“Welcome back, Drim,” Phon greeted the brother she’d just teleported as he slumped into a chair in the living room of their mansion. “You did amazing! I know it must have been hard to share the stage with that monster.”
“Yes, you showed great restraint,” Xard agreed. “If everything you’ve told us about him is true, I probably would have killed him on the spot.”
“It’s crazy that you didn’t bring any of his crimes to light,” Kada jumped in on the conversation. “Wouldn’t that have been the perfect time to reveal everything? Maybe even get him disqualified from the election.”
“No, it would have backfired,” The Vixen argued. “If Drim had started spouting insane and unverifiable claims, he just would have looked like a lunatic. And even if he’d brought our mountain of evidence along with him, he likely would have been shut down for attempting to derail the debate. Our support would have dropped while Hower’s would have grown for the underhanded attack. But don’t worry, we have another plan in mind.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Jaid conceded. “I only met the man a handful of times, but from those interactions alone, it still took a long time for me to accept. He just doesn’t seem like the type on the surface. When it’s done, it has to be irrefutable to the point that no one can turn a blind eye.”
“But that aside,” the knight continued. “I do want to jump back and say you did unbelievably well, Drim. If I was an undecided voter that hadn’t really paid attention up until now, just watching this debate, you would have absolutely won my support. Even if we didn’t have any history prior.”
“Well that’s good,” Drim responded quietly, his enthusiasm from the debate gone entirely and his energy gone with it. The man was clearly ready for bed, but he still picked up his tablet and looked at the messages, scrolling with one hand as he pet Pox with the other, who had already claimed his rightful spot on the back of the man’s head. “It seems Victori and Callum agree with your sentiment. And Chorus, Roque, everyone… Wow, that’s a lot of messages. I’ll look at that more thoroughly tomorrow.”
“I’d say you’ve earned your rest,” Phon was ready to usher him along. “There’s only a week until the election, and there’s still lots to do. So get a good night’s sleep and then we’ll—”
Just as the woman was about to make a motion to dismiss their viewing party, the door to the mansion slammed upon and someone else barged into the living room. The group probably assumed it was someone who earnestly wanted to share their opinions, but none of them would have guessed who had the gall to disturb them so late at night.
“Now’s probably not the best time, Senli. Is it something that can-” Xard stood up to intercept the woman, but when he saw how flustered she was, he changed course. “Let’s go talk over here, I’ll help you with whatever you need.”
“No!” the girl immediately refused. “I need everyone to hear this! The Drazahs especially!”
“Hmm?” Phon’s attention lingered over, and the rest of the group’s focus was grasped. “Well go on then.”
“Her! It’s her! I’ve found her!” Senli scrambled, jumbling up her words. “Well, I didn’t find her, but I did! She’s, erm, you won’t believe me but… Rathe!”
“Yes, where on Rathe?” Drim asked, his words strained. The man’s heart already felt like it was having palpitations—anxiety from his mother, so they were evidently on the right track, or she was just eager to hear what the girl had to say.
“No! Not on Rathe! Is Rathe!” the girl insisted, though still not quite making sense. “She’s Rathe! The planet, Rathe! She is the planet, and her name is Rathe!”
At that moment, Drim slumped out of his chair, collapsing onto the floor. Then he started writhing on the ground, clutching at his heart that he was convinced was about to explode. The pain only compiled and worsened, agony that the man hadn’t experienced in so long. His vision blurred, mind faded, it really felt like he was going to die. Was it a cruel irony that he’d be killed by his mother after all this time?
But right when the others rushed over to check on him, the pain stopped entirely, and the man felt much lighter and calm. It seemed his mother had chosen to vacate his body and float off somewhere, either to cease the assault or to deal with her own issues elsewhere.
“I’m okay,” the king insisted as the others helped him up. “But by my mother’s visceral reaction, it would seem we can take the information as reliable. Her name is Rathe.”
“That still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, though,” Xard argued. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, Senli?”
“Erm, alright,” the girl tried to calm herself down and find a good starting point. “Since this year will be my first time voting, I was watching the debate—great job, by the way. And it got to a part talking about improvements for the world, so the objects in my room started talking about ways they’d like to see the world change.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Then we got to talking about some of the changes you guys were proposing with Fiendless. And while the items seemed to like them, they said that they didn’t think that she might approve of it, that we might make her mad if we did them without asking her, and to be careful.”
“So that led us into talking more about her. They’re usually pretty avoidant, but I guess they’re worried about the group since they really do love us. I asked them why she’d get mad, and they said well, she controlled the planet. And since she was in charge, she didn’t like others changing things, and anytime anyone does something bad to the planet, she gets very upset.”
“I tried to lean that into them telling me where she was, so that we could talk with her about it and make sure that we didn’t do anything bad. They told me that she is all around us, everything and everywhere. She is Rathe.”
“Oh good… how are we supposed to fight a planet?!” Kada’s mind was boggled by the idea, depressedly slumping down further into the couch “Wait, does that mean she can see us right now?! Does she always know what we’re doing like the Boon Day Baron?!”
“You have to know the Boon Day Baron isn’t real, right?” Jaid briefly veered them off track, unintentionally, but she couldn’t ignore it. “You were alive before Boon Day even existed!”
“Hey, if the planet is spying on us, there could be a magic man delivering Boon Day presents!” The Mermaid protested, but no one had the energy to fight her on it further.
“Well, uhm, I think I’m not quite saying it right,” Senli needed to correct something. “And the walls in here are confirming it too. She is the planet, but isn’t at the same time. Rathe didn’t actually make the world. They say Cosmos did that. But rather, she’s like its caretaker I guess. So while she is the world, she’s her own separate entity too, and they’re kind of fused together. I guess she’s like our own local guardian deity or something.”
“Which, now that I think about it, that would make sense,” the girl pondered a bit on her own. “When we were on P2, it spoke to me on its own, the entire planet as a whole. Rathe has never done that, but maybe she just didn’t want to. They did say she isolated herself.”
“But that brings me to my next point. We don’t actually have to fight the planet, I guess, or try to talk to her that way. She… it’s hard to explain. Like, her real self is at an actual spot. Her main consciousness, or soul, or all the different things they tried to explain what it is. There is a place where we can go to meet her.”
“And that would be…?” Phon tried to eek it out of her.
“They won’t tell me!” Senli got immediately annoyed and frustrated. “No matter how many times I ask, or how I ask, or whatever I say, they outright refuse. They say she’s too dangerous, and that we shouldn’t go anywhere near her. I guess… apparently she did some very bad things in the past the last time she got really mad. But I’ll keep trying!”
“Well thank you for your efforts, Senli,” Drim prepared to dismiss her, sitting back in his chair. “This has been extremely helpful. Please keep us updated if you learn anything more. Day or night.”
“Of course!” the girl gave a slight bow and Xard saw her out.
When the redhead returned, he had his lips were scrunched and twisted. “Cosdammit. So we’re really no closer to finding her.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Phon argued. “While it’s frustrating, we have confirmed a lot of things just now. There were theories that she wasn’t even on our planet but we can certainly rule that out. If she’s in isolation, we can assume that means she’s nowhere near civilization. It strengthens the argument that she’s in one of the ruins, though we’ve had no luck searching them so far.”
“Roque and Rishaki talk about the old world a lot,” Jaid brought up. “They’re both pretty invested in the relics from it, so maybe they relate to whatever bad thing Rathe did. It could be some sort of clue. I’ll try speaking with them to see if they can provide some form of insight. Hopefully we can find some leads for Feyjrusa to dig through.”
“Guess it’s back to more ruin diving for me.” While Kada didn’t seem too excited by the idea, she had new vigor knowing they were on the right track.
“I’ll come with you,” Xard volunteered. “I’d say it’s the best way I can help out right now. You or Phon will have to get me down into them, but it’d be faster with the both of us scouting them.”
“Let me send some clones too,” the knight insisted. “Phon’s already told me that there isn’t much more I can do on the evidence gathering side of things, so I can shift most of my focus.”
“Thank you for hard work as always everyone,” Drim leaned forward to express his gratitude, though it was obvious he was ready to delay the issue until tomorrow. “Hopefully what Senli said about Rathe isn’t entirely true, or maybe her disposition has changed. Because if she actually—”
Drim didn’t get to finish his thought. Because there was a second victim that night of sudden spontaneous pain and convulsions. But it was none of the other Fiends in the room.
Pox suddenly lost his grip on the back of the king’s head. He fell to Drim’s thigh and immediately slid off, thudding to the floor. There his body began to spasm wildly, as if he was having a seizure.
Drim grabbed him and lifted him to the living room table where the group watched in horror as the koala fox continued to twist about, flopping in pace as his entire body contorted. The ball of fluff reached for his head and clutched it while he swayed, as if mimicking the pain that his owner had felt in his heart.
“Call Alk and Farian!” Drim gasped, desperate to get help.
But then Pox’s body slowly started to rise, but not by the creature’s own strength. It was like he was floating just off the table. Then suddenly, the monster’s limbs went limp for just a second before they turned stiff. Pox’s eyes jutted open, wider than any of the group had ever seen before. And they glowed brightly, a blinding white.
Though his mouth remained shut, words flowed from the creature. It was a familiar feminine voice, one they’d all heard before in their heads. “So you’ve finally discovered my secret. That means I have no further reason to hide. It certainly took you all long enough. I was starting to get impatient. Allow me to introduce myself. Your society has given me the name ‘Rathe’. I am the Demigod of Haste, and ruler of this world!”