November 20th, 2032—Alma's nineteenth birthday… though, in truth, his ninety-second.
Jasmine had made sure it mattered.
She had bought him several gifts, each chosen with a quiet kind of care: a hat embroidered with the words Best Dad, a new leather wallet, and an expensive wristwatch she had clearly spent far too long deciding on. Alma smiled as he accepted them, genuinely and without restraint. It had been years—long, lonely years—since he had celebrated a birthday with family, or with anyone at all. Jasmine knew that. She knew it well enough to want his day to feel full, to feel warm, to feel real.
Max, on the other hand, approached gift-giving in his own way.
He presented a self-tying tie, a pair of dark black boots capable of adhering to nearly any surface, and an even more advanced version of the cellphone he had sold Alma days earlier. Where Jasmine's gifts carried emotional weight, Max's carried ingenuity—each item extraordinary, each one humming with potential.
Alma accepted everything with a wide smile, touched by both kinds of love, and let the day move forward.
At Alma's suggestion, they went to a small Mexican restaurant tucked along a busy street. He had wanted something authentic—something that might remind him, even faintly, of his parents' cooking. And while the food was undeniably good, rich with spice and warmth, it fell short of what he remembered. It wasn't his cooking. It certainly wasn't his parents'.
Still, they left satisfied, full, and smiling—though Alma's smile lingered with a trace of something heavier beneath it.
From there, they wandered to a nearby park, walking its winding paths for hours. They passed animals, stopped to feed some of them, and eventually settled onto a bench overlooking a lake. This was how Alma relaxed now—retreating into quiet places after everything that had happened. October 31st. Echo. Max's adoption. Only one of those had brought him unfiltered joy, and even that carried its own weight.
This, at least, was peace.
The sun dipped low, setting the lake ablaze with gold and amber. Autumn trees swayed gently in the breeze, their leaves whispering to one another. Nature, unbothered and indifferent, was at its most serene.
Beside him, Jasmine broke the silence.
"How was your day, Dad?"
Alma glanced at her, then back to the view stretching endlessly before him. On his other side sat Max, legs dangling off the bench, feet swaying in idle rhythm.
"It was the best day of my life," Alma said softly, turning back to Jasmine and patting her head.
She smiled and leaned into him. Alma returned his gaze to the lake—and fell into thought.
Was it truly the best day of his life?
In his heart, he knew it was. In his mind, he knew it was a contender. Memories surfaced unbidden—his parents, the laughter, the warmth, the fleeting joy of a life long gone. No matter how hard he tried to push them aside, they returned, persistent and vivid.
He wanted to remember them as legends, as cornerstones of a past that shaped him. But he also wanted to forget that past entirely—the trauma, the despair, the endless loss. He needed to move forward carrying only what was good.
And yet, he never truly could.
Letting go was not something Alma had ever been good at.
The thought gnawed at him. Not just for his sake—but for theirs. For his children. If he allowed these thoughts to fester, to boil over, they could harm the very people he wanted to protect. But where did he even begin? How much of himself would remain if he let go? His identity had been built atop his parents. Forgetting them felt like forgetting himself—and forgetting himself felt like leaving his children with nothing solid to stand on.
Another memory surfaced.
This habit—retreating into nature to think—was something he had inherited from his father. Whenever stress threatened to overwhelm him, his father would walk into the forest, not to escape his problems, but to confront them. It was a reset. A reckoning.
So Alma retraced his steps, reviewing the events of his recent life as a father of two.
Halloween was slowly losing its grip on him. Max's adoption was only four days old, and it filled him with quiet anxiety—was he enough? Could he be the father Max needed? And Echo… Echo would not fade so easily.
"Dad?" Max asked quietly.
Alma turned, startled to find the park shrouded in darkness. Somehow, three hours had passed unnoticed, the sun long since gone.
"Oh—sorry," Alma said softly. "I was… lost in thought."
Max nodded, then stood. "I'm hungry again. Can we get tacos from that truck that's always open on the way home?"
Alma shook his head immediately. "No. I don't trust those people. It's either homemade or from a restaurant. At least then, if you get food poisoning, you can sue them."
Max nodded, gazing up at him with unmistakable admiration.
Alma turned to Jasmine, who seemed just as distant as he had been moments ago. He tapped her shoulder, pulling her back.
"Father?" she asked, blinking.
Alma smirked. "Yes. It is I—your faatha."
She groaned softly, then suddenly noticed the darkness around them and sprang to her feet.
"What time is it?!"
Alma checked the watch she'd given him. "Nine thirty-eight."
Jasmine stared past him, murmuring, "I can't believe I was… there for so long."
"What was that?" Alma asked.
"Oh—nothing. Let's go home." She took his hand.
They followed the trail back toward Max, who was already ahead.
"Come on, slowpokes! I'll be eighty by the time we get home!"
"Actually," Alma called back, "you'd only be seventy-nine."
Max muttered something unintelligible—and then froze as a branch snapped somewhere deep in the forest.
"…On second thought."
He sprinted back, hiding behind Alma.
"Whoa," Jasmine said, "what's got you so scared?"
His gaze remained locked on the exact place where he had heard the sharp crack of wood splintering beneath unseen weight, his body tense and unmoving as the forest itself seemed to hold its breath. Moments later, a deer cautiously stepped out from the shadows, its muscles coiled and ready, before bolting across the clearing and vanishing into the opposite stretch of trees. Max exhaled deeply, the tension draining from his shoulders as a nervous laugh escaped him, and he cracked a sheepish smile at his own overreaction.
"Nothing," Max said, straightening himself and forcing confidence into his voice, "I just figured I'd walk with you two slow heads."
"Uh-huh," Jasmine replied, smiling knowingly at him. "Sure, pal."
A brief silence settled over the three of them as they continued along the darkened trail, broken only by the sound of their footsteps and the distant rustling of leaves, until Max finally spoke again.
"But seriously," he added, rubbing his stomach, "can we eat something? I'm starving."
---
November 25th, 2032 — Thanksgiving Day.
Alma had gone out of his way to prepare a proper meal, one that felt abundant and full rather than improvised or hurried. He had bought a large ham, stuffing, and an oversized container of potato salad, then prepared buttered rolls and deviled eggs alongside mashed potatoes and thick, homemade gravy. One by one, he placed the plates on the table, arranging drinks and saucers with careful attention, ensuring everything was ready before calling them over.
"Do you want to say a prayer with us, Max?" Alma asked gently.
"A prayer?" Max echoed, uncertainty flickering across his face.
"Yeah," Jasmine added softly. "To show our gratitude to God."
Max's expression tightened with worry. It had only been nine days since he had even been introduced to the Bible—let alone the idea of God, prayer, or speaking aloud to something unseen.
"You don't have to if you don't want to," Alma said reassuringly, squeezing Max's shoulder. "But if you do, just say what's in your heart."
They took their seats at the table, and after a moment's hesitation, Max chose to participate—not out of pressure, but from a genuine desire to try. Alma reached out, taking their hands, and together they formed a triangle across the table, arms crossed and eyes closed.
"Lord," Alma began, his voice steady and sincere, "we thank you for this great meal we are about to indulge in. We honor your grace, we praise your love, and we appreciate what you have done—not just for this day, but for all the days of our lives."
"Lord," Jasmine continued, her tone soft yet resolute, "watch over us at all times, in the brightest light and in the darkest shadows. Protect us from all things evil, find our sins and banish them forever, and remain over us to guide us and love us."
"Lord," Max said nervously, stumbling over his words, "I—uh—we pray that you, uh, watch over us, and… protect us from the forces of evil, and… be there for us in our time of need. Uh… a-amen."
"Amen," Alma said.
"Amen," Jasmine echoed.
With the prayers finished, they began to eat.
Despite the warmth of the moment, Max felt the familiar ache settle in his chest—the quiet sadness of yet another Thanksgiving spent without his parents. Jasmine felt something similar, though for different reasons. And even with Alma's overwhelming presence, fulfilling both parental roles with unwavering care, there remained a hollow space neither of them could fully ignore.
After the meal, Alma let Max use Mike to clean the dishes, and with the rest of the day free, he found himself restless. Sitting idle didn't sit right with him. He wandered toward Max's makeshift workshop—an old wooden table reinforced with beams, a mismatched slab of wood serving as a chair, and a blueprint laid carefully at the center. Pencils and blue pens surrounded it, alongside scattered wrenches, ratchets, sockets, and pliers.
Above the workspace hung a massive replica of Saturn—Max's favorite planet—and beside it, a detailed model of the first airplane ever to fly. Both looked astonishingly real, preserved with such precision that it was difficult to tell where imitation ended and authenticity began.
Max sat at the table, gripping a microphone in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, his face etched with intense concentration. After tightening a steel fastener, he flipped a switch on the back of the device and spoke into it.
"Hello?"
A loud ringing screeched through the room—immediate feedback, a clear sign of improper grounding.
"Dang it," Max muttered, switching it off.
Alma pulled a chair from the kitchen and sat beside him.
"What are you working on, son?" he asked, examining the microphone.
"I'm trying to make an auditory amplifier," Max explained, continuing to tinker. "Something that can shake the atoms in the air—force them to move. Kind of like applying gravity through sound."
He sighed, dropping the microphone onto the table. "But no matter what I do, I can't even get past grounding it properly."
Alma picked up the device, unscrewing it and carefully examining its internal components. "I see," he said.
Max perked up immediately.
"You need a break," Alma added calmly.
He set the microphone down. "Everything inside here is wrong. The wiring isn't routed properly, the receiver is touching the plastic casing, and the base is allowing electromagnetic interference."
Max nodded, lowering his gaze. Alma placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
"Don't think you're a failure," Alma said gently. "You've been working too hard. Making the door and the tube was already more than enough. You need rest—a day to reset."
"But I thought…" Max hesitated. "I thought I would've been good."
"When I was homeless," Max continued quietly, "I had nowhere to go. No workshop. No family. No knowledge. Nothing. I thought once I became stable, I'd be able to create endlessly, like I'd never run out of energy. But now… I realize that was a fantasy. I'm not as good as I say I am. Or think."
Alma pulled him closer, resting Max's head against his shoulder.
"My sweet boy," Alma said softly, "never doubt your genius. You only see what you haven't made yet, not what you already have or what's still to come. Remember everything you've built—Mike, the door, the atom condenser. I don't see anyone else doing that."
He pulled back just enough to look Max in the eyes. "You need rest. You need patience. Once you have that, you could build this amplifier with your eyes closed. I don't say that because I believe in you—I say it because I know you."
Even so, the feeling lingered.
Max could only nod, his voice quiet, the weight of doubt still heavy in his chest.
Max didn't answer.
"I guess you're right."
Alma smiled at that—not the polite kind of smile, but the warm, relieved one that reached his eyes. "There's my sweet boy," he said softly, before his expression shifted as a thought suddenly surfaced. "Oh—that reminds me."
He stood up with an almost theatrical suddenness and made his way into the kitchen, the soft sound of his footsteps fading briefly from the room. The refrigerator door opened, light spilling outward, and moments later Alma returned, holding a sleek black carton in one hand and three glasses balanced easily in the other.
"Who wants some eggnog?" he asked, already pouring.
"Oh—me, me!" Jasmine exclaimed, scrambling toward him with childlike enthusiasm.
"I want some!" Max added immediately, the brightness in his voice sharply contradicting the sadness that had weighed on him only seconds earlier.
---
November 29th, 2032
Nearly two weeks had passed since Alma officially adopted Maxwell, and yet there were still truths he had chosen not to reveal. He told himself it was patience rather than fear—that with time, trust would grow naturally, just as it had with Jasmine, forming something unbreakable rather than forced. Still, the thought lingered. Max was brilliant—exceptional in a way that went far beyond natural talent—and Alma wasn't sure whether that realization should fill him with awe or concern.
He worried about what such a mind might cost his son. About a life consumed by invention, about safety, about what would happen if the wrong people ever discovered just how far Max's mechanical genius truly reached. The world had a habit of devouring prodigies.
Over those two weeks, Alma began teaching Max everything he could. It started with something simple—handwriting, refining the way letters curved and connected—before moving into mathematics, then calculus. To Alma's surprise, Max not only grasped calculus quickly, but found genuine enjoyment in it, even if that enjoyment came after hours of silent frustration and muttered curses.
Max absorbed everything Alma taught him, and then some. What surprised him most, however, was Alma himself. His father possessed an astonishing depth of academic knowledge layered atop an even greater understanding of machines and technology. Compared to that, Max felt… small. For the first time, his confidence wavered. His technical brilliance, once so vast in his own eyes, now seemed almost rudimentary beside Alma's mastery.
Yet as the days passed, something changed.
With every lesson, Max rose further from the sadness that had weighed on him. Growth came not as a sudden breakthrough, but as a steady climb. And when the time came, he didn't simply repeat what Alma had taught him.
He transcended it.
The first thing he unveiled was a doorway—installed directly inside the apartment—that opened not to a hallway or tunnel, but straight into a café just down the street. There was no distance between the two points, no space to traverse. Max had manipulated atomic positioning itself, creating a wormhole through spacetime that connected the apartment to the café instantaneously.
The theoretical problem, however, was catastrophic.
If left open too long, the instability could fracture reality itself, forming a black hole capable of consuming the planet.
Alma and Jasmine were terrified.
Then came the second device—a weapon capable of altering an object's mass, volume, and gravitational pull. With it, Max could lift cargo ships as easily as pebbles, or make a feather weigh as much as a tank.
And finally, there was the capsule.
A large containment chamber filled with a viscous, shifting blob of unknown substance. Jasmine recoiled at the sight of it, while Alma watched in silence, unease knotting in his chest—not at what it was, but what it might become.
Max reassured them, though Jasmine only slightly, explaining that the substance was an all-absorbent slime—capable of consuming virtually anything. It was designed as a direct counter to the Instant Arriving Door, theoretically able to devour the black hole itself should one ever form.
The ticking star was, for now, contained.
---
November 30th, 2032
Alma was on his way to work when the sound of shattering glass echoed from a nearby alley. He turned just in time to see a lion-sized Beast of Ruin leap from the shadows—a grotesque panther-like creature with torn-out claws, gouged eyes, and one ruined orb dangling loosely from its socket. Strange, writhing tentacles emerged from its waist, moving with unnatural, erratic intent.
Alma's eyes widened—not in fear, but recognition.
Since the attack on November 14th, Beasts of Ruin had begun appearing across Washington, D.C., their numbers increasing at an alarming rate. The President himself had been forced into direct combat to defend Maryland, while Monarchs across the country were stretched thin, facing hundreds of these creatures daily. Strangely, the phenomenon remained isolated to the United States—only a handful sightings in Canada and Mexico over the past decade.
The beast landed atop a moving car, crushing its roof and sending it swerving violently into another vehicle.
Alma raised his hand.
The creature twisted and lunged, attempting every erratic maneuver it could muster.
It didn't matter.
Once Spear was released, nothing could stop it. The weapon pierced straight through the beast's chest, killing it instantly. Alma immediately dialed emergency services and checked on the injured before continuing on his way.
An hour later, he arrived at work.
Jody stood at the shop entrance, arms crossed and eyebrow raised, clearly expecting an explanation. He didn't doubt Alma—but he needed appearances kept.
"Well?" Jody asked.
"I was attacked by a Beast of Ruin on the way here," Alma replied calmly, as if discussing traffic.
Jody stared at him for a long moment, then waved him inside.
"What the hell…"
After his short shift ended, Alma walked home with groceries in his left hand when an eerie, distorted whistle echoed behind him. He turned to see a tall, humanoid Beast of Ruin—faceless, its eye sockets and mouth sealed beneath stretched skin, its naked form twisted in shades of dark purple and gray.
Then more appeared.
A spherical, hairy mass. A horned serpent with a broken mouth at the end of its tail. A square-shaped monstrosity wielding a massive hammer for an arm. Others lingered in the darkness, too distorted to fully discern.
They surrounded him completely.
Alma met them with an impassive gaze. Beneath that calm exterior, his mind raced.
This was wrong. Beasts of Ruin did not hunt in groups. Not ever.
Then, the tall one moved first. Alma raised his hand and shot Spear, killing the Beast of Ruin instantly.
"The False Temptation: Mirage," Alma said calmly. Twelve mirrored copies of himself formed in an instant, charging toward every Beast of Ruin at once.
The real Alma leapt high into the air, his body cutting cleanly through the darkness before coming to a sudden, controlled halt at the peak of his ascent. Below him, his spiritual clones moved in perfect coordination, seizing the Beasts of Ruin one by one and hurling them upward with brutal precision, aligning their writhing bodies into a single, vertical line as though arranging targets rather than enemies.
"Spear," Alma said calmly.
The word alone was enough.
The attack was released in an instant—an unstoppable force that tore through the air and impaled every Beast of Ruin in its path, piercing through them consecutively as if they were nothing more than paper silhouettes. There was no resistance, no struggle—only obliteration.
Alma descended just as effortlessly as he had risen, landing upon the pavement with a soft, controlled impact. His clones had already vanished, their purpose fulfilled. Without a second glance at the carnage left behind, Alma bent down, retrieved the bags of groceries he had dropped earlier, and resumed his walk home as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Yet something felt wrong.
A subtle pressure lingered in his chest, a sensation he had learned to trust—a warning that something far worse was unfolding beyond what he could immediately see.
Back at the apartment, Alma put away the groceries in silence. He was nearly finished when Jasmine called out from the living room, her voice carrying an urgency that made him pause.
"Alma—come look at this."
He stepped into the room and turned his attention to the television, where a broadcast was already underway. On the screen stood the Cerberus Monarch—ranked seventh among all Monarchs—his body visibly battered, his posture strained beneath fresh injuries as he addressed the nation.
"The Beasts of Ruin are growing stronger," the Cerberus Monarch said grimly. "They are becoming more intelligent. They are devising ambushes and, in some cases, working together."
The feed cut briefly, then resumed as he continued.
"A few years ago, Beasts of Ruin posed no significant threat. We extinguished them as they appeared, but it now seems that killing them only accelerates the problem. Murders across the United States give rise to more Beasts of Ruin, and those killed by them are often absorbed—becoming part of the very thing that ended their lives."
He exhaled sharply before delivering his final warning.
"I urge civilians to remain indoors whenever possible. Order necessities online. Drone delivery services will be deployed to reduce risk to drivers—brave though they may be, recklessness will only cost lives. Be safe. Be cautious. Those are my final words for today."
The broadcast cut back to the anchors.
"Did you hear that?" Jasmine said, turning toward Alma, her voice edged with disbelief. "They're getting stronger. Smarter. This is insane."
Alma stared at the television, his expression unreadable as his mind churned. Was it time? Should he reveal himself to the world? The thought carried weight—because he alone understood the consequences that followed such a revelation.
Jasmine studied him closely, searching his face for an answer that didn't come. Across the room, Max glanced briefly at the screen before darting back to his desk, shoving the unfinished microphone aside as he began furiously sketching something onto a blank sheet of paper, already lost to whatever idea had seized him.
"I can't," Alma finally said, his voice steady but reluctant. "Not yet."
Jasmine's gaze flicked briefly toward Max before returning to Alma.
"Why not?" she whispered. "There are people out there who need you."
"If I reveal myself to the United States," Alma said quietly, "the entire world will know what I'm capable of. The President is one of the very few who can even contend with the current Beasts of Ruin—and only with difficulty. If the world learns there is someone who operates on an even higher level than that… it won't be a national crisis."
He met her eyes.
"It will be global panic."
Understanding slowly settled over Jasmine. She had been so focused on saving lives that she hadn't considered the cost to him—or the chaos his existence alone could unleash. Alma held the power to begin or end anything. Whatever he chose to do with it was a burden no one else could carry for him.
After a long moment of shared silence, Jasmine nodded.
"I believe in you," she said softly. "And I trust you. You'll always make the right choice."
Alma smiled.
As the day wore on, night eventually claimed the sky. Alma and Jasmine went to bed, while Max remained at his desk, writing endlessly—ideas flowing faster than his hands could keep up. He didn't rest until his body demanded it, finally collapsing into sleep as dawn approached, somewhere near six in the morning.
---
December 1st, 2032
Alma awoke within the White Void.
There was nothing—no walls, no horizon, no sky—only endless emptiness stretching in every direction. He walked forward without purpose or destination until, in the blink of an eye, the void transformed beneath his feet into a vast, mirror-like expanse of water, rippling outward from where he stood.
From the surface emerged Ardath.
She was as she had been the first time—entirely unclothed, unbothered, and impossibly serene.
"Good to see you still have no modesty," Alma said flatly.
Ardath giggled as she approached. "And good to see you still can't keep your eyes off me."
Alma shook his head. "Do not blame me if you insist on showing off."
"Who said I was blaming you?" Ardath replied, raising an eyebrow as she placed her hands on her hips. "You're welcome to touch, if you'd like."
"I'm good," Alma shot back instantly.
Ardath laughed, turning away from him and revealing her back as her hair flowed as though caught in wind—despite there being none. Then, without warning, the water vanished beneath them, replaced by solid ground as her hair stilled completely.
"So," Alma asked, glancing around the endless white, "why am I back here again?"
"The truth," Ardath answered simply.
An enormous domino materialized beneath their feet.
Ardath turned to face him, her tone suddenly serious.
"Alma," she said, drawing his attention fully, "you are the Dragon Monarch."