“This is one of the nine Chaos Ayas. This… is the Mystryth Ayas.”

“Mystryth Ayas…?” Pierce echoed as he stared at the gleaming white triangle-cut stone. “So this thing is a ‘Chaos Ayas’, huh?”

“That’s right,” Kaoné replied, watching as Kievkenalis approached the pedestal. She then turned back to address everyone else standing in the research lab, hidden deep behind the cliffs of Anika’s waterfalls. “Mystryth is one of the nine Chaos Ayas, and one of the four light Ayas. It’s one of the only objects in the entire galaxy that can actually create Chaos Energy.”

“That explains a lot…” Phoenix muttered. “Ever since we got past some of those security locks, it felt like the air was getting heavy with… something.”

“That would be you, as a Chaostechnic, sensing the high levels of Chaos Energy all around you,” Kievkenalis explained. “I know the feeling pretty well at this point, but it can take some time to get used to.”

“Is this…” Austin passed a wary glance toward Pallan. “Is this what I was sensing…?”

Pallan nodded. “You are the Ayas Imperium. Locating the Ayas is part of your role.”

“Role… right…”

“All that aside…” Kievkenalis interjected. He turned back to face the group, the Mystryth Ayas now in his hands — it appeared to be around the same size as a baseball, allowing him to easily grasp it as he began to approach the group again. “This is you guys’s first time seeing any of the Ayas, right?”

“Yeah,” Conrad replied.

“I’m not sure that’s right…” Phoenix commented, her face scrounged up in confusion and thought. “This feeling of, like, pressure from the air, and everything… that’s Chaos Energy, right? From the Ayas? I’m pretty sure I’ve felt this before…”

“I can feel somethin’ weird, too,” Spike remarked. “Like the air is kinda thick or somethin’, right? Is that what you’re feelin’, Phoenix?”

“At this range, you’re all bound to feel it,” Kaoné explained while Kievkenalis stopped just a couple of meters from the group. “Usually, only Chaostechnics can sense Chaos Energy, but the output from an Ayas is so great than any Chaotic can feel it from this close.”

“Makes it hard to hide it, among other things,” Kievkenalis stated, and then turned back to Phoenix. “But you’ve said you felt this before? When?”

“…In LA,” Kestrel stated.

“Right! That’s it!” Phoenix’s eyes shot open in realization as she turned to look at Kestrel and Pierce. “Right before that bastard EA kidnapped us, there was that weird stone that showed up on the ground. Do you remember that?”

“…You mean that silver ball?” Pierce questioned. “What about it?”

“Wait… a silver ball…?” Austin passed Pierce a doubtful glance. “It… wasn’t the size of a baseball, or anything, right? And felt like polished metal…?”

“…What the hell? How’d you know that?!”

“This is all to be expected,” Pallan declared, stepping forward and turning to address the Keys. “And is only further proof as to your roles. The object of which you speak is none other than the Syn Ayas, otherwise known as the Master Ayas.”

“Wait, how can you know that?” Kaoné questioned. “I mean, it’s true that the Master Ayas disappeared just before the beginning of the last Chaos Quake, but how do you know where it went? We still don’t know where it is! Don’t tell me you think SERRCom has it…?”

Pallan slowly shook his head, as if refuting a deeply flawed argument. “The Syn Ayas’s disappearance heralded the current stage of the Key Prophecies,” he declared. “As part of that, the Syn Ayas briefly appears before both the Ayas Imperium and the Omni Key, as a beacon to guide them on the correct path. Imperium.” The Archoné then turned toward Austin. “When you saw the Syn Ayas, it was just before the Chaos Quake began, yes? And you saw a vision?”

“…What?” Austin’s brow furrowed in confused frustration. “How the hell…?”

“Wait, he’s right?!” Phoenix exclaimed incredulously.

“Uh, yeah,” Austin admitted. “I thought I was just seein’ things at the time, but… was that really the Master Ayas…?”

“Of course it was,” Pallan declared. “We may not know where it is now, but the fact that it appeared before you is undeniable.”

“Well, you say that, but I bet we know exactly where it is right now,” Conrad countered. “It was with us when EA kidnapped us, and wasn’t with us when we woke up on his ship. He’s gotta have it.”

“That fucker…” Spike growled. “We really ain’t seen the last of him, huh?”

“…Who’s EA?” Kaoné questioned cluelessly.

“A real stupid asshole, that’s who,” Pierce snarked. “How about we talk about something actually cool instead of him. Like the Chaos Ayas, huh?”

Twy passed Pierce an odd look. “The Chaos Ayas…” she echoed, and then gingerly rubbed her throat as she turned to glance at Kievkenalis. “…They really are… odd, huh?”

“Ah, so you’ve finally noticed!” the Dean remarked, a pleased smile appearing on his face. “I always find it kind of funny how long it takes some people to realize.”

“Realize what?” Pierce asked impatiently. “Let’s get to the fucking point, we’ve been here for forever already!”

“Ah ha, good point, good point. Well, let me start from the top, then.” Kievkenalis took a moment to clear his throat before continuing, “as has been said before, the nine Chaos Ayas are the only objects in the entire galaxy can actually create Chaos Energy — and they do so at a truly incredible rate. This, of course, makes them very powerful, and very useful; if you were to attach an Ayas to a machine or system that operated on Chaos Energy, then you could power that machine indefinitely, and even supercharge it beyond its base capabilities.”

“Most systems would be overloaded by that kind of power, though, if you aren’t careful,” Kaoné pointed out. “For example, attaching an Ayas to a conventional set of Chaos Armor would be like directly hooking it up to a nuclear power plant: if you aren’t careful, you’d easily destroy the armor due to the amount of raw power flowing through it.”

“If they’re that powerful, then why not use them as an actual power source?” Phoenix questioned. “It sounds like free energy, to me.”

“A couple of the Ayas actually are used that way,” Kievkenalis remarked, and then looked down at the gleaming white gemstone in his hand. “Many people consider the Ayas to be too dangerous to use so simply, however. The Ayas aren’t exactly difficult to track down, due to the incredible amounts of Chaos Energy they generate — in fact, with specialized sensors, equipment, and enough time, you could detect an Ayas from across the galaxy! But even so, hooking one up to a power grid would make it even more obvious where it is, and therefore easier to steal.”

“I mean, we’ve heard that bad things could happen if the Nanocreatures got a bunch of the Ayas,” Sky mused, “but what else could be dangerous about them?”

“How useful they are to Chaotics,” Kievkenalis declared. “There’s two traits that can make even one Ayas very dangerous in the immediate term. The lesser of the two…” He paused for a moment, stretching his empty left hand out into the air. A second later, there was a flash of white light, followed immediately by the appearance of a magnificent white and silver bow into his hand. The Dean grasped the bow tightly and looked it over as he finished, “…is the Ayas Weapons.”

“Wait…!” Twy stared at the bow in awe, at which point she held out her left hand — into which she summoned an identical bow. “That’s my bow!”

“Well, that answers one of my questions!” Kievkenalis remarked as he glanced between the bow in his hand, and the same bow that Twy now held in hers. “So you can summon yours at the same time as the ‘real’ one, after all. Interesting!”

“But of course,” Pallan commented, “the Keys’ ability to summon the Ayas Weapons would be nigh-useless if it were negated by anyone holding the Ayas.”

“That may be so,” Kaoné said, “but the fact that there are two Mystryths here is… well, I don’t really know what I expected.”

“It does imply some interesting things about how the Ayas and the Ayas Weapons work, though,” Kievkenalis declared, and then turned back to Twy. “If you don’t mind, can you drop by tomorrow? I’d really like to look into this matter some more!”

“Uh… sure…?” Twy responded uneasily.

“Anyways, as I was saying,” the Dean said, turning to address the whole group once more, “when a Chaotic has one of the Ayas on their person, they gain the ability to summon that Ayas’s specific weapon. In this case, since I’m holding the Mystryth Ayas, I can summon the Mystryth bow. It may not seem like much, but according to all tests that I and the other researchers have done here — as well as the papers I’ve read from the CSA labs — the Ayas Weapons are completely indestructible, never dull, and can cut through anything. That, combined with the ability to summon and dismiss them at will, can make them very dangerous in the right hands. The only thing that will stop an Ayas Weapon is energy shielding.”

“It does sound useful, but only so much,” Phoenix said. “Unless you can summon one of those weapons, like, inside of someone, or something.”

“Oh, no, that’s not possible. In order to successfully summon an Ayas Weapon, you have to have enough free space for it to fit,” Kievkenalis answered. “Still, you’d be surprised. Ayas Weapons can be a significant force multiplier for certain kinds of Chaotics, particularly Introtechnics and some types of Psychotechnics.”

“Nevertheless, the Ayas Weapons aren’t the primary danger of the Ayas,” Kaoné explained. “Kevken, I think it’s about time you showed them.”

Kievkenalis offered her a curt nod before glancing over at Pallan. “Archoné, just to check—“

“Go ahead,” Pallan urged. “You hardly need permission from me.”

“Well, if you say so!” The Dean promptly dismissed the Mystryth bow, allowing his left arm to drop to his side as he firmly grasped the Mystryth Ayas in his right. “…Chaos State: First Tier!”

As soon as the words left his mouth, a burst of white light filled the room, blinding everyone present and sending the Keys recoiling in surprise. Immediately after the flash of light, the Ayas in Kievkenalis’s hand disappeared into his chest, leaving his right hand free — and the Ayas no where to be seen.

“What the fuck…!” Pierce scowled, rapidly blinking his eyes in an attempt to recover from the unexpected flash. “How about a warning, next time?!”

“Ah ha, sorry,” Kievkenalis apologized sheepishly. “I guess I forgot that most people aren’t used to seeing a Chaos State activation, ha!”

“The Chaos State…” Twy echoed. “…A state of increased power that a Chaotic can enter, using the power of the Chaos Ayas… right?”

Kaoné nodded. “That’s right, Twy. I see you’ve done your homework.”

“Ah ha ha…” Twy laughed shyly in response. “I just kind of expected all of this, is all, so I looked it up before we got on campus.”

“You expected this?” Austin passed Twy a surprised look. “What? How?”

“Well, we’ve been told before that YCUR has an Ayas, right? So when Pallan said he wanted to bring us here to show us something, I figured this would be it. And then, when everyone’s voice started doing that echo-y thing that Phoenix’s does when they said the word ‘Chaos’, well…” Twy glanced over at Kievkenalis. “I figured we’d see this.”

“Hey, wait… you’re right!” Pierce remarked. “Now that I think about it… what the hell? What’s that voice stuff all about?”

“Consider it a quirk of the Ayas and Chaos Energy,” Kievkenalis explained. “The activation phrase for the Chaos State is verbal, much like Chaostechnic abilities — but any Chaotic can use the Chaos State. And since even a partial invocation of a Chaos Keyword causes the vocal distortion, it means that any time a Chaotic says the word ‘Chaos’ within ten meters of the Ayas, their voice distorts just ever so slightly.”

“And now it’s only yours,” Conrad pointed out.

“Well, yes. Once an Ayas has been used to activate the Chaos State, it becomes a part of the Chaotic’s body, and can’t be used by any other Chaotic until the Chaos State ends — either as a result of the Chaotic voluntarily ending it with the deactivation phrase, or them being beat out of it in a fight.”

“The Chaos State isn’t strong enough to win every fight? That’s lame,” Pierce said.

“The First Tier Chaos State isn’t that strong, no,” Kievkenalis corrected. “But the Chaos State gets exponentially more powerful with each Ayas that you add to it. I’m sure you all have heard about the Battle of Neticen during the Nanocreature War, right? One of the combatants in that fight was using five of the Ayas, and an entire planet was destroyed just as collateral damage.” The Dean then looked down at his hands. “Even the First Tier can be a powerful boon, though. While a skilled Chaotic can still defeat a lesser-skilled Chaotic who’s been boosted by the First Tier Chaos State, the fact still remains that the power boost is significant, enough to typically require multiple other Chaotics to counter. Not to mention how the Chaos State renders you immune to the Chaos Energy-nullifying effects of CENT Fields and Dead Space.”

“…I suppose I see why the Ayas are considered so dangerous, then, if any Chaotic can do this,” Phoenix mused.

“Guess all that security wasn’t for nothing, after all,” Conrad commented.

“Though there’s obviously limitations, if it’s possible to beat someone who’s usin’ the Chaos State,” Spike pointed out. “What kinda limitations are we talkin’, here?”

“Surprisingly few, actually,” Kievkenalis replied. “Research and information that we gathered during the Nanocreature War says that spending too much time in the Chaos State can be physically stressful to the point of lethality, but the effect seems rather minor with the First Tier. As part of our research, I’ve activated the First Tier and didn’t disengage it until a week had passed — and after that, I only felt a little bit of fatigue. I’d bet that you would have to inhabit the First Tier Chaos State for months on end, perhaps even years before disengaging it would be lethal.”

“Wait, are you serious?!” Sky exclaimed. “Are you saying that someone could just be walking around in the Chaos State indefinitely, and we’d never know until we fought them?!”

“There are still ways to tell if someone is in the Chaos State. You can still sense the Ayas they’re using, for one. And two… I suppose none of you have noticed it, but the voice of someone who’s in the Chaos State does sound different. It’s the same kind of subtle echo that you hear when a Chaostechnic uses a Chaos Keyword, albeit even more subtle than that.”

“…Now that you mention it…” Phoenix nodded slowly, as if in understanding. “…Yeah, I can… kind of hear it.”

“Huh? His voice sounds normal, though…?” Sky questioned.

“Ah ha, well, it is almost imperceptible for the First and Second Tiers,” Kievkenalis remarked. “Once you get up to the Third or Fourth Tier, it starts getting obvious. And the Fifth Tier even lets you speak in the vacuum space! Pretty cool, huh?”

“What are these ‘tier’s you keep talkin’ about?” Austin asked.

“Ah, sorry. The ‘Tier’ of the Chaos State indicates how many Ayas were used to activate it. One Ayas is First Tier, two is the Second Tier, and so on. You don’t even have to have all of the Ayas at once to activate a higher tier, either, you can start lower and then call the activation phrase for the higher tier once you get more Ayas. Which is both cool, and pretty dangerous, when you think about it…”

“So? What’s stoppin’ you from just deactivatin’ the State and reactivatin’ it on the spot with the extra Ayas?”

“Someone faster can snatch the Ayas from you in that time, duh,” Pierce interjected.

“Well, yes, but not in the way that you’d think,” Kaoné commented. “With the exception of the First Tier Chaos State, when you disengage the State, the Ayas are randomly scattered across a wide area — an area that gets larger and larger the more Ayas there are.”

“We haven’t been able to test that part much, for security reasons,” Kievkenalis added, “but when my friend briefly used all nine Ayas to activate the Chaos State at the end of the Battle of Neticen, and then disengaged, they were all scattered randomly across an area fifteen thousand light years across!”

“…I guess that’s supposed to be some kind of balancing factor?” Twy suggested. “As a way to make sure that one person can’t hoard all of the Ayas for long?”

“You’re assumin’ that the Ayas can think about this,” Austin countered.

“The Ayas don’t, no, but…” Kaoné started, only to trail off and then shake her head. “No… we can save that lesson for another time. I think you’ve learned plenty about the Chaos State and the Ayas already, today.”

“I will admit, they’re more interesting than I expected,” Pierce said, “…but at the same time, all of the catches and caveats just sound annoying as all hell.”

“Better that than letting fully unrestricted power fall into the hands of one person,” Phoenix replied.

“Yes, the Ayas are dangerously powerful, indeed,” Kievkenalis affirmed. “If nothing else, I hope the one thing you learn today is to not take the Ayas lightly!”

“A lesson that you would do well to internalize,” Pallan declared. “As each of you fulfill your roles as the Keys, you are bound to come across all of the other Ayas. Understanding their power, and their danger, is paramount to ensuring your future success.”

“Whatever you say,” Conrad droned, and then jerked his head toward the exit. “But if we’re done here, can we get back to the hotel? I could really use a nap right now.”

“Well, I’ve said my piece,” Kievkenalis remarked. “There’s a couple other things that might be worth mentioning, but we can save that for a later time.”

“Yes, I think that’s a good stopping point for today, as well,” Kaoné said. “There should still be a couple hours of sunlight once we get back to the surface…” She then turned to address all of the Keys. “For the rest of today and tomorrow, you’re free to explore Anika as you would like!”

“Ah, yes, and don’t forget to stop by tomorrow, please!” Kievkenalis quickly interjected while looking at Twy. “I’d really like to study your weapon, more!”

“Yeah… I think I do, too,” Twy replied. “I still don’t know as much as I would like.”

“Great! Just come by the admin building and ask for me. I should be on campus all day.”

“Leave it to you to squander a good day of urban exploration, sis,” Sky remarked.

Twy responded with a simple unamused glance before turning toward the room’s exit as Kaoné took the lead.

“Kievkenalis, I’ll leave you here to re-secure the lab,” the Dean commented, and then gestured for the rest of the group to follow her as she strode into the hallways beyond. “As for everyone else, I do believe it’s finally time for us all to enjoy the cool air and sights of Anika! Let’s go!”