[DEBUFF] Imposter Syndrome: Effects intensified.
The holographic window flashed, obtrusive and cruel. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will it away. "Go away," he hissed.
[COMMAND NOT RECOGNIZED]
"Your Highness."
Mali jumped, spinning around. General Kaelen was at his elbow, his face a mask of grim duty. The hangar ramp of their small, black scout ship was lowering, revealing not the expanse of space, but the floor of another, impossibly larger hangar.
"We are aboard the flagship Sovereign," Kaelen said, his voice clipped and all business. "We jumped the last kilometer. Standard procedure. Now, move."
"Jumped?" Mali's stomach lurched at the memory of the lurch, the feeling of his insides being twisted.
"Short-range spacetime fold. Faster than docking." Kaelen didn't offer any more explanation. He gestured to the ramp. "Your new life awaits. Do not keep it waiting."
Mali's feet felt like lead. He looked back at the viewport, at the distant, beautiful blue-green sphere of Toten. His home. A tear escaped, hot and stinging.
"I can't."
Kaelen's expression hardened. "Your Highness. You are an Alkahest. Your very blood unmakes the impossible. You can and you will. Welcome home to House Alkahest. Your House. We have been waiting. Patiently... and impatiently."
The name hit Mali like a physical force. Alkahest. It sounded ancient, powerful, and utterly alien.
As if summoned by the word, his System window flared to life, the text scrolling and re-writing itself.
[LEGACY INTEGRATION: 2%]
[|||-----------------] [KNOWLEDGE UPLOAD: HOUSE ALKAHEST (BASIC)]
[STATUS UPDATED]
The main tab shimmered.
NAME: MALI ALKAHEST
TRUE NAME: [LOCKED]
TITLE: Lost Prince, Heir of House Alkahest
LEVEL: 1
The new words, Mali Alkahest, hung in his vision, a brand of identity he didn't ask for and couldn't comprehend. He wasn't just a prince. He was... an Alkahest.
"This..." He was too stunned to even protest.
"This is your truth," Kaelen said, seeing the dazed look in the boy's eyes and mistaking it for acceptance. "Now, walk."
Kaelen's hand, a steel gauntlet, clamped onto his shoulder, propelling him forward. Mali stumbled down the ramp, a prisoner of his own welcome.
He stepped out onto the deck of the Sovereign, and his world dissolved again.
The scout ship's hangar had been a cave. This was a canyon. It was a city dedicated to war.
The air thrummed with a deep, industrial pulse. It smelled of ozone, hot metal, and a faint, sterile chemical tang. The space was so vast that the ceiling, a kilometer above, was lost in a web of gantries and flickering lights.
Below, thousands—no, tens of thousands—of soldiers in polished white and gold armor were in motion. They moved between ranks of sleek, alien fighter craft, they operated towering, multi-legged war-mechs, they hauled containers of glowing energy cells. It was a perfectly synchronized, deafeningly loud machine of conquest.
And then, it stopped.
One soldier near the ramp, a woman with a glowing data-slate, saw them. She saw General Kaelen, and then she saw the boy in the peasant rags beside him. Her eyes went wide.
She didn't shout. She just dropped her slate, which clattered to the deck, and slammed her fist to her chest. She fell to one knee.
The sound of the dropped slate, and her sudden movement, caused the soldiers near her to look. They saw. They, too, slammed their fists to their chests and knelt.
A wave of silence and submission rippled outward from the ramp, a shockwave of sudden, profound obedience. The roar of engines, the clank of machinery, the shouts of officers—all of it died, replaced by the thunderous, cascading THUD of ten thousand armored bodies kneeling in unison.
The city of war had just bowed.
To him.
Mali stopped breathing. His knees buckled. Kaelen's hand was the only thing holding him upright.
[NEW BUFF RECEIVED] > (BUFF) The Heir's Aura: All allied (Aethel Imperium) units in visual range receive +10 Morale.
"What... what is this?" Mali whispered, horrified.
"This," Kaelen rumbled, his voice the only sound in the cavernous hangar, "is loyalty, Your Highness. This is what your parents' sacrifice bought. Now, walk."
He propelled Mali forward. They marched across the vast deck, a single, straight line through a sea of kneeling, helmeted figures. Mali kept his eyes glued to the floor, at his own "Worn Boots (Toten - Common)," unable to meet the unseen gaze of a single soldier.
They reached a massive blast door on the far side, which hissed open into a pristine white corridor. The moment the door sealed behind them, the roar of the hangar restarting its work was cut off, leaving a clinical silence.
"Medical bay, level five," Kaelen ordered, not to Mali, but to the air. An automated, floating platform—a 'drone'—whirred to life and glided in front of them. "Protocol demands a full sweep before you are presented. To check for local contaminants, diseases, or... parasites."
Mali just nodded, numb. He was hustled onto the drone, which sped down the corridor so fast it pressed him against the back rail. They moved through corridors of polished metal, past crew members who snapped to attention and bowed as he passed, their faces a mix of awe and confusion.
He was brought into a room that was less a medical bay and more a sterile white box.
"Strip," Kaelen commanded, turning his back to give the prince a semblance of privacy.
"What?"
"Your clothes. They are contaminated. We will provide a new uniform."
Mali's hands went to the rough fabric of his tunic. It was all he had. It was his last piece of home. "No, I..."
Kaelen turned, his patience visibly fracturing. "Your Highness, this is not a request."
Before Mali could protest further, a set of mechanical arms descended from the ceiling. A red light scanned him from head to toe. A high-pitched whine sounded, and a focused beam of energy zapped his tunic. It didn't burn; it simply... unraveled. It dissolved into a cloud of harmless gray atoms. The same happened to his boots and trousers.
[EQUIPMENT > BODY: [Peasant's Tunic] - ITEM DESTROYED]
[EQUIPMENT > FEET: [Worn Boots] - ITEM DESTROYED]
Mali stood naked and exposed, shivering in the cold, sterile air. He had never felt more humiliated.
[DEBUFF: Imposter Syndrome - STACKS (x2)]
"Scrubbers, activate," Kaelen ordered.
Jets of stinging, antiseptic mist sprayed from the walls, followed by warm, sonic waves that vibrated the dirt from his skin and hair. A final jet of warm air dried him. The entire process took fifteen seconds. Another set of arms descended, dressing him in a simple, soft, black one-piece suit and simple black boots.
[EQUIPMENT > BODY: [Aethel Novitiate Tunic (Common)] - DEF: 5]
[EQUIPMENT > FEET: [Standard Issue Boots (Common)] - DEF: 3]
"Better," Kaelen said, scanning him. "You look less like a stray."
A door on the far side of the chamber hissed open, revealing another transport tube. Kaelen marched him into it. The doors closed, and the tube rocketed upward, the G-force pushing Mali against the wall.
"Where... where are we going?" Mali finally managed to ask, his voice hoarse.
"The command deck," Kaelen said, his gray eyes unblinking. "Your arrival has... complicated matters. The Cygnus Ascendancy has been waiting for this alliance for a generation. Their delegation is already aboard."
The transport slowed, the pressure easing. "This is your first test, Your Highness. Your fiancée, Princess Anya, has been waiting a very long time to meet the man she was promised to."
The doors hissed open, revealing a breathtaking view of the galaxy through a window the size of a mountain. And standing in front of it, flanked by her own stern-looking royal guards, was a young woman his age, with intelligent eyes and a regal posture that Mali could only dream of.
Kaelen's hand shoved him gently forward.
"Do not disappoint her."