Annabelle was terrified for a few seconds after Daraken died. Would Helios obliterate her the instant her job was done?

Thankfully, no divine lightning bolt struck her down. For now, at least. She wasn't sure if it would just take Helios more time to arrange her death.

After that initial period of worry, Annabelle next checked the status of her team. She had moderate burns, but her team was in worse condition.

Lorso, the team's healer, had numerous broken bones from blunt trauma. She was conscious, but barely able to move.

"Can you heal yourself?" Annabelle asked.

"m-Maybe." Lorso replied. "I'm not sure if I can channel magic in this state."

Annabelle considered using a healing orb to get her back up. But, they were going to be returning to Sanctuary anyways, so it would be a waste of resources.

At the back end of the building, Darius staggered to his feet. He seemed to be relatively fine.

That left Silence. Even though his face was shredded and his eyes were gouged out, he seemed unconcerned, sitting down to rest as if it was nothing.

"Are you sure you're okay? At the very least, without eyes you won't be able to fight." Well, maybe Annabelle could impart her knowledge of Starsight onto him.

Silence did not respond.

"I think he's focusing on regeneration," Lorso commented. "It's an intensive process, one that he can't interrupt."

As long as they were stable, it didn't really matter. Once they got back to sanctuary, Lunima would be able to bring them back up to full fighting condition incredibly quickly.

Annabelle made contact with Sanctuary.

"Daraken attacked us," Annabelle explained.

"What?" Raiks said. Then, he realized something. "Wait. I should have known this would happen. Daraken wouldn't just sit back and let us wipe out his army."

"Well, it paid off. Daraken is now dead."

That managed to shock Raiks a second time.

"Are you sure? Daraken is practically guaranteed to have a dozen backup plans."

"We had to kill him twice," Annabelle explained. "I took him down the first time, and then he transformed into a dragon. Darius believes that the dragon was his true form."

"That doesn't make sense. Daraken may have covered his true history well, but we still know for a fact that he was born as a human."

"It's what happened. I obliterated his original body, I know for a fact that it was dead." She looked over at the dead dragon, and would have mulched its body as well if she had any energy left. “And the dragon has been decapitated.”

"We will need to wait and see on Daraken. For now, return to Sanctuary for healing. My troops will take care of the rest." Raiks gave them directions to their portal location.

**********

Even though Annabelle's plan worked, Raiks almost wished it didn't.

Normally, an incapacitated enemy would be captured and taken alive, for interrogation if nothing else. However, there were at least a thousand enemy soldiers that could be captured, and the Resistance lacked the necessary manpower to hold them, or the resources to feed them.

During planning, Annabelle had proposed executing everyone who wasn't an important officer. Raiks originally considered that excessively cruel, a move that would likely lead to a loss of public support. But right now, it seemed like it would be their only option.

He called an emergency council meeting to discuss this, and quickly found a solution. Turb would search for a small island near Sanctuary, and the prisoners would be dropped there and given most of the Resistance's stored supplies. It would last them about two weeks, which would give the Resistance time to find a more permanent solution.

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There was a potential complication regarding the Resistance's null-magic fields, however. Turb claimed that, according to his research, breaking the curse in any way other than letting its duration expire would cause mental damage to the affected individuals. Due to how Sanctuary's system was set up, if they wished to transport individuals to the location that Turb found, they would need to transfer them from Arexia to Sanctuary, pass them through the null-magic field to a second portal room, and then use that to transfer them to Turb's island.

They needed to create holding areas until the prisoners could be transferred. Raiks sent for Bouldos, who was likely their best bet for creating a large temporary structure.

Suddenly, a messenger burst into the room.

"This better be-" Raiks tried to say.

"There was a portal malfunction. Annabelle's gone."

Well, that was certainly an emergency. Or at the very least, important enough to interrupt the meeting for.

"Explain."

"I'm not entirely sure what happened," he claimed. "But right before Annabelle's team was to return, the portal collapsed on Sanctuary's side, but the Arexia-side entrance remained. Her team walked through, and we haven't seen them since."

"How could this have happened?" Raiks asked.

"I don't know," the messenger said.

"I may have some theories," Turb said. "With your permission, I would like to research this immediately."

"Could you recover them?" Raiks asked.

"I doubt it." Turb admitted. "But I will make the attempt."

Raiks ordered the opening of a second portal, further out. He also called for several soldiers on both sides to verify that the portal was opened correctly and was not disrupted again.

Turb left the council chamber to begin his analysis, as Raiks considered the news.

On the surface, this was terrible news. The Resistance had lost four elite members, one of whom was capable of challenging and beating Daraken. But on the other hand, they had eliminated Daraken, hopefully for good, and one of them had been stated to be a potential major threat after Daraken's defeat.

Raiks would have had to make a hard decision on whether it was justified to kill Annabelle while her powers were depleted. Now, the decision was out of his hands.

But if Daraken was not truly gone, while Annabelle was, they were doomed.

**********

"Everything is going according to plan," a mysterious individual announced. "Although, as to be expected of a prophecy of this scale, some manipulation was necessary to keep the plan on track."

'some' manipulation, came the reply. what sort of manipulations?

He detailed what had occurred.

In the base timeline that he had analyzed, Daraken had decided not to prepare the sabotage of the arrival portal when he arrived, instead waiting until after he dealt with Annabelle's team. That change in timing would result in Annabelle being aware of the interference and taking enough caution to avoid the trap.

That manipulation proved nearly impossible to pull off. His allied telepath needed to deliver a covert suggestion without being noticed, something that was nigh-impossible against Daraken's mental barrier. Thankfully, his barrier was weakened by Annabelle's outburst, but it had still taken a dozen iterations to slip in the suggestion without Daraken detecting it and becoming aware of their conspiracy.

Then, he had detected a second deviation from the prophecy on the default timeline. Annabelle ended up taking Daraken's deal, and was sent into the Outer Regions by a second portal opened by Daraken. The rest of her team would reluctantly follow her.

Out of curiosity, he had scanned that deviation further, and found no significant events happened to them for two weeks. If he didn't need to use his energy to scan for a way to close the deviation, he would have analyzed further.

The prophecy called for Daraken to die here. The prophecy's original prediction had Annabelle absorbing the energy of Daraken's attack and reflecting it back into him, stunning him for long enough to give Darius a window to finish him off. She had used the same technique against the Elders, reflecting their overwhelming psychic assault to stun them and expose their mothership to the final assault.

But something had caused Annabelle to reconsider.

They couldn't close this deviation by making Annabelle refuse the offer. He had made a single attempt anyways, and nearly had the timeline hijacked by Annabelle's counterattack.

Daraken had a mental barrier up, making him difficult to manipulate. He found a way around the barrier, having his telepath coincide his attack with one of Annabelle's earlier mental attacks where she broke all of Daraken's defenses. But then, their efforts to convince Daraken to not offer the deal resulted in him instead killing Annabelle on the spot due to the threat she posed.

However, they were able to trick him into ignoring the threat Darius posed, resulting in his ambush eliminating Daraken before Annabelle could take his deal. Then, she retreated to Sanctuary, only to fall for Daraken's preset trap. It was just as planned.

Not one, but two deviancies. This is concerning. I need you to analyze the default timeline.

I am depleted. he replied. It was why he had to open the conversation with speech rather than telepathy, waiting for his associate to open the connection. Maybe he shouldn't have analyzed the results of the second default timeline.

Understood. I will have another attempt to scan for immediate disruptions. In twenty-four hours, scan ahead as far as you can. Our first direct intervention will occur soon, and we need to ensure that everything is going according to plan.

I will do as asked.

He almost felt sorry for what Annabelle would go through in the coming weeks. But it was a small sacrifice for the greater good. And, knowing Annabelle, she might even thank them for the opportunity to deal a devastating blow to the Shades.