“Mila!”

Ilia’s voice tote through the stalemating silence as he crashed through the window, his body covered in a thin grey outline as his Wave armor enhanced body had rocketed him from all the way down at the garden. With the dragon’s claws manifesting at the tip of all of his fingers, he then slashed forward, his claws clashing against Augen’s stack of cards briefly before Augen was easily pushed back by Ilia's brute force, however, he left behind a timed Cast which detonated and caused Ilia to stumble back too.

“You sure you want to do this? Right here?” Ver asked as the Kraken’s scales emerged from underneath her skin, covering her entire body beside her face, “don’t want to ruin your nice building here. She only wanted to talk.”

“What’s there to talk about anymore, really?” Mila said, leaning her body forward as the floor started sizzling underneath her feet with smoke rising straight up into the air and past her face. Then, as she lunged ahead with her wrists contained within a gauntlet of lava, she struck against the body of the Sky Splitting Sword with a barrage of strikes as individual pieces of the molten rock splattered onto the ground, “I don’t suppose we could negotiate for a transplant of her beautiful eyes, can we?”

“...If a fight is all you want, then a fight you shall have.” Ver said, tendrils extending out from her body and reinforcing her arms when suddenly, Augen flew straight past her with flailing arms as he crashed through the sets of tables with a gentle icy slope shielding his back against the impact and sending him rolling into the corner of the wall.

“Looks like your friends aren’t so keen?” Mila smirked and pointed her hands casually at Tonya and Augen as Ilia marched straight at them with his dragon scale armor fully activated though his dominance mode still hidden, “leave Tonya, and you two can walk from here no problem. Stay, and this will be the last fight you have ever taken in your life.”

Augen coughed as Tonya grabbed onto his hands and helped him up slowly. She felt his stubborn strength, though both of their meager presences in the Wave were essentially a drop of water compared to the ocean that is the overwhelming presence of Ilia’s.

And now, that ocean had just erupted. In the contrast to the dry Necrovian Wave ambiance, Ilia instead drew his breath and focused inward, bathing Augen and Tonya fully under the pressure of his Wave before the air started to become heavy, and everything in the room started to vibrate back and forth. Tonya looked around with panic as she felt her entire body slowly being pressed down by an invisible hand as her legs started to tremble and collapse under the load alone.

“What…what is happening…” Tonya struggled as her face turned pale, and hints of fear finally showed on her face.

“That’s his power, faux Dominance of the Dragon…” Augen said, clenching his fist and crawling on the ground to Tonya’s side before he slowly picked out a bright yellow playing card with a drawing of a shattered sun over it. However, Ilia darted across the room, kicking Augen in the hand and knocking the card loose before he could activate the Cast.

“You caught me off guard last time,” Ilia warned, stepping over Augen’s body and reaching towards Tonya with his hands as the manifest of the dragon claws faded back into his body, “I will not suffer defeat the same way again.”

“No…no…Ilia! Please!” Tonya plead as he squatted down and gently caressed her hair.

“She won’t kill you.” Ilia spoke quietly as if revealing a despicable secret, “She just needed your King’s Eye ability to stabilize the kingdom and control the upper class that’s been stifling the development of this kingdom…I will take away the eyes painlessly and quickly, and you all can walk away from here safely…”

“Listen to what you are saying!” Augen shouted, pressing him up despite the feeling of a mountain being planted over his shoulders when Ilia planted his finger into the ground and clawed out a massive splinter of wood in his hand, “Haven’t you known each other since childhood?!”

“Eventually…we all have to grow up.” Ilia turned, “Remember your place, Augen. You are but an outsider in the grand palace of Necrovia. Another word and that will be your last.”

"You traitor." Augen said directly at Ilia. He pressed his brows together before reaching down, picking up a piece of splinter before he stabbed it straight into Augen's chest as he opened his mouth with blood spitting out in between his teeth.

Tonya opened her mouth, and tears started welling in her blue eyes as her entire body started to tremble, "No...not again..."

“There is an alternative...” Ilia said, looking back and forth between Augen and Tonya, “Maybe Mila’s wrong. Maybe the King’s Eye aren’t part of your arsenal, and maybe you have just conned these people to help you…”

“Hey?! Don’t mock my deduction like that!” Mila protested when Ver slammed her Sky Splitting Sword straight into her own lava sword, “I am fairly sure she has it!”

“If you have the power, use it to stop me,” Ilia said, uncoiling his fingers one after another when the Wave around him started to swell and surround yet another piece of splinter on the ground. He turned and aimed the sharp tip straight at the back of Augen's head. Then, as space itself seemingly contorted around the splinter through the sheer intensity of his Wave, he fully lets it go.

“STOP!”

As an outburst of power rushed out from the crown symbols within Mila’s eyes, the pressure from her King’s Eyes pushed back against Ilia’s ocean of Wave with its own fierce resistance as the currents clashed in the air between the two.

Ilia’s eyes widened even as the splinter had already been released, and it shot straight towards Augen’s face as Tonya watched the boy that had helped her all this time be on the verge of death once again.

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“Forbidden Autumn: Decaying Inevitability!” Augen whispered with escaping breaths, pressing a grey finger onto the ground underneath him when the entire floor had finally collapsed under all of that beating before his bodyweight alone was able to take him down through the floors. Ilia's attack flew right over his hair and pinned firmly into the walls.

Ver sensed the feeling of unease spreading out from underneath her, and the Kraken rapidly created sets of dark fluids under both hers and Tonya’s feet as Ilia leaped towards Mila who created a small platform of lava under her feet too.

“What is this insanity?!” Mila shouted as the wave of decay continued to eat away at the materials of the tower with her documents, decorations, and other things corroding and becoming grains of dust in an instant. The decaying wave also tried to eat through Mila’s lava, but she was able to create more of it to replenish the materials.

“A temporary stop.” Ilia said, retracting the dominance of the Dragon back into his body with a smile, “You have revealed your true power, Tonya, as the owner of the King’s Eye in this generation, and you have more than proven your strength and your worth here. Surrender now and serve Necrovia with your power, like all of the previous generations of King’s Eyes users.”

“Or I can just have your eyes.” Mila said eagerly when Ilia glanced toward her and pressed his lips together dissatisfyingly, however, he didn’t object, “You can live the rest of your days out doing whatever, but I just need those eyes.”

Tonya pressed her hands together into each other and she lowered her head.

“You will have neither!” Ver said, pointing her sword forward when Tonya placed a hand on her forearm and shook her head.

“It’s…going to be okay.” Tonya said, “I…don’t want you all to fight anymore because of me…”

“We can still fight!” Augen said with his hands slowly closing up the chest wonud with his healing Casts while Ver nodded fiercely and gripped around her Sky Splitting Sword.

“But you shouldn’t have to.” Tonya shook her head and stepped forward when the Kraken’s fluids expanded. However, Augen had already halted the process of his Forbidden Autumn cast, “This is my kingdom…our kingdom…for better or worse, I need to be responsible for it…and that means not instigating a civil war that will plunge it into chaos…”

“But you knew what Mila did! We all do!” Ver shouted.

“Not everybody, right?” Tonya looked towards Mila who smiled lightly, “The way Necrovia’s always been. Everything’s controlled at the very top, and only those within the central areas knew what’s happened, and that’s why you wanted the powers of these eyes behind you.”

“I am as much of a daughter of Necrovia as you.” Mila said, lowering her hands, “The old kings were shitty in their own rights, but they at least had a few things going for them.”

“So that's how it is?” Tonya asked, stepping halfway in between the four, “You come in, murder my parents, and declare something better?”

“Well, yes.” Mila said with a light shrug, “Just because I take the short cut to power, doesn’t mean I intend to rule like an idiot. As I said, I will bring forth an age of advancements and prosperity the kind that Necrovia had never seen before.”

“With what? Your big words alone?” Tonya marched yet another step closer, “If you want to convince me, you need more than that.”

“With the resources that’s been hidden the masses ever since the dawn of this kingdom.” Mila pointed straight down with her hands, “The Underground River, or the blood of Necrovia as referred to in the inner circles, I am going to return the Wave the harsh Necrovian soil took away from its people, and I am going to return it.”

Ver’s eyes widened, and Tonya’s body froze as she tried to process the meaning of Mila’s words.

“Yeah.” Mila crossed her arms, “You thought the Necrovian people were born this way? You thought that, out of an entire world where everybody had some sense of Wave within their bodies, Necrovia was anything special? When Necrovia moved in and took over this land, the old kings doomed their people to lifetimes of inaptitude in the Wave! By the very act of living and growing up here, Wave has slowly yanked out away from your body and fed into the Underground river, where nobody else can reach it!”

“Nobody but the upper class of Necrovia and its army...” Tonya continued on with her phrase as Mila smiled and nodded.

“In turn, depriving the people what they deserve.” Mila reached her hand out, “I will put an end to that, and those people of the upper class in Necrovia certainly won’t have their privilege taken away without a fight. I am not afraid to fight, but I’d prefer limiting fighting to the very highest of levels. I am truly sorry about your parents, Tonya, but they offered me no choice…they offered the Necrovian people no choice…”

Ilia lowered his head, and Tonya looked at him before she clenched her fist and ran towards him. She swung it across it air, clubbing it across his face as he ate up the hit without a word.

“I will never forgive you,” Tonya said, gripping Ilia’s collar and pushing him back.

“I am only doing what’s right for this kingdom.” Ilia said stubbornly before he focused his gaze on Tonya, “Your parents, and all those that supported them are what made me. They are why sacrifices had to have been made to create me! If everybody had the Wave, then I wouldn’t need to be like this…”

“They treated you like a son, and you murdered them!” Tonya pointed her finger into Ilia chest as he looked at Tonya coldly.

“And they treated the rest of my friends like animals.” Ilia pinched around Tonya’s hand, “Tossed them in a ditch once they are done with them.”

“We are not asking for forgiveness here. None of us are.” Mila placed her hand in between Tonya and Mila, “You want the best for this Kingdom, and we do too. We will let nothing stand in our way, you can choose to stand on our side, or don’t, and we will just take your eyes anyway and kill your friends right here and now.

“Now, make your choice.”

The choice was plain to see.

Ilia and Mila do not want to hurt Tonya if they don’t have to, but they will do it without hesitation if she proved to be trouble for them. And if Tonya cooperated with them here, she can negotiate for all of them to let her walk free.

She came here to talk, not here to fight, and regardless of what had happened in the beginning, she had started to understand Mila. She was not naive enough to believe that her parents were infallible, yet she cannot allow herself to reconcile with someone that destroyed everything that she had.

Even though she made Augen and Ver come all this way, and even though all of those things happened…Tonya had hope that perhaps Mila did have to want the best for the Kingdom, and without knowing what her plan was, it makes little sense to resist for the sake of it.

She turned and looked toward Augen and Ver, and they held their breaths while waiting for her decision. That was when suddenly, a piece of the Kraken’s shell started glowing and vibrating from Ver’s forearm, and Wu’s voice came through.

“He…Hello?”