The touch of steel on her shoulders sent a shiver down the otherworlder’s spine. Slowly turning her head, she found a red-eyed machina standing behind her that looked just like Avarice. For a moment, her lips curved into a smile, but as words came out of what should’ve been her mute shield, all the color on her face drained right out.
"Time to sleep." And that was the last thing she heard before blacking out entirely.
A well placed strike to the back of her skull–that’s all it took for Avarice to disarm her and while Raven could’ve done the same, his hands were kind of full and not knowing how strong the clone was, there was always a chance of him destroying her spine and ending up killing her.
Either way, the job was done. Her army was in pieces, and the clone lay unconscious on the ground. Carrying her body in her arms, Avarice was made to take her back to the castle with everyone else following close behind. Using Liliyana’s ability, the group masked themselves from the eyes of the regular citizens to avoid adding more fuel to the chaos that was already going on.
But right as the party arrived at the mansion, Mono, in her splendorous golden form, turned to the gate and decided to do something about the ruckus. Stretching her hand forward, she opened her palm, and a beam of golden light bled out till the skies. The likeness of her current body was reflected like a painting in that golden glow, looking down at her citizens with a stern look in her eyes and hands folded shut.
"Protocol Aura: Shut yourself down!" Commanding every machina in the kingdom to shut down with a thunderous voice, she instantly lifted part of the alarm. The machines chasing after everyone fell in an instant, and before anyone knew, they were all already looking at their queen’s image with hope in their eyes. "As for you all, go home! Your queen is back, an imposter had taken my place, but I’ve handled it and now there’s no reason for you to fear!"
Taking a momentary pause, she closed her eyes and added further.
"I’ll be sending my personal servants to check up on the injured; they’ll bring you food too, so stop causing more chaos and just go home before someone gets hurt by some opportunistic criminals!" Keeping her voice firm as most of her citizens were formerly criminals, Mono spoke in absolution and with an offer of a meal to dilute the urge to commit a crime. Whether that works or not, that remains to be seen, although most of the citizens, already tired from being chased all day, decided to return home.
Watching it all happen from the foot of the mansion’s entrance, Raven was quite surprised by how well Mono handled the situation. Compared to the last time he’d met her, the contrast was night and day–at least at a glance, and so he kept his guard up still.
"Are we really gonna let that murder machine suck up all that Mana from that woman?" Hearing Helga whispering into his ears, Raven’s mind came back to him.
Glancing sideways at the valkyrie, he wondered much the same.
"I’m not sure, but it’s not like we can have that suicidal maniac keep that much mana inside of her chest either." Both of their concerns were legitimate, having a known murderous machine soaking up all that power and leaving it in the woman that tried to explode their world–not exactly a choice anyone would like to make, especially since the weight of their world rested on it.
"Let’s keep moving, we have a lot of shit to clean up..." Turning around to face everyone, Mono urged them to keep moving forward.
A rather anti-climactic end the clone had gotten, but her plans were barely held by hope that would never have manifested. In no world could she’ve gotten both Amedith and the god of time, and now, as that hope was wicked away and her body lay in Mono’s bed, even that last chip–her heart, was being drained of its strength by a Machina.
Circling the bed as Avarice drew out the mana inside the otherworlders, everyone’s eyes remained glued on that murder machine, but somehow, that once threatening aura was nowhere to be seen. That is until a wide grin appeared on her face, but right as everyone noticed it quickly died down, and the machina blinked and looked around as if confused by something.
The monster...it was merely dormant, not dead. That very vessel was what Avarice was, as the heart within was meant to be someone else’s. Unlike the regular automatons that needed a heart to function, Avarice could function on her own, but the heart of the person placed within was meant to control her every action once protocol Mono had initiated. And while it was still in effect, somehow the dead girl’s heart wasn’t having the same effect as Mono’s, even though what residual soul it had left within was helping the machina remain somewhat sane.
Feeling the many stares of everyone on her as she remained leaning against the room’s door, Mono stared right back. Holding their gaze for a while, she nodded.
’I’ll deactivate her as soon as we’re done. Then bury the heart and with it the mana should return to the environment through soil.’
"Or Linkle could make something out of that amount of mana, maybe even complete those teleporting ships that we’ve been waiting on," while everyone’s mind was already convinced by Mono’s affirmation, Erika decided to take another approach instead of disposal. "That much mana, I bet it could even kill the demon lord if we run into him."
Heads quickly turned to Erika. She was right, the party could for sure use that concentration of mana and get something out of it, but then again, so much power carried equivalent risk.
"What if something goes wrong and that volatile energy explodes after all?" Mono asked, furrowing her brows.
Glancing between the two, on one hand, everyone wanted to get their hands on such power, but on the other, Mono was right, and who knows if just experimenting with that concentrate ends up becoming their downfall? The question loomed in their heads, but one thing was for sure, and Raven said it best.
"I need that machina shut off as soon as possible. We’ll worry about what to do with the heart as well as the clone later." With their leader’s announcement, the decision came to a temporary end and instead of worrying about power, everyone turned their attention to the unconscious girl.
Waiting for her to wake up once Avarice finished draining her heart, the group was finally ready to get some damned answers.