—East District, Dotun City; Lanima Region
3 years ago…
Right after Rea joined Ayer's small group—Masters of Reigns, Rea confessed something to him.
"You can control minds with your Reign? I thought you can control reality," Ayer asked him.
They're currently in the first base of Masters of Reigns, it's still small but it's enough to house a hundred Reigners and accommodate for their Reign training.
"I can, my Reign is too versatile since it controls reality. I can control a person's reality, I can control a few, and even many that not all can see the things they're seeing, while they're in those states, I can move them freely with my Reign, I don't know how to explain it since nobody in the lab I was in can explain it," Rea explained her Reign to Ayer.
"I can even control my own reality, I can become physically powerful, I can move fast, I can transform too, even use other sorts of abilities that defies how my Reign use," Rea thought, hiding a portion of her Reign from Ayer.
Like everyone at the beginning of the Cosmic Surge event and the chaos it created, she also doesn't want to trust everyone so easily, like she only proportionally trusts Ayer.
"I know this is risky but…" Ayer thought.
"Can you try it on me? I just want to see how effective it is," Ayer asked her.
"Why is he asking me that? Is he not scared that I will take over the group he's working hard on? Or kill him?" Rea thought, asking herself as she was confused about what Ayer is requesting her.
"It's also one of the ways she can trust me, by letting her know that she can easily kill me. But I know she knows she can't just kill me and take over my group because she isn't capable of keeping it, just like the lab that was keeping her," Ayer thought confidently.
Rea activated her Reign. "Ayer move to the shelf to the right," she ordered Ayer.
Ayer's eyes became lifeless, he then started moving to the shelf that was on the right wall of the room.
When he's there…
"Get the knife on the shelf and put its blade near your neck," Rea ordered him.
Lifeless Ayer took the knife on the shelf and put it close to his neck, just as he did that, Rea quickly deactivated her Reign, returning Ayer back to normal.
Ayer snapped back to reality. "What?" He was shocked by what just occurred.
He immediately pulled the knife away from his neck.
"I saw darkness and felt drowsy, and when I opened my eyes, I'm putting a knife close to my neck?! That is a scary Reign," Ayer thought after he put the knife away.
"Is that a good demonstration of my mind-controlling abilities?" Rea asked him.
"Yes, Rea, nearly killed me but I don't doubt your abilities now, we just need to devise a plan on how to utilize it well, if that's alright with you, of course, since it's your Reign," Ayer said, answering her question.
"He didn't even flinch when I stopped controlling his mind, everyone craps their pants whenever I do it since they have no power to defy it, his spirit is strong," Rea thought impressed by Ayer.
"I'm fine with whatever you want to do, I have no one to rely on anymore other than you, that's why I didn't try to kill you," Rea said.
Ayer smiled. "That's reassuring, I'm glad to hear that, Rea," he said.
"What is your plan, Ayer?" Rea asked him.
They decided to wait for the chaos to at least be very reasonable for them to do more recruiting and training, in the meantime, Ayer and Rea are helping the other Reigners they've recruited to master their Reigns to fully embody their name, master enough to be able to combat against groups more than them that doesn't know how to use Reigns, or a group with only a few knows how to use Reigns.
When the chaos settled down, Ayer, Rea, and their group are able to exit the basement without issue, ready and trained to not just fight the giant monsters that are terrorizing the city grounds but also the Reigners that they will encounter, whether or not they will fight them or not.
They're ready to recruit Reigners, at the same time. They're also ready to kill them if they decided to fight them.
Several months later, Ayer told Rea some of what he's been planning, he asked Rea to make something for him.
"A Token that allows you to control the one that put their blood in, that's like straight out of a novel," Rea said.
"A blood oath, it sounds cheesy but I believe it's a way to gain trust and at the same time, no one can betray us with those," Ayer said.
"He's making things complicated, not like I can't do that but…" Rea thought, starting to materialize the token Ayer requested in her thoughts.
"Why not just use my mind-controlling abilities instead of something like…" Rea then showed a prototype token, "this?" She continued, asking him as she was confused.
"So that they have something tangible to look at or remember whenever they're in our group, how many can you make, Rea?" Ayer said, asking her after answering her question.
"Way too many to count," Rea said, answering his question as she begins to make the token.
"Good, I have other plans for the full power of your mind-controlling abilities, just you wait," Ayer said, informing Rea.
When Rea started making the Tokens that Ayer requested, Ayer continued what he was doing, working on their resources and the progressions of their group.
"Groups are steadily increasing and expanding, I'll have to wait for them to increase and expand, and once they are in the right amount, I'll use Rea's mind-controlling abilities to make them all attack Mr. Scope's basement in the North District, once it's done, we can force them all to join our group," Ayer thought.
"The first generation Reign users," Ayer said.
A year has passed. Ayer told Rea his plan, it was not complete yet but it was a plan that he believes can finally put Reigners on the map and not just the science, the physics, and the others that have dominated the current society.
2 years have passed. He told Wey and Stacia about his plans, it's also the time Rea told them about her Reign, the two of them were spectacle about it but when Rea demonstrated it, they believed it in a heartbeat because Rea demonstrated it to them as well like Ayer.
"I understand, I will follow your plans, Ayer, but if this goes South, you can do anything, I'm leaving," Stacia said.
"You're too pessimist, Stacia! We got this!" Wey shouted positively.
"I wish Alex is here but it's been 2 years now, I'm not as hopeful anymore," Stacia thought.
It was also the day Wey and Stacia sealed their blood in Tokens to prove their trust in the group.
3 years have passed…
After Ayer and Rea were free from Stacia's grasp, they went to Ayer's office. He just stopped talking and went to his office, sitting down on his chair, Rea followed him.
"Rea, you remember the plan I told you, right?" Ayer asked after staying silent for a few minutes.
"He finally spoke, I thought he lost it now," Rea thought.
"Using my Reign's mind-controlling abilities to control the minds of the other groups' leaders to simultaneously attack the North District—where Mr. Scope is, are we doing that now?" Rea asked him.
"Now that Stacia is gone and has betrayed us, somehow! Even though we could've used that Token earlier but we couldn't because of my false judgment!" Ayer shouted in anger.
"She's been on our side, fighting alongside us, and we entrusted her with so many things like our plans now, I can't believe this happened," Ayer thought.
"She also found out how to use her Reign like me now so it will be troublesome if she tries to stop our plans," Rea thought.
"Before things go 360 on us, we need to execute our plans quickly. Stacia will tell our plans to his boyfriend for sure," Ayer said, standing up from his chair.
"His boyfriend…" Rea thought.
When Ayer was about to leave his office to go outside and inform the Reigners of their group, Wey appeared in front of his office door.
"Ayer!" Wey shouted, with bruises and injuries from fighting Alex—tired from running.
"I have to use my Reign and all my energy just to get here as fast as I can, it's so fvcking exhausting!" Wey thought—catching his breath.
"Wey! What happened to you?" Ayer asked as he was surprised to see him.
"I thought he fought Alex, did he lose?" Rea thought as she went to his side, ready to heal him.
"I fought Alex. I was no match for him." Wey sat down on one of Ayer's sofas, "I ran over here as quickly as I can to tell you that… he becomes more powerful the more Reign user he fights…" he said, answering Ayer's question.
"What do you mean by that, Wey?" Rea asked as she started healing Wey.
"He got Stacia's Reign and mine, he doesn't naturally have multiple Reigns he got it from others. He can absorb Reigns through contact to his right cyborg body, he might not be a Reign user without that cyborg body for all we know," Wey said, answering Rea's question.
"So that's how," Ayer thought.
"This is unheard of," Ayer said, as he tries to think of a way to deal with Alex.
"It doesn't make sense, these are fist-to-fist injuries, no burns, no slashes, and other things, your Reign can defend against heavy hits, how did he hurt you this much?" Rea asked Wey since she noticed while healing him.
"Explain to us what occurred, relax first," Ayer asked Wey.
"Well! I'm dumb, I thought that I can take him on in close combat no Reign, I was pretty confident since I don't know his combat history apart from watching him against Stacia. Stacia even taught me to the bone.
But I was absolutely decimated, I couldn't land a hit on him because his martial arts is nothing I've seen before, the only way I could've hit him is when I activated my Reign again but he was absolutely not fazed by my Reign because he also got my Reign,
Even at the start when he uses his multiple Reigns, it's not how others use Reign, he clearly knows how to use them perfectly. You will not make sense of how he uses his Reign once you fight him yourself too, I fully understand how Stacia lost to him in close combat with no Reign," Wey explained to them while Rea is healing him.
"This is definitely bad news. He's leagues better than us not just in Reign but also in close combat. Wey is our only strong combatant after Stacia left. And we should tell him about Stacia," Ayer thought, scratching his head on how to deal with Alex.
"I might be in danger if I went near him, he can just take my Reign since my Reign is spread out, I should think of a plan to prevent it," Rea thought.
"Wait, where's Stacia?" Wey asked them after he was healed up.
Rea stood straight after healing Wey. "Stacia… betrayed us," she said.
"Huh?" Wey thought, asking himself.
"Wait, really? You're not messing with me, are you?" Wey asked them as he smirks.
"She did, Wey, we will not joke about this in front of you," Ayer said as he leans on the wall close to his door.
"But… why would she do that? What happened?" Wey asked, he was in denial.
"We wanted to know more about Alex but… she is hiding a lot of things about him to us to the point that she wouldn't follow orders that I rarely tell you 3," Ayer said, answering Wey's question.
Ayer would tell them orders whenever they needed to quickly accomplish a task without hesitations, it happened when a party was doing things behind their backs, and Ayer ordered Wey to kill them. He rarely orders them because he doesn't want to destroy their trust with nonsense orders.
"But I thought you have those Tokens that have Rea's Reign in them? The ones that can Mind Control us?" Wey asked them as he was confused.
"Why would she even do that? We're close to our plans to take over the city! Something we promised to accomplish!" Wey thought, having an internal crisis.
"I have them, I was about to use them despite telling Stacia that I will break them if she can kill Alex or not, just to get more information from her about Alex…" Ayer said.
Rea continues. "We believed that Stacia had an awakening in her Reign, she found out the real use of her Reign, like me, an Awakened Reign user," she said.
"I'm glad she had that moment…" Wey thought, trying to be ignorant.
"But why? We've done so many things with her. But… was it not… enough?" Wey asked himself, losing his spirit.
"It must be hard for Wey since nobody has yet to betray him before, nothing like this I assume since I'm not with Wey all the time, whenever I see him, he's with many Reign users. I guess he felt in his heart that he would've wanted to do things with Stacia but never happened," Rea thought, feeling sympathetic towards Wey.
"Stacia chose her sides, Wey. All we could do is finish the task we should've done before our inner circle was torn like this." Ayer headed his way to his office's door, "once you've recovered, we will be waiting for you in Northeast District," he said.
"Northeast? So we're starting the plan, huh?" Wey thought.
"Should I begin my part?" Rea asked him.
"Yes, and stay away from Alex!" Ayer said as he leaves his office.
Ayer will now gather the Reigners of the Masters of Reigns. Rea will go to the other big Reign groups to meet their leaders, control their minds, and make them gather their forces in the Northeast and Northwest, to surround the North District where Mr. Scope is.
To fully take over the Dotun City once and for all…
—Southwest District, Dotun City; Lanima Region
In the Southwest where Stacia was hiding, she noticed this occur from afar since she has a clear view of the East District from her hiding spot.
"Oh, no, they're already starting with the plan," Stacia thought.
"Where are you, Alex?" She said to herself, asking.