We quickly resolved the question of how we would go about transporting the cannons once my telekinesis’s limits were established. The cannons would be broken down into two parts: the small parts and the three barrels. Because I could only comfortably hold two barrels at a time, one team would use Greater Levitate to bring the third barrel to the nearest Priority Point while I would bring the other two to the farthest points, nearly a continent away.

After we agreed on the solution, I decided I’d go back to talk to Zerith, assuming he wasn’t busy.

I used the teleporter with the help of the violet-robed mage and appeared back in the bastion once more.

Nobody was in the large teleportation room at the time, so I quickly put in the same code Vaazha had used to teleport me.

Red, Green, Yellow, Red, Yellow, Red.

“Teleport: Ace.” The circle began to glow.

“Teleport: Base.” I was enveloped once more with violet light and appeared behind the mage who had teleported me away just a few seconds ago.

He looked at me with a confounded expression. [How did she just-]

“S-sorry about that. I just had to see if it really worked the way I thought it did.”

“Uhh...” he began before shrugging. “Well, don’t tell anyone about it, I guess.” [Great, now I need to report this to Vaazha...]

He walked off, presumably to do just that, while I spun the opening again, using the slightly different code that the violet mage had used to teleport me.

“Teleport: Ace.” It began to glow.

“Teleport: Base.” Purple light enveloped me, and I appeared in the bastion’s teleportation room again. This time, though, a squad of blue-robed guards were walking in alongside a violet mage. After I stepped off, the mage took the shaker-bottle-cap-looking thing and used it on another circle, teleporting the squad off.

As I was devoting the particular code to memory, I heard in my mind: “Psychi, are you finished?”

[With wha-] I began thinking before realizing the voice wasn’t Green’s, but Zerith’s. It must have been Sending or Message. Did I talk to respond? “Yeah,” I whispered.

“Then see me in the library.”

“Library?” I said, walking out of the room. I quickly reached out with my mind, searching for Zerith with Recognition. He was about a half-mile down the donut. “I’ll just meet you where you are.”

“If you can.”

I quickly floated up, then flew through The Bastion. It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise, but my flight didn’t attract that much attention. Admittedly, being so strong that everyone gaped at you was fun, but it was nice to be ignored once in a blue moon.

It didn’t take long for me to arrive in an open area, where people in yellow and blue robes were dispersing. Zerith seemed to be in an area for public speaking, standing just beside a pedestal. He was in a conversation with three blue-robed guards.

“No. If an entering official doesn’t have a badge, you should contact a registered official immediately. It’s unlikely to be a matter of concern, but you can’t be too safe.”

“Understood! But what if-” a guard began.

“Uhh, sorry,” Zatchel interrupted, placing a hand on the guard’s shoulder. “If you have more questions, you should ask Alfonz or one of your leaders. They should know the procedure.” [thank goodness, an excuse.] He spoke in a friendly, familiar tone, one significantly different to the one I was used to. He quickly walked towards me, waving bye.

Once he made it to me, I said, “You sure sounded friendly with them.”

Zerith shrugged and spoke, his tone much more honest and natural, “I’m not sure what you mean. I was just being polite.” [Was she implying something?]

“O-oh, no, I just found it strange, since you normally sound...” I looked to the side. “A bit meaner, I guess.”

[I sound mean?! What’s that supposed-] He sighed. “Whatever,” he said dismissively. “I have appearances to keep up, we all do.” He began walking right, wasting not a second more than needed on conversation. [Let’s get to the library, quickly.]

“Isn’t paper expensive?” I asked, floating behind him.

“Yes, quite so. We have yet to devise any efficient method of making it.”

“I know some ways to make paper.”

He looked back at me and frowned. “A method the gods haven’t shared with us already?”

I sent him a confused expression. Was he implying the gods gave them technology? It made sense.

Seeing my expression, he looked forward, ignoring me. [I’m not your damn tour guide.]

“Well, then, if you’re so concerned about time,” I said, “Why don’t I give you a lift?”

He nodded and paused. “I suppose that would be helpful. Can you move me with your ‘telekinesis’ thing?”

“No,” I said sheepishly. “Not directly, that is.” I quickly focused on the ceiling, searched for a flat spot, then drudged a tile of stone out, and hovered it to the ground beside Zerith. “If you step on there, your psi-negation field won’t...” I paused. “I can move you, I mean. Just make sure you hold on.”

“Alright.” He cautiously walked atop the platform.

I raised the platform a few meters upward as he kneeled, holding the stone platform’s ledge, then accelerated it slowly.

“So, could I ask you something?” I said.

[I guess I can’t do much else while I wait.] “Sure.”

“What’s with the colors? They correlate with the gods, right?”

Zerith nodded. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“What do the robes represent, then?”

“Well, I suppose I lied,” he said. “They correlate with the companies.”

“And are these, like, military companies or capitalist companies?”

“Capitalist?” Zerith said, giving me a perplexed expression. “What, are you a scholar or something?” [I haven’t ever heard that word outside ancient texts.]

“W-well, companies are...” I began, before deciding there was no point in explaining. “Ok, I suppose we’re talking about military companies.” Not that I knew the difference. “Could I quickly ask? What’s this world’s economic system?”

“Socialist, I guess.” [Since communism didn’t hit the mark from a variety of factors.]

“Weird. Anyway...as you were saying?”

“We have seven ‘companies’, which are run by us representatives. Though, the ‘green company’ doesn’t exist. As a representative, you can feel free to recruit anyone as a member of your company.” [So long as you run it through me, of course.]

“I figured that much,” I said. I didn’t really know why I’d bother recruiting anyone, though.

“Stop at the top of that,” he said, pointing to scaffolding. “Blue covers security and knowledge, Orange covers health, Indigo covers research and development, Violet covers transportation and agriculture, Yellow covers matters of law and homeland defense, and Red covers construction and manufacturing. And Green...traditionally, it was the smallest company. You can cover anything you would like with it.”

I set him down on the scaffolding, and he stepped off and walked toward the nearby door. He quickly unclipped and swiped his badge over the handle, like a card reader, and after a click, he opened it. I followed him.

What I had expected to be a room with rows of books turned out to be a room with just a few small bookcases, a desk, a stack of empty paper, and perhaps a dozen cabinets set on the ground, with papers strewn across the top.

“This...isn’t what I was expecting,” I said.

“That’s because this is my private library. I keep important records and ancient texts here.”

“Like the texts from before...‘the world was remade’?” I guessed.

Zerith nodded, making a beeline for a particular cabinet and opening it. [Basically. Now, to check if the anti-clairvoyance ward is alright...] Zerith kneeled down to look at the cabinet’s roof. [good, it is.] He then touched the roof and said, “Rune Reinforce.” [And that’s one rune down.] “And before you ask, I need to make sure the hidden wards are maintained every month, or else the king’s clairvoyants would quickly find The Bastion.”

“I figured.” I walked to a cabinet and looked inside. There was a folder with an assortment of papers within. “But what is this place? And what are these papers?”

Zerith opened another cabinet and pulled out a paper before writing on it. “One second...” [11/13: Seminar finished. Fifteen new recruits. Civilians will be equipped with Casting Stems. Psychic from other world appeared, long story. The king is mobilizing monsters...]

After a bit more time, he placed the paper down and looked at me. “We keep records for security’s sake. Most officials in The Bastion have access to this place and file away important information here when they feel like it. We also keep conversations, of sorts, in them. Go ahead and look at one of those papers.”

I pulled a random paper the size of a notecard from the cabinet and read some of it.

{3/5: We both know that arcanite is dangerously powerful, Mariss. I think it would be best if I didn’t continue research.}

{3/5: No. We need to utilize this! Most people can’t cast magics dangerous enough for use in a war, but arcanite can change that with that discovery! I’m sorry, Taali, but can you do this for everyone?}

{3/9: I’ll continue my research, but please promise me we won’t do anything other than spell storage? And no spells above 3.6 Ameraze magnitude.}

Taali’s handwriting was very neat, but the paper was absolutely filled. The two representatives writing on it were quite averse to wasting space. The rest of the papers were like that, too. Though, I really had to ask...“What is this, and why are you filing away private conversations?”

“They’re called receipts,” Zerith said with a chuckle. [And privacy is a pointless currency]

“If you say so...” I said. “But what about the paper?”

Zerith picked up two more notecards from the desk. “That’s one of the reasons I brought you here. Because Sending and Message cost a significant amount of mana, it’s best if we have more convenient forms of conversation.” He handed me one of the two papers and a primitive-looking pencil. “We call these synch-sheets when you write on that, my paper will mirror what you write. It conserves a lot of mana, since Sending costs a lot.”

“That’s convenient...” I said, writing ‘hi’ on the corner.

He held his paper up, showing the same ‘hi’ on it. “We use a particular signature magic to connect these papers, but if you need more, we already have plenty stored in here. Your badge should open the door. Also, please make sure you don’t use up much space.” [We don’t have enough paper to go around, as is.] He pocketed the synch-sheet.

So it was basically texting, but worse. I couldn’t ask for more in a world like this.

“I suppose that’s convenient.” Though, it couldn’t trump the convenience of a smartphone.

[I suppose now is as good a time as any to broach the subject...] “Could you look away from me for a moment?” [that’ll stop you from reading my mind, righ-]

I quickly turned around, facing the door. “N-not a problem,” I insisted. “Your mind’s all yours, hehe...” I tried to make it a joke, but it didn’t feel funny to me. I really didn’t want to inconvenience him.

“Ok...” he said, sounding surprised at how little I hesitated. “I want to ask you a question, one that is very important. But first, I think I need to preface everything I’m about to say with my observations of you.”

It felt strange, being talked to so sternly, yet without any nonverbal or telepathic feedback.

“From what I can tell,” Zerith continued, “You aren’t used to this. The world you grew up in, from Blue’s debriefing to me, is much nicer than our own. I don’t think you fully understand the people of Ninjaak’s circumstances, and you may be unable to.”

That humanity had been killed off many times?

“I don’t believe you have ever faced down a monster. I doubt you’ve ever killed a man before. Furthermore, I doubt you’ve ever left one to die or let a village crumble into a bloody smear for the chance to win a...hopeless war.” He seemed to struggle to say the word ‘hopeless’. “To be honest, I’m afraid I can’t use you.”

He was right about almost all of that. I didn’t understand what it meant to fear for my life.

But I did know some things I didn’t want to admit I understood.

“In your world, where humans fight humans, things must be different. When I first heard of a world where war was between people and not monsters, I thought it must be somehow worse than the abominations at our doorstep.”

Was it?

“But over the years, I’ve begun to understand my world for the hell it is. The people in your world have hope, but every person in ours understands that death, painful death is not to be feared. Instead, it is so trivially unavoidable that our war has lost all purpose. My people...everyone. Everyone in Ninjaak expects to die when the time comes. Some, more than others.”

That...I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Was this nihilism, or something else he was referring to?

“But that’s simply our way of coping with reality. Seeing you, now, I think I have a grasp of the...the roadblocks you will face. Psychi, so I want you to answer some questions.”

“I...can do that,” I slowly said.

“Have you seen someone die?” he said, wasting no time.

I clenched my hands together. “Yes.”

“Have you killed someone?” he continued with hardly a pause.

“Yes.”

He paused...“Have you made a choice that caused someone innocent to die?”

“Yes.”

He paused again, then, for just a moment. “And do you regret that choice?”

Something caught in my throat. I absolutely regretted the choice, I despised it, I wanted so badly to turn back time and undo it, to wind away the gallon of tears I shed, to change the horrible, naive decision that...the decision that killed my parents.

“Then I will take that as a yes. I think I understand you a lot better, knowing all of that. Your last answer says everything about your character. But, even though I know the answer, I will ask you...” He slowly said, “Are you prepared to make a hundred choices just as perilous?”

“I...I...” The words were still stuck in my throat. To make choices that could cause people to die?

I was so afraid of that. Of inconveniencing others by trying. Remembering the guilt I still felt, the horrible feeling of empty sadness that had never left my heart, the guilt and pain of knowing I would never see them again because it was all my fault.

And what I had done afterward. My rage, my insecurity...I’d projected it all onto the people who killed them, I’d acted in hate, and I could still remember it.

Two petty criminals smashed with tons of concrete, one crushed to nothing more than pulp and gore, and the other with an arm cut off, and body battered.

Whether or not they deserved it, I was scared of myself. I never wanted to make a mistake again, to feel that hollow feeling in my gut grow and consume my mind.

I should have known it would come to this. It hadn’t been long, but I could tell this world wasn’t...wasn’t one I should help.

“I see.” Zerith sighed behind me. “I should have known. You shouldn’t get mixed up in this. Truth be told, I remembered a way to send you back to your world, so I’ll get the casters ready. With the king in his prime, he is unstoppable, but if he doesn’t have his psychic powers, humanity has a chance to escape our fate, if through sheer luck.”

I felt tears forming in my eyes, and blinked them away as best I could. “You...you can send me back home?”

“Yes, I can. The details are written in one of the ancient texts, it should be easy enough with a bit of preparation.”

I...I could go home. I didn’t need to say goodbye to Jeremy or...or anyone else, and I could live my life the way I always had.

Why...why then, did the tears begin to fall? Why did the hollow feeling keep growing as he spoke to me? Why did I tremble? Why did my body act this way?

He was right, wasn’t he? Being here, in this place, I was just a nuisance. I could help, sure, but the king was by far a stronger psychic. Once push came to shove, I would...I would surely be unable to make up the difference. It was just me, the sad, pathetic, incompetent seventeen-year-old who didn’t understand what it meant to make tough choices.

Objectively, I should have left this world to its horrible, existential fate of death and rebirth.

And yet, my hands separated. The pit in my stomach made me unable to speak or move, and I felt as though I would only be able to do so if I did one, specific thing. The tears poured down my face, but something strange...some strange feeling made me look up, made me grit my teeth, made me stare at the door as if I were...were determined.

Behind me, Zerith continued to speak, in a disappointed, sighing tone. “You may have noticed your old clothes in your dresser. You can put those back on, return your paper and current clothes, and we can have you out by the end of the day.”

Why did my expression grow tight? Why did I look to the side, trying to catch him in my peripheral? Why did I shake restlessly?

Zerith said nothing more.

Words...words would only move from my mouth if I only truly meant them. I wanted to lie, to agree, to repeat what I had said to myself over and over.

“Zerith,” I said, my voice firm.

“Yes?” he said, acting unassuming.

“I...I’ll leave,” I opened my mouth to say.

“I will not leave,” I said.

“Really now?” he said as if I were amusing. “That wouldn’t be a threat, right?”

I chuckled, though my voice came out...mean. “No, that isn’t any sort of threat, that’s an...uhh...assertion.” Fuck, when would I ever say ‘I will not leave’? No wonder he thought it could be a threat, somehow.

“Go on,” he said, a hint of excitement in his voice.

I just needed to tell him that this wasn’t for me. That I wasn’t needed or wanted in his world. “I...I don’t....” Fuck this! What am I doing!? “...K-know why, but...I’ve never felt...assured of myself.” It slipped out of my mouth, once more. I could feel something else in my gut, more than just a void.

“And you feel assured, now?”

“Yes,” I said, my head quaking.

Rage.

In my gut, the fire of rage burned, filling the void.

“I feel assured because you...” I slowly said, holding back my feelings. It was right for me to admit I wasn’t needed. I should have said it the instant I had the chance. But what sort of girl am I?!

Was I the girl who didn’t know what it was like to struggle?

No!

Was I the girl who was powerless to save others, or even herself?

No!

Was I, so utterly pathetic, unworthy to feel satisfaction through power?

No!

I wasn’t going to let my nature take control of myself again. I felt out-of-control of my own body, yet it was me taking control. Not guilt or pain or the endless days of self-inflicted torment of guilt I’d inflicted on myself, me, my true feelings.

I turned to face Zerith, furious and indignant. “You’ve insulted me.” I slowly said. “And I’m fucking pissed. I’m pissed I accepted it. I’m pissed I thought you were right, I’m pissed I wanted to go home and preserve my...my petty life while everyone in your land suffered. I’m pissed I haven’t felt this way till now, that I’ve locked away my feelings so much that I ignored the deaths of millions because I didn’t want to feel fucking responsible for what happened. I’m so pissed right now, that I’m about to tell you something I know is dumb, that I know is so stupid and selfish, but I’m going to fucking tell you it anyway!”

I stomped forward to Zerith, holding my fiery heart as I punctuated each thing I said with a shake of my head. “I want to fight. I want to help people, just like anyone else! I’m afraid! Afraid you’ll accept me, and let me do that because I’m so scared of pain. I’m really, really, reaally afraid of it all...but I don’t want to go home. If...if I go home...I’ll just become an empty shell, someone who can’t fight, even if just for her own sanity. I feel like all I’ve done with my life is suffer, but all of it is my fault. So, even if I’m incompetent, I want to go through hell, because that pain is what I believe in!”

I took quick, rapid breaths and swiped away my tears without moving an arm. Slowly Zerith finally came into focus. What I saw was a man smiling in an almost cruel way. Yet he was absolutely proud.

He slowly said, “I absolutely love mental breakdowns, sometimes.”

“H-huh?”

“You’re hungry, right? There’s no better way to wipe away tears and celebrate an occasion than to eat.” [It’s hilarious how she didn’t even realize.]

“I-what? I don’t- Aren’t you going to send me away?”

He chuckled, waving away my concern. “No, that was never really my plan. This was just a test.” [One I was given a long time ago.] He let out a deep breath, growing slightly more serious. “In truth, I think you will be very, very helpful.”

I looked to the side, a bit embarrassed, but still worried. “Even though I’m incompetent? I’m no good at fighting, you know.”

“That can improve,” he said. “Anything can, if we try.”

I nodded slowly.

“But, I need to be clear,” Zerith continued. “Do you really understand the pain that awaits you on this side of the road? You might not know what a monster looks like, but once you’ve seen them tear men to shreds and eat them alive, there will be no going back.”

That was...gross.

“When push comes to shove, people will die because of you. You will make mistakes that cause hundreds, even thousands of lives to perish. Our fate lies with you, just as it does with me and every citizen of Ninjaak.”

That sounded...terrifying.

“This is a one-way track, Psychi. By following me, by staying in this doomed world, you are conscripting yourself to what most call a ‘hopeless’ battle. For so long, we’ve been slaughtered over and over. Even with your aid, our chances of pushing back the monsters and finally saving this world...well, they are slim. You may very well die. Do you understand that? That is my...ultimatum, I guess you could say. The only question you need to answer.”

An ultimatum. Could I really put my life on the line for people I barely knew? For people who would probably die anyway, whether I helped or not?

“I see someone different to the people of my world in you. We value honesty, but I think you are a lot more honest than you seem.” He held out his hand.

“How can you tell? What does that even mean?” I asked, tears forming at the compliment, which meant so much more to me than he understood.

He smiled smugly. “If I knew the answer, I wouldn’t be cryptic about it.”

“You...t-that makes sense,” I said, my voice high-pitched, and filled with conflicting sadness and happiness.

So this was it, where I really answered the questions. Either I returned to my old life, and never became useful to anyone, or I took Zerith’s hand and fought. I knew: I wouldn’t be fighting for others’ lives, I would be fighting for an emotion in my heart, an emotion that meant more to me than anything else.

The feeling of burning purpose.

I took Zerith’s hand and shook it.