“Here…set up the rocks in these positions…”

“Is there anything you need? The Void domain shields had already been set up in the room.”

“Then we should be safe for a long while…”

As voices from unfamiliar people faded in and out of her consciousness, Alina felt her body suspended within a strange aura of warmth. She twisted her body slowly, grasping outwards with her hands when she finally felt the firmness of the ground underneath her body.

“Hey…hey.” The voice of a black-haired girl pierced through the darkness as Alina slowly opened her eyes. She became drawn towards the beautiful grey eyes immediately, though, through Wu and Lera’s disguise Casts, she couldn’t quite recognize them, “You will be fine now.”

“Who…are you?” Alina asked when Lera twirled her finger and undid the disguise Casts over both Wu’s and her own faces temporarily. Alina squinted her eyes together before pointing her hand at them, “Eyes...I can't see clearly…”

“I am Wu, and she’s Lera.” Wu introduced as Alina sat up slowly with the help of Lera, “We are here on behalf of Joseph Atlas. You were under the influence of some sort of drug, but you should be fine soon...”

At last, Alina was able to let out a sigh of relief. She nodded before shuffling backward all the way until her back was pressed against the wall. She curled her knees close to her chest, preserving whatever warmth that remained within her body.

“So…he sent you two…”

“He was worried and...we are just glad that you are okay.” Lera continued, “What's happening out there? Were those Valkyrie’s fighting the soldiers? Talonian soldiers?”

“First…tell me if the same thing that happened to our royal family happened to yours too? Particularly the ones that was at the island...” Alina asked, pointing to her own skull, “We are built to resist any and all internal attacks that struck, but the royals that accompanied us…they were…We split up, and when we joined back together here...something weird's been happening.”

“We managed to stop them for the twins and our king, with our Casts.” Wu glanced down at his own wrist, “But for the others…few may have survived, but most wouldn’t.”

“Damn.” Alina cursed before scratching her head with irritation, “In the aftermath, those that had been waiting for the Valkyrie’s demise used the excuse of what happened at the Infinite Academy to slowly gain power and influence. But the king, and the royal family…those aren’t them anymore ever since their return.”

“We know.” Wu nodded, semi-confirming Alina’s intuition. Despite how close Joseph was with her, he wouldn’t have spilled secrets about Varou’s political states regardless. However, now that the two kingdoms are essentially experiencing the same transition periods, every bit of intelligence will help.

“Who are the priest-looking people?” Wu asked, “The Descendants of Winter. What’s their deal?”

“They were nothing but a small radical group calling for the abolishment of the Valkyrie’s system before.” Alina replied with irritation, and she cracked her knuckles before sitting more casually with her legs crossed, “They recently gained more influence in the Palace, again, thanks to those who eyed the positions we once had.”

Then, she lowered her head, thinking back to the day where it all went wrong.

It was a regular day, she had just communed with Joseph the night before, and the sound of his voice still warmed her heart even as the chill of Talonia winter started to bare its fangs.

As Alina descended from her residential towers, thinking how Joseph would have not enjoyed squeezing through some of the smaller doorways, she then came to the sounds of fighting. With her powers tuned up instantly, she stayed close to the interior walls before silently moving through the corridors as her Wave sensing reached out wide like a web.

There were distinct presences from the Valkyries, but they were all fighting people that had shockingly subtle presences in the Wave. Assassins? At this hour? No...these subtle presences...it's from the meat puppets...

Alina barged in through the walls as her hands were reached up, and she saw the nearest Valkyrie with her blades raised up high, the sharpened edge nearly chopping off the head of her opposition before Alina recognized the man’s face.

It was the prince of Talonia. Or rather, the meat puppet version of him as she quickly came to learn. A coating of Wave armor formed around Alina’s fingers as she dashed forward across the room, catching and shattering the blade before she shoved the Valkyrie back.

“What are you doing?!” She cursed.

“Intruders! Intruders everywhere!” The rest of the Valkyries in the room all said simultaneously, and they resisted against Alina as she darted around the room, knocking each and every one of them back as the prince of Talonia watched with unfocused eyes and drooled in place.

“What are you all talking about…” Alina scanned the room as the pile of meat puppets held their poses even as they were piled up into the corner. The knocked down Valkyrie’s then slowly got up before attempting to attack again.

“EVERYONE STOP MOVING!” The rage-filled voice of the Grand Priest, the latest addition to the Talonia cabinet, came rumbling through the door as a spanning trap Cast extended out from the captain of the Talonian security guards latched on and around the arms and neck of each of the Valkyrie’s in the room, including Alina’s, “If anyone even moved a muscle here, you will be executed on the spot!”

“What is the meaning of this?” Alina asked, breaking the trap Cast with ease before she marched towards the captain, who reached a hand out and tightened his control on the rest of the Valkyries.

“Alina Vuk. You are hereby ordered to stand down on the accusation of assassinating the royal family.” The captain responded, “If you move, all the Valkyries will die.”

Alina’s eyes shot open, and she held her ground before glancing quickly back and forth between the Valkyries and the captain. Then, she squinted her eyes as her Wave sensing abilities became enhanced once more.

However, it was as if someone had placed a veil of fog strictly within the spectrum of Wave sensing, and Alina’s probing returned nothing but nonsensical noise.

“Take them away for questioning.” The grand priest ordered as the captain ushered the soldiers to wrap up each of the Valkyries before dumping them into prison Casts one after another. Then, as the grand priest walked by Alina, he looked into her eyes with a mystic smile before exiting the room.

Then, the obstruction in the Wave disappeared, and soon, all of the Valkyries suddenly came to their senses as the chatter of confusion filled the corridor. Everything slowly becoming as the soldiers put their hands on Alina. However, they all quickly became silent before turning their attention towards Alina, waiting for her orders as if nothing had just happened.

But she just saw them attack the supposed royal family of Talonia with her own two eyes! Alina had so many questions, but she knew that there's some greater power at work that she cannot afford to act reckless. She gave a signal for the Valkyries to stand down, hoping that they are still receptive to her orders before allowing the soldiers to take her.

She didn’t fight back, knowing that the Valkyries lives would have been the price she would pay for her resistance. However, one thing she could not understand was why and how the Valkyries would have been tricked into attacking those meat puppets…

They are the Valkyries, the human weapons made exclusively in the Kingdom of Talonia, and they are tools that are always under perfect control of the royal family and the man that created them, and their purpose is to do whatever the Kingdom needed them to do.

And yet, they were just caught attacking the very people they were trained to serve.

“This…all of this…doesn’t make sense…” Alina said back in the present, her eyes darting from one corner of the room to the next, “I…thought we were incapable of being controlled by anyone else…”

“Our instructions from Joseph was to help you with whatever you need.” Wu said, “So…what do you need?”

“I need to talk to him. The creator of the Valkyries.” Alina grasped onto her chest and tried to still her beating heart as the images of the dead Valkyries just now started to replay in her mind, “He…he will have the answers for me…he will know what to do…”

Wu and Lera shared a glance of confusion, and Lera placed her hand on the ice-cold fingers of Alina.

“Who are you talking about?” Lera asked, “I thought you were the one leading the Valkyries?”

“He was the one who created us.” Alina said, shaking her head, “Only the one Valkyrie general at the top knows of his existence, but he’s the backbone of the entire program. He will know what to do.”

Wu and Lera shared another nervous look as Alina stilled her breathing and slapped herself gently on the cheeks lightly.

“Thank you for coming after me. Truly. But…I will need to handle this on my own. Please tell Joseph not to worry.” Alina stood when suddenly, the air around them started to thicken, and the safe house exploded as the walls became struck down by massive ice shards.

The shield Casts that were preemptively embedded into the walls immediately became activated, catching the pieces of rubbles and deflecting the columns of ice.

“Lera!” Wu called, the shield Casts bouncing him away as Lera was knocked onto the other side. However, before the attackers swarmed into their residence, Lera activated her sweeping dark, disorienting any and everything before Wu slammed through the ice column with a close-ranged blast and rejoined her side.

“You need to get away from here!” Alina said quickly, “Icy is had only returned from the Academy and is fighting on the other side. Where there is winter, there is her domain, so you must avoid battling her out in the open. Quick…go to the Polar Prison located in the Southwestern direction. That’s where all the Valkyrie’s are kept! I will meet you there!”

“And you are returning to your creator?” Lera asked, “How do you know he’s still alive?”

“He trained and taught us everything we knew.” Alina said, her body becoming coated with the Wave before she jetted away from the edge of the floor into the great whiteness beyond, “If we are still alive, then he will be too.”

“Let’s get out of here then.” Wu said, picking up Lera before the two of them pounced away. As the sweeping darkness slowly started to fade away, the coupling effects of Void Domain and the shields returned the naturally flowing Wave to the safe house's interior, and the groups of soldiers looked in all directions, stunned by the attack they had never seen before.

“Ma’am. We have lost track of Alina’s companions, but we are tracking her down through Fang’s streets.” The group of soldiers that were watching on the outside from the moment the house was breached reported as Icy shifted slightly in her newly annointed seats within the Palace.

“Keep her on the run.” She said, glancing towards the ministers beside them before they all looked towards a lowered platform in the middle of the palace hall, where a single Valkyrie was bound with trap Casts and held in place, “She will have been too late to stop the start of the transformation regardless...now, let's begin."