Nicron — A Most Questionable Recruitment
The Champions had reached a decision.
Oudre was going to Avia.
Not as a prisoner. Not as an informant. Not even as someone they particularly suspected of wrongdoing.
They wanted him to join the students.
After everything they had learned on Nicron, the boy's curiosity was too valuable to ignore. He had been close to Androsha before her departure, had helped her find the books that shaped her understanding, and had remained on Nicron for reasons that had very little to do with loyalty to Airious.
He wanted to understand Avia.
And if he was serious about that, what better place to study it than Airious itself?
Aminator stood before him.
"Oudre, we've discussed it. We'd like to offer you an opportunity to study at Avia."
Oudre blinked.
"...Study?"
"Yes."
"At Avia?"
"Yes."
"With the students?"
"That is the proposal."
For three whole seconds, Oudre remained completely still.
Then his face lit up.
"REALLY?!"
The sudden enthusiasm was so explosive that Jake instinctively flinched.
Oudre jumped to his feet, nearly dropping the three books he had been carrying.
"WAIT, SERIOUSLY?! I CAN ACTUALLY GO?!"
Victoria blinked.
"Well... yes."
"TO AVIA?!"
"Yes, Oudre."
"THE ACTUAL AVIA?!"
Jake slowly turned toward Aminator.
"Did we accidentally promise this kid a new universe?"
Aminator ignored him.
Oudre was practically vibrating.
"Oh, this is AMAZING!"
He started pacing in a circle.
"Do you have libraries? How many libraries? Do the libraries have restricted sections? Are the restricted sections restricted because of dangerous information, or because the information is embarrassing? Is there a difference? Do the teachers let you question them? What happens if a student discovers something the teachers don't know? Is there a formal process for that, or do you just—"
"One question at a time," Victoria interrupted.
Oudre stopped.
"...Right."
A brief pause.
"Do you have libraries?"
Kate burst out laughing.
"Oh, we're finished."
Jake rubbed his forehead.
"He's not even there yet."
"Exactly! Imagine when he gets there!"
Oudre, meanwhile, had already begun collecting his belongings.
He shoved one book into a bag, reconsidered, took it out, and replaced it with another.
Then he grabbed both.
Then a third.
Aminator watched him.
"You seem rather pleased."
Oudre stared at him.
"PLEased?"
He pressed a hand against his chest.
"This is literally what I've wanted!"
The Champions exchanged glances.
He hadn't been trying to infiltrate Airious.
He hadn't been waiting for an opportunity to undermine the system.
He hadn't even been attempting to prove Androsha right.
He had simply wanted to study Avia.
And now they were offering him the opportunity to do exactly that.
Oudre suddenly paused.
"Oh! Wait!"
The Champions tensed.
"What is it?" Aminator asked.
"Can I bring my books?"
A long silence followed.
Jake closed his eyes.
Kate leaned against Victoria, laughing so hard she could barely stand.
Victoria pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Yes, Oudre. You can bring your books."
"ALL OF THEM?"
"...Within reason."
Oudre looked down at his collection.
Then back at her.
"What constitutes reason?"
"OUdre."
"Right, right. Sorry."
He grinned.
"This is going to be wonderful."
And just like that, the decision was made.
The boy who had watched an entire civilization wrestle with its identity was going to study at the very institution whose philosophy he had spent years questioning.
Aminator turned away.
For some reason, he wasn't entirely sure whether he had just made an excellent decision.
Or a terrible one.
Perhaps both.
Jake leaned closer to him.
"Hey, Amin."
"Hm?"
"You know how we were talking about Devia being dangerous because it makes people question what their traditions actually serve?"
"Yes."
Jake gestured toward Oudre, who was now enthusiastically asking Ronda whether Avian techniques had accompanying theoretical manuals.
"What happens when you give that guy unrestricted access to the people who teach those traditions?"
Aminator watched Oudre.
The boy was now asking Victoria whether Avia had ever contradicted its own teachings.
Victoria had yet to answer.
Aminator's expression grew solemn.
"...He might be dangerous in the long term."
Kate immediately straightened.
"OH, YOU SEE IT TOO?!"
"Keep your voice down."
"WHY?! HE'S RIGHT THERE!"
Oudre turned around.
"Hm? What's dangerous?"
"Nothing," Aminator replied.
Oudre nodded.
"Oh, okay!"
He returned to his books.
A moment passed.
Then he looked up again.
"Actually, that reminds me. If Avia is an expression of the self, how does the institution distinguish between someone who has genuinely discovered their authentic nature and someone who has simply internalized the institution's expectations so thoroughly that they mistake them for their own identity?"
The Champions froze.
Oudre smiled innocently.
"Just curious."
Jake slowly looked at Aminator.
Aminator slowly looked at Victoria.
Victoria slowly looked at Elitor.
Elitor looked back at them.
Nobody spoke.
Then Kate began laughing again.
"Oh, this is going to be SO GOOD."
Oudre tilted his head.
"What's going to be good?"
"Your education, bookworm."
She patted him on the shoulder.
"Your education."
Oudre beamed.
He had absolutely no idea why the Champions looked like they were escorting a ticking bomb back to their headquarters.
He was simply excited to learn.
And that was precisely the problem.
Because Avia had spent generations teaching people to understand themselves.
Now it was about to receive a student who wanted to understand Avia.
And unlike most students, Oudre wasn't particularly interested in accepting an answer simply because it came from a teacher.
He wanted to know why.
How.
Under what conditions.
What the answer failed to explain.
And what happened when the answer was wrong.
The Champions had invited him to learn.
They were about to discover that Oudre considered questioning part of the curriculum.
Whether they did or not.
They were preparing to leave Nicron.
Oudre was still busy organizing his books, apparently under the impression that his journey to Avia would involve considerably more luggage than the Champions had anticipated.
Jake had already given up trying to understand the boy's packing process.
Kate, meanwhile, was enjoying herself far too much.
"Are you bringing the entire library, or just the parts you haven't memorized yet?"
Oudre looked at her.
"Those are two different categories."
"Of course they are."
"They require different organizational methods."
"Naturally."
"And some books overlap."
Kate stared at him.
Then she turned toward Jake.
"I'm going to miss him when he's gone."
"You've known him for twenty minutes."
"And?"
Before Jake could respond, Aminator spoke.
"Wait."
The conversation died down.
Something in his voice made the others turn.
Aminator stood motionless, his golden armor reflecting the dim light of Nicron's sky. His gaze had shifted toward the distant horizon, but he wasn't looking at the planet.
He was thinking.
"If Devia was capable of recruiting an entire civilization..."
He paused.
"...then why should we assume Nicron was the only one?"
Nobody answered.
Aminator slowly turned toward them.
"Other planets. Other realms. Civilizations we've never even encountered."
Victoria's expression hardened.
"You think Traxis has been expanding beyond our awareness?"
"I think we've been too focused on what happened here."
His eyes narrowed.
"We saw a mass defection and treated it as a local crisis. But if Devia can spread through an entire civilization without conquering it, then we need to understand the scale of what we're dealing with."
Elitor floated closer.
"And if this has happened elsewhere?"
"Then Nicron isn't an exception."
Aminator looked toward the sky.
"It's evidence of a pattern."
Silence followed.
The implications were immediate.
Every planet that had abandoned Airious could be another isolated incident.
Every isolated incident could be part of a larger movement.
And every civilization that had embraced Devia might have been doing so for reasons the Champions didn't yet understand.
Victoria crossed her arms.
"Can you find them?"
Aminator didn't answer immediately.
Then he smiled faintly.
"I can try."
He stepped away from the group.
The atmosphere around him changed.
Not violently.
Not dramatically.
It simply became difficult to ignore that the being standing before them was far more than an ordinary Champion.
Aminator closed his eyes.
His Avia expanded.
Avian Compression: Level 0.
For a moment, the fog around him seemed to hesitate.
Then it parted.
Golden light spread from his body, flowing outward without the explosive force of an attack. It extended beyond Nicron's atmosphere, beyond its celestial neighborhood, beyond the boundaries that ordinary perception would have considered meaningful.
His presence expanded across existence.
He was no longer examining a planet.
He was searching for a pattern.
Aminator activated his Infinite Awareness.
And looked.
---
At first, there was only darkness.
Then came the worlds.
Countless worlds.
Some were familiar, their signatures recognizable to his awareness. Others existed in regions of reality that even the Champions rarely considered.
Planets with strange skies.
Realms built upon unfamiliar principles.
Civilizations whose inhabitants possessed forms and abilities Aminator had never encountered.
Some worlds were ancient.
Others appeared to have emerged only recently.
And across them all, he began to notice something.
Movement.
People were leaving.
Not fleeing from an invasion.
Not being dragged away in chains.
They were walking toward something.
A destination.
A city.
Flex City.
Aminator's awareness followed the movement.
On one world, a group of candidates crossed a vast desert beneath three moons, their faces exhausted but hopeful.
On another, strange beings stepped through a portal suspended above an ocean of luminous clouds.
Elsewhere, entire communities gathered at enormous gateways, carrying their belongings, saying their goodbyes, and preparing to enter a future none of them could fully predict.
Some smiled.
Some hesitated.
Some looked back at the homes they were leaving behind.
But they continued forward.
Toward the same destination.
Aminator's expression began to change.
There were too many.
Far too many.
The candidates stretched across worlds, species, cultures, and realities. Their reasons differed. Their histories differed. Their wounds differed.
Some looked eager.
Some appeared uncertain.
Others wore expressions Aminator recognized all too well: the quiet exhaustion of people who had spent years trying to make a life work, only to discover that the life they had been promised was not the life they wanted.
And yet, they were going.
Not because they had all been convinced by the same argument.
Not because they shared a single grievance.
They were going because, somehow, Devia had become an answer worth considering.
Aminator followed the movement toward its center.
Toward Flex City.
And then he saw something that made him stop.
---
The throne.
It sat above the sprawling city, commanding a view of the dazzling expanse below.
The place felt familiar.
Too familiar.
Aminator's awareness lingered over it, attempting to reconcile what he was seeing with what he already knew.
And there, seated upon the throne, was Traxis.
The War Forger.
He appeared almost impossibly composed, watching the city and the streams of candidates moving toward it.
He wasn't standing before an army.
He wasn't issuing orders to conquer distant worlds.
He was sitting.
Watching.
As though the movement of entire civilizations had become something he could simply observe.
Aminator's eyes narrowed.
Then he noticed someone else.
A mysterious figure stood near the throne, their identity obscured by the distance and the strange quality of the surrounding space.
Aminator couldn't confirm who it was.
But the resemblance, the circumstances, and the figure's presence brought one name to mind.
Elexis?
He couldn't be certain.
He continued looking.
And then he saw what was above the throne.
A vast ball of fire.
It resembled a sun, but its radiance seemed too concentrated, too deliberate. Its surface churned with an intensity that made the surrounding space appear insignificant.
Other suns orbited it.
Not planets.
Suns.
They circled the enormous sphere in a strange celestial arrangement, their light illuminating the throne and the city beneath it.
For several seconds, Aminator couldn't look away.
He had witnessed extraordinary things throughout his existence.
He had seen powers that defied conventional understanding.
He had encountered beings whose abilities could reshape reality.
But this—
This was something he couldn't immediately place.
Was it a source of power?
A symbol?
A structure?
Something else entirely?
He didn't know.
And that uncertainty bothered him.
Because whatever that celestial arrangement represented, it was there above Traxis's throne, at the heart of a city toward which countless beings were willingly traveling.
The War Forger was no longer merely a man with an alternative philosophy.
Whatever he was building, it was growing beyond the boundaries the Champions had assumed.
Aminator tried to examine the structure more closely.
For an instant, the light seemed to intensify.
He stopped.
Then, without another word, he shut off his Infinite Awareness.
---
The golden light receded.
The worlds disappeared from his perception.
The countless candidates, the distant realms, the throne, the mysterious figure, and the enormous burning sphere vanished from his awareness.
Nicron returned.
The fog.
The streets.
The Champions.
Oudre, who had somehow managed to add another book to his luggage while everyone else was distracted.
Aminator stood silently.
Victoria was the first to approach him.
"What did you see?"
He didn't respond immediately.
Jake's usual humor had disappeared.
"Amin?"
Aminator opened his eyes.
He looked at each of them in turn.
There was no need to exaggerate what he had witnessed.
No need to frighten them with speculation.
They needed to understand what was known, what remained uncertain, and what that uncertainty meant.
He drew a slow breath.
"Devia has expanded far beyond Nicron."
The Champions stiffened.
"How far?" Elitor asked.
"Across countless worlds. Possibly beyond the realms we currently understand."
Victoria's face tightened.
"And the candidates?"
Aminator nodded.
"They're going to Flex City."
"How many?"
"I couldn't establish a reliable number."
That answer was enough to silence them.
Aminator continued.
"Some are enthusiastic. Others are uncertain. But they're going anyway."
Ronda looked down.
"By choice?"
"From what I could observe, yes."
Jake slowly holstered his gun.
"So we're not dealing with a conventional invasion."
"No."
Aminator looked toward the sky.
"We're dealing with a movement."
Kate's ears lowered.
"And Traxis?"
Aminator hesitated.
"I saw him."
The Champions exchanged glances.
"He was sitting on a throne."
"A throne?" Victoria repeated.
"Above Flex City."
Aminator's expression darkened.
"There was another figure near him. I suspect it may have been Elexis, but I couldn't confirm that."
Elitor frowned.
"And what was above the throne?"
For the first time, Aminator seemed reluctant to answer.
"A sphere of fire. It resembled a sun, with other suns orbiting it."
Silence.
Nobody had an explanation.
Nobody even had a useful question.
Aminator looked at them.
He had spent his entire existence observing the relationships between people, power, and the realities they inhabited.
But the vision had left him with more questions than answers.
Who were all those candidates?
What had brought them to Flex City?
What was Traxis building?
And what did that enormous celestial structure signify?
He couldn't answer any of it yet.
But he understood one thing.
Nicron had been a warning.
They had simply mistaken it for the entire problem.
Aminator nodded once.
"We need to leave."
Jake frowned.
"That's it? We're just leaving?"
"For now."
Aminator turned toward the others.
"We need to report what I've seen. We need to understand the scale of this movement, what Traxis is doing, and why so many civilizations are choosing to join him."
His gaze hardened.
"Until we know more, we cannot assume that this war will be fought on the battlefield alone."
Nobody disagreed.
The Champions began preparing to depart.
Oudre looked up from his books.
"Is something wrong?"
Every Champion turned toward him.
He blinked.
"...What?"
Kate stared at him for a moment.
Then she looked at Aminator.
"Can we still send him to Avia?"
Aminator looked at the boy.
Oudre smiled hopefully.
The Champion closed his eyes for a brief moment.
"Yes."
Oudre beamed.
"Wonderful!"
Jake leaned toward Victoria.
"We've got a war spreading across countless worlds, a mysterious sun above a throne, and now we're bringing that kid into Avia."
Victoria sighed.
"Yes, Jake."
He shook his head.
"This is going to be a long year."
Aminator said nothing.
His mind remained fixed on the vision.
Countless candidates.
A dazzling city.
Traxis on his throne.
And above it all, that impossible sphere of fire.
He had gone looking for the extent of Devia's influence.
Instead, he had glimpsed something much larger.
Something he didn't yet understand.
And for the first time since arriving on Nicron, Aminator couldn't shake the feeling that the Champions were already behind.
The war was far more dangerous than they had thought.