Careful Not To Break Reality

'Do something!' Seeing Rydel making his escape, even Sir Deva has lost his usual cool. Lady Lily shook her head as the chains of artifact usage one after another through the combination of Rydel, Valerie and Zel's made a sweet escape, and they all vanished from the scene, with Rydel scooping up Dolon's body in the end.

After that, the soldiers stopped firing, but looked towards Lady Lily instead without making a single sound. They feared that she might enter one of her outbursts yet again. As her shoulders go up and down with each accelerated and shortened breath, Sir Deva stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.

She looked up into the stars above, and remained still.

'Let's go.' Sir Deva said, and she turned in place, breaking free of Sir Deva's touch and headed back towards the ship, with everyone else following. The return journey was an awkward voyage with little talk, and everyone on the ship made sure not to cross Lady Lily, or they risk finding their arms attached to their knees all of a sudden. Within the meeting room of the ship, Sir Deva came in soon after Lady Lily called upon him for a meeting, and the room darkens as he slid the door close and sealed it.

After he took a seat, the hologram of the leader of Absolute Being Zero was shown and projected up in the air.

'Report.' He said, looking directly at the two.

'We have lost three artifacts from within our grasps today.' Lady Lily wasted no time getting to her complaint, 'I don't understand, master, why did you allow him to roam free from within the academy? Now look what has happened! This could set us back for days!'

'Think the long game, Lily.' Zero didn't mind the tone of Lady Lily at all, but instead he welcomed the challenge. He had no intentions of fighting over egotistical grounds, 'we want all of the artifact users to be ready and strong when the war arrives, and some degree of internal conflict is good for growth for both of us.'

'And I am just supposed to keep losing for the sake of their...character growth?'

'No, you are also going to grow from it.' Zero shook his head, 'Now you know, when rules needed to be bent.'

'What?'

'The rules I set out, the ones that you and Deva has followed diligently, the ones that lead you to this point in time. You have followed it so perfectly, and my orders were merely another constraint for you to work with. I wanted you to know what things you can change and play with, and what things you can't.'

'It appears to me that you have played the part perfectly.'

Despite the compliment, Lady Lily still bit into her lips with rage and anger and didn't say anything.

'You have figured out how to get what you want, despite the unreasonable rules and constraints.' Zero continued to explain, 'you can't say that you didn't grow from this.'

'At the cost of three artifacts? I would rather not grow then!' Lady Lily shot back, and Sir Deva looked at her sharply.

Zero smiled and said, 'Don't be silly, Lily. There isn't a time not to grow here.'

'I...I apologize...' Realizing what she has just said really goes against everything the organization has set out to do, Lady Lily bowed down her head and waited for Zero's forgiveness.

'I know why you are upset, Lily.' Zero said, 'but this shallow victory of their won't matter in the long run. For the next stages of your mission, Lily, you are to remain here at the academy and perfect the various pseudo-artifacts for further use. Then, you will go with Sir Deva and look for two other newly activated artifacts in the wild regions, and one roaming around still.'

'There are three more?!' Sir Deva couldn't believe what he has heard.

'Yes, I can only tell you the rough locations of the two, but the actual detailed locations are up to you two to figure out. As for the third one, I suggest you complete the pseudo-artifact for my artifact first before using it to find he/her.'

'That could take some time...'

'I trust you can do it, Lily. That is all.'

'Yes, master.' The two nodded deeply, seeing this as a chance to redeem themselves.

'After securing the two artifacts, you shall come towards the galactic capital and join me as we prepare for the election. From then on, it's time for us to step onto the galactic stage, where we belong!'

As the hologram of Zero's image disappeared and the gentle lighting illuminated the room, Lady Lily looked over to Sir Deva, and shrugged.

'Somehow, master didn't care about the three lost artifacts.'

'If we can get three more here, it won't matter...' Sir Deva replied, 'but at least we knew how Valerie got out of there.'

'It's all Zel's fault!' Lady Lily gritted her teeth, 'he is the one who started it all, and he was always there to screw things up! I should have killed him when I had the chance!'

As Valerie planned her escape by laying the entire house with explosives and faking their deaths, Zel was the one sneaking them out of the room and bring them onto the ship and out of the planet without anyone knowing any better. And just like that, one of the twenty reality warping artifacts was gone from their hands.

'If you believe that, why didn't you bring that up to master?' Sir Deva isn't one to shy away from asking the burning questions, and Lady Lily glared at him for that.

'Master believes that those chosen by the artifact initially has the right to hold onto it, until a more worthy foe showed themselves, but Rold seemed fine wielding two artifacts at the same time without any consequences!'

'Any consequences that we can see in the short term. He might be dead for all we know.' Sir Deva corrected, and took on yet another round of glaring from the beauty in front of him.

'Unlikely, but irrelevant now.' Lady Lily said, 'How did Zel slip through your hands before though?'

'Well, that's a story for another time...' Sir Deva said, 'I will tell you once we have time to sit down and chat for a bit.'

'I guess that may have to wait for a while....' Lady Lily looked over to the side, and saw the coordinates sent over by Zero. Within there, the two newly activated artifacts are located in two different areas within the wild regions. One of them is located dead in the center of the Black Pegasus's region, which should be incredibly easy to get to. The other is located far out in the edge of the regions of the Red Dragons, near the end of known space. The already activated third artifact was in the middle of nowhere, with no visible planets in sight.

This person is probably travelling on a rogue space ship or unregistered space station somewhere. It is true that without pseudo-artifacts of Zero's artifact, there would be little chance of them knowing where they are.

But this is way easier said than done, as Lady Lily has barely cracked the surface of the mountains of data and instructions left behind by Zero before he left.

'Guess we will cross one bridge at the time.' Lady Lily said, 'I will get the academy to start working on the pseudo's, and then we will march on the one in the Red Dragons as soon as we can.'

'Why don't we start with the one in Black Pegasus as soon as we can, since it's so much closer?'

'Look at where it is.' Lady Lily enhanced the image, and Sir Deva immediately understood what she was saying. The location Zero has offered them is near that of the cl.u.s.ters of black holes, 'too risky for now. Too many things to consider with that. Let's start with the more annoying, but simpler task.'

'Like things with artifact users are ever easy.'

'True.' Lady Lily said, swiping away the map in front of her and went closer towards Sir Deva, putting an arm around his neck 'But for now, let's put those things behind us and let me just enjoy life a little.'

'Lady Lily...'Sir Deva was a little caught off guarad by her unpredictability, where she could and have snapped at him just out of the blue. But it seemed like she wanted to cheer up a little, and he would happily oblige. He isn't one that will ever refute her beauty, when he was the one falling for her for all these years.

As he closed his eyes when their lips met, Lady Lily kept her eyes open and stared at the projector where Zero's image was once shown, and with the twist of her brush, she turned it to dust.