Lysandros returned to the sewer pipe and Four Eagles while Isaac began his journey home.

Due to the secret nature of the mission, an empty truck had been left for him on a particular side street within a particular abandoned lot near Four Eagles. Considering the only time Isaac had ever driven an automobile was during a dream, he had been looking forward to it. However, the pipe deposited him far from the truck, and since dawn had already risen, Isaac decided to just hoof it home.

The blurry sights of making it back to base after a mission had grown alarmingly familiar. Isaac sat alone on the first train of the day, the late-night revelers who had missed the last ride after midnight and now took the first one home in the morning giving him a wide berth. Perhaps the mud on his face and blood on his clothing had something to do with it. He stumbled down the stairs of the elevated train station towards the base, where waiting guards quickly escorted him inside. There was one big difference this morning - Stockham himself awaited Isaac at the gates. He let Isaac drape a bruised arm around his shoulder while subtly taking the stack of documents from him.

Next up, of course, came the base’s hospital. Isaac found himself in the same bed as last time, and found himself falling asleep right as morning reveille began.

Some time later, when he awoke, he expected the familiar ceiling above him. Instead, two round, deep blue eyes stared down at him.

“Hiya, Isaac,” Lynn greeted nonchalantly. Blonde hair fell past her face, which looked far more rosy and healthy compared to the last time Isaac saw her. While Isaac shifted upright in bed, she offered him an apple; considering how much of a delicacy a fruit like that was, Isaac quickly wolfed it down, even though his stomach roiled. A sling now held his busted right arm, though Isaac breathed a sigh in relief when he moved his own fingers, though that was all he could do.

“General Stockham said you hurt your arm in the mission, but you should regain use of it within the next few days.”

Isaac relaxed in his bed upon hearing the good news, then scratched his head. “You know about the mission?”

Lynn, sitting on a bedside stool, gave him a shrug. “Just that there was one.”

With that out of the way, Isaac’s first thought was where’s Reed? But he caught himself before asking something like that.

“Thanks for staying with me,” he said instead, giving her a genuine smile.

A few apples rested on the table next to Isaac’s bed. Lynn scooped one up, along with a metal apple peeler, and began removing the red skin with delicate hands. “I had something I wanted to thank you for, Isaac. Reed was here earlier, but she heard a rumor that the mess hall served tacos today, so I offered to stay while she checked.”

Isaac let out a chuckle. “I don’t think there's gonna be any tacos. There’s never been any tacos here.”

Lynn gave a slight shake of head to indicate her amused agreement about Reed’s folly. “But in any case, now that we’re alone, I can thank you properly. Some time ago, we talked about my mother. How I have issues with her. And how it’s too late to solve them since I’m already a cultivator and already in the military.”

The peeler suddenly moved erratically, taking out a chunk of apple that fell to the floor. Isaac felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

“But it’s not too late, Isaac. You helped me realize that this morning.”

“I appreciate it, you know, but I’ve been kind of passed out since this morning.”

“Not with your words. With your actions.” Lynn gripped the peeler tightly. “I’ll be honest with you. When the news spread among the cadets that you returned to the base in rough shape, a small part of me hoped that you would die.”

“...uh-huh.”

She gave him a sorrowful look. “That was wrong of me. I’ve just been so pissed off and out of it recently that I’ve been looking for something to direct all those negative feelings towards. This morning, it was you. All that vitriol came out in that single thought - I hope he died.”

Isaac rubbed the back of his neck. “...well, sorry to disappoint.”

“I’m glad you’re alive. And I’m sorry for thinking that way.” Her head hung low in shame for a moment, but then she looked up with excited eyes. “But, once I realized how wrong a thought like that was, I felt afraid for you, since I was starting to think that you really did die. I wondered what could have killed you. A trail of bullets to the torso? A sword to the neck? A landmine exploding beneath your feet?”

She unconsciously licked her lips as she set the roughed-up apple and peeler down on the table. “Those aren’t really good deaths, are they? A good death is going down in a blaze of bullets during a glorious last stand. Flying your fighter plane across a beautiful blue sky, and then dipping it downwards towards the enemy flagship. A powerful enemy knocks you to the ground, but you refuse to stay down, continuing to get up until his final blow sends you into oblivion.”

Despite the autumn chill, Isaac started to sweat. Lynn placed her hands between her thighs and slowly ran them up and down the fabric. “Those are good deaths. Those are beautiful deaths. And that’s the kind of death I want.”

“You want to die?”

“Not necessarily. But if the opportunity presents itself, that’s how I’ll escape this hell. I’m stuck as a cultivator now. I’m stuck in the military. I can’t go back. So I’ll go down in a blaze of glory. When I lead the suicide charge, I’ll look towards home in Androscoggin and flip my mother off right as the bullets tear me up.” She leaned her head back and laughed as she rubbed her inner thighs.

As Isaac watched her, he had a profound realization. Everyone he had dealt with so far, even his opponents, had been sane. They possessed varying levels of sanity, of course, but fundamentally, they had all been stable individuals.

Lynn was not.

“Isaac, I want to end my life as a line of poetry written with a splash of blood.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

She extended her hand. “Thanks for helping me realize that.”

Before Isaac could react, Lynn took his hand. Sunlight poured through the window; she basked in its glory. Her hand was so smooth it almost hurt.

----------------------------------------

When General Stockham entered the room, Lynn bid Isaac farewell. He gave a little wave back, doing his best to hide the stupefied look on his face. She was a person who really needed a good support network of friends - her traumatic childhood, unfortunate circumstances, Harburg’s attack that exposed her issues, and subsequent isolation (and paint huffing) served as a witch’s brew that could get her sent away to an asylum if things worsened. And at those asylums…he thought back to Reed’s memory of the lobotomized Karin. Perhaps saving your friends wasn’t just about punching things. Maybe it was about saving them from their own demons as well.

But he also had to save them from the plots of Zhanghai and the conspiracy. Stockham stood at his bedside, puffing on his usual cigar.

“Can you stand?”

Isaac answered by slipping out of bed. His legs groaned in exhaustion, but beyond that, he could move around. His arm felt uncomfortable in the sling, but at least it could feel now. Isaac slipped on his shoes and looked in surprise - Stockham handed him a wool greatcoat.

“Where we’re going, you’ll need it,” Stockham answered. Isaac could only nod as he slipped it on and followed the general out of the room.

Stockham talked as he walked. “I’m sure you’ve deduced this, but based on our analysis of your injuries, Zou Mei possesses the ability to manipulate magnetism. When she struck the existing wound on your shoulder, she activated an Art that could manipulate the planet’s magnetic field into neutralizing the nervous system’s electric signals into your arm.”

“...uh…”

“To oversimplify, the planet itself is a magnet, and its magnetic waves create a large field that covers the globe. The field interacts with us each and every day. And just like a magnet, the planet’s magnetic field contains both a north and south pole. Those align with the geographic north and soul poles. That might seem obvious, but it wasn’t always like that.”

That did seem obvious to Isaac, so he let Stockham continue. The general didn’t need any encouragement. “A little over 780,000 years ago, the magnetic poles shifted. The magnetic north pole was now in the geographic south and vice versa. That means it’s the same in the other way around.”

Isaac put his hand down.

“That was long before modern humans arose. What’s incredibly interesting is that the most recent geomagnetic reversal happened five hundred years ago.”

“You mean…during the Unleashing?”

“Exactly during the Unleashing. We think the solar flare itself struck the planet with enough force to flip the poles once more.” Stockham turned down a hallway deep in the building; it was virtually empty. “This was the first time the poles had been correctly aligned during humanity’s existence. Perhaps that has something to do with cultivation’s creation and rise as well.”

There’s just so much to learn.

Every time Isaac learned a little more, dozens of questions rose and took him to task. Not just the conspiracy, but things like humanity’s origins, cultivation’s origins, Arcadia’s origins. There was so much to discover - Isaac thought his brain might get filled to the brim one day with all this knowledge. But he also clenched his fist. It felt pretty neat, knowing all these things the average person didn’t.

“I thought just the solar flare and then all the radiation from the atomic wars caused cultivation,” Isaac said.

“Cultivation’s genesis is still shrouded in the fog of history,” Stockham simply answered. “Multiple theories offer up the truth. But one day, I’ll find it.”

That wasn’t a ‘one day, humanity will find it’, that sounded far more of a personal goal. But aren't I seeking my own truth as well?

For the next few minutes, Stockham and Isaac went through layers and layers of security. After making it past the guards at one doorway, they’d go down a hallway and end up at another. These guards wore the blue berets of the security forces for the Naval Department of Metaphysical Research. They answered to Secretary Ricci of the Navy directly. But considering Stockham previously worked in that department, he still must’ve held some sway here, since they allowed him through with ease.

“We also analyzed the writing within the Dedericks’ documents,” Stockham explained. “Shame about their demise, but you brought back valuable research. My scientists spent all day running through them.”

They arrived at a gigantic door made of thick metal. Hundreds of charms - the black calligraphy written with a stoic hand across the white slips of paper - lined the walls. Multiple security guards stood at attention outside the door, rifles at the ready. A few cultivators remained on guard, even when they gave Stockham a salute full of trust. When Stockham confirmed Isaac had clearance, one of the cultivators activated a lever on the ground.

The doors let out a deep rumble, and Isaac hears gears and chains moving with deep echoes on the other side of the walls. All the sentries remained stone-faced during the process; Stockham looked at the growing gap between the doors like a scientist on the verge of making a grand discovery. When the doors fully opened, Stockham and Isaac walked through the steam hissing beneath them and entered a giant lobby.

When the doors shut behind them and sealed tightly with a hiss, Isaac felt grateful for the coat. The temperature had dramatically dropped inside this dark lobby; despite being indoors, his breath condensed in front of his face. A few ceiling lights already emitted an orange glow from above, but now that Stockham was inside, a series of red lights running down the tall walls steadily turned on. When they reached the bottom, Isaac saw that they were actually at the edge of a landing for a long shaft that marched downwards into the darkness. Pipes, power lines, gauges, and other equipment competed for space on the wall. All the while the red lights shone down on Isaac.

Within the lobby, there was a small room that overlooked the shaft. A woman in a white labcoat emerged, smoking a cigarette as she donned a heavier coat. Cultivators and rifle-wielding sentries appeared behind her with grizzled faces. When the scientist tossed her cigarette, a sentry casually caught it without even looking. After a final puff, Stockham handed over his cigarette; the sentry returned with both of them to the room, presumably to snuff them, and then brought out one more thing - a prisoner. His arms were bound behind his back and a blindfold covered his eyes. Another guard gruffly took control of him while the original sentry returned to the room for good.

“This is Dr. Erica Essex, the new head of Metaphysical Research,” Stockham introduced. The woman gave him an amused smile and shook his hand; Isaac expected a dainty grip, but her hand felt rough. She had her blonde hair cut in a bob and gave Stockham an amused look.

“Now that you left the job open for me to take after leaving for the Cultivator Marines, we can finally get some real work down here,” she teased.

“And indeed, she has,” Stockham informed Isaac. “She was the one who deduced the meaning of those numbers written by the fallen Dedericks.”

Stockham led the group towards the edge of the lobby. When Isaac stepped over a small gap in the ground, the escalator his first night in Narragansett came to mind. Isaac walked to the railing and gazed over the edge into the darkness; red lights served to guide the way down. They were on a giant escalator with just a single step and would ride this down to their destination.

“The numbers are the dimensions for a superweapon,” Essex explained, confirming Isaac’s earlier theory. She pulled out a drawing from her coat and held it up for Isaac to look at. The weapon primarily consisted of a giant, thin barrel. At the back of the barrel, where the stock and grip of a rifle would normally go, this weapon instead featured a series of claws and tubes arranged in a circle facing upwards.

“Looks like a huge sphere could be attached to it from above, right?” Essex asked, satisfied with Isaac’s awe at the sketch. He could only nod.

“Based on our calculations, we believe something else can be attached to it entirely,” Stockham said. “Isaac, I promised that, upon successful completion of your assignment, I would show you my greatest secret, the prize of the Metaphysical Research department.”

Stockham waved a theatrical hand down into the shaft.

“Isaac, allow me to introduce you to the Heart.”