The base they would all stay at was underground. Alora and Ava figured the best place to hide from Atlas was directly under his nose. They were right. As Ava led her group of allies down the abandoned train tracks, they eventually exited the tunnel and met with wide space and two platforms at the side.
"The station…" she uttered.
Talen jumped onto the right platform. "Man, it's huge. Do the trains in the outside world need a chamber this big?"
"Indeed," said Aella, standing beside the Unconquerable. She looked up at him, "And here I thought you could piece that together."
Tal's eyes rolled. "Uh-huh, uh-huh…"
"Still, it's odd." Raven scratched her chin. "From what I remember, the train stations aren't supposed to be this big. What's all this space for?" She asked Lily beside her.
But she just shrugged. Groaning, Aella about-faced, spotting Marie holding the King on the opposite platform. The princess carrying her brother was following Ava before her—Raven lagging after warping behind them.
"You've been here before, right?" She peeked over Marie's shoulder while asking.
Ava shrugged. "Sorta. Now let's see… if I remember correctly—"
Usually, the exits to the surface are on the left and right of the platform, with a wall with the street name in the middle. But there were no exits to the surface. Only the center-placed wall—the street name rotted by the passage of time.
"Now this isn't suspicious," Talen said.
Valentina nodded from behind her son, scratching her chin. She looked up and around, examining their surroundings.
By simply pressing her hand on the wall, the mechanical doors' hidden steam leaked from within, pushing Ava's curls back with a long gust of wind. As the wall split apart, the sister entered first—vanishing into the smoky barrier bordering those in and out. Following Ava was Aella, Marie holding her brother, then Talen holding Alora, Lily, and finally, Valentina.
What they were met with was the epitome of an underground lair. Though it wasn't what they expected. A space confined within a black sphere in another realm clouded by smoke. Peeking out the space they were entrapped in through the holes in the walls revealed the endless haze that made up the perimeter.
Though the outside was impressive, the inside failed to meet their expectations. Talen whistled at the sight of the worn-down space, riddled with nothing but dust on the walls and rubble on the floor.
"This is what you found?" He glanced at Ava and asked.
She shrugged. "You try finding us something better."
The Unconquerable nodded and tilted his head, spotting the ceiling missing pieces from the roof, then noticing them on the ground before his foot. He sighed.
'This place is a mess. Honestly, I could clean it in one fell swoop and pass out afterward. Yup. Sleep sounds good right about now. But where do I put Lora down?'
Talen awkwardly paced around the room for a few minutes before Marie approached him. This time, without Uri on her back. She glared up at the Unconquerable. He looked behind him and then back at her, puzzled.
"What?"
The former princess shook her head and stifled a chuckle. Marie returned to the real world beyond the closed-off space in its dimension, leaving Talen alone in their newfound headquarters. He sneered, hiding a smile with his hand.
'Did she hear what I was thinking or something?' The lawyer shook his head. 'Whatever. Let's just clean this up in one go.'
Talen's interlocked fingers expanded the range of his aura to the entire room around him. Green eyes glowing, the Unconquerable's head tilted, scanning the sparkles afloat in his Fate entirely engulfing the area.
"Ugh." He groaned and rubbed his nape. Only after clearing the doubt in his head with a shake did the Unconquerable's fingers finally interlock. "Disorder... reshape. Condition: None. Do it."
With a name like Disorder, you can't imagine anything other than chaos. Its depiction after materializing beside Talen Amit confirmed that. Nevertheless, though Disorder had a skull for a face and a cowl over its head, its arm extended. Simultaneously, the Unconquerable followed his familiar's movements—until the arm was fully stretched out.
As the auras they released from the core of their beings bathed the space in pure white light, even Talen's allies outside the space covered their eyes from the blinding gleam. Meanwhile, the Unconquerable himself, in the center of both auras, felt everything unravel around him.
His father's words coursed through the young man's head. It seemed unreal, but two months ago, Eros Amit gifted his son the most valuable piece of information about the Unconquerable technique. And that was...
'The final piece of the Unconquerable puzzle. Lesson Five: Harmony.'
Back then, he couldn't understand. 'Harmony?' repeated Tal's past self.
'Why of course! Tranquility, inner peace, zen. All are required to break the Unconquerable's basic boundaries. Only after mastering Harmony can an Amit use the technique to its fullest,' said his father. 'Allow me to elaborate. Do you remember how the Fourth Lesson, Untouchable, was about enhancing your speed?'
His son nodded.
'This is sorta like that. Except Harmony doesn't focus on your speed. It focuses on your mind.'
Standing across from Eros, Talen's arms crossed. 'What do you mean?'
'Hmm... how do I put this? If the other lessons were physical, the final one is mental. Harmony doesn't focus on unleashing inner strength dwelling within individual parts of our body--it focuses on unleashing the mind. The Unconquerable focuses on reality-warping. But, to flawlessly invoke that skill, one must first master Harmony. Any conjurations brought into reality before completing the Final Lesson will be easily disposed of in a battle between two Masters.' Eros turned to Talen, grinning. 'I'm sure you've realized that by now though.'
'I see. Since I've already excelled at everything else, all that's left now is to master Harmony. Alright. Then how? How do I complete the Unconquerable's Final Lesson?'
Eros shrugged. 'Can't say,' he said.
'HUH? Then how the hell am I supposed to--?'
'I wish I could tell you.'
Talen stopped. His green eyes were glued—stuck on the height of his father some feet away. The lawyer's confused expression only deepened under the day's vast blue sky. As the mist above combined, a larger cloud formed, prohibiting the sun's radiance while the sky's azure palette remained forevermore.
Something as simple as the color of the sky from the flow of the wind brushing through his hair alerted Talen. Any other day, he'd go about the way it was normally. But that day, the last one he spent training with his father, the Unconquerable somehow knew. His subconscious mind plucked that memory out from the rest and specially tended to it, adding a bit of nostalgia and bitterness to the experience.
At the past's remembrance, Talen's teeth clenched—letting them shake briefly before opening his mouth and venting a long sigh. He shook his head, then quickly raised it, peering through the Fate enveloping the entire room.
"It's clear to come in now!" He yelled at them from inside.
As his allies poured in, they could only gawk at the cleansed interior—marveling at the shine rubbed into the walls.
Marie smiled. "Awesome!"
"There's no furniture…" uttered Aella.
"You should be lucky my brother cleaned up this mess in the first place!" Ava said.
Talen keeled over—hacking spit onto the floor, making his comrades flock over. He chuckled; his mother warped beside him and lifted one of his arms before resting it around her neck.
"You only asked for me to clean. Don't tell me you wanted accessories too…"
Valentina stopped moving the moment she felt Talen's body relax. The low snoring of his closed nostrils and barely-parted lips expressed while resting on her shoulder made the woman smile. She shifted her son on her back, then turned around, looking at their other allies.
"I'll put him to rest."
Talen's body decompressed into the mattress his mother placed her in. For but a moment, the woman's gaze faltered, switching between her deceased younger son and the Unconquerable child peacefully slumbering before her. Running her fingers down his cheek, Valentina sniffled, smiling through the tears as they glistened in her eyes.
"I won't let you two die. I will always protect you… I promise."
…
Unbeknownst to his mother, Talen was thinking back—thrown into a memory where he stood at the head of a table with pocketed hands.
"Our foes are plentiful. Their power is mighty. We need a power of our own. The group of Fate users assembled here will be that 'Power'. Uriel and I are its Head. The rest of you will be our Power's limbs. It's said that if you cut off the head of a gorgon, two more will spawn and take the original's place. The same goes for us. If Uriel or I were to disappear for any reason, don't come after us. There will come times when the Head isn't a position–it's a person. I trust the proper individual will be chosen to lead the Power in our absence." Reaching for the glasses over his eyes, the Unconquerable removed them, letting his green-blazing aura sway all around him. "From this day forward, we are no longer mere Fate users. We… are 'Eightfold'.
Never forget that."