Alex waited at the entrance, knowing that Matthias wouldn't be far behind. Ahead of him was a sight that made his fingers itch. Instead of a narrow corridor leading to a larger console room, Alex stood in a large hangar. It looked ripped out of a big-budget sci-fi movie, though it was clear of any futuristic spaceships.

What struck him the most though, were the cradles. Long devices lined up at regular intervals down the hangar. Each one was built with clamps that could hold a tubular shape. Not that different from the docks at Dry Turtle.

They would fit around the Nighthawk like a glove.

However, he knew the temple wouldn't call out to him without purpose. There had to be another secret inside. The last time he had stepped into a similar facility, he had found Mari.

"Huff." Matthias passed through the portal, immediately dropping to his knees beside Alex.

Alex looked down at him and waited for the man to recover. When Matthias finally looked up, he would have a harder time breathing. That was par for the course when dealing with island cores and technology like them.

"What?" He staggered as he stood, his eyes roving the hangar.

"You get used to it," Alex said as the portal snapped shut behind them. "Or, you never see it again."

Thud.

He walked out into the wider hangar, his footsteps echoing as he searched the far walls. Most of the walls were bare metal, with fluorescent lights at the top of the walls, but on the far end, Alex spotted a console and smaller door.

He started for it, and Matthias followed.

"Where are you going?"

"No idea. I kind of just make it up as I go."

"That's mad." Matthias rushed to keep up.

"That's being an outlaw." Alex sighed.

Hiss. Psh.

The door opened on its own as they approached, revealing a smaller side room with a central console. Screens and buttons circled the room, and small windows showed the darkness outside. More accurately, it showed the Outside.

Alex reached the console and hit his first button. His fingers flicked switches and pressed buttons he didn't understand. However, his hands knew what to do. It was all wrapped in his subconscious.

"And you still have no idea what you're doing?" Matthias watched as Alex worked.

"Not a clue." Alex smiled a little back.

Not having to explain it, not needing to explain it was doing him wonders. The pain was a little less now. If he kept going for a little while longer, he might be able to face Artur's corpse when he returned to the ruins.

That killed a little of his motivation, but his hands continued working the switches and buttons unimpeded by his mental state. It bothered him a little that his body seemed possessed by some sort of process he had no control over, but he couldn't deny that it worked.

"So, what is this place?"

"I think it was a place to hold slipships, though they don't do that anymore."

He paused, his finger hovering over a button.

Listen.

He pressed down on it.

Click.

A part of the console opened, revealing a small dais that rose from the interior. On it rested a small item, almost too small to be significant. It was almost triangular in shape, though curves along its edges messed with that simple geometry. A single point in its center cut a hole through it, large enough to fit the point of a pen.

Alex's hand hovered over it. He wanted to pick it up. He couldn't explain why, but there was a divot in his hand waiting to pick up the object, perfectly shaped to fit it. His mind was telling him it would fit perfectly in his hand.

He didn't like it.

When he first started searching for island cores, it was to find information that would take him home. From the first one on August, all of them had given him subconscious information that allowed him to operate the strange machines. Each time he knew a little bit more, but never enough to take him home.

"You ever do something without knowing why?"

"Maybe," Matthias said beside him. "I've picked up things without realizing it until later."

"Sometimes I wonder if there's another person inside of us, quietly going along and pushing us certain ways," Alex said, his fingers twitching to touch the object. "Another mind, right beneath the surface."

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"That's odd," Matthias said, looking between the object and Alex. "It's just a piece of jewelry, isn't it? Doesn't seem that important."

He had a point. Maybe Alex was just being paranoid. The idea of being influenced by a subconscious mind, manipulated into a particular path, it couldn't be real. He was still himself. He could decide to leave the strange triangle there. Surely, he could.

He reached out and picked up the object and instantly knew what it was.

We meet again. I waited for you.

Alex shook his head to brush the words away as he held the object up to the light. It was a key of sorts, and he knew precisely where he could use it. However, its existence on the island was strange, like it had been placed there just for him, in this specific circumstance.

That churned his gut. The idea that someone had planned for him to come to the island, specifically planned for him to be trapped there, had implications. Unless someone was preparing for every opportunity, it made him doubt whether anything up to this point was his choice at all. Was he the reason that they had come to Grim Aegis, that he trusted Bolton, that Artur had died, or had he been following along a set of strings?

A tangled web of fate.

Alex didn't believe in fate. Jean did, but even his idea of fate wasn't the same as what this object represented. Alex closed his fist around the key.

"Come on," Alex said, turning away from the console.

"Wait!" Matthias called after him, following behind. "I don't understand. What is it?"

Harut stood, flanked by Chief Adhira Aryah of the Military Police and her troops on one side and the ten uninjured and alive Hell Knights on his other before the gate. Their memories were restored, and they served him by more than duty now. Above, slipships hovered, ready to fly in the moment the portal was opened.

The problem was that he could not be the one to open the portal.

He had the bloodline, especially with his brother dead and taking funerary rites in the castle, but he did not yet have the pact. He needed time to call Halogi, to commune with the spirit and mace a pact with it. With his brother gone, and his nephew lost, he did not know that the gate before him would open.

However, he hoped it would. It would be a sign that Artur had survived his flight, that Alex had succeeded in saving his nephew. It would be a sign that he could go back to his travels, and not have to take on the burden of nobility. Standing on the walls of the portal was his bet that Alex would succeed.

Yet, every moment that passed was a rejection of his hope.

"Why do you keep up this delay?" Chief Adhira sighed behind him. "The longer we wait, the more likely this 'Miss Malone' will escape."

"I know that," Harut whispered, clenching his fist.

Clop.

"Your orders are binding to me, but I must wager patience against folly." Chief Adhira's boots echoed on the stones as she stepped toward the chasm. "If we cannot follow after them here, I can't go back to the Scions empty handed."

She was talking about the outlaws currently ensconced with the injured knights in the castle's infirmary. All that kept the Military Police from them was his order, and if Artur returned, then he would have even more backing him up. As of now, he was not king. Artur would be king when he returned.

"Just a little longer." Harut released his fist, letting the fingers fall out with an ache. "I trust Alex to bring them all home."

"An outlaw?" Chief Adhira snorted. "You trust an outlaw to help you?"

She shook her head, her eyes looking up at the fleet of Military Police slipships in the air. The entire might of a dreadnought stood above them, if not the ship itself. Even Harut knew of the power that implied, though the chief herself was the real weapon of the massive ship. A chief could have taken Miss Malone and all her fingers in moments. They were almost as strong as the Scions, in his mind.

"I will not chastise you for making allies where you needed. That my two captains played along with this farce is already a sign that you were in a difficult place. However, you must know that an outlaw will look out for themselves first. They will rape and pillage until they are captured or killed. That is why we must exist. We are the order to their chaos."

Not that it did much good for Grim Aegis, but Harut held his tongue. He was already on shaky ground.

Bzzt.

A blue spark cut across the portal, and all eyes turned to the chasm. It was small, and Harut thought that hoped had caused him to hallucinate. That was until the second spark cut across the portal.

Bzzt. Crack.

Like lightning, the light shot across the chasm, going from corner to corner back and forth in electric bursts. The lightning kept up that track, expanding out across triangles to fill the entire chasm with a blue glow. A cube rose from the chasm, unlike every time Harut had seen it opened. It was no flat square, but a three-dimensional object.

"Hold back." Chief Adhira held a finger up to her ear and whispered, and the ships above pulled away with hums of power. "Maybe you were right."

Harut had his doubts. It was nothing like when the portal was normally opened. Green light was what marked the portal, and it never opened up larger than the square set into the ground. That was why slipships were necessary to pass through it. A person couldn't come back through without a slipship to ferry them upward.

Shadows appeared in the blue light of the cube, and Harut touched the hilt of his blade. He didn't draw his sword, but he knew from experience. Traveling through a portal meant that you needed to be ready for anything.

A red-scaled humanoid stepped through first, completely naked with his yellow-orange belly exposed. Across his shoulders, he carried a figure wrapped in ropes, tied tightly and gagged. It took Harut a moment to recognize the creature as Captain Drake, helped by Captain Grayson passing through next without his hat. On his shoulder he carried the bound Miss Malone, though she was hardly recognizable in her current condition.

"You're both alive." Chief Adhira nodded to them both. "Good job making it back. What is your report?"

"That there's more coming." Grayson spat, walking across the stone toward the chief.

"And we succeeded in our primary mission," Drake added, shrugging the load he carried for emphasis.

Others crossed through next. Residents of Grim Aegis, and a few that even Harut could recognize with his constant travels. Berken crossed through, the old man still wearing his servant's clothing, and Harut smiled, stepping out to reach him.

"Good to see you again, Harut." Berken clasped his hands. "I never thought we would see home again."

"Glad you made it." Harut nodded. "Where is—"

Alex came through the portal last, along with a guard that Harut faintly recognized, though he didn't know the man's name. In Alex's arms, he carried Artur, wrapped in a long black jacket. Alex's mouth was set in a grim line, and Harut knew then that his nephew was dead.

His heart sank inside him, but he kept it from his face. Decades of training in being a noble fell into place as he stepped forward with his arms outreached.

"I'm sorry, Harut," Alex said as Harut reached them.

"I understand," Harut's voice cracked as he held out his arms to take his nephew.

Artur was heavier than when Harut had held him as a child, back when they had called him Arturia. Harut turned, facing the Hell Knights that waited behind him. There was much that needed to be done, and he did not have time to mourn. He was a noble, and now a king.

"Hell Knights!" he yelled, and the knights shifted to attention. "Take the prince to his father. He must have the last rites. I will speak with Ortega."

Clap.

"Sir!"

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