The first thing Erika sensed when she emerged from the Rift Lines was the assault of salt and clashing waves. She recognized this place before she saw it—this was where she'd been reborn, crawling from Alpha's corpse as testament to Edgar's triumph against perpetual storm and Omicron's previous Prime.
"Welcome to Rebirth Waterfall," Vienna said.
"This place has a name now?" Erika observed the location with strange, wanderlust suspense.
Memories of this birthplace appeared grainy in her transformed mind, but certain details stood firm: there had been no open-air lift or corridor of Omicron Ice fitted with semiconductor-threaded windows; no machines flying and crawling like worker bees—filling gaps, sanding edges, and giving finishing touches to this incomplete facility.
Yet the same sense of nostalgia couldn't be buried. She admired the rainbow-tinged mist rising from the falling brine and its prismatic shadows, then closed her eyes. The warmth of sunlight—filtered and diffused through layers of ceiling as it might be—helped wash away part of the Omic's stress, a blessing no matter how minuscule.
Shayara, positioned behind her leader, felt the same psychological allure. "When did you build this place?" she asked, still coming to terms with the primal longing this exact location triggered down to her very bone. "This couldn't have been put together in five days."
"We did create it in five days," Vienna affirmed as Thessa summoned the lift. "This facility is where the Omic creation process is refined and performed. Wonderweiss is putting his entire back into building this place."
The four stepped into the lift. It descended after a brief shudder, taking the group to an obsidian door that slid open with silent precision.
What waited for them beyond the threshold was a pool of glowing biosoup—liquid blue tanzanite captured in perfect stillness. There, suspended within a mechanical casket of clinical white metal, hung Edgar, naked from the chest up. Erika looked up at the Communicator, held aloft by a constellation of tubes and whirling injectors filled with golden serum, the way a defendant might regard a judge.
"Hello, you two," Edgar greeted.
Erika didn't think she deserved a hello. Behind the Communicator's smile lurked a litany of pain so visible it might as well have been a hammer of guilt. Shayara, equally ashamed, avoided meeting his eyes.
Edgar saw through their feelings. He'd already peered into every permutation of this conversation with his future refraction, and in every version they harbored too much guilt.
"We don't have much time," he told them, hurrying to get what felt like a root canal over with. "The procedure is about to begin, so just ask what you came here for."
"Already?" Thessa frowned at this sudden change in the timetable. "I thought it was scheduled for the evening."
"I'm sorry, Thessa, but a sudden surge in Planetary Energy makes this the best time to begin. Don't worry—I'll only be gone for a few weeks."
"What about Eleanor?" Vienna frowned. "Shouldn't she be here?"
"Already said everything I needed to say to her this morning."
Shayara, unable to tolerate the suspense anymore, cut to the bone. "How do you expect us to handle the recruits?"
Edgar winced at the thought. At first, putting his faith in these two had seemed reasonable; however, their visible mental baggage gave him second thoughts. Yet he decided to trust his instincts. "I believe both of you can do it. Didn't you manage to steal a ship from under me once?"
Erika didn't enjoy the joke. "Please don't mention that ship. I'm trying to forget the entire thing ever happened." She then addressed the core issue. "You're expecting me to deal with a former intelligence officer who went rogue and became a legendary outlaw. How do I do that?"
The Pioneer confessed, "No idea."
His sheer honesty froze everyone who heard his answer solid.
"What do you mean 'no idea'?" she demanded. Her goal of getting direction had just been dashed against the rocks.
"I think this falls under 'right person for the right job,'" Edgar explained, feeling somewhat better as Erika's guilty conscience evaporated in favor of rage. "Yes, you would normally have no chance against Helena Christy. But I believe circumstances this time will work in your favor. My best advice is—"
"To be myself," said the annoyed logistician. "That advice is so old they wrote it on wooden bark of all things!"
"That is the only advice I have," Edgar confessed.
"Will we be okay?" Shayara muttered as her leader launched into a rant-infused meltdown at the pillar of their community.
Erika eventually escorted herself outside the chamber, still seething at the quality—or lack thereof—of this audience. Yet none of them seemed truly upset by her departure; she hadn't outright refused her position. If anything, her rampant tirade over why this burden had been saddled on her proved she'd already accepted it deep down.
Otherwise, what gladdened Edgar most was that the Omic had, for now, forgotten about her guilt.
But if Edgar Shin had been honest, he would have admitted he wasn't as brave as he'd sounded.
This realization came only after the procedure began, as he drifted in a pitch-black void. The slow hum of the coffin and cold blue fluid calmed his nerves, while Wonderweiss's serum sent lightning through his system, blurring the line between dream and reality.
Countless questions, not enough answers. He was a blind man leading the blind. Chuck had never prepared him for this—his childhood had been spent modifying Penetrator ARs and shooting at practice targets, never in libraries among the wisdom needed to build civilizations. Alone in the darkness, he felt the hollow lashes of ignorance's chain.
He could only pray for inspiration—something to take him away from the creeping loneliness amidst the black conundrum.
Edgar closed his eyes, blinking through his daze. When they opened again, the lightless coffin had vanished, replaced by the familiar colorless expanse of the Realm of Consciousness.
Before the confused Communicator could reorient himself, a thousand choirs whispered into his ears. Color rushed back in sweeping clouds. He yelped as a sudden force yanked him backward into brilliant light. Gravity fluxed and waned like dizzying musical octaves.
His world spun as he streaked toward the golden plain of reeds like a human comet. With an impact so jarring and brutal he could only scream, he hit the field, exploding dirt and reeds into the air.
Edgar groaned, and to his surprise—as confusing as it was pleasant—his knee, once numb and without feeling, moved at his command.
He lifted himself from the ground, brushing dirt from his bare body, dressed only in the Prismatic Fiber shorts he'd worn into the casket.
The Pioneer surveyed the field of golden reeds scented with ash. He contemplated what to do. Without a guide or idea where he was, walking remained his only recourse. But mere steps later, a sound cut through the silence—a girl crying, ranting incomprehensibly across the air.
Edgar stopped, stunned into motionless stupor by the unexpected sound, then immediately picked up speed.
The scarcity of his Planetary Energy became apparent as he ran. Though the future still opened before him, he no longer felt the same speed or force coursing through his veins. Banishing this newfound vulnerability to the back of his mind, he moved through the scenery as a yellowish blur until he found the source of the escalating cries.
A girl sat hunched like an old crone, knees folded dejectedly on a rock. The first thing he noticed was her unique strawberry-milkshake hair and white clothes, speckled with death. Weapons were the second—ancient instruments of war: swords, halberds, clubs, and war hammers; an arsenal of medieval violence scattered like fallen leaves across the golden field.
Edgar didn't know what to think. The girl possessed the most celestial presence he'd ever encountered—not exactly pretty, but a noble, inhuman aura exuded from her every pore. Her eyes shone with divinity when they met his amber-brown. They also blazed with such unmistakable violence that he didn't even blink when she grabbed a nearby sword and took a swing at him.
And that was their first meeting: a topless Communicator, and an angelic girl whose first response to this stranger was to cut his head off after meeting his eyes.
Edgar had no excuse for his late evasion. He could only wince at his subpar reflexes, a result of his disabling period in a wheelchair. Only through the girl's clumsy swing did he survive with his neck still on his shoulders.
But there was no mistake; behind the amateurish swordplay lurked a suicidal force—raw strength fueled by fear, belief, and a primal drive to survive. This creature was no easy opponent.
Edgar decided to hold nothing back, refracting the future to gain an upper hand. A rusty edge nearly grazed his face as he rolled and found a bastard sword lying among the soil. Employing a self-taught trick, he kicked the blade up, swiftly caught it, and deflected her next blow. More flurries followed, ringing sonorously with every collision of metal backed by superhuman force.
The Pioneer felt no respite in this duel. It was a battle between two beginners of swordcraft with far too much power—each stroke slapdash, each strike lacking proper feints.
Yet through it all, Edgar held the upper hand, countering a thrust with a parry, opening a path to land a kick to her face which forced her back. She recovered quickly to block the disarming cut meant to finish the battle.
In all honesty, he had no idea how this girl hung on. He had advantages in muscle mass, Planetary Energy's empowerment, and future diffraction; yet his opponent stubbornly refused to fall.
Her roar of desperation, of desire to live, shook him to his core. But she was nothing compared to Alpha, not yet: her strength, superhuman; her character, harder than steel; but she lacked experience and coolheadedness. She fought like an unrefined berserker. This critical weakness allowed him to foresee another mishandled thrust, easily sidestepped, opening a path for him to trip her by the ankle.
Edgar watched his strawberry-haired opponent sprawled on the ground; only then did he notice the brand on her wrist—seven stars circled like a bracelet. He knew what the symbol meant. He had been offered one from Wonderweiss himself.
He reached out with a hand bearing an identical tattoo to this kin he'd never met, surprising her as she flinched in fear of a finishing blow.
"You are a Pioneer too," she said upon seeing his mark, desperation melting into hope.
"Regrettably. The name is Edgar Shin."
"Chárlotte," she reached for his hand. "Chárlotte of Wintérset."
The Communicator blinked at her introduction. "You're from High Terraria nobility?" he asked, helping her up.
"Fórmer noble," she answered. Her accent carried the musical lilt unique to High Terraria's inner regions. "It's a painful memory."
"That accent of yours—"
"Oi, I've always talked like this!" Charlotte protested. "Why does every single pérson comment on how I speak?"
Edgar debated telling her that her voice was rather pretty, especially how she lifted the 'or' and 'ar' sounds into gentle notes. But before he could, a rumble interrupted them.
Charlotte's face fell. "Oh well, here we go again." She armed herself with a sword and spear. "Brace yourself, they're coming."
"What's coming?"
The ground erupted. Black mud bubbled up, molding itself into warriors wearing horned helmets he recognized from ancient Earth culture; each bore rusted weapons that matched the ones the Pioneers held. Edgar would compare what he saw to a fast-forwarded recording of an exploding fungal bloom: an entire natural cycle of growth compressed into a single second.
It was how they found themselves confronted with an army that had once razed the ancient Old Earth city of London. Neither Pioneer knew of their foes' background, nor did they care. Those crazed eyes from the army of darkness, burning with sinful fire, occupied most of their concern.
Edgar, suddenly realizing something, stared at Charlotte. He suddenly knew why she was so hostile to everything that moved. "You've been fighting these things alone?"
"They die easy enough," she said with a gulp. "The number is the problem." She glanced at him. "Don't wórry though. You can't die here."
"Again, what exactly do you mean by that?"
They never had a chance to speak further. A tide of black and gray warriors drowned them in axes, shields and air-splitting inhuman war cries.
Edgar met their charge with his blade in a two-handed grip and resigned desperation. He struck low, opening a warrior's calf—dark blood sprayed forth. Its stench, a combination of old oil and a cholera outbreak, kicked him in the nose and made his eyes water, nearly costing him as an axe whistled past his face. Through gritted teeth and calm reading of the future, he held his blade in reverse grip and drove it through his enemy's foot.
The next series of events passed like a blur. His movements flowed one after another like a stream of water. He grabbed another creature's swinging sword arm while pulling his blade from the foot of the howling monster. He slammed the pommel into his new victim as Uncle Chuck had once taught him, followed by a thrust to the kneecap.
Edgar didn't know why his mentor had taught him knife combat. As a child, he believed range would do well enough, but he certainly felt grateful for the training now. He flipped the blade back into a proper grip and beheaded his attacker. He stole a glance toward Charlotte while in the middle of his parry.
What a shame such skill couldn't perfectly transfer to sword fighting.
Meanwhile, the second Pioneer wielded her spear like a blurring fire, leaving a pile of gutted monsters with every determined swing. They united, lending their backs to each other, knowing unity offered their best chance of survival.
After what had to be the fifth shield he had sliced through, Edgar heaved out a question for Charlotte as he slid beneath a hammer's arc. "What are these things?" he asked, slicing his attacker's leg.
Charlotte gasped, her spear broken, forcing her to rely on sword, dagger, and superhuman will. "I don't know," she yelled, throwing her knife with practiced ease into another attacker's eye. "They've attacked me since I arrived, returning no matter how many I kill." She gagged at the metallic stench. "And they smell térrible."
"How long have you been fighting these vikings?" Edgar parried another weapon, relying on his superhuman foresight and power. It was then he noticed Charlotte glowed like a dim lamp whenever she swung.
"It's not just vikings," she replied, blocking an enemy's strike in an eruption of light which she appeared not to be shocked by. "Before you arrived, it was men in tunics and bronze armor."
Edgar wondered for a second whether supernatural ability was a criterion to be a Pioneer; he would have to question Wonderweiss about this later. But now he had an observation: they were progressing through historical periods.
And then it arrived: the premonition of death.
"You must be kidding me." Edgar spotted the growing shadow beneath him. He didn't need to look up to confirm the boulder plummeting toward them at terminal velocity. He hadn't known these creatures had siege engines, but it wouldn't matter anyway. He scrolled through several futures, but with his nearly empty Planetary Energy, all of them pointed to his death.
Charlotte, so resigned she found her death humorous, chuckled darkly. "Here we go again."
Crunch!
A boulder larger than a house crushed Pioneers and vikings alike into red smears.
But death proved temporary in this realm. Edgar and Charlotte, in discolored glitches not unfamiliar to old videotape, emerged back into existence a hundred meters from their demise.
Both Pioneers turned green. The sensation of dying here lurched their stomachs like a rollercoaster. But what truly summoned Edgar's bile was the drowning depression; as if his memory and soul were dragged to a bog of darkness that upended his ability to speak or stand straight. He was no stranger to near-death experiences. He could even rank them; with the worst being the time he accidentally walked into a bathing Eleanor.
And this felt worse than lightning-in-the-face by several thousand times.
Beside him, Charlotte lost her stomach's contents on the earth.
"What was that?" the Communicator demanded an explanation.
"Like I said," the girl, who had endured countless deaths, answered. She wiped her soiled mouth with her sleeve. "We can't die here."
Not a moment too soon did the surviving vikings swarm toward them like ants descending upon sugar. Above, more boulders arced through the golden field, launched by hidden catapults in the distance.
Edgar's heart sank. He already felt the same dread of dying here waiting for him. His face turned pale at the thought. This was bad. He might have to experience that several dozen times.
Strangely enough, Charlotte smiled as if the universe had answered her deepest prayer.
"Why are you so happy?" Edgar asked dryly.
"I'm not," Charlotte's hollow assurance rang false. "I'm simply glad I no longer have to suffer alone."
And so the two Sovereigns descended into hell.