The chat had been enabled twenty-four hours after the race mission notice.
Access was simple — all it took was interacting with Zeus for a floating screen to appear in the field of vision, opening and closing as needed, with the interface that had been designed to be invisible when not being used and present when it was. I had checked the chat frequently in the first few days — scouring the interactions with the attention of someone looking for something specific, some useful information elaborated by someone who had arrived at the same situation with different resources, some strategy that would transform what had been given into something manageable, some sign that there was enough collective intelligence to make a difference when difference was necessary.
There wasn't.
["Hello… Anyone there?"]
["Hey — does anyone have any idea how we're going to win this?"]
["Win? It's easier to just kill yourself now. Do you know what they do to the losers?"]
["Death, my friend. We're screwed."]
["I heard that the youngest daughter of the Supreme Leader of planet Alpha Prime is with us."]
["Wait — are you talking about Veronica Von Unicorn?"]
["No, you animal. Her younger sister. Carla."]
["Hey everyone, I already said goodbye to my family. Does anyone have a plan or can I just kill myself now?"]
It was always the same thing — with the consistency I had learned to expect after the first few days of checking and that had stopped surprising me by the third day.
Shared despair in real time, without filter and without direction — the kind that existed when what had been received was too large to be processed individually and that had found in the collective channel not a way to resolve but to divide the weight without the weight becoming smaller. Every day some names left the chat — simply disappeared from the list with the absence that was more disturbing than any message would have been.
I knew what that meant — with the certainty of someone who had read the clauses with enough attention for there to be no ambiguity. Attendance was mandatory. Those who didn't show up didn't escape — they only hastened the end another way, traded the confrontation for something else that arrived before the confrontation, as though there were different ways of arriving at the same place and some people chose the shorter one when the longer seemed unbearable.
I closed the chat frustrated as on the previous days. At least something was happening the way I wanted — and it was enough to continue, enough for the frustrated state from the chat not to be the state I carried forward into what needed to be done.
I went back to work.
✦ ✦ ✦
"I've finally finished the cells."
"Lord… Do you think this will work?"
Morgana was skeptical. It wasn't lack of faith in me — it was the natural state of someone who had processed enough to know that the difference between working and not was testing, and testing of that didn't exist within the available time.
Livina was too anxious to stay completely still. Her eyes sweeping what I had built with the expression of someone trying to fit something into a category that didn't yet exist, who was seeing without having the vocabulary that would make what was being seen fit.
"Don't worry. I just need it to work once." — I said, with the calm of someone who had arrived at the conclusion before communicating it. — "The weight is balanced — unfortunately I can't do a better test than this."
A pause — to verify what needed to be verified before continuing.
"Now tell me what you think of this."
I pulled a helmet from the ring.
The idea had arisen from the most obvious problem I faced. I was what the enemy was looking for — there were reasons for that and the fact was that, if discovered, I would be a priority target regardless of what the others did on the field.
If all the Infernals turned in my direction at the same time, I was lost regardless of what I had prepared — with the mathematical certainty that no individual preparation could sustain the collective attention of a sufficiently large number for a sufficiently long time. I needed time — time for my strategy to work, time for the pieces to move, time for what had been prepared to reach the point where it could produce results. The helmet was what would give that time. If nobody knew where I was, nobody could prioritize me.
"I think you look quite dashing, my Lord."
"Very cool. Definitely."
"Thank you, girls. I was unsure which design would look good."
A calculated pause — with the timing of someone who had prepared what was coming before creating the anticipation.
"So I made two."
Both looked at the second helmet in my hands with the expression of someone who hadn't calculated that possibility — the specific surprise of something that had arrived before being anticipated, that had found attention unguarded. I put on the second with the care of someone verifying the fit before confirming the result.
"So — which looks better?"
"This one, without a doubt."
"My Lord, you look menacing with that one. Impressive."
"Good, I'll go with that one then. Honestly I was liking this one more too."
The armor I was wearing limited movement — it was the cost of something built to absorb impact in ways that mobility didn't absorb, where each additional element of protection was an element of freedom of movement subtracted. It was a trade I had calculated before making, not after. But I wouldn't be fighting on the ground — I would be mounted.
What I needed was to survive as long as possible while the plan unfolded — with survival being the condition for the plan to reach the point where it could work, and not the objective in itself. Mobility was secondary to what I had calculated. Durability was everything.
"Has anyone elaborated any strategy?"
Morgana asked with the perseverance of someone who still hadn't given up believing there would be an answer.
She couldn't see the chat. So she always asked what was being planned, with a regularity I found simultaneously irritating and moving — irritating because the answer hadn't changed, moving because the question communicated that she still believed there was an answer.
"Honestly, I think it'll end up being every man for himself."
A pause — to let what had been said exist before continuing.
"As much as that hurts, I can't see anyone with enough power to influence any decision in a positive way for us."
There was one exception. Everyone knew who it was — with the certainty of someone who had observed the chat with enough attention to identify the name that appeared most frequently in others' references, the name that people invoked when they were seeking possibility rather than just despair. And I knew that everyone else would follow that person if they spoke up.
But that person hadn't said anything. Not a word, not a sign of having read what had been said. With a few days until the confrontation, the silence was data I had stopped trying to interpret and started simply registering.
I was no longer counting on it.
I needed to survive. I needed to cause maximum damage with what I had. Basing anything on the strategies of someone who hadn't even deigned to appear made everything exponentially more difficult in a way that wasn't just addition of difficulty, but multiplication of uncertainty.
"I understand." — Morgana sighed — with the kind of sigh that wasn't resignation but was acceptance.
"Don't worry — what I'm building is solid. And even if something happens, you're free."
I said it as though it were a casual observation — with the tone I had deliberately chosen, that I had tested internally before using externally, that I had calculated would be less heavy than the honest alternative would be.
It wasn't.
I watched the weight of the words land on both of them at the same time — not gradually, but all at once. On their shoulders, which shifted in a way that communicated something had arrived. In their eyes, which changed in quality before changing in direction. In the way Livina looked to the side — with the movement of someone processing something they didn't want to process in front of whoever had said it — and Morgana stayed one second longer in silence than normal, which was a second that carried different weight from other seconds.
"I'm sorry. Don't worry — I'll do everything to come back. Wait for me."
It was the kind of promise that wasn't a guarantee, but was intention, that existed not to protect whoever listened but to protect whoever made it — to create the commitment out loud that would make abandonment harder but the present lighter.
Talking with them helped more than I admitted. When exhaustion hit in a specific way. They reminded me that I desperately wanted to come back. Without realizing it, those two girls were becoming more and more a reason not to give up. Never.
"Lord, aren't you planning to go to the Colosseum?"
I had almost forgotten.
The liquid was still there. And leveling up before the confrontation was the only variable I could improve without additional cost — without stones, without material, without anything beyond the time the trip to the Colosseum would consume. There weren't enough stones to invest in status any other way — all the capital had gone to the army, to the armament, to my ideas, to what had been calculated as priority when the resources had been distributed.
But the Colosseum was different.
"I'll finish what needs to be finished and go straight there. Wait for me."
I hadn't slept properly in days — with the specific accumulation of nights that had been partially worked because there were things that needed to be ready before the confrontation and the time hadn't been generous enough for things to be ready without sleep being partially replaced by work. I wanted to finish as soon as possible — at least two days of real rest before the confrontation.
There was no point in preparing everything with precision and arriving at the battlefield running on half capacity.
While returning to the iron and steel house a name passed through my head — the same one that was probably passing through everyone's heads at that moment. I shook my head, pushing the thought away.
But not without first feeling, for a second, something resembling hope.
✦ ✦ ✦
Carla Von Unicorn
"Sister… I… I—"
"Don't worry. Luna, Estrela and I are ready."
"If I could give you more. It's just that father, he—"
"Don't worry, sister. I'll come back."
A pause — with the duration that existed when what needed to be said had been said and what needed to be felt had no words available.
"I promise."
"I believe you."
My sister was sad. So was I. But one of us needed to be strong — which was a distribution I had made before verifying whether there was an alternative, not from heroism, but from logic: it was my problem, so I would be the one to resolve it. Or to try to resolve it. Or to do the maximum possible in the direction of resolving it before what wasn't controllable arrived.
"I'm going. Wait for me tomorrow."
I closed the trade agreement. It was the way we had discovered for talking in the market without others hearing — a symbolic trade per day, small enough not to attract attention but real enough for the system to register it and open the channel.
The best moment of any day I had had in the Oasis — with the certainty that had built gradually and installed itself in a way that I couldn't imagine the day without that moment. Of course we were probably not the only ones who knew about it, who had discovered the channel and used it for communication that the channel hadn't been specifically designed to facilitate. But it was ours — and nobody could take what was ours, even if they knew it existed.
She was successful. Intelligent in ways I was still mapping. Hardworking — with the effort that came from an internal place and that didn't need external pressure to maintain itself, that existed before it was necessary and that persisted after the necessity had passed.
She worked with an economic precision I had never managed to replicate — that I had tried to replicate, had studied, had applied, and had always arrived at a result that was functional, but that didn't have the elegance hers had.
I didn't have the same way with money. But I was the better warrior between the two of us — the better in the form that had been developed not by gift but by decision, by hours of practice that had transformed what had been possibility into verified capability.
I was glad it had been me chosen for this.
Even though our father had cut off the relationship with me as though I were already dead — with the cut that had arrived before the confrontation had been decided — I didn't care. It was data I had registered and decided wouldn't define what I did next. If I could protect my sister, I would do anything.
✦ ✦ ✦
"My Lord. We've already assembled the force for the mission."
As soon as I left the market, a warrior appeared before me.
Six arms. Nearly three meters tall. The kind of presence that communicates capability before any demonstration is necessary — the kind that makes the space around seem smaller without anything being done beyond existing in it.
I wasn't afraid.
"Braum, is everyone ready?"
Braum was an Orghaal.
From the outside, they seemed cruel. Imposing, built to intimidate in a way that was visible before being analyzed. From the inside, they were one of the few races that lived in genuine peace on their entire planet.
They fought to eat. They warred out of necessity, not pleasure — with the distinction that made the race fundamentally different from how it had been described by those who had encountered the Orghaal in moments of necessity and had assumed the moment of necessity was the permanent state.
Nobility among them was based on protection — with the inverted logic that made the powerful responsible for the weak instead of the powerful free from the weak. The more powerful you were, the more responsible for the weakest of the race you became.
But it was what it was. And Braum as an epic summoning had proven to be what his race was.
"Everyone is ready, my Lady."
"Thank you, Braum. If something happens… I hope you have a life with more luck than mine."
"Don't say that, silly girl. I'll be here waiting for you."
I didn't respond — with the silence of someone who had received something they didn't know how to answer. I advanced to where my army was standing.
While walking, I observed the territory — not with the eyes of someone looking for a problem, but with the eyes of someone verifying what existed before calculating what could be done with what existed. I had invested a great deal in economy — trying to build something sustainable before building something powerful, trying to be like my sister, trying to prove I could survive in the Oasis by merit and not by inheritance as she had done.
Unfortunately choosing my sister's path hadn't translated into attack power — which was the dimension the confrontation had chosen as the decisive variable. And that was reflected in what was before me with the clarity of data that didn't need analysis to communicate what it communicated.
Twenty-five archers with light leather. Twenty soldiers in low quality armor — with the kind of armor that had been chosen for cost and not for capability, that was functional in the context it had been designed for and was about to be tested in a different context.
"What a disaster."
A pause — to let what had been said exist before continuing, to separate the assessment from what came after the assessment.
"At least I have you, friends."
I advanced to the two creatures before me.
Twins.
The only real luck I had had in the Oasis was when my father announced I would receive the third litter — not the first, not the second, which had gone to those judged more deserving, which had been distributed as reward for performance I was still developing. He had done it as punishment. As a way of ensuring I started in a position that would make what came after harder than it would be for those who had received better.
And I had accepted without complaining — with the acceptance of someone who had learned that complaining had never changed anything with him.
Who would have thought the third litter would produce something nobody had ever seen — with the quality of surprise that was absolute, that hadn't been available to be anticipated because it hadn't been available to be imagined before happening.
Twin unicorns.
I still laughed when I remembered my father's face at that moment — not the memory that was funny at the moment it happened, because at that moment I was processing too much to find humor. But the memory that had become funny with time and distance. The redness that had arrived before he could control what his face was communicating. The silence he had used to hide that there were no words.
He didn't know it was possible. Nobody knew. And there they both were, looking at me as though I were the most obvious and natural thing in the world — as though they had arrived for someone specific and were confirming they had arrived at the right place.
"How are you, my Lord? Ready?"
"You don't need to call me Lord. I prefer friend, Estrela."
Unicorns were extremely shy creatures — with the shyness that had been developed by a race that had learned that showing itself was a cost that most interactions didn't justify, that had arrived at the conclusion that silence was protection and had maintained that conclusion for enough generations for it to become instinct before being choice. Preferring silence to sound. Thought to word. They spoke only with those they considered family — with the criterion that had been developed out of necessity and had become a selection standard that most never passed.
And they did this in a way that most would never experience: directly into the mind, without sound, without effort, as though the distance between one's thought and the other's ear simply didn't exist. To the rest of the world, they were mute. To me, they were the clearest voices I knew.
"How are you both today?"
Every time I saw them, I lost my breath for a moment. It wasn't just the beauty. It was what they represented — creatures so close to S-rank that the distinction was more bureaucratic than real, more a matter of classification than capability, who had reached that level and had chosen what to do with it in a way that contradicted what most expected creatures at that level would choose.
By their own choice they had specialized in defense — which was against the current, which was an option that races at that level rarely made because races at that level rarely needed defense the way races below needed it. It was something inherent to their race — protection before destruction, shield before spear, the inversion of the hierarchy that most assumed existed between the two. I loved them for that — with the love that came from recognition, from finding in another what you had sought and that had seemed rare before finding it.
And it was exactly for that reason that the tightness in my chest didn't pass.
They had no choice. Being present at the moment of their birth had condemned them — which was a strong word, but one I had chosen because it was the honest word — to live at my side until my last breath. And no further. It was their nature: creatures that didn't know how to exist without their own purpose, and I was the purpose of both since the moment they were born — not by my choice, but by theirs, which hadn't necessarily been a choice, but was equally definitive.
When I was gone, they would go too — with the inevitability of something that had been sealed before being understood. Without negotiation. Without mercy. Simply because there would be no reason to continue without me — and creatures that exist for a reason don't persist when that reason ends.
They loved me in a way I was still trying to understand. With a completeness that filled me in a way I hadn't expected could be filled, and that weighed on me with the specific weight of something given without asking permission to be given and that I didn't know how to return because there was no way to return it.
I loved the Oasis for having given me the two of them — with the gratitude that had been built over every moment that had been possible because they had made it possible.
And now I hated it — with the hatred that existed before any argument that justified it — because there was no way to leave them behind. I would have to take them to the battlefield.
I didn't mind dying. It was what I had accepted when the mission had arrived — not as resignation, but as preparation, as the clearing of a variable that, if not cleared, made every decision harder than it needed to be.
"I'm sorry, friends."
"You silly girl. Don't worry — we'll be with you. Always."
The word arrived with the quality of something said without hesitation — without the weight of someone trying to convince, but with the weight of someone who had already decided before speaking.
I breathed deeply.
"Thank you. Let's go."
I climbed into the chariot.
The last gift my sister had given me. Reinforced steel, built with the kind of care that leaves marks on the quality — readable to those who know what to look for, invisible to those who don't. Unique, because only I could use it. With two S-rank mounts pulling it, it was the only item in my territory that compensated for every economic choice I had made at the cost of attack power.
It was with that object and my two friends tied to it that I had kept my kingdom intact, the chariot and the mounts being a wall too high for any external creature to survive.
In my hands, the crossbow — with the weight that had become familiar over months of training, that had stopped being an external object and had become an extension of function that the body had learned to include in the calculation of what could be done. The hand that had once been delicate was now rough and calloused from so much training — with the transformation that happened when you decide that if you're going to die you'll do the maximum possible, that had sacrificed texture in exchange for capability and had made peace with the trade before the trade was complete.
[ Advance to the Purge. You have 00:01:59 ]
"Soldiers — advance."
Luna and Estrela moved before me — with the coordinated movement of creatures that had learned to move together in ways that would be impossible individually, that had developed a language of movement that replaced any other form of communication between the two. The army began organizing behind me with the efficiency of a group that had trained enough for organization to be reflex and not deliberation.
While we advanced toward the portal, one thought wouldn't leave my head — the kind that appeared when you were about to do something irreversible and the mind decided it was the right moment to present what still hadn't been resolved, that had been waiting for the moment of maximum pressure to appear.
If I knew how to attack. If my crossbow had offensive power beyond range — if range were even sufficient for what was ahead. If I had invested differently, chosen differently. If I had an ally capable of supplying what I lacked.
If. If. If.
I shook my head — with the movement that was decision as much as gesture, that was ending a process that had begun before I decided to end it.
Too late for that.
I crossed the portal.
✦ ✦ ✦
The plain was enormous — with the enormity that communicated not just size, but absence. The wind hit from the front with the coldness of a place that hadn't been chosen for comfort.
The sky was too open. The horizon too flat — the kind of terrain that offered nothing beyond space, and that made that space a problem for those who needed cover, where there was nothing that made the sides and back safer than the front.
My army stationed — with the precision of a group that had learned where to stop when the command to stop had arrived. Luna applied the shield immediately — a dome that expanded over all of us with the smoothness of someone who had done that countless times, who had developed the gesture to the point where the effort had disappeared from the execution.
I knew what that shield meant. Nothing below S-rank broke it — which was data that made the dome the only real guarantee I had on that field, the only element of the equation that wasn't in doubt before being tested.
I left the chariot and advanced to the front — with the step of someone going to see before being ready to react to what they saw.
"Are you seeing anything?"
"They haven't arrived yet." Estrela responded seriously.
"They'll probably appear as soon as the last human enters."
While I tried to read the terrain — identify any possible advantage, any detail the terrain offered that hadn't been calculated before arriving — other portals began appearing at my side.
From each one came Lords with their armies. I analyzed each portal with the criterion my sister had taught me — the size was proportional to the magical power being transferred, data I had learned to use as a quick read before any other verification. Those arriving didn't reach even a quarter of what mine had been.
My heart sank.
It wasn't defeat. It was recognition — seeing what there was and calculating how meager it was.
I caught myself praying for something I hated to admit I wanted. Salvation. Someone who would arrive and change what seemed impossible to change — not from capability I wouldn't have, but from the presence that altered what was possible simply by being present.
The newcomer Lords began approaching — drawn by Luna's shield, which had communicated before any word that there was something there different from anywhere else on the field. Luna's barrier stopped them before they got close enough to my soldiers — with the protection function that had existed before I asked — but didn't prevent them from pleading, which was what existed before any physical protection was needed.
"Lord Carla, allow me to fight at your side."
"Save me, let me in. I beg you."
"Lord Carla, my father knows yours."
Despair. Fear. Everyone trying to cling to something solid — and I was the nearest solid thing. Identified by name, by the presence of the creatures, by the reputation that had arrived before me in ways I hadn't built, but that existed regardless. I was supposed to be the support keeping them upright.
But who would be mine?
I understood the pleas. I was doing the same internally — with fewer words and more churning stomach.
My legs trembled slightly — with the trembling I had been trying not to communicate since arriving at the field, that had been kept below the visible by effort I was accounting as the cost of a state I didn't want seen. My stomach turned — with the quality of physiological response that wasn't a choice and that hadn't stopped despite my asking it to stop. I wanted to scream and beg for help as much as any of them.
But I was there. And there was no going back.
I would have to fulfill my role to the end — for my sister, for the name I carried, for the hope that name represented for people I had never met and who were now pleading for help. I was supposed to be the light at the end of the tunnel.
Even without having asked to be.
"Luna — lower the barrier."
"Lady Carla, if I do that I won't be able to rebuild one for everyone—"
I turned to my friend — with the movement I had learned to use when what needed to be communicated wasn't an instruction, but was a request, which I had learned to distinguish between because Luna had taught me that the distinction mattered to her.
"Friend. We need them. If being at their side brings a chance, even a small one. I'll take it." — a pause. — "I don't want to watch them die while I can still protect some."
A pause.
"I understand."
The barrier disappeared — with the speed of something that had existed and had stopped existing in the same instant, without gradual, without warning beyond the decision that had been communicated.
The Lords advanced all at once. Some crying. Some on their knees before getting close enough for me to do anything.
The collective despair of those people clinging to my feet left my stomach turning in a way that wasn't fear. It was the weight of the responsibility of being what they needed me to be without being certain I was.
"They've arrived."
Estrela spoke softly — with the tone she had developed for communicating data that needed preparation before being received, that she had learned to use when what was to be communicated was data that altered the state of whoever received it.
I raised my eyes.
On the horizon, portals.
Large. Much larger than those on our side. Some close to mine — but the majority surpassed it by a margin that made the comparison almost offensive given what needed to be said about what the margin communicated. And from inside them, creatures began to emerge.
Giants in armor that seemed to have been forged directly onto their bodies — not worn with the gesture of someone putting on what can be removed, but forged, as though the metal and flesh had reached an agreement about where one ended and the other began, as though the distinction had been erased by time and process. Each of them moved with the tranquility of those who don't need haste — because haste was the state of someone still arriving at the result, and they had arrived at the result before leaving the portals, before reaching the field, perhaps before knowing they would come.
There was no urgency in those movements. There was certainty.
The Infernals.
Faster. Stronger. More ancient — with the time that had been dedicated to becoming what they were, which was time that hadn't been made available to us. More prepared. More of everything that mattered on that field.
They had everything.
We had Luna's shield and my stubbornness in not kneeling and begging for mercy — two real resources, which weren't nothing, but which also wouldn't mean anything against those enemies.
To the others I was the strength they needed. To myself I was something else — falsehood dressed as hope. I had accepted the role before deciding if I had the capacity to carry it. And I was fulfilling it because someone needed it to be fulfilled...
The hope of the hopeless.
The name I had created for that moment — for the state of being hope for those who had no other hope available.
This wouldn't be a fight. It was a massacre with a set time — which was the honest way of describing what was ahead, which I had chosen to tell myself internally because lying to oneself was a cost that produced worse results than the truth produced.
I swallowed the vomit that hit my teeth — with the physical effort of someone keeping the exterior separated from the interior by force that was being spent. If there was ever a moment for courage — if there was any moment in my entire life where retreating wasn't an option — it was now.
"Friends."
My voice came out steadier than I expected — with the steadiness that had been found somewhere I hadn't calculated before looking.
"We were abandoned. And only death awaits us here."
Pause — to let what had been said exist before continuing.
"Don't place the blame on the enemy. Place it on those who put us here." — a pause. — "But I can guarantee one thing — I won't fall without taking as many as possible with me."
A longer pause.
"Bring honor to your houses."
The Lords realized, at that moment, that I wasn't what they had imagined. Not salvation. I didn't have the power to hold back thousands of enemies or to reverse what was coming. I was a newcomer like them, with two unicorns and a crossbow in my hands, as frightened as any of them — with the difference that the fear had found direction before finding expression.
But I wasn't going to die quietly — which was the only thing that needed to be said.
I returned to the chariot.
"Now, if you'll excuse me — I need to prepare to fight. Are you coming with me?"
The cry that began as despair transformed into something else — with the transformation that hadn't been planned, that had happened in the space between the despair and what the despair encountered when I had spoken. I can't explain exactly what it was. Rage, perhaps — the kind that had found an object and had become functional upon finding it. Hatred of everything that had led us to that field, accumulated before the field and that had found an outlet in the cry. The collective and silent decision not to die quietly — which hadn't been articulated, but had been made.
The moment had come.
While I was preparing to advance — verifying what needed to be verified before running toward the blade — something behind me began to appear.
A portal.
First the size of mine — which I had registered by the same criterion with which I had registered all the others, by the size that communicated what was to be transferred. Then it kept growing without stopping. Then grew more. Then more still — until the tears in my eyes were no longer from fear, but from something I couldn't name while contemplating that portal that was nearly three times the size of the largest portal I had seen on that plain.
Pulsing with an energy I felt in my bones before seeing with my eyes — that had arrived before the image, that had been data from another channel before being visual data.
Footsteps.
The ground trembled — with the quality of trembling that wasn't an earthquake, that wasn't a terrain phenomenon. It was something arriving. Something that had arrived at the field with the weight the field had felt before what had arrived was visible. Perhaps a colossus.
And then a voice — that had arrived with the absolute casualness of someone who hadn't calculated that casualness would be the most extraordinary thing that could arrive on that field in that moment.
"Hey everyone… Hope I didn't miss the fun part."