Chapter 21: Mind Blast

It took about three weeks for Melia to completely get over the mafia incident, and perhaps another two weeks before she had a day where she didn't think about it at least once. It would still occasionally pop up in nightmares - a depressing sign that her dreamcatcher pretty much could not be functioning correctly, but she couldn't hand it in for repairs without revealing the secretly-obtained rank VII gem - but by and large it was firmly in the past.

The public didn't seem to want to let it go, though. For the first time ever, she heard serious discussion that maybe she was a better choice for the throne than Kallian, using the incident as the final proof. She didn't take any of it seriously; one event should never decide such an important position, and Kallian had already had a lifetime to successfully demonstrate he was the man for the job. There was no need to upset that predetermined decision.

More importantly, in January, Melia reached the point where Reddel considered her ice elementals to be close enough to her other five that the next step was to be taken.

"Congratulations, Melia. You have successfully mastered every one of the ether arts in this program. I now present you with a choice: Do you wish to proceed towards your final evaluation and subsequent graduation, or continue with the most difficult art of your specialisation?"

She didn't even hesitate. "I wish to continue with the challenge."

"I knew you would."

Reddel began summoning and discharging elementals. It was clear that he was building up a burst aura for demonstration purposes, meaning that the final art would be a burst art. Once he was readied, he thrust his off hand forward, jettisoning a large cone of cyan ether from his palm.

"Your final art is called Mind Blast." He shook a few drops of ether off his hand. "It can be described quite simply: utilise Burst End, but focus the energy through your palm instead of your staff. Like Burst End, its colour and effect varies between users. In your case, as your Burst End is yellow with a defence-weakening effect, your Mind Blast is likely to be a purely offensive attack. Finally, when executed correctly, the technique not only suppresses its targets' ability to use their own arts, but strips away any lingering auras they may have active."

Melia nodded. Using Burst End and Mind Blast in succession would surely be a devastating combination, dropping enemies' defences before following up with a powerful ether attack. She started rubbing her palms together, trying to imagine how it would feel to have her body directly generate physical ether.

"Now, you may be wondering what is so difficult about this art, given that it is very similar to one that you have mastered almost from the beginning."

"I would prefer not to know."

"Of course. After all, being unaware of limitations is how you have mastered so many ether arts before now. However, this is an exceptional case that I believe is in your best interest to be forewarned about."

Melia was disturbed by the implication. The only art of hers that ever had an overtly negative effect during learning was Healing Gift, which caused her to faint upon self-extracting too much energy. To be expressly forewarned about Mind Blast's side effects meant the possibilities had to be much worse.

"Very well."

Reddel nodded. "The challenge of the art is that ether of such concentration cannot normally flow freely through the external tissues of the body; you must learn how to make the flesh of your palm transparent to its passage. Until you do so, you may find the ether attempting to force its way out via an easier path. For beginners, the most common result is expulsion of liquid ether through the mouth."

Melia visibly recoiled. It was very rare for her to be sick to her stomach, but it was always an incredibly disgusting experience. And given her propensity for exceeding the beginners' expectations in every way, she figured there were only two ways it could go: either incredible success, or stunningly revolting failure.

"Now, that being said," Reddel continued, "if you can sense when such an expulsion is about to happen, you can attempt to reverse the process in an effort to reduce the pressure. Ideally, you can minimise the negative effects to simply some belching and other outgassing. However, doing so may delay learning the art properly."

Belching wasn't exactly an ideal result either, but it was certainly the preferable one. "I understand."

"Good. Now let's see you have a try at it."

Melia started firing elementals across the room. Once her aura was active, she replaced her staff on her belt so she wouldn't accidentally use it and held up her hand, trying to gather the aura inside it. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened to begin with, but she could sense some internal churning and so kept focusing. After about a minute, she could feel a pressure building up inside her arm.

Now that I have enough ether gathered, am I supposed to be changing my palm to allow the ether to pass, or manipulating the ether through the unchanged palm? Or both? I should be able to figure it out if I simply keep pushing. She continued to raise the pressure, trying to draw all the ether in her body towards a single point in the middle of her palm, and blast it outwards. But all she seemed to be able to do was keep building the pressure, as if someone had stuck a balloon inside her arm and was inflating it to no end. There was no outward sign of it, but she could feel her palm throbbing and warping like an angry swarm of wasps was trapped in a sack.

"Melia?" Reddel called.

"...Uh'm ffhyn." Refusing to open her mouth just in case, she scrumpled up her face in concentration as she continued to push. "Ut's...ghys wyhl wrhk." She tried not to think about how she was now aware of the blood being pumped through all the vessels in her arm. Something was going to give way like it or not, and she had no intention of it being anything other than her palm.

Oddly, the room started to seem a bit brighter, as if someone was slowly upping the dimmer of a golden light source. She closed her eyes, but this only caused the phantom light to strengthen and fill her vision with a strong yellow, so she opened them again. She could feel like something was very close to happening, and kept pushing against the blocked pipe that was her palm, now desperate for the built-up energy to burst forth.

Something trickled out of her nose and down her face.

Ewwwww. It was rare for Melia to acquire a nosebleed; whenever it did happen, it always ruined her day and her clothes before she could react. But she quickly realised that it wasn't blood dripping out of her nose. It was liquid yellow ether. And it was also dripping out of her ears. And her tear ducts. And-

Disgusted and queasy from the unpleasant feeling, her concentration faltered.

All of the pressure she had been building up exploded through the weak point in her mind, forcing a deluge of ether through her entire body. Torrents of the liquified golden substance spewed out of every orifice, sending waves of fluid over the floor, before quickly evaporating into nothingness. It only lasted about three seconds, but it felt like several minutes.

"Are you all right?" Reddel cautiously stepped closer, concerned but not wanting to disturb.

Laying motionless on the floor, trying to forget what had just happened, Melia simply made a slight nod. Whether it was the most revolting thing that could possibly happen was up in the air, but it was certainly the worst she had ever experienced.

Reddel decided to try and lighten the mood. "I must say, your ether carries quite a pleasant smell. Primarily sweet, but with a hint of spice. Quite similar to...of course, the spoils of the Cinnamon Honeybee."

You didn't need to tell me that, it presented itself to me quite obviously. Melia slowly stood up, a bit depleted from ejecting so much ether in a short time. The thought crossed her mind that perhaps learning Mind Blast was not worth the disgusting hassle - after all, she'd been doing well enough in fights without it. But at the same time, mastering it was a challenge waiting to be solved. She couldn't just walk away from it.

"I am ready to try again."

"You should be careful with such rapid repetition. If you expel too much ether within too short a time, you may become deficient."

Melia ignored him somewhat and restarted the process of generating a burst aura, which she kept active without action for a bit to help her feel better. She then began gathering the ether into her arm again. Once she reached the point where her arm felt inflated, before her vision started to go yellow, she started to try and simply blast the existing charge outward without generating any additional pressure.

Several minutes went by. Taking a few seconds every now and then to shuffle the concentrated ether from one hand to another, she couldn't figure out how to open an ethereal hole in her palm, nor how to aim the ether around the lattice of skin cells. She tried using a pushing hand motion alongside a sudden pressure spike, but all this did was fire a jet of ether out of her ears. Every exhalation was accompanied by a thick yellow cloud, filling the room with the smell of cinnamon honey.

After a total of twelve minutes spent trying to fire a single charge, Melia felt something start to give way at her wrist. Less than a second after realising it, the ether burst through, sending a powerful gaseous stream out from the base of her thumb. The force of the expulsion caused her hand to jut sideways and downwards, pulling her down to the ground and forcing her to spin around on the floor as the pressure was uncontrollably released.

Reddel clasped his hands together, deciding that full-on applause was not entirely appropriate. "A valiant try. Certainly, this result holds promise. You will need to, through repetition, learn how you got this result, and subsequently how to manipulate it."

Over the rest of the session's hour, Melia got three more blasts of ether to escape from various locations on her hand and wrist. It felt completely unpredictable at the moment, so she had no way of preparing for the recoil, which resulted in smacking herself in the face on the final attempt. And she still occasionally had ether spurting out of her nose and ears. It certainly didn't seem all that promising to her.

COMBAT TRAINING EVALUATION

24 March Sorean 18

Evaluator: Keldon, James

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Name: Antiqua, Melia

Gender: F

Race: High Entia father, Homs mother

D.o.B: 22 February Entirmina 232 (age 86)

Height: 156cm

Weight: 47.6kg

Specialisation: Ether staff

STATISTICS

Note: Each value is scored on the related Eryth Combat Scale.

Physical Strength: 102 Finally into the triple digits.

Ether Attenuation: 211 Continues to break records with each passing year.

Agility: 42 Nothing to be noted here.

Resilience: 1272 Nothing to be noted here.

Overall Combat Level: 17 A large jump compared to last year, likely due to her experience in escaping the Diamonts headquarters several months ago.

ARTS

Elemental Discharge: A+ Burst aura now activates after a consistent 10 discharges, though this can drop to as few as 8 with quick dissimilar discharges.

Summon Bolt: A+ Summoning time is a constant 1 second.

Summon Flare: A+ Summoning time is a constant 1 second.

Summon Aqua: A+ Summoning time is a constant 1 second.

Summon Wind: A+ Summoning time is a constant 1 second.

Summon Earth: A Summoning time varies between 3 and 4 seconds.

Summon Ice: A Summoning time varies between 5 and 6 seconds.

Burst End: A+ The defensive drop of this art now measures approximately 10% for physical attacks and 25% for ether attacks. In addition, it appears that Melia is capable of an unlimited amount of bursts with a single aura, given enough time to recharge the art in the interim. For the record, under normal conditions, one aura can only supply a maximum of two Burst End usages. This is unprecedented behaviour that suggests her burst aura is self-sustaining once it reaches critical mass.

Mind Blast: D- Melia is very much capable of generating sufficient ether to use this art, but she has yet to manipulate it through her palm; all attempts to use the art have at best ended in the attack being launched out of the wrist in an uncontrollable fashion, accompanied by gaseous ether loss out of the nose beforehand. It should be noted that this art has only been practiced for two months, so success was not expected at this time.

Hypnotise: A+ Casting time is a constant 1 second and is always successful.

Shadow Stitch: A+ Casting time is a constant 1 second and ensnares targets for a total of 15 seconds.

Healing Gift: A+ Casting time is a constant 1 second, with a perfectly consistent amount of vitality extraction.

Reflection: A+ Casting time is almost instant and produces a total of 12 panels.

Power Effect: A Casting time is a constant 2 seconds and produces 12 seconds of effect followed by 50 seconds of recharge.

Spear Break: F No further comment.

Overall Arts Grade: A- This grade is misleading simply due to having learned a new art a very short time ago; without Mind Blast included, it is a solid A. Whether extra effort should be put forth to solve the mystery of Spear Break is an open question at this time.

MOCK BATTLE ANALYSIS

No further mock battles are planned. Melia has advanced to a point where she cannot be reasonably challenged without her opponents using their full strength against her, which the Emperor does not wish to allow at this time. She finishes her foray into mock battles with a decent understanding of battle teamwork, but with little experience outside a specific set of allies and opponents. She never had the opportunity to practice chain attacks.

Mind Blast quickly became the bane of Melia's existence. While she had pretty much resigned herself to the fact that Spear Break would never work, Mind Blast felt so close to yet so far from functioning correctly that it was endlessly infuriating to once again spring a leak at the wrist, or the fingernail, or even between the base of the fingers, before anything came out of the palm. The one good sign was that she was slowly managing to stop leaks from anywhere else. By the time July rolled around, her hand was the only place the ether was coming out of.

Today was a rainy day in October. As she often did on Wednesdays, Melia was perusing the imperial library after finishing lunch, finding something to read to pass the time before her weekly training. She was just starting to get a bit bored of reading about the ecology of the Ribbed Cliffside, her most recent focus of interest, and as such was looking to begin something new.

She decided to pick out a section at random by blindly lobbing a quill at a map of the library, leading her to the section on dronautics.

Drones, robots, androids, theories of artificial intelligence. Yes, this is indeed a fascinating subject that I have not truly investigated before.

Melia carefully scanned the first such shelf and picked out one of the smaller books to start with: Basic Dronautics, by Oppen Bohr. It turned out to focus on the mechanical and electrical side of the subject, describing typical drone parts, functions, materials, and ether cylinders. She quickly fell into "the zone", motoring through the diagrams and procedures at top speed with full comprehension. It was an engrossing read.

A little too engrossing, in fact. Before she knew it, the pages were exhausted and the clock read 2:01.

She stared at the clock for a moment, processing what she was seeing, before haphazardly tumbling off her chair and bolting out of the library as quickly as could be done silently. This was the first day she'd ever been late for her training. She knew in the back of her mind that there probably wouldn't be any consequence for being late once over almost twenty years, but the rest of her brain was in full-on panic mode.

In her haste to enter the training room as quickly as possible, Melia missed a step on the home stretch and tumbled down the last ten stairs to reach the floor.

Reddel, who was leaning against the wall reading a newspaper, couldn't help but chuckle a bit. "Well now, someone's in a rush."

Can we just get on with it? Melia dusted herself off and wordlessly prepared her staff.

"Anxious to make up for lost time, I see." Reddel folded up his newspaper and stashed it away. "I do not need to know why you were late this one time, nor do I expect it to become a habit. Just take it easy and do what you normally do."

Melia took a moment to calm down from her mad dash. Photos and diagrams of dronautic electrical systems remained fresh in her mind; it was difficult to evict them in order to focus on working on Mind Blast.

She began the process as usual, using bolts to charge her burst aura. But something felt subtly off about her summoning - it didn't feel like as much mental effort was needed to make a bolt appear. She could feel that the elementals themselves were more energetic too; her favoured punching bag was being hit to a higher angle with each blast, as if it was taking a stronger impact than last week. Once she fully realised that something seemed to have changed, she put full effort into the next bolt, which knocked the punching bag askew enough to tip the stand slightly.

Reddel also noticed that something was up. "I see that your bolts have gained power since last week. Quite a dramatic change in such a short time. Is there anything in particular you have done to improve them?"

"Not that I am aware of." Melia thought for a moment. What had she done in the past week that could possibly be linked to elementals or electricity? "Though I did...recently engross myself in a book on dronautics."

"Indeed! That very well could be it." Met with a blank stare, Reddel elaborated. "If one is sufficiently enraptured by a subject in just the right fashion, it can bestow them with a flash of inspiration or insight. When correctly focused, this impulse can lead to further pushing the boundaries of what an art is capable of."

"So...I discovered an improved version of an art hidden away in a book?"

"That's one way to put it. If doesn't have to be a book, but if you've always loved to read it would certainly be a reasonable place to find inspiration." He was going to leave it there but considered something. "Of course, if you're intentionally looking for such insight it'll be harder to find. It has to come naturally."

"I see." Then it would not do me any good to increase how much I read. I simply need to continue reading about a variety of topics.

With the detour of stronger bolts resolved, Melia continued to build up and release her burst aura. From there, she started focusing her inner ether into her arm - which only took about five seconds now - and once again began trying to launch it through her palm.

Several minutes passed. Her arm inflated and her palm throbbing, she kept pushing forwards, occasionally diverting her attention to stop the leaks she could sense were about to spring elsewhere. At one point a few months ago she had considered removing her gloves, but had been told that as long as they were tight against her hands it would make no difference, and even thick and loose gloves would be much less an obstacle than the palm itself.

After a total of twenty minutes holding a single charge in her left arm, Melia decided to diffuse the pressure and stop the current attempt so her mind could take a break. As she waited for a few moments, an idea popped into her head.

Perhaps...I am pushing too hard? It was a novel concept; all this time she was assuming that maximum pressure was necessary for any result at all, whereas perhaps a particular weaker force would have just the right wavelength to pass through the palm without issue. Given her exceptional ether affinity, she would probably have to push a lot softer to match the hard push the average person might require.

Of course, I can't push very softly if I have all that ether gathered in my arm at once. Maybe...maybe I need to draw it and expel it simultaneously, in a continuous movement instead of a charge and release, more like a hose than a gun.

Once she was ready, she put her new plan into action. Instead of quickly gathering all the ether she could muster into her arm at once, she started drawing it in very slowly, imagining that her palm was the open end of a hose.

It didn't take long for the new method to find success. After just two minutes, a yellow haze began seeping out of the heart line of her palm. Melia immediately reacted by sending all the rest of the available ether at once, resulting in a messy, inconsistent cloud out of her hand that depleted her entire burst aura.

"Aha!" Reddel exclaimed. "I knew you would find success eventually. Now you simply need to get a more consistent stream."

Indeed. I need to practice the process of moving internal ether in several different directions at once so that the pressure at the palm remains consistent.

For the remaining half of the session, Melia fired off a dozen Mind Blasts, each one gradually becoming more constant and stable. It was still far from a perfect cone, and its range was barely a metre, but she reached the point where the texture of the ejected ether was more or less homogeneous for the attack's entire duration.

"Amazing." Reddel shook his head in admiration. "I don't know the thought process you've been going through for the better part of last year trying to learn this art, but it's clear that the initial roadblock was the only issue. I fully expect you to have mastered this art in the next three years."

Melia was taken aback. "Three years?" It didn't seem like it would take that long to perfect.

"Indeed. Now that it is functional, you must practice using it to disable targets' arts and auras. It is mostly an automatic process, in the sense that you do not have to put any specific effort into those effects, but it still takes much practice to unlock such potential. After all, as a burst art, your Practice Staff cannot provide assistance with it."

"Then perhaps I ought to find time in the schedules for me to insert additional practice in these facilities."

"I am only available during these training sessions. If it is your wish to make additional time for practice, you must do so on your own."

The two nodded at each other as Melia left, satisfied that she was now on her way to mastering her final art.

Unfortunately, Melia's request for more time in the training rooms was soundly rejected. With more Telethia attacks on Alcamoth in the past ten years than in the previous hundred, the training rooms were booked to full for the foreseeable future. She would continue to check once a month, but no opening was ever present. Once March arrived, she was getting a little uppity about the subject, and planned to bring up at dinner one night that she felt she needed more practice.

However, just as she was analysing the conversation to find a good place to jump in, a messenger stumbled into the room.

"Your Majesty! The Valak Patrol has a special report. Maximum priority."

Sorean did not look pleased at this; it was known that the Mechon were planning an advance through the icy region, and presumably this report was related. "Yes, what is it?"

"An army of Homs is passing through Valak Mountain."

Everyone froze in disbelief. Homs generally did not travel in groups large enough to be called an "army", especially across Valak Mountain.

"How many?" Sorean asked.

"Well over two hundred, perhaps even three hundred, backed by over two dozen mobile artillery units."

"This is a strange move on their part," Kallian considered. "They must know the Mechon are planning an advance and are moving to head them off, but no Homs army of any size could fell half the amount of Mechon stationed at the 5th Gate. They would be lucky to even slow them down."

"It is a sign of desperation," concluded Sorean. "Either they believe that an unexpected attack will be successful, or they have come upon a new technology they believe to be a trump card. But in either case, the risk far outstrips the reward."

Kallian held his head in his palm, oblivious to the fact that his elbow was in his potatoes. "The question is, should we intervene?"

Sorean let out a heavy sigh. "It is a terrible decision. Should the attacking Homs be wiped out, as we expect them to be, they will be left far too weak to defend their colonies against any further attacks. But joining the impending battle would expose our presence to the Homs and Mechon alike, and we are ill-prepared for a fight on land of such magnitude. Is it even possible for us to reach the battleground before the Homs? Where are they at this moment?"

The messenger glanced back at his notes. "The front edge of the force was last spotted at Ignia Hill, at 17:23, advancing at high speed."

"Then we have no hope of catching them before they engage," said Kallian. "Not with any sort of reasonable fighting force, even disregarding preparation time. And if one of our battalions were to appear in the midst of battle without warning, we cannot be certain the Homs will even recognise them as allies and not additional foes."

"Then it cannot be helped. We must leave the Homs to their fate, and hope for the best." It was clear that Sorean considered the matter closed. "You are dismissed."

"Your Majesty." The messenger bowed and scurried away.

The dinner proceeded to its conclusion without further discussion of the Homs, yet one could sense that everyone was still antsy about it. It was the feeling that something very important was going on elsewhere, but the choice had been made to ignore it.

Having had the experience of rescuing a Homs colony from a Mechon invasion, Melia felt particularly anxious about the issue. In the hours following dinner, she simply paced around her room, restlessly thinking about how critical the next little while would be - either they would strike a critical blow to render the Mechon unwilling to fight back, or they would be crushed and have no resistance to further attacks. There was unlikely to be any middle ground - this one battle was almost certainly going to determine the fate of the entire race.

We cannot interfere; the reasons are disappointing but legitimate. But I can't just sit here and do nothing with something so important going on. I feel...I feel compelled to at least watch. To observe the battle.

It wouldn't be an easy desire to satisfy; Alcamoth was positioned far too back of the Bionis' head to see Sword Valley, so no matter where she went there would be no visibility. She would have to get far out across the head, way past the edge of the sea.

I suppose I do have a way to reach such a vantage point.

Melia glanced at the clock to see it was quarter to ten before hurrying out of her chambers and towards the nearest balcony, carrying the remote to the Illustrious Alighting.

All the mechanics should have finished their work hours ago; there shouldn't be anyone to see it leave.

Arriving on the balcony, she held the remote into the night sky and pressed the summoning button. In less than a minute, her vehicle floated up to her. She jumped on board before realising the obvious flaw in the plan: she had never piloted it before, and had no idea how to drive.

Standing in thought for a moment, Melia determined that all she really had to do was spin the craft around towards the Mechonis and step on the "forwards" pedal until she got a clear view of Sword Valley. Then, once she was done, she could simply press the return button on the remote and ride the autopilot back.

The plan made, she sat down in the pilot's seat and tried gently turning the wheel, only to find it was locked in place.

Oh, right, clearance must be provided. She placed her hand on the screen, which scanned it and acknowledged royal clearance. The wheel now free, she slowly spun it to the right until the ship started rotating, letting go once it was pointed the right way.

Now where are the pedals? Melia fumbled her legs around a bit trying to find the speed controls. After taking a look underneath, it became clear that they were too far away for her to reach. All right, so how do I move the seat forward? Wait, that might give away my attempt to use it. I suppose I can simply crouch down and press the pedal with my hand. Which one is the forwards pedal?

She put tentative pressure on the right pedal. The vehicle started moving forwards at a snail's pace. Direction confirmed, she pushed it all the way down, which quickly got it up to a paltry twenty kilometres her hour, according to the speedometer.

Why is it so slow? Something must not be set right. Releasing the pedal and looking across the dashboard, she spotted a slider labelled "Spd Mult", which was currently set to minimum. Ah, a speed multiplier control; a simple way to control whether a full press is cruising speed or manoeuvring speed. I wonder why the autopilot function uses the touchscreen to control speed instead of this. She pushed the slider up to the maximum and ducked underneath to floor the pedal once more.

Making a high-pitched whine, the engines wound up and blasted the craft forwards at 400 kilometres her hour. Melia could see the number, but it didn't really mean much to her - with the inertial dampeners and debris deflector active, the acceleration and wind were minimal, and all she needed to know was that the palace lights had vanished from view rather quickly.

Clearly some upgrades have been made to the engines recently; I thought its maximum speed was just above 300.

After just a few minutes, she let go of the pedal and slid back into the pilot's seat, looking around as the automatic brakes brought the ship to a reasonably quick stop. Alcamoth was a pinprick of light in the distance behind her, while the Mechonis' glowing face could now be clearly seen. Sword Valley could be seen just over the dashboard, filled with a mess of tiny sparks. The battle was in full swing.

Melia watched the light show for several minutes. She could see that the Homs had made great headway; they had passed through the 6th, 5th, and 4th Gates, and were currently fighting from what looked to be some sort of ether storage area. It was eerie, watching a battle from so far away that the meaning of the lives being lost was obscured. The compulsion was strong to drop a bolt or flare down into the mess, but there was no guarantee it would hit the enemy's forces, even ignoring that elementals probably had a maximum range far shorter than the distance to the battle.

Suddenly, the volume of Homs fire started thinning rapidly. The Mechon counterfire started going down to match, penetrating into the Homs' taken territory.

Melia was disappointed. The Homs must be in retreat. That certainly cannot be a good thing for-

A blue light appeared from nowhere and started moving up the valley, randomly darting around.

Confused, Melia followed the blue light's movements. That cannot be gunfire, it's far too erratic. And it's not stopping either, it's continuous. And...it's advancing quite far.

Indeed, the blue light was moving up the valley, jumping to and fro, occasionally pausing its movements or vanishing altogether, only to continue leaving many bright sparks of exploding Mechon behind.

This has to be some sort of new anti-Mechon weapon. It must be the reason the Homs attacked so strongly: they had faith in their new invention. Though they seem to only have one...

The light started moving up the valley in a straight line, its intensity growing ever brighter. It didn't take long to resume its irregular path, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. As it reached the end of the valley, it became blindingly bright and culminated in what seemed to be an explosion of energy.

Almost immediately, all the Mechon stopped firing. The remaining Homs also ceased fire, making it now impossible to tell what was going on.

That was...certainly something. Melia remained fixated on the distant valley for a few moments, hoping for something more to occur, but the show was over. The Homs unleashed their trump card and forced the Mechon into retreat. This can lead to one of two outcomes: either Mechon attacks on the Homs colonies will become less frequent, fearful of this new weapon, or they will enter an arms race and all-out war will escalate. Hopefully it is the former.

She retrieved the remote and pressed the return button. The Illustrious Alighting turned around and blasted back towards Alcamoth at maximum speed, only slowing down once it reached the palace perimeter.

Melia started thinking of how she was going to explain herself being in a hangar at this time of night, but an opportunity presented itself to avoid it: there was a balcony just ahead, and the craft was going to pass close enough above it that she could jump overboard as it continued to make its way to its parking space.

Okay. Timing is important. Late enough to minimise the drop, early enough so inertia doesn't carry me off the side.

She waited for the perfect moment and hopped off the side, landing on the balcony without much trouble.

I got through that pretty good, she thought rather smugly. I snuck away to watch a spectacle and got back without any evidence of...

The smugness vanished quickly as she realised that someone else was on the balcony, and was staring into the distance exactly where she came from. And it was Kallian.

Melia immediately started sweating. Did he recognise her? There's no way he could have simply missed her arrival, he'd had to have-

"Hmm, what a strange phenomenon." He spoke as if to himself, not turning his gaze away from the sky. "I could have sworn I just saw my sister returning from an apparent joyride. But that's not possible. She cannot pilot, she has no desire to leave the palace at such hour, and she'd certainly be too fearful of discovery. No, it had to have been some other anomaly. How curious."

Melia scampered away back to her room, grateful that she had a brother so willing to turn a blind eye towards her escapades.