The Royals' logic was a prison of polished obsidian. Blade was mighty, yes, a strategic asset beyond compare. But that very value made him a target. The thought of their polished prodigy kidnapped by some rival power, dissected in a cold laboratory to unravel the secret of his genius, or worse, turned against them... it was an existential terror that outweighed any potential glory. Their heir was to be protected, not risked. He was a symbol to be unveiled only in absolute victory or direst need.
For weeks, Blade endured their refusals with a silence more searing than any protest. He watched the strategic feeds, the reports of galactic posturing, with a dismissive flick of his tail. He saw not threats, but puzzles, puzzles he was uniquely qualified to solve. The gilded cage of the Citadel began to hum with the vibration of his stifled will.
Finally, the silence broke into action. He would not wait for a permission that would never come.
His conspirators were the only souls he considered anything close to peers, though even they orbited his brilliance like loyal moons. Birman, at eleven, was the eldest, a boy of the Birmese lineage with a coat of silken, seal-point darkness and eyes of sapphire blue. He trained with a solemn, unwavering dedication in the Royal Guard cadet corps, his every move imbued with a profound sense of duty and protective instinct. His younger sister, Burmilla, ten like Blade, was his opposite: a burst of kinetic energy with a shimmering, silver-tipped coat and eyes of laughing green. Her genius was for the cockpit, for the visceral poetry of thrust and vector; she could feel a ship's stress in her bones and converse with its navigational AI as if it were a friend.
They were the children of a respected mid-tier commander, raised on stories of loyalty to the throne. Convincing them required not persuasion, but a re-framing of that very loyalty. "The Royals are being cautious to a fault," Blade explained, his voice calm, logical. "Their fear blinds them to opportunity. A swift, undeniable victory by their own heir would silence the galaxy's whispers better than any fleet. We wouldn't be disobeying. We'd be... pre-empting their strategic needs."
To Birman, it became a sacred, secret mission to protect the future king. To Burmilla, it was the ultimate test flight. After a furtive, heart-wrenching goodbye to their confused younger brother, a promise of heroic return whispered through his nursery door, they stole away. Burmilla bypassed the security protocols of a sleek, three-pawed scout-ship, the Whispering Claw, with terrifying ease. Within the hour, they were a ghost in the solar wind, bound for a target Blade had selected with chilling precision: Planet Nesuto.
Nesuto was a name spoken with grim respect in military briefings. A world of ash deserts and iron mountains, its people were a warlike, reptilian race whose society was a perpetual, ritualized conflict. They were not a major galactic power, but they were a perfect proving ground: fierce, proud, and unquestionably hostile. Conquering them would be no scripted exercise. It would be real.
The journey took weeks, a time of intense preparation. Blade drilled them on Nesutan tactical doctrines, pored over scans of their fortress-like capital, Hss'tar. The excitement was a palpable charge in the ship's recycled air.
Their assault on Hss'tar was not an invasion. It was a statement. They landed the Whispering Claw not with stealth, but with a screeching, defiant burn in the main plaza. Three children against a warrior world.
The battle was instant, brutal, and overwhelming. The Nesutans responded not with confusion, but with snarling, unified fury. Plasma bolts seared the air. Hss'tar's soldiers, massive and clad in thick chitinous armor, advanced with a phalanx's discipline. The trio's initial plan, a swift, surgical strike at the central command spire, dissolved in seconds under a tide of violent reality.
They were driven back, cornered, fighting not for victory but for survival in the shadow of monolithic stone towers. Birman's guard training became a desperate, dazzling dance of deflections and counters, his small form a blur holding a line against giants. Burmilla, armed with twin neural-disruptors, weaved through the chaos, disabling vehicles and severing comm-links with the precision of a surgeon.
And Blade... Blade felt it. The razor's edge between life and death. The electric jolt of a near-miss. The visceral crunch of a perfectly landed strike against armor. The theoretical simulations of the Citadel evaporated. This was algebra written in blood and fire, and he solved it with a racing, transcendent joy. With each skirmish, each narrow escape, they adapted, improved, their bond tightening into a single, three-part organism of survival.
Then, during a retreat through a molten metalworks, surrounded by the hissing forms of a Nesutan hunter-killer squad, something in Blade broke open or perhaps, clicked shut.
The thrill curdled into something colder, sharper, infinitely more potent. A red haze tinged the edges of his vision, not of rage, but of hyper-clarity. It was the Primal State, the genetic inheritance of every Nekonian warrior: a surge of adrenalized instinct that dissolved civilized thought into pure, animalistic predator. For the average warrior, it was a last resort, a dangerous loss of control.
But Blade was not average.
As the wave of primal energy washed over him, he did not drown in it. He surfed it. His mind, instead of shutting down, seemed to partition. One part became the beast, all enhanced reflex, explosive power, and chilling silence. The other part remained the strategist, the cold observer, directing the beast with pinpoint efficiency. His spotted form became a phantom, moving with impossible speed. He didn't just dodge attacks; he flowed through the patterns of enemy fire as if they were a slow-motion diagram. His strikes were no longer just effective; they were lethally elegant, finding microscopic flaws in armor, exploiting momentum with terrifying economy.
He was in complete control of the uncontrollable.
It was the tipping point. With Blade as their unleashed, conscious tempest, the trio turned from prey to a cataclysm. Birman and Burmilla, galvanized by his transformation, fought with renewed, awe-struck ferocity. They carved a path of ruin through Hss'tar's defenders, not to the command spire, but through the very heart of the city's military pride.
When the last Nesutan war-chief fell, not to a warlord, but to a ten-year-old boy whose green eyes held the calm of a glacier and the fire of a supernova, the capital fell silent, save for the crackle of flames.
In the central plaza, before the shattered remains of their stone idols, Blade took a fallen soldier's plasma lance. Not to claim a trophy, but to etch a message. With meticulous, scorching strokes, he carved the symbol of the Nekonian Royal Crest deep into the granite foundation. It was not a flag of occupation. It was a brand. A declaration.
Three children had broken a warrior world. And one of them had discovered, in the smoke and the silence, that the thrill of conquest was even sweeter than the promise of validation. He had tasted true power, and the taste was addictive. The Whispering Claw lifted from the ruins, leaving behind a smoldering monument to a prodigy who had finally, irrevocably, drawn his own blade.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIKvfDxDcv7
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