"Little did Razor know, but piracy had already begun. Every source of light, tablet or device, and nano program, I loaded into my homemade tech for analysis and the inevitable replication." I spread my arms, encompassing my study and beyond. "My stronghold required some upgrades if I were to compete on this scale. Analysis and engineering was all I needed." I paused, then held up a finger. "And patience." Another pause. "And to regrow my hair and eyebrows a few times. No big deal."

Little you giggles, and preteen you grins incredulously at me.

I treasure both reactions.

In my study, they laughed and teased. I couldn't tell them I stole samples from my encounter with F8, making me no better than the other men who'd invaded Monarch 3.

"She knows, Xelan. I'm sure of it, and I'm sure her presence in your roundtable proves she's forgiven you for it."

After a sigh, I called, "Lamassau."

The Chef stopped ribbing his significant other and blinked the film over his voids at me. "Your imperial thief?"

Low hanging fruit. Barely anyone laughed.

With a shake of my head, I said, "Volume one thousand, five hundred and sixty-eight. Page ninety-nine. Please."

Lamassau spared a wary glance for Tumu, who narrowed his voids at me. The Tritan known as the Chef crossed the room and didn't need to climb the ladder to retrieve the journal. Everyone stared in anticipation as Lamassau read from the pages.

Falling.

Falling didn't usually happen when one stepped through a conduit. Iuo, Seps, and I yelped at the sudden drop. The drone unfolded his wings with a buzz, and I followed his lead. Iuo kept falling.

"Iuo!"

Both Seps and I tightened our form to reach him. Maybe it was the panic, or maybe it was the natural response for a Lamia in the sky, but Iuo's legs combined into one red muscle mid-fall. He yelled the entire time—

In my study, Iuo admitted, "I did. Yes."

Seps got to him first and clutched the reptilian humanoid to his side. We flew the rest of the way down into... a crater or a funnel. I couldn't tell until we'd landed, but every instinct in me said that was not a good idea.

Let me elaborate.

When we first visited L. Capra, I expected what my brother described. Meadows with purple, blue, and pink flowers, surrounded by yellow-barked trees with bright red canopies. Fresh scent included.

What I found returned a familiar bitter taste to my mouth, which manifested anytime I thought of Nox and his lies. The sky reminded me of a mudslide, and a toxic stench permeated it. On the surface, gravel scraped along barren mountains and plateaus, eroded by the constant howling wind.

"You paused, Superman."

I did. Even with the others, I did.

Preteen you reaches over the table and squeezes my folded hands. "Tell me."

Nox lied, and the planet I encountered defied expectation. Korac was sitting there in my study, staring at the floor. I know he feels regret for what happened, but I don't think he realizes it bothered me that he and Nox had lied to me. I was only a kid, a little older than Pax.

"Could you be honest with Pax? Would you tell him the truth that your father ruined the homeworld of millions of people and left them to die in the toxic atmosphere? Or would you bring Pax home a cool new piece of tech and marvel at his wonder at it, keeping your tears and shame to yourself?"

For the next, you lean closer until our eyes meet. "Here, in this booth, you can tell me. I won't judge you."

I know you won't. I can see it in the blue of your eyes. So I'll answer as honestly as possible.

I don't know.

A small smile forms on your lips. "That's a fair answer, Superman. One day, Korac would like to hear it."

I alighted on a plateau overlooking the crater, and Seps followed, setting Iuo down. Something about the formation of the six kilometer-wide funnel directly beneath the conduit to Enki left me apprehensive.

To voice my concerns, I pointed. "Do you see the perfect slope in the crater's bowl?"

Iuo shook his head. "Alas, I am a man of letters. Geometry and trigonometry frighten me so."

Seps caught on though. "It is not of nature."

Agreeing with his observation, I said, "Artificial. The result of a massive feat of engineering and patience. Truly, I find it beautiful, but also, a mite threatening."

Iuo asked, "Why so?"

Again, Seps answered with my exact concern. "The Tritans cannot fly, like you Lamias and other species. Anyone without wings would step through the conduit and plummet to their demise."

I admitted, "It makes for an elaborate death trap, but all the same..."

"Unfriendly," Iuo concluded.

A stranger called from behind, "You have no idea, trespasser."

The three of us whirled, but too late. We found ourselves surrounded by aforementioned unfriendlies. In togas. With bent-backward joints.

"Just as I said. King Nox has returned." It was the first stranger's voice again. He projected the depth of it so that his words carried down the cliffs into the gorge below. "We have much anticipated your return, Icarean filth."

The three of us glanced at each other before I licked my lips and tried for reason. "We look alike, but I am not—"

"Silence!"

In my study, she waved, and Kyle kissed her grinning cheek.

The original stranger swept his toga up into the reversed bend of his elbow and glided toward me with an air of aristocracy. "I told them you were too arrogant not to return for more of our precious resources. Now here you are to gloat in the face of our devolved people. Look around, boy."

I stared into his angry eyes before doing as he said. All the men and women looked civilized, educated, and incensed. When I met his gaze again, the Caprent smirked while saying, "Yes, child. We evolved and thrived despite your attempts to destroy us. Now you will stand trial for your crimes."

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

At a loss, I asked, "What crimes has Nox committed?"

The Caprent waved a finger in my face. "Do not pretend."

On the other side of Seps from me, Iuo cleared his throat and spoke up. "I believe they are referring to Umbra's atmospheric disturbance. The maneuver which ruined the planet's surface, making it uninhabitable."

I blinked at him. "What? Nox—"

"You introduced yourself right as you poisoned our skies, murderer," the Caprent said with conviction. To his people, he ordered, "Take them. The trial begins today. See that Yu and Lukemore are informed. I am certain they wish to witness justice at our teeth."

Teeth.

This race didn't possess wings. Seps and I could fly away and leave Iuo there, but I wanted to see this through. I wanted to know if Korac and Nox had lied to me, and if they did, I would see it made right.

Lamassau stopped reading to ask, "What did you make of their accusations at the time?"

I glanced at Korac before admitting, "I was devastated. How could my brother ruin another people? But the initial disbelief only lasted a minute before I thought, 'Of course, he did. Anything and anyone who got in his way was damned.'"

Korac clicked his tongue in disdain before asking, "So you're saying if anyone accused us of anything during this time in your life, you'd simply believe them?"

Tameka touched a hand to my back as if she knew I was fighting not to wince.

"Yes."

Sagan gently reminded her husband, "Nox eventually killed half the people on my homeworld. Cut Wingmaster some slack."

Her sound reason reached Korac, who conceded the point with a nod.

Tumu waved for Lamassau to go on. "You won't believe what happens next."

Iuo grinned.

Lamassau did as his lover told him to do.

We've all seen the underground cities of L. Capra by now, so I'll keep the details to a minimum. Their race is a testament of perseverance and architectural genius, evidenced by the elaborate columned cities dissolved from rock by their personal acid glands.

It was in such a city I stood trial for Nox's crime. It surprised me to find the courthouse was an arena with a drain in the center.

Not reassuring.

On my knees with my hands cuffed behind my back, I asked, "So when you say 'justice at our teeth,' does that imply...?"

My accuser, standing in the center of the arena with me, grinned perfectly white teeth at me. "This will be an execution via ingestion. I look forward to exacting retribution from your gray hide, Nox."

As non-offenders, Iuo and Seps would stand trial separately as accomplices after my punishment was served.

Literally.

"You're so cheesy, superman."

I wink at you before we return to the story.

The stands were filled with people from all across the Vast Collective. Nox and Korac had racked up some enemies, all too happy to see him eaten. One I recognized.

Legir was an older replica of his son, Bin, the wonderful Yun healer I was sure Nox had assassinated. Legir's presence here confirmed it for me. He sat in a special box in the stands beside the main podium. There, a lanky Caprent stood proud in his azure toga where all the others wore white.

This man opened the proceedings. "All here today to witness the trial and execution of King Nox of Cinder, remember the day you—" He pointed a long-nailed finger at me from his backward arm. "Destroyed our homes. Murdered our women and children. And left our planet to choke on your avarice. Yet, you can see, we defied your condemnation. Now we bring forth evidence to sentence you to death by ingestion."

I opened my mouth to say I wasn't Nox—

My executioner slapped the back of my head. "Down, filth."

They bound my arms in chains but not nacre. I could break it. Fly away. Yet... Some part of me wanted to hear.

And I did.

On my knees for hours, listening to firsthand accounts of how Korac and Nox rushed to distract the people of this world as Umbra launched an apocalyptic weapon into the sky.

Children dissolved in acid rain.

I was weeping by hour one. After three hours, I was ready to let my executioner eat me. These people deserved justice, and they'd never receive it from Nox. Returning here was not in his plans. That I knew for certain.

Once the witnesses finished, the arbiter declared, "King Nox of Cinder, we find you, your general, and your deceased father responsible for these atrocities—Lacking in compassion or mercy. The only measure left to us which could match your brutality is a death penalty we designed especially for you. An acid bath and consumption at the hand of the most wronged, Kombuchi."

Kombuchi, the Caprent primed to eat me, snatched my hair and pulled back on it to expose my throat. He muttered in my ear. "You have been quiet. Respectful. But now you will listen to my story, vile demon.

"We were a simple people without nacres before you ruined our world. I was fortunate to live among five generations of my family. Five. Including my children and their children.

"Your genocide took them and left me sterile. I am the last of my line.

"If not for the Primary, who came to us with nacres, we would cease to exist. Instead, we evolved and look at us now..."

As Kombuchi kept repeating, his people were marvels of scientific evolution and—

Primary.

Nacres.

Something was wrong, and my mind was trying to work it through. It couldn't care less that Kombuchi had opened his double-hinged jaws like a snake and bubbled up a boil of acid at the back of his throat, aiming for me.

Why would a Primary leave sanctuary to aid a solitary planet? Why not send an Officer or an Eminent? And why L. Capra but not Cinder when Li exploded—

"Xelan!" Iuo cried.

Seps shouted, "Stop!"

A commotion erupted near him in the box beside Legir. The Yun leader had moved, but where did he go—Oh. Legir had climbed the podium to talk to the arbiter.

Meanwhile, Kombuchi gripped me in his backward-bent arms, prepared to soak me in his acid.

In my study, Iuo said, "I thought you meant to let him kill you."

Puk added, "I heard through the grapevine you closed your eyes and everything."

I shook my head and waited for Lamassau to start again.

There was too much noise. I couldn't hear...

I closed my eyes and listened.

The voice.

The deep voice coming from the podium. It wasn't the arbiter, and Legir spoke using telepathy. Iuo and Seps kept shouting, so who was talking so calmly and rationally?

"That is Prince Xelan, and he is my quarry."

The arbiter squeezed out with a nervous tremor in his voice, "Of course, Officer Tumu."

My eyes snapped open, and I broke my bonds—Flying away half a second before Kombuchi dumped a vat's worth of acid on me. Once finished, he glared up at me with hatred in his eyes until...

"Stop! Kombuchi. We made a terrible mistake." The arbiter sounded properly scolded and shamed.

The Caprent who still looked like he wanted to eat me shouted up at me, "Who are you, Icarus, so like Nox?"

Not meaning any threat or malice, I hovered above him. I understood him, and let that into my voice. "I am his brother, and we both want to exact justice from the King of Cinder. For my daughter and the planet of Earth."

Kombuchi narrowed his eyes at me, but seemed to take my word for it. "Let us meet this Officer. I promise not to bite."

Without hesitation, I flew back to the stand and met the Caprent's eyes.

He eventually stopped glaring at me with suspicion before muttering, "I knew you looked too pretty to be your brother."

I laughed. Elden, it was such a surprise to laugh right then, but the graciousness between us left me in a better mood. "You have good eyes."

Kombuchi laughed and patted me on the back.

Like that, we became friends.

Preteen you is grinning at me across the coffee table. You even shake your head incredulously before saying, "It's like me and the tiger. We can make friends with anything."

I shrug, the picture of humility.

Charisma is a rare gift. Another one you clearly got from me.

Your laughter is pure serotonin.

In my study, Tumu raised both of his drinks, one nectar and one lobster juice. Now I know why Tritans rarely eat in front of others. The old Primary said, "It's my turn to shine. Fellas, try to remember I'm taken."

Lamassau tsked and rolled his eyes, muttering, "The next five pages in this volume are all you flirting with our imperial majesty."

Sagan spat out her drink, laughing.

Korac cleaned her up, shaking his head but secretly smirking the entire time.

Tumu pointed a glass at Tameka. "Forgive me, peaches. I was wilder in those days."

"Oh, I've seen you in action. Yesterday, in fact." Tameka put him to shame before raking her gaze down me, shirtless in my pirate frock. "But I can't say that I blame you."

There was so much heat to the look Tameka gave me. I had to clear my throat before suggesting, "How about a break?"