The chamber was simple stone and shadow. No windows, no torches, only the faint glow of candles that never seemed to burn down. Tekhartha Mondatta led the Ravager and S3bastian inside, his staff tapping once against the floor.
"You cannot wield Harmony or Discord until you have faced the truths inside you," he said. "No teacher can hand you those truths. You must draw them from silence. Sit. Listen. The Iris does not whisper to ears. It whispers to the soul."
They obeyed.
Mondatta left them there. The door shut. The silence stretched.
The Ravager's optics flickered as his body sank into stillness. But stillness was not silence. In the black behind his eyes, he saw battlefields of burning sand, broken steel. And always the voice.
Fight. Kill. Obey.
It was Anubis' command, cut into him like circuitry. No matter how long he sat, it rose again. He clawed at his mind, trying to force it out, but the harder he fought, the louder it became. He tried denial. He tried rage. Neither silenced the voice.
Then came the shift. He remembered his time in the war. The breaking of the Titans, the obleisks touching down, and the war ending. And still, Anubis whispered. Not as master anymore, but as shadow. He then had an epiphany. The voice would never leave, it was written into him, carved into his being. It was not a chain. It was a scar.
And scars did not vanish. They only reminded you that you survived. When the Ravager opened his optics again, the voice was still there, but it no longer commanded. It was background, not destiny. He whispered, almost like prayer: "I am more than what he made me."
S3bastian resisted meditation from the start. His first instinct was to hum, then crack a joke about how quiet the monastery was, how he could almost hear paint dry. But Mondatta wasn't there to smirk at him. No audience. No one.
The silence pressed in until even his humor felt small. And then, memories came.
The battlefield smoke. The plasma burns. And... someone? As he meditated, he could focus more on this person's voice, his commands, his laughter. S3bastian saw him clearly again, as if he stood just ahead in the chamber. The memory struck so hard it almost fried his circuits. For the first time in weeks, he remembered everything about him. Shawn Rose.
For a moment, joy welled in his core. He finally remembered who his friend was. His companion. His better half if you could call him that.
But then came the weight. Better half? If Shawn was the better half, what part did he contribute? If he returned to Shawn now, what would he be? A butler. A sidearm. A servant who only lived for another's orders. Who was S3bastian?
He saw it as plain as the scar on the Ravager: his purpose had never been his own. His loyalty was real, his love perhaps even real, but his identity was shackled to Shawn. To go back meant never finding out who he was. To stay meant risking that bond fading forever.
The realization ached worse than any plasma surge. "I don't know who I am," he whispered to the silence. "I only know who he made me. And if I return to him now, I'll never know more than that."
The Iris pulsed in him then, not with answers, but with space. With possibility. For the first time, the silence wasn't empty. It was wide open.
Unbeknownst to the two, the process took a week for them to come to realize their truths. The process varied from different individuals. Some realized within a day to others never realizing their truths. The hardest part was not only knowing the truth but accepting it as they had. Regardless, Mondatta would always return to the chamber within a week. He studied their postures and instantly knew form the moment he saw the Ravager still, calm for the first time, S3bastian sitting straighter than his usual lazy sprawl, they did just that.
"You have seen your truths," Mondatta said. "And accepted them."
Neither argued. Neither joked.
Mondatta carried a cloth bundle and unwrapped it, revealing two small, glowing orbs. They floated slightly above his palms, humming softly like tuned bells.
"Humans, when they touch the Iris, can manifest gifts immediately. But you are omnics. Your sparks need a bridge, a way to focus. These orbs are catalysts. Not weapons, not crutches, but mirrors. Reflections of yourselves. They will carry your Harmony, or your Discord, outward."
He set them down. "Now you begin to learn what it means to shape the Iris. Not as servants. Not as slaves. As a part of it."
The Ravager reached forward, and the orb shivered purple, pulsing with power but remained steady in his grip.
S3bastian touched his, and it shimmered blue- black, flickering uncertain, like it wasn't sure yet what he would become.
For the first time, S3bastian didn't make a quip. He only breathed silence.