The air in the Tungsten Hearth did not blow; it stagnated, thick with the metallic tang of sulfur and the choking weight of carbon. This was the Empire's beating, blackened heart—a sprawling industrial necropolis of jagged mining rigs and monolithic weapon factories that groaned under a sky of permanent soot. Here, the heat was a physical presence, a perpetual fever radiating from the Great Forges that birthed Aethelgard's instruments of death.
Isolde, one of the seventeen shadows of the Chronohelix, moved through the smog-choked streets like a ghost. She had been sent to harvest intel from this iron hellscape, but the scene she stumbled upon was far grimmer than a routine patrol.
In a wide, ash-covered plaza, a battalion of Autonomous Sentinels—robotic husks of cold steel carrying high-caliber rifles and vibrating blades—held a group of Chronohelixian rebels captive. The freedom fighters had attempted a coup to seize the forge, but they had underestimated the mechanical coldness of the Hearth's guardians. Flesh and Hera had proven no match for the tireless precision of the machines; they had been brutally overpowered and forced onto their knees, held at gunpoint in their own intended base of operations.
Isolde pressed her back against a soot-stained wall, dampening her presence until she was indistinguishable from the shadows. Her heart hammered against her ribs.
"Damn it," she hissed under her breath, a rare flash of regret crossing her sharp features. "I left my bow and arrows at the camp. What should I do now?"
She scanned her immediate surroundings. The Hearth was a scavenger's paradise. Piles of discarded construction materials and rusted iron poles lay scattered near a derelict warehouse. Moving with the silent grace of a predator, she gathered the long iron rods, her touch as light as a feather to avoid the rhythmic clank-clank of the patrolling sentinels.
Calling upon her Earth Hera, Isolde felt the molecular structure of the metal respond to her will. The iron groaned silently as it softened, twisting and braiding itself under her command. In moments, she held a heavy, recurve iron bow, its surface dark and unyielding. She didn't stop there. One by one, she forged two hundred and twenty-six iron arrows, their tips honed to a molecular edge.
"Two hundred and twenty-six," Isolde mused, a grim smile tugging at her lips. "If that's not enough, I'll simply melt the street. There's iron everywhere."
She tore her long, heavy traveling cape from her shoulders, expertly knotting the fabric into a makeshift quiver. She slung the heavy bag over her shoulder, the weight of the metal comforting against her back.
In the plaza, the security was a suffocating web. The robots moved in overlapping patrol patterns, their optical sensors glowing a steady, menacing red.
Clang.
A heavy iron pole struck the floor in a dark alleyway, the sound echoing sharply through the humid air. Two robots pivoted instantly, their weapons raised as they marched toward the source of the disturbance. As they rounded the corner, Isolde blurred into motion.
Thrum-thrum!
Two iron bolts hissed through the smog. They struck with the force of a falling star, punching through the robots' reinforced head-units. The machines collapsed instantly, their red optical lights flickering once before dying into darkness.
"Intruder detected!" a synthetic voice shrieked.
Seven more sentinels locked onto Isolde's position from across the plaza, unleashing a synchronized barrage of lead. Isolde didn't hide. She coiled her legs and launched herself into the air, a silver streak against the black smoke. In mid-air, her body flipped upside down, time seeming to slow as she drew her iron bowstring to her ear.
She fired four shots in a single heartbeat. The iron arrows didn't just hit; they tore through. Three of the arrows pierced the chests of two robots each, pinning them together in a tangle of sparking wires, while the fourth shattered the final sentinel's core.
Isolde landed in a crouch, but as she looked up, the plaza swarmed. A literal sea of steel emerged from the factory shadows—a swarm of robots too numerous to count. They ignored the hostages, focusing every sensor and weapon on the girl who had dared to break their ranks.
"Fire!" the mechanical collective commanded.
A storm of bullets turned the air to lead. Dust and pulverized stone erupted where Isolde had stood, obscuring everything in a gray shroud. The robots ceased fire, waiting for the thermal signatures of a mangled corpse to appear.
But when the dust settled, the space was empty.
"Looking for someone?"
The robots whirled around. Behind them, the Chronohelixian hostages were no longer kneeling. They stood tall, weapons recovered, surrounding the mechanical battalion. Isolde stood at the front, her iron bow raised, a taunting smile on her face.
"How does it feel to be surrounded by many?" she asked, her eyes cold. "I guess, being robots, you are incapable of expressing emotions. No matter. Fire!"
The rebels unleashed a vengeful barrage. Deprived of their tactical advantage, the robots were shredded by a concentrated storm of Hera-enhanced bullets. The plaza became a graveyard of scrap metal.
As the rebels erupted into cheers, a sudden, violent blur cut through the celebration. Something—or someone—dashed past Isolde at a speed that defied the human eye.
Isolde gasped, her iron bow clattering to the ground as she doubled over, clutching her side.
"Isolde!" the rebels cried, rushing to her.
"I'm… fine," she gritted out, forcing herself to stand. She turned, along with the others, to face the shadow that had struck her.
The figure stood atop a pile of destroyed sentinels. He was a horrific fusion of biology and industry—his left side was human, but his right was a polished, obsidian-colored chassis of gears and hydraulic pistons. He licked a long, curved blade that was stained with Isolde's blood.
"What are you?" Isolde demanded, her hand glowing with Earth Hera.
"My name is Tungsten," the cyborg replied, his voice a chilling blend of vocal cords and synthesized static. "I am the Tetrarch of Tungsten Hearth. Nice to meet you. It's been a long time since I tasted the blood of a Spy."
While the industrial heart of the Empire bled, the world elsewhere seemed to hold its breath. In the mutated, silent woods of Harrow, two sisters stood face to face. The air between Elara and Elaine hummed with the weight of a lineage that was finally, terrifyingly, awake.
The tension between the sisters was a physical weight, thick as the ash settling over the scarred earth of Harrow. Elara's gaze remained locked on Elaine, her heart fracturing with every second of her sister's mounting fury.
"I can't believe you abandoned me, Elara," Elaine's voice was a jagged blade, cutting through the silence. "You left me to die in the hands of those wicked vermin, the Vylonians!"
"You told me to keep running!" Elara erupted, her frustration finally boiling over. "Your instructions were clear, Elaine. You shouted it at me: Keep running, don't stop, don't look back! I was eight years old—I was simply following your orders!"
"That's your excuse now?" Elaine's laugh was hollow and cold. "My instructions? You abandoned your own sister and you blame a child's panicked words for it?"
Elara let out a ragged sigh, her hands shaking. "Stop this, Elaine, stop it! You have no idea what I went through after losing Father, Mother, and you on the same night. I was a child, alone in a world that wanted us dead!"
"And you have no idea what I went through," Elaine whispered, suddenly pulling her arms around herself as if she were back in the cold. A visible tremor of fear took hold of her. "That night was the worst night of my life."
To understand how Elaine survived, we will have to go back to that dreadful night twenty years ago. As the girls ran, desperately fighting to escape and survive, what happened after Elaine's instruction was issued out? How dis the sisters get separated?
The air was filled with the smell of smoke and the thud of heavy boots.
"Run, Elara, run! Keep running! Don't stop! Don't look back!"
The young Elaine was screaming, pushing her twin sister forward. Together, the two eight-year-olds sprinted in a desperate straight line, their small feet pounding against the dirt. But then, Elaine's foot caught a root. She tripped, a sickening pop echoing as her ankle twisted beneath her.
She hit the ground hard. Gasping for air, Elaine looked forward and saw Elara's small silhouette still running. Elaine tried to push herself up, but the pain was blinding. When she looked back, her heart stopped. Four Vylonian soldiers were emerging from the gloom, their armor gleaming like shark teeth.
Terror paralyzed her. She struggled to crawl, dragging her useless leg through the dirt.
"Elara!" Elaine screamed, her voice cracking. Elara didn't stop. "Elara! Elara!"
She shouted until her throat was raw, but her twin continued to flee. Her own instructions—the frantic command to never look back—began to ring in her head like a funeral bell. Tears streamed down Elaine's face as she watched Elara gradually disappear into the suffocating darkness.
She stopped shouting. She stopped moving. Elaine simply lay in the dirt and gave up, closing her eyes to wait for the end.
The heavy boots of the Vylonian soldiers finally reached her.
"This must be one of the Thorenzian children," one soldier muttered, looking down at her still form. "What is she doing here?"
"This girl isn't moving at all," another said, reaching down and roughly shaking Elaine's shoulder. "I think a stray bullet hit her. She's dead."
"Listen, guys," a third soldier hissed, his voice hushed and urgent. "No one must know about this."
"Why?" the fourth asked.
"We were asked to arrest two girls. We weren't told to kill anyone. If the Emperor finds out we killed a child, he will punish us. And you know how Absalom punishes people."
The soldiers looked at each other in the dark.
"So what are you suggesting?" the first asked.
"We carry this corpse outside the walls," the fourth suggested. "Drop her in the waste where no one will find her. We report that they escaped."
The others agreed. That night, they carried Elaine's limp, terrified body far beyond the city limits and discarded her in the unforgiving sands of the desert. Believing the job was buried, the soldiers retreated back to their own borders.
Back in the present, Elaine's eyes were distant, reflecting the cold sands of her memory.
"That was how I left Vylonia," she said, her voice trembling. "I thought I would die alone in that desert. But some archaeologists found me—they had been researching Vylonia and were heading back to Aethelgard. They took me in as their daughter, treated my wounds, and brought me to the heart of the Empire."
She looked at her hands. "They raised me. They taught me everything. By the time I was twenty, the old Emperor had passed, and Arthur took the throne. He invited me to the palace to serve as one of his Tetrarchs because of the skills my parents taught me. A year later… the people who raised me passed away."
Elara's breath hitched, her eyes wide with a grief she hadn't known she was allowed to feel. "Elaine… I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry you went through all of that."
"It's fine," Elaine snapped, her expression hardening instantly. "So, I see you've allied with the Vylonians. That's what the new 'Chronohelix' is? A pact between the ghosts of Thorenzia and the vermin of Vylonia?"
"Yes, Elaine," Elara said, trying to bridge the gap. "We decided to leave the dark past behind. We are looking toward a future filled with light."
"How shameless!" Elaine's anger finally boiled over, hot tears spilling down her cheeks. "Did you forget how Mother and Father were slaughtered by those people? Did you forget the blood on their hands?"
"I didn't forget," Elara pleaded, reaching out her hand. "But we have to embrace the light. A future of hope. Join us, Elaine. Please."
Elaine looked at the outstretched hand as if it were a venomous snake. She didn't take it. Instead, she looked up, her eyes narrowing with a terrifying intensity.
"Have you heard of the El Necro clan?" she asked suddenly.
The shift in her tone chilled Elara to the bone. "The El Necro Clan? You mean one of the members of the House of El? Not really… I've only heard the name once in passing."
"Have you ever wondered," Elaine said, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous whisper, "why Absalom executed Father, Mother, the El Joranda clan, and so many others without a single crime being committed? Why he risked a civil war just to wipe them out?"
"No," Elara replied, her mind racing as a cold realization began to dawn on her.
Back in the sweltering industrial graveyard of the Tungsten Hearth, the air hummed with the mechanical whirring of the cyborg Tetrarch. Isolde stood her ground, the weight of her makeshift iron bow a steady presence in her hand, even as the blood from her side continued to stain her clothes.
She leaned slightly toward her comrades, her voice a low, urgent command. "Guys, go and capture the people of this province. Secure the perimeter and take control of the Hearth. Leave this cyborg to me."
The Chronohelixians hesitated for only a second, recognizing the steel in her tone. "Alright, Lady Isolde," they whispered, bowing deeply before vanishing into the thick, noxious smog of the factory district.
Isolde remained alone with the Tetrarch, her eyes narrowing as she watched him. To her surprise, Tungsten didn't move a muscle to stop the rebels from fleeing. He simply stood there, his mechanical components hissing as he watched them go with an air of complete indifference. It was a calculated stillness that made the hair on the back of Isolde's neck stand up.
"Well," Tungsten's voice rasped, a grating sound of metal on metal. "Are you ready to die?"
"Pardon me," Isolde said, her grip tightening on her bow, "but you are incredibly odd."
The cyborg tilted his head, his optical sensor clicking as it zoomed in on her. "Why is that?"
"My allies just left," Isolde noted, her voice wary. "They went to seize control of your province. Yet you, the Tetrarch, don't seem the least bit bothered. I expected you to fight to keep them here. Why let them go?"
Tungsten's lips pulled back into a cold, mechanical smirk. "You think so? You forget, girl—I am the Tetrarch of Tungsten Hearth. You can't gain control over this land without taking me down first. Even if your little friends capture every soul in this province and take them hostage, it is all meaningless if you cannot defeat me. I am the lock and the key."
Isolde didn't wait for him to finish. With a sudden, fluid motion, she loosed an iron arrow. It screamed through the air at an impossible velocity, a black streak aimed directly for the cyborg's right eye.
CLANG!
The arrow struck true, but instead of piercing through, it bounced off with a harsh, metallic ring, as if it had hit a solid slab of reinforced plating.
"Did you forget already?" Tungsten chuckled, the sound distorted by his vocal processors. "I'm a cyborg. Half of my body is iron and steel. Your little toys won't find purchase here."
Isolde clicked her tongue in frustration, her mind already racing through her remaining arrows.
"It's my turn to attack," Tungsten announced.
His robotic hand shifted with a series of violent mechanical clicks, the fingers retracting as the forearm widened into a multi-barreled Gatling gun. He opened fire instantly. A hail of lead chewed through the air, but Isolde was faster. Using her Earth Hera, she surged the iron from the ground upward, manifesting a thick, reinforced wall that absorbed the impact of the barrage.
Seeing his bullets stopped, Tungsten didn't hesitate. His arm shifted again, the barrels merging into a singular, wide-mouthed Bazooka. He fired a high-explosive shell that slammed into Isolde's defense. The blast was deafening, completely shattering the iron wall into shrapnel and sending a massive plume of dust and soot into the air.
Tungsten laughed, a menacing, triumphant sound. "Come out now! Show me what's left of you!"
From within the thick curtain of dust, two iron arrows hissed toward him in rapid succession. Again, they struck his chest and shoulder—Clang! Clang!—and again, they fell uselessly to the floor.
"Your attacks are useless against me!" he bellowed.
As the dust began to settle, Tungsten's smirk vanished. To his surprise, a brand-new iron wall had already risen, shielding Isolde once again. She was playing a game of attrition, and she was far more resilient than he had calculated.
"I guess I'll have to resort to something a bit more cunning," Tungsten muttered. He transformed his hand back into the Gatling gun and began a relentless, non-stop spray of bullets.
He wasn't aiming to kill her yet; he was aiming to mask his movements. The constant impact of the bullets against the iron wall kicked up a secondary cloud of debris so thick it was impossible to see through. In the middle of the cacophony, Tungsten suddenly stopped shooting.
Inside her shelter, Isolde held her breath, her ears ringing. What is he doing? She wondered, staying low.
Suddenly, the gunfire resumed, the bullets drumming against the other side of her wall. Isolde stayed hidden, waiting for an opening, when she noticed a small, heavy object rolling across the floor toward her boots.
It was a grenade.
"Shit!" Isolde snapped.
She threw herself backward just as the device detonated. The massive blast obliterated her iron wall and sent a shockwave that threw her body through the air like a ragdoll. Isolde landed violently against a jagged rock formation, her head striking a boulder with a sickening thud. The world went black, and she collapsed into unconsciousness.
Tungsten stood over the ruin, looking down at the girl lying motionless amidst the small, flickering flames of the explosion. He laughed, a sound of pure mechanical triumph.
"Sorry, young lady, but you picked the wrong guy for an opponent," he sneered. "Now, I'll go and finish off the others."
He turned to leave, but stopped dead in his tracks.
Standing in the shadows of the factory was a massive group of people—at least two hundred of them. They wore long, flowing white capes with head-warmers that completely obscured their faces, standing in a silent, haunting formation.
Tungsten felt a chill pass through his biological side as he scanned the crowd. "Who the heck are you guys?" he demanded, his hand shifting back into a weapon. "What do you want?"
As one, the two hundred figures spoke, their voices layering into a terrifying, singular chord.
"We are the El Necro Clan."
The tears carved clean tracks through the soot on Elaine's face, dripping steadily onto the scorched earth. "Why won't you join me, you stupid sister?" she whispered to the wind, her voice cracking under the weight of a grief that had fermented into malice.
Without waiting for an answer from the silence, she turned her back on the giant, pulsing plant and began to walk away.
"You killed her," one of the Chronohelixians stammered, his voice trembling with a mixture of horror and disbelief. "Why? She was your sister!"
Elaine didn't slow her pace. "That is what happens to those who oppose me."
"She didn't oppose you!" another rebel shouted, stepping forward despite the danger. "She didn't choose us over you. She didn't want to fight! She just wanted peace!"
Elaine stopped. She let out a dry, jagged chuckle that lacked any trace of warmth. "Peace? Don't be delusional. That word is nothing but an illusion."
She took another step forward, but the world behind her suddenly erupted.
A blinding flash of crimson light sliced through the air. The massive, carnivorous plant was sheared perfectly in two, the upper half of its bulbous head flying into the sky before crashing into the dirt directly in front of Elaine. It missed her by mere inches, spraying the ground with foul ichor.
Elaine froze, her eyes widening in genuine shock. She spun around, her breath hitching in her throat. Standing amidst the remains of the beast was Elara. She looked transformed. In her hand, she gripped a jagged, translucent sword that pulsed with the color of fresh rubies.
"How?" Elaine stammered, her composure shattering.
"Overdrive: Bloody Witch," Elara said. Her voice carried a majestic, terrifying resonance as she began to walk toward her sister. "Overdrive is the second stage of Hera. My affinity is water, but in its Overdrive state, it manifests as blood control. This form grants me the power to command my own life force, shaping it into any weapon I desire."
As she spoke, the red sword in her hand shifted like liquid, elongating and hardening into a recurve bow. The blood steamed, releasing a faint mist as if it were boiling with her inner heat. With a flick of her wrist, she manifested a dozen arrows of crimson light and loosed them. They hissed through the air, striking the remaining predatory vines that held the Chronohelixians captive, severing them instantly and setting her friends free.
Then, she turned her aim toward Elaine. She loosed a single arrow. It whistled past Elaine's head, grazing her cheek just enough to draw a thin line of red.
"Just so you know, I missed on purpose," Elara urged, her eyes pleading. "I don't want to fight my sister. We don't have to keep fighting this stupid war! We can be whole again. Elaine, give it up now!"
Elaine's jaw tightened, her teeth grinding in a fit of pure frustration. "Tsk! Don't underestimate me! Know your place!"
Driven by a desperate need to reclaim her dominance, Elaine thrust her hands toward the heavens. "Summoning! Flaming stones from the god who reigns over the galaxy! ACHONDRITES!"
For the second time that day, the sky over Aethelgard died. A massive, jagged monolith of space-stone blotted out the sun, casting a shadow of absolute doom over the province of Harrow. The Chronohelixians looked up, paralyzed by the sight of the world falling toward them.
"Elaine! Stop this now!" Elara screamed.
But Elaine's eyes were vacant, consumed by her own internal storm. She clenched her fists, and the massive rock shattered into a million exploding fragments. A rain of fire and kinetic energy descended upon the rebels.
The roar of the impact was even more deafening than the blast at Tungsten Hearth. It was a sound that shook the foundations of the world. In the capital of Cinder, Emperor Arthur leaped from his throne, his face twisted in a mask of fury.
"Again?" he bellowed, his voice echoing through the obsidian halls. "This is even louder than the first! What is happening to my empire?"
Queen Lysandra said nothing. She simply watched him, her mind racing through the shifting threads of a future she had seen a while ago.
Back in the cratered remains of Harrow, the smoke cleared to reveal a miracle. Elaine's eyes fluttered open, her vision blurred. She expected to see a graveyard; instead, she saw a hand reaching down to her.
"You can't believe you're alive?" Elara asked softly. "Just as I thought… you tried to kill yourself along with the rest of us."
"But how?" Elaine asked, her voice small as she stood up on trembling legs.
"Did you think you were the only one with the El Necro bloodline?" Elara smiled. "I saved us all. I used the Light Shielding technique to phase us. The blast hit the earth, but it passed through us like we were ghosts. We are safe."
Elaine looked at the cheering Chronohelixians, her fists clenching in disgust. "Why? Why do you want to let go of the hate so easily?"
Elara maintained her smile, a look of profound peace on her face. "There are two reasons, Elaine. First, our ancestor Fredericko asked our father, Thorenz, to bring his brother Aethel back home. Our father carried that promise his whole life, hoping that one day his descendants and those of his brother, Aethel's, would reunite. I am honoring that promise."
"That explains the Aethelgardians," Elaine spat. "But why the Vylonians? Why the vermin who took everything away?"
"That brings me to the second reason," Elara said. "Valerus. You remember him, don't you? From the El Joranda clan?"
Elaine paused, the name sparking a memory of a boy from their childhood. "The boy whose clan Absalom wiped out? I remember. He should be a man by now."
"He is," Elara said proudly. "He is the soul of the Chronohelix. He was the one who told us to leave our dark past behind and look toward a future of hope and light. Everyone loved the idea. That is how the Chronohelix Empire was born. We even sang a song together… a song of home."
Elaine looked at her sister for a long time, the tension finally draining from her shoulders. "I see," she whispered, a small, genuine smile touching her lips. "Sing it for me."
As the dust of the Achondrites settled and the sun finally broke through the haze, Elara began to sing. It was a melody of light, a song of a future where no one would have to run anymore. As her voice rose over the province of Harrow, the Chronohelix officially took charge of the land, and the two sisters—separated by war and united by blood—finally stood together as one.