Saint-Germain stood in the middle of the summoning chamber with his hands clasped behind his back. When he spoke, his voice was deep and resonant. "Greetings, elders. I come today to discuss a matter concerning the plan. To my knowledge, Sirius and Perciosa are on their way here. Their part in our plan is of the utmost importance, and it is crucial that they be sent back — they still have a role to play. I ask that you let me handle them."
The figure on the highest throne stirred, its body like a cathedral made of light. "So the plan proceeds as intended?"
"Indeed," Saint-Germain said, inclining his head. "We are nearly finished with the first phase. It will not be long now before the climax."
"Very well. We leave the matter of Sirius and Perciosa to you, and we will expect an update when it is done."
"And you shall have one," Saint-Germain said, and this time he bowed fully.
The twelve luminous elders dissolved into cascading beams of light and vanished, as though the chamber had swallowed them. Saint-Germain's footsteps rang out like distant bells as he walked alone through the empty hall toward the Gates of Sacria. At the far end of the corridor, the colossal gate blazed with blinding brilliance, its latticework scattering dancing halos of light across the polished marble, and as it slowly parted, it revealed a sky of molten silver stretching away into eternity.
Saint-Germain stood at the threshold with his golden hair stirring in the celestial breeze. Then a ripple tore through the air and a deep tremor shook the whole pathway. Two monstrous figures emerged from the distortion, their towering forms warping the very air around them.
"This place never changes," Perciosa scoffed.
"How could it," Sirius muttered, "when it shouldn't exist at all?"
Saint-Germain clapped slowly, with an amused smile tugging at his lips. "Such harsh words, Sirius. But this is not where you belong. The place you're needed is far, far away." He raised one hand lightly. "And I'm here to escort you back."
Sirius lifted his palm. The air around him shuddered violently as boulders, slabs of stone and fragments of radiant architecture wrenched themselves free of the ground and rose into the air. A moment later they launched at Saint-Germain like a meteor storm. The barrage exploded against the gate and swallowed the whole entrance in an enormous cloud of dust and light.
Perciosa glanced sideways at Sirius. "Do you think the pest is dead?"
A thunderous gust blasted outward and cleared the dust in an instant, and there stood Saint-Germain, untouched, brushing a speck of debris from his sleeve. "Do we really have to do this?" he sighed. "All I want is for you to go back where you came from. Is that too much to ask?"
Perciosa snarled. "Who do you think you are, giving us orders?" She rose into the air with her wings stretched wide and her claws lifted, and between them a sphere of condensed white-hot light spun into being, crackling with impossible energy. "Handle this!"
She hurled it at him. Saint-Germain rose calmly and raised one hand, and when the sphere struck his palm, it did not explode; it bent, twisted and collapsed into him, absorbed like water into sand.
Sirius's eyes narrowed. "He must be one of the high-ranking ones. They still see us as a threat."
Golden light erupted around Saint-Germain as he shot forward, and two blazing spheres took shape around his hands, their aura bending gravity itself. He flung them upward and then crashed into both monsters at a blinding speed. "You have two minutes left, don't you?" he said softly, and his eyes glinted. "Show me what you can do."
Sirius grinned savagely. "Cocky Sacrosian." Two massive spectral hands materialized behind him and slammed together with Saint-Germain caught between their palms. As they crushed tighter, Sirius fired a blinding blue plasma beam point-blank into the space between them. The shockwave tore the sky apart, and a colossal column of black smoke spiraled upward.
Perciosa cackled. "He's vaporized."
But as the smoke thinned, there was Saint-Germain, floating perfectly unharmed except for his clothes, which were scorched in a few places. As the two monsters watched, motes of golden light swarmed over him and wove his garments back together thread by thread. His smile never wavered. "Is this really all you can do?"
Infuriated, Perciosa unleashed a torrential ultrasonic beam that warped the very air, and Sirius followed it at once with purple spheres of distorted mass that took shape around Saint-Germain and collapsed the space around him, dragging even the light into slow motion. "That's what slowing down light looks like," Sirius said smugly. "And Sacria has plenty of it." Perciosa shot higher still until she was hovering directly above him, and a vast green circle of light formed beneath her feet, humming with annihilating power. "Perish, Sacrosian!" The sky erupted in emerald fire as the circle discharged and merged with Sirius's attack, and the explosion spread outward into a gigantic green halo that swallowed the entire gate in catastrophic brilliance.
Sirius let out a breath. "Let's go. We don't have much time left. Let's tear this place down."
They lunged for the gates — and the ground beneath them cracked. Enormous swords of golden light fell out of the heavens and pinned both monsters to the pathway like insects. As their bodies convulsed, luminous chains slithered around them and tightened, and tightened. Particles of light gathered in front of them, and Saint-Germain stepped out of the radiance.
Perciosa stared at him in disbelief. "How? How are you still alive? You should have been disintegrated! What are you?"
Saint-Germain laughed softly and brushed his golden hair aside. "We Sacrosians abandoned our material bodies a very long time ago. What you see in front of you is among the highest forms any organism can reach." He leaned closer, and his voice became a whisper full of divine contempt. "It is called divinity."
A golden flare engulfed the whole gate. Perciosa and Sirius screamed as their bodies dissolved into swirling light. When it was over, all that remained of them were the two Orbitons they had once enveloped, and the wind carried the last of their true forms away.
Saint-Germain sighed. "What a shame. Once they ruled whole realms. Now they're nothing but playthings."
Two armored knights approached and bowed deeply. He gestured toward the empty machines. "Send them back. Make sure they return exactly where they came from." Then he turned and walked back through the radiant halls of Sacria. The great gates closed behind him with a thunderous echo.