With the conversion of the next ten candidates complete, the PORA's hold over the Academy will have been complete, and his position within the PORA will be secured when the day of action arrives. John King stepped out from the other side of his portals before swinging his hands and directed Lily and Fatera's bodies into pre-set Cubic prisons in the basement levels of the Union building. Then, something odd jumped out at him. The King's Palace Casts allowed him to view each of the individual cubic prisons as a small projection over the Cast written into a sprawling page over his office desk, and as he hovered his finger over it, he quickly realized that one of the cubic prisons were missing from the count. "Did I miscount..." John wondered, pressing into his temples and trying to relax his body from the stresses of running the Winter Wars tournament. However, upon further reflection, John realized that the sinking feeling and palpable tension all over his body has got nothing to do with the Winter Wars itself. It was the Grand Commander's arrival soon back to the Academy that's what worries him. And with that in the backdrop, he mustn't allow any room for mistakes, and that means figuring out what's the deal with the missing cube. Hurrying downstairs towards the basement level, John had his brush pen at the ready and leaped down the flight of stairs before landing firmly onto the ground with, his boots giving a loud THUMP as the sound echoed through the corridors. "Open." John said, swiping his hands aside as the walls that separated all of the individual cubic prisons dissolved away. All of the previously captured Winter Wars candidates stood up as the darkness surrounding the cubes was replaced by the sights of a dimly lit corridor with John King standing far out in the distance, his image blurred by the semi-transparent cubes. Scanning his eyes through each of the individual cubes, John ran down the list of names in his mind when suddenly, he realized that Ver is nowhere to be found, alongside the one that snuck in to save her. "Shit." John cursed, spinning around when suddenly, each and every one of those cubic prisons started to have cracks running all over them before the captured students broke free from within. "John King! Why have you done this?!" One of the girls shouted, the powers returning to her body as she channeled the Wave and charged at him. Then, the rest of the captured students moved all at the same time, attacking John from all angles as he clenched his fingers around his brush pen and conjured a wide attacking Cast as lights flashed in the corridor. "Learn your place!" John King ordered, casting his King's Palace and once again dominating the flow of the Wave in front of him. That alone was enough to stop each and every one of the students dead in their tracks. However, before John could move next, a strange presence emerged from over his head before a dark aura showered over him. "Hello there." Dropping down onto the ground just behind John and outside of the influence of King's Palace, Wu smiled and waved at John before projecting his Void Domain forward, freezing all flow of the Wave from John and immediately undoing the King's Palace's influence onto the rest of the room, "We meet again, John King." John's eyes shot wide as his body became bound by the Void Domain...or rather, it was the Wave within his body that was frozen up completely. Trying to suppress the Wave and push that feeling away, John then felt as Ver locked down the size of her Sky Splitting Sword before holding it up against John's throat. "I...wouldn't try anything funny." Ver said as John's body became stiffer, somehow. His naturally red face was turned white, and his thoughts raced as he tried to think of a way out of the predicament. However, nothing came to mind. Instead, he glared back at Wu as Ver and him marched closer and closer, pressing him against the wall as the rest of the captured students tried to figure out what's going on here. "Yuna?" Ver said, her eyes still focused on John as the Channeler stepped forward and stretched her arms, "Could you take care of Fatera and Lily? Get them both out of here." "Only doing it cause you are hot~" Yuna said, pointing at Ver as she smiled back awkwardly. Then, Yuna cracked a laugh and went to pick up Lily and Fatera's still unconscious bodies, "What are you going to do now? What the fuck is up with him?" "Don't really know yet." Wu said, his eyes glancing quickly at Yuna before turning back, "That's what we are here to figure out." "Right..." Yuna nodded before tilting her head towards John briefly, "Whatever you plan to do with him...make sure the job is actually done." "You don't say." Ver said, shifting the edge of the blade right up to John as the skin around his neck started to press into the blade and a bitter cold spreaded over the tiny cut wound. "So...ready to spill some beans?" Wu asked as the students made their way out from the basement, "What is PORA about? What do you want?" "What do we want?" John blinked a few times, knowing that it's futile to try to use the Wave. From the lines of writing over Wu's exposed hands and wrist, it's clear that the Void Domain works off a similar principle to the King's Palace, but Wu is somehow able to counter his strongest Cast with ease, "Why do you care? Who are you?" "Answer the question." Ver ordered, tilting the edge of the blade slightly as a streak of blood dripped down John's neck. "Or what?" John smiled, his breathe slowing down, "You have given away all of your cards, and you know absolutely nothing about PORA. You kill me, and you lose the only possible source of intelligence." "I had seen a few methods to extract information." Ver said, pulling the Sky Splitting Sword back. "And...I did high school biology." Wu swallowed, trying to look threatening but failing. However, he also had his cards. "Whatever the goals of the PORA is, you won't be able to see it if you die here." Wu said, his eyes locked onto John, "Plus...I swear all evil organizations are quick to give out their motivations, right?" "Evil?" John sighed and sat down, "In this world, who gets to decide what's just, and what's evil? Do the Ten Heavenly Pillars get to do it? Does the Sky Guardian Corp? The Kings? Queens? Or the so-called Saviors?" Wu halted for a moment, and he pressed forward quickly after, "What does PORA stand for?" "Prime Order Revolutionary Army, and we are the ones that will take back control of the fates of our world. At the end of this, we will be the only ones in control." John smiled, "For eons, the fate of our world had been rested on the shoulders of the so-called Saviors. And for what? Each time a war of the millennium is fought, the innocents had always been the ones suffering. What if I tell you that after the Third's execution was not enough to quench our anger?! What if we wanted more justice? More power? More independence? "What if I tell you that we wanted to bring order back to the world, to hold power in our own hands, and to create our own future?" John added, his eyes burning with fury, "What if we are no longer going to bow to the wills of those that know nothing of our world, or worse yet, to a stupid little tablet situated in a good for nothing country?" "The Saviors are the ones that saved our world from destruction time and time again!" Ver retorted sharply, "It's only in the times of war and destruction that the Saviors are summoned!" "What, just because the stupid Portal tablet says so?" John scoffed, shaking his head, "Who is to say that the Portal itself isn't the harbinger of destruction? Who is to say that it is not trying to steer the fate of this world, playing us like a fiddle with man-made wars, creating a problem that didn't exist in the first place, and then take advantage when it is the only thing that can offer the solution?" Ver's eyes stretched out wide, and she turned to Wu as the latter bit onto his lips. "Where there is absolute order, there will be absolute peace." John said, standing up once again and pointing towards Wu, "And when there is peace of our time...there will be peace for all time. We have already taken control of most of the world's powers. We have already won. Be it above or below, we now control everything." The doors swung open from above, and a massive explosion rocked the entire compound before massive stones started to collapse from above Wu and Ver's heads. "Watch out!" Ver said, wrapping her arms around Wu and teleporting the two of them out of the Union building when everything became eviscerated by the explosion. John took advantage of the chaos and made a run for it, thankful that he attached a series of manual switches that links to self-destruction Casts embedded into the very core of the Union building itself. With the spill about what the PORA is truly fighting for, a speech he had given many times, John bought enough time to input all of the keys required to activate the Cast. As he fell through a portal that lead him back into the snow-covered forests, John knew that his life must have been forfeit now that he had failed in his job of creating more PORA sleeper agents, particularly after what happened with Xing, the previous person in charge of recruitment. However, the least he can do to reduce his suffering now would be to ensure the aftermaths of his mistakes won't affect PORA's future plans. The time of their arrival into this world is not yet here. Thus, he must remain hidden in the shadows while keeping his image as the leader of the Boarded and a member of the Union. That's why he made sure to add this additional layer of safety to the King's Palace Casts. That's right...there is one more difference between the King's Palace and Void Domain. The reason that the King's Palace doesn't affect the flow of the Wave within one's body is completely intentional, as nobody will come to suspect that John had added a safety clause in the minds of all those that had been captured by the King's Palace. "And here comes the clean slate..." John said, drawing the lines of Cast into thin air with his brush pen, "The King's Pardon...activate." At that moment, all of the escaped students suddenly felt a dome-splitting headache before they all fell forward, a surge of controlled Wave flooding through their minds and causing them to pass out. "Shit...shit...." Wu cursed, the headache also knocking him down as Ver collapsed beside him. Like before, targetted Casts that were directed specifically into his body will still affect him, just like the Remnant once did. John must have done the same. However, because of the lack of Wave in his body, whatever this attack is is just going to...do a lot of physical damage. Biting into his finger, Wu quickly scribbled onto the snow with blood before his consciousness was snapped away, "I...gotta..." As Lera and the remainder of the college-less students came investigating the destruction of the Union's building, all they found are the bodies of the passed-out students. And when they were nursed back to health, none recalled the details of their capture or John's involvement. Then, as Lera found Wu's body, she screamed and ran to his side. Then, she looked down and saw his bloody writing that was melted into the snow. "PORA controls all."