Aspiration had more than a few hydroponics gardens tucked away between classrooms or in unused spaces by the outer walls. They produced far more food than the school consumed, but all of Last Stand was tooled to generate a surplus. That extra used to feed the maw of Esurient to keep the Titan sated and stationary. Once the Savior drove it off, humanity found itself with far more food than it knew what to do with. That extra went to trade, tribute, and long-term storage. The industrial Crafters were hesitant to scale back production of a resource so critical to survival.

  The garden we met Bianca at was positioned at the top of the Commander’s tower. Efforts had been made to make this farm into a walkable and aesthetically pleasing place of nature, but powerful monsters would always fight through the 2nd years purges and settle here. The Commanders routinely sealed all entrances to the farm except for the drone tubes.

  Riena and I crawled up one of these. Well, I braced against the walls and flung myself up. Riena balanced on three of her drones and had them carry her.

  When I opened the hatch at the top, Bianca was waiting with X2 in a courtyard of tan tiles beneath a transparent blue shield and ceiling of glass panels. A three meter tall golem stalked around their bubble over various plant and bug monster corpses. Its lithe form was covered in purple plating, and its arms were two long blades crackling with void. The head was sleeker than X2’s, but they shared the same eye design.

  Bianca’s lab coat was enveloping enough that one could almost mistake it for a monster’s uniform. At my approach she smiled. That exuberance morphed to anger when she saw Riena. “What are you doing here, Hartgrove?”

  Riena dismounted from her drones and dusted herself off. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

  The petite Crafter bristled. “Does your family destroy so many labs that you don’t remember killing my father?”

  “Oh!” Riena’s eyes widened in recognition. “You must be a Kohl. Father believes he destroyed your clan completely. I’m glad you survived. All his machinations deserve to fail.”

  “Am I supposed to believe that you and your father aren’t in lockstep with each other? Everyone knows Dedilus doesn’t let rebellious spawn leave his estate. You’re one of his creatures.”

  “Believe what you want.” Riena stared down the smaller woman, her imperious face impassive.

  I coughed. “Bianca, this is my Commander. Her father sent drones to kidnap her on the train to Aspiration. I doubt he approves of her enrollment or anything she’s doing.”

  X2 whispered into Bianca’s ear and implored her to not be overly aggressive to a potential ally. The woman relented and tapped her tablet to deactivate the shield. “Let’s hurry and clear this area before the background death curse kills us.” Bianca pointed two fingers to her eyes and then pivoted them to Riena. “I’m watching you.”

  “Gee, with company like this, I can see why you’re avoiding the team,” Riena whispered before bonding our empathic senses together.

  I jolted from her emotions. “You’re annoyed with me?”

  “Hmmm? Am I acting annoyed with you? What does it matter what I’m feeling if I don’t act on it?” Her sarcasm was now apparent.

  “Where is this coming from?”

  She rolled her eyes. “What do you think, Mari? We get back from a mission and the first thing you do is blow up on all of us because you only killed some monsters instead of a lot of monsters. Rather than apologize, you ghost us for days.”

  I groaned as I followed X2, Bianca, and the large golem. “I explained myself Sunday. Yesterday… I had to finish a Crafting project and got distracted, but those seminars are done. If I don’t have a new significant tool every day, then Gabriel is going to beat me in sparring class. I can’t let that happen. Once I fall behind, I’ll never catch up.”

  “And I couldn’t help you with Crafting because…?”

  I didn’t have a good answer for that. Riena picked up on my uncertainty and sighed. “We’re getting better every day too. I know you feel burdened by us, but we can still help.”

  “That’s…” I hung my head. “Thanks.”

  Our group continued to walk through the admittedly lovely garden. Aluminum rails lined tiled walkways, separating us from teeming vegetation wrapped around glass tubes flowing with nutrients and liquid sunlight. Tiny drones hovered around the plants, trimming access growth, aligning roots to glass pores, unfolding leaves to the sun, and harvesting ripe fruits. The flower scent was more noticeable than a normal forest, but it lacked the earthy undertones of a true weald.

  The damp and heat were steady companions with the silence of our group. I kept my senses open for any assault and heard Bianca bickering with X2 about optimal clearing patterns.

  I offered, “Generally, you can follow the noise gradient to purge an area. The machinery here muddles things, but when you filter that out, the greatest concentration of motive life is this way.” I pointed down a path to our left.

  X2’s eye flashed, and it buzzed for a couple of seconds. “She’s right. Bianca, I need an upgrade to my audio processor. A meatbag is more proficient.”

  “Crystalline lattice is only so sensitive.” Bianca shook her head. “We’ll have to rework the system from the ground up for higher fidelity without increasing the demand on your cognition.”

  “Why not upgrade the material to a higher tier?” Riena asked.

  “Because that’s a good way to create a subordinate consciousness. While golems are more modular than humans, there is far more interconnectivity than regular magitech. A cursed component could result in shade corruption, not something drones have to worry about.”

  Riena stepped closer to X2. “Ooh, a construct with a shade.”

  “Ooh, an ape that speaks,” X2 sassed.

  Riena blushed and fell back with me. “That’s not what I meant. I was admiring the metaphysical lattice complex enough to draw a shade.”

  X2 thumbed to the large golem leading our group. “The big lug is powered by a void core with four separate earth elementals infused in each limb. It didn’t get a shade and is far stronger than I am.”

  Bianca scoffed. “Infused golems are nothing new. Father was the only human golem expert capable of calling a shade into his creations. X2 is quite unique, for now.”

  “There were others.”

  “X1 was barely functional and was destroyed defending father. One day, you won’t be the pinnacle of our craft.”

  “I’m not.”

  “No need to be so humble.” Her glasses flashed. “Interesting. There are monsters ahead, but they aren’t undead.”

  When we turned a corner of foliage, two ferns were smacking each other over a shallow cistern of water.

  “Are they playing?”

  I squinted my eyes. “No, those are enchanted plants, incapable of feeling. While it is possible to inscribe such creatures, a nearby spellcaster is more likely responsible. It’s the kind of frivolous use of power mages throw around to amuse themselves.”

  As the ferns dueled, roses floated around them and splashed with their leaves.

  “Definitely an eccentric.” Animated roses provided no utility unless part of a larger bush.

  A giant Venus flytrap then shambled around the pool. It pointed an open mouth toward us before shutting it and shuffling in our direction.

  “Taste based perception. We can assume at least a mid tier spellcaster responsible. You may have been right, Bianca. This could be the lair of the necromancer. Excellent work.”

  The monstrous pile of plant matter had halved the distance between us. Bianca snapped at her golem and pointed to the approaching enemy. It lazily looked between its master and the plant. Bianca frowned at it and poked at her tablet. “Why can’t it detect a threat?”

  I chuckled and walked forward without armor. The creature glomped onto my head and both arms. “It’s just a plant. If I sat here motionless for several days, it might digest my hair. Its master must really hate flies.” With my bare hands, I pried the creature off and threw it into the pool where the roses and ferns swarm it with hugs. “These are harmless—basically decorations—but certain demons feast on them, so be wary.”

  More bushes, flowers, and vines swarmed into the area. I crouched and petted them as they tickled my legs.

  “Be a little careful. Some of these are poison ivy. It’s mildly itchy if rubbed into a wound.” Minor poisons like these did nothing to me, but Riena might still be vulnerable. “Anyways, this is probably a trap for heroes or monsters with my hunting patterns.”

  The lines between the tiles glowed green as a dome of energy radiating the same color enveloped the area with our group and began to shrink.

  “Ah, there it is.”

  “You don’t seem worried. Is this also harmless?” Riena asked before stumbling. “Ugh, I feel awful.”

  I nodded. “The death curse intensity is increasing as the dome shrinks. If we linger too long, we’ll all die, except for X2.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  “It is but—” Bianca’s golem charged the dome and slashed. Two rents in the energy expanded outward until the entire spell fell apart. “—void users are very hard to contain.” I walked over and handed Riena a healing potion. “This should help.”

  Bianca gave my Commander a smug look as Riena accepted the potion and sipped it. Rather than regaining the color to her face, she turned and hurled.

  Frowning, I grabbed the potion back and sipped it. “Nothing seems to be out of order. What do you two think?”

  They shrugged, and Bianca answered, “Alchemy is not one of my focuses.”

  I held Riena’s hair while she vomited all over curious azaleas. When she pulled herself together, she was shaking and more pale. “It burned all the way down, and when it hit my stomach, everything started bubbling.” As she talked, I noticed her elongated fangs.

  “Ah!” I withdrew a small knife and cut my palm. “This is a common side effect of a lifestealing ability. Many of them preclude the use of regular healing potions. We’ll have to determine what special elixir you need. Until then…”

  Riena’s ruby eyes locked on the blood pooling in hand. “I really shouldn’t…”

  “It’s not going back in. If you don’t, then I’ll just have to dump it on the ground.” My hand tipped slightly to the side.

  “No!” She grabbed my hand. The motion drew her closer to the blood. She didn’t pull away.

  “If you need it, you need it. There is no shame in satisfying a need.” I edged my palm closer to her mouth.

  “Right…” Riena pushed back her hair with one hand and leaned down until her lips alighted on my blood. Soundlessly, she drank it all and licked the wound shut.

  A flash came from Bianca’s tablet as she cackled. “I knew your family were monsters.”

  I shook my head. “Actually, Riena is just a pervert. Her self-healing ability would work with red food coloring,” I lied.

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  “Really?” Riena failed to go with the lie. “That’s a huge relief.”

  X2 laughed. “Mari was lying.” It reached over and plucked the tablet out of Bianca’s hands. “Let’s not make the habit of exposing friends of friends. I’ll transfer this little photo to my personal storage, where it will stay.”

  Bianca jumped and swiped her tablet from it. “Why are you protecting a Hartgrove?”

  “I am not. What lengths would Exemplar go to protect her Commander?”

  “She wouldn’t… But…” Bianca sighed. “Good point.”

  That pissed me off. “Why do so many doubt my control? Am I so wroth to inspire fear? When have I not acted in the best interest of humanity? This jest of yours wouldn’t send me into a rage. The rabble are free to jeer at matters they don’t understand. You display your own ignorance by assuming shade corruption for what could be a complex natural ability. Whom among us hasn’t imbibed blood?”

  Riena’s color had returned and her fangs retracted to a reasonable size. She took a second to get her breathing under control before wiping the blood from her mouth and grabbing my arm. “Mari, it’s alright. They have really good reasons to hate me. Shouldn’t we find whoever laid that trap?”

  I growled and equipped my Oni armor and Hunter before stalking in the direction of a persistent tapping sound. The ruler of this domain was growing impatient.

  The party scrambled behind me with Bianca’s golem bringing up the rear. No monster or enchanted plant accosted us as we made our way to a larger clearing where someone had hauled tons of dirt to create a grass covered hill. Sitting atop it on a throne of skulls was a very pale elf woman in an elegant black dress with matching lacquered nails, makeup, and shoulder length curly hair. She sipped on her tea and raised an eyebrow at our approach.

  I burst out laughing. “Scarlet is going to be soo jealous.” The elf’s heart wasn’t beating. As well preserved and perfumed as she was, it didn’t completely mask the faint scent of rot.

  “That is no way for a hero to comport herself.” The woman’s voice reverberated with undeath, and an invisible hammer knocked me into the ground.

  Riena stepped forward and tilted her head. “I beg your pardon for interrupting your tea time. That was uncouth of us.”

  The corpse flicked the apology away along with her disappearing porcelain. “Alas, I am normally in my cups. My tongue savors each drop less, my nose detects fewer complexities, and the feeling of warmth dampens with each tea. It is truly a horror to rot from the inside out. I now see why so many liches go mad. Spells can let you taste, smell, hear, touch, and see, but they don’t let you feel. This twilight existence saps all color from the world, leaving only intellectual and spiritual pursuits.”

  “And are your pursuits intellectual or spiritual?”

  The lich tapped her chin and hummed. “What is vengeance but a spiritual pursuit? When you’ve been burned thrice, it leaves a maddening rage in your bones. You can think of nothing else and need nothing else. Death has sapped the heat from it, reducing my hate to a cold patient simmer. All you humans will die… eventually.”

  My Commander then had the audacity to pull the lich into our bond, flooding us with the same emptiness eating at Nyla. “I’m afraid I haven’t introduced myself. I am Riena Hartgrove. May I inquire who you are?”

  The woman’s eyes fluttered and a smile flickered on her face. “That is quite the delectable ability you have, young vampire.” She then mumbled to herself, “Yes, I could create a spell to mimic it, but then I would be influenced by those I bond to… No, I already feel myself slipping. It is not worth it and must end immediately.” The lich rose to her feet. “Know that you die to Xiandra.”

  Her skull throne separated into individual pieces and swirled around her. During the conversation, I had gone intangible and flowed through the dirt until I was under the lich. Since negotiations had failed, I lunged upwards and sliced several skulls, shifting the green glow around them to Hunter’s exact resonance. He sent them hurtling toward their creator.

  Xiandra caught one of the traitors and crushed it in her hand. “I find myself wanting to beat you to death with my fists. Why does your master inflict your madness on me, thrall?”

  I remained intangible and sliced Hunter through any skull that got close, but that didn’t stop the lich from sending waves at my allies or battering them aside with large invisible hands. She spoke a spell in High Elvish and wrapped me in ethereal chains.

  The lich gave into her desires and pummeled me with a flurry of poorly formed fists. Each blow sent shock waves through the air that cracked nearby glass equipment, but the strength behind them was no greater than a middling hero. “Judge me all you want. It was a small price to pay to break the endless cycle of rebirth. My spells no longer rip my mind asunder, and if I fail, it will be for the last time!”

  Xiandra’s face twitched with emotion as Riena worked the bond deeper into the necromancer’s psyche. Behind me, Bianca had reactivated her bubble shield while her golem and X2 destroyed skulls. A metal hand extended from an extradimensional space and covered Riena’s back as she fended off the flying bones with her axe and three attack drones.

  I dropped Hunter and let him fall onto the lich. She paused her assault and caught the weapon. “Well, if it isn’t one of my seeds. I wondered what happened to you. My, how you’ve grown.”

  “Release me,” Hunter hissed as his attempts to corrupt her will failed.

  “Shall I free you instead? Imagine the havoc you could wreak if unrestrained.”

  “No, any weapon in Exemplar’s hands knows that is where they will deal the most death.”

  Aww, he does care. While Hunter distracted the lich, I freed myself from the chains with my escape artist talents and punched her in the stomach. The undead creature barely reacted and began to utter another spell. With my other hand, I shoved a block of ice in her mouth before both hands went for her neck.

  A wave of force emanated from Xiandra and sent me flying backwards. I landed in the dirt on my back and rolled to the right as the lich cast a lightning bolt. Bits of metal ionized and shot from the ground. The tiny specks hit my armor like boulders. My rolling continued until I reached where Hunter had plunged into the ground.

  After retrieving my weapon, I stood up and summoned my envenomed blade in my left hand. The lich was casting separate spells with each arm and her mouth. A transparent shield surrounded her, and a glowing aura emanated from her skin. Four disk-shaped whirlwinds orbited her shield, and a ribbon of light snaked around it. Above her, a tear in space shot an alternating volley of acid arrows, rays of fire, and orbs of light at my companions.

  Tri Casting and Quick Spell? Even among liches, that many dedicated spellcasting abilities were rare. Bianca’s golem had traded its blades for a shield arm and a cannon. The void barrier drank the spells effortlessly. The nothingness destroyed near light and warped the remainder around the gap, distorting the golem’s appearance from that angle. Its cannon swathed through skulls as it hunted for the lich, but she flew or blinked out of the way.

  X2 struggled to push through the wave of spells. Its blocking forearms flickered with hexagonal energy shields as it trod forward. Each hit from a spell or skull drove it backwards and tore its tattered uniform more.

  Riena had dismissed her drones and effortlessly dodged the incoming attacks by drawing deeply on the bond and sensing Xiandra’s intentions. In between attacks, she walked toward our foe, a soft smile curling half her face. “What happens when you give a lich a heart? I’m curious to find out. Isn’t it intriguing?” Riena pushed her Suggestion at Xiandra.

  The woman flinched as her emotions ran counter to her cold logic. “Enough of this!” She shouted and darkness poured from her mouth with a spell of primeval rot. The specter of a reaper formed behind her and jerked its scythe in stuttering circular motions reminiscent of a clock.

  Doom pulsed from the lich and washed out the world into black and white. I ran toward the last bastion of color, a narrow section behind Bianca’s golem where the crouching Crafter sheltered. My blade whipped around Riena’s torso and pulled her to me as I slid by Bianca.

  She scowled at Riena’s presence. By the time I untangled my Commander from the blade chain, the Doom’s weight was tangible enough to howl as it passed the void shield. The final ticks of the reaper’s clock reverberated through our shades and was punctuated by a final ear-splitting scream.

  The plants withered and died. Microbes in the air unraveled. Hidden viruses shared too much with life and were snuffed out along with fires. The sun set, no longer wishing to gaze upon this spectacle, darkening the panes of glass above.

  X2 and the other golem stood unfazed by the death curse. Xiandra panted and pulled at her hair in growing frustration. “Get out of my head!”

  “Stop being evil!” Riena yelled back.

  “You have no right, mesmer.”

  I scrambled from behind the golem and charged. My blade was switched for a brace of heat knives. Cracks webbed through them as the frost and heat magics reacted violently with each other.

  The void cannon fired around me at the lich, causing her to teleport and renew her arcane barrage. Riena’s same trick worked for me and none of the spells could find their target. Xiandra sent a couple fireballs my way. I block one with my Spirit-Stone shield and the other with a wall of ice, which shattered into frozen shrapnel.

  When I blinked and looked away from the blast, that would have been the perfect time for most foes to attack, but Riena’s bond betrayed the lich’s intentions, so she didn’t bother.

  I closed and threw both the heat knives to where I knew Xiandra would teleport to evade a void beam. They exploded and shattered her shield. As she staggered, I squeezed past the whirlwinds, contorted around the ribbon of light, hooked her right arm with Hunter, and pulled, removing the arm.

  She didn’t cry out in pain or react in any way. The lich attacked. Her left hand grabbed my face—draining my vitality—and a whispered spell collapsed the ground beneath me. The entire tower had fallen, and two flying demons held my arms as the abyssal gate yawned open. Orcs were pouring from the rift, damning humanity to death.

  With my aura, I denied reality. I reached toward the fabric that held all things as things and ripped it. Instead of passing out, the illusion shattered. I was on the ground several meters from Xiandra.

  “Riena, was it? I’ll remember that name. Few students can harm me in a way that matters.” The one-armed woman was stoic and steady. Her roiling emotions were completely ignored as she held X2 by its neck. She turned to me. “And you need no introduction, Exemplar. Your name is whispered in fear by both monsters and heroes. After seeing an inkling of your mind, I know that they do not fear you enough. Goodbye, human.” The woman said the word with unmatched disdain.

  She winked out of existence and was replaced with a floating ball of bone spikes etched in glowing green glyphs. The device exploded instantly, and the bones grew in size as they cleaved through the floor, machinery, and the ceiling above.

  I conjured ice to deflect the attack. X2 shifted to grayscale as a personal time-lock defended it. A metal hand briefly pulled Riena out of reality, sparing her from impalement. Bianca’s golem blocked most of the shot, but the ones that landed next to her also exploded. Even then, her bubble shield caught most of those, but a thin spear of bone punched her in the gut and pinned her to the ground.

  X2 and I rushed to her side while Riena popped back into real space and collected her bearings. I pulled out a healing potion, but X2 pushed it down and knelt by Bianca. “I’m sorry I failed to protect you. When the bladedancer nearly had you that first week, I knew this was coming.”

  Bianca’s hands hovered over the protrusion. “This should hurt more.”

  “Our father thought pain after a certain threshold was useless.” It ripped the bone out of her, revealing internals shining with turquoise light and shockingly little blood.

  “What in the bloody hell!?” Bianca fought with X2’s hands to examine the wound. “Let me go! That shouldn’t be inside me!”

  X2 turned its eye to me. “Mari, could you please help restrain the patient before she damages herself.” I slid above the Crafter’s head and pulled her arms away from the hole. X2 sighed in relief and examined the injury. “Excellent, the flexible fibers moved out of the way and weren’t significantly damaged.”

  It withdrew a spray can from its pocket and applied it to both sides of the wound. Bianca’s skin sealed shut, and I released her. She scrambled away from X2 and prodded at her stomach. “I don’t understand.”

  X2 stared at her. “I’ve been saying we were siblings. Not once have I lied about this.”

  Bianca shook her head. “This doesn’t make sense! I can’t be… I eat. I breathe. I shit. Aspiration scanned my biology during initiation. Their doctors implanted an ability in me. It’s useless like the other one, but there’s no way they wouldn’t have noticed if I was—”

  I was curious about Bianca’s so-called ‘useless abilities’, but I could see they were having a moment and refrained from injecting with my own questions as X2 cut her off. “You’re advanced enough to fool most detectors, and your shade couldn’t tell the difference anymore than the doctors.”

  She pointed a finger at it. “No, I remember being a child. I saw you built. Father couldn’t have made a more advanced golem before you.”

  “He didn’t. While you were dying of shade sickness, our father copied your mind into his latest creation.”

  Bianca’s eyes opened wide. “I died?”

  “The last version of you did.” X2 shrugged. “You are only missing a few agonizing minutes of her life. Even the shade hopped over to you after killing the last one.”

  She crunched forward and curled her fists next to her head, eyes scrunched up. “Fuck… What even am I?”

  “Bianca Kohl, daughter of Benjamin Kohl, and my sister, X3.”

  Tension built in the woman’s faux muscles until she shook. All at once, she relaxed and released a wretched laugh into the world. “I’m not getting my mid-twenties growth spurt, am I?”

  “No,” X2 said matter-of-factly.

  Her horrid choking laughter tittered on the edge of sobs as tears formed in her eyes. “Why did she have to be here for this?” Bianca pointed an accusing finger at Riena.

  X2 turned to her and tapped its head. “I trust none of us will be sharing delicate information.”

  Riena nodded. “Of course not.”

  While they were busy with their heart-to-heart, I searched for loot. Aside from the lich’s arm, I found a small chest of reagents and was examining that when X2 made its query. From that squatted position, I stated, “There is no issue. If Bianca is injured around other heroes, she can claim the wound’s location is a prosthesis. If she is ever caught, there is no precedent for golems or androids replacing humans. A few portals have had technology that advanced, but none of it worked on Earth. Besides, if her shade thinks she’s human, then she’s ontologically human.”

  Bianca’s laughter trailed off and died.

  Seeing an opening, I continued, “That lich was a tier 6 monster. No wonder the 2nd years are dying in droves.”

  X2 jumped on my distraction. “What makes you certain she’s tier 6?”

  I rattled off the abilities I observed, “She had Spellcasting, Phylactery, Quick Spell, Invisible Force, Draining Touch, and Tri Casting. High tier liches tend to integrate with their phylacteries and rejuvenate from them mid-battle, so if we find hers, then we can destroy it and end this problem. Liches like her tend to scry-and-fry approaches to their phylactery. This one is powerful enough that 2nd years will need to raid her together to stand a chance, unless…”

  “Riena, right?”

  “We should check if any of the 2nd years have a similar ability, but if not, then Riena threatens her ego enough that she fled without killing us all.”

  My Commander nodded. “I’m willing to help. I almost had her this time.”

  “Bianca and I will talk with her Commander, and he’ll work out a deal with Riena for her team’s services.”

  “I think it’s fair that we all help each other,” she offered.

  X2 held up a hand. “That’s kind, but we need to carefully balance resources so that no individual threat destroys Aspiration.”

  “With that settled!” I plopped the chest between them. “How do we want to divide the loot?”