In the gathering dusk, Fiona stood at the base of the wall, the guild's balcony looming above like a gate to another world. She measured the height with eyes sharpened by science and spirit alike. Her muscles, tempered by Kyokushin discipline, whispered ancient formulas: force equals mass times acceleration. Yet her heart beat to its own rhythm, its equations written in longing and hope.
The wind carried the faint scent of flowers from the valley, mingling with the electric charge of the moment. She traced the curve of the balcony with her gaze, her mind replaying the lessons Archon and Dision had drilled into her under the guayacán tree. Potential energy becomes kinetic energy. The release must be precise, controlled. And yet, a flicker of doubt crept in. Could she truly make this leap? The height mocked her, gravity's constant pull whispering of failure.
But then, Camilla's image filled her mind, vivid and sharp, as if etched into the fabric of her thoughts. Her daughter's voice talking to her classmates, always so confident, rang in her ears: "Science isn't about what you know. It's about daring to discover." That memory struck like a supernova, igniting something primal within her. Her yearning to reconnect burned hotter than the fiercest stars, a gravitational force pulling her toward a future she refused to let slip away.
Her doubts dissolved like shadows before the rising sun. She sank into her stance, time stretching like honey as her body became a study in biomechanics. Her quadriceps coiled with precision, each muscle fiber storing potential energy like a taut spring. Her breath, controlled and steady thanks to Sensei Kishikawa's feather exercise, filled her lungs with oxygen-rich resolve. The world around her narrowed to a single moment—this moment.
Her mind wove the science she'd been learning with the warrior's instinct honed through training. She understood now: the leap wasn't just about strength. It was about timing, trajectory, and trust—in her body, in her training, in her resolve. The Muisca blood in her veins seemed to sing, echoing the courage of ancestors who once leapt across mountain chasms.
Do it for her, she thought, her gaze steady. She pictured Camilla standing on the balcony, waiting, her eyes a constellation of hope and forgiveness.
The instant her muscles fired, her body transformed into pure physics—a symphony of force and motion. She became a living equation, her trajectory bending through the air like light curving around a massive star. The wind rushed past her ears, not as resistance but as an ally, guiding her flight with invisible hands.
She soared beyond her calculated apex, defying both gravity and her own expectations. For a heartbeat, she felt weightless, a comet blazing through the cosmos, her potential unleashed. The equations she'd studied, the techniques she'd practiced—all of it fused into a singular, breathtaking movement.
When she landed on the balcony, it was with the quiet grace of reconciliation. Her feet met the ground softly, her trained muscles absorbing the impact with the precision of months of practice. She straightened slowly, her chest rising and falling with the rhythm of triumph. The balcony railing gleamed under the faint light of the moon, a witness to her small but profound victory after her crushing defeat.
Her fingers brushed the cool metal, and she smiled—a smile not of arrogance, but of quiet, unshakable resolve. She had bridged a gap tonight, not just in height but in her belief in herself. Her body was a vessel for the language of science, her heart a beacon of longing, and together they had carried her closer to the daughter she so desperately yearned to reach.
The universe remained vast and indifferent, but for this fleeting moment, she felt as though she had bent it to her will—not through defiance, but through understanding. And that, she realized, was where her true strength lay.
Tenza stepped through the balcony doors, her muscles still humming from the jump, her breath steady. But her heart sagged under the weight of failure. She had chased Eretz, pushed her body and mind to their limits, and still, the research had slipped through her grasp.
Newtonian6 sat in his usual chair, a serene figure against the cascade of holographic screens behind him. Patterns of light danced across his face, the glow of data streams casting long shadows on the floor.
She opened her mouth, the words forming heavy on her tongue. "I—"
He raised a hand, stopping her mid-sentence. His smile was gentle, almost amused. "I know," he said, his voice carrying the calm assurance of someone privy to a secret she had yet to uncover. "But what you don't know, Tenza, is that Sky… well, he always saw ten moves ahead."
Tenza frowned, confusion overriding her shame. "But I saw the data being erased—"
"What you saw," he said, leaning forward, "was a masterful performance. Think of it like this: while Eretz thought he was setting fire to our library, every book he touched was secretly being photographed and sent to a hidden vault. And not just photographed—each word encoded in ways even modern quantum computers would struggle to decipher."
Across the room, a guildmate whispered in dawning realization. "The Kerr-cat stabilization…"
"Exactly," Newtonian6 replied, his smile deepening. "Sky built quantum encryption into classical systems. Imagine a chess game where every piece exists in multiple states simultaneously. That's how the data is stored. Even if someone finds our backup, they'd need to solve a thousand chess games played by grandmasters, all at once, just to decode a single file."
Tenza sank into a chair, relief battling disbelief. Her body, still vibrating from her earlier leap, felt simultaneously weightless and leaden. "I never knew…"
"That was the point," he said, his voice tinged with pride. "The best security is invisible—just like Sky's mind. Always three layers deeper than anyone suspects. The infrastructure Eretz thought he used to destroy us? It was ours all along, transformed into a cosmic-scale photocopier under their noses."
"But the processing power needed for quantum backup on that scale..." Tenza's voice trailed off, the scientist in her grappling with the implications.
Newtonian6 laughed, a sound that carried both admiration and wonder. "Remember who we're talking about. Sky turned the game servers into quantum backup nodes. Every attempt they make to corrupt our data only creates more secure copies, scattered across the game network like stars in a hidden constellation."
He stood, his silhouette framed by the vast expanse of the valley visible through the window. The flower field swayed gently, oblivious to the battle unfolding within this room. "Some battles," he continued, "are won in plain sight. Others… well, they're fought in the shadows between binary and quantum, in the spaces between yes and no, one and zero. That's where Sky has always lived, always fought. And that's where he's still fighting for us."
Tenza stared at the screens, the cascading streams of data now imbued with a new sense of purpose. The brilliance of Sky's mind—his foresight, his resilience—was humbling. But it was also a challenge. She wasn't just here to execute his plans; she was here to learn to see beyond her limitations, to understand how to fight in those same shadows.
"Then I won't fail him," she said quietly, more to herself than to Newtonian6. Her voice carried a weight of determination, the echo of a mother's yearning and a warrior's resolve.
Newtonian6 turned, his expression softening. "You've already proven you won't." Then he laughed softly, shaking his head. "I've spent years deciphering the intricacies of quantum systems, but Sky? He's out there playing ten-dimensional chess while the rest of us are still figuring out checkers. It's equal parts inspiring and infuriating."
He gestured toward the holographic screens, the dancing light patterns reflected in his eyes like stars. "Do you know what amazes me, Tenza? Not just his foresight, but his elegance. Science, at its core, is messy. Trial and error, failed experiments, bad coffee at 3 a.m. But Sky? He makes it feel… poetic. Like he's not just solving problems—he's composing symphonies with the universe's rules."
Tenza leaned in, her interest piqued. "He turned the servers into quantum backup nodes… while also securing them against decryption? How did he even—?"
Newtonian6 raised a hand, a grin tugging at his lips. "Ah, now that's the beauty of it. While we were here running simulations and debating tensor calculations, he was quietly building a system that doesn't just protect data—it transforms it into something alive. Think of it like… a coral reef. It grows and adapts, using the very attacks against it to create stronger defenses."
He turned back to the glowing screens, his expression growing thoughtful. "But even coral can crack under enough pressure. And betrayal? That's a pressure you can't always calculate for."
His voice softened as he stared at the empty chair where Eretz once sat. "Eretz wasn't just a guildmate. He was family. Do you know how rare it is to find people who understand, truly understand, what it means to chase the horizon of knowledge? He had that spark, the kind that could have lit up entire galaxies."
Tenza watched him carefully, noting the shadow that crossed his face. "Do you think… he regrets it?"
Newtonian6 shrugged, his hands clasped behind his back. "Regret is a funny thing. It's just as unpredictable as quantum mechanics. Maybe he does, or maybe he's convinced himself it was worth it. Either way, the equations don't lie. What's done is done."
He let out a deep breath, his gaze returning to the console. "But if there's one thing Sky has taught me, it's this: even in the darkest equations, there's always a constant—something you can rely on. And for us, that's each other."
For a brief moment, he allowed a touch of humor to creep into his tone. "Besides, I'm fairly certain Sky set this up just to make the rest of us feel inadequate. I mean, who casually rewires an entire game's infrastructure to create a quantum coral reef of encrypted data while sipping tea and humming Beethoven?"
Tenza chuckled despite herself, the tension in her shoulders easing. Newtonian6's ability to weave hope into logic was its own kind of brilliance. He turned to her, his expression soft but resolute. "We'll rebuild. We always do. But this time, we do it knowing that even betrayal can't destroy what we've built. Sky saw to that."
The quantum communicators rested on the ancient mahogany table like obsidian sculptures—sleek, dark, and deceptively simple. They seemed to hold the weight of millennia in their design, a bridge between ancient wisdom and cutting-edge innovation. Tenza couldn't help but stare, both awed and unnerved by the gravitas in Newtonian6's voice as he explained their workings.
"These devices," he said, his hands hovering reverently over them, "are the culmination of centuries of human curiosity. Inside, pairs of entangled particles dance their eternal quantum waltz, communicating faster than light, untethered by the constraints of space and time." His voice softened, the awe unmistakable. "It's not just technology—it's proof that the laws of the universe itself can be turned into tools for connection. No interception, no interference. Pure, unbroken understanding."
As he spoke, the holographic displays came alive, projecting cascading equations that rivaled the complexity of the stars they sought to emulate. The artificial gamma-ray burst calculations spun like galaxies on the screens, while the railgun's sleek designs gleamed with the promise of power tempered by precision. It was breathtaking, the sheer scale of it, the merging of ancestral knowledge with modern discovery.
Newtonian6 paused, his gaze shifting to Tenza. "When complete," he said, his voice steady but charged with conviction, "this won't just be a weapon. It will be our declaration to the world. A proof that Latin America's legacy of innovation never ended—it was simply ignored."
Tenza's heart clenched. She felt so small, so impossibly insignificant amid the vast tapestry Newtonian6 was weaving. She wasn't a scientist, wasn't a champion, wasn't anything close to the visionary leader Latin America deserved. Her thoughts drifted to the words of the Jotunn of Fire: "A brave hero, a star of fire." How could she ever embody that? She clenched her fists, feeling the weight of failure before she had even tried.
Newtonian6 turned toward her once more, as if sensing her thoughts. "You know," he said, his tone lightening, "when Sky first explained his backup system to me, I laughed. Not because I doubted it—because I couldn't fathom the sheer audacity of his vision. A system that encrypts stolen data into noise, scattering it across quantum nodes in the game's infrastructure? It sounded like a dream."
He gestured to the pulsating quantum communicator. "But here it is. Real. Just like this," he waved at the screens filled with gamma-ray bursts and tensor equations. "We're doing what they said we couldn't. Not just playing their game but rewriting it. Do you know why?"
Tenza shook her head, unsure if she wanted the answer.
"Because we don't wait for permission," Newtonian6 said, his eyes gleaming. "Our ancestors didn't wait for permission to map the stars or build cities in the clouds. They didn't need validation from the old world. And neither do we."
He stepped closer to her, his tone softening. "You look at these equations, this technology, and you see a mountain too high to climb. But I see something else. I see someone who's already halfway up, who's scaling that peak with nothing but sheer will and the determination to connect. You think this is about champions, about fire and bravery. But the truth? A champion isn't born in a moment of triumph—they're forged in the quiet struggle, in the nights spent carving equations into the floor until their fingers bleed."
Tenza felt her breath catch. The weight of his words settled over her like the night sky, vast and endless. She wanted to believe him, but the doubt still lingered, a shadow she couldn't shake.
Newtonian6 didn't push further. He turned back to the displays, his voice carrying the weight of history. "Our ancestors left us more than ruins. They left us dreams encoded in stone, in mathematics, in the stories they told under the stars. And now, it's our turn. To take those dreams and turn them into something the universe can't ignore."
The room fell silent, save for the soft hum of the quantum communicator, its pulse like a heartbeat syncing with the rhythm of the drums that once echoed through the temples of Tenochtitlan. Tenza's gaze lingered on the holograms, on the fusion of past and future. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a flicker of possibility stirred. She wasn't the champion Latin America deserved—not yet. But maybe, just maybe, she could become the bridge between the stars and the earth, between failure and redemption.
Newtonian6 didn't say it, but she could feel it in the way he looked at her, in the weight of his words. He believed in her. And someday, she hoped she'd believe in herself too.
Newtonian6 placed the quantum communicators in her hands, their weight far heavier than their physical mass. They felt alive, humming faintly with the eternal dance of entangled particles, tangible proof of the collaborative genius of the guild.
"These are your tools now," he said, his voice low but resolute. "We'll continue the research for the hollowed saber here. But out there…" His eyes met hers, steady and unyielding. "Out there, it's your turn. Your fight. Sky planned this heist for a reason, and if anyone can carry it forward, it's you."
The guild gathered at the hall's entrance, their faces illuminated by the faint blue glow of the devices. One by one, they nodded, offering silent prayers, wishes, or perhaps just quiet hope for her success. For a moment, the room felt like a temple, and she was the bearer of their collective faith.
As Tenza stepped outside, the wind met her like an old friend, cool and cleansing after the storm. The sky, now washed clear of its turmoil, stretched infinitely above her, the blue moon casting a silvery path through the flower-dusted valley. The quantum communicators pulsed faintly in her pack, their soft rhythm syncing with her heartbeat as she made her way to the teleportation shrine.
Her thoughts drifted, unbidden, to Bairon. She had only fragmented memories of him—stories told to Camilla when she was a child, faint echoes of a man whose name was synonymous with sacrifice. What would have happened if Bairon had someone like Sky? A mind that planned ten moves ahead, a strategist who could turn a game into a battlefield and a battlefield into an opportunity. Would Bairon still be alive? Would Camilla have known her father, instead of carrying his absence like a shadow?
Her steps quickened as her thoughts deepened. The heist Bairon attempted had been for gold—currency to build a better future for Camilla, a future where poverty would never again lay its cold hands on her. But her heist… hers wasn't about money or survival. It was about taking tools, the very means to stand against the ones who tightened the chains of the world. They weren't stealing wealth; they were stealing the right to fight back, to reclaim agency over their futures.
The moonlight glinted off the path ahead, and she wondered if Bairon had felt the same mix of fear and purpose that now coursed through her veins. Did he feel this weight, this strange balance between hope and dread, when he took his first steps toward his heist? Did he know the stakes, that his failure would ripple through time to reach her now?
The wind brushed her face, carrying with it the scent of wet earth and the faint hum of the guild hall behind her. She slowed her pace, letting the weight of her thoughts settle into her steps. Bairon hadn't been alone in his heist, she realized. He'd carried Camilla's future with him, the same way she now carried Camilla's name in her heart. Their paths were different yet deeply intertwined—a parent's desperate gamble for a child's brighter tomorrow.
As she approached the teleportation shrine, its crystalline spires glowing faintly under the moonlight, she tightened her grip on her resolve. The tools in her pack weren't just for the heist—they were for everything that came after. For Camilla. For every unseen hand raised against a force too great to face alone.
Her muscles ached from the jump, her lungs from the run, but her spirit felt lighter. Under the blue moon, with the cool wind at her back, she allowed herself a small, fleeting smile. This wasn't just a heist—it was a declaration. She would do what Bairon couldn't. She would finish what he started. Not for gold, not for power, but for the tools to carve a new path through the twisted geometry of the world.
And as the shrine's light enveloped her, she thought of Camilla, of her daughter's brilliance, her strength. She wondered if one day, Camilla would look back and understand—not just the sacrifices, but the purpose behind them. The thought stayed with her as the teleportation sequence began, carrying her toward the next step in Sky's plan, and her own impossible journey.