Naturally, while she didn’t reveal everything, Grand Princess Rensa remained transparent enough about the Axis of the Leviathan to keep the public informed enough for their own safety. News articles popped up – some speculative, but mostly factual, regarding what the interrogations revealed.

This new adversary was unlike anything that anyone had ever seen before – it was a mysterious group of mages with as-of-yet unclear motivations, who willingly destroyed aspects of their own personas to become more stealthy and detached. The idea both intrigued and terrified the public, sparking all manner of imaginations. A term quickly emerged for the ghostly enemies – ‘Phantom’ Leviathan mages.

Rensa was fairly open about the Axis for other reasons, too. Firstly, she hoped that she could crowdsource ideas for dealing with the Axis. Secondly, she wanted to unite the public against this common enemy. Both proved decently effective. The public rallied, and approval ratings were up. The crowdsourcing generated mostly useless ideas, but some people proposed genuinely innovative lines of thought for dealing with the Axis.

“So, another person brought up the idea of Resparking,” Rensa said during a private meeting with some of the other Silvermoons, and a few trusted government officials.

The meeting was held in considerable secrecy, in one of the innermost rooms of White Blossom Forrtess. As someone who helped further Phoenix magic herself, Prelinsa was allowed to sit in on this, along with important figures such as Elder Kirith, Elder Lumio, and Knight Commander Fiolira.

“I assume you have denied the idea in public,” Elder Lumio commented.

“I don’t even have to,” Rensa replied. “I just have to avoid acknowledging it. Crowdsourcing is great. I’m glad that there’s so many useless ideas floating around the press right now, because it lets us hide the truth. We don’t want to alarm the Axis just yet.”

Lumio nodded. “Indeed. The concept of Resparking is theoretically sound. The Primordial Fires could restore one’s persona, much like they can restore one’s physical body. If the Axis knew of this, they might be deeply alarmed.”

“Right. It’ll be hard to test the idea though, because we don’t have a Phantom on hand after Decebal regained his mind… ish,” Rensa noted. “However, we do have a lot of captured amnesiac Rogues. We can start by trying to Respark their memories. Mother, you’re the only one for the job. You’re empathetic, and more experienced than anyone else.”

Kirith nodded slowly. “I will do what I can.”

“Great. Now, so far, the vision we saw seems to be coming true. Lumio, I want you to re-prioritize what you’re doing. Focus on the civil engineering projects along the coastlines. We might need to worry about an attack from overseas, so your presence there will be reassuring.”

“I understand, Grand Princess. I will make my preparations as soon as the meeting ends.”

“While we’re at it, I’m planning to declare a big holiday for coastal cities like Cydonia very soon. You know, encourage people to go take vacations and get out of the area. It’ll help if we need a full-blown evacuation later. Good timing, too, since Cydonia’s sixtieth anniversary is coming up.”

Everyone nodded. It was a sensible enough idea.

“And now, last up for the agenda, the subject of detecting Phantoms,” Rensa said. “I’m pleased to report that we have a reliable method now. We found some Phantoms hiding out in a cave near the Red River, at the South Realm border. We’re tracking their movements at this very moment.”

Prelinsa raised an eyebrow at that. This one had come out of nowhere.

“May I ask how?” Fiolira asked. “Forgive my curiosity. After our struggles, I find it surprising that you’ve found more Phantoms so quickly.”

It amazed Prelinsa how this straight-laced crow woman got along with the foxy, unconventional Rensa. Normally, like-minded people gathered together. In this case, perhaps it was their differences that let them get along.

“We used MADAR. It’s a secret new tech that the MRD has been developing,” Rensa replied, finally revealing her mystery plan. “After the problems we had with airplanes during the war, we wanted something that could detect changes in mana from far away, over very wide areas. It’s finally ready. For now, I won’t say how it works or what its limits are, but it’s good enough to detect magic users from kilometers away, even if they’re being stealthy or flying through the air. Way more efficient than putting our best mages all over the place.”

There were some impressed reactions to this news. If Rensa’s claim was true, then it freed many mages up from detection and scouting roles, and allowed them to focus on other things.

“Make sure to keep this a secret, alright? I’m counting on you guys,” Rensa added.

Everyone agreed. If it worked as advertised, this MADAR was a powerful new tool – and not just against the Axis, whom they still didn’t know much about. If it could detect mages in hiding so easily, it could change the entire dynamics of warfare. It made sense to keep it a secret for now.

“Anyway, I think the plan’s simple,” Rensa said. “Fio, I want you to assemble a team to go capture the Phantoms. Bring Prelinsa with you to help out. I’ll set you up with a device that provides MADAR readouts, so you can track the Phantoms’ locations.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“As you wish,” Fiolira replied.

“Why me?” Prelinsa asked.

“More experience for you. You can watch the others do their thing,” Rensa replied. “Or you can maybe act as a decoy. Not sure. I’ll just leave this to Fio; I trust her to do things properly.”

“Alright.”

----------------------------------------

“Dame Prelinsa,” Fiolira said. “Despite what the Grand Princess suggested, I think you’re better off in an ambush role.”

“Why is that?” Prelinsa asked, sitting across from Fiolira as the scenery rolled by outside the window. The team Fiolira had gathered was taking a train ride, both to carry the supplies they needed, and to avoid the suspicion of an airplane or a convoy of road vehicles.

“Forgive my rudeness, but your ability to deal with mana fury and poison is… limited,” Fiolira replied. “However, you’re good at masking your presence, and incapacitating people non-lethally. We’ll work out the specifics once we understand the situation better.”

“Understood, Knight Commander Fiolira,” Prelinsa said stiffly.

“You don’t have to be formal with me. Rensa wouldn’t be happy if I made you speak like this.”

Prelinsa noted the first-name basis. Fiolira and Rensa really were close.

“Sorry. I’m curious – how close are you and Rensa?” Prelinsa dared ask because she knew that Rensa considered both her and Fiolira to be on similar terms – enough to bring both of them as personal guards to House Goldensun.

“Very close. We’ve known each other for the better part of seventy years,” Fiolira replied.

“You don’t seem like you’d get along normally. How did you end up becoming friends?”

“We didn’t get along at first. I greatly disliked how Rensa was so… chaotic, and unconventional,” Fiolira replied, reminiscing. “But over time, I came to trust and respect her. Whenever she’s faced with a problem, she quickly comes up with a good solution, even if others don’t like it. Rensa’s mastery and control over chaos is a strength, not a weakness.”

“Yeah. That’s for sure,” Prelinsa agreed.

----------------------------------------

The planning of the operation was done while on the train. Fiolira was meticulous. Given the intel they had, she organized an outline – not a strict plan, since plans seldom survived the test of the field. House Silvermoon already knew that their adversaries were likely to kill themselves if they believed there was no escape. Therefore, they had to be stealthy, yet act quickly before they were noticed.

The exact number of Phantoms involved was unknown – the MADAR couldn’t tell precisely how many there were, only their relative fighting capacity. So their first course of action was to fill the cave system that the Phantoms were hiding in with anesthetic gas. There was only one entrance, making this an easy thing to do. At the same time, an advance party consisting of stealthy specialists would venture into the caves with gas masks. They would prioritize making sure that the Phantoms could not kill themselves, and if possible, subdue and capture them right away. A surface party on the outside would deal with any Phantoms escaping from the cave entrance.

Anyone who could shift into a stealthier form would do so in advance, to reduce their odds of detection. In addition, both parties would attempt to drain as much mana from the immediate area as possible, reducing both resistance and the possibility of mana fury.

Even for the relatively small force present, it was practical to deplete the mana in this environment. The amount of mana was low, and Silvermoon knights were excellent at drawing mana very quickly. Some of the mana could be crystallized using portable forging stations – a recent invention. However, most of it would have to be burned away with magic.

The depletion of mana wasn’t a problem for the operation, since Silvermoons and mana crystals allowed the use of magic without the mana streams. When they did this, though, the MADAR wasn’t expected to continue working properly, so they would be going without this tool for a period of time.

If none of these things completely subdued the Phantoms, then the advance party would try to drive them out of the caves and towards the surface party, waiting in ambush close to the entrance. Provided the plan was a success, any leftover mana crystals would be buried in the ground as seeds, to help restart the mana streams and reduce possible ecological disruption.

On paper, this all sounded good, but things could always go wrong in practice. It was also considered unlikely that all of the Phantoms would survive the engagement. Fiolira emphasized the importance of flexible thinking to maximize their odds of success, and that sticking to the plan blindly could lead to failure. Situational awareness was key – if there was a good opportunity to do something different, it should be taken.

----------------------------------------

Some time later, they arrived at the site where the Phantoms were hiding. The Red River’s name came from the large amounts of ruddy dust in its water, which originated from the desert terrain that it traveled through.

The platoon was led by Fiolira, who was already in her crow form, and flying about. Fiolira could downshift massively, with her lower limit being half the size of a normal crow – she called it her ‘picrow’ form. When she was flying above the mana streams, she had a level of passive stealth that was nearly unbeatable.

Prelinsa had heard that Fiolira’s shifting ability had been augmented by her Phoenix Heart. It certainly wasn’t unheard of for non-Phoenix Warriors to have such a wide shifting range, but it seemed that Silvermoons were particularly adept – Prelinsa included. The power of a Phoenix Heart even let them shift without mana.

Prelinsa trotted after Fiolira in her downshifted fox form, ignoring the occasional looks from other knights who were tempted to pet her. She held her katana in her mouth.

The Phantoms hadn’t moved appreciably, which was good. According to the MADAR, they were still in hiding in the cave system near the river. They appeared to the system as a series of fuzzy, indistinct ‘blobs’ in 3D space, hovering over the mana streams deeper underground.

Even the Silvermoon knights appeared on the system, which Prelinsa found amazing. She certainly thought they were doing a good job hiding themselves, but clearly, the MADAR didn’t think so. In fact, Fiolira – the stealthiest of them all – appeared more clearly than everyone else, and actually stood out because she was flying. It seemed like the technology was better at detecting strong mages.

Were it not for this stealth-breaking machine, the caves were nominally a good place to hide. As with the Great Desert, mana was depleted in this area due to a lack of wildlife, which caused thin and uneven mana flow that made it hard to detect people. The river also had the effect of masking water mages, while boosting the effective power of water magic.

After some scouting, preparations began without further delay. A few crystal forging stations were set up in discrete locations, while the cave entrance was monitored very closely for activity. There were zero signs that the Phantoms were emerging, and the MADAR continuing to provide readouts suggested that they hadn’t yet killed themselves. After only a few minutes, they were ready.

The plan was put into motion. Anesthetic gas was pumped into the cave. As this happened, the advance party made their way in, donning their gas masks. Several of them were shifted into their animal forms for combat, while a few carried the new coilgun weapons.

All Prelinsa and the others could do now was wait.

Minutes went by. Then, they received a radio message.

“Contact! There’s lots of them!”

“Start burning!” Fiolira ordered, landing on the ground to begin drawing mana. Her voice, which was naturally husky, sounded like a young teenager’s in this tiny form.

Prelinsa pulled as much mana from the streams as she could, blasting it through her sword and into the sky in the form of phoenixfire. She was joined by the rest of the party, which created a massive, blinding display of magic in the air – mostly fire and lightning. It looked like a magic fireworks show, only with none of the grace and aesthetic. Meanwhile, workers operated the crystal forging stations as hard as they could safely do so.

The MADAR readings went haywire as the system reacted to the massive mana flow, which drowned out everything and made it impossible to see anything useful on the screen. In only a matter of minutes, the mana was depleted to almost nothing, and the burning of magic rapidly slowed – only continuing very lightly, in order to keep external mana from flowing back into the area. As this happened, the MADAR also came back up.

“Surface team – bogies headed your way!” Someone called over the radio.

“Acknowledged!” Fiolira replied.

Prelinsa watched, listened, and smelled very carefully, since she wasn’t able to rely on the mana streams to sense presences. Her keen ears could hear the commotions going on inside the caves.

Footsteps approached. Then, people rushed towards the entrance – ten of them.

“Now!” Fiolira ordered.

She fired into the entrance. Prelinsa fired. The other Silvermoon knights fired. With a swarm of magic blasts and coilgun fire, they knocked out everyone in a matter of moments, before a single person even managed to get past the entrance.

“Surface team, we’re done down here! How many did you get?” The voice over the radio asked.

“Ten,” Fiolira replied. “All alive. What about you?”

“Twelve here. A few committed suicide, but we got most of them.”

“Good work. Detain them, and prepare to head back to Pyrus. Don’t forget to bury the mana crystals.”

Meanwhile, the little fox-Prelinsa approached the fallen figures. Some of them looked and smelled familiar, and not in a good way.

Sure enough, there were clones. They looked like they were about Carolynn’s age – chances were that they were from the same generation, rather than being recently created. The answer to that wold have to wait for now.