For hours upon hours, Prophet made his way through the upper floors of the fifth and seventh citadel until only 8 hours remained until they would finally reach their goal.
"Prophet," someone said as he approached, having some kind of clothing draped across his forearms.
He turned to face him. "Yes, child?" A smile still covering his face.
The person did not dare gaze into Prophet's face, fear filling him. "We… we organized a robe for you." His voice was soft as he spoke, "Because we don't… we don't know where your original robe is stored."
"Oh… how thoughtful of you." He told him, grabbing the robe. "I need to look the part if I'm greeting her holiness. Thank you." He threw the robe over his shoulder, not wanting to dirty it by putting it onto the ground. Instead of going into a separate room, one more private, Prophet started to undress, dropping his pants and jacket onto the ground, before putting on the robe. "Hm!" A delighted moan escaped his lips, "How comfortable!"
The person who provided the robe quickly hurried away, before he would have to do any other chores.
"How much longer until you reveal yourself to the general public? The people still working on hiding mechanics—even while we are moving somewhere unknown—still have no idea you, Prophet, and the church of delight exist." Asked the Max clone who let him out of his cell.
"Church of delight? Where did you hear that name?" Prophet asked.
The Max clone looked confused. "I made it up, because I have not yet been told what your society is called." He was polishing Prophet's ceremonial dagger, which he used to cut off limbs of so-called heretics. The dagger had a beautiful shine to it.
Prophet chuckled. "Quite a nice name. We never really came up with a name ourselves, but I think I'm taking your idea. And to your question, once I let myself get captured, they probably had a meeting and decided to wait until there is less than an hour left until we reach our goal before they reveal themselves, because they think I have a plan." He glanced around, searching for any members of the( now named) church of delight before he continued, "The only reason I let myself get captured was because I was too lazy to walk out on my own feet. As for the reason I haven't yet gone back, is because I came up with a plan while I was in that closet you prepared for me."
Prophet left the room, walking through a short hallway before entering the bridge.
⟪⚪⟫
An elevator door opened, revealing the lower floors of the citadel. Captain Teddy walked out, slowly, into the darkness. Through the maze, which was the lower floor of the first citadel, she walked the path she remembered and entered through a hidden door into a ginormous chamber, divided into 2 sections by a force field. She was standing in front of a cage( remember chapter 3? No? Well, sounds like your problem).
From inside the cage, a loud and heavy movement could be heard. As if something just awoke and readjusted its own position. Then it moved into the light, looking at Captain Teddy. "It has been some time since you last visited me."
"Yes." She glared at the creature.
It chuckled slowly, "I heard you sacrificed yourself. Is that true?" It asked, "You and saving lives, even sacrificing yourself? It just makes no sense to me." The creature moved its body closer to the cage to examine her closer.
"Why does it not?" Anger spread over her face because he just implied she was a selfish person.
"You found me down here, kept me trapped and didn't even offer me, a starving creature, some food." He opened his mouth, covering almost the entire force field. The inside of his mouth was made of folding flesh, small hairs covering it and no fluid anywhere to be seen.
"I won't end an entire solar system to feed you once." Her arms crossed across her tiny little body. She tried making herself look bigger while staring into the gaping hole which was this creature's mouth. "And where did you hear that I sacrificed myself?"
The mouth slowly closed before the creature continued speaking—not needing its mouth to do so. "I am able to communicate telepathically with those who touched and consumed the blood of the creatures named Lina."
Captain Teddy was in shock. "How… how many can you talk to?"
"Scared? That I will escape?" The creature asked. It waited a moment, taking in Captain Teddy's nervous expression. "Don't you worry about me escaping. My time will come, but it is not yet. And to answer your question, I can communicate with someone named A24, with the sole Lukas on this spacecraft and someone who calls himself Prophet. He admires your sacrifice."
"Our sole Lukas is dead!" She stated plainly.
"Only his physical form died. His soul remains, is it not in your possession?" The creature's puzzled gaze confused Captain Teddy for a moment, before she remembered something.
Quickly, she pulled the orb out, which appeared at the point the Lukas died at.
"Yes! It is beautiful, is it not?"