“What do you think of Cross?” Merlin asked when they were far away from the mansion. Merlin wanted to walk with Miles for a while on the pretext of catching up, but Miles felt there was more to it.

“I think nothing of it. I am not related to traitor Cross nor am I related to hero Cross. When I was born, those things already happened and I didn’t make any contribution to any of them. So I do not feel shame in the surname Cross nor am I proud of carrying it.” Miles answered plainly.

When there were still three ruling parties on Earth before monsters invaded, Cross Empire was the strongest of them. At the time, the Empire wanted to keep their royal bloodline above all and denied other lower humans from entering space, thus making a list of possible passengers. Empire family, King families, Duke families, and so on and so forth and at the lowest their servants. Not a free civilian. But the other two parties denied it. Since world resources were limited and could only help so many people to venture into endless space, three parties kept each other in check and prevented the Cross Empire from taking off.

Then, when monsters invaded Earth, three ruling parties put their differences aside and created a science center at the border of the three countries. It was where the capital of Unity later builded. Scientists of three parties worked hard to improve the firepower of humanity to prevail in the monster invasion. When humans started to win, in the chaos, the Cross Empire decided to leave the Earth and escape to the black skies. But they didn’t want to leave silently. Before their departure, Cross Empire decided to nuke two capitals of the other two parties and the science center at the center.

They succeeded in bombing two capitals but failed to do so when it came to the Science Center for one reason—Evelyn Cross. At the time, young and sharp Evelyn was working hard to find hope for humanity. Her newly awakened superpower was a great help to her. She was rereading every piece of information humanity gathered at the Science Center. With her powers, it was easy to read lots of text in small amounts of time and assimilate them into her brain. While doing so, she found a glitch, placed in the system. She curiously traced it and found it to be a backdoor placed by Cross Empire.

As the newlywed to Cross Empire, she didn’t know what to do, but her morals dictated her to do the right thing, but she still talked to her beloved husband first. Because she knew Malcolm and knew that he would never agree to something like this. And he didn’t. Malcolm brought the subject to Mercer and together, they alerted two parties so the nukes could be stopped. Unfortunately, only one was stopped. The capitals of the two parties were destroyed, but at least the hope of humanity, the center of Unity kept intact. After failing, Cross Empire didn’t linger around and left the Earth with its last resources. Mercer and his family stood behind.

Cross Empire was lauded as traitors, and many wanted to hang their last living members. But how could they kill their saviors? If the science center nuked as well, could humanity survive? Two remaining ruling parties decided to declare them heroes, betrayed their own families to save the world, and dissolved their organization to create Unity. Leaders of three parties become Generals. Mercer, Tian Ying, and Rutha Strankov.

Mother AI descended a little before these events and was kept in the dark because she wasn’t fully trusted at the time. After the betrayal of the Cross Empire, the Science Center worked in tandem with the Intelligence Globe and helped humanity in its darkest hours. After that, the Cross family became traitors and heroes of Unity. Some still thought they were villainous as their Emperor, some thought they were just and did great deeds to humanity.

But neither of them had anything to do with Miles. He was born after those events happened, and didn’t care what people called his family. Unlike Mercer and Malcolm who worked harder and harder to prove their merits and acquit the name of Cross.

They also raised Merlin and Marcela as such, which in return ventured into danger and helped others to purge the name of Cross, until the day no one could associate the name Cross with the word traitor. But Miles was different. He wasn’t a hero, nor was he a traitor. He was himself. He didn’t do anything wrong nor right, he didn’t deserve to be called a traitor or hero. A father’s sin couldn’t be passed to his child, nor his merits. Every person had their individual life and merits.

So when Merlin asked this question, the answer was simple. ‘Why should I care what people think about me? I am neither.’

“Still the same old.” Merlin sighed. Miles would answer the same way when they were small. At the time, Merlin was brainwashed by Mercer to be a hero so he could wash away their shame, and hearing Miles’s answers would irritate him. It was the reason for his bullying. But later, he grew up and Malcolm taught him a lesson he still carried in his heart that made him stop bullying his little brother. Today, he wanted to do the same for Miles.

They arrived at their destination after some time. There, in a broken alley, was a small door. Merlin approached the door and melted the holder. He simply pushed open the door. The entrance was dark and there was no one guarding there. The duo walked in and walked downstairs.

“Arthur, lights,” Merlin called.

“Right away.” His wristwatch answered. A light shone from Merlin's wrist he held in front of him and illuminated the path. The spiral stairs were going down. Miles couldn’t see the end of it, so he activated the dark vision. After looking down again, he noticed it to be deeper than he thought. It was at least ten stories down.

Miles deactivated the night vision and switched to heat vision. Not far away from the end of the stairs, there was a human silhouette, from there, a few more stood at irregular intervals. Far from there, in a small room, there were hundreds of human signs that looked like small children’s.

“What is this place?” Miles asked when he saw those shadows.

“You will see in a few minutes,” Merlin said as they arrived at the end of the stairs. He deactivated the lights and approached the door there. Merlin melted the lock once again and pushed the door silently. There stood a guard with a gun. He pointed it to the duo hastily, but a flaming sword passed through the guard's head before he could fire his weapon. Sword was blazing with fire and didn’t make any sound. Merlin ran over and held the guard before he could hit the floor. He drew the sword from the man’s head and looked at the other at the bend.