What had been nascent and faded galaxies finished loading their luminescence and volume beyond the grid as the brothers, frozen in fear, were in shadow. Only being a skull and two skeletal arms until the three sets of centaur bone floated closer, Iggy's lich and quadruped outline rendered while he wielded his axes closer to Joaquim and Gabe.

  "I know you can see the future," Gabe said to Iggy before his little brother said anything. "Those timelines where I chose to stay on the Alkrezian side are not going to happen."

  "W... what are you saying?" Joaquim mumbled to Gabe.

  "Joaquim," Iggy gently interrupted him. "How familiar are you with the concept of resets?"

  "Like in video games?" Joaquim asked.

  Iggy nodded. "Our lives... even though you two were and are undercover Alkrezians... was supposed to be rather normal. Me being Iggy now rather than Iker was the culmination of our realities being reset repeatedly. There have been times Gabe lived under my roof, and other times he did not, but overall the same things happened. The boot camp, the musical chair test, more kaya training, and a cute tournament to top it all of before you two officially started working for two platoon. Very typical stuff."

  "Wait," Gabe said. "You said our tournament was cute?"

  "Of course!" Iggy said. "I make sure a tournament with a bunch of children fighting does not go further than anything cute. I don't care how the other platoons do it."

  "So what now? There's no tournament now? Where are we?" Joaquim asked.

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  "Well after the tournament that will now never happen... you two helped Ameen get into Ember City to try to bring it down, but you two defected and Ameen is the sorest loser I have had the displeasure of fighting over and over again. So now he is going back in time over and over again to try and beat us and bring down Ember City and Fornia," Iggy explained.

  "That's why you asked me about resets," Joaquim added.

  "Exactly."

  "Doesn't that piss you off? Like us being here 'cause of Prophet Ameen?" Gabe asked Iggy. "I know about Camilo."

  The mood in the reality shifted, but Iggy's disposition did not contribute to it at all. "Iker feels more of a past life to me like this. The best way I can explain it is that I am no longer one being, but even then that simplification waters it down too much. Either way, because I have no real attachment to the memories of Iker training you, whether they are events that have existed or will exist... I have no qualms about killing you both. As Iker I would be emotionally distraught, but as Iggy you will just be two souls I have had direct influence upon. Life and death are just status conditions to me."

  Silence took up space for several seconds.

  So... he already knows we were supposed to betray two platoon... but even then I didn't want to do it, Joaquim thought. What do I actually believe in?

  "I want to hear from you two why you want to stay in my platoon... even though I am more than a supersoldier now," Iggy said. "Ameen's time shenanigans made it so you won't experience the moments we shared where we grew closer with Lucia too—"

  "Where is she?" Gabe asked.

  "She is helping Corporal Woo through space and time too," Iggy replied. "That's who I want to send you to after this Gabe. I need to fast track Joaquim's training within this pocket reality. This is one of the last realities I was able to find where time moves slowly, but Ameen is going to discover it and try to make time move faster here without our awareness. Ideally he would want us to be unaware that the flying cities are being invaded while we still train here."

  "Why does he want to destroy Ember City?" Joaquim asked.

  "He wants to avenge the Palestinians that died in the holocaust almost two centuries ago... at least two centuries ago from our perspective," Iggy answered.