"We are architects of the future." Lein-Da finished gazing up at the Anarchy Energy barrier that held the water back, then turning to Elijah, her pupil. "And we will make it better—together for Demon Island's sake." She adjusted the bandages around his ribs—tight enough to hurt, loose enough to breathe. "Remember—patience in training, brutality in battle, you still do wish to embarrass your father, do you not?"
"Of course," Elijah growled, flexing freshly stitched claws against the grip of Lein-Da's modified spear, "Father already likely knows that I hate him, yet he assumes that I will want to simply kill him and take his place on the throne. Which is exactly why I will *not*." The ragged edges of his bandages fluttered as he spun the weapon in an arc that split the salt-thick air—a movement too precise for rage, too vicious for discipline.
Lein-Da than pushed further, "Then what will you do Elijah, what exactly will you do?"
Elijah smirked at that, "I will destroy everything he has built, I will leave him alive long enough to see me not take control and simply secure his legacy in a different way than what he wanted, but to bend the knee and surrender the crown to Acorn bloodline to someone else," he said, his voice dripping with venomous satisfaction.
Lein-Da stared at him for a long moment before barking out a laugh—sharp, approving. "You've been paying attention," she noted, tossing him a fresh roll of bandages. The medical tape landed in his palm with a smack. "But remember: humiliation only stings if the victim lives long enough to *feel* it." Elijah's answering grin was all teeth, his reflection warped in the blood-smeared surface of her gauntlet as she adjusted the straps. Outside, the Anarchy Barrier shuddered under the weight of the encroaching tide, casting flickering shadows that made their scars look freshly opened.
Lein-Da then got a notification; it was from Lord Loch, the current overseer of the Overlord Beryl itself—she read it carefully before crumpling it—her ears twitching in irritation. "The timing of this is either fortunate or disastrous," she mused, handing Elijah a second spear—this one tipped with dull violet energy that hummed like a dying star. "Lord Loch requires me to attempt to 'intervene' with his son again."
Ah, it must be O'Nux again, Elijah always despised him—his knuckles still ached from the last time the echidna fought him. He had pinned Elijah effortlessly—not even bothering to restrain him—and lectured him about the sanctity of life with the same gentle firmness one would use to scold a child for stealing sweets. The memory made Elijah's claws dig into the spear's grip hard enough to splinter the metal. Lein-Da smirked at his reaction, tossing him a fresh roll of bandages with a knowing flick of her wrist. "Careful. Break your weapon before the fight, and you'll be fighting with your teeth."
They soon may their way to the Altar of Beryl—what was once a shimmering oasis now stood half-submerged in murky seawater, its domed roof cracked like an eggshell under centuries of pressure. The seven Anarchy Beryl pillars tilted at drunken angles, their bases eroded by tides that had long since breached the outermost stone perimeter. O'Nux stood knee-deep in the flooded basin, his massive (for his age) frame silhouetted against the broken remains of the palm trees—now just skeletal trunks jutting from brackish water.
He didn't turn as they approached, his Irish lilt carrying over the slosh of contaminated water swirling around his calves. "Took ya long enough," O'Nux remarked, cracking his knuckles with a sound like splitting timber. The outermost basin—once a crystalline moat—now held only foaming brine and the skeletal remains of palm trees, their trunks petrified into jagged spears pointing accusingly at the crumbling dome above. Elijah's boots sank into gravel that had once formed meticulous meditation paths, now reduced to shifting sediment beneath the altar's diseased waterline.
Lein-Da kicked aside a floating chunk of masonry that might've been part of the seven pillars centuries ago. "Your father sends his regards," she said, tossing the crumpled message into the water where ink bled like oil. O'Nux finally turned, his shadow stretching across the defiled altar steps—steps that had once been polished smooth by barefoot pilgrims. His expression held the weary patience of someone who'd spent too long watching sacred things decay. "Aye, and I'm sure they're as sincere as this water is clean," he sighed, nudging a dead fish with his toe. The carcass bobbed against the submerged carvings of echidna warriors that now served as nothing more than algae-covered footrests.
Elijah's spear tip grazed one of the remaining Anarchy Beryl columns, sending violet sparks skittering across water that had once been pure enough to reflect the stars. "Spare us the lectures," he sneered, watching O'Nux's massive shoulders tense at the desecration. The pacifist exhaled through his nose—a sound like wind through ruined stone arches—before bending to lift a broken section of the dome's roof. He set the debris gently atop a half-submerged plinth that might've once held offerings. "Violence won't restore what's lost, lad," O'Nux said, wiping salt crust from his fingers.
"Only make more ruins."
Lein-Da's laugh echoed off the fractured columns as she stepped into the central basin, her boots disturbing water that had turned the color of infected wounds. "Then it's fortunate," she purred, tapping her gauntlet against the altar's central recess—now empty of its Beryl, filled instead with stagnant rainwater and the bones of seabirds, "that we're here to 'intervene' on your father Lord Loch's behalf—before Lady Ciara finishes gutting your clan's remaining strongholds."
The skeletal remains of palm trees swayed in the brackish wind like hanged men, their shadows spiderwebbing across the ruined altar's flooded steps where O'Nux stood ankle-deep in the carcasses of fish that had once shimmered silver in pristine waters. The seven Anarchy Beryl pillars—now listing at grotesque angles—bore deep claw marks where desperate hands had tried and failed to pry loose the last fragments of their power before the tides came.
Elijah circled him, spear humming with energy that made the brackish water steam where its tip grazed the surface. "Ruins are honest," he spat, kicking aside a fragment of carved stone that might've depicted saints or warriors—now just another piece of debris. "They don't pretend to be anything but broken." O'Nux flexed his hands—calloused knuckles capable of pulverizing steel—but kept them open, loose. His exhale carried the scent of salt and decaying kelp.
"Aye," he rumbled, watching Lein-Da scale a crumbling pillar with predator's grace, "but puttin' more cracks in what's already shattered? That's not honesty, lad. That's what my dad does." His accent thickened with disgust—not just at Elijah's spear, but at the rust-colored stains blooming through his own bandages where overexertion had reopened old wounds. The water rippled as he shifted stance, revealing submerged carvings of echidna warriors now reduced to footrests for crabs.
Elijah was only seeing red now, how dare this bastard badmouth Lord Loch. How dare he compare him to that despot of a father—he was nothing like him. He was better. He was stronger.
He would prove it.
Lein-Da saw the storm in Elijah's eyes before he moved, her own grip tightening on her spear as the young chipmunk lunged forward. O'Nux barely had time to sigh before Elijah's spear grazed his cheek—not deep enough to scar, but enough to draw a thin line of red. The pacifist didn't flinch. He didn't retaliate. He just stood there, letting the blood trickle down his cheek like rainwater on stone, his expression unreadable beneath the shattered altar's flickering shadows.
"You're wasting your hate on me, chipmunk," O'Nux said, voice low and thick with something Elijah refused to recognize as pity. "Your father already lost. You don't have to keep proving you're not him."
Lein-Da's laughter cut through the tension like a blade. "Oh, but he *does*," she purred, twirling her spear with deliberate slowness. "Otherwise, what's the point of all that fire?" Elijah's throat burned with unscreamed words—rage, denial, something raw and ugly—but before he could spit them out, the entire island trembled. The water rippled violently, and for one blinding second, Elijah thought it was his own fury shaking the earth. Then he saw the cracks spreading across the ruined altar's base, heard the distant, monstrous groan of collapsing stone.
O'Nux's expression darkened as he turned toward the sound. "Ah shite," he muttered. "The prophecy shows herself again."
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Lady Ciara liked to believe she was the rightful queen of planet Mobius, she was the original leader of the Freedom Fighters after all—but at this point she was honestly just petty, she was convinced that she was the rightful queen and that was that. She didn't need a reason beyond that, she didn't need logic or justification—just her own belief from the prophecy by her trusted (as much as possible on Mobius, that is) Augur of Apollous.
The Synod Quartet was the only way she could gain true power, she already had sent away her two twin children, but how could she lure in *𝑯𝑰𝑴*?
She had been watching *𝑯𝑰𝑴* ever since *𝑯𝑬* and her twin children were born, and she was honestly impressed.
*𝑯𝑬* was so much more capable then the two disappointments she had the misfortune of calling her children were, look at him, already having plans to overthrow the self proclaimed, 'Bringer of The Great Peace (even though that was Jules the Hedgehog) and King of all of Mobius' that stopped her title as queen of her kingdom, oh she was so proud (and he was still so young)!
*𝑯𝑬* however, was a drastic improvement over *𝑯𝑰𝑺* father. That man was capable, sure, but they were entering the next age if Anarchic Titans, and 'capable' wasn't enough anymore.
*𝑯𝑬* should've been her child, not that harlot's. The thought coiled through Lady Ciara's mind as she traced the holographic reports with claw-tipped fingers.
Suddenly two of her guards, likely the ones assigned to her twin bastards came in—their helmets removed—and knelt before her. She knew the report before they spoke: another failure in their distant training, another humiliation in their pathetic attempts to escape her influence. The taller one—a jackal with cybernetic optics flickering from strain—dropped a datapad at her feet. "My Lady," he rasped, "your daughter has sabotaged the Sub Cannon again." Ciara didn't bother looking up from her wine. "And my son?" The second guard—a lynx missing half his tail—swallowed hard. "He tried to defect to the Overlanders. Again."
The throne room's obsidian floor reflected Ciara's sigh as she swirled her drink, watching the liquid ripple like poisoned honey. "Tell me," she mused to the trembling guards, "do they think weakness will earn them mercy?" Her claws scraped the crystal goblet—a sound like bones dragged across ice—before she tossed its contents onto the hologram of various sectors collapses. Red wine bled across *𝑯𝑰𝑺* pixelated gaze.
Behind her, the air crackled with displaced energy as the Augur of Apollous materialized—ancient robes whispering across shattered marble. "Ciara," the Augur murmured, his voice layered with centuries of prophecy, "The Synod Quartet can not come to pass if you keep undermining your own bloodline for your children's father's."
Ciara's claws tightened around her throne's armrests, fracturing the obsidian inlays as the Oracle's words settled like a blade between her ribs. "Undermining?" she echoed, her voice a velvet-wrapped scalpel. The guards stiffened as her tail flicked—once, twice—before she rose, her shadow stretching across the wine-smeared hologram of various collapsing and blooding scenes.
"Tell me, Augur," she purred, stepping over the discarded datapad with deliberate indifference, "do you know how hard it is to be a caring mother when your children fail at every challenge you set out for them?" Her claws traced the edge of her throne, leaving deep gouges in the obsidian—each groove a silent testament to wasted potential. The lynx guard flinched when her tail flicked again, her voice dropping to a velvet murmur. "But ... *𝑯𝑬*, he doesn't disappoint."
The hologram flickered, reforging into an image of *𝑯𝑰𝑴*—perhaps the prophecy could be changed by her having two children with *𝑯𝑰𝑴*?
Ciara's claws twitched toward the projection, her usual indifference toward her twins replaced by something sharper, hungrier. "So much vigor, at such a young age," she murmured, watching *𝑯𝑰𝑴* doing what he did best.
"Tell me Augur, how strictly must the prophecy be followed?" Ciara's voice dripped with poisoned honey as she circled the hologram, her claws carving grooves into the war table where *𝑯𝑰𝑺* image flickered—mid-sentence during some power move, no doubt.
The Augur of Apollous sighed, realizing the same look in her eye that she had for *𝑯𝑰𝑺* father—that same hunger, that same *covetousness*. "My Lady," he murmured, fingers brushing the ancient scrolls tucked in his frayed sleeves, "the prophecy requires *two* heirs of *your* bloodline, not theirs." Ciara's claws twitched, the hologram distorting as she stepped through it, the light refracting off her jeweled collar like liquid fire. "Then perhaps," she mused, voice softer than silk wrapped around a dagger, "*𝑯𝑬* should be provide me two more himself." The Augur stiffened—this was beyond heresy. This was rewriting fate with a smirk and a glass of wine.
Outside, the palace trembled as Sector 97's containment fields gave way—another casualty in her relentless reshaping of the world. Ciara didn't flinch, even as her throne room's obsidian walls groaned under the weight of radiation alarms. The lynx guard scrambled for his helmet; she let him choke on panic for three wheezing breaths before flicking a switch on her armrest. Emergency seals hissed shut, sparing him—barely. "You'll need functioning lungs," she remarked, watching him vomit into his visor, "to drag my daughter back from whatever hole she's hiding in." The jackal guard didn't move to help his comrade.
Smart boy.
That was so rare these days.
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Lord Wally (he never liked the name Ixis, it was so macabre sounding) Naugus was called upon by King Maxx Acorn when he was in the Zone of Noise, he preferred it there if he was being honest, he helped instigate events that led to the Great Peace itself, he wasn't exactly happy with how things ended—but he didn't really care—he needed to stay on Maxx Acorn's good side, less his save haven of the Zone of Noise was to be invaded and ruled by King Maxx Acorn directly.
It was such a lush a beautiful place after all, the Zone of Noise—where the wind didn't whisper secrets to fools and the trees didn't creak with the weight of history's ghosts. Naugus ran his lobster-like claw along the bark of a petrified oak, savoring the way its ancient grooves fit between his pincers like puzzle pieces. The summons from King Maxx had arrived a quarter hour ago—delivered by a fox messenger who'd held firm of himself at the sight of Naugus' rhino-horned shadow stretching across the Zone's crystalline shore.
Naugus had let the scroll burn in midair with a snap of his fingers, the ashes scattering into the ozone-scented breeze. He already knew what Maxx wanted—another "consultation" about those damnable Anarchy Beryl, as if their secrets hadn't already been bled dry across centuries of war. His tail lashed against the petrified oak, sending splinters drifting like forgotten prayers.
The fox messenger stood there (his name was Amadeus Prower, if he remembered correctly) with trembling hands (not out of fear—no, he had long since been drained of that—but out of sheer exhaustion), waiting for Naugus to acknowledge him. The wizard sighed, his tail twitching once—twice—before he turned away from the petrified oak, the weight of centuries pressing down on his hunched shoulders. "Tell Maxx I'm busy," he rumbled, his voice like gravel shifting beneath river water.
"Unless he's finally ready to discuss dismantling those damn Beryl reactors." Amadeus swallowed hard—his face becoming a scowl for a moment—as Naugus' tail twitched toward the jagged horizon where the portal to Mobius resigned. The fox messenger hesitated, his claws digging into his palm before murmuring, "My King requests... immediate assistance with a certain possible Anarchic Titan."
"The one of the Echidnas' Ancient Mosaic?" He asked emotionlessly, "The one that is believed to prophesize an Anarchic Titan battling a titanic walrus?"
"That one." Amadeus confirmed, nudging his broken goggles up his nose with a claw. Naugus exhaled—a sound like wind through a canyon—before flexing his lobster-claw, the tiny spike between its pincers glinting in the Zone's eerie light. He had spent centuries studying the Mosaic's fractured prophecies, buried beneath the rubble of Atlantinopolis long after the Brotherhood rose.
The idea that Maxx—brash, impatient Maxx—thought he could rush prophecy made Naugus' tail twitch like an agitated scorpion. He could still taste the ozone of their last argument, when the king had demanded he "hurry along" the Anarchy Beryl's decay like some common alchemist. As if the slow unraveling of reality could be *hastened*. Naugus flexed his lobster claw, watching thin cracks spiderweb across the petrified oak where his spike had grazed it. The Zone of Noise hummed in agreement beneath his feet—a vibration that resonated in his marrow like a warning.
Amadeus shifted awkwardly, the torn hem of his jacket fluttering in the nonexistent wind. Naugus studied him—really studied him—noting the way the fox's fingers kept drifting toward the cracked lens of his goggles.
A tell.
Just like his father's.
"Let's get going then, shall we?" Naugus muttered, his gruesome bat-like ears twitching at the distant rumble of Sector 71's being set ablaze. He strode past Amadeus, the fox's broken goggles reflecting the flickering emergency lights from Mobius—too fast for comfort. His lobster claw traced the crumbling portal frame, noting the way its ancient glyphs pulsed erratically, like a dying heartbeat. "Before Maxx blows another hole in the fabric of reality." Amadeus hurried after him, stumbling over the uneven terrain of petrified roots and discarded prophecy scrolls—some still smoldering from Naugus' earlier dismissals.
Naugus paused mid-step, his rhinoceros horn catching the dim light as he turned slightly. "And Amadeus," he added, voice softer than expected—almost paternal—"fix those damn goggles before you walk into another plasma storm." The fox blinked, adjusting them reflexively as Naugus' tail lashed once, sending a cloud of crystalline dust swirling. It wasn't kindness, not exactly—just pragmatism. Broken tools were useless, and right now, Mobius needed every functioning pair of eyes. Even if they belonged to the son of a man he'd once had to curse to wander the Zone of Noise until the Chosen One became reality.
The portal hummed to life with a sound like grinding bones, its edges fraying into unstable tendrils of energy. Naugus didn't hesitate—he stepped through, the transition feeling like being dipped in liquid static. On the other side, the air reeked of scorched metal and decaying Anarchy Beryl, a far cry from the Zone's ozone crispness. Amadeus stumbled out behind him, coughing violently as the portal snapped shut with a thunderclap that made the cracked marble floor tremble. Naugus flexed his lobster claw, the spike between its pincers catching the dim emergency lights of Maxx's crumbling throne room.
King Maxx Acorn lounged on his fractured obsidian throne, idly tossing a shard of glowing Beryl between his paws like a child with a stolen gem. His royal cape was torn at the hem, his once-polished armor streaked with ash—but his grin was the same razor-sharp thing that had carved kingdoms out of corpses. "Wally," he drawled, catching the Beryl midair, "took you long enough." Naugus' tail lashed once—a silent threat—before he inclined his head just enough to avoid outright disrespect.
"Your Majesty," he rumbled, voice dripping with the barest hint of irony. The jackal guards flanking the throne shifted uneasily; they knew what that tone meant—Naugus was already calculating collateral damage. King Maxx Acorn tossed the Beryl again, its sickly green glow reflecting off the cracks spiderwebbing his throne.
"Well then, let us begin, shall we?" Naugus murmured, flexing his lobster claw with deliberate calm. The spike between its pincers gleamed under the flickering emergency lights—a surgeon's scalpel rather than a weapon. He hadn't survived centuries by being reckless; power was a scalding sip of tea best taken slowly. Maxx tossed the Beryl again, higher this time, its sickly glow catching the cracks in his throne like veins. Naugus noted how the king's fingers trembled—ever so slightly—on the catch.
Good, his plan was already working then...
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Torii Pavlov looked at her father Lord Irving Pavlov of Spagonia with utter disinterest. He was rambling about his quest to make dogs salivate at the sound of a bell as part of his second cousin's Collin Kintobor's plan—something about dismantling organic instinct—while she traced the scar across her cheeck with a finger.
The scar *he* had given her during their last "scientific training session." Outside, the distant crackle of Sector 2008's increasing protests outside Pavlov Palace blended seamlessly with her father's monotonous droning—something about conditioning reflexes through starvation intervals.
Torii's fingers dug into the velvet armrest as she studied the chandelier's sway—each crystal prism refracting Spagonia's neon-lit decadence into fractured rainbows across the marble floor. A waiter slipped on spilt champagne near the banquet table, his tray of caviar-laced blini crashing beside some duke's diamond-encrusted boot.
Nobody noticed.
Typical.
Her father droned on about "salivatory conquests" while a countess snorted crushed emeralds off a collarbone-turned-trough beside them. Torii's fingers flexed—just once—against her throne's armrest, the sound lost beneath the orchestra's drowning waltz and another champagne cork's celebratory pop. "*My* methods," Lord Irving sniffed, adjusting his monocle with a gloved hand, "require precision, not brutality."
Across the ballroom, beneath the chandelier's fractured glow, a server collapsed mid-stride—skin already graying where the genetically-engineered caviar had seeped into his open wounds. Torii didn't blink. Instead, she just went full autopilot as she thought back to the historical records of her family.
Or more specifically about Gerrald Robotnik and Maaria Robotnik's lives before the Arc Incident—oh—she was fascinated with their stories—the way they died—the way they lost themselves to their own obsessions—until all that was left was Project Sparkle.
The Guardians of a United Nation, or G.U.N. had tried to cover things up, but she had connections in the form of Lord Abraham Tower—the military leader and the highest-ranking commander of the Guardians of a United Nation—and he had told her everything that the Commander fifty years had tried to erase—well—everything he *could* tell her at least.
Torii's gloved fingers twitched against the armrest—not at her father's droning, but at the memory of *his* blade grazing her cheekbone, the way the scar throbbed in sync with Spagonia's arrhythmic heartbeat. The banquet hall's cacophony faded into a dull roar as she caught her reflection in a passing servant's silver tray: magenta curls framing a face too sharp for her age, eyeshadow smudged like a bruise. *Patience*, she reminded herself, though the word tasted like bile. Across the room, Lord Tower's discreet nod from behind a champagne tower confirmed her suspicions—the files were ready.
She nearly laughed, she suspected he fancied her like he did Maaria Robotnik before she died—that fool Tower, really? Torii reached for a champagne flute from a passing tray, the bubbles fizzing against her glove like poisoned kisses. The scars on her palms itched beneath the fabric—reminders of every time she'd grabbed a blade bare-handed just to prove she could.
Across the ballroom, Tower's reflection in the champagne distorted as she tilted the glass, warping his stoic face into something grotesque. How quaint, that he thought himself immune to conditioning—as if Pavlov's daughter wouldn't recognize the salivating dog beneath the general's uniform.
Her father's lecture hit a crescendo—something about "how it was the time that Overlanders rose up against their inferior masters." She rolled her eyes, her father was a fool to believe that Mobians weren't superior.
They were better in so many ways—stronger, faster, built to endure the collapse Maxx's regime had wrought. Torii sipped her champagne, watching Tower's reflection distort further as she tilted the glass toward Sector 2008's riots flickering on holographic news feeds.
The irony wasn't lost on her at all...
The champagne flute shattered against the marble floor—a sound that barely registered above the orchestra's drowning waltz. Torii didn't flinch as shards skittered toward Lord Tower's polished boots, her gloved fingers already reaching for the next distraction: a dossier tucked beneath the tablecloth, its edges singed from Sector 2008's riots.
She peeled back the first page with a claw, the paper whispering secrets her father's experiments could never replicate. *Maaria Robotnik's final notes.* The ink bled where the previous Commander had tried to scrub it away, but Torii traced the faded glyphs with her thumb—each stroke a confession. *"My Grandfather's Project Sparkle was never about healing,"* Maaria had scrawled, *"it was about making what couldn't be fully controlled: an Anarchic Titan."*
Across the hall, Tower's gaze lingered too long—his pupils dilated like a dog hearing the bell. Torii smirked, snapping the dossier shut. "Father," she purred, tilting her head just enough to catch the chandelier's fractured light, "tell me again about *conditioned responses.*" Her voice was syrup over a blade, smooth enough to make Lord Irving pause mid-lecture. His monocle slipped. She let him fumble for it, savoring the way his gloves squeaked against the lens. The dossier's weight in her lap was a promise—one she'd cash in the moment Tower salivated on command.
Perhaps her father had a point on his ideas after all...
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Hope you all a happy holidays no matter what you celebrate!