The Almoons Festival was alive. Cheers of vigor wafted through the air, riding the coattails of tangible breezes. Weighted on each breath passersby inhaled, heavy as the fog that was still visible on the horizon, as unpredictable as the trigger of a human's gun, was the vitality that soaked the atmosphere.

You never knew when a burst of excitement was going to explode from down the path. When the patrias would shout and squeal their enjoyment of the celebration.

In fact, the second that Cynth's gaze settled upon the source, whoops and hollers rang out behind her.

The hibri had no clue that they were acclaiming their own demise.

Grass crunched beneath her feet as she strode closer to the lake. Each advancing step made her heart slam faster against her chest. Faster, faster, faster. An odd numbness was enveloping her body, as though she was drugged. Immobilized by the gravity of the situation at hand.

Around her, the forestry moved, like it was watching her. Like the whole world was watching her.

Another spell of applause settled over the land.

She was Cynth Leeyung. And she was so, so close to proving to the entire rest of the world that she wasn't just a purposeless sack of human flesh and bone who pulled her hair out.

Cybele reached out to Cynth and grazed her shoulder. Cynth expelled a grunt of annoyance, whipping around to face the Valloma girl. The metallic hood around her face swayed like spindly lightning strikes, a storm waiting to commence.

Cybele's hand dangled mid-air, unsure and almost untrying. "We don't know what the source could possibly... do?" The words didn't meet their intended tone, for they came out as more of a question than a statement.

Insects buzzed faintly in the background as Cynth narrowed her eyes blankly in her direction. "Valloma, it is a source, not an army. The source harbors away hibri magic, it doesn't just spit it out at will." Lips curling into her token relaxed scowl, Cynth turned to the lake, if you could even call it that. The 'lake' was no more than the size of her bedroom, but it had held the source.

And she had found the source.

A tide threw itself up into the air and slammed against the shoreline as Will tossed herself over the land. Riplets of water churned throughout the lake, but the source did not sink. It remained in the center of the lake, all for Cynth's taking.

Clearing her throat, Will hurried to brush her wet strips of hair around her neck. She was soaked to the bone after parading through the woods and searching for stray bodies of water, wading through them, getting out of them, and then repeating the process for the entire morning.

Will's comfort was none of Cynth's already-lacking concern, however.

"Why didn't you get the source?" she spat, words sharp and devoured by the power she was increasingly close to getting her hands on.

With widened eyes that were rimmed by glistening water, Will glanced up at Cynth. "I meant t — "

Cynth nudged her out of the way with the tip of her boot, though it was more of a kick than a nudge. Resigned, Will rolled over onto her back. Alarm was stretched over her features.

Not a shred of care, sympathy, or conscience was visible in Cynth's expression.

"Get over here, Valloma," she mused, but her voice scarcely sounded like her own. Not to herself, at least. Being near the source was an out-of-body experience. Cynth didn't need to have magic to feel the sheer power that radiated from it.

A twig crunched behind her as Cybele hurried over, brows furrowed into a wrinkled line. Once she spotted Cynth's piercing glare, her features contorted into a half-smile. After a few beats, Cybele questioned, "What do we do?"

Cynth hummed half-heartedly as she took the final step forward onto an arrangement of rocks. They jabbed at the undersides of her feet, even through the soles of her shoes, but in that moment, she could care less. The swoops of her black boots dangled over the edge of the lake as shining water burbled at the shoreline.

"We secure the damnation of the patrias and hibri, of course," drawled Cynth. She leaned over the lake, fingers grazing the pond. Each sweeping, rolling tide of water was illuminated. They were wispy flames of fire that danced and contorted underneath the sun, which adorned the sky beside smoldering clouds.

It was like the mother's embrace that Cynth had never gotten to feel when she wrapped her slender fingers around the oval-shaped pearl. The source fit between the crevasses of her hand, the indentions and the creases of her knuckles. So much power, all contained to one object, one rock, that she could hold without effort.

"We did it," Cybele said, but her voice wavered. Will, who had apparently recovered from the diving she had been doing, appeared at their side. Beads of water were scattered across her exposed skin, and the entirety of her clothes were drenched from the amount of water she had trudged through.

Cynth was tempted to say I did it.

Will and Cybele may have been acting components, but their effort was nowhere near as desperate as her own, not to mention the amount of drawbacks they had along the way. Though, balancing out the work between the three of them was far from Cynth's largest thought.

Finding the source and returning it to the humans wasn't something her family would berate her for. It would show them that the entire time they thought she was biding her time being a useless waste of space, that she had potential to be more than just a mere political pawn they liked to move to their bidding.

Cynth had to be more than that, and the source that glowed and practically breathed power proved it. Soon, the humans would be able to slam it into the ground, run it through with a knife, use a gun to turn it into meaningless ash. One fifth of the patrias' powers would be no more, and Selino would be for the taking.

She swept her silvery hood from her head. From the shroud, the delicate, silky strands of her wig cascaded down her back. An unpredictable gust, strong and sudden, streaked over the expanse. With it, the lanks of hair fluttered up behind her. In that moment, Cynth knew who she was, felt who she was.

Even with the fake hair she used as a cover, the people who would laugh at her if they knew the truth, she was still Cynth Leeyung.

Black, silver, and blue flared up in the air before the wind halted just as abruptly as it had arrived. Everything fell still. Too still.

Ripples of water ceased their movements. Leaves that dangled upon tree branches turned motionless. The source turned cold, cold like forgotten happiness. None of the three girls moved.

That was when they saw them.

Cybele noticed first, her mouth wide-open with shock. Her dark gold eyes blazed underneath the raw daylight. "Cyn — "

"Minor inconvenience," Cynth insisted, but even then, she knew the words were a lie.

The words were always a lie when five hibri and patrias had just arrived, fury dancing in their expressions and weapons swinging in their hands.

All of them were in a knotted line, prepared, determined to get the source back from Cynth.

Cynth's hand wavered dangerously close to her belt. A gun, one that could turn anyone who even looked at her the wrong way to ash, resided there, ready to be used. Yearning to free lasers from its barrel.

Cautious, Cynth dropped the source onto the grass-covered ground, where the source hit it with an absorbed thump. She kicked it over in Cybele's direction in a way that she hoped was discreet for all of their sakes.

Cybele sidled it into the pocket of her tunic, as deep as it could go.

Not at its safest, but not at its worst, Cynth resolved as she debunked the hibri bit by bit, dissecting who they were and what they could fight her with.

A jaguar maxi whose fur was a slash of black paint across her body neared with an airy, precise excitement around her. Two sharp-edged battle axes dangled loosely from her clenched fists. In order to get relatively close to winning a fight of this magnitude, considering how useless Will and Cybele were, Cynth would have to wrench those goddamned axes away from her.

Flanking her side was a caela, shoulders adorned by a leather jacket. Wind ruffled her dark bangs against her forehead with each step she took closer to Cynth, hands tucked away behind her pockets and brows lowered close to her eyes.

Daggers swung from the hands of a blue-skinned rana, her head adorned by close-cut brown hair that gleamed beneath the morning sun. Even approaching a fight, there was a playful glimmer in her eyes. Assuming she wouldn't be a problem, for daggers were easy to wrench away from someone, Cynth turned to the next hibri.

The next waste of space that Cynth registered was one with red leaves instead of hair that dangled down her waist, almost like something out of a fairytale. Each stride she took was hindered by her stump-like legs, which Cynth knew was useful to know. The faber would be easy to take down, if that.

And out of all of the hibri, the last one looked the most dangerous, the most critical in terms of a fight that Cynth knew couldn't be a losing one. Leeyungs didn't lose. Nevertheless, the hibri was another maxi, a lion maxi to be more exact. Brown hair that had been fashioned into braids surrounded her, a distinct canvas before her flicking tail.

In a level, yet commanding tone, the maxi eased out, "Hand the source over, and you and your friends can go in peace." A lie, Cynth knew. All hibri were good for was lying.

Fingers curling around the handle of her gun, Cynth took in a slow breath to fuel herself. "Peace translates to blowing the lot of you to nothing more than piles of ashes." The blue-haired girl didn't even have time to turn up the gauge of her gun, to change it from a yellow to a red.

Because she was already caught in the frenzied fray, and she had a sinking, overwhelming feeling that perhaps, just that once, a Leeyung was going to lose.

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The caela launched herself into the air, wavering above-ground. A knife was poised between her knuckles, prepared to be launched at Cynth. It shriveled the air into tendrils when it carved past the empty space, just like her wings which turned and rustled the atmosphere. The knife plunged into what Cynth imagined was a tree behind her, a mighty thunk ricocheting through the forest.

Yellow, whistling shots jumped from the depths of Cynth's gun, up at the caela. They lit up the area with the blinding power of hundreds of fireflies. And they missed.

One. After. Another.

Daggers still tight in her hands, the rana lunged for Cynth, slashing and aiming for anything that could make her blood spill. The caela moved overhead as the rest of the hibri made their moves on Will and Cybele, who were far-off in the clearing compared to where Cynth had moved to.

Cynth knotted her hand around the rana's arm, forcing her onto the ground. The grip she had around her gun fell slack, and her finger that had once been lodged between the trigger finger was free. It would be a while before Cynth got an opening to correct her hold.

Eloquently, Cynth cursed, "Fuck," as she fought to wrangle the rana. The rana kicked up at her, but Cynth returned the favor, ramming the front of her boot into her shin. Face contorting, the rana winced at the bruise-inducing hit, but did not deter from her given task to defeat Cynth.

The gun still dangled in mid-air from Cynth's clasp, pinned between her index finger and thumb. One wrong move, and it would fall. It would clash against the ground, and there would be no going back. Once you were unarmed, you were free-game. Free-game to lose, to take on, to destroy.

And Cynth was everything but free-game.

Desperately trying to cling to the gun while fending off the rana with her free hand, Cynth elbowed the rana in the stomach. It was a low-effort move, considering her elbow barely even dug into her stomach.

The slip-up cost Cynth her position as the rana flipped her, slammed her back into the hard, dirt-pact ground. Leaves and nature's debris cluttered her wig, but that was far from Cynth's largest concern.

The rana kneed her in the shoulder, and interfered with her grip on the gun once more. Clinging to the only thing Cynth had to protect her beside her wits and bare hands, Cynth threw up her leg and forced the rana lower. Her head slammed upon the forest floor. It was a millisecond of a distraction. Hardly even one at all.

But Cynth flipped the gun in her hand, tightened her fingers into the gun so tight that it burned to keep holding it, and slotted her grip over the trigger. Lasers that were a vibrant amber burned within the gun itself, teeming with electricity.

Attempting to right herself and get back onto her feet, the rana swayed, head likely still ringing from how sudden and hard she had been slammed onto the land.

"Nori! WATCH OUT!" yelled the caela's voice overhead, but it was too late for her. For Nori, Cynth now knew.

The gun leaped in Cynth's hand as the yellow bolt unleashed itself from the weapon. Sparks of the laser collided into each other, creating a shriek-like sound that dug itself into Cynth's ears.

An electrically-charged buzz still lingered through the air as Nori fell backwards, stiff. The capacity for her to move was gone, and for the next few minutes, she'd lay still and unmoving.

Another shout filled the air from the caela's lips. "Nori!" Panic ran rampant in the caela's eyes, but slowly turned back into persistence. She lowered her gaze on Cynth and drew a dagger whose blade was turned into a shard of the morning's light from the sun overhead.

"Oh, just cry yourself a river," Cynth simpered, slamming her finger into the trigger once more. As though a living creature had possessed the gun, it flinched in her clutches.

...And build yourself a bridge.

The source-stealing bastard crumpled onto the ground, frozen in-place. Her wings were still partially unfolded, legs rigid, and arms inflexible.

Two fuckers down... three left to go.

Cynth stood up straighter and jutted her head up, examining the carnage she was about to return to.

Will, as Cynth probably should have anticipated, had either been knocked-out or had passed out of her own accord. Even though handcuffs, likely indicating an arrest, were wrapped around her wrists, as long as the girl was out of her way Cynth truly didn't mind.

The larger issue that occupied the room was Cybele's daunting situation.

One of the maxis, the jaguar one, was poised upon a set of rocks, axes still clutched within her paws. The lion maxi wasn't so far away, circling Cybele and seemingly trying to negotiate. Cybele was backing up, farther and farther away from the group. The pearl still illuminated the pocket that she had slipped it into, a bursting pink that looked like candied fruit and pastel sunsets.

The faber was next to Cybele, moving her hands in an attempt to coax the source out of her pocket.

Seemingly having had enough, the lion maxi glowered at Cybele, and reached to grab the source from her pocket. With maxi manipulation, one brush of her hand would be all it took for Cynth to lose. And Cynth couldn't lose.

There was truly only one way for Cynth to get out of this with the source. And that was to cause a distraction.

The source was beginning to rise farther and farther from Cybele's pocket. Fraught, Cynth turned to what felt like the only thing she had been doing that day: shooting people.

Another laser, one that burned Cynth's eyes with its sudden, flowering intensity, lashed out like an unhinged whip from the gun. It jabbed itself into the jaguar maxi's shoulder, and just like that, she crumpled to the ground, head leant against a tree almost as though she were asleep. A young maxi who had just left camp to go on a stroll, and had fallen asleep on the closest thing she could find underneath the morning sunlight.

But it wasn't a stroll for the maxi. It was a nightmare, it was a paralyzation. One that Cynth had no issue with delivering.

Time felt slowed as the remaining maxi and faber turned toward her. Cybele remained with her back pressed against the tree, panic unmasked within her eyes.

The maxi clicked, condescending layers heavy upon her voice, "Oh, okay, so I have to step in now." She shook her head. "Bad idea, Miss Leeyung. Bad idea."

She began to prowl around Cynth, movements lithe as, fittingly enough, a cat. Her tail swished behind her with each step that she took, and Cynth slipped her gun against her torso, almost like she was hanging onto it.

She couldn't lose. She refused to.

The faber pushed away from Cybele and found a space within a clearing, sending a scattered glance in the direction of the maxi. The two shared an interlocking look, and just like that, everything in the world shifted.

Duplicates, clones, copycats, of the maxi sprung up, all peppered throughout the clearing and appearing ready to attack.

Eyes focused with concentration, the faber had just knitted together too many illusions for Cynth to handle. Too many fucking illusions.

Cynth had never seen so many, never seen that many that strong. Breathing became a task that should have been mundane and easy, but something was compressing her chest to stop her from rising and falling. A sort of numbness overwhelmed her, but she couldn't stop then.

Leeyungs didn't lose.

Cynth could never stop. She had to fix her posture, because it was foolish. She had to get her mind in the right place, because it was always wandering. She had to not be that dumbass back at the estate who did nothing but pull her fucking hair out.

So she slipped her finger across the gun and raised the bar. Raised it as the gun surged, turning the coils of yellow lasers to red ones. Lasers built of sweet honey turned to poisonous snakes, power, and assurance.

More illusions appeared, and the faber made a distant grunting noise that echoed in the back of Cynth's hearing. It felt like she was falling when she began to shoot the lasers, aiming for each fatally-moving illusion.

Some of them dissipated mid-contact, into nothing but the space that had sat unoccupied seconds before. Some of them remained, the strongest illusions that refused to fall. Each blast was blinding heat that blurred Cynth's vision. Even in the mid-morning, everything had turned a violent, deadly sort of blood-red that was scathing for her to so much as look at.

It was flash after flash, almost like the human bombs that Cynth had once read up on. Bombs she had read up on from a time so long ago, a time before these lunatic hibri had begun to become the largest thorn in the human's side.

"Ryne! I can't hold out much lo — " exclaimed the faber, voice pained and stretched with exertion.

As though they were smoke, the illusions vanished. Without so much as a sound, without so much as a trace, without so much as any hint to them even being there at all to begin with.

Finally, the faber seemed to have tired out.

Cynth bit down on her lower lip at the realization that the faber had begun to dwindle away from the exertion of holding out that many illusions. The majority of her right-arm had departed, just like the illusions she had animated only moments ago. The faber must have fallen into her subconscious from the exhausting task.

Lunging for Cynth, Ryne jabbed her hand onto Cynth's gun. The movement was diagonal, badly placed, and scarcely a good one, for that matter. But Cynth knew what it was for. She felt the entire world go sideways at the realization that she was irrevocably fucked at that moment.

And just like that, Ryne raised her hand and Cynth's gun was thrown up into the sky. She saw her last shred of hope get ensnared by slivers of sunlight. She saw it become encaged in the one thing that would soon be lacking in her life: light.

Maxi gravity-manipulation never failed to piss Cynth off.

"I told you not to have me interfere," Ryne mused in a surprisingly smooth tone for the situation. "Next time, pick a battle you can win."

The gun clattered to the ground so far away, so in-the-distance, that Cynth only heard the rustling of plants.

"Next time," Cynth snapped in-turn, "watch over your friends closer." She gestured flippantly over her shoulder toward the three of her opponents who had been incapacitated by yellow blasts.

"I could say the same to you, Miss Leeyung."

Ryne indicated the space where Cybele had been only moments before. It was now empty. Just like where the illusions had been.

The Valloma bitch had run off with the source.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Cynth's mind was reeling, her heart racing and her hands beginning to shake. If she didn't get out of there and find a doorway that led her to freedom, she'd inevitably pull out what little remained of her eyelashes.

"One more chance. You can come freely and help us find Miss Valloma and the source, or face the consequences."

You are mutilating yourself, Cynth. That's not a very good thing for our family.

The words pounded in Cynth's mind stronger than her lingering headache from the blurred lasers of the gun. They cut scars into her mind and left rotting trails of fear behind.

Surrendering was the final push that Zoya needed to get rid of her fully, Cynth imagined. Surrendering would bring shame upon the Leeyungs. Surrendering was something that Cynth couldn't bring herself to do.

Because it would prove... it would prove —

You're just a foolish little girl who pulls her hair out.

Body scorching with tension, Cynth only slipped a step backward and shook her head. "No... no. We humans... we don't fucking surrender. And over my dead, corroded corpse are you going to make me be the first."

Ryne shrugged and offered a simple, "Have it your way." Without giving anymore elaboration, Ryne reached for Cynth.

Cynth side-stepped, but it wasn't fast enough. Her legs weren't carrying her right. Her mind was taking in the things around her slower than they should have been. Bile, sour and stomach-churning, burned in the back of Cynth's throat.

Ryne's fingers curled around Cynth's hand, and that gave her all she needed to treat Cynth like the gun mere seconds ago. The maxi flung her hand up at her side, and Cynth went spiraling through the air.

Briefly, she was weightless. On a high with the lack of burdens piled on top of her as she soared upward. She wasn't just a girl about to lose a battle. Instead, she was a girl on top of an invisible throne. One that was about to be burned down, but a throne nonetheless.

And then she was falling. The weight of Selino crashed down on top of her, squeezing the little energy that remained within her. The trademark strands of her wig fluttered up around her, a halo of blue, gray, and black. Her hood wound its way over her head once more, and then she was on the ground.

She was on the ground, and her entire body was throbbing after being flung into the sky and then slammed onto the ground like nothing more than a child's toy.

Ryne stood over Cynth, staring down at her with eyes that had been narrowed into slits. "I can applaud you for effort, but otherwise..."

Cynth didn't have much left to give, but even past that she still slammed the sole of her boot into Ryne's shin. Ryne seemed, for the most part, unaffected, aside from a half-laugh that seemed more mocking than anything.

Ryne rolled Cynth over, handcuffs at the ready.

Everything felt as though it was being frozen, burned, or a sickening combination of both as the cuffs locked around her wrists.

That was when Cynth decided that the world was frozen.

A case of ice had just curled around her from the handcuffs with how chilled they were, how they dug into her skin like a knife through a wound.

The belief, the fact that she was being arrested by a damn hibri... wasn't something she could wrap her head around. She tried to over, and over, and over again. But it wasn't clicking. The idea of being stowed away in a far-from-clean patria jail made her stomach drop.

Ryne locked them shut, and just as she did that, only one thought resided in Cynth's head.

Her freedom was gone, and she was a pawn once more.

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Oh shit oh fuck oh fucky shit oh shitty fuck

IT IS CLIMAX TIME MY DUDESSSSSSS

Thank you for reading, and a serious thank you to the incomparable cressio for the amazingness that is this chapter. Like holy shit. Thank you Cress!!!

We ask this every time, but predictions? Theories? What do you think happened to Cybele?

With virtual hugs, purple Google features, and imminent ghostwriting,

Great Fucking Conclusion

(G.F.C.)