"Alright gang, we need to get to the bottom of this," Eden says, standing up in front of us and dusting off her jeans. We've all gathered in Faye's apartment on usual movie night time, but we won't be relaxing and bonding tonight, though everyone's dressed as casually as we usually are, and sitting in the same area we normally do. There's even snacks too. The whiteboard Faye uses for her studies has been flipped around and wiped clean to let Eden write things down as she needs to. "The first abnormality we noticed was on Monday, when West Shores High was attacked by the monster the news have since dubbed Fenris."
"Which is just lazy if you ask me," Ida interjects. "Some intern just looked up 'wolf monsters' on the internet and picked the first memorable name they saw."
"Be that as it may, that's where this whole mess began. Asha, you said you and Kareh patrolled the school and the surrounding area Sunday night?"
"Yeah. We didn't find anything big enough to have been able to turn into a monster that size. Feels like Fenris almost came out of nowhere." The last half dozen or so movie nights, we've had all of our Squires present, and it's led to some fun, unexpected bonding time, but tonight, each Squire is sitting beside their Knight. Chibi Destiny is in my lap, paying close attention to the meeting. Kareh, sitting almost upright as best a lizard can next to Asha, clears his throat.
"Indeed. I sensed neither hide nor hair of a spawn in its larval state."
"On top of that, Ida, Faye, Ayame and I have all noticed weird things on each of our patrols this week. Myself, Tuesday night I encountered several larvae, all big enough that I was about to call in reinforcements, but as I let Willow and Nox power up, they retreated, slinking into the shadows and didn't return. Faye, you reported something similar?"
"Yes. It was only one, and not big enough that a few whacks with my staff wouldn't bring it down, so I didn't even consider calling for help. It disappeared before I could even approach it too."
"Ayame, you managed to actually fight one this week?" Our aggressive little second-in command snorts and rolls her eyes.
"Only because I managed to pen it in with fire. I know, Ida-" she cuts off our youngest member before she can interject. "A display of power like that is restricted to big fights, but you all had been reporting weird shit going on, so I decided to try and corner one. But even when it fought back, something was off." The young blonde sitting on the floor in front of me quirks her head to the side, in almost the exact manner her fox Squire does at the same time.
"Off, how?"
"Usually when we fight larvae, they're all brute force and destruction, right? Their only instinct is survival, right? So they can grow up. This one held back. It circled me, spent time just fending me off. I think it was studying me." A deathly chill settles over us when she says that. Even the bigger monsters only display rudimentary intelligence, if any. Eden has been taking meticulous notes about our observations on the whiteboard so far, and turns to Ida in front of me.
"Your observations are usually a little more large-scale because of your gifts, Ida. Have you noticed anything significant?"
"I didn't run into anything during my scout and scan activities yesterday, but neither Eo or I noticed any pockets of stress buildup or emotional instability either, which is how we usually plan out the patrol areas next week. It feels like something's brewing."
"Yeah, I don't like any of this either," Eden says, tapping her foot slowly as she thinks. "I have some ideas about what might be going on, but we still need to hear from our newest member. Destiny? Destinies?" She has a joking gleam in her eye when she tries to address both my Squire and I, and I can't help but smile back. "Your patrol was Thursday, but nothing really happened right? So have either of you noticed anything funky with, like, fate or whatever? I still don't quite understand how that all works, if I'm being honest."
"The only peculiarity we've noticed remains Jeanette's complete disappearance from the tapestry. It's like she never existed," Chibi Destiny says. I'm moderately relieved that she didn't take the chance to throw out some sarcastic comment.
"Which is crazy, because at least as far as we both figure, that should mean no one would remember her but Destiny and I," I add. "She would disappear from the world's collective memory, but obviously that hasn't happened. My guess is she's not actually disconnected from the tapestry, but hidden within it instead. I just don't know how that could happen." Chibi Destiny nods, agreeing with my theory. "You said you had a theory, Eden?"
"I do." She points to each of the anomalies she's written down on the whiteboard in order. "Surprise attack, wary behavior, observation, and going dark. Doesn't this all speak to a more intelligent mind at work behind everything?"
"You're thinking Renata," Ayame cuts in. It's a statement, not a question.
"I am. "
"I don't like that thought." Asha sounds grim, more so than anything I've ever heard from her before. Ida's usually calm expression has taken on a pallor of measured fear. This chapter was taken from NovelPing without permission.
"This does feel more like what we know of her than our last suspicion." Faye says, looking over at me, as if I don't already know what they thought when I first appeared. Not something I blame them for though.
"Hang on for a moment," I say. "I've been with you all for close to a year now, and you still haven't told me who this Renata is."
"Yeah, we were hoping we wouldn't have to, to tell you the truth. Not every generation has to deal with her, and since Esper and their squad suffered two casualties at her hands five years ago, we've been praying we'd get to sit that hurdle out. Now that we have a suspicion, though, you're right, you deserve to know." Willow and Nox, the twin motes of starlight that serve as Eden's Squires, have until now been sort of resting on top of the whiteboard, but lift off and fly out in front. "The Squires are probably best suited for the job of explaining that, though."
"She calls herself Queen Renata, though the validity of her claim to royalty is up for debate." Willow, the bright and colorful spark begins. "The last living remnant of an ancient alien species in another galaxy." Nox, the mote that looks like the center of a black hole continues. "A magical experiment performed by her planet's royal court aimed at giving everyone eternal life backfired. Or maybe Renata, court sorceress, planned it that way all along. We weren't there, so we don't know precisely. Whatever the cause, her people were cursed with a hunger that would consume them and cause them to shrivel up if they didn't consume each other's life essence." Willow again takes over.
"Those who did give in to that hunger got what they were promised, though, and could live forever so long as their supply didn't run out. Renata proved to be both the most cunning and ruthless of their number. Over the course of a couple of decades, she hunted down and consumed each and every one of her peers." Finally, the other Squires stir. Kareh and Eo, both tall enough to look over the edge of Faye's coffee table, sit down on the other side of it where all us Knights can see them. Syd takes a seat on the table itself, and Ayame's Squire, Ember, floats over beside Willow and Nox. He's the next one to speak up. Since it's the first time I've heard her speak, her deep, smooth voice takes me by surprise.
"Much like the flame, Renata could feel herself fading without the steady flow to sustain her, and with her home world now devoid of life, there was only one option: To look elsewhere. But space is vast and each galaxy only has so many planets capable of hosting life, so she spent a considerable part of her stored power to start creating scouts that would travel out in all directions and find planets full of life for her to consume." While Ember speaks, Eden leaves her spot near the whiteboard and comes to sit down on the armrest of my chair.
"Can you tell they've done this before? It's like a whole performance," she leans in to whisper, giggling a little bit. "It's pretty cute, despite the subject." Kareh speaks up next, angling his body in a more regal manner.
"Young Destiny, you are no simpleton, so you have no doubt surmised where this tale is going, but we wish to not leave any doubt." I'm pretty sure I've figured it out, yeah. "We Squires indeed started our existences as six of Renata's scouts. We were destined to land on various planets, feed on their energies and dismantle their defenses enough for our queen to safely start harvesting. It saddens me to say collectively we were instrumental in the devastation of several planets before our eyes opened to the travesty of what we were doing."
"We were the first and last generation of intelligent scouts." Now it's Syd's turn to speak. It feels a little weird watching a bunny in full loaf mode chattering at you in a high-pitched but decidedly masculine voice, but then, this has been my life for almost a year now. "We figured out how to reach out to each other and coordinate. We eventually all made it to Earth and decided even if we didn't have the ability to protect all corners of the universe, we could at least protect this little planet with its diverse citizens. When the first of Renata's second generation of scouts made it to Earth, we couldn't deal with it on our own, but Willow and Nox, being the geniuses they are, quickly figured out that our powers could be enhanced by an order of magnitudes if we channeled it through select humans."
"And thus, the Celestial Knights were born," they all say in unison, making me crack a smile. Yeah, they've definitely been practicing this one.
There's a bit of a pause in case anyone wants to say anything. In fact, I do. "And that's why you consume the larval state monsters we fight on patrol, I take it? Because Renata made you dependent on life energy as well."
"As mentioned, no simpleton," Kareh nods. "And our resistance is why Renata has been sending increasingly stronger scouts over the decades since our arrival. The way her transportation magic works, she needs to conquer Earth to open the path to a rather large chunk of the remaining universe." I nod, thinking deeply. Chibi Destiny stands up in my lap, adjusting a few bits of her dress before speaking.
"In that case, it also makes a lot more sense you'd be suspicious of us. If Renata is cunning and powerful enough, what would stop her from emulating your process to fight back?"
"Exactly," Willow says. "So far we've been lucky that it's just been monsters of increasing size, strength and frequency. But we've never seen the monsters behave like they have this past week."
"So what do we do now? How do we deal with an unknown situation like this?" I'm maybe leaning a little more on Eden than I'm probably supposed to when the other Knights aren't supposed to know yet, but she's a comforting presence, and I'm feeling a little bit of trepidation about the future right now. Ida stands up and Eo quickly slinks over to practically wrap around her Knight's legs.
"Until we have any more concrete evidence I think the safest move is to be more vigilant and start gathering some data of our own. I also suggest we go back to two-person patrols until the picture is clearer, just in case a surprise attack happens again. We still don't know where Fenris came from, after all. That means two patrols at least each week for everyone." Eden nods and gets up too. She gives my shoulder a little squeeze before standing next to Ida.
"I concur. In addition to looking for larvae and taking them down, we'll all have to keep an extra eye out for anything that stands out, and four eyes are always better than two. Any objections?" No one raises a hand. I think we all grasp the severity of the situation and feel the need to make sure nothing gets out of hand.
"Great. Ida, you're usually in charge of scheduling. Mind doing the honors?"
"Absolutely. Ayame and Faye, you two work well together. I'm giving you Monday and Thursday next week. Asha and Destiny. Tuesday and Friday." I raise a hand and cut in briefly.
"Uh. I have plans Friday night." Ida grimaces a little.
"So do I. Long shoot," Eden chimes in. I only barely catch it out of the corner of my eye, but Asha's grin can almost be heard. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
"Fine then. Asha and Destiny, Monday and Thursday, Ayame and Faye on Tuesday and Friday, and Eden and I take the rest. That sound good?" Everyone nods and Ida takes a quick look at her phone. "Perfect. We've got about an hour until we usually leave. Anyone up for a quick game of Darkhunters?"
Darkhunters is one of the many niche, nerdy board games Ida likes to play. I didn't see the appeal at first, and the rules are considerably more complex than the games I played with my family as a kid, but after a few times, I realized it's just a nice, indirect bonding activity. The objective of this particular game is to hunt down and kill hidden shadow creatures controlling one of a cast of very colorful characters obviously inspired by the eighth generation of Celestial Knights, Titania's squad. I've never actually won, but I have fun anyways, and there's some good hushed conversation about the small things that matter in our daily lives between turns.
Once I'm home and alone in my room with Chibi Destiny at around eleven, I pick her up and set her on the bed while I crouch down on the floor next to her. "I didn't want to say anything with the others around, but I was thinking about something." The little doll crosses her arms, bending her head forward in a weird yet contemplative gesture.
"Yes, I had a thought too."
"The monsters aren't directly connected to the tapestry. Have we ever checked if the Squires are?" Now that I know the whole story, I don't feel so guilty about investigating things surrounding the Squires.
"I have, and they are not."
"And we've never seen anything in the tapestry we assumed to be Renata's work. So then it's probably a pretty safe assumption Renata has some way of fiddling with fate. It may or may not be similar to how I do it, or it may simply be that she's managed to find a way to hide or detach people."
"The witch queen certainly seems powerful enough to pull off things I didn't think were possible, if the other Squires' story is to be believed, so your assumption seems reasonable. What're you driving at, Destiny?" The little doll seems suspicious of me. The thought has only just formed in the back of my mind, so it takes a moment for the words to make it to my tongue.
"Is it a stretch to assume Renata might have something to do with Jeanette's disappearance? The pieces, and the lack of them, fit."
"... Destiny we have to be careful about what we do next." The little doll already knows what I'm thinking. "While our accounts of Renata are secondhand at best, we have reason to assume she's unbelievably powerful. Just her scout monsters have been enough to kill the Knights that are basically designed to counter her in the past. What do you think she can do in person?"
"I know. And I wouldn't do anything without the Knights at my side anyway. This is their area of expertise, their fight. But you understand that if there's even a sliver of a chance to bring Jeanette back, I have to try, right?"
"I know. I'm just worried what other implications her being able to mess with fate in whichever manner she does has." I hadn't even considered that. I wrack my brain for a moment and come up with a couple of bad things that might mean, but I want to know what little Destiny is talking about.
"What do you mean?"
"What if your powers can't touch her at all? What if she truly is completely detached from fate?"
"Fuck."
"Yeah. Maybe you should take Ayame up on those fencing lessons, just in case."
"Maybe. And maybe we should kick my regular training up a notch."
"A good idea, too. We should go to bed. It's going to be a long day in the desert tomorrow."