Thankfully, when we stepped onto Skyring, we were alone. With that knowledge, I barely managed to get myself to the stairs, which Katye had built over the time that she trained here, before I passed out. Fortunately, I woke up a few hours later in the same place, but unfortunately, I had woken up because I was in severe pain.

 

Katye was meditating nearby, trying to deal with the Yin-corruption. After I had passed out, she removed my armor and even washed off what blood she could, but my clothes were in tatters, eaten away by the same Yin corrosion that was in my veins. All of the wounds on my body had healed, but my skin was extremely pale, almost translucent, but thankfully, I had the perfect method to combat the poison; the spell that Tori had insisted on giving me when I first joined this world.

 

Instead of healing myself, I pulled myself up and walked over shakily to Katye. She had already broken down some of the poison by channeling her Yang mana through her body, but it was a slow process compared to my method. It would not even take a quarter of the mana that I had recovered to heal her, while healing myself would probably take everything I had and then some, since I had let it run crazy in my body.

 

Katye opened her eyes as soon as I started healing her and sighed, "You look like crap."

 

"Thanks," I chuckled. "I'm going to take a lot more work than you, so you can get me out of this hole."

 

"At least it's sunny; that will make things easier."

 

"Yeah, well, you'll have to carry me up, since I could barely walk over here. There, all done," I replied.

 

Katye stood up and stretched. She shifted into her Dusa form and then picked me up in a princess carry position. I chuckled weakly and rested my head on her shoulder, enjoying the rare change in roles between us. Her wings fluttered and we were wrapped in a bubble of mana as she flew upwards.

 

"It's fun to get carried around for once," I chuckled.

 

"This isn't the first time, it's just that you are awake for it this time," Katye retorted with a smirk.

 

She carried me over to the bank of the lake and created a stone chair which she placed me down on. I did not wait any longer since the pain was getting worse and started healing myself. It was a cold burn coursing through my veins, but my healing spell was like warm water thawing my veins which slowly eased the pain.

 

When I opened my eyes again, it was dark. There were still traces of the poison in my blood, but anymore, and I would lose consciousness. Katye was sitting out on a stone dock nearby with her feet in the water while she reclined and looked up at the sky. I sighed as I stood up and walked over to her. A chair, of sorts, rose out of the stone next to her as I neared and I sat down, after taking off my boots, I dipped my feet in the water.

 

"You're still poisoned," Katye remarked.

 

"I didn't want to just pass out again. It's not too bad compared to what I woke up to, so I'll meditate for a while then be able to manage the rest," I replied.

 

"I've been trying to come up with plans, ideas, for what we would face once we go to Bardo, but it's impossible without knowing what those three women's powers are. We may have killed three of their numbers, but my gut tells me that those four that did not join them on Sanctum are the ones which will give us the most trouble. Bardhyl was able to send Bellamy that device across who knows how far of a distance... can you even imagine what he is capable of at close-range?"

 

"I'd like to think that sending something that far, no matter how small, takes a lot out of him. I've had my ass kicked from overusing my powers too many times to accept that it cost him nothing," I replied.

 

"Still, we don't know the other three."

 

"Something Bellamy said... Amser 'predicted' that we would betray them. Even if it was a lie, it's probably a clue; she was the old woman next to Bardhyl when we met the Disciples. I wouldn't put it past Tori to place 'Space' and 'Time' together. That's one and, a frightening one, at that. How would you fight someone who can see the future?"

 

"And imagine what the last two could possibly do... Iseto's powers affected people's souls, brainwashing them, and some could even harness some of his strength to make normal people stronger. There's just no way to guess. Tori literally created all of this, so who knows what the limit of these abilities are," Katye sighed.

 

"It's clear that he's not trying to kill us, or they would have been here waiting for us, but that doesn't make me feel any better. Worse, in fact. This is just a game to him... 'training' us. How many people died fighting against Iseto... in Praimfaya?"

 

"Must you be so dark and brooding? Save it for a DC comic; our current situation is bleak enough without it," Katye complained.

 

"I don't like being used, and I don't like this complete disregard for people's lives."

 

"Well, too fucking bad, Becca. We're already here! You want all of this to end, then please... by all means, call down Tori, tell him that he's being a jackass. Order him to stop the Disciples and let us live out our happy lives with Echo and Raven! He gave both of us the chance to say no to this life and neither of us did. We always knew how this would end, one way or another."

 

I huffed but shut my mouth. I knew she was right. Tori had given me the chance to give up long ago, and I refused. I wanted to be the hero; the support for my friends and loved ones. I had done a bad job in the beginning, so I had striven to do better, and I had. Eden was a far better place than it would have been if we had followed the events of the show. If I was not willing to regret my decision to stay here, I had little right to judge Tori for using this method to train us.

 

"I didn't even say goodbye..." I said after a few minutes, pulling my legs up so that I could rest my chin on my knees. "I had been practicing and talking with Indra about my combat style when the alarm went off. When I got to the room with Bellamy, I told Kane to do whatever he could to prevent Raven and Echo from following... and then, I ran away. If I had faced either of them, I would have crumbled and let them come with me, which would only have ended with their deaths."

 

Katye placed a hand on my shoulder and rubbed it gently. "I'm sorry, Becca."

 

"It's fine... like you said, we always knew this was going to end. I'm just thankful that I have you, at least. I never could have done all of this without your help, Katye."

 

"Likewise, my dear," she replied then leaned on my shoulder.

 

~~~~~~~~

 

When the portal opened in Bardo, five people stumbled out and into the room. Amser directed the medics to go and help the injured onto the stretchers which was four of the five. Hotaru was the only one still on his feet, so she walked over to him. 

 

"What happened? Where is Elio, Cirocco, and Pilan?" she asked. 

 

"Dead... I thought that you said that Lexa and Octavia were not that powerful!" Hotaru snapped. 

 

"I said that I can't 'see' them in my visions. It was Annika who said that they weren't that much stronger than us. What she took from Bellamy only showed that they could use the different elements, but their internal energy was not that much more than the rest of us when we met. How could you lose against the two of them?" 

 

"Clearly, Octavia never trusted her brother. They are able to transform themselves into monsters which greatly increases their strength, and their internal energy was much greater than the first time that we saw them. Dmitriy had warned us that he believed that Octavia was hiding her strength, but we never would have guessed by how much. They also had their own versions of Tzila's Blood Summon, three of them. A giant that could use rock like Dmitriy, a horsewoman that wielded a bow, but the most dangerous was the one with a single horn who could vanish and reappear behind anyone when they lost focus. That was the one that killed Elio and any chance that we had of dealing with the poison in Dmitriy and Nixie before they get here. Tell me that all of this wasn't for nothing, and that Annika has broken Luna," he explained.

 

Amser's expression did not improve, and she said, "Not yet, but she's close thanks to Maya's assistance. The lives that these people have led made them have incredible wills to survive this long, so I'm not surprised that Lexa gave you trouble after seeing her early childhood."

 

"Then we need to prepare! If they haven't appeared yet, then they likely went to Penance to have time to recover! They could be here in hours, fully recovered, while Dmitriy and Nixie are poisoned and Tzila and Bardhyl are both recovering from a major backlash. We can't win without Annika and Maya!"

 

She did not respond right away and, instead, walked over to Tzila. There was a medic bandaging her hand and she was paler than usual which was a common sign of a backlash. Tzila looked up at Amser with sadness and the old woman sighed.

 

"Your condition?" Amser asked.

 

"With some time to meditate, I should be about eighty percent, but right now, fifty percent," Tzila replied.

 

Amser crossed her arms and took on a thoughtful expression. "Meditate, I will need you as strong as possible. Hotaru, come with me to see the Shepard. If they are as strong as you claim, we may need to use the Abraham Order. The code can wait if we can defeat them."

 

Both Tzila and Hotaru with shock and concern, and Hotaru asked, "Is that really necessary?"

 

"You just told me that the two of them forced the eight of you to retreat after killing three of our brothers and poisoning two more of our numbers. We will need to go to extreme measures to harness all of Annika's and Tzila's strength if we want to have a chance at defeating them with most of our numbers crippled."

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

Raven sat on the balcony of her mountainside with a bottle of Spirit Wine next to her, looking out over the valley. She toyed with the small metal charm that Rebecca had given her long ago while occasionally taking a sip of wine. It had been a little over an hour since Eden went on lockdown after Luna was taken, and Rebecca had left without a word. Although she understood just how important it was to stop the Disciples and save Luna, it was painful to realize that she would likely never get the chance to say goodbye to Katye and her. Still, she had accepted her decision, which was more than she could say for Echo.

 

Echo had not taken the news well, not because she had some great loyalty to Luna, but rather, because Rebecca had left without her. It did not matter to her that she was outclassed in a fight between superpowered people. She would rather die than accept that she could not help, which was why she was sitting next to Raven with her hands bound together.

 

"How are you so calm?" Echo growled.

 

"Because I know that there are two hundred warriors standing between us and the Anomaly Stone, and I won't be able to drink if I also end up in cuffs. It sucks, Echo, but we would just get in the way if we went after them. This is their fight, and we can only hope that they win," Raven sighed then downed her glass in a single motion.

 

"Twelve against two! How are they supposed to be able to fight those numbers without help?"

 

"How many times have those two done the impossible? We just need to accept that we've done everything that we can for them, and hope that they survive. If we get to see them again, we can be angry then, but for now, we need faith," Raven replied, looking over to Echo next to her.

 

Echo clenched her jaw angrily, unable to argue. She was not a fool and knew that there was little that she could do against the Disciples, but that did not mean that she was scared of facing her own death if she could do anything for Katye and Rebecca. Her thoughts could not help but go back to the days when she had first gotten to know the two women.

 

"Before Katye and Rebecca, I was nothing more than a tool. Katye was the first to try and make me realize that my life could be more than just that, but it was Rebecca that made me truly believe it. All of her powers and she wanted nothing more than to help people and get back to you. She could have ruled all the Clans with Katye at her side, but she wanted none of that, neither of them did. They just wanted a place where people could live happily together and their own little sliver of it. They showed me that there was more to life than just fighting for power," Echo said after several minutes.

 

"My story isn't on the same level as you, but I do feel like I know what you mean. Becca was there for me at my lowest point in life and refused to let me push her away. Then, when I had been shot and the Trikru warriors were closing in around us, she took a step forward and stopped hiding herself. For me... she revealed her powers and healed me, so that I would not end up crippled. She always hated herself for not coming forward sooner and taking charge, but it would have been hard if she had tried and she would have alienated herself from the rest of our group, more than she already had because of Lincoln. What she wanted more than anything was a place to belong, which I would like to think, we gave her."

 

"Then why did she leave us behind?!?"

 

"The same reason that we spent nearly two years in space without her. Just like you, she would rather die than let anything happen to us... Honestly, if she could have, she would have left Katye behind and faced the Disciples alone, but only Becca could stop Katye, and she knows it. Rebecca is a protector, and so, she is protecting us from dying as well as possibly seeing her die," Raven replied, filling up her cup.

 

"And you're fine with that?"

 

"Not at all, but we don't have the strength to stand next to them," she sighed.

 

 

A/N: I would like to ask for those of you who are enjoying the story to leave a review on the story if you haven't already since we are getting near the end goal of 100 chapters!

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