Chapter 403: Royal mourning

The medical wing of the palace felt different in the morning light—quieter, heavier, as if the very walls understood the weight of what had happened. Lucas and Lucy sat on opposite sides of their mother’s bed, watching the rise and fall of her chest with the desperate attention of people clinging to hope.

Vivian Grey lay still as carved stone, her usually animated face peaceful but empty. There were no bruises, no cuts, no visible signs of violence. She looked like she might wake up at any moment and ask why they were both staring at her like she’d grown a second head.

The healer finished her examination and straightened, her expression troubled. She was an older woman with graying hair and hands that glowed faintly with healing energy, someone who’d spent decades mending the injuries of Raiju’s warriors and citizens.

"Your mother will recover," she said finally, but her tone carried uncertainty that made both siblings tense.

"How long?" Lucy asked, her voice tight with barely controlled emotion.

"That’s... complicated." The healer moved to wash her hands in a basin, her movements careful and deliberate. "Your Highness, you understand that Greys have a natural affinity for lightning, yes? That electrical energy doesn’t just give you destructive power—it enhances everything about your biology."

Lucas nodded. "The healing factor, the enhanced speed, the way our reflexes work faster than baseline humans."

"Exactly." The healer dried her hands and turned back to them. "The lightning accelerates cellular repair, enhances neural processing, even improves cardiovascular efficiency. It’s why you can move at supersonic speeds without your body tearing itself apart, why you heal from injuries that would cripple normal humans."

She gestured toward their mother. "But now, there’s no trace of lightning in her system. Her core isn’t just weakened or damaged—it’s completely dormant. As if she never awakened her abilities at all, as if she’s been a normal human her entire life."

"That’s impossible," Lucy said flatly. "She’s been using lightning abilities for decades. You can’t just lose something like that."

"Which is exactly the problem," the healer replied gently. "Her body is still trying to function as if the lightning is there. Her brain knows something fundamental is missing, but all the biological markers say everything is normal. The cognitive dissonance is... profound."

Lucas stared at his mother’s still form. "So she’s in a coma."

"A very specific kind of coma. When I try to use my healing abilities on her, there’s nothing for my energy to interact with. Normally, I work with a patient’s core, boost their natural healing response, accelerate their recovery. But her cells are just... normal cells. And normal cells can’t handle the kind of energy that awakened healing requires."

The healer gathered her supplies, her movements heavy with the weight of delivering bad news. "I can reinvigorate her cellular functions to some degree, keep her stable, but without her core... I honestly don’t know how to wake her up. This is unprecedented in my experience."

She bowed respectfully and left them alone with their mother.

The silence stretched between them, filled with unspoken fears and growing anger. Lucas reached out to touch his mother’s hand, expecting the faint tingle of electrical energy that had always been present in his family. Nothing.

"Those bastards are going to pay," Lucy said quietly, but her voice carried a coldness that made the temperature in the room seem to drop. "Whoever did this, whoever took Dad and did this to Mom... they’re going to understand what happens when you attack the Grey family."

"Lucy." Lucas’s voice was steady, but strained. "As much as I want to burn everything down right now, we can’t do anything irrational. We need to think. All of us—my team, you, everyone—we need to come together and figure out what really happened."

Lucy was quiet for a moment, then nodded. "Fine. But first, I need to speak with the armed forces. Get casualty reports from yesterday’s attack, assess the damage to our infrastructure." Her jaw tightened. "And I need to do damage control. The people of Prime, Beta, and Gamma can’t know that their king has been kidnapped. Not yet."

Lucas understood. With their father gone and their mother unconscious, Lucy was technically the highest-ranking member of the royal family. Not officially—that would require a council vote and formal ceremonies—but in practical terms, she was now responsible for three planets and millions of people.

"I’ll work with my team," Lucas said. "Try to find the root of all this."

Lucy stood, pausing at the door to look back at their mother one more time. "Lucas... we both know Dad isn’t dead yet. Whatever they wanted him for, they needed him alive."

"I know."

"Good. Because I’m not planning his funeral, and I’m not letting the council elect some replacement. We’re getting him back."

She left, her footsteps echoing down the corridor as she went to shoulder the burden of leadership that had been thrust upon her overnight.

Lucas stayed a few minutes longer, memorizing his mother’s face, promising her silently that they would fix this. Then he made his way to where his team was waiting.

---

He found them in one of the palace’s smaller common rooms, seated around a table but not really together. They all looked like they’d aged years overnight—exhausted, somber, carrying the weight of yesterday’s failures.

Kelvin was the first to speak when Lucas entered. "Man, all of this is fucked up and ballsy as hell. I mean, who attacks the most defended planet in human space? Who kidnaps a king from his own palace? The Galaxy’s number one dad of all kings!"

"Someone with inside information," Diana said grimly. "Someone who knew exactly when and how to strike."

Noah looked up, and Lucas could see the anger simmering in his friend’s eyes. "Let’s get to the basis of this. We left to tackle a beast attack. Minimal security was in the palace—I get that, everyone was dealing with the crisis. But even with reduced security, the measures to gain entry to this place should have been impossible."

He leaned forward, his voice growing sharper. "A group of how many, Lucas?"

"Fifty," Lucas replied. "According to the security footage we recovered."

"Fifty masked men somehow made it inside, fought their way to the royal quarters, and left the planet with the king." Noah’s voice was flat with disbelief. "Where was orbital security? Where were the palace defenses? The automated systems? The emergency protocols?"

"Lucy grilled every department this morning," Lucas said, settling into a chair. "Everyone has alibis. The orbital platforms were focused on watching for more beast waves. The palace security was operating on emergency protocols, which meant most personnel were deployed to civilian protection duties."

Sophie spoke up. "So they knew our response patterns. They knew exactly how we’d react to the beast attack."

"Which brings us back to the beginning," Noah said. "Vex. A beast wave on that level doesn’t just happen naturally. Someone directed those creatures, and the timing was too perfect to be coincidence."

The anger in Noah’s voice was growing stronger. "First he tortures Ivy for years, keeps her in that cage, and now this? If he’s behind yesterday..."

"Then we end him," Kelvin said simply, his usual humor completely absent. Everyone and no one was shocked at the same time. Coming from someone as bubbly as kelvin, it reflected just how dark the situation was.

"Let’s go find out," Lucas said, standing. "Back to his facility. If he orchestrated this, there’ll be evidence."

___

They made their way to a transport, the journey to Vex’s mountain facility passing in tense silence. Each of them was processing the implications of what had happened, the scope of the planning that would have been required.

When they landed at the facility, the first thing they noticed was the silence. No guards, no movement, no signs of the bustling operation they’d expected before coming here.

"Something’s wrong," Diana said, her hand moving to a gun she came equiped with.

They approached the main entrance cautiously, ready for anything. What they found was devastation.

The facility looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. Equipment was overturned, containment units were smashed, and there were scorch marks on the walls that suggested a serious fight had taken place.

"This doesn’t look like an evacuation," Lyra observed, scanning the destruction with her analyst’s eye. "This looks like an attack."

They moved deeper into the facility, following the trail of destruction. Most of the beast enclosures were empty, but not in an organized way—cage doors were torn off their hinges, containment fields were shattered, and there were signs of panic everywhere.

Sophie spotted movement first. "There," she whispered, pointing toward what had been Vex’s office area.

A figure sat slumped in a chair, head down, motionless. As they got closer, they could see it was Kaia, Vex’s daughter and operations manager. Her Category 4 weapon lay across her lap, and she looked wounded, exhausted.

Sophie moved fast, tackling Kaia and pinning her to the ground before the woman could react. The weapon clattered away across the floor.

"Where is he?" Sophie demanded. "Where’s your father?"

Kaia didn’t struggle, didn’t even seem surprised by the attack. She just looked up at them with eyes that held too much pain and exhaustion for someone her age.

"He’s gone," she said simply.

"Gone where?" Noah crouched beside them, his voice deadly quiet.

"Taken." Kaia’s voice was hollow. "They came in yesterday. Masked figures, maybe thirty of them. Professional, coordinated, like they knew exactly what they were doing."

Kelvin circled around to get a better look at her. "Taken by who?"

"I don’t know." Kaia struggled to sit up, and Sophie allowed it. "They moved like soldiers, but their equipment... some of it I’d never seen before. They released all the specimens on show, stole the others we had under secure layers underneath the mountain and when my father tried to fight them..."

She trailed off, staring at the destruction around them.

"They took him too," Diana said, understanding.

Kaia nodded. "Dragged him out of here unconscious. Left me alive, but I think that was an accident. I was buried under debris when part of the ceiling collapsed."

The team exchanged glances, the implications sinking in.

"Her father was taken," Lucas said slowly. "So it wasn’t him who released the beast horde."

Kaia’s head snapped up. "Beast horde? What beast horde?"

The confirmation hit them like cold water. She didn’t know. The facility was attacked, Vex was kidnapped, and Kaia had no idea about the coordinated assault on Raiju Prime that had happened at the same time.

Noah stood up slowly, pieces clicking together in his mind. The timing, the coordination, the inside knowledge required to pull off both attacks simultaneously.

"This wasn’t Vex’s doing," he said, turning to Lucas. "The facility’s a wreck. The palace is a wreck. Your father’s gone, Vex is gone..."

He met his friend’s eyes, and Lucas saw the grim understanding there.

"The Eighth," Noah said quietly. "They were the ones who attacked."