Michael tried to move, struggling against an unseen power that held him in place.
Chase was going to... Break a second seal??? Michael could not even wrap his brain around any of this. With so many questions, and so little answers what more could he do but give up, frozen in place by a being that far surpassed them.
And they were dead? Their catalysts had been destroyed? Michael only had flashes of memories from the previous battle he had fought, the room he had never seen before with a giant hole in the center, that had been completely destroyed by ice.
His ice?
It was too much, he would have collapsed if his body could move.
"However..." Leander spoke, his tone lowering.
"I do not wish to kill the generation that stands capable of doing what even my father could not..." The words immediately caused Michael's irrational thoughts to cease.
'Huh?'
"I am sure the three of you have a question you have been wanting to ask me for the longest of times..." He said heavily, causing Neveah's eyes to widen.
Then Michael's thoughts and memories grew frantic, reaching back into time, trying to recall a specific moment.
...
A faceless man was standing above Michael's panting body.
He could not see the man's face, but he knew that it was a look of disapointment.
Considering he had failed each and every time to adapt to the man's training.
He was completely useless, making him wonder why he had even asked for the training in the first place.
Then he remembered Equan...
The Prodigy of Lightning, the boy who had gained so much praise, even though he hadn't even reached the top three of his class.
The realization dawned on Michael.
"I hate him..." He growled, his fists clenching in irrational anger.
The faceless man chuckled.
"This again?"
"Why!?" Michael yelled, his muscles giving up as his face hit the dirt.
"Why what?" The faceless man asked, looking up at the sky even though he could not see.
"You know what..." Michael growled, refusing to look at his trainer.
"The Prodigy? Why pay it mind? You stand above him in rank... There is no point on looking up at someone below you."
But what The Faceless Man had said was wrong, so clearly and blatantly wrong.
Michael was not above the lightning archer... He was far below him.
He recalled each battle he had fought alongside the archer, being out performed by the boy every single time.
"How? How is he reaching higher stars before me? Where is my title as Prodigy of Everfrost? Why was I not giving a title as the highest potential son of a noble family?"
The faceless man ceased noise for a moment, before looking down at Michael...
And bursting into laughter.
"You- You have your goals set on the wrong man!" He boomed between his fits of laughter, causing Michael to feel even lesser of himself.
"What?" He growled, turning his gaze towards the imbalanced mentor.
"You heard me. You are trying to reach someone who doesn't even stand at the top of your class..." The Faceless Man said casually, making Michael tilt his head on the ground.
"Hans? Or Neo? Which one do you refer?" Michael asked, unsure as to why he would be bringing them up.
The man only laughed once again.
"Who is it that leads Unity?" The Faceless Man asked, causing Michael's heart to begin racing at the realization.
"Chase? He may be strong but he is only a Stray. His father was killed before he could truly hold the lineage. He may have a Sigil now, but it doesn't hold as much power as Blaze's once did."
The Faceless Man lowered his body into a kneel, lowering his head to meet Michael's gaze with only the empty ivory mask.
"You seem to misunderstand..." He growled from behind his mask.
Michael scowled back, unable to make sense of his mentor.
"What are you talking about?" He asked, narrowing his vision.
"Go ahead and ask Leander's corpse why it is that he accepted a Stray into his prestigious academy... Then you may return once you gain the answer..."
...
Michael would have froze with paralysis had he already not been trapped within Leander's time ability.
Leander chuckled softly, looking down at the gilded floor below him.
"While the rankings may have said that the son of Tartarus could never match Poppy, Hans, or Neo in power... Or even you Michael... He has stood above you since before he even joined the academy... He was the person I chose to lead Unity... Chase is the very reason that Phoenix Academy still stands atop the sunlit mountains... Do you know why?"
He asked with such casualty that Michael, Neveah, and Gabriel could not even realize that they had been free to move as they wished.
"Huh?" Michael gasped, collapsing onto his knees.
"That would be incorrect." Leander boomed with laughter.
Then Gabriel gripped his trident tighter, looking into Leander's eyes with a strange sense of anger hidden within his own.
"He has always been stronger?" He asked in confusion.
"No, in fact... Any of you could have simply killed him the moment he stepped onto the academy if we were talking about battle prowess."
'Then why?' Michael thought. 'Why am I being compared to him?' His thoughts began to storm, clouds of anger flooding his mind at the constant side by side image people kept bringing up, and it angered him more that it was not only him but all of Phoenix Academy that was being compared to him.
"It is because he carries the flame of ambition... The flame of Conviction... He is the only fool both dumb and smart enough to bring a specific collection of people into a battle even fate would let him lose..." Leander paused with a chuckle
"You fools would have never seen a battlefield if not for Chase. You would have risen as righteous nobles to continue in your family's footsteps. Poor Poppy would have been executed by her father because of her weakness. Hans would have never stood side by side with Gideon and Skylar, Gideon in fact would have been long dead in his thirst for the answers of his brother's death. Equan would have never met the expectations placed upon him, and you Michael... Would have never escaped The Dark Forest that night... Do you want to know why?" Leander's face grew darker as he spoke.
Michael's eyes began to widen. Remembering why his family had joined the conquest of the forest... Remembering why it is he had been brought to the forest that night.
"You were fated to meet the Naga in battle... And you were fated to lose..." Leander's voice rang like an untuned instrument, causing Michael's thoughts to waver and quake before the lesser god of time.
God of time...
'Fate...'
Leander had known...
"Why did you not step in if you knew what was going to happen?" He growled at his fallen Headmaster.
Leander smiled softly, lifting his left arm upward, revealing a runic marking underneath his shoulder...
It as the sigil of an hourglass...
"Because I was the god who convinced the other gods to agree to the oath of the divine... We are never allowed to intervene with human affairs... Although... It seems that Luna has figured out the loophole... By choosing a being outside of the laws of time... She has officially started a war and broken my pact."
Michael's eyes widened, his glance meeting the other two members of Unity standing beside his kneeling position.
"Now stand up Child..." Leander's voice cut his frantic thoughts off before they could even begin.
"What hope do we have? You said it yourself... We are doomed..." Michael said sadly, his eyes not even bothering to meet his Headmaster.
"While it is true that you cannot kill me... It is also true that you will have to fight me in battle... However... Fate does not apply here... As I am also outside of the laws of fate, although I am still bounded by the laws of time, my Dominion stands outside of that law. Meaning that nothing here is set in stone, so it is possible for you to defeat me and escape, giving your allies the support they need in order to somehow survive their fruitless battle..."
He paused, his lips curling into a genuine smile, one that caused Michael's catalyst to somehow spike in energy.
"The thing that no one has told any of you..." His eyes danced between the three members who had been sucked into this concept.
"Was that the title Prodigy does not apply to any of you... You all stand outside of the laws of common sense... As Unity does not belong to a single person, and the reason I chose that name... Was because all of you are prodigies of your own right. You are all dead in the pages of Eternity... However, because of that fact... None of you have a certain future unlike most... Meaning that you are all destined to one day surpass me... So stand Michael of House Everfrost... As it seems your teammates are not willing to give up without a fight, and I expect nothing less of a group capable of uniting humanity in the face of certain destruction..."
Leander spoke the words as if they were never meant to be uttered... In fact, there was no doubt a fact that he had broken a pact by revealing such things to them...
They had all been meant to die... And Chase was never meant to be born, meaning that by some improbable variable... They had all become variables of their own, ever expanding into the vast worlds like dominoes, causing the world to change and fate itself to have to scramble in order to remain a construct...
Michael had no choice but to stand.
His energy circulating through his body violently now.
Leander grinned.
Neveah readied her sword.
No words were needed after that point.
The three of them.
Were going to kill a god.
'Whatever it takes.'
'Whatever it takes.'
'Whatever it takes.'
...
'Whatever it takes...'