— eight years ago —

The moonlight peeked through the curtains, casting streaks of bright yellow on the off-white paper that Lara was writing on. Occasionally, blobs of water dripped onto the notebook, causing the messy handwriting to be even more unreadable.

The small girl hunched in front of the table, with her head lowered and brows furrowed in concentration. Her long brown hair was sprawled all over the mahogany table, like the twisting roots of a tree. She was trying her best to write, but it was difficult keeping her hand stable while sobbing.

"Why the hell are you crying?"

Lara's head jerked up towards the familiar voice. Perched on the windowsill, silhouetted against the full moon, was Ryan. He was leaning on his knee with one hand, and ruffling his short, curly hair with the other. When he locked eyes with the younger girl, his grin widened.

"Wow, you're honestly such a baby," he teased.

Lara quickly wiped her tears away. "Why are you here, you idiot?" she grumbled, embarrassed that the teenage boy caught her crying again. "If Madam finds out you're here, she'll punish you."

Ryan shrugged. "Whatever. Tell her then, I dare you."

"S- Shut up..." Lara pouted. Of course Ryan knew that she was never really going to snitch to the First Lady. "I- I'll tell Arianna instead."

Ryan snorted. "What can she even do to me? Strike me down with hurricanes? As if she has the energy to spare for that." Then, he hopped off the window and sauntered next to Lara. "What is this? What the hell are you writing?" he asked, snatching up the notebook on the table.

"Hey, give it back!"

The small girl tried to pounce on Ryan, but he effortlessly held her down with one arm. He squinted at the written words and scrunched up his nose. "Why are you writing about the Grand War?"

Lara sniffed. "M- Madam tested me today and I- I forgot the dates," she mumbled, her body still heaving a little from her sobs. "She- She told me to write the chapter fifty times by tonight."

Ryan peered at her curiously. "Screw her." He stuffed the notebook into his inner pocket of his jacket. "Go to sleep."

"What? I can't do that!" Lara exclaimed. Her tears started flowing down her face uncontrollably again. "Give it back, I- I have to listen to Madam, or- or else..."

"Or else what?" Ryan raised his eyebrows. "Or else she won't give you a Gift? Go look in the mirror right now, you look like an oversized baby, crying at the slightest thing. She's never going to give you a Gift, ever, so just give up."

"Shut up!" Lara screamed. "Madam said I'm destined to get it one day!" She summoned all the energy she had in her and jumped on Ryan, hitting his body and pulling on his jacket hysterically. That must have hurt Ryan to some degree, as he retaliated with a force much stronger than what he normally used for the smaller girl. With a hard push, Ryan shoved Lara right in the stomach, and she crashed right into the leg of her table. A sharp pain shot up her shoulders.

"Ow!" she yelped as she writhed in pain.

Ryan looked almost apologetic, but that expression immediately disappeared when Arianna barged into the room.

"What's happening?" the auburn-haired woman demanded. Her frown deepened when she noticed Ryan, but quickly softened when she saw the weeping Lara on the floor. "Oh Lara..." She knelt down next to the girl and gave her a tight hug. "It's okay, Lara, I'm here, it's all good now."

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Crybaby Lara."

Lara buried her head into Arianna's embrace. "Go away, Ryan! I hate you!"

"Yes, you should go back to your quarters, Ryan," Arianna added. "You know Madam doesn't want you around Lara. You don't want to anger her even more, do you, especially after your failed mission?"

"Mission?" Lara lifted her head and stared at Ryan. "You did a mission? Are you an Operative already?"

Ryan's deep brown eyes seemed to glaze over. "Yeah, she made me one the moment I turned eighteen," he admitted sourly.

"Oh." Lara could not comprehend Ryan's grimace. Becoming an Operative should be something to be celebrated, so why did he somehow look... pained? "How... How was it?"

"She fucking told you, didn't she? I failed," Ryan snapped. "What else do you want to know?"

"Language, Ryan," Arianna warned.

Ryan muttered a few more curses under his breath before walking away and climbing up the window.

"Hey!" Lara suddenly remembered. "Come back! Give me back my notebook!"

Ryan stuck out his tongue at Lara. "No," he said, and then, with a small leap, he vanished out of sight. The curtains fluttered with his exit, and the dazzling moonlight pierced into the room once again, blinding Lara's vision for a split second.

Lara squinted before turning to Arianna. "Why is he always so mean to me? He's only ever mean to me, too, he's not mean to his other friends."

Arianna chuckled. She gently smoothed Lara's messy hair. "Just try to avoid him, like I always say."

"I can't, he's always finding me." Lara groaned. Then, she sat up right enthusiastically. "Can I sleep with you tonight, Arianna?"

"Lara, you're a big girl now," Arianna chided with a feigned exasperated look. "You should sleep in your own room."

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Lara continued staring at her older friend with beseeching eyes. "Could you read a story book to me, then?"

"Sure," Arianna relented.

Grinning, Lara leapt onto her bed, while Arianna tucked the blanket snugly around her. She listened to Arianna's soft and mellow narration of her favorite story, and watched the vividly blue eyes move along the pages of the book. Gradually, her eyelids grew heavier, and she drifted into dreams.

When she awoke, her notebook was placed next to her, all filled up with the words she needed to write.

— present —

Lara opened her eyes only to stare right into a blank, grey wall.

What the hell?

She tried to look around, but she quickly realized that she couldn't move an inch —her head, arms, torso, legs, every single part of her body, were all tightly bound to a chair. A soft whimper escaped her throat, and that was when she noticed that her mouth was stuffed with a ball the size of her fist. Slowly, she began to feel the discomfort in her jaw from having her mouth stretched out like that for... how long had it been?

Frantically, her eyes darted around the small room. As far as she could tell, she was just surrounded by walls. What used to be white paint was peeling off the surface. There was a narrow, horizontal window right below the ceiling, showing Lara a glimpse of the golden moon against a tranquil night sky. The sight was so beautiful that it seemed to be mocking her.

Was she... in prison? Lara tried to remember what happened before this. The image of the poor Karzian boy came to her mind and she immediately felt sick to her stomach. He had been in chains, shivering and staring at her with a set of sad, pitiful eyes... Had he also been tied up like this? Tears blurred her vision; she wanted to cry but her body was too restricted for her to let out a proper sob. And so, she just closed her eyes, and let her tears flow freely down her face.

"Jesus Christ, why are you always crying?"

Lara opened her eyes again and saw Ryan's head poking out from the small window. Desperately, she tried to call out to him, but she ended up with a muffled "Mmm! Mmm!!"

"Yeah, yeah, calm down, baby Lara," Ryan said. He laboriously cut down the metal frames on the window with a muted laser gun. After a few minutes, he managed to cut out enough space for him to squeeze through and get into the cell. He began to fiddle with the locks around Lara, starting with the one on her mouth.

The moment Lara could speak again, she admonished, "Ryan, what are you doing here? You'll get into trouble!"

The older man rolled his eyes. "I'm already in trouble. In case you haven't realized, baby Lara, whenever you're in trouble, I'm in trouble too."

"What do you mean?"

Instead of explaining, Ryan sighed and focused on picking the locks around Lara's body. "So, tell me, what the hell happened today? What did you even do to get yourself in this situation?"

Lara lowered her gaze. "Well... I got my Gift today," she muttered, "and Madam gave me Arianna's Gift."

Ryan stopped what he's doing to stare at her. "What the fuck? Seriously?" he asked incredulously. Then, he laughed. "Wow, no wonder you're all tied up like that, you're formidable now."

The rare praise from Ryan left a bad taste in her mouth. She got herself a powerful Gift, but at what cost? "I think Madam probably took it away by now..."

Ryan snorted. "If she did then she wouldn't have bound you up like you're ready to blow up the entire place. The security out there is insane too, I've never seen anything like it." He glanced at Lara before resuming his task. "So anyway, what happened after she gave you that Gift?"

Lara's hands were set free at this point. She rubbed her arms uneasily. "She gave me a mission on the spot, but I... couldn't do it."

"Yeah, not surprising, you're a baby after all." Ryan's low voice came from behind her. "What did she tell you to do?"

"She..." Lara's eyes fluttered. "Madam told me to kill this... this Karzian spy... on the spot..." She gulped. Her saliva tasted sandy and metallic. "But he was just a kid, Ryan, and I... I couldn't bring myself to do it..."

Ryan snorted again. "Of course she did that, what a fucking psycho."

Lara turned her face to observe the dark-haired man. "Did you... Did you also have to do something like that when you first got your Gift from Madam?" she probed warily.

"Nah. I didn't get my Gift from her."

"What?" Lara frowned. "Where did you get it from?"

"From myself."

This time, it was Lara's turn to roll her eyes. "Liar."

The only person who had ever spawned a Gift on their own was the First Lady. That was the reason why the First Gift was so powerful; every other Gift was technically derived from it, and thus could never come close to its sheer level of strength, potency, and stamina. While Arianna and Ryan had to carefully ration the usage of their Gifts and plan sufficient rest times in between each use, Elena had no such issue. She could freely use her Gift whenever and wherever with no repercussions to her body, and it would always work with a hundred percent effectiveness.

... Until Lara, of course.

"Oh right, Madam also used her Gift on me too, for the first time," Lara admitted dejectedly.

There was a short pause before Ryan whispered, "Did she force you to kill the kid?" His voice was unusually strained.

"S- She tried to..." Lara croaked, fighting back more tears. "But her Gift didn't work on me for some reason."

Once again, Ryan had to stop what he's doing. He poked out his head from behind her to stare at her in utter disbelief. "What?"

"Yeah, it was really strange. Maybe she wasn't really using it? Or maybe she's tired after granting me a Gift? I'm not sure."

Ryan scrutinized Lara in silence for a long time, a mix of emotions running through his face. When he finally managed to find his voice again, his tone took Lara by surprise —it was soft, gentle and sorrowful, unlike anything Lara had ever heard from this man in her entire life.

"Oh my God, Lara, it really is you," he breathed. "You really are our new Hope."

Lara blinked. "What? What do you mean?"

By now, Ryan was done with releasing all of Lara's shackles. He immediately stood up, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her in for a tight hug.

"I should've believed in you more. I'm sorry, Lara."

Lara was so shocked by this gesture that she couldn't even make a sound, except maybe a hushed and confused "W- What?"

After a long while, Ryan let her go and took out his phone. He played around with the maps app, zooming and swiping around an unknown location, his brows furrowed in deep concentration.

Lara had never seen the tall man this way before. Ryan had always acted so casual about everything in life, like he had never taken anything seriously. But right now, he's staring at his phone as if his life depended on it.

"What... What are you doing, Ryan?" Lara asked.

"I'm going to atone for my sins," Ryan replied gravely. When he seemed satisfied with the location that he found, he looked up and gave Lara a small smile. "It'll be okay, Lara. Listen to me, when you get there, tell them that you are the descendant of Elissa Skyborn, and that you are born under the star of Nadia. Then, tell them about what happened, about how Elena's original Gift didn't affect you at all. Promise me, make sure they know all that before they try to kill you, okay?"

Lara sighed in exasperation. "What on Earth are you talking about, Ryan?"

Ryan chuckled. "Not on Earth, baby Lara, not anymore."

Then, he grabbed her hands, and the entire world around her swirled into dark shadows, like they were sucked into some kind of vacuum. It was as if she had plunged into complete blackness —it felt so empty and so alone. But Ryan's warm hands, firmly wrapped around hers, kept her from spiraling into anxieties.

When the world appeared around her again, she found herself inside an unfamiliar room. Marbled pillars held up a ceiling that seemed almost as high as the sky. Giant oil paintings lined the well-lit, minimalistic walls. The walls were white and glossy, but it had a much warmer feel to them than back in their building on Earth.

However, Lara didn't have much time to admire the place, as Ryan let go of her hand and collapsed on the spot.

"Ryan!" she cried. She wanted to get down to help him, but a sword swung in front of her.

"Prepare to die, Earthling."