches the two standing pins with a little head tilt, then turns back.

"Sometimes I think," he says, "if none of this had happened—if the fusions didn't happen, if the verse didn't break—we never meet." He shrugs one shoulder. "Would I be better off? Dunno. I spent fifty years punching a giant lizard in one timeline. Whole life was fight, sail, repeat. Never felt... settled." He glances at Peter, then Lux. "This? This is the first time I've felt like maybe I landed somewhere I don't wanna leave."

Lux smiles, small and real. "Then let yourself enjoy it."

Ace throws the spare clean, rips both pins, turns with a little double-finger point he stole from a baseball game he saw once. "Still got it."

Peter stands to key their names into the screen—PETER, ACE, LUX—and hands the stylus to Lux. "What's your team name?"

She adds PLASMA CUTIES with a flourish.

Ace squints. "That supposed to be threatening?"

"Adorable is a kind of threat," Lux says primly, and takes her turn. The ball toddles down the lane like a puppy, clips three and a half pins, and she's delighted anyway. She jogs back, cheeks pink. "My form is terrible."

"Your joy is S-tier," Peter says.

They fall into a rhythm. Frames slide by—strikes, spares, gutter balls, Lux's celebratory squeak when she finally clears a split. Between rolls they talk about nothing on purpose: the absolute robbery of the basketball game's rim, the moral implications of the skee-ball jackpot light ("It knows," Peter insists), whether the motorcycle racer counts as cardio. Ace and Peter argue about which racing line was cleaner on the drift game until Lux, referee hat on, declares them both insufferable and buys a round of sodas to shut them up.

Somewhere in the middle of frame seven, the noise of the arcade blurs into a warm blanket. Ace watches Peter line up again, the easy set of his shoulders. Lux lines up her next shot, tongue peeking out in focus.

"You two ever gonna let me carry some of it?" Lux asks quietly, eyes still on the pins.

Peter glances over. "Some of what?"

"The weight," she says. "You always make it lighter for everyone else. I'd like to... pay that forward. Or back. Whatever direction it goes."

Ace leans on the ball return. "Helping us doesn't have to look like swinging at the biggest monster in the room."

"I know," Lux says. She rolls; it's not pretty, but it's honest. "I can be useful without dying about it."

Peter's face softens. "Lux... I'm not keeping score. You owe us nothing."

"Then let me do it because I want to," she says, and smiles at both of them like she means it.

Peter nods once, something in him unclenching. "Deal. But if you ever pick the pastel car in the racer, we're done."

"Pastel is fastest," she says gravely.

"Science," Ace echoes, deadpan.

They finish the game with a flurry—Peter closes with a turkey, Ace steals a spare he had no business saving, Lux bowls the most chaotic nine you've ever seen and bows like a champion anyway. The final score flashes; nobody cares. They collapse on the couch, breathless and happy.

Ace tips his head back, staring up at the ceiling's swirl of lights. "Yeah," he says, half to them, half to the air. "I think I finally settled. New crew. New home. Not running."

Peter bumps his shoulder. "You say that like you're not gonna drag us to the racing rigs again."

"Oh we're going," Ace says, standing. "But we're going together."

Lux scoops up the photo strips, careful with the one where Peter's face is the entire frame. "We should frame this."

"Evidence of our crimes?" Peter asks.

"Proof of life," she says.

They look at each other—three people who shouldn't have collided, who did anyway—and then drift back out into the arcade glow, ready to waste more tickets on nothing that somehow means everything.

...

The bookstore breathes cool air and paper—rows of new spines in tidy grids, endcaps dressed with staff-pick signs written in a looping hand. Fluorescents hum softly above; the carpet mutes their steps. Past a "Fiction / Romance" display and a "Historia Mundial" wall, the three women naturally drift apart: curiosity pulling each by the wrist.

Artoria moves like someone returning to a familiar battlefield that's no longer hostile—chin up, eyes scanning, hands behind her back by habit. The smell of ink and glue stirs something that isn't quite memory, more like an echo of quiet places she rarely allowed herself. Books meant counsel, once. Then they meant nothing, when she stopped needing counsel and only needed power. She hates that thought and lets it pass.

Sarah Fortune skims along the romance aisle with the ease of an old regular pretending she isn't. Her fingers trail the glossy covers—sunsets, pirates, city lights reflected in rain. She laughs under her breath at a title with entirely too many adjectives, but the laugh is fond. When was the last time I read anything for me? Every page she's touched for years had a purpose—maps, reports, lists of the dead. She plucks a paperback about a shipwrecked heiress and a bartender with a past and tucks it under her arm without looking at the price.

Kayle walks the stacks like she's stepping onto foreign soil. She pauses at section headers, murmuring the words to understand them: "Natural Sciences," "Philosophy," "Politics." The order calms her. Order always did. Her hand finds a hardcover on governance—city planning, restorative justice, case studies from a world not hers—and she hugs it close, as if instruction might soak through cloth and skin into bone. If everything is new, then learn. If you can't fight, then study. The habit formed under siege has nowhere to go; it paces inside her.

Artoria's steps slow. On a mid-shelf, not highlighted, not hidden, a plain-spined book watches her. Gold letters: The Life of King Arthur. Not her name, precisely, but close enough to prick.

She doesn't reach right away. She thinks about a sword in a stone and the terrible simplicity of "if I can, I must." About trading warmth for worth, person for symbol. About the long, grinding carousel of wars called holy that were anything but. About the day she said yes to the man who promised escape and gave her annihilation with a pretty label. I would have died smaller. I might have died better.

She takes the book.

"Hey." Sarah's voice is gentle because she means it, not because she thinks Artoria is fragile. "You okay?"

Artoria turns, the startle brief and contained. "Yes. Forgive me—I drifted." She shows the cover without comment.

Sarah tilts her head, smiling at the irony. "Of course you'd find the knight books."

"It found me," Artoria says, and then—because she is trying, truly—adds, "I was King Arthur. Or rather, a version. Female. The story wandered far from any one truth."

A soft step behind. Kayle's voice: "Truly?" She doesn't sound skeptical so much as careful.

"Truly," Artoria says. "I led. I won and failed. I made a wish at the end of the world and paid for it." She watches both faces, willing herself not to flinch at judgment. "This is... a summary, I imagine. But I'd like to see how this world remembers that me."

Sarah glances at Kayle, then back. "Can we sit with you?" She lifts the romance paperback a little. "I can trade you a chapter of pirates and long looks."

Kayle draws closer, book clutched. You saved me, she thinks at Artoria, unspoken. And you destroyed others before that. Which do I weigh? Aloud she says, "I would hear it. The before. If you'll share it."

Artoria nods once. Relief is too large a word for the small easing in her shoulders, but it lives in the same city.

They find a round table near the back, under a "Lectura Silenciosa" sign. The chairs are light and a bit wobbly; the quiet here has a different flavor than the rest of the mall, a little island. Artoria sets the book down and rests her fingertips on the cover as if it might try to run.

Sarah sets her romance beside it, then flips it over, grinning at herself. "Later." She props her chin on her hand. "Storytime."

Kayle lays her governance tome carefully, pages aligned. Her wings—no longer flared for war, not yet folded for sleep—hold still at an angle that means listening.

Artoria opens The Life of King Arthur. The paper is cream, the font a bit too large. The first chapter sketches a childhood—no names that belong to her directly, but archetypes she knows: hidden identity, humble table, sword no one else can move.

She reads a paragraph aloud, voice low. " 'There was a sword in the stone and many hands bled, but his did not. The blade came free for him because the blade knew the cost and chose the one who would pay it.' "

She stops, thumb marking the place. "This part they always keep. The miracle, the ease. They polish it so it gleams and hides the rust. It never felt easy. It felt like stepping off the roof and hoping the ground would learn to forgive me."

Sarah's mouth tips, sad and proud all at once. "You were a kid."

"A child with a country," Artoria says. "Some children get smaller burdens and still break. I took the larger one and called it 'virtue' to keep from screaming." She turns a page. Her tone is steady, but her eyes soften at a line about knights swearing oaths around a round table. "This part I liked. Not the glory—the symmetry. A circle says 'we share it.' I wanted that to be true more than I wanted victory."

Kayle feels the word oath like a bell in her chest. "And when it wasn't?"

"Then I pushed harder," Artoria says. "When it cracked, I blamed myself for not holding. When it shattered, I blamed myself for building it wrong. Eventually I blamed virtue for making me brittle." She doesn't look up, but her voice thins. "And then I blamed the world and I stopped being breakable at all."

Sarah doesn't reach for her yet. She asks, softly, "Do you want us to ask questions or just... be here?"

"Both," Artoria says. "I could talk to myself all day and it would not make me braver."

Kayle tests her own reluctance, then leans in. "Why this book? Why now?"

"Because choice lives in small things," Artoria says. "I can choose to stare at an old wound alone. Or I can choose to let you watch me look at it, and in doing so accept that I am not that wound." She smiles, faint and wry. "And because if I stand in front of a shelf long enough, irony will tackle me anyway."

Sarah huffs a quiet laugh. "It does that."

Artoria reads again, skipping forward—battles condensed to names and dates, a love drawn as duty, a betrayal sketched in two paragraphs that feel like a door slammed from the outside. She closes the book over her hand.

"This is the part I always wanted to edit," she says. "To write softness back in. To refuse to trade personhood for crown. I didn't. I bartered myself away a piece at a time until there wasn't enough left to protest."

Kayle studies her, weighing sincerity against her own memory of burning cities. She is trying. The thought is a surprise and then not. "And after? When you became what you became?"

Artoria's eyes flick, not to the book but to the blank middle distance where her worst years live. "I won't open that room today." She meets Kayle's gaze, doesn't look away. "But I can say this: I mistook escape for absolution. It was neither. It made me powerful and hateful and very small."

Sarah puts her palm down on the table, open. An invitation, not a demand. "You don't have to outpace your past in front of us. Sitting beside it is work too."

Artoria hesitates a heartbeat, then sets her hand in Sarah's. The contact is light—no theatrics, just a fact of skin and warmth. Something old and armored in her winces and then exhales.

Kayle watches their hands, the simplicity of it. She could crush me. She doesn't. She could lie. She isn't. She hears Adriel's voice in memory, steady when he told her redemption wasn't a trick you pulled once but a meal you cooked every day. Trust his judgment, she reminds herself. Or at least stop punishing his hope. Her fingers touch the edge of the Arthur book and find it not hot.

Sarah tips her head toward the romance paperback like she's confessing a crime. "Sometimes I read these because they promise a happy ending and then keep their word. It's... nice. To see people fumble and still choose each other." She nudges Artoria's shoulder lightly with her own. "You're allowed to want nice. Even if it feels ridiculous."

"It does," Artoria admits, a breath of a laugh shaking free. "Ridiculous and... desirable." She looks between them. "I do not expect forgiveness from the world. But I would like friendship in it."

"You've already got it," Sarah says, no theatrics there either. "From me."

Kayle sits with the tug-of-war inside her, then lets one side win without sabers or speeches. "I will try," she says. It's not small, the way she says it. It lands like a decision. "I don't know how to stop measuring. But I can start weighing differently."

Artoria's thank you is simple and sincere. She closes the book fully and taps it once. "This version of my story ends before the worst of me. Maybe that's mercy. Maybe it's laziness. Either way, I can use it as a beginning instead of a mirror."

Sarah relaxes back in her chair, relief warming her grin. "Then we celebrate good beginnings." She slides her romance across. "And I corrupt you with fluff later."

Kayle lifts her governance book slightly. "And I will bore you with city budgets."

"I have survived more dreadful ordeals," Artoria says, perfectly straight-faced, and that gets a real laugh from all three—a light, unguarded sound that feels illicit in a world that has punished joy.

For a while they just... browse together. Sarah darts off and returns with two more paperbacks she pretends are for a friend. Kayle discovers a shelf of atlases and loses five quiet minutes tracing coastlines of places she's never flown. Artoria finds a slim volume of poetry and reads a page that describes rain as forgiveness and decides not to roll her eyes.

They reconvene at the round table to compare potential purchases like conspirators: Sarah brandishes her stack ("Don't judge me"), Kayle outlines a chapter she plans to start tonight ("It proposes participatory councils with rotating stewardship"), and Artoria admits she's keeping the Arthur book ("I would like to annotate the margins with disagreements").

As they stand, Sarah squeezes Artoria's hand once more—quick, grounding. "Thanks for letting us in."

"Thank you for asking to be let in," Artoria replies.

Kayle gathers her books to her chest. The weight is pleasant. "We should do this again," she says, and surprises herself by meaning it.

They head toward the register, the hush of the stacks giving way to the distant arcade noise and food-court chatter bleeding in from the mall. At the threshold, Sarah glances back at the tables and the sign that says "Lectura Silenciosa" and thinks: we didn't keep silent, and maybe that's why it worked.

Artoria slips the Arthur book under her arm like a reclaimed banner. Kayle's jaw is set in that particular way of hers that means a decision has been made. Three women exit into the brighter light of the concourse a little lighter than they entered, carrying paper bags and a shared, small thing that isn't quite forgiveness yet, but grows in the same field.

...

The bowling lane smelled like polished wood and popcorn butter, the kind of place that tried to be everything at once—arcade lights flashing behind them, music thumping overhead, the occasional burst of someone losing their mind at a claw machine, and the constant low rumble of bowling balls rolling down lanes like distant thunder.

Lux had been bouncing on her toes between frames—too bright, too alive, too determined to win—until she suddenly paused mid-trash talk and raised a hand.

"Okay—uh, time out," she announced, shifting her weight like it was urgent. "Bathroom. Before it's my turn. Don't you dare cheat while I'm gone."

Ace's mouth opened automatically. "We don't cheat—"

Peter cut in without even looking at him. "We absolutely cheat."

Lux narrowed her eyes at him like she was preparing a spell. "Peter."

He lifted both hands in surrender, all innocence. "What? I'm just being honest."

"Mmhm." Lux pointed at the console. "Pause it."

Peter did. The screen blinked, obedient. The employees had already made it clear—Guardians don't follow time limits. They'd practically offered them the lane as a shrine.

Lux shot them one last suspicious look, then hurried off, ponytail swishing as she slipped into the crowd and disappeared down the hallway toward the restrooms.

The moment she was far enough away that her footsteps blended into everything else, Ace's entire posture changed.

His grin faded. His shoulders loosened like he'd been holding tension in place just to match Lux's vibe.

Peter didn't miss it.

Ace watched Lux's path for another second—until it was just people again—and then exhaled through his nose like he'd been biting his tongue for an hour.

"...Peter."

Peter didn't answer right away. He just stared down the lane, eyes drifting to the pins like they had something to confess.

Ace's brow twitched. "Don't do that. Don't go statue-mode."

Peter's jaw tightened.

Ace stepped closer, voice lower, sharper. "Please tell me you noticed. Because it's—" He stopped, searched for words that didn't sound insane even to them. "It's not right. She's not right."

Peter's throat bobbed with a swallow.

Ace kept going anyway, like he couldn't afford to let the silence win. "Lux is... she's acting like she's got two sets of memories crammed into one skull. Like she's—"

"Like she's got echoes," Peter murmured, finally. His voice came out quieter than he meant it to. "Yeah."

Ace's eyes flashed. "So you did see it."

Peter's fingers flexed unconsciously around the bowling ball return, knuckles whitening for half a second before he forced himself to let go.

"I saw it before we even came in here," Peter admitted. "The clinginess. The—" He stopped. The word devotion hovered at the edge of his mouth like a knife. He didn't pick it up. "The shifts."

Ace huffed. "Good. Because I'm not crazy."

"You're definitely crazy," Peter said, but it was automatic—no bite behind it.

Ace didn't laugh.

And that, more than anything, made Peter feel the weight of it.

Because Ace joked about everything. Ace could be on fire and he'd still find a way to make it everyone else's fault. If Ace wasn't joking, it meant the problem had teeth.

Ace crossed his arms, gaze fixed somewhere above the lane like he was trying not to stare at the floor and think too hard. "She's got the memories of two different Luxes."

Peter went still again.

And in the space between heartbeats, the Star Guardian universe tried to crawl up the back of his throat like acid.

Lux's laugh in neon light.

Lux's eyes when she looked at him like he was the only safe thing in existence.

The way he'd used that. Twisted it. Turned warmth into a leash.

Peter's stomach clenched.

Ace caught the shift immediately. He stepped right into Peter's space and snapped his fingers inches from Peter's face.

Snap.

Snap.

"Hey." Ace's voice cut through like a slap. "You with me?"

Peter blinked, like he was surfacing from deep water. His eyes refocused.

Ace's face was hard now—annoyed, yes, but there was something under it that he didn't say out loud.

Concern.

"Yeah," Peter rasped. Then forced it smoother. "Yeah. I'm here."

Ace held his stare for another second, like he was checking Peter's pupils for possession symptoms out of habit.

Then, quieter: "So what's the move?"

Peter leaned back against the ball return, eyes drifting again—this time not to the pins, but to the hallway where Lux had vanished.

He spoke carefully. "If our guess is right... it's like—" He hesitated, trying to frame it without making it sound like melodrama. "Two souls migrating one body. Same person, different branch. Different timeline."

Ace rolled his eyes. "Yeah. I got that part. What I'm asking is... what are you gonna do about it?"

Peter's mouth opened, then closed.

Because the truth was ugly.

Because the truth was guilt-shaped.

"I don't know yet," Peter said at last. "I'm trying to figure out who's... driving right now. If it's one of them most of the time, or if it's like—" He made a small, frustrated motion with his hand. "Like they fused into one consciousness. Either way, she's carrying memories that don't belong here."

Ace's expression tightened. "And those memories are... you."

Peter flinched like he'd been slapped with the word.

Ace didn't soften it. He wasn't being cruel. He was being accurate.

Peter's eyes lowered. "Yeah."

The arcade noise behind them kept happening like nothing was wrong. Someone cheered at a jackpot. Someone groaned at a gutter ball. A kid ran past with a bucket of tickets like it was treasure.

Peter hated how normal it all sounded.

Ace kept his voice down. "So. Again. What's the move?"

Peter inhaled slowly, held it, then let it out through his nose.

"At least right now?" he said. "Nothing."

Ace's face twitched. "Nothing?"

"Not nothing forever," Peter corrected quickly. "Just— not now. Not here. Not while we're—" He glanced around, meaning the whole mall. The whole fragile peace. The way Lux's eyes had been bright all day like she was trying to convince herself she deserved the brightness. "If I bring it up right now, it'll trigger her. It'll make things awkward. It'll make her spiral, or freeze, or—"

Ace's jaw worked. "Or both."

Peter nodded once, grim. "Yeah. I'd rather deal with it after this hangout. When we're not surrounded by Sarah and Kayle and Artoria and a hundred people who don't understand any of this."

Ace's shoulders dropped a fraction, like he hated the answer but couldn't argue with it.

He stared down the lane again, voice rougher. "I'm sick of the past biting us in the ass."

Peter's lips pressed thin. "Me too."

Ace's eyes flicked to Peter. "And we still don't even know what the hell Kwaku Anansi is doing to League's cosmology."

Peter's expression darkened at the name. "Nope."

Ace shook his head like he was trying to fling the thought off his shoulders. "So you'll talk to her later."

Peter nodded. "I'll talk to her later."

Ace held up a finger. "Like, actually talk. Not your brooding 'I'll fix it later' talk. Real talk."

Peter snorted under his breath. "Yeah. Real talk."

Ace squinted at him, then—because Ace couldn't help himself—gave him an early, exaggerated wince.

"Good luck with that," Ace muttered.

Peter's mouth curled despite himself. "Oh, so now you wanna be supportive."

Ace made a face. "Supportive? I'm giving you prayers, bro. That's support."

Peter scoffed. "You're a pussy. You're not even gonna be there for moral support."

Ace's eyes widened in pure offended audacity. "Me? A pussy?"

"Yes," Peter said instantly, deadpan. "You. The pirate who ran from a conversation."

Ace jabbed a thumb toward Peter's chest. "This is your mess."

Peter's mouth opened to argue, and Ace cut him off before the word could form.

"I already did cleanup after you got possessed," Ace snapped, voice low but sharp. "I already fought your body while some ancient trash was wearing you like a hoodie. I already almost sacrificed myself getting you out of that control. I'm—" He stopped, then said it like a verdict: "I'm overdue a vacation."

Peter stared at him.

And the fight drained out of him in one second, replaced by something heavier.

Because Ace was right.

Because Ace had done more than he ever should've had to do—for Peter.

Peter's voice softened. "Yeah."

Ace's eyes narrowed, suspicious. "That's it? No joke?"

Peter nodded once, real. "You're right."

Ace blinked, caught off guard by Peter's sincerity like it was a foreign language.

Peter added quietly, "I owe you."

Ace's throat bobbed. He looked away immediately, like emotions were embarrassing. "Yeah. You do."

Peter's mouth twitched. "I'll buy you a snack."

Ace snapped his gaze back. "Don't cheapen it."

Peter grinned faintly. "I'll buy you two snacks."

Ace pointed at him like that was acceptable. "Better."

Before Peter could add something else, movement caught both of their attention at once—Lux reappearing at the end of the hallway.

She didn't walk back like someone returning from a quiet moment.

She walked back like nothing had ever been wrong in her life.

Bouncy steps. Bright eyes. A grin that practically glowed. She waved one hand overhead like she was announcing her comeback to the world.

"I'm back!" Lux declared. "And I'm ready to continue kicking your asses!"

The shift was immediate.

Ace's face flipped back into its usual cocky ease like a mask snapping into place.

Peter's shoulders loosened. His expression softened. The conversation disappeared into a locked drawer in his mind.

Ace snorted. "That's adorable."

Lux stopped short, offended. "Excuse me?"

Peter leaned into the moment with practiced ease, lifting a brow. "She thinks she's gonna win."

Lux pouted, cheeks puffing in exaggerated irritation. "You guys are cheats."

Ace spread his arms wide. "Skill issue."

Lux glared at him like she was seconds away from summoning a cosmic laser.

Peter shrugged, way too casual. "It's not our fault the universe loves us."

Lux clicked her tongue, turning away like she was done dignifying them with a response—but the corners of her mouth were fighting a smile.

She was having fun.

She was happy.

And that should've been enough.

But Peter's gaze lingered on her a fraction too long, watching the way she moved, the way her smile hit and held like it had something to prove.

In the back of his mind, the earlier conversation still pulsed like an ache.

Two Luxes.

Two sets of memories.

A mask that might not be a mask at all—maybe just a fragile bridge built over a pit she couldn't admit existed.

Lux picked up a bowling ball with a dramatic flourish, grinning over her shoulder. "Alright. Watch and learn."

Ace laughed. "Oh, we're watching."

Peter's mouth curved.

But his thoughts didn't.

Because even while Lux lined up her shot—bright and confident and fearless—Peter couldn't shake the quiet, gnawing worry that what he was seeing wasn't just joy.

That it might be performance.

That somewhere inside her, an entirely different version of Lux remembered a different version of him.

And Peter—Peter didn't know if she was smiling because she was happy...

...or because she was trying not to fall apart.

...

An hour slipped by like nothing—like time had decided it wanted to be gentle for once.

When Peter, Ace, and Lux finally wandered out of Dave & Buster's, the first thing they saw was three figures planted outside the entrance like they'd been posted there by destiny itself.

Kayle stood with her arms folded, posture straight, expression unreadable in that perfectly judgmental way she did so naturally.

Artoria was beside her, calm and quiet, hands loosely clasped, looking more patient than either of them deserved.

And Sarah Fortune—Sarah was leaning against the wall like she'd been waiting for a trial to begin.

The second she spotted them, she pushed off the wall and threw her arms out like an actress taking center stage.

"Ah," Sarah announced, voice dripping with mock betrayal. "Look who decided to return from the war."

Lux blinked, instantly defensive. "We were literally just playing bowling—"

"Bowling," Sarah repeated, like the word personally offended her. "For an hour."

Ace frowned. "It wasn't an hour."

Sarah pointed at him with the confidence of someone who absolutely had no proof but didn't need it. "Twenty minutes."

Peter squinted. "You just said an hour."

Sarah didn't even hesitate. "Both. Time works differently when you're abandoned."

Lux's mouth opened, then closed. She glanced at Kayle like please help me, but Kayle's expression didn't change at all.

Artoria, at least, looked mildly amused. Not smiling, exactly—just... softer around the eyes.

Ace, of course, took the bait immediately. "You were not abandoned."

Sarah put a hand to her chest. "I was left to perish."

Peter leaned toward Lux and stage-whispered, "She's so dramatic."

Sarah snapped her head toward him. "I heard that."

Peter lifted his hands innocently. "That's because you have pirate ears."

Ace immediately bristled. "Don't drag pirates into this."

Sarah wagged a finger. "Too late."

Kayle finally spoke, tone flat as stone. "Are you done?"

Sarah's shoulders dropped like she'd been told recess was cancelled. "Yes, mom."

Kayle didn't dignify that with a response.

Artoria shifted her weight slightly. "It is already getting late."

That was the real signal. Not Sarah's theatrics—Artoria's calm practicality, and Kayle's quiet "we should wrap this up" energy.

So the group did exactly that.

They started walking again, weaving through the mall with bags tucked under arms, the afterglow of laughing and noise and bright lights trailing behind them. The pace was slower now. Less frantic fun, more that gentle tiredness that came when you realized you'd had a good day and didn't want to admit it was ending.

They headed toward the main exit, and the closer they got, the more it started to feel like a goodbye.

Sarah stretched her arms overhead. "Alright, I'm calling it. My feet are trying to divorce me."

Lux giggled. "We can keep looking around."

Kayle nodded once. "There's still area around the mall we haven't seen."

Sarah glanced at Lux and smirked. "Oh yeah. We."

Lux rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.

The split happened naturally.

Kayle, Sarah, and Lux peeled off one way—still curious, still wandering, still wanting to explore the outside area like tourists in their own survival story.

Peter, Ace, and Artoria stayed together—three Guardians moving like they'd done it a thousand times. Same rhythm. Same formation without even thinking about it.

Sarah walked backward for a step, pointing at Peter. "Don't disappear again."

Peter pointed back. "Don't get kidnapped."

Sarah gasped. "Excuse you, I've never been kidnapped."

Ace muttered, "That's not true."

Sarah spun her head toward him. "It was strategic relocation."

Lux laughed, and Kayle shook her head like she was fighting a smile and losing.

They traded a few last words, a few last jokes, and then the groups separated.

Peter, Ace, and Artoria headed out—afternoon sun spilling across the open space beyond the mall, warm against their faces. It was late enough that lunch felt like a distant memory and early enough that dinner could still be an event.

Ace patted his stomach like he'd been starving for days. "We need food."

Peter stared at him. "We literally just ate."

Ace looked offended. "And?"

Artoria, quietly, almost mumbled, "Dinner does sound nice."

Peter's eyes slid toward her. "Of course it does."

Artoria's cheeks tinted faintly, and she looked away like she hadn't said anything.

Ace grinned like he'd caught an ally. "See? Saber agrees."

Peter sighed dramatically, like this was a burden he'd been forced to carry. "Applebee's?"

Ace's eyes lit up. "Applebee's."

Artoria blinked. "What is an... Applebee's?"

Peter opened his mouth—

—and then stopped, because they weren't alone anymore.

Ahead, near the flow of people moving between stores, Peter spotted a familiar trio.

Adriel.

Qiyana.

And Lillia.

They noticed each other at the same time.

It was subtle at first—Adriel's gaze flicking over, Qiyana's posture shifting, Lillia's ears twitching slightly as she turned her head—but then it snapped into certainty, and both groups started walking toward each other like magnets.

Ace's brows lifted. "Well, look at that."

Peter's expression softened automatically. "They're here."

Artoria straightened, polite by instinct, even if she didn't need to be.

When they reached each other, the greeting was casual—too casual, considering what they all were, and what they'd all survived.

Adriel gave them a tired, familiar look. "You three been shopping around?"

Ace answered immediately, because of course he did. "Shopping, arcade, bookstore, food court—now we're here to eat dinner because some of us are starving."

Peter pointed at Ace with a deadpan look. "Some of us are a bottomless pit."

Ace scoffed. "I burn calories."

Adriel's mouth twitched like he almost smiled. "We were about to do the same."

Qiyana crossed her arms with a smug little grin, looking pleased with herself just for existing near Adriel. "We're getting dinner."

Lillia looked between them, still carrying that soft amazement she'd had all day. Like she couldn't quite believe she was walking around a mall, of all things, with people who felt like legends.

Adriel tilted his head toward the restaurant side. "Come with us."

Ace didn't even pretend to think. "Yeah."

Artoria nodded immediately. "If it is not inconvenient."

Qiyana waved a hand like she owned the mall—and technically, she probably did. "It's not inconvenient."

So just like that, it was six.

Six people walking toward Applebee's like they were normal.

Like there wasn't a war waiting at the edge of everything.

They stepped inside, and the atmosphere changed instantly.

Not because of magic—because of recognition.

Heads turned. Workers straightened. A hostess blinked, visibly swallowing whatever panic or excitement was trying to climb up her throat.

Adriel and Qiyana walked in together and the staff reacted like royalty had entered the room.

Someone whispered "King" like it was a prayer.

Someone else said "Queen" like it was obvious.

Qiyana loved it.

She leaned closer to Adriel, eyes glittering with teasing satisfaction, like: See? They get it.

Adriel exhaled through his nose, already resigned. He didn't correct anyone. He didn't even look surprised anymore. Just... mildly irritated, in that way he got when the world insisted on putting him on a pedestal he never asked for.

Ace and Peter clocked it immediately and, like the menaces they were, started to grin.

Peter opened his mouth—

Adriel didn't even look at him. "Don't."

Ace tried anyway. "So, Your Majesty—"

Adriel's head turned slowly, eyes narrowing. "Shut the fuck up before I beat your ass."

Ace's grin vanished so fast it was impressive. "Yes, sir."

Peter's shoulders bounced like he was trying not to laugh. "Bro—"

Adriel pointed at him without looking. "You too."

Peter pressed his lips together and nodded solemnly, like he'd been disciplined by the universe itself.

Lillia couldn't help it. A small giggle escaped her, soft and bright.

Qiyana looked pleased with herself for causing chaos by proximity alone.

They were seated quickly—way quicker than normal. A table cleared like it had been waiting for them the whole time. Menus placed in front of them with the kind of careful respect people used when they were terrified of messing up.

They settled in—Ace immediately sprawling like he owned the chair, Peter sliding into his seat with casual ease, Artoria sitting straight like the chair was part of a throne room, Lillia hovering between polite and overwhelmed, Qiyana relaxed and smug, Adriel quiet in that way he got when there were too many voices around him.

They looked through the menu, pointing out different things, comparing options, making mild suggestions.

Ace, predictably, was already planning to order like he hadn't eaten in weeks.

Artoria tried to be subtle about scanning the menu for the most food-dense options.

Peter noticed instantly.

He always noticed.

"Artoria," Peter murmured, not even trying to hide the amusement. "You're doing the thing."

Artoria blinked. "What thing?"

"The 'I'm not a glutton' thing."

Artoria's face heated. "I am not—"

Ace leaned forward like this was the funniest thing he'd heard all day. "Oh my god, she is."

Artoria looked between them, mortified. "I simply... appreciate meals."

Peter leaned back smugly. "That's what Ace says."

Ace pointed at Peter. "Because it's true."

Adriel's gaze flicked toward them for half a second—annoyed, but not angry. Just that tired "please don't start" look.

And then Artoria, rather than arguing, gave them both a light, precise thunk on the head with her knuckles.

Not enough to hurt.

Enough to shut them up.

Peter immediately went, "Ow."

Ace rubbed his head like he'd been struck by fate itself. "Violence."

Artoria's eyes narrowed. "Peace."

They actually listened.

For now.

Once the menu settling calmed down, Artoria glanced at Qiyana, curiosity sliding in where embarrassment had been.

"How did you decide to build this place?" Artoria asked. "This... mall. It resembles Adriel's homeland."

Ace snorted quietly, like the answer was obvious. Peter and Ace exchanged a look with each other and with Artoria—an entire silent conversation of we know.

Qiyana didn't bother pretending. She leaned back, chin lifted slightly. "Because he talked about it."

Peter's brow lifted. "And you built it."

Qiyana's grin sharpened. "Yes."

Ace muttered, "She really is insane."

Qiyana ignored him. "He mentioned something called Plaza Las Américas. He described it like it was... important. Familiar. So I asked to see it."

Artoria's eyes flicked to Adriel.

Adriel didn't deny it. He just stared at his menu like it had personally betrayed him.

Qiyana continued, enjoying every second. "He gave me permission. With limitations."

"Twenty-first century only," Peter said automatically, because of course he understood the boundaries.

Qiyana nodded. "Twenty-first century only."

Ace glanced at Adriel with mock horror. "You let her in your library?"

Adriel's eyes lifted, flat. "I didn't 'let' her. She would've found a way."

Qiyana's smile turned innocent. "I asked."

Adriel's expression said you call that asking? but he didn't argue it.

Lillia listened quietly, fascinated. The idea of a library full of knowledge from a different homeland was still too surreal.

Adriel stayed mostly silent while everyone else talked, not because he didn't care—because groups were like that. Voices layered. Conversations overlapped. It was easy to get filtered out, and Adriel had the habit of letting it happen.

Lillia noticed.

She leaned slightly toward him. "Are you okay?"

Adriel's gaze shifted to her, quick and gentle. "I'm fine," he said, casual. "Really. Don't worry."

Before Lillia could respond, a waitress appeared like she'd been summoned.

Big smile. Not forced—more nervous than anything.

"Hi! What can I get you all to drink today?"

They ordered drinks—each of them picking something that fit them. The waitress scribbled quickly, nodded, and vanished toward the kitchen at a pace that suggested she'd been instructed not to make royalty wait.

The table kept moving in conversation as if the interruption hadn't happened.

And then Qiyana—because Qiyana never let peace last too long—leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand.

"So," she said, eyes bright with interest. "Tell me about the war."

The table went... weird.

Not silent exactly.

Just—still.

Peter and Ace exchanged a look.

Artoria's gaze lowered for half a second.

Adriel blinked slowly like he was deciding whether to pretend he didn't hear her.

Lillia's expression softened into something cautious, like she could already feel the weight behind that question.

Qiyana wasn't deterred by the awkwardness. "I want the details."

"The details are... a lot," Ace said carefully.

Peter tried to soften it. "It's complicated."

Qiyana's brows lifted. "Try."

Peter glanced at Adriel for backup.

Adriel shrugged—honest and helpless at the same time. "Don't overload her brain," he said, like that was the only advice he could give. "Just dumb it down. It's... a mindfuck."

Qiyana's grin widened like she took that as a challenge.

Before anyone could decide where to even start, the drinks returned—delivered fast, placed neatly, the waitress acting like she'd rehearsed the movements.

"Ready to order food?" she asked.

That at least gave them a distraction.

They ordered—each choosing what sounded good.

Ace ordered more than necessary, as expected.

Peter saw it and immediately pounced. "Bro."

Ace didn't even look ashamed. "What?"

"That's not an order," Peter said. "You want this place to run out of food because you couldn't contain your fatass?"

Artoria tried to look composed while ordering, but the moment Ace did that, she quietly added a little extra for herself too—subtle, like she thought no one noticed.

Peter's eyes slid to her and he smiled slowly.

Artoria stiffened. "Do not."

Peter didn't even have to speak. His face said I see you.

Artoria leaned in slightly, voice low and deadly polite. "If you keep your mouth running, I will make you regret it."

Peter held up his hands. "Okay. Okay. Threat received."

Ace laughed. "Damn."

The waitress took the orders and escaped again, clearly relieved to leave the table before she accidentally walked into cosmic nonsense.

Once she was gone, Peter slouched slightly in his chair, staring at his drink like it might contain the answer to Qiyana's question.

Ace leaned back too, gaze drifting. "Too much has happened."

"For them," Peter muttered, "it's been months."

Ace's face twisted like that word tasted wrong. "For us... it's never just months."

Qiyana blinked. "What do you mean?"

Ace's eyes unfocused for a second, like he was remembering too many worlds at once. "Sometimes we go into a dimension and it's... years."

Peter nodded slowly. "Decades."

Artoria's expression hardened subtly, like she didn't like talking about time the way Guardians experienced it.

Ace snorted. "I got stuck fighting Godzilla for fifty years."

Lillia's eyes widened. "Fifty...?"

Peter's mouth tightened. "I was stuck under AM's control for almost eighty."

Qiyana's stare sharpened. "Eighty years?"

Adriel didn't react at first.

Then Ace—because Ace never knew when to stop—looked directly at Adriel.

"And Adriel was trapped in that death prison for nine hundred quintillion years."

The table broke.

Not with shouting. With sheer disbelief.

Qiyana's hand froze halfway to her drink. "Nine hundred... what?"

Lillia's breath caught, like her chest physically couldn't fit that number inside it.

Adriel's expression tightened like someone had pressed a bruise. He didn't like this conversation. Not because it was secret—because it was his worst memory made verbal.

Qiyana stared at him like she was trying to decide if he was joking. "How did you even escape something like that? I've only heard bits and pieces of this story."

Adriel exhaled, tired. "I don't even know," he said honestly. "I got extremely lucky."

Ace leaned forward, because he couldn't help himself. "He punched a dimensional wall an infinite amount of times."

Adriel shot him a look that said shut the fuck up, but he didn't deny it.

Lillia whispered, "Infinite...?"

Adriel's jaw worked. "It was... a Mahlo cardinal," he said, voice quieter. "I stopped counting. I stopped... thinking. I just kept going."

Qiyana's eyes flicked across his face, reading the scars that weren't visible.

"And the thing in there," Ace added, "was the embodiment of the end of everything."

That made Qiyana's spine straighten like she'd been splashed with cold water.

Adriel didn't look proud about it. If anything, he looked annoyed that the memory existed.

"That guy," Adriel muttered, "had so many bullshit abilities I couldn't even fight him straight."

Qiyana frowned. "Who?"

Adriel's eyes darkened. "Yogiri Takatou."

Lillia and Qiyana looked at each other—obviously having no context.

Adriel continued anyway, like ripping the bandage off. "I didn't beat him in a normal way. I avoided him as long as I could. When I finally escaped, I destroyed the entire dimension."

Qiyana's mouth opened. "You destroyed—"

"The entire dimension," Peter repeated softly.

Adriel's hand tightened around his cup. "My armor is infused with Narralith," he said, as if that explained surviving something that should've erased him. "If it wasn't... I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have lived through the explosion."

Qiyana looked almost sick at the thought. "And that's how you killed him?"

Adriel nodded once. "That's how."

Lillia's expression crumpled into sadness. Not pity—something more tender. The kind of sadness you felt when you realized someone had been in pain longer than you could comprehend.

Artoria went quiet, gaze lowering.

And when Lillia's eyes drifted toward Artoria—curious, concerned—Adriel moved immediately.

Not harshly. Just... smoothly.

He spoke over it, redirected, pulled the conversation away before it could land on Artoria's past like a knife.

Lillia caught it.

And, gentle as she was, she let it go.

She shifted the subject, and Artoria's shoulders loosened with silent gratitude.

They talked like that—carefully, awkwardly, laughing where they could, stepping around landmines where they had to—until the food arrived.

Plates hit the table in waves. Warm, fragrant, heavy with comfort.

Ace and Artoria lit up like they'd found religion.

Peter ate like someone who was pretending he wasn't starving.

Lillia ate like someone grateful to eat anything that wasn't survival rations.

Qiyana ate with the smug satisfaction of a queen watching her kingdom thrive.

Adriel ate everything, quietly, without complaint—because that was how he'd been raised, and because wasting food made something old and bitter twist in his chest.

He didn't say why.

He didn't mention hurricanes, or scarcity, or the way Puerto Rico had once looked when a storm tore through it and everyone had to ration hope like it was a resource.

He just ate.

At one point, Adriel side-glanced Qiyana and murmured, low enough that it wasn't meant for the whole table, "Thanks."

Qiyana leaned in, eyes glittering. "For what?"

"For making me relive nostalgic moments," Adriel admitted, like the words tasted strange but true.

Qiyana's smile softened. "I did it for you."

Then, like she couldn't help herself, she added bluntly—too bluntly—"Because I love you."

Adriel nearly committed a full crime with his drink.

He took a bite at the exact wrong time and almost choked, eyes widening, cough catching in his throat.

Peter froze mid-chew.

Ace's shoulders shook with barely contained laughter.

Artoria blinked once, then looked away like she was politely pretending she didn't witness the most obvious thing in the universe.

Lillia covered her mouth, trying not to laugh and failing anyway.

Qiyana looked pleased with herself, like she'd landed a hit in a sparring match.

Adriel wiped his mouth, cheeks faintly heated, glaring at Qiyana like she'd tried to kill him socially.

"Pipe down," he muttered, voice tight.

Qiyana only grinned wider. "No."

The table laughed, and it was the kind of laughter that didn't feel forced.

It felt earned.

They kept eating. Kept talking. Kept teasing.

Ace and Artoria went back for more like it was a competitive sport.

Peter kept poking at Ace until Artoria gave him a look sharp enough to cut glass.

Adriel stayed quieter than the others, but not withdrawn—just... listening, watching, absorbing the sound of people being alive.

And then, without even realizing it, Adriel smiled.

A real smile.

Not the controlled, practiced one he wore when he needed to reassure people.

A genuine one—small, tired, warm.

Because nostalgia and friends and food did something that power never could.

It gave him peace.

Even if only for a moment.

And while the table buzzed with conversation, while Qiyana leaned closer to him like she belonged there, while Lillia's eyes stayed bright with wonder, Adriel let himself sit in that fragile quiet truth:

This wouldn't last forever.

Soon, he and the other Guardians would have to go back to work.

Back to the war.

Back to the violence and the mind-breaking insanity of it all.

But right now—right now, with plates half-empty and laughter in the air—he could breathe.

And a part of him, a part he'd forgotten existed, wished selfishly that this moment could stretch just a little longer.

...

An hour later...

The moment dinner ended, the group naturally fractured the way they always did.

It wasn't tense. It wasn't awkward. It was just… logistics.

The Guardians—Peter, Ace, and Artoria—drifted together like gravity pulled them into the same orbit. Qiyana and Lillia peeled away in their own direction, each with their own plans, their own lingering energy from the evening. The mall still buzzed outside, and Ixtal still felt strangely alive in a way it hadn't earned yet.

Adriel walked with them for a few steps—quiet, eyes forward—until he judged the distance.

When the two girls were far enough that even a raised voice wouldn't carry, Adriel snapped his fingers.

Reality blinked.

Peter's stomach lurched for a fraction of a second—teleportation always did that—and then the world reassembled around them.

They weren't in the mall anymore.

They weren't even on a normal floor of the castle.

They stood on the tallest level of the Ixtal castle, the air cooler, the silence heavier. The room felt… deliberately made. A meeting space reserved for them—simple but clean, a round table in the center, chairs arranged like this wasn't a gathering of friends but something official.

Something Guardian.

Peter's gaze flicked around automatically, instincts running diagnostics.

Ace rolled his shoulders once, like shaking off a shift in pressure.

Artoria's posture straightened, regal even when she didn't mean to be.

"What's this about?" Peter asked first, because that was always Peter. Straight to the point when the vibe shifted.

Ace didn't say anything, but his expression did. A frown that asked the same question.

Artoria took the first seat anyway—quietly decisive—and the others followed her lead, settling into their chairs around the circular table.

Adriel didn't appear with them.

He came a few seconds later.

And the second he stepped through whatever invisible line separated hallway from room, the mood changed.

He looked tired.

Not the kind of tired that came from a long day, or even a long war.

The kind of tired that came from thinking about something you can't solve, something that sat behind the eyes like an itch that wouldn't go away.

He entered, closed the distance to the table, and flopped into the chair like his bones had finally remembered gravity existed. He popped his neck once to the side—sharp, habitual—then exhaled.

Artoria's brows pinched faintly, confusion mixing with concern.

They'd been laughing in Applebee's minutes ago. Adriel himself had suggested they take a break.

So why did it feel like he'd dragged them into a war room?

"Adriel…" Artoria began, gentle but direct. "We were just—"

"I know," Adriel cut in quickly, not harsh, just… urgent. Like he needed her to understand this wasn't him taking their peace away for no reason. "And I meant it. You deserve rest."

He leaned back, head tilting toward the ceiling for half a second like he was bargaining with the universe for patience.

"But I need to say something," he added. "Just… real quick. Before you all go back to whatever you wanted to do for the night."

Peter exchanged a look with Ace.

Ace looked back like: Here we go.

Artoria's eyes stayed on Adriel, steady and attentive.

Adriel leaned forward slightly, elbows nearing the table, gaze sweeping across the three of them—slow, focused, like he wanted them to feel what he meant.

And then he started with the last thing any of them expected.

"Thank you."

Peter blinked. Ace blinked. Artoria's eyes widened just a fraction.

Peter leaned forward, confused despite himself. "For what?"

Adriel gave a short, humorless laugh—more breath than sound.

"For staying," he said. "For helping me get through this. For… not letting me do it alone."

Peter's confusion shifted into something quieter. He didn't speak yet. He just listened.

Adriel's eyes stayed on them. "This whole war—" he paused and shook his head once, like the word didn't even cover it. "This whole season… you all carried me through parts of it, whether you realize it or not."

He laughed again, this time with a trace of sarcasm aimed at himself.

"I still remember how this used to go," Adriel said, voice dry. "Back in season one. Wars ended in a handful of chapters. Everything was chaos, sure, but it was… quick."

His gaze sharpened.

"This one took an entire season. And now we're right at the edge of ending it, and all I can feel is…" He paused, searching for the exact shape of the dread. "…like this is just the beginning of something worse."

Peter's expression tightened. He couldn't argue.

He let out a slow breath through his nose. "Yeah," he admitted quietly. "That tracks."

Adriel's eyes flicked to him.

Peter's voice stayed low, grounded. "After Infinity War—after losing everything—things didn't get better. They just… escalated. Every time we think we're closing a chapter, the next one starts with something uglier."

Ace's jaw worked. He didn't like hearing it said out loud.

But he didn't deny it either.

Peter continued, and his eyes darkened slightly. "And Anansi…" He didn't say the name like a villain. He said it like a disease. "He's messing with League's cosmology in ways we still don't fully understand."

That line hung in the air like smoke.

Then Ace did what Ace always did when frustration built up: he threw his attention straight at the fourth wall.

He looked up, not at Adriel, not at Peter, not at Artoria—at the narrator.

His voice carried the edge of accusation. "So what, you can't poke around? You can't get us anything from the Darks' side?"

The room seemed to hold its breath.

And then the narrator—this story's voice—answered.

Not with drama.

With blunt truth.

I can't.

I'm allowed to shift perspective between characters… but Darks and Guardians can break those rules. They can lock the door from the inside.

Especially with Anansi involved.

There was a pause that felt like the narrator itself was annoyed.

I can count on one hand how many times I've gotten a real glimpse of the Darks this season. It isn't enough. Not even close.

Artoria exhaled, slow and heavy. "Figures."

Her eyes lowered for a moment, voice quieter. "Even when I was a Dark… I was lost."

Ace turned toward her instantly.

Artoria's hands rested on the table, fingers still. "I was given tasks. Orders. A direction. But when I asked why—when I asked what the endgame was—there was nothing. No answers. Just… do it."

She swallowed, expression hardening. "I was left in the dark completely. Just rampaging across Runeterra alongside the others."

Ace's brows furrowed deeper. His frustration had nowhere to go now, so it turned inward and sharpened. "Then what's the point of Passive Knowledge?" he snapped. "What's the point of any of this if we're still blind?"

He threw his hands out slightly, palms up, disgusted. "It's bullshit."

Adriel didn't disagree.

He nodded once, expression flat with exhausted honesty. "It is bullshit."

Then he rubbed his face briefly, like the pressure behind his eyes had started again.

"And I'll be real with you," Adriel continued. "I've been doing this so long… I've come close to dying so many times I stopped counting."

He paused.

"Hell," he added, voice quieter. "I have died."

Peter didn't look surprised.

Ace didn't either.

Artoria's gaze stayed down for a second longer than usual.

Adriel leaned back, chair creaking softly. "Every fight with a Dark is an exercise in utter nonsense. And now—this last boss?" His lip curled faintly. "Anansi's being so secretive we can't even plan."

He tapped the table once with his knuckles, a sharp little sound.

"We can't counter. We can't prep contingencies. We can't even guess the shape of the hit that's coming."

Ace clenched his jaw.

Peter's fingers tightened slightly on the edge of the table.

Adriel's expression shifted—subtle but clear.

"Except," he said, voice lowering, "I did find something."

All three of them leaned in without realizing it.

Adriel's eyes hardened. "Piltover."

Peter's stomach tightened.

Adriel continued. "That dome around it? I hacked it."

Ace frowned. "And?"

"And inside that dome…" Adriel exhaled. "…it's a separate dimension."

Peter's head lifted sharply.

Adriel's gaze flicked to him. "Arcane."

Peter stared. "The show?"

Adriel nodded once. "Season two. The Netflix Arcane show—condensed into that space."

Ace's mouth opened slightly. Artoria's eyes widened.

Adriel leaned forward again, forearms near the table. "A year ago, when I tried to stop the fusion between two dimensions, Anansi concentrated Arcane into Piltover. The other dimension that clashed with it?" His gaze drifted, troubled. "It didn't stay contained. It expanded into the rest of the universe."

Peter's voice came out sharper. "So it's two universes mashed into one."

"Exactly," Adriel said. "And whatever he's doing inside Piltover…" He shook his head. "It's a ball of pure confusion."

The room went still.

Then Adriel added the part that made Peter's chair scrape slightly as he stood.

"And it's not stopping there."

Peter's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

Adriel looked up at him. "I mean the cosmology is branching."

Peter's voice rose without him meaning it to. "Branching into what?"

Adriel's tone stayed controlled, but the worry underneath it was obvious. "Other verses."

Peter froze.

Artoria's breath caught.

Ace's expression shifted from irritation to something more serious—something closer to alarm.

"What," Peter said slowly, like the word was physically heavy, "do you mean other verses are getting connected to this one?"

Adriel sat back and rolled his shoulders once, as if preparing to explain something that shouldn't exist.

"I accessed the League cosmology directly," Adriel said. "Through hacking."

Ace grimaced. "Of course you did."

Adriel ignored him, eyes staying on Peter. "Anansi built this universe using a model—von Neumann."

Peter's face tightened with recognition.

Adriel glanced at Ace and Artoria. "I'll dumb it down."

He spoke clearly, simplifying without being condescending. "A von Neumann universe is basically a hierarchy built on sets. Layers on layers on layers. It's a structured way to represent infinity and complexity. Think… an organized ladder of reality."

Artoria listened, even if she didn't fully care about the math. She cared about the implications.

Adriel continued. "But Anansi didn't stop at von Neumann."

Peter's expression turned grim.

"He created a hierarchy," Adriel said, voice tightening, "that goes far beyond it. And it keeps going. Infinitely up."

Ace leaned forward now, eyes narrowed. "Meaning?"

"Meaning it reaches multiversal structures," Adriel said. "Then keeps scaling. Then keeps scaling again. It's passing thresholds that science and math and philosophy can't even comfortably describe anymore."

Peter's skin crawled.

Adriel's gaze was sharp now, focused. "And when you push a cosmology past the conceptual frameworks that were meant to contain it…" He tapped the table again. "…it leaks."

Artoria's throat went dry. "Leaks where?"

Adriel's eyes darkened. "Outward."

Peter and Artoria stared at him, realization building like a wave.

Adriel's voice was quiet, deadly serious. "It's connecting to other video game verses. Like a web. Like a spider—"

Ace's face twisted. "Oh my god."

Peter's eyes widened in pure horror. "He's trying to make a composite."

Adriel nodded once.

Artoria's hands tightened on the table.

Adriel continued. "A composite setting. A composite cosmology. Every video game verse linked into one network."

Peter's mind raced, and then it hit—

Not like a thought.

Like a scream.

Peter went still. His voice came out low, strangled. "The internet."

Adriel's eyes snapped to his.

They stared at each other.

And in that shared silence, the horror became obvious to both of them at the exact same time.

If Anansi kept doing this…

If he kept feeding verses into one another…

If he kept pushing the cosmology past containment…

"He's going to crash it," Peter whispered.

Adriel's face went pale with anger and dread. "Yeah."

Ace looked between them, confused and already panicking. "Crash what?"

Peter didn't look away from Adriel. "The servers."

Adriel swallowed hard, then turned to Ace and Artoria—finally translating the nightmare into something they could fully grasp.

"If he overloads the internet infrastructure," Adriel said tightly, "we die."

Ace's face drained of color.

Artoria's eyes widened so sharply she nearly tipped backward in her chair.

"We die," Adriel repeated, voice harsh with reality. "And everyone in the video game omniverse dies with us."

Artoria's breath shook. "He's not just breaking rules…"

"He's erasing fiction," Peter said, voice colder than usual. "Erasing a whole chunk of it."

Ace's hands curled into fists, shaking. "That's—" he swallowed, furious. "That's unacceptable."

Artoria's expression twisted into something wounded, like the idea itself was sacrilege. "Stories people love," she murmured. "Worlds people built their lives around…"

Peter nodded slightly. "Games are stories. Escape. Connection. Work. Meaning."

Adriel's eyes sharpened, conviction crystallizing through exhaustion. "And they're trying to delete it."

The table went quiet again.

Not because no one had anything to say—

Because what they were about to do next was obvious.

There was no negotiating with this.

No stalling.

No "maybe it won't happen."

Adriel straightened in his chair, looking at all three of them, voice firm now.

"One more day," he said.

Ace's jaw tightened. Artoria's gaze hardened. Peter's shoulders squared.

"One more day to breathe," Adriel repeated. "Then we go back to war."

He looked each of them in the eye.

"We end this."

Peter nodded first. "We end it."

Ace's voice was rough. "Yeah."

Artoria's voice was quiet but absolute. "No matter what."

Adriel nodded once, like the words locked into place.

And then the meeting dissolved.

They stood. Chairs scraped softly. The three Guardians filed out—Peter first, Ace close behind, Artoria last, calm but steely.

They left Adriel alone.

When the door shut, the silence returned like a weight.

Adriel didn't move for a second.

Then he leaned forward, elbows on the table, and covered his face with his hands.

He exhaled—long, strained, like he was trying to breathe out a lifetime of exhaustion.

"Why can nothing ever be easy?" he muttered to himself.

He sat there like that for a moment longer—frustration, fatigue, responsibility all tangled up in one human shape.

Then his hands dropped.

His gaze lifted.

Tired, yes.

But burning with resolve.

One more day to rest.

And then back to war.

To Be Continued...