Dimensional Descent

The Emberheart Lady spoke calmly and in the end, her husband couldn't refute anything she said.

Inwardly, though, they both felt complicated about this matter. Nothing in Leonel's letter was wrong. They had disparaged his wife, and they had raised the status of Lyra.

The latter choice was because Lyra's marriage to Thalion was meant to be the catalyst they needed in order to move forward with the next steps of their plan.

Part of their mixed feelings was exactly because of this. They had put their daughter directly in the line of fire not just once, but twice now. Although the world didn't know, how could they not know that they had tried to marry her off to Leonel first.

These matters built up frustration in layers and they felt like they were being painted into a box. But ultimately, they never had a choice...

Until now.

Finally, they could take some of the brunt of the pressure away from their daughter and bear it themselves as her parents. The Emberheart Lady didn't even plan to have Lyra on the participating roster. She would do this for her child... as Lyra's mother.

They accepted Leonel's challenge.

By doing so, they felt that they could better paint the humans as the villains and their plan, which had stalled, could roll forward once more.

...

What the couple didn't know was that this wasn't their choice at all.

Leonel stood on the high clouds of the Dream Pavilion, taking in the beautiful array of blues, pinks and violets. It was truly gorgeous in ways that couldn't be described.

of the world now, but he

he wanted them

tried to marry Lyra to them. If he had, there was no way they'd go the extra step of publicizing it, and thus they had played right into his

chuckled to himself.

a smile that could blot out the sun spreading across

the Pavilion. Inside, he found Goggles exchanging

were startled with Leonel's sudden appearance and were about to hurry to stand but Leonel stopped

to interrupt you guys. How's

Eamon said with a gaze filled with

but Leonel couldn't help

obvious and clear, but Goggles' own was faked. It was too easy to see through. It seemed that even now, he wasn't quite comfortable around Leonel

will take time. Plus, it isn't as though I've put in as much effort as I should have. Just

much as Leonel wanted to revert back to the time they would wrap their arms around one another's shoulders and face off against the world together, his actions had caused that to slip

didn't come without its

of his heart on his face. "I have something I might need you two for. Soon, we'll be challenging

a dojo style challenge. The number of participants is dependent on myself, though there are some quirky

the time comes, but I'll be

it on them, they wouldn't be able to retain it all. It was better if he just explained

He had

didn't know if he

what your greatest weakness is,

blushing down