The first thing that changed was Arthur's breathing.
Not faster. Deeper. Like he was trying to pull in enough air to fuel something that human lungs weren't designed to sustain. August watched him sway, catch himself, then close his eyes for three long seconds.
When he opened them, the courtyard had gone quiet in a way that made August's skin crawl.
"Fifteen minutes," Crownless announced to the crowd. "The collection companies have reached the outer settlements."
Arthur didn't respond. He was listening to something else now. August could almost see it: the way his head tilted slightly, how his functioning hand twitched in rhythm with… what? The crowd's fear? Their hope? Three hundred different beliefs about who Arthur was and what he could do, all pressing against him at once.
"You feel it, don't you?" Crownless said softly. "All their faith. All their terror. All their contradictions singing in your bones."
"Shut up," Arthur said, but there was no heat in it. Just exhaustion.
"The young ones think you're invincible. The elders remember when you were just a man with a sharp sword and sharper words. Some see a protector. Others see a predator who hasn't turned on them yet." Crownless stepped closer. "Which song are you dancing to, brother?"
Arthur's prosthetic sparked violently, dead servos trying to respond to something. Not neural commands. Something else. Something flowing through him that had nothing to do with his own will.
"All of them," Arthur said quietly.
"What?"
"I'm dancing to all of them." He looked up, and August saw something terrible in his eyes. Not power. Not rage. Just… openness. Like every defense he'd built against other people's beliefs had finally crumbled. "Every note. Every contradiction. Every prayer and curse with my name in it."
A child in the crowd started crying again. The sound cut through everything, and Arthur flinched like he'd been stabbed. His good hand went to his chest, pressing against something invisible.
"Their fear tastes like copper," he said conversationally. "Did you know that? When someone's truly afraid, their belief resonates at a frequency that tastes like old pennies."
"Arthur," Lyka said carefully, "what's happening to you?"
He laughed. It wasn't a good sound.
"I'm listening. For the first time in years, I'm actually listening to what they believe about me." He gestured at the crowd with his dead arm, the prosthetic swinging loose. "Want to know what autonomous community forty-seven thinks? They're sure I'm here to collect them myself. That this whole thing is an elaborate trap because I finally got tired of pretending to protect them."
"That's not true," someone called out.
"Doesn't matter if it's true. It matters that someone believes it strongly enough to make it real in my bones." Arthur took a step forward and stumbled. Not from physical weakness. From the weight of competing truths. "Community twelve thinks I'm their salvation. That I'll transform into something divine and save them all. Community thirty-three…" He paused, swaying. "They don't think I exist at all. That I'm just a story the strong tell to keep the weak in line."
Crownless watched with fascination. "You're finally cracking. All these years of pretending you had your own Foundation, your own beliefs to anchor you. But you're just an echo chamber, aren't you? A resonance without a source."
"Ten minutes," someone shouted. "The collectors are at the gates of settlement nine!"
The panic rippled through the crowd, and Arthur doubled over like he'd been punched. When he straightened, there was blood on his lips.
"Stop it," he said to no one in particular. "Stop believing so loud."
But they couldn't stop. Three hundred Forsaken, each one radiating their own version of who Arthur was, what he meant, what he could or couldn't do. And Arthur, with no beliefs of his own to shield him, caught in the center of their philosophical storm.
"This is what you are," Crownless said, almost gently. "Not a protector. Not a monster. Just a mirror, reflecting everyone else's convictions until you shatter."
"I know what I am," Arthur said. He wiped the blood away with his good hand, leaving a red smear across his jaw. "Always have. The question is…" He looked at Crownless. "Do you know what that makes me capable of?"
Something in his tone made Crownless step back.
"You can't generate belief," Crownless said. "You can't create power from nothing. You can only…"
He stopped. Understanding dawned on his face.
"Only reflect," Arthur finished. "Only resonate. Only take what others believe and turn it back on them." He smiled, and it was sharp. "You've got quite the Foundation there, brother. All that certainty about integration. All that faith in your own righteousness. Such a clear, strong signal."
"You wouldn't."
"Wouldn't I?" Arthur straightened despite the obvious pain. "You pumped this courtyard full of your believers. Twenty of them, each one absolutely certain that your way is the only way. Each one broadcasting their faith like a beacon."
The twenty figures around the courtyard shifted nervously. They could feel something changing, though they didn't understand what.
"Plus you," Arthur continued, taking a step toward Crownless. His prosthetic dragged behind him, dead weight, but his good hand was steady now. "So absolutely sure that integration is salvation. That unity requires the erasure of choice. Such a powerful belief. Such a clear resonance."
"Arthur…"
"Want to know what your faith tastes like?" Arthur asked. Another step. The air between them started to hum. "It tastes like metal. Like machinery. Like something beautiful that's been hammered into utility."
Crownless raised his hand, power gathering. But it was wrong. Distorted. Like someone had taken his certainty and played it back at the wrong speed.
"Stop," he said.
"Stop?" Arthur laughed again. "I'm not doing anything. I'm just listening. Resonating. Being the echo chamber you said I was." Another step. "But your faith is so loud, brother. So aggressive. It wants to convert everything it touches."
"That's not… I don't…"
"Even me." Arthur was close now. Close enough that Crownless could see how his eyes had gone strange. Not glowing, not transformed. Just… empty. Reflecting everything and holding nothing. "Your belief is trying to rewrite me. Make me understand why integration is necessary. Why choice is an illusion. Why unity matters more than autonomy."
"Then why aren't you agreeing?"
"Because I can't." Arthur's voice was almost gentle. "I have no beliefs to overwrite. No convictions to replace. I'm just…" He gestured vaguely. "Space. Shaped by what fills me."
The crowd watched in horrified fascination as Arthur reached out with his good hand. Not attacking. Just… reaching. Like he was trying to touch something invisible between them.
"And right now," he said, "I'm filled with three hundred different versions of what protection means. What choice means. What autonomy costs." His fingers found something, closed around it. "Your faith is strong, Kytorus. But it's singular. Uniform. It believes one thing absolutely."
"Yes," Crownless said proudly. "Unity. Purpose. Evolution."
"While they…" Arthur nodded toward the crowd. "They believe everything. That I'm a monster. That I'm a savior. That I'm nothing. That I'm everything. Three hundred contradictions that can't be resolved." His grip tightened on whatever he was holding. "Want to know what happens when singular faith meets irreconcilable plurality?"
Crownless tried to pull back, but Arthur's grip on his resonance was too strong. Not physical. Deeper. Like he'd grabbed the foundation of Crownless's beliefs and started… pulling.
"It breaks," Arthur said simply.
What happened next wasn't combat. It was physics. Like watching two sound waves meet and cancel each other out. Crownless's perfect certainty crashed against the chaos of three hundred different truths, and where they met…
Silence.
Crownless staggered, his perfect form flickering. For a moment, August saw him as he really was: tired, hurt, desperately trying to save a world that didn't want saving.
"You're destroying my Foundation," he whispered.
"I'm not destroying anything," Arthur corrected. "I'm just letting it hear what everyone else believes. Letting your certainty meet their uncertainty. Letting your singular truth discover it's not the only truth."
"This is wrong. This is…"
"Necessary?" Arthur suggested. "Isn't that your favorite word? Sometimes things are necessary even when they're ugly?"
The twenty followers around the courtyard were wavering now. Their perfect faith disrupted by whatever Arthur was doing to their leader. Some dropped to their knees. Others simply stood frozen, caught between beliefs.
"Five minutes!" someone screamed. "The collectors are inside settlement twelve!"
Arthur heard it. Felt it. The spike of terror from the crowd hit him like a physical blow, and his grip on Crownless's resonance shattered. Both of them staggered apart, breathing hard.
"You felt that," Crownless said, blood running from his nose. "Their fear. Their desperation. You can't ignore it any more than I can ignore the need for unity."
"I know." Arthur was shaking now. The effort of channeling so many contradictions was tearing him apart. "But here's the thing about having no beliefs of your own…"
He straightened one more time. Blood ran from his eyes now, the cost of resonating with so much pain.
"You can't convert me. Can't integrate me. Can't make me believe your truth." He smiled, and it was terrible. "All you can do is add your voice to the choir. One more belief about what I should be. One more weight for me to carry."
"Then carry this," Crownless said desperately. "The belief that you could save them all if you just accepted help. That you could protect everyone if you stopped insisting on doing it alone."
"I can't."
"Why?"
"Because…" Arthur swayed, caught himself. "Because someone has to stand between. Someone has to be the space where different truths meet. Even if it kills them."
"It IS killing you!"
"I know." Arthur looked at the crowd. At three hundred beings whose contradictory faith was literally tearing him apart. "But that's what protection costs when you have nothing of your own to protect you."
The sound of combat reached them from outside. The collection companies had arrived at the nearer settlements. Screams mixed with harmonic weapons. The harvest Crownless had orchestrated was beginning.
"Two minutes," Crownless said softly. "Choose, Arthur. Let me integrate them peacefully, or watch them die knowing your protection was just another illusion."
Arthur closed his eyes. August could see him listening. Not just to the crowd in the courtyard, but to something beyond. The settlements under attack. The collectors' certainty. The victims' desperation. All of it pouring into someone with no defenses against other people's truths.
When he opened his eyes, they were bleeding freely.
"Okay," he said.
"What?"
"Okay." Arthur's voice was barely a whisper. "You win. I can't… I can't hold all of this. Can't be everyone's mirror when they're all looking for different things."
Hope bloomed on Crownless's face. "You'll help with integration?"
"No." Arthur managed something like a smile. "But I'll stop pretending I can protect them with philosophy and good intentions."
He turned to the crowd. Three hundred Forsaken, watching their protector bleed from the weight of their contradictions.
"I'm sorry," he said simply. "I can't be what you need. Any of you. All of you." He gestured weakly. "I'm just… empty space. Waiting to be filled by whatever you believe."
"Then what good are you?" someone called out. Angry. Desperate.
Arthur nodded like it was a fair question.
"I can listen," he said. "I can resonate. I can show you what your beliefs look like when they meet someone else's." He looked at Crownless. "And sometimes… sometimes I can break things that are too certain to bend."
"One minute," Crownless announced. "Decide."
Arthur stood there, swaying, blood painting his face, prosthetic dead, good arm shaking. The perfect picture of a protector who'd reached his limit.
"So decide," he said to the crowd. "Not because of me. Not despite me. Just… decide. What you believe. What you want. Who you are when no one's reflecting it back at you."
The silence stretched. Three hundred beings faced with the reality that their protector was just an echo of their own hopes and fears.
Then the elder from Zone 42-A stepped forward.
"We choose," they said simply, "to choose."
"Even knowing the cost?"
"Especially knowing the cost." They looked at Arthur with something like understanding. "You can't protect us. You can only show us what protection costs."
"Yes."
"Then show us."
Arthur nodded. Turned back to Crownless.
"They've chosen," he said.
"Poorly," Crownless replied. "And finally."
The collection companies were at the gates now. August could hear them through the walls. The final moment had arrived.
And Arthur, empty of everything but other people's truths, prepared to show everyone exactly what happened when protection stopped pretending to be anything but space between competing beliefs.
"Let's finish this," he said.
The real battle was about to begin.