Rio teleported into the temple of Aries, the colossal structure was adorned in black gold and glass and shaped to imitate the first defender. Irritation and peace battled inside Rio's mind, his plan was working so far, but he still needed more time.
Capt. X had proved to be his most challenging subject, he had unsuccessfully tried most possible elixir combinations, but nothing seemed to work in wearing down the Soul breaker/ Mind breaker at least not as far as he could observe.
The Temple was full of people visiting and offering prayer, it had only been months since the Victorian moon celebrations. It was more than likely thousands of civilians and regiment officers from all over ZOA4, Titan3 and the Atlas would be visiting the temples.
As he looked around, he still found the changing black sand structures interesting. In his mind, the only way to bring Col. YHO down was to destroy her most powerful defender. Rio looked around him at the crowd of people walking, oblivious to the destruction in MagnusTII.
The more he thought about it, the more he hated YHO. How could she be so comfortable lying and helping her brother get away with destroying half a galaxy? Meanwhile, she rebuilds it and set herself as a hero to all, if he had her power, he would make sure everyone knew what had really happened on MagnusTII and kill X.
For now, all Rio needed to do was find a way to weaken X, at first he had thought it was almost impossible, but his persistency was beginning to pay off and Ltnt. Rivers was one of the greatest instrument of his plan.
******
Noeli was happy to see all her friends and her squadron back home, she had been travelling from MagnusTII to Redina 2B33 and once in a while, she would get to come back home to Atlas.
Julia waved at her from the colossal ship under the command of Col. Charlotte; she and Col. YHO were the only ones still travelling to Redina, Erin0J44 and the entirety of MagnusTII since the wars. Noeli walked hand in hand with Julia talking, as the regiment guards and defenders of Auraos ran to their post, some joked around and others teleported into the city.
The two met up with the twins, Shanice and Bright, who were engaged in one of their usually heated debates.
"Noeli, please tell this fool! The Victorian moon is better than the Copiae ceremony." Shanice said, pointing at her twin brother.
"No way! Copiae is better and you all know it!" Bright said, leaping from his chair as they walked away from their quarters and their sand bike stations.
"I think the Victorian Moon is better we all get to celebrate and have fun, not just the chosen defenders, I don't know I feel like Copiae is more a show of power than about us," Julia said.
"That's what I was trying to tell him all along!" Shanice said, irritation radiating from her tone.
"But at Copiae we get to see the defenders at full capacity, no Elixir," Bright argued back.
"When are you guys leaving for MagnusTII?" Noeli asked, trying to distract away from the irrelevant argument.
They all got silent, talking about boarding a Titan had become a sensitive topic since she had failed her trial, and all the party and sand races in the galaxy could not cheer her up.
"Guys wait up!" Axel called out to them.
He ran towards them frantically waving his blue sand screen in the air. Since they had been back, they spent all their time away from the ships catching up.
"Dune to Race?" Axel asked as he placed his arm around Bright's neck.
"As always!" They all loudly answered in a union, bringing laughter into the group.
As Noeli was falling down the no-gravity zone in her sand bike, she screamed out as she raced her friends to the edge of the Dune. She had tried to keep calm, she was grateful she was still able to come back home.
Redina2B was hostile to landscape, creatures, and cold, but she always had something to look forward to whenever she got back home.
She remembered the last time she had spoken to Elaine and how everything was different now. Noeli hated X if it wasn't for him, she would have been a defender by now instead of a Regiment Extractor. Yet she couldn't forget the world he had shown her. While she had always enjoyed the Copiae Parallelae Ceremony, it now seemed pointless.
She knew the Regiment would never allow civilians to see the actual capacity of a true defender in union with a powerful Kaiser. She now knew a Kaiser as strong as Elaine in combination with a defender as great as X was incredible lunacy.
Every 100 years a Kaiser and a defender were chosen to balance The Power of the Regiment across the universe, and while it was easy to select a great defender, matching a Kaiser with her true defender was almost always unstable.
It was hard to imagine Elaine and X together in battle. One creating, and channeling power and the other destroying and consuming power from worlds away, and even galaxies as large as MagnusTII.
After the Race, they decided to visit one of the temple of Aries. Julia placed a prayer for them, meanwhile Bright and Axel talked outside, and Noeli watched the skyline get dark and the white moon appeared. She decided she did not want to go back to the quarters, instead deciding on walking the vibrant streets of Atlas12.
Noeli knew she was not allowed to contact Rio but underneath the resignation, she had shown everyone else in her life.
That resentment and hatred for X were all-consuming.
She wanted revenge. He was the single thing stopping her from being second in command to Elaine, and she would do almost anything to get him out of the way. Even if it meant showing everyone what he had done to MagnusTII.
Rio's words burned in her mind "His power is killing Elaine and if nothing is done he will do exactly the same thing he did on MagnusTII here but this time Elaine won't be there to balance him, all he does is consume her energy anyway. We must release her defender."
Noeli felt it in her very being; for once it was her turn to save her savior from the destructive force of X. as she trained harder in the simulation room.
At that moment she swore revenge on behalf of her hero, even if it would cause her everything, for once in her life she had nothing to lose.
*****
X woke up, he had tried to get away from Atlas for weeks but with the unusual, random black holes Elaine was destroying and studying, it was a high priority to anyone inside Titan3Y12 and all other ships.
Apart from that his mind needed to be ready for the next trials, he had been thinking about expanding the Box trial, but he needed to focus his attention on making sure Auraos and more importantly his Kaiser were safe.