In its spartan office, Quill pondered the trio’s words carefully.

“So, Halcyon and Baron? I don’t know if it adds up.”

“Why not? Baron was looking for something, Halcyon was snooping around in a restricted area. It doesn’t have an alibi for the attack on Fable.”

“But Halcyon is an Alpha iterator. I find it hard to imagine that it could have dispatched Fable so neatly without being seen.”

“Maybe it had some kind of special technique or hidden weapon that we don’t know about. For other situations, Baron could be the muscle.”

“Still, I fail to see what they would have to gain. The different pieces aren’t coming together.”

“They seem to be looking for something. What’s in this temple that could be valuable enough for someone to steal? Something that’s connected to Fable?”

Quill froze.

“Master Quill?”

“...That’s right. Golden kept one key, but Fable had the other…”

Everything was slowly starting to make sense. Why Fable’s head was taken intact, and why they wanted until Golden was away from the temple. If they had a way to get through the second barrier…

“You three. Stay here.”

Quill moved so quickly that it seemed to vanish.

Rising Waterfall Temple’s basement was off limits. At all times, a minimum of two students were posted by the entrance as guards. They barely slowed Halcyon down.

“Baron. I believe locked doors are your specialty.”

Behind Halcyon, Baron detached its spiked shoulder, and swung it at the sealed door with all the force it could muster. Despite being infused with Code, the door crumpled in two hits.

The basement was originally part of a natural cave system, now sealed off and reduced to two large caverns - a mostly-empty upper chamber, and a larger lower chamber that opened into a mouth hidden behind the massive waterfall around which the temple was built. Elaborate devices drew power out of the endless cascade of water, using it to fuel the defenses surrounding the ancient artifact at the cavern’s center.

The artifact floated between two spires, one rising from the floor and another descending from the ceiling. Surrounding it were two nested barriers, forming a cylinder around the whole construction.

“Golden’s powerful, I’ll give it that. I doubt even your flail could crack this one. Keep an eye out for trouble.”

Baron grunted, and Halcyon took the severed head from its hip. Pointing Fable at the barrier, it channeled Code through it to activate the barrier key program against its will. The outer barrier blinked out of existence. Guards, door, and outer barrier dealt with, there was just one obstacle left.

Halcyon reached into its cache of techniques, and pulled out the specialized barrier-crack ability it had created for this specific moment. The program probed the barrier, trying to flood vulnerable points with Code to disrupt it, and terminated in failure. No matter, just a matter of iteration to find its weakness…

Reacting in under a tenth of a second, it turned to block a palm strike from Quill, which pushed it several meters back.

“Who are you, Halcyon? Why would you do something like this?”

“No particular reason. I just love stealing.”

Quill floated a few centimeters off the ground, a white ring materializing behind its back. It wasn’t just a technique, but a manifestation of a Controller, the power that separated Version 1.0 iterators from those beneath them.

“Even stabbing your own teacher in the back. You can’t imagine that I’ll let you off easily for this.”

“I suppose I can’t.”

Halcyon pulled a 2-meter tungsten rod from its back, spinning it casually. A miniature star manifested over its head, swirling with red and blue flames.

Quill floated a pace back. “You have a Controller? But…”

“Your surprise is gratifying. It means that my cloaking process was able to hide my power from you for over a month.”

Halcyon was talking in order to stall for time while the barrier hacking program ran its course. Realizing the threat posed by its foe, Quill stopped asking questions. Instead, it gestured quickly, and a white circle traced through the air horizontally around Halcyon. It jumped out of the ring a moment before it shrunk to a single point and vanished. If it hadn’t moved in time, it would have been cut in half by the constricting circle.

The tungsten rod blazed red, then yellow, then white, before Halcyon swung it down at Quill, who darted out of reach. The heat coming off of it was enough to melt metal.

“This one’s too tough for you, Baron. I’ll handle it, you keep out the riffraff.”

Halcyon summoned a host of ice shards to launch at Quill, while Quill opened three more rings around Halcyon, ready to slice it to pieces. Behind them, the Cosmic Shroud spun silently, hiding the planet from the countless eyes of the humans in orbit.

“This way.”

Meteor was the fastest of the three, and wasted no time leading them down the path to where it saw Halcyon. None of them could match Quill’s pace, but hopefully they could catch up soon enough to support it.

The door to the basement was unlocked, but as soon as they reached the upper chamber, they had to scatter to avoid being smashed by Baron’s flail.

“Baron!” Trebuchet bellowed. “I thought of you as a friend! What is this insanity? What are you doing?”

“Watching out for trouble. That means you.”

The sounds of a battle between true iterators echoed from deeper within the cavern behind Baron.

Aria took a low stance, ready to break into a sprint. “One of us needs to support Quill. Can you keep Baron busy?”

“It’s a formidable foe, but yes. We’ll make an opening for you.”

“I’d like to see you try!”

Baron raised its flail overhead, spinning it at incredible speed, waiting for someone to come within range. Aria tried to provoke it into moving with a few Dynamic Bolts, but they bounced harmlessly off of its Code-reinforced armor. Only their strongest attacks would have any chance of damaging it, and not many of those had enough range to attack without facing the flail…

“Can you use that spear move from before?”

“The Javelin Comet? No good. It empties my reactor, so I’d be powerless afterwards. I can only use that when it’s sure to end the fight.”

While Aria and Trebuchet talked strategy, Meteor charged in. As the most fragile among them, a single hit from the flail would be fatal, but it was also the fastest. Wreathing its hands in Code, it danced through the swings with ease, delivering an avalanche of blows to Baron’s chest, joints, and head.

None of them left so much as a scratch.

Fortunately, the distraction was enough for Trebuchet to get into close range, closing in with a leaping trident strike that Baron had to knock aside at an angle rather than take head on. It was tough, but not invincible.

As Baron and Trebuchet fought, Aria glimpsed a momentary opening and launched itself forward, sliding between Baron’s legs and heading towards the lower cavern.

Continuing down the tunnels, the sound of explosive techniques being exchanged intensified. However, once Aria emerged into the mouth of the cave and the Cosmic Shroud’s resting place, the sound of battle stopped.

Quill’s head, turned halfway towards Aria, was pierced clean through by a tungsten rod.