Roughly an hour later, Jerry returned with a visibly shaken Anala in tow.


    “What’d you show her?” Eve asked.


    “I have footage of every major conflict from the war, bar some of the earlier ones.” Jerry explained. “As well as footage for all postwar engagements I have been involved in, such as the battles for planes. I keep them around for the purpose of analyzing our enemies’ strategies. It’s not perfect, especially since it’s been so long since there was a true conflict, but information is key.”


    “Hey, you good?” Lilith asked, walking over to Anala. “You’re not looking so hot.”


    “I…I understand, now.” Anala replied hollowly. “This is why, right?”


    “Uh, run that by me again?” Lilith asked. “Why what?”


    “The whole Queen of Monsters business. It all boils down to stopping what I was just shown, right?”


    “I’ll be honest, I haven’t actually seen the footage myself, but yes.” Lilith confirmed. “At the time, peace was only held by mutually assured destruction. Now…we can’t afford that.”


    “I understand.” Anala said bluntly. “And…if you can’t figure out a better system than a monogender one…do it. If doing it helps avoid what I just saw, then it’s worth it.”


    Lilith frowned, looking at Jerry. “Seriously, what’d you show her? This is…not like her.”


    “She wanted to see the war. I showed her the worst of it.” Jerry said. “I showed her the mass genocide I mentioned an hour ago, I showed her the cruel things done to one of our leaders when he was captured, and many others. And before you ask, I have that footage because it was broadcast to us, either as psychological warfare or because the woman who did it got a sick thrill from it.


    “To be honest, one of my greatest regrets from the war is not being able to visit vengeance on that woman. She simply was not a high priority target and I could not let personal grudges interfere with the war. And, by the time we were in a position to do something about her, we had already signed the peace treaty. Still…all I need is one excuse to bait her into some sort of duel, and she’ll get at least part of what’s coming to her. Now that I know war is inevitable anyway, we can afford to rock the boat at least a little.”


    “Well, if you need any help, give me a call.” Eve said. “I’d be more than happy to cave in the skull of some psycho if needs be.”


    “I will.” Jerry said, chuckling darkly. “Believe me, I will. Anyway, shall we gather everyone? I think it’s high time we got underway.”


    I already let Amelia know you’re here, she’s on her way. Nuwa informed them. Anala, you can stick around or go home or whatever you were planning on, we’re not going to keep you here if you have plans.


    “I-I don’t.” Anala said. “And I need a minute. Do you mind if I sit here for a while?”


    “Take as long as you need.” Lilith said. “If you’ve forgotten, we’ll show you how to get to and from here once you’re ready to leave.”


    “Do you mind if I keep you company?” Eve asked. “I’d like to try and clear the air a bit more between the two of us.”


    Anala sighed. “That’s fine.” She said. “I suppose it’s something that needs to happen.”


    “Right, well, we’ll be out of your hair in a moment, then.” Jerry said. “I wish you luck in reconnecting.”


    ---


    There was a long silence after Lilith and Jerry left, one Anala wasn’t quite sure how to break. Everything felt…surreal, like she had at some point in the day been silently transported to another reality. Perhaps it wasn’t the most apt comparison, seeing as how she had literally been transported to another reality just an hour prior, but her sense of scope had been completely thrown off, and she was still reeling.


    Anala wasn’t quite sure what to make of the events of the past hour. Jerry very clearly had something at least PTSD adjacent when it came to the war, and…Anala had to admit it was probably justified. She was a stubborn woman, she knew that, but past a certain point even she would admit things weren’t as simple as she thought.


    The truly paranoid part of her wanted to say that this could still be some sort of trick, but her rational mind knew that if she called what she had just seen a trick, then she wouldn’t be able to trust…anything. There was no other proof that could be offered that would be satisfactory save for legitimately being embroiled in a war.


    This was simply on a different scale than the Queen of Monsters incident. Jerry had shown her all of her planes, shown her the different systems that were in place, all of it. And, when she was satisfied that she truly was in a different universe, Jerry showed her footage from the war. It was, in a word, horrifying. The devastation was on a scale so large that Anala had a hard time comprehending it, and Anala didn’t even want to imagine what it would look like if her home was thrust into that situation now.


    It had forced her to rethink things. Earth and Haven simply could not withstand a conflict like that as they were now. And…people had been relatively content with their situation before the incident. There wasn’t any pressing need to go out into Haven more, there wasn’t a drive to get stronger. People had felt safe with Lilith backing them, had gotten complacent. And if Lilith truly was this…chosen champion or whatever, Earth and Haven would become targets.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    “Um…” Eve began, shifting nervously in her chair, “I don’t want to force you if you don’t want to, I’m sure you’ve got a lot to think about, but…um, just let me know when you’re ready to talk, okay? I’m ready whenever.”


    Anala sighed. “Now is as good a time as any, I guess.” She said. “I’m going to level with you, your deception messed me up, a lot. I’ve had trust issues ever since, I feel like I can never be sure that people I talk to are who they say they are, and aren’t some other entity trying to manipulate me for their own gain. I trusted you, Eve, you were one of the people I thought would always have my back, no matter what.


    “And, when you revealed that you were the person I had been actively fighting against for months, and that you had orchestrated that entire thing in concert with the person who was supposed to be the world’s protector, I felt deeply, personally wronged. Now that I understand the stakes, I see your motive better, but it doesn’t make it sting much less.”


    “I’m sorry.” Eve said meekly. “We…I didn’t think about the effect that would have.”


    “Why did you travel with us the whole time, anyway?” Anala asked.


    “Officially, to make sure the expedition went about as we hoped it would. I could minimize casualties and manipulate the feelings of the participants so that the only people who made it to the end were people who could handle fighting me. I had kinda hoped it would be more than just you four, but…well, with Sariah’s help we had the appearance of a large group making it, and really that was what was important.


    “Unofficially…I had grown attached. It’s hard to articulate just how difficult it is to truly connect with people in my situation; there are precious few people that I can be me around. Outside of the residents of the dungeon and my family, there’s really only one person I can think of who both knows who we are and knows everything about our situation. I knew you four would eventually be looped in on everything, so I let myself grow close emotionally. And…I wanted to help you out and stay with you for as long as I could. We’re just…lonely is the wrong word, but we can’t meet anyone new without putting on an act.”


    “And how do I know you’re not acting now?” Anala asked reflexively.


    Eve flinched, her face falling. “You don’t, and you can’t. It’s…well, like how things were before the Shift, you can’t truly know if anyone is just acting unless you can read their mind.” She admitted. “But, that being said, beneath it all, this is me. I’m not using my usual bravado, but…that’s something of an act too. I get embarrassed much more easily than Lilith, and it helps me cope. And…well, at this point just about everyone I interact with regularly knows that it’s an act, but I have to admit it’s fun, too. But, for a serious conversation like this…I’m not going to force it.”


    “And how much of the Queen of Monsters was an act?” Anala asked. “It clearly wasn’t all an act.”


    “It mostly was, but I won’t deny that there are kernels of truth in it.” Eve admitted. “I have no grudge against society as a whole, they’re just doing their best to navigate a new world. But…you have to admit that you’ve been frustrated with things from time to time, right? This was something of an outlet for that frustration, and if you ever played pretend when you were younger…well, you know that sometimes it’s fun to be the bad guy when you know that, at the end of the day, you’re not actually bad.”


    Eve paused for a moment. “Well, I suppose being ‘bad’ is a matter of perspective, but I like to think the results have vindicated me. I can’t know for sure how many more people would have died had I not done the Queen of Monsters bit, but I think that we’ve saved lives as a result of having weaker monsters about to let people get stronger quicker.”


    Anala let out a sigh. “Look, I don’t know if we’re ever going to go back to the way we were before, but I think I can at least bury the hatchet. Don’t expect me to come over for game night or anything, but I’ll at least attempt to be reasonable and cooperate with you on important stuff.”


    “How would you feel about helping with the next Queen of Monsters appearance in one hundred years or so?” Eve asked. “You can help ensure it stays reasonable.”


    Anala froze. “You’re doing it again?” She asked.


    Eve nodded. “It loses the driving force behind it if it’s a one-time thing. We’re going to make sure people know it’s not over for good and give them time to prepare, but it will happen again. Having your input will help us to avoid any mistakes.”


    A couple of hours prior, Anala would have blown up at Eve over that. But…she couldn’t shake the thought of the things she had just seen happening to her home. “Give me some time to think about it, I don’t like being one of the architects behind this whole thing, but…that sounds reasonable.”


    “I’m glad to hear it. Um…do you have any questions about the world beyond our planes? I’d be happy to answer.”


    Anala debated it for a moment, then nodded. “Tell me more about these factions.” She said.


    “Okay, so there are three big ones…and maybe a couple of little ones? I don’t know, but the point is that there are only three that are going to be any sort of major players in the foreseeable future…”


    ---


    “Alright, if you don’t want to go with a monogender system, what’s your alternative?” Amelia asked, crossing her legs and sitting back in her chair.


    Lilith shrugged. “Not sure, we’re going to have to research it first. I have a few preliminary ideas, but there’s no way to know for sure if they’ll work until we actually put in the effort. And, if we can’t figure something out by the time the new plane is about three quarters of the way through the accelerated time, we’ll go with the monogender thing. That should give us a few months of hard research, and if we need to delay getting the system installed for a few months of real time, that’s not exactly a huge deal.”


    “Give us your first idea.” Jerry prompted. “I think it’s good to explore alternate options.”


    “Well…if the major issue is due to Mana wanting to flow certain ways based on the shape of a person’s soul, and gender factors into that, then…can’t we make a system that is predisposed to act in different ways based on a person’s gender? Obviously we can’t catch every gender if we’re not enforcing a gender via the system, but we can do the big ones, at least.”


    “That’s about twice the work and twice the cost for effectively no benefit, though, since we’d end up doing two different things for the same efficiency increase.” Amelia argued. “In terms of maintenance and future modification, it’s just strictly worse than a monogender system.”


    Lilith shook her head. “No, not like that. I mean…like, the genders are optimized towards different things. Like, and I don’t think this is what we should be doing, but just for the sake of example, men trend towards more magically-oriented roles, and women towards more physically-oriented roles. Again, this is not at all what I think should be the case, it’s just an example, but surely we could do something more subtle, and in a way that people can ignore if they really want to.”


    “That’s a big ask, but I guess research beats sitting around and just theory crafting.” Amelia replied.


    “I agree.” Jerry said. “To begin with, let’s do some practical experimentation with Mana flowing in a few different environments, I have a couple of practice tools here with me, if you give me a moment I’ll mold them to imitate gender…”