Rex brought the two he had lifted down to the ground with enough force to deactivate them, which was straightforward given that the deactivation thod was the sa as the guardian constructs: concentrated force at the animate core, and then he turned his attention to the fifth.
The fifth undead was located at the water’s edge, near the gauntlets.
Rex moved toward it.
He got to the waterline faster than he had planned to, looking like he was covering the distance between the camp and the waterline. This was because he was monitoring the calibration, and the urgency was partially fulfilled.
’This looks stupid as fuck... but at least it’s to take away the gauntlets from them.’
Then he caught the fifth undead in the field, and they exchanged two seconds of real pressure because Rex’s field was real and the undead’s drive was following the instructions he had given it, which were to hold the gauntlets and move toward the water unless physically stopped.
During those two seconds of conversation, Rex made the choice that the notification had indicated from the beginning.
The gauntlets were going to leave the island with those undead.
He had worn them for twenty minutes, and the integration was done. The Earth Sovereign’s title and power and the artifact itself were all his.
The artifact was no longer useful for anything other than proving that he didn’t have it.
He let the fifth undead go.
He released the fifth undead in a manner that suggested he was attempting to hold on to sothing for the last ti but was unsuccessful. This was not how it would have looked if he had really been trying to stop it, but it was how he needed to look for the people who were watching him from the camp behind him.
The undead went into the water and disappeared.
Rex stayed at the waterline for two seconds longer than he needed to and then turned around and went back to the camp.
Behind him, the water was empty.
And in the camp, Talyra and Aisella were still alive.
Which was the part that needed to be real, and was.
Rex was three steps from the camp periter when the next thing happened.
He had directed the five undead as a diversion with a clear primary objective. However, he had crafted the directive with the understanding that undead demons, operating under a partial instruction set, would improvise the rest.
In the two seconds before he deactivated them, they had indeed improvised, resulting in the activation of two grip-restraints on Talyra and Aisella, all before Rex had fully addressed the fourth.
He could see it from three steps away.
He saw it from three steps away: two undead that he had previously assessed as deactivated were not fully inactive. They existed in a state between dormancy and active function, producing just enough retained animation to maintain the grip restraints locked around Talyra’s and Aisella’s wrists.
Both Talyra and Aisella were held in place with the distinct quality of individuals whose movents were locked rather than rely restrained, while the blade equivalents used by the undead constructs were positioned at throat height.
"R-Rex...! H-Help...!" Talyra said with a terrified look.
Talyra was still. She was not making any sharp movents, which was the correct response to a blade at throat height, but the expression on her face was the expression of soone whose assessnt of the situation had landed at a place they had not been to before.
Aisella was breathing carefully and running the diagnostic with the specific quality of soone who was keeping their hands at their sides and their clinical attention fully active because it was the only tool they had available that was not going to make things worse.
"R-Rex...!" Aisella tried to reach him.
Rex ca to a stop.
He looked at the picture with the full foresight read, the current positions, the remaining animation levels in the two undead that were being held back, the angles of the blades, and the exact distance of each from the surfaces they were angled toward.
He also took in the gauntlets, disappearing into the water with the fifth undead, and the specific expressions on both of their faces. He made the decision that had been available to him from the mont he sent the signal this morning.
’Oh yeah... the plan did work...’
"Don’t move any muscle..." Rex said, trying not to make both of them panicked.
He focused completely on the two undead that were holding him back. What he did to them was not the broad application he used in containnt work, but the precise, targeted application he used when only accuracy was acceptable.
Two points of concentrated force, both aid at the living cores that Aisella had correctly identified the day before, hit at the sa ti.
The amber glow in both the undead was extinguished.
The grip-restraints released, and Talyra and Aisella could move again.
Rex stared at the water where the fifth undead had gone.
Then he turned around and looked at the camp.
He said, "Tell you’re both okay," and he said it in the exact way he did when he really needed to know.
Talyra let out a breath that had been building up for the whole ti she was restrained. She then sat down on the supply crate, which was the closest thing she could find, and put one hand over her face for three seconds before taking it down.
"I’m fine," she said.
Aisella took longer to respond because she was running a diagnostic on herself instead of relying on assumptions, which was her usual approach for answering physical questions. When the diagnostic confird that nothing had happened, she said, "Fine," and genuinely ant it.
Rex looked at the water again.
"The gauntlets..." Aisella said. "Did you manage to get it back...?"
"I’m sorry... it’s too late for , and that undead bastard had already taken it to the ocean," Rex said.
Talyra looked at him from the supply crate with the sa look she had when she was judging how soone was doing based on what they were doing instead of what they were saying.
"Rex," she said.
"I know," he said.
"You let it go," she said, and her tone did not suggest that she was blaming him.
It was the observation of soone who had seen what happened and was saying it out loud to make sure she had seen it right.
"The gauntlets were in my field, or you were," Rex said. "Both at the sa ti weren’t going to work."
"And I knew that both of your lives mattered more than those gauntlets." Rex said that this marked the end of his perfect plan.
He knew that this wasn’t completely true because both at the sa ti would have worked for him. But it was the version that was true in the way that the situation needed it to be true, and the way it affected both of them was the way he had planned for it to affect them, even if it ant sacrificing certain truths for the sake of their emotional connection.
Talyra looked at him for a mont with the sa look she had had since the cliff scene, but this ti it was different. She didn’t say anything because she knew there was nothing to say.
Aisella looked at Rex with a blank look and didn’t say anything for a mont as well.
But then she said, "Well... we don’t have to worry about it."
"The research docuntation is intact, and the samples are intact. The assessnt record is also complete without the gauntlets."
"Yes," Rex said.
"Miss Elizabeth is going to ask about them."
Rex said, "I know what I’m going to tell her."
"We can use this excuse to tell Miss Elizabeth that those demons are still currently trying to attack us, and they’ve gotten the gauntlet that could make them stronger and more dangerous..."
Talyra nodded. "Yeah! That could actually work!"
"Like I said before... at least both of you are safe," Rex smiled with gratitude. "That’s what matters."
At the sa ti, Talyra and Aisella both felt their cheeks flush.
"Thank you for saving us, Rex," Talyra said.
Aisella wanted to say it too, but the words were stuck in her throat because of her embarrassnt.
"No worries." Rex nodded.
[DESIRE LEVELS UPDATED]
[TALYRA SKYDANCER: 88/100 → 100/100]
[AISELLA MOONBLOOM: 93/100 → 100/100]
[MAXIMUM BOND ACHIEVED: TALYRA SKYDANCER — 1000 ENERGY BONUS PENDING]
[MAXIMUM BOND ACHIEVED: AISELLA MOONBLOOM — 1000 ENERGY BONUS PENDING]
Rex read both ssages with the calmness that ca with everything important to him.
One hundred and one hundred.
Both of them, on the third day, exactly when they needed to be.
’Yeah... that’s a wrap. Just one threeso and I can get the Avatar Creation to execute my villain as a new identity to ’cause chaos.’
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