‘At ease frogmen.’ Lili spoke in Alogostani. They sat back on various sofas and chairs in the lounge. ‘The next summoning will be in Diha Island, 0300 hours. We have lost all our inside agents in Duol Island. Thus it befalls you to install the spy video cams in the island and waters around it. Your mission is purely reconnaissance, not termination or arrest, unless I order differently. We’ll save that for the big one tomorrow.’

‘Diha Island is only a hundred meters from the Iladistani shoreline, but like all islands in and around the mouth of Sanag River, is part of Alogostan territory. Righteous Fire uses these unoccupied islands on the insistence of their patrons in the Iladistani government so they can disavow them in case their activities are discovered. There is no legal impediment for us to operate on Diha island.’

‘You are to place these monitoring devices on the shores of Diha Island.’ Lili pointed to a table full of black irregular objects that looked like rocks. It is approximately 2 hours to the summoning. Be careful, there are probably already sect members in the island.’

‘Everyone who has to go to the bathroom or drink up do so now. Let’s go.’

The commandos boarded the two vans; Lili, Elam, Tahum, Tukib, Pana their small car. All three vehicles immediately took off and split up. ‘They’re taking different routes to the river; we’re going back to Tandayag. Duro and the three Wings will rendezvous with us in the river; he’s agreed to come along just in case the sect manages to tear up the Tela once again.’

Lili looked at her tab com. ‘There’s good news. Aya has been resurrected. The energy from the two dozen darklings Pana and Bantay slew did it. She’s still in a coma though. It would take another infusion of Natural Darkling energy to wake her up, but that should not be a problem.’ Their small car reverberated with cheers and yehays.

They all began to talk about Aya, but Lili cut them off. ‘Don’t lose concentration just yet; we’re still on a dangerous mission.’ The car arrived at the Pier. ‘Here we are. Proceed to Tandayag, but walk normally; don’t attract attention. We’ll transfer to the Lumba-lumba in the river. Tukib will return the Tandayag to the Shield; it’s too slow and too visible for this operation.’

They boarded the Tandayag. Tukib immediately turned on the rear motor engine, and they took off into Sanag River. Elam saw an object shaped vaguely like a log, colored so dark that it was effectively invisible until they approached it. It was one of the Shield’s two life boats, the Lumba-lumba. It had no decks; a portion of the side wall opened down to form a boarding ramp. They clambered aboard, Tukib staying behind in the Tandayag. The fishing boat began to move toward the Shield, still docked near Duol lsland.

Professor Duro gave him a welcome hug. ‘Nice work, iho. I’m so happy to see you well Tahum, Pana.’ He ignored Lili.

Alwana was driving the lifeboat. Oisa and Bodhi stood near entrance. They smiled and waved at the newcomers, but maintained a professional silence.

‘Set course for Diha island Alwana,’ Lili ordered.

Everybody seemed to relax. Lili walked up to Prof. ‘Guru Duro we have to talk. I’ve discovered a reality paradox about you.’ Prof glared at her for a moment, then said ‘Go ahead.’

‘Elam has had the same memory as Oisa, in the Battle of the Broken Spear.’

Everyone tuned to Elam in surprise. Elam bowed his head guiltily at having been caught.

There were several seconds of pregnant silence. Then Prof said in a grave voice, ‘I see. When the time comes, everyone here will do what he or she has to do.’ He began to study the images from the island on the monitor. Everyone began talking in somber murmurs.

Lili stood alone in the middle of the cabin. Every one ignored her. She tentatively took a step toward the Professor. ‘Duro, please. Look at me.’

Prof did. ‘I am giving you command of this operation Lili. You can order any of the avatars and they’ll follow you as if I were the one ordering them. What more do you want?’

‘It’s not that which I want,’ Lili said.

Prof looked back at her with sadness in his face. To everyone’s surprise, he gave her a little smile. Then he turned back to studying the monitor screens.

Elam sidled up to Oisa who had gone off to the back of the boat. She looked extremely worried. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.’ Instead of reprimanding him, Oisa patted him on the cheek and gave him a reassuring smile.

‘What does it mean, our memory? Manong Duro is alive isn’t he? It must be false.’

‘It’s a reality paradox. In the quantum world, something similar happens all the time. Ever heard of the cat in the box experiment by Schrödinger, one of the greatest of pre Shift scientists?’

‘Huo, It’s vaguely familiar. Cat in the box. Radioactive substance with a one-hour half life. If an observer peeks in after an hour, he sees either a live cat or a dead cat. He has collapsed the probability wave of the cat. If he does not, the state of the cat remains in superposition, both alive and dead, neither alive nor dead ’

‘Right, that’s in the quantum world. Effects sometimes spill over to the macroworld. However, in the macroscopic world, the Tela abhors paradoxes. Sooner or later it merges them or discards one state, or turns them into ghosts.’

‘In our timeline, Father died in the Battle of the Spear, his head torn off by a Demon King; and all these,’ Oisa waved around ‘never happened. We are shades living in a ghost reality that will sooner or later get deleted in the Tela.’

‘There’s something wrong,’ Lili said, studying the pictures and videos on the monitor screens. ‘I can see several upper tier leaders, and Maro’s lieutenants; that’s Hugaw here and Higko there. I can’t see the second in command Maro, nor Guba himself. I wonder if that’s him, one of the masked members.’ Several people were wearing demon faced masks. ‘Anyway, we were kind of expecting this. It’s just a preliminary experiment to the big one tomorrow. Guba may not be here tonight but he will be there tomorrow.’

‘It’s starting,’ Prof said. On the screen, people had stopped milling about and had begun to line up in formation. After a minute Lili said, ‘That’s strange, they seem to be forming a giant pentagon, with one point open.’

In the center Hugaw and Higko, began pouring salt into the ground. ‘They’re creating a Bounded Pentagon,’ Prof explained. ‘They’ll summon darklings inside it. It might involve some kind of sacrifice.’ Prof turned toward Lili, and asked in a normal voice. ‘Have they used humans in the past, Lili?’

‘Huo, Guru.’

‘What! You and your men did not stop them?’

‘No Guru Duro. We were and are under strict orders not to interfere, until the big experiment occurs. Apart from that, it’s legal in a marriage under Unitemple auspices anywhere in Tera for a husband to beat and execute his wife if he suspects her of adultery. The sect has always brought up the proper charges against the girls they sacrifice, who are all legitimate brides, and so it’s all legal. You know well I killed my first husband because he was planning to eliminate loose ends, which were his assassin brides.’

‘What’s that?’ Tahum exclaimed. On the screen the masks were taken off a dozen or so figures. They were all young girls. A tall masked figure went to the center of the salt pentagon, drew a knife, and pointed to the girls.

Lili was rapidly typing into her tab com. On the screen, Hugaw was also looking at his tabcom and signaled Higko. Higko pushed one of the girls forward into the salt pentagon. To Elam’s shock, the tall masked figure instantly drove his knife into her chest.

‘Lili!’ Prof was shouting. ‘Stop it, call in your men.’

‘They’re too far off. I’m texting them now.’

The figure in the center began singing and dancing over the girl’s corpse. All the sect members began murmuring a chant.

Beside him, Bodhi quietly explained. ‘The intentional murder of a terrified sentient human being with her life still before her sends ripples across the Tela. In the virtual troughs, the Tela is thinner. They’re now summoning darklings through a thin point in a trough. When it breaks, the Tela’s tear flutters and that’s the darkquake. I can sense one beginning now. All avatars and Maestros can.’

Smog began to cloud the inside of the salt pentagon. The masked figure all but jumped out of it as gray figures rapidly coalesced into man-size demonic forms. More than a score of wingless darklings occurred, all crowded inside the small pentagon. They shrieked and lashed out trying to get free. The sides of the pentagon began to flash red.

‘The fools, they don’t know how to make a Bounded Pentagon!’ Prof raged. ’It’s weak, about to break.’ He turned to the Wings. ’Ready yourselves!’ He pushed on his tabcom. A portion of the roof of the lifeboat slid open. The salt pentagon broke.

The darklings spilled out of the pentagon. All the people nearby, including the kidnapped girls, ran for their lives. Elam noticed though that the people making up the huge human pentagon that encompassed the smaller salt one did not break ranks. The low ranked darklings though did not attack immediately. They stood looking around, confused.

‘Darkquake!’ Tahum and Pana shouted. Prof looked shocked. ‘It seems to be in Duol island. This one here is Magnitude 0.1 and has automatically just closed after the Wings slew the darklings. The new one is Magnitude 2.’

‘Two kilometers? The Shield is within that circle!’ Tahum exclaimed.

‘Back to Duol Island,’ Prof ordered. Tahum dropped herself on the pilot’s seat and started the engines. They took off for Duol Island and the Shield. Prof spoke into his tabcom. ‘What are you waiting for? You must have felt that quake.’

‘Father we can’t,’ Oisa’s voice came from the tabcom. They all looked at the screen. Bodhi and Alwana were straining against the side of the larger human pentagon that had encompassed the area were they had fought the darklings. They were getting to about a foot of the nearest person, and then kept on getting pushed back by an invisible force. Oisa, sprang up wings extended. It was though a giant hand swatted her down. She fell beside Bodhi and Alwana. Bodhi crouched and desperately launched herself against the human wall in front of her. She was flung back.

Elam noticed that the sect members had closed the pentagon. They had sat down but did not break the pentagon. [They could sit there all night.]

‘Lili, do something. Your men can break up that pentagon. They’re only people.’

‘I’ve ordered them to pull back to the main shore after they placed in the spy video cams. It will take a while for them to get back.’ She was rapidly typing into her tab com.

Sugo’s voice came over his tabcom. ‘Father we’re being attacked by darklings from Duol island. The presence of avatars here is attracting them. This is an anomalous quake. There are lots of them and there are lots of high ranked Dans among them. I have turned on the outrigger engines; they’ve generated the Shield of the Shield, a temporary defense. It’s on half power, so radio waves and your boat can enter, but even at full power, it won’t be able to stop a determined high ranked Dan. I expect they’ll be breaking though places here soon.

Prof slumped down on his seat in front of the screen. ‘We’ve fallen into a trap. We could lose the Shield. The big experiment is that one in Duol Island right now. It’s not tomorrow.’

‘How about Oisa, Bodhi, Alwana?’

‘Temporarily safe’. It was Lili who answered. ‘In order to reach them, the sect members will have to break their pentagon. They’ll fly out the moment that happens.’

‘What if they shoot them?’

‘You’ve seen how easily they swat off bullets with their doble espadas. And even an atom bomb won’t penetrate their wings. The moment my men reach the island, they’ll free them. I’ve ordered them to execute the cult members and save the remaining kidnapped girls. They’re on Alogostan territory, practicing forbidden Dark rituals punishable by death.’

‘Approaching portside. Lower the outrigger,’ Tahum ordered.

A section of the left outrigger hull bent and lowered itself. The Lumba-lumba floated and settled on top of it. Elam could hear a locking mechanism lock down the lifeboat onto the outrigger. Tahum pushed a button on the pilot’s console. Part of the back opened, revealing a tunnel down into the outrigger. They climbed down a small ladder.

Prof’s deluxe eletrain was waiting in the outrigger hull tunnel. They clambered on board. Prof typed ‘Tower’ and pushed the ‘rapid’ button. The eletrain started and zipped through the outrigger’s arm, into the ship, and up the Command Tower.

Captain Sugo and the Veteran avatars were waiting for them. Large computer monitor screens were set up everywhere. Every part of the ship could be seen. One screen showed the interior of the Dragon’s Roost below them. The two dragons, Blu and Yel were activated and had crouched, sensing the darklings. All around them were the modern era avatars. ‘They’ll be safe there. Darklings usually attack Dragons last.’ Tukib announced.

Lili typed some commands on her tab com and the feeds from the spy video cams in Diha island connected. A portion of the screens showed different parts of the island and the cult members, all of whom were still sitting in a pentagon-shaped formation surrounding the three Wings. The Wings were stalking restlessly around the inside of the pentagon, wings and doble espadas extended, like tigers waiting to pounce. The kidnapped girls had gone over to the shoreline and sat huddling and terrified in a clump.

Prof looked back at her with sadness in his face. To <everyone>’s surprise, he gave her a little smile. Then he turned back to studying the monitor screens.>

'Everyone' is working too hard in this passage. ;)

Some of those could be changed more easily than others... I'd recommend:

<The others began talking in somber murmurs.>

<Lili stood alone in the middle of the cabin. Nobody paid her any heed.>

Then the other instances won't be too much, I think.

Oh, and typo 'tuned' instead or 'turned' at the beginning.

It now reads

<Everyone turned to Elam in surprise. Elam bowed his head guiltily at having been caught.

There were several seconds of pregnant silence. Then Prof said in a grave voice, ‘I see. When the time comes, everyone here will do what he or she has to do.’ He began to study the images from the island on the monitor. The others began talking in somber murmurs.

Lili stood alone in the middle of the cabin. Nobody paid her any heed. She tentatively took a step toward the Professor. ‘Duro, please. Look at me.’

Prof did. ‘I am giving you command of this operation Lili. You can order any of the avatars and they’ll follow you as if I were the one ordering them. What more do you want?’

Elam hurried over to the side of the Tower, where he joined the Shield’s Majordomo and Engineer avatars peering over into the deck through the Tower’s transparent walls. With the Shield’s LED lights turned on, they could directly see a legion of dark forms landing on the bow’s top deck, on top of the roofs of restaurants and cafes, courts, gardens, walkways, shallow swimming pools, and the transparent ceiling of the ship’s main Hallway.

‘By the Tela, there must be hundreds of them! How did Righteous Fire manage to summon up so many?’ Tenloa, beside Elam, asked loudly, her shiny bluish indigo hair swishing as she shook her head in disbelief.

‘They must have sacrificed a lot of humans under our noses,’ Tukib conjectured. He was in front of a table computer watching its projected holographic monitor screens. ‘There are the usual wingless low Dan Pawns, but there seems to be an unusually large number of winged higher Dans.’

The darklings and the avatars could clearly sense each other. The darklings looked up and began hopping and crawling like supercharged lizards along the roofs of the structures on the bow, and up the Tower’s side.

Bantay pushed at the table computer. An opening into one of the eletrain transport tubes bridging from the Command Tower to the right corner bow tower opened. Pana was instantly rushing into it. She stopped around 20 meters distal to the tower. Inside the transparent transport tube bridge, she looked as if she were suspended in midair between the central Tower and the right corner tower, incongruously still clad in micro mini and tube top. She looked back and nodded. Bantay typed another command. Two sections of the floor on each side of the transport tube opened. Pana transformed into her armored archer form beneath her clothes and immediately began shooting arrows into the darklings that had reached the Tower and were climbing its side.

Elam gaped. [Unbelievable!]

Every time Pana shot, a darkling died. Darkling bodies fell like flakes of dead leaves. Pana was not going for super accurate head shots but for rapidity. She was shooting them through the chest more quickly and more efficiently than any human machine gunner could. She was prioritizing the darklings that had climbed the furthest up the Tower’s side.

After a minute of continuous shooting, hundreds of darkling bodies lay squirming or dissipating on the bow deck below. The action slowed. The survivors had taken cover among the standing structures on the ship’s bow, with an occasional one peeking out to look at them. Pana continued to shoot far more accurately than any sniper with a laser scope. Every time a darkling head showed up, a blue arrow pierced it.

All the darklings disappeared for a minute. They seemed to be holding some kind of consultation among themselves.

It happened quickly. More than a dozen winged forms sprang up simultaneously going straight for Pana.

Pana shot 4 Adepts down in rapid succession before ten landed on the transport tube on top of her. She could not shoot them because her windows opened down onto the deck, not up on the roof of the transport tube. A darkling Master smashed an opening through the tube’s roof, bent its head in and began to reach for her. She skewered its throat with an arrow that suddenly appeared in her left hand.

Another Master was simultaneously dropping itself into the tube from another hole. A dark blue metallic gauntlet suddenly appeared to cover Pana’s right hand, which she then jabbed straight into the darkling’s chest. Darkling iron-hard skin, spikes, and sternum crunched. Pana reached in, and pulled out its heart. It exploded into dust.

A Demon Prince on top of the tube barked an order. The other darklings began smashing more holes into the tube on either side of Pana. The plan obviously was for many of them to simultaneously reach for her through those holes. She was trapped and getting exposed.

A figure leaped out of the Tower Room and landed not inside but on top of the transport tube, dressed in a chef’s double breasted jacket weirdly underlain by a light blue armor. His knife repeatedly flashed yellow in the air hitting 4 darkling Adepts nearest the tower high on their backs. Their bodies fell. It was Chef Luto. The next one in line became aware of him and turned. It was a Lord. His next knife throw was easily swatted off by the darkling.

Meanwhile Pana had jumped out of the transport tube’s interior tunnel onto its smashed-up roof in between the three remaining darklings. All were Demon Princes. One of them was about was about to rush Luto. She shot it in the nape. The last remaining two happened to be located behind her on top of the tube. As she turned to face them, the nearest one viciously slashed at her face. Pana somersaulted backward while flicking her arrow backhand straight into its eye, killing it. She slipped as she landed on the tube’s convex surface, and fell straight toward the main force of the enemy waiting below, amidst a gray smog of dissolving darkling bodies. As she fell in midair, her arrow rematerialized on her bow and she shot the remaining Prince peering down at her on top of the transport tube through its heart.

A blue winged form shot out of the right bow tower and caught her just above the heads of two waiting darklings on the deck. It was Lupad. He flew up with Pana in his arms toward one of the eletrain entrances. Sugo punched on a control key on his table computer and the entrance opened. Lupad flew in and collapsed with Pana on the floor of the Command Tower.

It was so fast that Elam did not have time to feel any surprise. The darklings and the avatars had been inhumanly quick.

Below, more winged forms were crouching, preparing to take to the air. ‘Get back here, that tube bridge is compromised!’ Bantay yelled. In a second, Luto had scampered like a cat on a wire back inside the Command Tower Room.

There was a pause in the fighting. Instead of launching another aerial attack, the darklings seemed to have gone into another conference among themselves. Bantay, Pana, and Luto went over to a table computer and likewise conferred with each other. Lupad sat on a chair near them looking exhausted.

‘Not really,’ Boylo commented, ‘considering that Archer Gisaligans can reacquire moving targets in milliseconds, reload at the speed of sound, and shoot their arrows at nearly light speed. Pana’s aiming and shooting functions work under the same principle as the Shield’s outrigger engines, incremental reality shifts.’

Husay offered more information. ‘Pana’s arrow can penetrate the skull and bones of all lower darklings except those of Demon Princes, whom she must she hit in a soft spot. That should not be hard for her unless multiple Princes are attacking her simultaneously at close range. The Kings are more problematic because they have skins resistant to Pana’s arrow, and so she can kill them only by shooting an arrow into their eye and into the brain. She can consistently do that with Regents, the Low Demon Kings of Dans 51 to 70. The higher Dans of 71 to 90, the Monarchs, she can hit in the eye in battlefield conditions about half of the time, and all the time if they stay still. Only the High Demons above Dan 90 are safe from Pana since they have eyelids that are impenetrable to her arrow; and move so fast that she can’t hit them accurately in the eye at all, even if they open them.’

Elam could not help asking. ‘How about Pilot Lupad and Chef Luto; are they combat avatars?’

Koryen behind him answered, ‘Lupad is not a combat avatar. As you can see however, his wings sometimes proves useful in these situations. Bantay stationed him on the right bow tower. He was giving reports from that tower from his perspective. Bantay knows he’s relatively safe. If the darklings go after him he just flies into this Tower, or can even leave entirely and fly to shore.’

Henloa to his left added ‘Luto is a combat avatar, but he likes being a cook more. We Majordomos work closely with him in preparing all our meals. Like most Veteran combat avatars, he and Bantay can defeat Adepts and Masters in single combat, are about par with Lords, and even if at an inherent disadvantage can give Princes a good fight. They’re no match for Demon Kings.’

‘In the Great Dark War, Bantay was a basic infantryman, as were most of the combat avatars,’ Koryen further explained, approaching the Command Tower’s transparent wall near them to get a better view. ‘Mortality rate of avatar infantrymen was approximately 90%, but Bantay survived until the De-occurrence because he was the best of them. As for Luto, he was not really that effective in the field, because knife throws are usually slow enough so that darklings can catch his knife if they are forewarned.’

‘So where was Chef Luto in the Dark War?’

Tenloa to his right answered, ‘He was mostly on guard duty against darkling infiltrators. Darklings versed in sorcery can do the Deceptive Disguise spell, which could blunt a darkling’s innate ability to sense the presence of other darklings. Disguised darklings could often pass off as humans. Luto’s knife, if he wills it, has the property of penetrating the skin of darklings but not humans. So he simply chopped up suspected infiltrators, many of them in the kitchen trying to poison our food, and if they were darklings, they turned into minced meat.’

‘What we need are offensive weapons. I wish we had more Salig Commandos,’ Elam opined.

Limpyoha on Elam’s left gave a little laugh. ‘Gisaligans were designed for only one purpose, to slay darklings usually in high risk and suicide missions. Their mortality rate for the whole Dark War approached 100%. Pana may have been the only one to survive of her kind.’

Henloa added, ‘If I recall correctly, she was the smallest and most nimble of the Gisaligans and had two specialties. She was used as the equivalent of a human machinegun against hordes of lower level Dans should they embark on a mass attack, such as just what you witnessed. In addition she was able to penetrate narrow passages and shoot Demon Kings through the eye in infiltration missions inside their headquarters and castles.’

He turned to Lili. ‘Your commandos better break that pentagon soon, Lili. We need the Wings here. We can only defend to gain time, not beat them. There are too many higher Dans among them, and I can sense a few Demon Kings.’

The three combat avatars strode to the stairs. The Tower Room occupants turned to the screens.

‘Need any help?’ Ihap asked Bantay. She was sitting on a chair beside the staircase. She was wearing her usual neatly pressed office worker’s uniform, short blue skirt, blue blazer, opaque yellow button shirt complete with her name tag ‘Avatar Ihap, C.P.A.’

‘No. Just stay on that chair. You’re reserve. There’s no one left.’

The combat avatars decided to wait for the darklings on Floor 4. The staircase in this particular floor was so narrow that only one darkling could climb out of it, and its cylindrical housing had disappeared.

‘CCTV shows darklings massing on Floor 3, preparing to climb,’ Sugo announced. ‘Get ready avatars.’

Bantay positioned himself beside the staircase, weapons raised. His contoured trapezius and deltoid muscles were steel drawbridges across his neck and shoulders; the quads of his thighs were sturdy trunks of Narra trees.

When a darkling thrust its head out onto the floor, he took it off with a sweep of his sword. For the next several minutes, Bantay chopped, slashed, skewered, and impaled every darkling head that appeared. They stopped appearing.

Sugo called him. ‘You’ve killed 23 darklings, 2 of them Lords and 4 Masters. Good job!’

‘Those must have been the particularly hard heads,’ Bantay answered. ‘Thankfully no Princes yet. My weapons can’t penetrate their bones.’

A huge darkling head appeared. Bantay swung. His sword buried itself in the creature’s cheek. It did not penetrate further, but remained stuck in its skin.

‘Demon King! A Senior Monarch, Dan 83!’ Sugo yelled into his tabcom. ‘Get your sword out before it grabs it and separates it from you!’

Too late. The King grabbed the sword with its right claw, took it off its face, and then began pulling it down. The sword’s sharp edge did not seem to bother it. Bantay hung on for dear life.

Pana appeared in a low crouch beside him, and with all her might drove her arrow manually into the darkling’s left eye, all the way into its brainstem.

The Demon King died soundlessly.

‘Oh crap. Our CCTVs show another Monarch, a Junior Dan 73, in the room below you. He’s getting to the staircase. He’s covering his eyes. Get out of there!’

All 3 combat avatars scrambled up to the next floor as a demonic head, its eyes protected by a taloned claw held across it, appeared out of the floor.

‘We’re cooked,’ Luto said. ‘How do we kill this thing?’

They were on Floor 5. On the screen, Elam saw swirling gray fog outside a porthole. [I’ve seen this before, when Bodhi toured me around the Shield. No I haven’t. There was no porthole when the Professor...]

Elam snapped out of his thoughts. ‘Manong Duro, what happens if we open Floor 5?’

‘That’s a room that connects to the Dark Realms. Probably nothing if we close it again quickly. It’s risky though. According to my diagnostics, every time we open it, there is a small chance of making a permanent connection, and the risk multiplies by a magnitude if one opens it two consecutive times within a span of approximately 4 days.’

‘I have a memory of that fog, but there was no porthole. I think we can and must open it.’

Prof thought for a moment. Then he spoke into his tabcom. ‘Bantay, Pana, Luto, go up to the floor above you. When the King climbs into Room 5, I will open it’.

The three combat avatars climbed up to Room 6, and waited.

‘There’s a problem,’ Sugo said. ‘The King has stayed behind in Room 4. However, there are now a hundred darklings crowded in Room 5. The higher Dans are talking to each other; they seem to be deciding what to do. If they climb up, you have to hold them off until the King itself climbs into Room 5.’

The three combat avatars looked at each other. ‘Let’s go,’ Bantay said. ‘Each one, go cover 120 degrees around the point of enemy entry. Luto and I will block them off our 240 degree sector, while you Pana will shoot them down as they get channeled into your 120 degree sector.’

They placed themselves in triangular formation around the staircase. Bantay and Luto positioned themselves nearby, so as to be able to attack at close range with their weapons. Pana was farther away, ready to shoot.

‘They’ve stopped talking. An attack is imminent,’ Sugo announced.

Without a word, Lili ran to the staircase and rushed down past Ihap.

‘Then there’s no more combat avatar left? What if a darkling manages to get in here?’

‘We’d be dead if Ihap fails to stop it,’ Henloa answered, nervously twiddling with a lock of her lustrous lavender hair.

‘Ihap? The prim accountant with the archaic hairdo?’

Sugo’s voice suddenly boomed out. ‘A mass of darklings are now climbing. Entering Floor 6! Avatars get ready.’

A melee erupted.

Elam could hardly see the details. They all moved so fast. Just flashes of sword, mace, knives, and arrows versus blurs of talons, fangs, horns, hooves, and tails. Bantay and Luto were essentially delaying and blocking them as they came out of the staircase, viciously striking them with mace, sword and knife, forcing them into Pana’s sector where she shot them down with unnatural quickness and impossible accuracy. Again one shot, one kill, and at this close range, she was shooting them in the neck and eyes. Lupad was right. In the middle of such a fight, non combat avatars would be worse than useless.

Tukib was watching the screen, worry on his face. ‘Bantay and Luto are faster and stronger than the Pawns and Adepts, slightly better than Masters, and about par with Lords. However, they’re badly outnumbered, and there are Princes among the darklings; and they can’t handle those well.’

‘Damn! They’ve beaten off Luto and Bantay,’ Tenloa observed. The two combaters had been forced away from the staircase. They stood back to back, warding off approaching darklings with knife and sword and mace. Darklings surrounded them, 3 Lords, 3 Masters, and 8 Adepts.

‘Oh no! Pana is in trouble,’ Limpyoha cried out in dismay.

All the low Dans had been slain. Pana was cut off in a corner. The darklings clearly were intelligent and had formed a strategy. The highest Dans in the room would gang up and terminate the most dangerous combat avatar. Five Princes were cautiously approaching Pana, forearms held across faces and chest.

‘She can’t shoot’, Husay explained. ‘Her arrow penetrates the skin of a Prince only with difficulty and is stopped by their bony tissue. She has to make sure that if she shoots at them, the arrow kills them or injures them so badly that they can’t gain control of the arrow. She has to shoot at a vulnerable spot. If her arrow gets stuck in a forearm’s radius or ulna bone, control over it passes to the Prince; the arrow effectively gets separated from her and she will die. She can handle one or two Princes in a close combat duel with her bow’s bladed limbs and battle gauntlets, but not five attacking her simultaneously.’

‘The Dan 73 King is climbing to Floor 5,’ Sugo yelled into all their tabcoms.

Two Princes rushed Pana simultaneously. She ducked while jabbing her bow’s dorsal tip into the chest of the one to her right, crushing its sternum and heart. The one to her left was leaping at her, talons aimed for her face, but Pana was also sidestepping at the same time. Its talons glanced off her armored shoulder. Its momentum carried it forward and Pana took advantage of that by driving her gauntleted left hand into its abdomen. Steel-hard spiked skin, intestines, and aorta ruptured.

Before she could free her hands from their dissolving bodies, the pointed tail of the Prince in front of her struck like whipped lighting, penetrating her armor, impaling her through and through the epigastrium and lacerating the tunica media of her abdominal aorta.

Pana drew out her bow from the dissipating darkling on her right and cut off the tail buried in her abdomen with her bow’s serrated limbs. It disappeared in a cloud of black dust. The Prince shrieked, fetid ichor pouring out of the stump of its tail, but it remained standing.

Staccato gunfire rang out. Lili was on top of the staircase, firing a submachine gun that she had produced beneath her robes, right into the Demon Princes who had impaled Pana. The bullets were bouncing off their skin. Hissing, they withdrew their tails, turning toward the stairs.

Pana coughed up yellow blood. Visibly trembling she reproduced her bow, but not her armor. Still in a kneeling position, she shot all three Princes who had attacked her high on their napes in one fluid motion, arrow penetrating between vertebrae and severing the high cervical spinal cord. They dissolved into fine flakes of dirt. Then she slumped down, both hands and knees on the floor. Her bow again disappeared.

Lili kept on shooting from above, aiming for faces and eyes. One bullet penetrated an Adept’s eye; it burst into a cloud of ash. The two remaining avatars went on the attack, Luto crouching and spiraling his knife bullet fast in a twisting helix low on the darklings’ knees and thighs, Bantay methodically swinging his sword and mace as though they were hypercharged grass shears slashing and bludgeoning heads and necks. Although the Lords, Masters and Adepts were unharmed by bullets that missed their eyes, they were confused, and alternately would look at Lili and then back at Bantay and Luto.

No one bothered to check on the injured Pana. She slowly stood up shaking, bright blood dyeing her garments a brilliant saffron. She deliberately steadied herself, and her bow and arrow again reappeared. Shooting flowingly and flawlessly for the last time, she quickly shot the 6 remaining Lords and Masters through their heads as they defended themselves against Bantay, Luto, and Lili. Then she coughed again and collapsed on the floor as her torn aorta burst, ichor like liquid gold dribbling out of her mouth and abdomen.

Bantay and Luto looked at the fallen Pana and both roared like angry lions. With Lili providing covering fire from above, they rushed the remaining Adepts in one final frenzied assault. Sword, mace, and knife turned into spinning propeller blades. Darkling heads rolled and popped.

‘King is in Room 5. I’m opening it,’ Prof announced.

On the screen, two side walls of floor 5 opened outward and upward. Swirling fog filled the rectangular monitor screen. Elam did a double take; it was exactly as in his memory. The Demon King and all the massed darklings in Room 5 were blown off the Tower and into the foggy Dark Realm. Prof immediately closed back the walls.

Suddenly, there was a loud thud from somewhere above them. Then the crack of crushed concrete and the screeching of torn metal.

‘Breech on the Wings’ flight deck, both Senior Monarchs, Dans 89 and 90,’ Sugo announced.

A screen showed two Demon Kings in Elam’s attic room, each smashing a hole into the floor.

‘Aya!’ Prof practically ran back to the central staircase. ‘Stay here,’ he ordered the avatars in the Tower Room. Ihap who had been sitting by the stairs was already climbing up, preceding him. She threw off her blue blazer as she climbed up. Prof and Elam followed. They entered the Wings’ mezzanine room. A King was poking its black horned head through a hole in the ceiling. It was directly on top of Aya lying comatose on her bed. The avatars had dressed her in a short blue nightgown dotted with yellow flowers; she looked like a sleeping beauty waiting for her wake-up kiss.

Ihap’s long pointed hairpin in her coiffure disappeared and reappeared in her right hand. To Elam’s astonishment it quickly grew in length into a polearm. She remained unarmored. Without hesitation she leaped onto Aya’s bed and buried the blade into the King’s left eye. The huge form fell out of the hole and on top of the comatose Wing, its face and lips smacking against Aya’s. Its body began to dissolve into smog, leaving Aya covered by its black aura.

The second Demon King lowered itself into the room. Ihap leaped like a gymnast, driving her polearms’s blade straight into its eye; but the King had had time to orient itself and quickly held up a huge forearm covered with spikes across its face. Ihap’s polearm slid off the darkling’s forearm and her momentum smashed her chest into its spikes.

More darklings began to enter through the hole on top of the King. It grinned at them. ‘On the other hand, my little friends have been summoned to eat you.’

Prof was looking straight at Elam. He was mouthing some words, but with the darkling’s claw wrapped tightly around his chest he could not verbalize. Then they were gone. With a single bound, the King had jumped clear out of the room through the hole.

‘Yudiputa, son of a whore.’ Ihap, sitting on the floor, was crying in anguish. ‘The bastard took Father!’

Four Adepts landed on the floor. Ihap closed her eyes in concentration for a second, rose up smoothly, and in the same movement threw her pin into the eye of the first. It collapsed. The remaining three leaped at her. Instead of avoiding them, she crouched low, and then sprang up into the path of the middle one, driving the pin into its left eye, killing it. She crouched low again between the two remaining Adepts. As one turned to raked at her with its claws, she sprang up and using the other one’s shoulder as leverage somersaulted her way out of immediate danger over its head. She landed as the darkling turned around to face her. In the same motion Ihap rolled once, sprang twisting into the air, and threw her pin backhand into the eye of the Adept now facing her. As it died and before it could dissolve, Ihap pirouetted and delivered a round house kick to its body. It stumbled back into the last Adept. With an irritated snarl, the Adept threw the dissolving body out of its way. As soon as its face was cleared of the body, Ihap threw her pin into its left eye.

The whole action had taken only seconds. Ihap and the darkling Adepts had moved like lightning.

A Demon Lord was lowering itself into the room. Ihap leaped like a wounded leopard cat in front of Aya’s bed, landing in a fighting crouch, once again trying to protect the sleeping Arch Wing. Her shimmering hair flowed midnight blue down her right shoulder; her skirt crumpled up her thighs; her dress shirt hung open; and her name tag Avatar Ihap C.P.A. dangled askew on her left breast pocket. Purple blood flowed down her perforated chest and lacerated left shoulder. She began swaying like injured bamboo in the wind.

‘Feisty little avatar.’ Two more Masters dropped in. Then a Demon Prince.

‘Bug off,’ the Prince told the other darklings, black forked tongue flickering in and out of its fanged jaws. ‘I’ll get to enjoy the taste of her first.’

To Ihap. ‘Your little pin and spin tactics won’t work with me.’

‘Uh, excuse me.’ It was Aya. She sat up, groggily gazed at them for a few seconds. In a stronger voice, ‘I heard that.’

Aya stood up. All the darklings stepped back. She held out her left arm. A doble espada flashed into her hand. ‘Maybe, this will.’

She fell upon the darklings in a blue and yellow blur.

‘Thanks Ihap. Hello Elam,’ Aya greeted them.

‘Aya, a Demon King has kidnapped Father!’ Ihap pointed to the holes on the roof.

Elam and Ihap rushed back into the Command Tower main room, just as Lili arrived climbing up from below. On screens they could see Floor 4. It was full of darklings, albeit all lower Dan Pawns. They milled about the staircase clearly not knowing what to do without a higher ranked Dan to command them. Floor 5 was empty. On floor 6, Bantay the valiant and Luto the magnificent stood by the stairs guarding it. Pana’s body was lying peacefully in a corner, a broken doll of painted gold.

Lili typed on her tabcom. To everyone’s surprise, numerous scenes from Duol Island appeared on the screens. Either DATA had positioned spy satellites overhead or Lili’s commandos had placed spy video cams all over the place, or both.

The Dan 90 Demon King flapped its way down from the sky. It deposited Prof in front of an imposingly tall and well built red-haired middle aged man. Behind Prof was a pentagon of salt caked in blood. Inside the pentagon was a raging darkling.

The Monarch flew to the sky above, to meet the approaching Aya.

‘You must be Guba. We thought you were that masked man in Diha Island.’

‘Oh no, that was Maro, my second, posing as me. You fell for it Professor Duro.’

‘Why am I here, Guba?’

Guba grinned at him. ‘For the final rite of course. I am about to release a High Demon King.’ Behind Prof, in the pentagon, the dark figure roared.

‘You’ll never be able to control it. You’ve murdered hundreds of children.’ Prof was looking at a huge pile of small corpses. These were not email to order brides. Most of them were young boys.

‘A thousand children to be exact. We fooled you properly, Professor. We started bringing them to this island on the opposite side to where your ship is docked and killing them one by one under the cover of the night as soon as the sun set, before all that hullaballoo in Diha Island. We finished well past midnight. Then my Brothers transferred to Diha Island, and performed that little play that trapped your Wings. With the Wings trapped, I then recited the final spell, which summoned the High King.’

‘As for the kids, they’re just street children. Our secret donors in the government had grown scared of WDF pressure and your spies’ surveillance. They cut donations to a minimum. What cowards! We had to wrap things up quickly. We could not afford more legal child brides, so we just swept these little vagabonds off the streets of Ngit-ngit and other Iladistani cities. No one ever notices them or their disappearance.’

‘You’re an idiot. Their blood is not enough to place a Compulsion and Control spell on a High Demon King. That’s a Dan 96 you have in there; if your Control fails, even multiple simultaneously attacking Maestros and all their modern combat avatars may not be able to stop it. You’re talking about the end of humanity.’

‘Ah but their blood has served to tear this rent in the Tela, and to Control the high ranked Dans that attacked your ship and abducted you.’ He eyed the Professor.

Guba raised his hand. There was a long pointed dagger in it.

‘You can’t kill me if I’m already dead,’ Prof said. He backed right into the pentagon.

In backing up, Prof’s shoes inadvertently scratched salt beneath his feet. The pentagon was suddenly broken.

Lili shouted into her tabcom. ‘Task force Diha, execute the cult members immediately!’

A dozen Alogostani Navy frogmen instantly rose from the sea around Diha Island, firing automatic assault rifles over the huddled surviving children. They mowed down the cult members, breaking the human pentagon.

The High Demon King appeared behind Prof in the here and now. It ignored him, and instead set its eyes on Guba. ‘So you thought to control me human?’ It surprisingly spoke in a beautiful mellow baritone, in Esperanto.

Guba backed up a meter, then turned tail and ran. The High Demon leaped at him and easily caught him 10 meters away. Sharp talons sank into his back. Guba screamed. The Demon lifted its impaled prey with its left hand and began tearing off chunks of meat and stuffing them into its mouth with its right.

On Diha Island, Oisa, Bodhi, and Alwana immediately leaped into the sky on gold feathered angel wings.

Above Duol Island Aya whipped a slashing left handed forehand at the Monarch’s head. The Dan 90 drew its head back, barely avoiding the doble espada. Aya continued to spin toward her right until her back was facing the darkling while simultaneously extending her wings. Her right wing, temporarily stiffed to the density of a neutron star, intersected the Monarch’s neck, decapitating it.

The High Demon literally ate Guba chunk by chunk, beginning with his feet, and ending with his head. It tossed in Guba’s head into its fanged maw and popped it like bubblegum. It swallowed. Then it turned to the Prof. ‘Long time, no see. I remember you of course Sri Duro. Your turn now, illustrious Maestro of the Yellow Sun and Blue Sky.’

Oisa, Bodhi, Alwana, and Aya landed behind the Demon.

It stopped. ‘Not very sporting are you? Four Archs versus one poor darkling?’

‘Goodbye my daughters,’ Prof said. ‘Freeze mode.’

The High Demon King looked surprise. Then it leaped at Prof, grabbed his head in its right claw, and tore it off.

Elam screamed. Lili took a step back, tripped, and collapsed onto the floor with a loud thud.

The Demon turned toward the 4 Wings. Their frozen forms suddenly began to move. ‘F__k me,’ the High Demon King said. ‘I forgot killing your Maestro would free you for 40 days.’

It was one of those silences that was silent for the longest time.

Oisa lifted Prof’s body, Bodhi his head. The Wings flew.

Elam walked shakily toward the stairs. He knew the Wings would land on his room. His knees were shaking. Lili sat sprawled on the floor, face pale as milk. The other avatars stood or sat quietly. Most of them seemed to have spontaneously gone into freeze or auto mode.

Elam met them in his room, avoiding the two large holes on the floor made by the Demon Kings. Oisa was sitting in his bed, cradling Prof’s body. Bodhi was hugging his head to her chest. Oisa pointed at Prof’s Seal.

‘It’s glowing. We have try the Seal Transfer.’

In spite of everything, Elam’s curiosity was piqued. ‘What’s that?’

‘Rarely a Maestro’s Seal doesn’t fade to nothing immediately after his death. We remember that this can happen if the deceased Maestro was pursuing an important purpose that he believes has not yet been attained. If so, then it is possible to Seal another human with it. If the Maestro is the last of his Order, sometimes the Seal transfers itself perfectly, as if it knows it is the last of its kind.’

‘You want to Seal me?’

‘Yes, but it might not work. In the M.D.E. training courses, the student who wants to be Sealed has first to be trained to place himself in a state of mind they call ‘Humble Acceptance.’ It’s actually a kind of trance, brought about by hypnotizing yourself. Among other things, the trance allows you to suppress the Nervous System’s natural withdrawal reflex action when exposed to heat, while all the while remaining conscious. The Sealing process burns you like a fire, and if you move even slightly, the process is terminated. The MDE schools teach you a lot of techniques, actions, maneuvers, spells and what have you, but if you fail to Humbly Accept a Seal, you can’t pass the course. I doubt if you know how to place yourself in any kind of trance at all. Much less stay still while being branded. Anyway, let’s try, if you will. It’s beginning to fade.’

Elam placed his wrist on top of the Professor’s, and jerked it back reflexively when he felt blue fire burning his wrist.

‘See what I mean?’

Trying to Seal him seemed to have accelerated the process. The Seal was now fainter, like the mark of a stamp on a palm that had just been washed.

Elam exclaimed ‘There’s Lili downstairs! She’s the closest human being. Can’t we Seal her?’ the Wings looked at each other. ‘I don’t know,’ Alwana began.

Bodhi interrupted. ‘It’s almost gone. Once it’s gone, we’re dead. Let’s go!’

Oisa ran downstairs, carrying the Professor’s body followed by the others. Lili was still sitting on the floor, head hung low.

Oisa shouted at her. ‘Lili, you traitorous bitch, Humbly Accept our Order’s Seal! Now!’

‘What?!’ Lili muttered, confused.

‘Fix this. The Seal still glows. It’s almost gone. Then we’re truly dead in 40 days. Humbly Accept the Seal!’

Lili jumped up, invigorated. She composed herself, closed her eyes, and began muttering. She placed her wrist over Prof’s. The Seal of the Sun and Sky began to glow bright blue. There was a sizzling sound like steak on a dry frying pan. Elam could smell barbecued flesh. Lili stayed utterly motionless. After a minute, she withdrew her wrist. Proximal to the Seal of the Order of the Autumn Sea, there was the Seal of the Sun and Sky.

‘Probably only temporary, until you can Transfer it to a more suitable person,’ Oisa said. She glared at Lili. ‘You betrayed Father; you murdered him!’

‘You were in it too, Oisa,’ Lili began. The other avatars looked at Oisa.

A slim figure burst from the staircase.

‘Pana, I thought you were dead!’ Elam ran up to her and hugged her.

‘Are you kidding? With all the energy Bantay and Luto infused into me from all the darklings we killed down there, I could have been revived a dozen times. But she’s dead!’ Pana aimed her bow and arrow at Lili.

There passed a few tense seconds. Then Pana lowered her bow. ‘I can’t. She’s still human enough that I can’t bring myself to harm her.’ She glowered at Lili.

‘You should not kill her even if you could Pana.’ Husay went up to Lili and supinated her forearm. ‘See, she has our Seal. Hmm. It’s faint though. I wonder if it’s still fading, but only more slowly.’

‘Let me run some diagnostics,’ Lili said, in a detached professional kind of voice. She stood still eyes glazed in concentration. Her Seal of the Autumn Sea glowed purple. Everyone stood silently for a few minutes.

Finally Lili spoke up. ‘The Seal of the Sun and Sky is imprinted on my forearm but only superficially. It’s still fading but my own Seal of the Autumn Sea seems to be delaying the rate of decay. It will fade to nothing in approximately a month.’

‘Well, fix it!’ Oisa yelled at her.

Lili looked at her sadly. ‘I promise to fix it. I Bind myself to this task.’ Lili walked up to Oisa. ‘Allow me to cut a piece of your hair, Oisa.’ Oisa nodded. Lili produce a small knife from under the long sleeves of her Iladistani robes, and gingerly cut off a small piece of Oisa’s hair. She pressed it on her Seal of the Autumn Sea. Her eyes glazed as she fell into a trace. Her Seal glowed an incandescent blue for a few seconds then went back to its muted blue and red colors. Oisa’s hair had dissolved into the Seal.

‘I’ve placed a Binding Compulsion on myself to follow the commands of any avatar of the Sun and Sky. The Compulsion can only be removed by Oisa. To be honest, I don’t know how to stop your Seal from fading, but if you do and you need me, any of you can compel me to help you.’

‘We already knew Righteous Fire was planning to summon a High Demon King. We could have stopped them a long time ago, but I hatched up a false flag operation so dangerous that the WDF would be forced to actively shut down all the Iladistani extremist terrorist sects and cults, and perhaps the Iladistani Unitemple itself. I presented the plan to Minister Kusgan. He approved and is the only other person in DATA who knows.’

‘I arranged the operation so that if things went splat, no one would be implicated in DATA except me. The commandos and agents under my command don’t know a thing. All they know is that they are arresting or executing dangerous terrorists following usual protocols.’

‘I not only allowed their rituals, I helped them proceed with it. Normally the Alogostani Navy patrols the Sanag River, regularly monitoring for terrorist infiltration and activities. I used DATA authority to stop these patrols. I sabotaged the activities of other intelligence and police agencies that were investigating them. If you are wondering how an Iladistani cult can virtually take over two islands that are part of Alogostan, it was I that was protecting them from Alogostani monitoring and interference.’

‘Supervisor Hikap did not know it, but he was influenced by me. My vendor agents in the piers spread rumors to all the pier supervisors that exceptionally beautiful brides were to arrive, which of course all female Veteran avatars would appear to be, and that they would insist on the highest prices, prices that only someone like national Councilor Pugos could afford. Pugos was the weakest link in the collaboration between the Iladistani National Council and Righteous Fire. Long years of uncontested power and a decrepit lifestyle had made his security lax. I had agents, informers, and assets in his staff including some of his bodyguards that we met and that I executed in the Promenade, although they did not know it or knew who I was, as they were mere paid shills contacted through intermediaries. They were instructed to encourage Pugos to come to Ngit-ngit City at this time to seek out a bride. Pugos’ men who took Tahum and Pana from the Pier were all my unknowing accomplices. They were instructed to specifically seek out Tandayag and procure the two Veteran avatars there.

It was important that Pana be there because Pugos nearly always had an Abomination around with him, as bodyguards or clients. I needed a protector if I were to interrogate Pugos. So I asked Oisa to manipulate Tahum to bring along Pana or another Veteran combater. My plan turned out well. Pana neutralized Hikap; and I managed to obtain a confession from an Iladistani National Councilor that he was directly involved in the financing of the Righteous Fire.’

I knew that only an Anachronista Maestro with Winged avatars could stop a High Demon King if one ever got loose in the world. Even if it got loose for only a few hours in the middle of two of the heaviest populated cities of Alogostan and Iladistan, millions could die, including myself. Guru Duro would have to be in the immediate vicinity when the summoning commences. So I decided to recruit him in a round-about manner. An insurance policy. I secured Oisa’s cooperation by explaining to her that any darkquake conjured up by the Righteous Fire would be considered an anomaly, and that if Guru Duro were around, he would be first battle Maestro, and subsequently you avatars can harvest the slain darklings’ energy and infuse it to Aya.‘

‘The spy video cams we left in Duol Island recorded everything, the sacrificial slaughter of about 1000 children, Guba Summoning the Demon King. My men were in place in the waters around Duol Island for quite some time already. I could have stopped it but did not. I wanted evidence that a cult of the Iladistan branch of the Unitemple was summoning a High Demon King and endangering the world. That was my plan. I did not realize that Guba needed more than just sacrificial children. He needed the blood of an Anachronista Maestro. He double crossed me. I never expected him to abduct Guru Duro and sacrifice him too.’

Bodhi interrupted her. ‘Oisa, calm down. For better or for worse, Lili holds our Seal. We have to work with her, in fact we have to protect her. If she dies, we die.’

Aya walked to Prof’s body and kneeling cradled it in her arms. ‘It is a hard thing to think about. What if Father had decided not to freeze us?’

’We all get it Aya,’ Alwana said. ‘He was protecting us. If he had failed to die in that manner this day, the reality that the Tela would manifest is the one wherein he died in the Battle of the Broken Spear. He either dies here or he dies there. This reality we are living in would be deleted from the Tela, along with all of us. Perhaps the darklings would even have won the Battle of the Broken Spear and this world would be empty of humans.’

Aya spoke up. ‘Come on people! There are still things that we must do. We have to make peace with Lili. We have to find out how to stop our Seal from fading. We still have to attend the Senate hearing next week. We have to transfer ownership of the Shield to another human, before the government declares it public property; and already I vote that Elam be the new owner of our Balanghay. Elam has to collect the bounty for Guba. We continue on with our cause to uplift the status of the Eastern Islands and preserve the remaining Sayabi. We continue slaying darklings.’

‘So folks, why don’t we just us continue on living, and living with purpose, we of the Sun and Sky?’

Outside, the dawn sun turned yellow as it ascended the blue sky.

My recommendation to alleviate the problem without losing the robotic aspect bit would be to have her speak only a short stretch in automaton mode, and then hopefully the Prof could complain about how boring that sounds (or maybe he notices that she'd like to speak more freely...) and he releases her to tell the rest in human mode. ;)>

Prof looked at his wrist tablet computer. ‘I will try to give it to you as briefly as I can. The Alogostan Department of Anti-Terrorism Affairs representative will arrive soon in order to learn from our mouths, or rather mine, why I was attacked in a Dialogue meeting that I paid for. In case of myself, they always blame the victim. I think Bodhi should deliver this lecture as she can be more concise than I am. Speak Bodhi.’

Bodhi stirred and began in a flat lecture voice. She sounded so much like a recording that the hairs on Elam’s nape tingled. [Push on button and she speaks.]

‘A darkquake is a tear in the fabric of universes, also called Tela. In a darkquake realities can shift, diverge, and merge.’

‘Individual Anachronistas may occur singly and multiply, most occurrences being near the time frame of the tear in the Tela.’

‘A darkquake may also allow self aware darklings from the dark realms, or universes where dark energy rules predominate, to occur in matter oriented baryonic universes. Most of these darklings act like the traditional demons of religions, and may cause great destruction.’

‘Around 400 years ago there occurred a Great Darkquake, encompassing all of Tera, and probably much of this universe. Inside its boundaries, numerous simultaneous smaller darkquakes continuously occurred. Subsequently, realities shifted, diverged, and merged in an event known as the Great Dark Shift. This world was affected almost fatally.’

‘Consequently, please note that accurate historical accounts cease more than 400 hundred years ago. All we have before then are blurry partitions and fusions of different realities and potential possibilities.’

‘What we know for sure is that this world since then has been formally known as Tera in all the languages of the world. Tera was saved when Anachronistas from various Masters of Dark Energy Orders occurred. With their multi colored avatars, they fought off the darklings in the event known as the Great Dark War. The War reputedly ended shortly after an Arch, the most powerful of the Winged avatars, slew the leader of the darkling army. Smaller skirmishes and encounters still continued, but with the war essentially over, the MDEs trained volunteers, left books and literature on their art, and founded the modern Educational system.’

Prof sighed. ‘What I know for sure is that you’re lulling Elam to sleep. Normal mode, please.’

‘Yeah, you should have given Elam a chance to ask questions,’ Alwana opined.

‘How could I? I was in auto mode! If my little lecture was so boringly robotic, you should have told me to go back to normal mode yourself.’

‘I would have but I was in freeze mode, Bodhi.’

‘Quiet you two,’ Oisa adjured. ‘Elam do you have any questions so far?’

Elam thought for a moment. ‘Yes. For starters where are the other Anachronistas? I mean apart from Manong Duro.’

Aya answered before Bodhi could open her mouth. ‘Even after defeating the darkling army, the Anachronistas found out that the Great Darkquake would not completely calm. However, the Maestros were able to narrow the tear in the Tela into a small area in the Southern continent. The Anachronista Maestros learned that they could not totally close the torn Tela because their massed presence was triggering small darkquakes all the time. Thus they eventually decided to de-occur by entering the Tear in the Tela along with their avatars. We do not know the fate of most of them.’

‘Can you give me a brief summary of the WDF’s functions?’

Bodhi again took over. ‘Within the context of its main purpose, defense of Tera against darklings, the World Defense Force discharges the following functions.’

‘One, supervise all academic and training courses that award the MDE degree in all schools in Tera.’

‘Two, establish and enforce rules on all MDE activities related to dark energy and darklings.’

‘Three, ascertain that all Artificial Incarnates, or DarkAIs, that MDEs create from dark quanta, also popularly known as avatars, are programmed never to harm a human being. DarkAIs that intentionally harm a human because of natural or accidental degradation of their program are treated as Natural Darkling invaders and all of Tera’s resources are used to destroy them. If their MDE makers are found to have intentionally caused them to go rogue, the MDEs are executed.’

‘Four, investigate non MDE humans who use dark energy, and punish them accordingly. Punishment for a non MDE intentionally causing a tear in the Tela or causing an unauthorized darkquake to occur is death. Any social institution that supports this highly dangerous endeavor may be legally destroyed; its human members imprisoned or terminated.’

‘Five, form, finance, and supervise the Bounty Hunter’s League, composed only of MDE degree holders, responsible for stopping darkquakes of magnitude 1 and above. The WDF reserves the right to directly command any MDE bounty hunter for whatever purposes it may deem necessary to protect Tera’s security. Each bounty hunter is paid a token salary of 1 peso a year by the WDF, but most of their income come from bounties for stopping darkquakes and terminating troublesome loose Natural Darklings, Possessed, Abominations, and the occasional human criminal wanted by the WDF.’

‘You forgot something Bodhi,’ Alwana interjected.

‘What now?’

‘It wasn’t part of the original mandate, but the WDF ended up controlling Tera’s economy by imposing a world-wide single currency system joined to a limitless source of energy.’