[The Soul Space, a battle of the inside—Their inner realms converge, and now they're being attacked by their own ugliness manifested as nightmarish creatures]
Jack shouted, lightning crackling around him. "Focus! These aren't just enemies! They're… us!"
Sonia spun, knives flashing, her psycho self lunging. "I've fought you before… but now… you're everywhere!"
Yyvone's threads glowed as she tried to bind the shadows of revenge and doubt. "Every memory… every failure… it's all alive. And it won't stop!"
Ian swung a sword at a shadowy blade representing his need to prove himself. "I thought I left this behind… but it's still here… it's always been here!"
Henry sparked, electric currents whipping. "And I'm supposed to surpass… myself… but how do you fight pride inside your own head?!"
Charles's voice echoed from the shifting library. "The dark thoughts… they're multiplying… every shadow, every warning… it's like they're feeding on me!"
Kennedy's brush-strokes became jagged, violent. "My paintings… my rejections… they're alive, twisting everything. There's no control here!"
Jack gritted his teeth, lightning flaring higher. "Clarity! I'll burn it out!"
But the beasts latched, claws, teeth, tentacles, sparks, knives—all tearing at them, overwhelming every attack. "This is too much…!" Jack shouted, staggering.
Sonia gasped. "We can't… fight it all… we're fighting ourselves!"
Yyvone's voice trembled. "And the more we fight, the stronger it gets…"
Henry clenched his fists. "Then… what are we supposed to do?"
Then—a spark. One small, quiet spark.
Jack's eyes widened. "Wait… I see it. The Affinities… it's not about control… it's not about fighting… It escaped. It escaped from what's already inside us."
Sonia tilted her head. "Escaped…? You mean… it's always been there?"
Jack nodded slowly. "Every living thing has the potential to evolve. These nightmares… these doubts… they're the chains. The Creation Stone doesn't give power—it frees it. Safe, unbroken… that's the riddle."
Yyvone exhaled, threads wrapping softly around the garden of her mind. "So we didn't need to destroy them… just accept them."
Ian lowered his sword, the shadows of his father fading slightly. "All this time… fighting myself… and I just had to face it."
Kennedy's painting calmed, colors flowing instead of twisting. "Every rejection… every fear… acknowledged, not suppressed."
Charles closed the library doors gently, the dark shadow inside bowing but not disappearing. "It's part of me… and that's okay."
Henry let his sparks settle, pride still there, but no longer attacking. "I see it… I'm still me… and that's enough."
Jack's lightning flared, not with attack, but with understanding. "We're not going to stop… because this is who we are. All of it. The dark, the light, the chaos… and it's just the beginning."
Sonia smirked, swinging her knife at nothing but shadows now bending around her. "Then we keep going. Together."
Yyvone nodded. "Even if it's terrifying, even if it's overwhelming… we move forward."
The nightmarish creatures dissolved, not destroyed, but accepted. Their inner realms stabilized, calm but alive, a reflection of each warrior fully embracing themselves.
Jack looked at his team, godhood hovering above, not disappointed, just proud. "We've faced ourselves… now nothing can hold us back."
Kainen and Koren, watching silently from the edges of the mindspace, exchanged a glance. Their expressions unreadable, but a subtle nod betrayed understanding.
Jack grinned. "Alright… now let's see what we're really capable of."
The Colosseum of Constant Truth still trembled from what Klexis, Noan, and Tarren had endured. Their breaths were ragged, their eyes sharpened—not because they had simply passed, but because they had broken through. Each boy dragged a piece of themselves back from the abyss.
Klexis stood straighter, refusing the three orbs that tempted him. He didn't need them. He chose himself.
Noan clenched his fists, the echoes of laughter and cruelty from his past softening into dust. He could let go—painfully, yes—but he could.
Tarren, still trembling, grinned like a madman. Cowardice was no longer a chain. It was his fuel, his hidden weapon.
And then—
A vibration swept across the colosseum, deeper than any roar, subtler than any whisper.
The Creation Stone manifested.
Not as a floating prism of light, not as the silent sentinel they had always known, but as a humanoid goddess—her body woven of pure Avian current, glowing threads of reality itself cascading like hair. Her form hummed with cosmic divinity, and yet her eyes—her eyes—were profoundly human, carved with regret.
The boys' jaws hit the metaphorical floor.
Klexis (muttering):
"...oh my god—she's... bad AF."
Tarren (wheezing, whisper-shouting):
"D-did the cosmic power of creation itself just pull up lookin' like that?!"
Noan (face red, half annoyed, half starstruck):
"Shut up, both of you—show some respect. That's literally the root of Avia you're gawking at."
The Stone's luminous form tilted her head, and with the kind of sass only eternity could sharpen, she rolled her eyes.
Creation Stone:
"You mortals are impossible. I unravel the cosmos, birth realms, hold the threads of existence together... and all I get is 'bad AF'?"
Her voice was layered—gentle yet booming, like honey poured into a storm.
The three scrambled to look serious.
Klexis (clearing his throat, trying to recover):
"We... uh, we didn't mean disrespect. Just... never imagined the foundation of all Avia would have... cheekbones."
Tarren (muttering under his breath):
"And thighs—"
Noan (elbowing him hard):
"Shut. Up."
But beneath the humor, silence fell. Because they all knew this wasn't play.
For centuries, the Creation Stone had been untouchable. Untested. The very embodiment of Avia's authority. But the Colosseum of Constant Truth spared no one. Not even her.
The voice of the Trial itself rumbled through the sky:
Voice of the Trial:
"Creation Stone... your trial begins. Even cosmic power bleeds. Even the eternal must face what they hide."
The goddess-like stone inhaled—though she had no lungs. Her light flickered with something unfamiliar. Not omnipotence. Not invincibility.
But doubt.
Creation Stone (softly, almost to herself):
"So... even I am summoned. Even I must confess..."
Her aura dimmed, then flared again, her form wavering as if her own existence was cracking under invisible weight.
Klexis, Noan, and Tarren glanced at each other. For the first time, they realized—this wasn't about them anymore.
This was about her.
The portal tore open in the center of the Colosseum. Its edges shimmered like glass soaked in starlight, its center black as memory.
The Creation Stone paused. A goddess of Avia, yet her breath trembled as though she had lungs of fragile flesh. She exhaled slow, then stepped through.
On the other side—there was no future, only past.
The air crackled with the memory of war. The Vortex Rebellion raged: sun-fueled warriors, their flames tearing through the skies, led by Octicon's voice like fire on steel. Amidst them stood Traxis, the war-forger, the one who defied all bounds. Reckless. Brutal. Efficient. A paradox walking.
The Stone's form shivered as she watched the old scene replay:
Traxis breaking protocols, bending law, shattering every rule the Council had chained him with.
Traxis roaring when the innocents fell.
Traxis losing himself, until Kainen and the champions were forced to seal him.
And yet—
She saw him break the seal, burn his life to ash, destroy the sun itself to save them all.
The Stone whispered, her light trembling.
Creation Stone (to herself):
"Traxis… you always said it. Authenticity without flexibility is tyranny. And yet… the Council feared you for it."
The vision shifted. After Traxis's death, she saw herself—her old self—standing before the Council, declaring the Avian Compression Standard.
Not a limiter. A medium. A balancing weight to help mortals wrestle with their contradictions. A safeguard so none would fall into the fire as Traxis had. A way to honor him.
Or so she told herself.
The Colosseum's voice rumbled across time and space.
Voice of the Trial:
"Creation Stone. You claimed it was honor. But was it not also guilt? Was the Compression a memorial—or an excuse?"
The Stone clenched her radiant fists, light scattering into shards.
Creation Stone:
"I confronted the Council. I screamed that they were wrong for casting him aside. And yet… I knew they weren't entirely wrong. His fury, his extremity—it terrified even me. But he wasn't wrong either. He was… truth in chaos. Chaos in truth."
The memory shifted again. Traxis, reborn in spirit, standing beside Devia—his new system. A framework of contradictions flowing freely, unshackled.
Creation Stone (voice breaking):
"And now he stands again. Devia, his gift. His rebellion. A system where one can embrace their contradictions without compression, without chains. People flock to it. And I watch, as Avia—the very current I embodied—is left behind."
Her glow dimmed.
Creation Stone:
"Was I right to make the Compression? Or did I only chain mortals because I feared what he became? Was it honor—or was it pity? Was it a monument—or a coping mechanism for my failure?"
The portal shuddered, feeding her doubts back into her.
The Trial's voice pressed deeper, relentless:
Voice of the Trial:
"Creation Stone. Answer. Was Traxis betrayed—or protected? Was your Compression a gift—or a leash? Were you right… or was he?"
The Stone's radiant form faltered, flickering between brilliance and shadow. Her voice cracked, for once stripped of cosmic certainty.
Creation Stone:
"I… I don't know anymore."
Her confession rippled outward, shaking the Colosseum itself.
The Stone in trial, visions flashing of present-day Airious.]
Stone (narrating what she sees):
"Look… they've embraced Avian Compression. Not as a burden, but as breath itself. They grow, yes, but more than that—they discover. Stillness became their second nature. Their Avia no longer screams for dominance, it whispers in tune with who they are."
Trial's Voice (cutting in):
"And yet…"
The vision shifts. A new group is shown—restless, bitter.
Trial's Voice:
"Not all bow to your 'discipline.' Some call your compression nothing but a cage. A limiter. Shackles forged by philosophy, keeping them from the summit they could reach."
Stone (lowers head—not ashamed, but acknowledging):
"I know their complaint. I have heard it since the first breath of Airious. Warriors, teachers, even the quiet ones in between—they wrestle with themselves. They mask their flickering Avia with false strength, but I see it. They struggle with who they are, and so their light falters."
Trial's Voice (mocking, almost gleeful):
"Strange, isn't it? That villains wield Avia with more brilliance than the so-called guardians. Why? Because villains do not lie to themselves. They are honest. Their Avia responds to that honesty—your heroes cling to morality, but morality has no weight here. Only truth does."
Stone (whispers, heavy):
"That is why compression exists. To reduce the harm born from raw, unchecked honesty. It was never a crown, it was a safeguard."
Trial's Voice (leaning in, taunting):
"But what if your safeguard is nothing but a crutch? What if Avia itself is flawed—broken at its core? What if it was never salvation… only illusion?"
Narration:
The stone does not rise in defense. Her silence is not ignorance, but recognition. For she already knew these doubts—the trial only sharpens them, forcing them to echo louder than ever.
But
She never faltered—not completely
The Trial's voice was everywhere—sharp, merciless, echoing in her bones.
Trial: "Avian Compression is flawed. Its very core is broken. Avia itself is never guaranteed."
For a moment, silence crushed her lungs. She could see the students in her mind's eye, forced smiles covering the cracks in their spirits. Pretending. Always pretending. Some of them had already defected to Devia, unable to bear the suffocating truth.
She clenched her fists.
Yes… the system was cruel. Maybe even wrong.
But it was also alive.
Her thoughts bloomed, bright and sharp:
Diamonds are forged under pressure. A seed is buried before it can sprout. Gold is refined only through fire.
She raised her head, a smirk cutting across her face.
Her: "Let Avian Compression be flawed—because that was always the point."
And in her vision, she saw them—students breaking through their darkness, staggering but triumphant. Tears in their eyes, laughter erupting from their throats. Joy. Real joy. Not because it was easy, but because they had finally faced themselves.
The philosophy had never lied.
It was never about perfection.
It was about truth.
Her (thinking): Before you grow outward, you must grow inward. Know thyself before you use thyself. Understand thyself—and crush whatever blocks thyself.
Her words rose, spoken now with conviction.
Her:
"It was never a limitation. Never a crutch. Never training wheels.
It was a mirror—a space to help us face the core idea of our existence."
The Trial's pressure pushed against her, waiting, demanding.
She stared straight into it.
Her: "What did you want me to do? Erase everything? Rewrite the philosophy? Heh."
Her laughter rang bold and clear.
Her: "Negative. I heard you, Trial. I heard your doubts, and I felt my own. But they're over now."
She stood taller, no longer weighed down.
Her (final thought): Avian Compression is flawed. And because of that, it is perfect.