Impossible is but a Word

Every face turned to her.

"Armonion! We can use armonion light!"

 The hall came alive in a sudden sea of whispers.

"You mean Professor Aionia's Armonion machine? The machine that turns sound to light, and light to sound?" Elwin elucidated, the brilliance of the idea beginning to dawn upon him.

"Yes! Remember what we learned? The Order and the Grand Armée deployed armonion machines back then to win the war for the skies, against the Syndicate! They instantly knew what, where, and how their allies were doing! We can do the same thing!"

All faces grinned at a solution at last. But there was an obvious logistical problem.

Lucian walked closer. "Be realistic. To communicate using armonion, we must have armonion machines. There isn't any on campus, or in this town, except for maybe the skycraft bridge."

"So we'll make them!" exclaimed Mirai.

Lucian chided her, skeptical. "You'll make them? We only have three – scrap that, we only have two days! Are you telling us you can build armonion machines, something manufactured by professional atomdancers, in just two days?"

Mirai shot back. "It's not just me. Look around this hall. We have 80 pairs of hands. However it takes long to build, we can reduce it by at least a factor of 80 if we all work together. What takes a single person 80 days to build can be accomplished in just 1 day, possibly even shorter thanks to the division of labor," she glanced at Katherine, who gave a knowing nod.

Nods and murmurs of approval suffused the hall, but Lucian was still dubious.

"Before all of us get riled up with a fantasy, let me make it clear: we haven't got any blueprints for the armonion machine. Are you so arrogant and delusional to think you can match Professor Aionia's invention through logic alone? Don't you think it will be a waste of time that can be much better spent elsewhere, like defenses?"

"I don't have to, because her papers for the armonion machine are in the Library, along with the copies of blueprints for the patent. We just need to replicate it exactly. Don't you remember her class?"

"Of course I do!" retorted Lucian, his hair rising like spikes. "Are you seriously telling me you're going to replicate vacuum tubes?!" he exclaimed, incredulous.

Isaac stepped forward with a cup, swooshing the air out. "If I can do it, everyone can. With our Mahamastra, there is nothing we cannot do."

"You all are utterly... creative," Lucian muttered, palming his head.

"Professor William said that we should apply everything we learnt to win, no matter how hard the challenge, and Professor Aionia told us not to be afraid to cook something new. We're going to do exactly that," Mirai assured them all. "With instant communication, we will warn and defend each other, and coordinate our attack in the blink of an eye, like a school of fish with a single mind!"

The crowd erupted into a chorus of determination. After an evening of nowhere, they finally had direction.

"This is a gamble, you all know. If we lose because of it, I'm going to –" Lucian muttered.

"We know it is a gamble. But please, Lucian, with your help, I'm sure we can win," assured Isaac. Elwin was taken aback by the plea, but understood at once what Isaac was trying to do when he threw him a knowing wink. This was Isaac's way of diplomacy, and it was valuable to them all.

Lucian threw his hands in the air. "Fine, I agree. Then let's get to it without wasting a second."

"We'll secure the papers from the Library," said Katherine, without a moment for Lucian to change his mind.

"I'll raid the Academy workshop," stated Robert, gathering his teammates. "Just tell me what we need, and I'll get everything I can."

"We'll make sure our strategy doesn't leak."

"We'll get food and sleeping bags for everyone."

"We'll get the heavy tools!"

"We'll be in charge of making the antaric batteries!"

"We'll magnify the blueprint diagram for everyone to see!"

Within hours of their decision the Celendirs were chipping and honing away at the ingredients for the newfangled armonion machine, the blueprint from the library dissected in detail and sketched with multiple pairs of discerning eyes and hands, led by Mirai and Daphne, with Elwin on the side. 

They divided their labor into several groups, one in charge of rolling the wires of gold and copper, one in charge of shaping the quartz to fit the sonophones, two groups to finesse the glass for the vacuum tubes, one group to extract the air, another to blaze and process the wolfram filaments, two to jury-rig workable powerbanks with acid and lead, three to replicate the magniton-ezinkul battery for the vacuum tubes. And despite the outlandishness of the endeavor to anyone outside Aeternitas, each Arten realized with delight that they already possessed all the necessary skills from the hundreds of experiments and crafting they'd performed in Professor Aionia's experimental philosophy class. It was as if all her experiments were to teach them how to build the armonion machine, and this was their final project.

The Celendirs worked through the night, and by the next afternoon, two machines were completed, each the size of an enormous suitcase with a pole of metal that they had to carry on their backs. Cheers and delight erupted on the momentous occasion as they heard each other's voice across the space of the campus in an instant, with one machine in the Hall of Eternity and another in the Circuleum. Alas, one machine crackled and exploded on them after just minutes of talk, but when did anything ever go right on the first try?

All of them, encouraged by the power of their hands and ingenuity, doubled down their efforts to diagnose the problem, and by the evening before the Battle for Aeternitas, they had completed five more machines to bring the total to six. They had more than enough.

Yet, their focus upon the armonion machines did not mean that they neglected defenses. With studious appropriation of time they managed to fortify their grand banner upon the top of the ziggurat, and set up good protection around one flag of their choice. While the Padishahs would rally behind their superior defensive capabilities to protect their flags, the Celendirs would harness the power of armonion under the cover of night to coordinate their maneuvers with incredible speed, divide and confuse their opponents, gather into a roaring trident when the time came, and strike a decisive blow upon all three targets before any soul in the Padishahs could react.

The battle would be theirs.

***

"Just so you know, I'm only working with you because I don't want to lose," hissed Lucian, his eyes frosty upon Elwin the night before the battle. "Don't fool yourself that I've forgotten to exact the toll for the sins of your father and yourself. After all this is over, I am going to serve you a defeat so painful you shall never forget it for the rest of your waking memory."

Elwin laughed into the sky, turning away. "We'll see," he muttered under his breath.

And though Elwin had laughed at his threat, he vividly remembered the daggers that Lucian drove into his soul in the past. Every time Elwin saw Lucian, it reminded him of the nightmares where his ash-blond hair blocked his way, when his gauntlet of frost hit him, when his whip of water singled him out, and others giggled at his sorrowful expense, without reason or justification. Elwin had not forgiven Lucian for the suffering he'd caused; he wasn't sure whether he ever could.

Elwin had beaten Ursus without harm, but with this ash-blasted enemy, the one person in the world that Elwin despised with all his heart, the reality was about to be very different. Now that the tournament permitted them to fight at full force, a knife oozing with acid appeared in Elwin's heart; it was not a knife that stabbed his own flesh, but whose handle emerged for him to grasp and drive the blade into his rival as final recompense.

Elwin glared into the night with sizzling fury, shadows upon his brow.

I'll deliver the same to you, Lucian. Just wait and see. Just wait and see!

They each went their own way; and to all those who could witness, their spirits of rivalry cleaved the pillars of night in two like a serpent and a dragon.