yea, I won't post that many chapters today :P

Enjoy this one though and rip New York City.

and yea... I hate the character Lane, though I probably should have fleshed her out a Little bit more.

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Stupid.

That was my first thought. Endangering the entire earth and even the universe? She must have gone crazy or something. Everyone gathered in the room must have thought the same because started laughing while the others talked silently about what she had said. Even Lane sneered at her revelation and voiced her thoughts.

"You seem to have gone insane. How can this-?"

A ball of energy appeared in her hand.

"-endanger the universe as long as we control it?"

Surprisingly it wasn't that responded. It was Arthus who seemed a lot less calmer. Raising his hands in a appeasing gesture and standing up.

"Alice. This is not the time spouting nonsense. And you too you should know better, Alice doesn't lie. Elaborate please."

All talking settled down and all eyes were once more glued on . She herself just shook her head.

"How could I expect you to understand. I should have just finished this when I had the chance. Where do you shits think your power is coming from? Some kind of void? Some kind of separate dimension? Nobody of you absolutely nobody of you is creating anything. You're all simply borrowing."

Her gaze turns accusing. Then she points at Arthus.

"Especially you Arthus. Everything has a order and you're disturbing it while using your power. Whenever you force something to happen other events get pulled ahead of their time. You have no idea how much power I had to use to clean your mess up. Whenever you manipulate pr-"

Something happens in the room and the entire audio coming from the maiden gets shut out. Liam wanted to check the equipment instantly but it seemed to originate from the room itself. Then Arthus talked, his face a mask of kindness but we could see the rage he felt.

"Alice, don't talk about those important things to everyone. I don't want to have to kill all of you."

Nobody took his threat kindly and multiple members stood up ready to use their power to defend themselves. Then suddenly everything started to freeze over. It started with the tables, slowly creeping I barely noticed the white sheets starting to cover them. The first to notice was one of the masked figures from HALO. He jumped away from it pulling his comrades with him, then he asked with a clearly modified voice.

" stop this now. We came here to listen to what you had to say. I do not want to fight you, not a single one of us doubts that you could kill anyone inside of here. But if we all go on you at once even you would have problems dealing with us. So please stop."

Her voice was silent, almost nonexistent but she was deadly calm.

"You still do not believe me. It was to be expected, nobody will see the truth. What I am asking of you... no, what I'm demanding of you is this. Stop excessively using your power. Whenever someone like uses her power I need to replenish the source she borrowed from."

Lane interrupted her almost shouting in defiance.

"What is up with you?! We are espers, as long as we are able to control it we are fine."

The frost on top of the tables does not disappear but it does not creep further either. Instead directs her next words at Lane.

"You stupid girl thinking you're all powerful. Do you realize where you're power is coming from? You're one of the idiots overdoing everything. You especially are borrowing from our sun. You're taking energy away from a STAR Lane!"

What?

Lane looked at in disbelief and doubt.

"So what? Our sun is huge and produces an insane amount of energy each day how can something insignificant as me endanger that?"

For once I had to agree with her. I seriously doubted that one person alone could destroy a star on accident. Alice though only shook her head.

"Nobody is thinking about long terms. Nobody ever does this. Our sun is comparable to an ecosystem. It produces power but it's resources are limited as big as they might be and you're taking those resources away. But it's not only you, there are thousands that do the same, if not millions. Not even I know how many espers do this."

"Then why are we here?"

This time it was 's time to ask a question. He pointed at himself and the woman.

"I'm pretty confident that our power doesn't endanger anything."

Alice seems to nod slightly.

"You're right, you endanger nothing but your own bodies and I don't particularly care about that. But you have a certain amount of influence and I want you to use this to educate you're fucking espers to use their powers effectively."

The blind man points at lane and laughs once.

"Do you have any clue how many espers there are in the world? I bet you do not and many have not even formed yet and you expect us to control their power usage? Are you retarded?"

Suddenly Alice disappears and before the man knew it she was standing right in front of him.

" you alone are keeping the human evolution back. And even I can't fix the shit you've caused. So just shut up and at least try what I am about to tell all of you."

Then she returns to the middle of the room.

"Right now you guys have two choices. One of them is helping me by letting me show you how to properly give back what you've taken and teach that to all you followers. The oth-"

She gets interrupted by Lane's laugh cutting through the room.

"You called everyone here for a lesson? Who do you think you are? You think I'd just accept that? You have killed so many of my friends and comrades."

With one gesture makes her stop.

"I have made mistakes in the past, there is no denying it. But I will keep pushing on because this is what I have decided to do."

Then for the first time from the Fallen raised her hand.

"And what if we do not want to be taught?"

It was a simple question but Alice's expression turned hard.

"Then I will remove the threat for my world from the face of earth. And even if you do not believe me. If you do not as I say all of you will die today."

Next to me I can hear Karen take in a sharp breath. There was no chance that this would be settled without violence.

"Songe, please ask the commander to Speed up the evacuation. I'm sure he is aware of the dangers too but ask regardless."

He nods and walks out of the room to not interrupt us.

The situation inside of the room seemed to escalate, almost no one was seated anymore except for Arthus and his subordinates. He himself seemed to be thinking about something and had his eyes closed. Every group was disputing in itself how to react to another threat uttered by . While Arthus was calm, HALO's members had simply taken a few steps away and were talking quietly with each other. and his members seemed to have already accepted proposition and the Fallen were loudly discussing it themselves.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Then there was Lane and . While she seemed infuriated was a statue talking at her ear. did not move and had probably been selected as a body guard. Then before anyone else could finish Arthus raised his voice.

"Alice. While I don't like how you did it you're right. I now know what I have to do in order to not cause you any trouble. Though we will still use our power to the fullest when defending ourselves."

Alice looked at him for a long time before finally answering herself.

"Your power is irritating. You could end everything but you don't. But regardless I will thank you. Please inform all your followers to do the same so we will never have to fight head to head."

"We've decided to do the same. Out of respect for you Alice not because we are afraid, you of all people should understand this."

This time it had been the blonde woman beside's who had talked and once more seemed to thank them from the bottom of her heart. Then one of the masked HALO members walked back to the table.

" we cannot decide this by ourselves. We are but only three council members. We would like you to give us at least a week to figure this out. In the end we will either openly face you or contact you again regarding your proposition. Is that acceptable?"

His distorted voice gave nothing away about his feelings and seemed to think about the entire passage.

"I know all but one of the members inside of your council. If you are only trying to run I will hunt you down, have I made myself clear?"

The figure only nods.

"That is absolutely acceptable but we will not decide anything over the head of our comrades."

With a gesture she dismisses the matter and faces the last remaining groups. Lane was still whispering with but the Fallen seemed to have came to an conclusion. The old lady stepped forward and started talking with a weak voice.

" sadly we cannot speak for everyone of the Fallen but all members under us three will accept your conditions but do not expect any thankfulness out of us, you are forcing us to listen to you."

Alice only smiles at them though and answers politely.

"I want this world to keep existing as long as I'm alive. Do not misunderstand, I do not care about any of the beings on this world. But my existence would be useless if I did not have a planet to live on."

"You expect me to simply accept this? What are you all doing covering in front of her like some puppies?!"

She just had to speak up. A small part of me had already expected this. Behind stood a girl with pink hair and a mad expression.

"You who killed so many of my comrades and civilians want me to sit by idly while you explain something about my power to me? And even if I did that, what then? You think I'd just let you go? Everyone in here has committed a crime and will be punished accordingly. You all are human scum and now you're just bowing in front of a strong individual just like dogs."

What is that bitch doing?!

Our heads snap towards Liam who seemed to have accidentally thought too loudly into our direction.

Once more it was Arthus who stepped in first.

" aka Lane Polinsk. First of all, we do not bow. I accept Alice as an individual on the same level of power as me and as someone with a much better understanding of espers. As such I will look through any information she gives me. But you? I do not treat you my equal. You are just a small girl trying to play hero. That all of us have committed a sin is undoubtedly true but at least we fight for our own values. You instead."

He spits out and his face shows a surprising amount of disgust.

"You instead, you simply do not take anything into consideration."

Her answer came quick and with the same amount of disgust.

"I do not need to listen to someone that brainwashes his members into following him and calls himself a . You're arrogance is immeasurable."

He looked dumbfounded for exactly 12 seconds before breaking out into laugher while stood up positioning herself behind him.

"Brainwash? How did you come to that conclusion, can you just not understand that some people actually have a goal worth dying for? Whether you want it or not, we will create Eden on earth. My power has nothing to do with this. The devotion I get originates from respect, not fear."

Lane did not seem to care and faced the masked HALO's.

"And you, you are ruthless and do what you want, you say you protect espers but in the end you only protect robbers and murderers. You protect criminals and you too in the end will be judged."

A small chuckle could be heard from under the mask as the one in front answered.

" we have never once said that we did good deeds. Never once did we imply that our values are ethnically accepted. Our powers are in this world to fulfill the wish that granted them in the first place. Everything else is unimportant. If one's wish was to climb a tower we will help him climb the tower. If the wish was to kill the president of the USA we would do so too. If you condemn us for this... Honestly, we could not care less. You think you know our values but you truly only projected something upon us and  you think that we're going to fall into some kind of moral conflict over the ethnicity of our actions. But to be franc we simply do not care."

Lane lost a lot of her momentum, blocked by the cold rationalism of the one she had shouted at. But she didn't seem to want to stop there with her rant. The next ones on her list where the Fallen.

"And you guys, you destroy lives. You too have committed countless crimes a-"

instantly cuts her of.

"Shut up woman, you understand nothing neither does Arthus or anyone else. Do not dare to try and judge us. We have our own goals and trying to talk with us on a moral standpoint is useless. Speaking of morality, have you ever thought about the collateral damage you cause? I barely know anyone within our organization that could keep up with your count of destroyed buildings. You-"

"Collateral damage?! The things that happened were the fault of the criminals. I defended the citizens while you attacked them. It is only normal that things get destroyed in the conflict."

Normal? Is that what you think? Is that what you thought when you destroyed my life? That it just happened?

My eyes became small and then we heard a voice talking over the com. It was Girand giving orders.

"I want all forces to engage as soon as it is beginning. Everyone has their orders."

Karen, Liam and Rose equipped their guns and started to get ready to head out but my gaze was fixed upon the monitor showing what was happening inside. Lane was still talking trying to justify herself but she seemed to have had enough.

"I have already decided, I will not play your little game . I will wipe you all from the face of earth and end your reign today Arthus."

With that a multitude of energy spheres appeared around her floating in circles. also seemed to float up again and radiated pressure even through the pictures of the monitor.

Every single esper in the room stood up and faced different directions. The Fallen seemed to ignore Lane completely and stared towards Arthus with hatred while and his two members seemed to practically not care at all. HALO's members had positioned themselves in a triangle all ready to react to whatever would hit them. Then finally there was Arthus and Alice. While the first still seemed unfazed by everything the latter was mad.

"FINE!"

She shouted.

Then someone grabbed me by the shoulder. It was Karen telling me something.

"We're heading out now, everything will turn to hell quickly come on, let's go!"

Without turning around I grab my rifle and the four of us charge outside. Behind me I can barely make out the final words shouted into the room.

"Then all of you die today!"