Royal Reboot: Level up, Your Majesty!

Chapter 49: The Masquerade (4)

The Masquerade 

4

The clock on the wall read 6:55.

Five minutes until Thomas took the stage. 

Five minutes to stop whatever was about to happen. 

Or walk straight into it.

Trap.

Power stirred at Astra’s fingertips. Instinct urged her to act; discipline told her to wait. No signal from Athena, not yet.

She exhaled slowly, prying her fingers from the fists they had formed. Logic first, impulse later. 

Think.

Out on the balcony, Theo and Athena kept up their polished charade while Thomas answered questions with a politician’s smile. Only Astra caught the gleam in Athena’s eyes. She had already sensed the danger. Still, no signal. Why hold back?

What no one, not even her allies, seemed to account for was Astra herself. She did not fit anyone’s tidy expectations, least of all Thomas’s.

This will be fine, Astra told herself, forcing her power into silence once more.

Athena removed her mask, seemingly respectful, though Astra recognised the deeper game: a chance to probe further into Thomas’s thoughts.

What was Athena still searching for?

“The incident with Tiffany was regrettable,” Athena said, her voice deceptively cool. Yet Astra’s keen hearing picked up on the quickening of her breath, just as the first drops of rain struck the stone balcony. “How has she been since?”

Thomas’s smile flickered. “She’s recovering,” he muttered. His eyes drifted to Theo, who hadn’t moved, who seemed captivated by Athena’s hand. “But I need to—it’s nearly time for the spee—”

He fell silent. His eyes locked on Athena’s hand, where a single finger had twitched. The polite grin collapsed, muscles tightening as something peeled through. Athena’s face lost its colour.

Exposed.

His neck twitched, jerked, then tilted like a raven studying prey, green irises drowning in black. "Curiosity kills the cat, little girl."

“Who assumed,” Athena said, her soft voice almost swallowed by the rising storm, “that I’m the cat?”

SNAP. 

The signal finally arrived, and the storm erupted into chaos in an instant.

Blue light flared from Theo’s fingertips; pressure warped the air. Astra moved. Balcony doors exploded as she broke through, glass sleeting around her.

“Get back!” she shouted, dragging Athena inside an instant before a jet of oily dark matter shot from Thomas’s mouth—a vile, oily substance churning like sewage, racing towards Athena.

Astra’s fingers traced the air, conjuring a shield that caught the blast. Marble cracked beneath her silver heels; sparks danced along her skin as her braid came undone, silver strands lashing in the wind.

But the shield held at the balcony entrance.

The dark matter slammed into it again and again, fast and erratic, determined to reach and silence Athena. The balcony filled with its noise: wet, gurgling snarls. Music cut off. Guests gasped.

Theo had already drawn his weapon, frost racing up his arm as mana charged his blade. He cut toward Thomas’s exposed flank.

With inhuman speed Thomas turned, arm lashing out. A torrent of rot?stinking energy slammed into Theo. The ice shield met it, but the collision skidded him across rain?slick marble.

Theo’s arms trembled under the pressure. “Keep Athena inside! She saw something she wasn’t meant to!”

“But—” Astra couldn’t finish. Heavy boots thundered closer: security. The building groaned, glass shattered below. If the mezzanine collapsed they would all be crushed.

I can’t hold this forever, Astra thought. If I don’t move the fight, I’ll be reduced to a shield on legs.

Astra groaned inwardly. 

What’s Thomas up to? Why now?

She swept a wave of energy outward. The force toppled guests and guards alike down the staircase. Another flick sealed the entrance with layered energy.

“Open up!” someone barked, gun raised.

“Did I leave a welcome mat?” Astra muttered, but before she could turn back to Thomas, gunfire rang out. Military-grade bullets struck her barrier in rapid bursts, each round leaving sizzling marks.

“Not helping.” She recalibrated the shield’s density. Her magic wasn’t designed for this. It excelled in destruction, not restraint. Too much force and the entire floor would collapse. Too little, and the bullets would cut straight through.

Thomas knew how to counter her destructive power, not just Athena’s or Theo’s. He had planned this. But why?

Her shield began to splinter at the balcony’s entrance under the combined pressure from Theo and Thomas. Without it the next exchange would level half the hall.

“Astra!” Theo’s voice rang with panic. “I can’t hold him any longer!”

“A little busy,” she shot back. “Get him to the garden!”

Theo’s body tensed, mana flaring. His shield was almost gone, black smoke bleeding through the cracks.

“Working on it!” 

This was nothing like the cafeteria. Thomas wasn’t just testing limits. He was aiming to kill.

Theo’s blade trembled. Fractures spidered across its surface with every hit. The dark energy lashed at him, striking faster, more precisely. His knees buckled, barely keeping his footing.

“You’re a disappointment, Whitlock.” Thomas’s voice hovered between his own and something more twisted. But then, Thomas’s real voice broke through, black liquid running from his eyes. “W-Why are we doing this…?”

Theo froze, confused, and it cost him.

Thomas’s next strike shattered both shield and blade. Ice fragments exploded outward. Some sliced past Theo’s cheek. He dodged the worst of it, but a tendril still caught his shoulder, tearing clean through fabric and flesh.

Blood hit the marble.

Theo stumbled and pressed a hand to the wound, coating it with ice to stanch the bleeding. He winced, but a small, incredulous smile broke through. “Didn’t think that would actually work.” 

Then again, he had never fought like this before St. Kevin’s.

Thomas laughed, sound splitting in two. “Didn’t know you had it in you. They said you’re all brawn, no brain.”

“They?” Theo’s eyes blazed white as he summoned another ice blade. “Who are they’?”

Thomas’s head tilted the other way. “A human, just like you. But humans… they always make mistakes.”

As the words left his mouth, another wave of darkness erupted from Thomas.

“You’re no human,” Theo said, meeting the assault. He was driven back, forced into Astra’s barrier. His breath came ragged, his limbs shook, and his blade fractured once again.

“Human? Such a pitiful thing. But I must admit… they’re rather fun to toy with. And deliciously nourishing.”

Theo ignored the taunt and closed his eyes. He listened instead: the storm, the rain on stone, the thunder above. Not just the sounds. Power wasn’t only in his blade or his body. He searched for the undercurrent of magic, the energy and the potential to be harnessed, to be controlled, to be… bent.

Eydis… 

She had hinted this.

The rain began to spiral around him, drawn to his skin and coiling up his arm. He wasn’t just channeling mana; he was bending it, taking from the storm, from the air, from the world itself. Like a reservoir waiting to be tapped. Like a battery inside a car, it just needed—

His eyes brightened. “A driver.”

“Nonsense!” Thomas’s mouth unhinged, another wave of darkness spewing forth.

The stormwater froze into a cyclone of ice that spun along Theo’s arm. He thrust it into the dark energy ahead, the collision erupting in a violent spray of splinters.

Theo advanced, reaching deeper into the storm’s energy. Each wave of the battle slammed into Astra’s shield, testing its limits as she fought to hold it together. Time slipped by. Sirens howled somewhere far and closing.

“This balcony could survive a meteor strike,” Astra muttered, eyeing Athena, still dazed. “Let’s finish it.”

Sensing another lightning strike approached, Astra raised a hand, and crimson eyes blazed white. Her hair lifted, glowing, and the mask on her face cracked under the force of the magic flooding her.

Everything slowed: storm, battle, scrambling guards. She linked her will to the tempest’s heart. A spear of lightning slammed down, marble splitting beneath Thomas and theo. 

They twisted aside, crashed onto slick stone.

“You can control lightning?” Theo asked.

“You missed, human,” Thomas spat, struggling to rise. “This cursed, feeble shell.”

Astra ignored Theo, her lips barely moving as she replied, “I didn’t. Meteor showers are simply hyperbolic.”

Thomas froze.

The lightning strike had been precise, calculated. The weakened ledge crumbled. Thomas and Theo plunged into the garden below.

Astra dissolved the barrier, twin diamond blades crystallising in her hands. She moved to leap when a gentle touch halted her.

“Athena?” Astra’s eyes turned back to crimson.

Athena’s golden gaze was unfocused, still half?caught in her vision. “It calls itself Pride.”

The name hit like a dagger to Astra’s chest. A rush of shock, then confusion, then something hotter.

Anger.

Astra’s eyes darkened, the red deepening to something cold and violent. Fingers clenched tighter around the blades so hard they began to fracture.

“Pride… you say?”