…Days before the fall…

Jade watched as the young man she’d hired left the dump and her mind whirled. She’d spent season cycles looking. Looking for a way to find her son. A son that she now believed had found her.

“I… will kill her…”

Jade had toiled in the dump, trying to rebuild a mana core that may or may not result in her untimely death, or eternal imprisonment. All of which was supposed to lead to her being able to search realms that were untouchable by mortals, and even some cultivators.

The local realm travelers branch was filled with portals that led to all the civilized realms one could imagine. As far as the civilian populous was concerned, these were the only locations anyone could or would travel to. Yet Jade knew the truth, which was even more of a reason for her to search for a way to tap into the Ikarus database.

Of the realms accessible to the general populous, the Ikarus portal network was unfathomably larger. Not only did they lead to habitable planets, but also places war-torn and left behind. Places that no longer had spoken names, or existing maps. Places meant to hold secrets and nothing more.

This database was unrivaled even now, eons after the entire civilization ascended. Not died, killed, overthrown, or lost to time entirely, but ascended.

The Ikarus people all became gods in a rapture of an unparalleled explosion of mana, that took all of its people to higher planes of existence. Which left behind places of untold power.

So when Almarine had offered Jade access to the dump, and told her to use the ruins of the greatest civilization to ever live to find her son, she’d been enraptured by the idea. Instantly consumed in finding everything that she could to unlock the secrets of her ancestors. Only for a handful of arduous season cycles to flow by, and Jade to be confronted by a young man. A boy with eyes that she would never forget as long as she lived.

“Arson…” The name wasn’t one she picked for him, but she couldn’t think of the name now without smiling. Yet even as joy filled her as she watched the young man return home, the underlying rage was roaring to life within her in ways she’d believed she’d overcome in her youth.

The Orphan Mother had pointed her toward the stars, as the woman herself was stepping into a roll of caretaker for the very child Jade searched for. Had already stepped into. Even if Jade didn’t want to admit it, Almarine was an important figure in Arson’s life.

I will never forgive you for this…

Jade had only suspected Arson was related to her at first, until she’d accidentally given him the wrong watch. She’d tried to pull a spare spacial inventory watch from her own created dimensional pocket, and yet her father's watch was selected, and before she could take it back, the boy had not only put on the watch, but he hadn’t died immediately as every other individual outside her own bloodline that had attempted to wear the timepiece.

It was then that Jade started to look deeply at the young man, and take in all his features. He looked like a mix between her own father and Draphen, the only man she’d ever lain with.

If she could ignore all the similarities between her family members, she could not ignore his ability to wear the watch her father told her on his deathbed would be worn by the future king of all skies. A mantle that Arson’s crown made Jade believe the system itself would push her son toward, whether or not he wanted it. A power she didn’t believe Arson was anywhere ready for.

“One problem at a time, Elizabeth. We have a conniving slave trader to deal with first…”

Jade stretched, readying herself for combat. She would not live without answers, and there was only one person who could give her those answers.

“I’ll turn the other cheek when I’m dead,” Jade said to herself, taking on a combat ready stance, bobbing on the tips of her toes. A portal opening up in front of her.

“Until then…”

…

Almarine turned her head at the portal opening a mere hand span away. She sat at the desk held within her public office, confused at who other than her ex-husband Winter would be brave enough to open a portal so close to her, only to receive a punch directly to the side of her face.

Time seemed to slow around Almarine as the punch lifted her into the air. The pressure of the punch blasting back everything in her nearby surroundings.

Her desk, chair, and everything atop the surface blew back as if caught in an incredibly strong wind. Almarine took in the figure of Jade stepping through the portal, wrapping her titan-like grip around Almarine’s ankle.

With a roar and impressive showing of might, Almarine was yanked through the air, and pulled into an overhead slam.

Even as Almarine thought this attack had reached a climax, Jade teleported, and heel dropped her with a kick that broke the sound barrier.

Almarine’s back hadn’t even had a chance to touch the ground before the kick connected, her momentum doubled, and the intended slam was converted into an assault powerful enough to break her through the floor itself.

Almarine crash-landed into catacombs that connected the dump and all other areas of the CityNation. Once a labrynthic system of tunnels that connected the entire planet, the tunnels were now no different from sewers, broken into small mazes that ran through each floating platform that Maelstrom now consisted of.

“What are you—“

A flurry of punches railed into Almarine, the Orphan Mother not even completely on her feet yet. Jade held nothing back, and had begun to use portals to further unbalance the Orphan Mother at any cost. Jade had won their first bout, but after some research on Almarine since their last fight, knew that there was more to the Orphan Mother.

The two had conversed often over the season cycles since their last interaction, and the way Almarine was now being confronted, she suspected why Jade was obviously so angry.

“Jade what are you—“ Jade kicked Almarine through a portal. The Orphan Mother tried to react, but was kneed in the spine before she could even tell what direction she’d exited the opposing end of the portal from. A sense of weightlessness felt for less than a fraction of a blink, before the knee intended to break her back connected.

Almarine rose, rocketing back through the portal she’d just fallen from, still unable to catch herself. Flung back through the portal Almarine was caught by the throat and dangled off her feet.

“Ow, now that hurt, young one. Is there something I should be aware of?” Almrarine coughed as Jade grabbed the Orphan Mother in a two-handed choke, an obvious intent to kill evident in the woman’s eyes. It was then that Almarine saw the blinking light in the corner of her vision. She opened the notification to see something she never thought she would see in a thousand season cycles.

*Quest failed: You have let the Heir Apparent to the Embodiment of the Will of All Nature find her son. As this will forever change the course of his innocence, a bounty has been placed on your head to all ancients within the realms of Cultivation.

Good luck, and may you strive for the will of creation and destruction’s balance in the future!*

“I see…”

…

Jade squeezed with everything she had. Only for Almarine to look around momentarily and sigh before she looked Jade in the eyes. A fractal pattern bloomed in the Orphan Mother’s irises and Jade felt a sudden change in the environment itself.

“I’m sorry to have to do this, but…”

Jade was backhanded in a way that she hadn’t experienced since childhood. The hand moved so quickly that Jade was unable to react at all. Simply sent soaring down the tunnel she was in, only to be caught by the neck and dragged along the tunnel wall at the same speed she’d been sent hurtling at.

“You know, I’m not all that mad that I failed that quest,” Almarine said staring down Jade as they flew through the air. The Orphan Mother ignoring the sounds of bones breaking and fixing themselves as she dragged Jade down the tunnel, pressing her back into the wall the entire time.

“Some quests seem trivial, and others seem carelessly given, yet this one felt wrong in a way. No mother should be kept from her children, even if they are potentially bad influences…”

Jade tried to open a portal in their path, but Almarine glanced at the gateway and it closed. Almarine once more sighing before she slowly shook her head at Jade.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, darling, but we are no longer in the public eye. These tunnels are the only area within Maelstrom itself that aren’t monitored by runic grid or mechanical surveillance systems, and unless you give me a reason not to end your life, this is where you will die.”

Jade’s eyes went wide and Almarine’s power swelled. The sensation of mana was far more than anything Jade had ever felt before with the exception of her mother and father, and even they hadn’t shown their full mights to her while living as Almarine now was.

“You're an Ancient,” rasped Jade before she was slammed so hard that the ground shook throughout the entire platform of the CityNation they were on.

“Yes, and as the ancestor of Arson I believe that he is far better off under my guidance, than your ego…!”

Almarine had rage of her own about what the system had done by putting Arson on her doorstep. So now that she had a bond of her own with Arson, she would not let anyone get in the way of the connection she had with her descendant, even if she had to kill Arson’s birth mother, another corrupted youth she hadn’t been able to save from the hatred her own children felt for her.

“I will not let you make him into a tool for the system or any other power, you misguided slave!”

Jade’s body was broken. A flurry of punches sent by the powerful woman turned Jade’s body into a mess of open fractures, bones protruding at angles that they were never meant to, splattering her golden blood all over the tunnel.

The woman groaned as Almarine righted herself, and spat on the ground. The Orphan Mother’s eyes leaking oceans of power. She’d put on a show the first time they’d fought, but now at the thought of never seeing Arson again, potentially taken by this woman whom she felt to be insignificant in the grand scales of mortals and gods, she knew she either had to kill Jade now, or make her leave his life forever of her own will.

“You will never be his mother, you will never take my place. He will always look for me, he will always wonder. And I will never stop. Nothing will keep me from him now that I have found him. Not you, not the system, not anything!” Jade yelled after her jaw bones slid back into place and her throat opened and allowed her to breathe properly.

The fury Almarine felt died. Memories she’d felt caused more pain than brought the sweet relief from a life well lived, consumed her. Her eyes turned from an endless maze of growing power, back into the innocent eyes of the Orphan Mother, back to the eyes of a woman who’d seen more children forced to live without their parents than normal people met in their entire lives.

“Well then, we must find a solution, as I refuse to live without him in my life, and though you may not enjoy this, I see him as my own, my baby boy. His future is all I care to see shine, and I will end anyone who tries to put a barrier between me and the bright future. The future that I would crush reality itself to ensure comes to pass,” Almarine said, taking a few steps back from Jade, as her body pulled itself back together.

“A solution,” Jade asked in confusion as her neck snapped back into alignment.

“Yes, a solution, I may be reticent to let you step into Arson’s life, but I refuse to be a force that keeps a mother from her child, so we must come to terms with this problem between us, or you will not leave this tunnel alive…”

The two woman spoke for the entire night into the morning. The anger they both felt drained as more of their experiences were unintentionally shared through the natural course of the conversation.

Jade could tell that Almarine was keeping many things from her, but after recognizing that the woman wasn’t just a Keeper but an Ancient, she could understand why. Beings who outlived immortals had more than a few secrets to hide, and the secrets Jade kept from her own loved ones, made her forgive the Orphan Mother and acknowledge how much she shared that she didn’t have to.

Almarine couldn’t help but feel as if she was looking in a mirror whenever Jade spoke. Some of their shared experiences made Almarine look at her grandchild in a new light. After piecing together hints from their shared words, she knew that this was the daughter of Arkanous, and though he was born from a sliver of her soul and consciousness put into a mortal long ago, Almarine felt no less responsible for both Jade and Arson. She had suspected it in the past, but now she knew.

Either the young woman before her had received the gift her artificial self had been given by the gods, or Arson had, and if it was Jade, she now had yet another reason to live.

“So you’ll let me take him under my care until he lives to be a century, what stops me from just leaving with him before then, vanishing completely,” Jade said with a snap of her fingers. She meant to open a portal when she snapped, but the portal never opened. Her brow crinkled and the woman who sat across from her opened her eyes.

“You have a lot to learn, I can stop you from walking through any portal within this realm layer as a whole,” Almarine said, her eyes once more a spiraling swirl that drew in power visibly as she stared down Jade.

“So do we have a deal or not?”

“I don’t really have a choice here, do I?”

The sound of footsteps and yelling could be heard coming from the nearby hole they smashed into the catacombs, when they’d entered and Almarine heard a familiar voice yell into the hole..

“Momma Almarine!”

The Orphan Mother rose, and looked in the direction of the hole. Then her eyes returned to normal and she looked back toward Jade, who only wore a few minor bruises after their earlier disagreement.

“Choose now, or I’ll have to make decisions for you…”

“Momma Almarine, you in the hole? There was an earthquake, should we come in the hole,” said the incredibly youthful voice yelling into the hole from Almarine’s public office.

“Do not come into the hole, you bloody menace!”

“I couldn’t hear you, Momma Almarine. I screamed loud and I dropped into the hole!”

“Choose now,” Almarine said her eyes beginning to tinge with power. Jade rose to her feet, and Almarine extended a hand in her direction. Jade gave her a nod as she took Almarine’s hand.

“Stronger than you in a century, now that's a goal…”

Almarine looked away from Jade and scoffed, and stared down the class worth of students running toward her; allowing Jade to step through a portal simultaneously.

“Did you feel the quake, Momma Almarine?” The question was yelled repeatedly by the group of very young orphans.

“Of course I did, children. I slipped and fell and things started to move all around me.”