Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

As Raltz rolled Mono into the spire's entrance, his sob–Lutz in tow, they were met with a judging gaze by the student, all looking at them with a suspenseful gaze. Their eyes lingered not on the child but on the rag-wearing man and the broken automatons being wheeled inside. Following them as they made their way to the elevator, all of Shamisha's ex-students present in that hall wanted to stop them, as commercial automatons weren't allowed to be in the spire once they'd left past the initial assembly.

But before they could lift from their leisurely chairs and couches, the elevator door opened and a pair of armoured metal guards walked out. Weapons in hand, the guardians of the spire–a humanoid yet clearly mechanical machina. A square face with a steel body ready to withstand at least a few blows from the enemy, but for now, their task was intimidation.

"You cannot go beyond this point, defective model–"

"Protocol Aurarelia…" Without even stopping in their tracks, Mono deactivated the automatons with the same proprietary protocol that her master had once tried abusing. And while her own creations were free of this weakness, Shamisha was still unaware of the fact that her master could easily control each and every one of her machines.

"How did you do that!?" Lutz asked, his teary eyes gleaming with excitement for once.

And while the rest of the crowd behind them rose from their seats at the unexpected outcome, the group got inside the elevator and headed straight for the peak.

"You're better off not knowing, kid." Glancing sideways at the young boy, she smiled. "But you're free to join me in my personal lab once this is over. I can see that you're a visual learner, so why don't you learn from the best there is?"

Although the kid wanted to leap at the opportunity, before he could utter a word, his father Raltz spoke once more.

"What are you planning to do once we get up to the very top?" His eyes lingered on the blinking button of the elevator, indicating their destination. Being so up high was not just anxiety-inducing, but it also finally made him wonder what in the hells was happening. Thus far, everything that Mono had said–none of it felt real, but now with the elevator moving them up to the tallest peak in the kingdom, the reality of the situation was finally setting in.

Breaking the silence that followed his question, Mono responded.

"Shamisha was working with a witch for a while on a secret project–of course, I knew, but I couldn't let her know that I knew." Her eyes were everywhere, after all, after the betrayal of her master, how could she truly trust everyone without a shadow of a doubt? Not to mention… "Those two have been working against me for a while."

Lowering her head, the queen looked to her past self in retrospect. Arrogance and seclusion had corroded her human heart. She was no longer herself but rather what the world required from her. The mother of machina, instead of Mono Aura–no…Just Mono by herself.

The ding of the elevator brought the queen back to her senses. Looking through the opening door, her eyes lay on the massive ship parts, haphazardly laid out at a slight elevation. Just one look was enough for her to judge its purpose. A ship's prototype, but for what reason? She couldn't know, but neither did she care.

"Take me closer to the machine, I'll fix myself first, and then you guys should find a way to help everyone leave the city without getting caught by those guards the clone has wandering around the city."

"As if I can do that now…" Raltz whispered, his voice heavy with emotion.

Quickly glancing at him, Mono truly wondered if he saw her as one of her children, even though now he knew that she wasn't. She tried to keep her curiosity contained within, but as he began taking her towards the machinery, she couldn't help but tell him.

"I'm not really your daughter, you know? This body and the heart it has, none of it can be returned to her."

"Easy for you to say," glancing down at her, Raltz took a deep breath and held back those tears. "When you look exactly like her, how can I leave you here? How can I leave…her here?"

Staring right back at him, Mono didn't know what to say. She'd never felt so close to someone to experience what he was experiencing, then how could she understand what it meant for a father to do everything they could for their child? The same thought in the end made her wish once more to have had a parent like him, right as she turned her head to the machine.

"Fine, we're gonna fix me first and then figure out what to do next," turning her head to Lutz, Mono stretched her hand forward to get the screwdriver that he'd been carrying all this time. Once it was in her hands, she began giving out more orders to disassemble the machine's parts to integrate them within herself.

'Anti-gravity, Shamisha's speciality, huh…Perfect alternative for broken legs.' Undoing the Machina's legs while the father looked away with visible pain in his eyes, Mono began using the parts to help herself walk again, all the while, Lutz was the only one helping her.

The young boy, unlike her father, had been around machines a lot more, and thus he understood that, unlike a living person, the limbs were replaceable with no pain inflicted on the automaton being worked on.

Even so, ever so often, the boy gave Mono strange glances. His sight only lingered on her until the image of his sister came back to his head. In spite of that hurt, however, he gathered the courage to ask.

"Are you really the queen? I mean, master Mono–miss Shamisha's master?" The boy was curious but not pleasantly so. Instead, he'd grown angsty to the thought of working with a genius who was rarely ever seen out of her castle or her lab.

Noticing his change in expression and mannerism, Mono knew what was going on in the boy's head; thus, with a smile, she decided to put his mind to rest.

"For now, you can just treat me as your sister." With a few blinks of his eyes, the boy smiled right back.

The repairs continued for a while longer, and at the end, Mono was back on her feet with one hell of a plan to get rid of the impostor. But before then, it was time to send Raltz and Lutz away, for what she was planning required the city to be empty in case a riot broke out, thanks to those false guards put in place by the clone of hers.

'Let's get this done.' With a determined heart, the queen of Elenaria was ready to return.