Angel Monarch

––300 kilometers south of New Athens––

On a large island named Kriti, a woman stood on the shore watching the sunrise. She stood in typical scientist's clothing. She wore an orange sweater with her lab coat over it. She also wore dark jeans with comfortable running shoes.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Her brunette hair was placed in a neat ponytail. Her eyes were blue, and she had glasses on, which she straightened every few minutes.

A light pink color adorned her nails, and she wore a small amount of makeup. It made her look a bit more elegant, but also exciting.

The woman stood on the seashore, but her eyes weren't on the rising sun. She was typing on her tablet without care, her eyes jumping between paragraphs and pictures.

The man next to her watched it all with a small headache. He was old, much older than the woman.

He had already lost most of his hair, and the remaining had turned gray. His wrinkled face stared at the sunrise with a small, content smile. His eyelids were closed as he enjoyed the sun's first warming rays.

"Huh... That's interesting..." muttered the woman to herself, and doubled her typing speed.

"What did your insane brain think out now, Mary?" asked the older man, while chuckling.

Mary didn't answer. Her focus was only on the tablet and the information she was writing. After spending a lot of time with her, the man got used to her strange behavior.

It was close to impossible to discuss anything with her, if she got some idea.

The typing slowed after a few minutes, then eventually she looked up at the old man with a grin.

"What is it, Collins? Are you jealous of how amazing I am?"

"Well, I wouldn't call you amazing, more like pure insanity and madness incarnate!" Hearing that, Mary burst out laughing.

"I'm not that insane!" She said to her defense, but Collins dismantled it with ease.

"If I remember correctly, you spent a whole evening trying to create a small stabilized black hole because you didn't want to take out the trash!" He said in outrage, while Mary just continued to laugh.

"Okay, that was one time. Everyone has bad days!"

Collins just stared at the woman with wide eyes. Her shamelessness left him speechless.

"ONE TIME?! How about the time you created an A.I. to help with your research? Or when you were bored and tried to create the cutest animal in the world by gene splicing a tarantula with a Golden Retriever?"

Mary just shrugged and turned towards the sunrise. Stay updated via empire

"The A.I. wasn't a bad idea. It's not my fault he got sentient and tried to kill everyone in the research facility! And even you have to admit, Brian is the cutest eight-legged golden boy you have ever seen!"

Collins shook his head with a sigh... "Only you think spiders are cute!"

After that, they stayed silent and watched as the last of the sun's lower disk peaked over the horizon.

One thing Collins had to admit, though... Mary was the smartest person on this planet.

The girl was a born genius. She was found as an orphan a few years before the Last War ended.

Her upbringing wasn't easy, but she somehow managed. By the time she was six years old, her intelligence surpassed that of most adults.

The only problem was her mind had all sorts of craziness to it, which caused everyone around her to think of little Mary as a mental patient, instead of a born genius.

Reaching school, her teachers hated little Mary. She had no filters and had to correct every mistake a teacher made. For this her educations got cut short, but her love for learning and science hadn't dissipated.

After the Last War, when the Realm Gates first appeared, they became little Mary's primary obsessions. She wanted to learn everything about them, but no matter how hard she tried, nobody let her study one from up close.

She spent her years living in a tiny apartment with her only friend, Maria. They came from the same orphanage, and they became quick friends there.

A strange and beautiful bond existed between them, even reflected in their similar names. She was the only one who acknowledged Mary's genius.

The two of them lived together. Maria worked in a theater in New Athens, while Mary just stayed at home, doing her weird scientific studies.

Maria would come home to find the small apartment in disarray, with papers thrown everywhere. She didn't mind though, and she would listen to Mary retell all her new discoveries with excitement, even though she didn't understand a single word.

After hearing about the war between the Federal Alliance and the United Front, Maria tried to help Mary get a job as a scientist in the army, but the ruler of New Athens didn't care about the war.

This all changed when a very special person took over the city. Sera accepted the help and found some place for Mary to do her research.

They sent her to this very large island with a few dozen other researchers and about a hundred guards and other attendants.

Their primary focus was on different energy shields, ones that could even withstand the attacks of a Stellar. They were making substantial progress and even had a prototype when everything changed.

A year ago, with no prior notice, they were assigned a new research project that took priority... Realm Gates.

When Mary first read the message, she began jumping around from joy. It was time for her to research her passion!

She discovered how to open them manually within the first month, but the energy requirements were excessive. It would've taken as much energy as the sun makes in an hour to power the machine.

Mary sent all her discoveries to Sera, whom after learning this, found another way to use this research.

Since they had no Dyson Sphere lying around, to harness the full power of the sun, they had to think smaller.

The new project was both much simpler and much harder... They needed to send a message to another specific Realm.

Sending a message into another Realm wasn't too hard of a task. It took about a week for Mary to figure it out. The problem was to find the right Realm to send the message to...

They succeeded after a while, but they still haven't gotten an answer...

Professor Collins thought about all of this. They transported him here only a few weeks ago, but he already learned everything about Mary.

He wasn't as much of a genius, but his field of science was scarce and unusual. He was already a middle-aged adult when the Last War ended.

He was a professor in one of the Old World's universities, and he continued doing research even after the Apocalypse.

There was one thing he was especially interested in, the Evolved!

He spent the past 27 years researching them. In this world, he knew the most about evolution, Evolved, abilities, Items, powers, Heritage. If an Evolved had it, he knew everything about it.

Many people looked down on Collins, same as Mary. They thought of him as just some old man sprouting nonsense. This was even more true for most Evolved!

Each time when they asked him to help, they looked down on him. They didn't say it out loud, but he saw it in their eyes, that question... 'How could this old regular man know more about Evolved than me?'

Only a select few showed profound respect. Cass was one of them, and when she reached out to ask for his help, he jumped on that offer without a second thought.

Since then, he spent most of his time researching in an environment that valued his talents and knowledge.

The two of them stared at the sunrise for an hour, chatting and laughing. Until they got news from the other side, neither of them had anything to do.

Behind them loads of screeching and chirping sounded, and the two turned towards the sky with bright smiles.

There was a large flock of flying creatures moving around in the small hilly, mountainous area of the island. Most of them were small and uncoordinated, but the older ones helped them stay in the air.

Their species was very fascinating, and Collins spent a lot of time in their nests studying them. They weren't even too wary of him, since even the smallest children could've killed him with ease. He also felt safe around them, because their leader, Kastral, had assured him.

The hippogryphs were strange and fantastical. When he arrived here, the fellow researchers and attendants had talked a lot about them.

It is said that there were only a handful of them two years ago, and they were close to dying out, but Sera bonded their leader and saved the whole species.

Seeing their nests now, Collins would've called these people liars. There were hundreds of eggs waiting to be hatched, and by his count, there were close to four hundred actual specimens living there.

He felt amazed. Those guys were so close to disappearing from the face of the world, but using their claws and hoofs, they climbed higher and higher.

With a bright smile, Collins turned to the side, and was about to say something witty to Mary, but seeing her shocked expression, he decided against it.

She was staring down at her tablet, reading something intently.

"What is it?" Asked the Professor with curiosity.

Mary blinked a few times, then closed the tablet and looked towards the sky. Out of nowhere, she laughed, while repeating the same sentence over and over again...

"They answered!"

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