The next morning Kayde, Lunette, and Gwendolyn return to the city, leaving Drakthar and Kali behind with their two new allies, Alwin and Oswald. The city gates, tall as always, have double the guards than usual.

“Looks like they upped the defenses since last time… it’s odd though, why would they be this on edge after only three priests go missing?” Kayde comments once they are through the gates.

“Make that five, Drakthar and I killed a Mila and Ulla from the list while we were down in that tunnel,” Gwendolyn informs him.

“Ah, I see; with only three left with powers, I guess they would feel a little on edge,” Kayde notes, not knowing about Mila and Ulla.

They watch as a pair of priests guarded by knights in white armor pass by.

“What’s up with those guys in the white armor?” Kayde asks, noticing how much they stick out in a crowd.

“No clue,” Lunette responds, assuming they were just people in the military.

“There were men like them in the square when Xander was captured,” Gwendolyn informs them.

“Okay, but I noticed something those priests aren’t on their list,” Lunette points out, not remembering their faces.

“You’re right, maybe they don’t have the complete picture of what we are trying to do yet; that’s good,” Gwendolyn looks on the bright side.

“This is a problem though; even if I go invisible, I’m not going to be able to snatch a priest out of a circle of soldiers like that,” Kayde points out, starting to worry about their prospects of ever capturing another one.

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Gwendolyn asks, unable to think of an alternative. She and Lunette watch as Kayde’s eyes light up, almost as if a fire was lit by an errant spark of inspiration.

“I know what we do; there is someone who is not a priest that knows Xander’s whereabouts. We kidnap the king,” Kayde lays it on them.

“That… that is a terrible idea,” Lunette immediately disagrees.

“Hold on, hear me out. We have no idea where any of these other priests sleep. The only way I can get someone is when they are alone at home and sleeping. There is one person whose home we know about, the kings. He’s in that nice big castle... well, not technically a castle, but it might as well be a castle, anyway, we know where he sleeps. I just need to stealth in there all invisible like and get him out, should be easy,” Kayde tries to convince them to let him do it.

“Why don’t we just lay low for another month instead, wait for them to loosen security after priests no longer go missing? Then we can come back and hit them when they don’t expect it,” Lunette postulates, trying to formulate the smartest approach.

“You might be right, but I don’t care. It’s time; I’m done waiting around to get Xander back,” Kayde tells her, looking to Gwendolyn for back up he knows he’ll get. He receives a firm nod in response.

“Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Lunette throws her hands up in the air, realizing she can’t change their minds.

“Cool, you two wait outside the city, I’ll meet you two there probably around midnight if everything works out… if tomorrow comes and I’m not there, well just assume I’ve been caught,” Kayde tells them, preparing himself mentally for his mission.

“You be careful you crazy bastard,” Lunette plants a kiss on the side of Kayde’s face. Kayde smiles back at her giving her a thumbs up before leaving into the crowd.

“Now that’s new,” Gwendolyn comments as she and Lunette start to leave the city.

“Oh… really? I thought you would have figured it out. The sexual tension was palpable,” Lunette retorts, thinking it was something the others could feel.

Kayde waits long after the sun has gone down, veiling the city in a blanket of darkness pierced only by the streetlights dimly illuminating the unoccupied cobblestones below. He makes his way towards the king’s manor.

Kayde finally reaches it, standing in the middle of the plaza looking up at the very same balcony where the king stood nearly a week ago, the same balcony upon which he declared war against Kayde’s friends. He turns invisible, beginning to scale the outside wall. A couple of loose bricks here and there, not as uniform as the others, is all he needs as footholds to make his way up.

Through a set of glass doors atop the balcony, Kayde sees a hallway, a red carpet along the floor continuing until it stops at large set of double doors that tower up to what must seem like thirty feet. All along the way guards stand at attention, a few feet separating each one.

Kayde counts them, finding twenty in all, a number he knows he probably wouldn’t be able to escape from if something goes wrong. He silently creeps inside, making faces at the guards knowing they can’t see him, while he walks up to the giant doors.

He starts to formulate a plan of how he will be able to get inside; his normal trick of opening it slightly won’t work, and he probably couldn’t open the door by himself even if he tried. It suddenly makes a lot of sense why so many guards are standing around.

After an hour of wracking his brain, he catches a break.

A servant approaches holding a platter with a meal for the king. The servant hands the food to one of the guards, “Thank you, I will take it from here”.

Kayde gets as close behind the guard with the food as possible, waiting for him to enter. Ten guards come up to the door and push with all their might to get it to merely budge. After straining for what seems like minutes they finally crack the door enough so the guard with the food and, unbeknownst to them, Kayde can get inside.

It is then that Kayde sees him, a man much more imposing in person, sitting at a table in the center of the room. The guard places the plate in front of him, making sure not to make eye contact with him before scurrying out of the room and waiting for the others to close the door again on them.

Kayde examines the king, from his long white hair and stern face down to his muscular body that despite his age makes him think Drakthar might need to work out more.

“Well, are you going to join me?” The king suddenly asks out of nowhere. Kayde panics, starting to look around, asking himself if there is someone in the room with them and he didn’t notice. His confusion grows as now he is sitting in a seat directly opposite the king.

“It is rude to ignore someone when they are talking to you Kayde. I know you are young, but I thought you might have learned that by now,” the king tells him, clearly somehow able to know he is there.

“You can see me?” Kayde asks, more in awe than anything with the scenario playing out before him. The king nods, continuing to calmly eat his food with his fine golden utensils.

Kayde comes out of his invisibility and takes off the ring, knowing they are guises the king can easily see-through.

“Okay, two questions, one: how can you see me, and two: how do you know my name?” He asks, not intimidated at all by the giant of a man with the power to see through his invisibility.

The king scrapes half of his food onto a spare plate and shoves it over to Kayde’s side of the table.

“I know everything about you Kayde; and as for how it is I can see you, well you can thank your master for that,” the king explains.

Kayde sits there confused, what does the Scientist have to do with anything?

“You really think I would let that fool leave before he gave me every power he ever developed?” The king goes on.

“Ah, I see, so you switched me into the chair… It’s odd though, I don’t think humans would be capable of turning invisible,” Kayde points out, knowing that it was built into every inch of him when he was made.

The king concedes that point, “You are right, I cannot turn invisible. A drawback of my humanity”.

“Alright king guy, if you are so all-knowing, then why is it that I am here?” Kayde asks, trying to test him.

“Let’s start by assuming that you are the one behind the disappearances of my priests and the murder of my archbishop, if that is true then you could be here for one of two reasons. The first is to kill me yourself, getting me and those other people out of the picture will sew more discord within the empire leaving a vacuum open for someone new to step in and lead, maybe someone that will be more sympathetic to your… predilection. The second is what I believe is far more likely. Somehow during your travels, you must have met a certain stray who fled from here after he was framed by your very master, an unfortunate blunder I was unable to prevent… needless to say, you are here to question me about where your friend is,” the king accurately predicts every reason Kayde is there.

“Yeah, you got me. I’m here for one of those things; you’re pretty perceptive,” Kayde compliments him in a patronizing way.

“Of course I am, let me formally introduce myself, I am Alexandros Hilarion Athaulf. I have been training to lead this empire from the second I was born. And you, Kayde, have severely underestimated who it is you are up against,” Alexandros declares, causing Kayde to rethink what he understands about fear.

Kayde takes a sip from the beverage in front of him, using it to try and not show how much he is sweating to Alexandros right now. He fails, the liquid almost spilling out of the glass from his trembling.

“You seem pretty confident about becoming the king. Makes me wonder if you always knew you were going to kill your brother,” Kayde spits out the only thing he can think of.

Alexandros lets out a wry grin, “Now now aren’t we presumptuous. Did I always know? Let’s say I was fairly certain; he was sending this empire down the wrong path, I merely corrected that”.

“And what path was that?” Kayde urges him on, wanting to find out every detail he can.

“If he had it his way the war would be over, and seeing as how we are on the winning side, that would be a waste; wouldn’t you agree?” Alexandros asks rhetorically.

“Uh… nope. I wouldn’t exactly say you are winning, to be honest, it’s more like the tribes you guys try to hunt down and kill are just avoiding you. If you think about it, it’s not really a war, just a sad game of cat and mouse. If you really wanted to make a move you should just go straight to their capital, but you’d probably lose that fight since your troops are not used to fighting in the heat like the men of the desert are,” Kayde gives his opinion on the matter, trying to take jabs at Alexandros when he does.

“Those things are not untrue, but the side that is running is surely the one that is on the losing side,” Alexandros concedes to some of what Kayde is saying, but ultimately remains confident the Sacrosanct will be victorious in the end.

“You know, something’s been bothering me. Usually the people around here, they’re all freaked out and stuff or at least disgusted when they see me. Not you though; this conversation, while it has had its rough edges, has been civil. For one who champions a religion that demonizes my kind, you would think you would have a bigger problem with me,” Kayde points out, uneasy at how well Alexandros has been treating him.

Alexandros chuckles, more than glad to explain, “Oh I have nothing against cyborgs or even people from the desert. People need motivation to fight and the church is the perfect way to fill that need. The Purity, it’s not some time-honored tradition, it’s just a means to an end”.

“So you don’t even believe in your own religion?” Kayde asks, slowly realizing how much more corrupt the structure of the empire really is.

“I do not, it is merely a tool that was made for me to wield,” Alexandros elaborates.

“Isn’t this religion really old? You talk like you created it or something, but it was there before you were born,” Kayde points out, doing the math.

“You would be right, I come from a long line of kings, each of them focused on taking over the world; that is until my brother became king. He wanted to end the cycle, which is why I had to end him to continue what our ancestors started. To fulfill our destiny,” Alexandros continues his monologue.

Alexandros is caught by surprise as the android across from him begins to laugh. As soon as Kayde notices the confusion on his face his laughing intensifies, the obliviousness of his own statement all the more comical to him.

“What!” Alexandros demands to know what Kayde finds so amusing.

Kayde settles down enough to get out, “For a man who talks so much about lineage you don’t have someone to pass down this empire to. You’re all alone, having killed the only other member of your family that was left”.

“That is where you are wrong, there is another, but you will not live long enough to see him rule. No, I’m afraid you are headed down to the dungeons where my new scientist will be overjoyed that they finally have a specimen such as yourself to rip apart and examine. We will finally know all of those secrets that pesky man built into you,” Alexandros threatens, abruptly ending the conversation the second his plate is empty.

Kayde, not knowing what else to do, grabs a hold of the needle, still laced with Lunette’s knockout agent, bringing it swiftly towards Alexandros’s neck. He feels as his arm is stopped, Alexandros catching it in his hand before the needle gets anywhere near its mark.

“Foolish, just like that master of yours. No matter, you won’t be in my hair any longer. Guards!” Alexandros alerts those outside to Kayde’s presence. The alarming tone of the king’s voice causing the guards to push through the doors much faster than usual.

As they spill into the room they see the android sitting across from their king.

“Seize him,” one of the guards tells the others, ten of them moving to surround Kayde, who gives himself up without a fight.