Corey had never really been a fan of religion till he became a minister.

The idea of abiding by a set of rules created by fanatics who served an unseen being had seemed a tad ludicrous to him. And yet, he had become the minister of North, the nation of Code.

His sudden nomination for the position didn't surprise him as much as the fact that he discovered most citizens in the north had seemed just like him. They did not care about the Wills and Books that controlled every aspect of their lives. They just lived their lives as it came to them.

Corey crossed his fingers over his heart out of habit, suddenly filled with nostalgia as he stared into the holographic world in front of him.

It looked the same, even after five years of never letting the thought of the sanctuary cross his mind.

With careful steps, the minister walked past the ruins of a once great temple and lowered his hand back to his side, silently taking his seat on a broken stone pillar.

He silently wondered how many ministers before him had come to this sacred place in search of their Code—the creator of all they were.

Of course, he was here for entirely different reasons.

"I need your guidance."

For Corey the Code was his father, he had decided that long ago when the Order was all he had and the Wills of Law and Identity were the clay that he was modeled from.

The perfect leader, that was what he was raised to be, but what was he really?

He didn't think that his father would be proud of what he was now, doubting himself, willing to be captured just to get answers. He should be on the battlefield, carving the path to victory with his men, and yet he was here praying to a being that would never reply.

"Corey."

The sound made him jump, and he had almost expected to see no one when he turned around. But there he was, the man that had made Corey everything he was today, standing with his hands clasped behind his back and a warm smile on his lips.

"Father, I. . ." Corey started, his expression contorting into one of extreme awkwardness as he fiddled with his fingers and resisted the urge to cross them in reverence.

He wasn't a child anymore.

"You came for Dawn, didn't you?" The old man asked with a thin smile, his pale eyebrows drawn into a line as he stared at Corey like he was looking straight into the minister's soul.

"I came to pray." Corey answered without hesitation, his tone clipped and defensive.

"So you don't want to know where she is, what she has done?"

"I came here to seek guidance," the minister turned his back to the man and waved his hands at the dilapidated buildings that surrounded him, "from the remnant souls of departed ministers, or from the Code itself."

His father laughed and tucked his hands into the large sleeves of his golden robe. "How hopeful of you."

Corey's shoulders sunk as he levelled his gaze at his own hands, dressed in gloves stained with stray splashes blood. It was true, and it was pointless to try and deny it.

Hope wasn't something he had much of, even when he was here, dreaming.

He could feel the tingling sparks of electricity that danced across his finger tips quiver with each breath he took, even though air didn't exist in such a holy place. The power that raced through his veins felt subdued now compared to hours ago, like a flame about to flicker out. Each time it made a circuit through his body and into his heart, he could feel snakes of lighting striking into him, reaffirming his oath to stay true to his mission. . . killing him slowly.

There was no such thing as hope, at least not for him. . . not now of all times.

"I don't know what to do." The minister swiveled on his heel and set his eyes on the taller, much wiser man. "I don't know which battles to fight, and I don't know what to let go. . . who to let go"

"Dawn." The man flashed a knowing smile and Corey clutched at his left hand, wishing he didn't have his powers at all. It made this so much harder. It made the prophecy much more real.

It frightened him.

"I need her. . . ."

"And have you told her?"

The minister paused at the question and the silence stretched, going from a few minutes to couple more as Corey glared at the illusionary world in front of him.

"No." Sparks of blue and white flew in arcs around him as he moved a step closer to the other man. "I can't, you know that."

"Then there's not much I can do, you know that."

"You are her father."

The old man narrowed his gaze at Corey, his eyes brimming with bemusement. "And you are my son," the minister flinched and the crackling of thunder in background slowly died down, "no matter how much you try to ignore it."

"She doesn't need to know." Corey mumbled and flexed his fingers, commanding the lightning around him to condense onto his palm. "She doesn—" Conflicted with emotion, he looked up to see his father glaring at him.

"She does love you."

"It won't work. . ." The minister's expression twisted. "We're siblings."

The older man laughed. "Finally, you decided to say what was really bothering you. It's not this war, or the nation, or even the fact that you're a dead man. It's the girl."

"She loves me like a brother. . . if there is anyone she would want to spend her life with, it's Elton." Corey persisted, despite the growing ache in his chest.

"Elton is married."

Corey scoffed and turned away a step. "That doesn't change anything." Regardless of his efforts, relief still managed to seep into his tone.

"You're not the only one who loves her, that is true." His father agreed. "In fact, the reason I kept her alive was because of love."

Corey couldn't bring himself to think that the antiquity in front of him ever had a shred of love for Dawn, instead his thoughts drifted elsewhere.

"Don't tell me," the minister paused a bit to check if he should reconsider his words. "Damien?"

"He disobeyed orders and in doing so he changed the course of history. . . he convinced me of her importance in fulfilling the prophecy."

"And you killed him." Corey immediately understood the discreet undertone to his father's words.

"There is a price for betrayal."

"And what is the price for my betrayal?"

"Will you betray me? Do you dare to?"

"I. . ." Corey gritted his teeth.

His father placed a hand on his shoulder. "Stop thinking too hard, child. One day my legacy will fall to you and yo—"

"I'm dying and all you think about is your legacy."

"Do you want me to tell Dawn why you're sick every three months? Or the reason why you took out your chip?"

Corey winced as the grip on his shoulder tightened. "N-no."

"Then be a good boy and stop trying to be a hero."

The minister fell to one knee, almost collapsing under the pressure that swarmed him from his father's hand. His mind raced as he tried to piece together what was happening as he struggled to breathe, wheezing and glaring at the floor through teary eyes.

Time seemed to pause around him and suddenly he was in the middle of a valley, the scent of wheat tickling his nose.

"Save the capital and I promise on my title that I will give you and my daughter your happily ever after."

By now Corey had managed to raise his head and glare at his father, Dawn's father, whichever one the being was right now. "I'll always hate myself for letting you ever come near her."

The man chuckled and pulled on Corey's body, dragging the minister up against the force of his presence. "Every generation there must be a Roya and Draekon who intermarry. That is our law."

"I remember having a choice." Corey spat.

The man ignored him. "You are the last Roya, and of my children Dawn is the only human, and one with pure blood. You two are one of a kind, the power your child would posses leaves me speechless each time I cipher the future."

"Stop," Corey let out a tired groan and closed his eyes. "I'm sick of you manipulating people to your bidding. I never wanted any of this."

"You don't have much of choice, do you?" Corey was dropped to the ground as his father took a step back and dissolved into the illusion behind him. "We rule this world and any other you can think to hide in. . . Protect the capital, for the greater good of humanity."

The grassy valley seemed to sway to the beat of his father's voice and Corey regretted the fact that despite all his efforts to be different, he did too.

†

"Corey!"

The minister open his eyes, startled. The last thing he had expected to see the moment after he passed out was Rhea Lee's panicked face.

"Ouch." He winced as she threw a slap across his face, lacking the strength to dodge it.

"What do you think you're doing?!" she hissed, sweat dripping down her jaw as she glared at him, her chest heaving and breaths unsteady.

Her appearance caught the minister by surprise. Nobil didn't sweat, it was a known fact.

They were a step further that the Enhanced—humans who altered their genes to augment the dormant abilities hidden within them—and were only fifty percent human, at least.

They replaced part of themselves with technology, and for that reason they permanently lose the ability to cry or sweat.

Strange.

Corey now noticed her left hand as it sawed through the steel bars that kept him locked in his FCM. Her fingers were like long knives as they scratched against the surface of the metal, sending sparks flying into the air with each deepening cut.

The robot itself hadn't been damaged from the fall, but the fact that his father had managed to pull him into a dreamscape meant that its shields had stopped working long ago.

I feel awful. . . he thought, groggy as he tried to shake away his exhaustion.

The pounding in his head hadn't gone away because he slept, instead it grew stronger. He couldn't bring himself to remember what he had been doing, everything in his head was thrown up in a haze.

Save the capital. The urge bubbled up from deep within him and he got a good idea of the situation he was in. He knew that he was being controlled.

"Step back." He forced the words through gritted teeth and slowly raised his hand to the woman even though it felt as heavy as a ton of lead.

Rhea Lee must have seen the strain on his face because she immediately obeyed and jumped away, gripping tightly onto the bar she had managed to cut off.

Blades of lighting cut into the air, slashing furiously at the metal bars as Corey patiently extended his fingers to touch them.

He could almost feel the alloy bend to his will, creaking and groaning as it was hacked away by the arcs of electricity that curled around his fingers.

Suddenly tired and feeling the strain of using his powers when he hadn't yet recovered from his talk with his father, Corey clenched his fist.

The entire machine shuddered as the steel exploded outwards, digging deep into the soil surrounding the FCM.

"Are you okay?" Rhea Lee shouted, already metres away from where the explosion had occurred.

"I'm good," he answered a bit too quickly, holding onto his chest as breathing got a little bit harder for him. "How did you get here. . . When?"

"Answer my questions first," she replied, jogging back to the ruined FCM. "What were you planning on doing? And why did you power down your big bad robot?"

Corey winced as he pulled his body out of the wreckage in front of him, leaning against the skeletal frame of the FCM, limp as he wracked his brain for what to say. "Richard. . ." He suddenly remembered as his eyes scanned the clearing around him. "Where is he?"

"Here." A grime covered hand stretched out from beneath the ground, barely visible in the thick coating of fog.

Corey watched on, frowning as Richard crawled out of the earth, stray pieces of exploded shrapnel floating aimlessly about his person as he stood to full length.

"Corey," he flicked his fingers downwards and the suspended pieces of metal followed the motion and buried themselves into the ground, "I never knew you were Enhanced."

Corey's gaze darkened and he automatically reached up to his face, hopefully obscuring the Lord's view of his eyes. He had no doubt that they more than glimmered with gold after this little stunt of his.

"He's not." Rhea Lee rested her hands on her hips and stared down Lord Maudlin.

"Then. . . What exactly is he?" The Noble tossed an inquisitive glance at the minister then shifted his gaze back to Rhea Lee. "And who exactly are you?"

"I'm his doctor," she answered with a hint of sarcasm and flicked her wrist in the FCM's direction, "and he's a—. . ."

"Wait," Corey cut her off, his ears straining to catch the sound he had just heard. "Where is the thing that was attacking us, Richard?"

The  Lord reached behind his head to tug at his hair, his expression bordering sheepish. "About that. . ."

"I'm right here," the voice seemed to come from all around them, "is this where you all ask me to take you to my leader?"

Corey sighed and rubbed his fingers into the skin of his forehead. "I knew I was forgetting something."

He had forgotten that when his father dragged his victims into his dreamscape, time outside in the real world was three times as slow as the dream.

If he spent thirty minutes talking to his father then barely ten minutes had passed in reality.

And now I don't have the strength to do anything. He glared at the fog. Just great.

†