Adam woke with a start, it was dead silent inside the house, no light filtering through the tinted glass of the room's windows. His heart hammered hard in his chest, and he rolled to his side reaching out a hand to find Sunny's side of the bed empty. He sat up abruptly looking over to where she should be sleeping but found nothing. His sudden agitation woke the SE exoskeleton which whirred to life with a soft his just as he was crawling out of bed. The whirring of the armor only increased when he hooked up his leg, which was the main power bank for the armor.

All this in under two second flat as he ran from the room eyes scanning the living room. When he found no one there he ran towards Kay's room horrified of what he would find. Dark images passed through his head where he imagined Kazna standing over Sunny's body holding Kay before she vanished. He reached the end of the hall and skidded to a stop as he found both Pancake and Waffles lying on the floor their heads resting against their paws.

The door to Kay's room was open and they were positioned so they could look inside, though neither of them seemed agitated.

He slowed and the hissing of the SE armor slowed with him.

Peeking his head around the doorframe, he did see a large shadow looming over Kay's crib, but luckily his own mother could loom however she wanted in her own house.

It was her right.

The SE armor quietly hissed off, and he padded across the room to stand next to her. IN the dim glow of a nearby night light, he could see Sunny's face outlined in a dim glow, and the expression upon it was one of deep concern. The silky, open robe she wore looked black in the near darkness, and cascaded off her shoulders to fall to the floor.

He rested a hand gently on her arm.

Below them Kay lay in his crib sleeping peacefully as usual, curled into his little ball chest rising and falling evenly.

He stood with her for a moment, before taking her by the hand and gently leading her from the room. As they left Waffles and Pancake did not move, staying where they were as if promising to watch Kay for them.

They made it back to the living room before Adam spoke, "You ok."

Sunny rubbed her face, "hard to be ok when your own mother is actively trying to kidnap your son."

He rubbed her back gently with one hand, "We can move him into our room if it makes you feel better." He didn't bother arguing about the security measures of the spiral tower. No one had any defense against teleportation as far as he knew.

Adam had looked into the idea of Kazna's portals, with the theory that what she was doing was not dissimilar to warp. When they used the Omen or any other warp drive they were effectively folding space over on itself and then punching a hole through the middle to appear instantaneously where they wanted to be, which was basically teleportation. However, his big brain scientists had let him know that that wasn't exactly how Kazna worked.

A warp drive will get you in the general vicinity of our target give or take a few kilometers or more, which is why you always need to make sure there are no large celestial bodies to close, lest you find yourself sucked down into a gravity well, or crashing into a planet. Warp wasn't entirely precise.

Theoretically , the scientists had determined that, to do what Kazna did she effectively had to create doorways from one dimension into their dimension and walk through those, but the ability to do that to unbelievably massive amounts of energy. Even an alpha 1 class warp core could not produce enough energy in one sitting to create a portal.

If she had a finite supply of energy there was no way she could use another portal much less keep it open.

Which would make sense as to why she hadn't used that trick since murdering Kelly. Now she was forced to walk around the same way the rest of them were. He had asked the scientists how long it would take her to build up that sort of energy, and while they couldn't guess at the kind of technology she was using. If she was using the most advanced technologies known to them, or the ability to smash stars together it would still take her a couple thousand ears.

Perhaps she had a better system than that, but that was at least comforting.

The void sucked up energy like a black hole, and that gave them a bit of an advantage.

He linked one of his arms with Sunny and rested his head against her shoulder, "We're going to be fine."

She rumbled deep inside her chest, and he could feel the unease radiating off her like a wave, "I would like to think that, but if something happens to kay because I wasn't paranoid enough. I will never forgive myself." She turned to look at him, "We were just Lucky that Naktan arrived when he did otherwise.... Otherwise I would have.... I would have given him to her."

The anguish in her voice was so poignant that she almost seemed ready to cry.

He knew she wouldn't but still, he wrapped his arms around her, "No you wouldn't have, I saw it."

They stood there for a while staring out over the Arcadia skyline before Sunny spoke again, "Speaking of that. I am still a bit fuzzy on how you showed up in the first place . how you knew where we were."

"You said it yourself , Naktan. The guy is..... weird. He appeared out of the smoke like he knew exactly where we were and then he sat down and had us meditate." Adam rubbed his head "It is hard to remember how it went from there, but there was something about reaching your center, and following the energy and.... Well I can't really remember. I only remember bits and pieces after that. I remember flying through the ash like I was supposed to be there. I remember being able to .... Sense things, like the way the ash moved told me where things were, and somehow I..... I saw Kazna and I....." He shook his head trying to clear it, but the memory was fuzzy and difficult to maintain, like a corrupted computer file, and then I saw you, asked about kay and passed out."

She was still frowning, "But Adam, I didn't see you tackle Kazna. I saw a cynderstryder."

Adam shrugged, "That I cannot explain in any way that would satisfy both of us."

"And what about that bright light?"

He turned her to look at him, leaning up on his tiptoes to rest his forehead against her, holding her face with both of his hands, "If I knew I would have told you, but I don't. I'm sorry I can't say any more than that."

Sunny sighed, but gave in.

It was at that moment that the implant on Adam's forearm began to buzz.

He looked down at it with surprise and stiffened, "No shit." He muttered.

Sunny turned to look at him, "What?"

"Smaug."

"Are you serious."

Adam turned to run to his room, then paused and looked down at himself before huffing. His pajamas weren't that embarrassing, he could probably just throw some shoes on and go now. He ran into their room and pulled on his boots turning to look at her as she stood in the doorway, "I have to go. Call my mom or Hijan to watch Kay if you want to meet me."

He pulled on a jetpack, tightening the straps around his chest and upper legs as he raced out the upper door onto the terrace. He heard Sunny call an admonishment to him to be safe before he was off, the jetpack roaring to life and lifting him off the ground and into the air. He could have walked, but this was the fastest way he knew how to move.

Below him the city flashed by still bathed in midnight blue light. Up ahead light from the spaceport cast a yellow tinted haze into the sky. He landed on the field with a shuttle already waiting for him. A young officer hurried to take his jetpack for him, and others stepped aside as he walked onto the ship. By now Adam should have been used to being treated like a celebrity. He was basically the president of arcadia but he knew for certain that he was never going to get used to it.

The shuttle left the ground with a rattle and a roar, and before long he found himself ratting upwards through the newly forming clouds and out into orbit. Arcadia didn't glow blue like earth or Mars did, there was no sunlight to illuminate its water, but from here he could see the blue glow of the capital city arranged in neat lines blinking below him in the darkness next to vast swaths of untamed land

Up above Arcadia's orbital space port rotated slowly, a giant wheel and some spokes around a main hub. The outside rotated gently to fit earth gravity while the inner concourse was artificial gravity only. And just beyond that, I the darkness of space Adam watched wide eyed as the massive bulk of Smaug spun and twisted against the darkness glowing white and blue from the inside.

The leviathan's massive wings were folded away, and Adam was both surprised and relieved to see the smaller form of malifacent, curled about the larger leviathan's neck. Stepping onto the station, he was led by two young officers to another shuttle with a large observation window, which they launched quickly and paused to hold position before the massive churning form of the leviathan.

Adam clasped his hands behind his back feeling rather silly standing there in his pajamas and boots.

Inside his head he could feel the massive creature's presence swelling up around him.

The last time Adam had seen the Leviathan, he had been recovering in orbit after crash landing into a lake on earth. No one was sure if the massive creature was going to survive. Smaug had still been recuperating in orbit over the moon when Adam vanished to defeat Behemoth, but had vanished some time in those two years.

Now here he was again.

The massive dragon turned in a tight spiral and Adam was given a panoramic view of massive scars along the side of the creature's body.

He was only relieved that they had survived.

"Smaug. It is good to see you well again, it's been a while."

Smaug's snake like body churned and flexed, and he lowered his massive head to stare at Adam, his single eye bigger than the shuttle itself. Adam almost wondered if the creature had gotten bigger since he had last seen him. Though, after visiting Revelation, he knew that Smaug was rather small for his species. Either that or he was rather young and not yet grown to the size of some of the creatures he had seen.

" A while for you, a matter of mere moments for an immortal. Though, it is good to see you survived behemoth. I see you have had a son."

Adam was not put off by the fact Smaug knew that. He communicated telepathically after all.

"Yes I have. I am hoping that this is just a polite visit with small talk. But I have a feeling the niceties are simply out of politeness.'

The massive body curled over on itself and the leviathan rumbled.

"It seems you know me too well. I have not come here to ask after your health though I am pleased to see you have managed to survive infection by the void." He opened his massive wings and then closed them slowly making no sound in the vacuum of space, "I have come to warn you.'

Adam didn't like where this was going "Warn me?"

"After waking from my sleep I returned to Revelation to recover, finding Maleficent and a war deserted star system."

Adam went quiet in shock, "The war rages in the cosmos, and every body is needed to fight. Almost ninety percent of Revelation has been forced to step away to fight this war, The void is powerful, and in the last few years Revelation has barely been holding the line. I imagine that is why you have not seen any of the Makers, and why no one came to assist you with Behemoth. As you were stealing the Empyrean Irsis, the fleets were gathering for their final push to the edge of the universe to begin the battle with the void which has now lasted for two years, and may last for an eternity if we an hold the line."

Adam felt his hands go cold as he tried to imagine something on such a scale.

War

Forever.

"Kazna."

Smaug laughed, "Kazna is a speck of dust in the eye of a black hole in comparison to what the Makers fight. So inconsequential she is in the grand scheme that she has been left mostly to her own devices."

"Then why are you here." Adam wondered, "If she's a speck of dust that makes me even less than."

Smaug rumbled again, "No. I assume now you understand the significance of yourself and those around you? How the Architect created a powerful subclass of Deus that could potentially turn the tide of the war?"

"Yes,"

"Well you could, but what Revelation does not know is that every time one of you dies, Kazna has been taking them, and attempting to torture them into a void form. She has already taken your Emperor Celex, and your dear admiral Kelly."

Adam felt his stomach drop into his pelvis, "No!"

"Yes, for two years she was sequestered in the dark, made to think that there was no life after death. In those two years I the void her mind has degraded substantially."

"How do you know all this." Adam wondered hand rubbing the back of his head, "The void cannot so easily keep its secrets, and I myself am inconsequential enough to go places I should not go. It was in this attempt that I first brought down the rage of the void upon myself. But it is no matter when the fate of an entire universe hangs in the balance."

"What am I supposed to do with this information." Adam demanded suddenly overwhelmed with the weight of an entire universe hanging by a thread.

"The Dark one, Naktan has given you the first steps. As a higher Deus your power is unfathomable. That body in which you reside is not nearly strong enough to hold your anima. Your power radiates around you like a curtain and a shield, it influences people and things without you realizing it." Adam just blinked ahead with confusion, "Your anima has simply been convinced to lie dormant, but with a little coaxing you can use it to the full capacity of any maker, without the need to die beforehand ."

Adam still did not understand.

"what are you saying."

"If you want to win this war and maybe tip the scales, you will have to learn how to access the anima.