Unchosen Champion

Coop was finally feeling like he had settled things properly. Ghost Reef was pretty much complete, though there was always a little maintenance to do on the secluded island. Still, he nodded in satisfaction, smiling to himself. He felt like he had finally caught back up.

The sun was shining as bright as ever, not a cloud in the sky. Instead, flocks of birds danced together before finding a place to roost among the mangroves watching manatees circle the canals, or in the banyan tree with the lazy iguanas. Coop closed his eyes as he let the light wash over him. He thought that maybe he'd go lift some weights with the Cleary Brothers before he got cleaned up and cooled off. With all the major projects around the fort complete, he'd probably try to get back into his old routine. That would definitely be nice.

"Excuse me, Champion!" A voice interrupted his quiet reflection with more urgency than usual. Between the phantoms for small issues and the elected government and the many representatives for larger ones, it was rare that Coop had to deal with anything serious.

Coop opened his eyes and found a messenger wraith looking surprisingly stressed given the island vibe he had worked so hard to establish. "What's up?" Coop responded.

"We've just received a report that outsiders have arrived at the port with one of the scout ships!" The wraith relayed. "None of the officials can make it up here to receive them on such short notice, so they sent me to get you!"

"Outsiders?" Coop tilted his head, practically forgetting what it was like for visitors to even be possible.

"Yes." The wraith confirmed, finally calming down a bit after reaching Coop. "And they want to meet someone that can represent the Lighthouse. It seemed like it was extremely important!"

"Bring them here, then." Coop decided. He was the founder, after all. If anyone was qualified to represent the Lighthouse it was probably him.

"They can't be humans, right? Are they aliens? Did they breach the shield somehow?" He wondered out loud.

Earth still had more than 90 years before they expected anything like this to happen, and frankly, they expected to be the ones breaking down barriers. Even Lyriel had relied on their actions to open windows into their assimilation, so the idea that someone would visit them was beyond expectations. It actually seemed impossible based on everything they understood.

"All I know is they hitched a ride from one of Admiral Kayla's captains... I'll have them brought here right away!" The wraith declared before teleporting away.

Coop was a bit sweaty, with his skin dirtied by dust and dirt from the work he was just finishing, but if they were already in the port they would be at the doorstep of his lighthouse before he was cleaned up. Even though he was the Champion of Ghost Reef and the founder of the faction, it felt wrong to make them wait if they were specifically seeking them out. He looked down at himself and shrugged. If they wanted to meet him, this was basically who he was. No need for pretense. Instead, he grabbed a towel to wipe his hands and waited outside in the sun, enjoying a few more moments in his paradise.

Soon, he was watching as a small group of three people were being guided through the ornate main gate and down the carefully cobbled street. A dozen phantoms surrounded them, seeming a bit cautious toward their strength given the space they maintained.

Even from a distance, Coop could detect the auras of the strangers, but he wasn't intimidated in the slightest. They were strong in the way some of the other powerhouses of Ghost Reef were, but not like the aliens that had joined the Lighthouse or himself. Just from a passing impression, he could determine that they were definitely from Earth, but they must have been fighting a lot.

Curiously, all the residents of Ghost Reef that passed the little procession stopped and turned their heads to watch, causing Coop to grow even more intrigued for who these people were. And that's what they looked like from a distance. Just regular people.

Their hair was light brown to blonde and they all had tanned skin that was even deeper than his. Their clothes were excessively simple, basically loincloths and chest wraps, but they kept their heads high, like they came from a proud lineage that had nothing to do with wealth. Even without weapons they projected a sense of deadly confidence that only came from a lifetime of honed predatory instincts. Everything about them was making him more curious.

It wasn't until they passed through the banyan tunnel that he noticed the three of them also had long tails with a thicker tuft of fur on the end. Coop raised his eyebrows in surprise, wondering if they were humans who had evolved and were therefore not counted when it came time to upgrade the civilization shard the final time. As unlikely as it was, he supposed it was possible for isolated groups to have hung on until the end of the Eradication Protocol, though he had failed to uncover any clue or hint that others had survived.

"Guess I'll find out." He concluded, not needing to keep guessing when he could just ask.

As they drew closer he noticed more slight variations in their appearance that were unexpected among humans. They had pointed ears near the tops of their heads instead of normal human lobes, and the largest of the group had facial hair that was more like a mane than a beard. Before they made it closer to Coop, their heads had been swiveling back and forth, and as much as he liked to imagine they were admiring the settlement, he recognized that they were being cautious of the many potential threats present, observing possible challengers with undaunted eye contact.

That behavior changed once they recognized his aura. All three of them locked their yellow cat eyes onto him, clearly behaving like predators recognizing danger. Coop chuckled and identified them in turn.

[Awakened Lion (Power Level 5,893)]

[Awakened Lion (Power Level 6,071)]

[Awakened Lion (Power Level 5,625)]

"Lions, huh?" Coop muttered to himself. "Now that's interesting."

They weren't humans afterall, but instead animals that had undergone an evolution that gave them a humanoid appearance. He wondered about the compulsion of mana to drive things into such a familiar configuration, wondering if, in this case, it had anything to do with the civilization shard controlled by humans taking control of the planet.

Then again, it was pretty arrogant of him to assume such a body type was a human thing. For all he knew, humans themselves had their evolution influenced by the presence of mana in the first place, long before they were using tools and making fire. The effects of mana seemed like one of those mysteries that they were far from unraveling.

As far as the strength of their visitors went, they were impressive, but their power level was only good for barely making the top 10,000 in the Lighthouse. In Coop's new measuring system, they would have been the equivalent of Field Bosses among the forces of mana or maybe the powerhouse party of an individual underground level beneath Ghost Reef. He wondered if they had been struggling to progress after the system was pulled from the planet, losing its guidance just as the apocalypse began.

Once they were close enough that he didn't need to shout, Coop surprised them by addressing them like the host of a hotel. "Welcome to Ghost Reef." He offered with a genuine smile, unabashedly curious about what led them to his doorstep. He waved the phantoms further back, so that it was just him standing with the trio in front of the steps leading into his lighthouse home. "So, what can we do for you?" He asked, tossing the towel he had been using to clean his hands on the stoop.

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The visitors had stopped as soon as he spoke. The two subordinate lions flanking the higher level lioness turned toward her, wondering how she would respond to his sudden question. She only hesitated for a moment, apparently planning on saying something specific to earn an audience and being forced to skip ahead in her imagined script. She dropped to one knee, her two companions following her lead after half a second of silent deliberation.

"Please… we have come to beg for our kin. Please, shelter them from this new world."

"Oh?" Coop grunted in surprise, somehow finding the pleadings out of character just based on their first impressions.

"Our home has changed, but not all are capable of adapting with the constant changes. Those of us who have are too few to take care of the rest without many sacrifices. Please help us find refuge from these relentless battles." She continued, uninterrupted.

Coop had mostly just been stunned by the initial act of having a conversation with a humanoid lion, but he shook it off before she kept going. "Hey, whoa, you don't need to kneel or anything like that." He declared. "Stand up and we can figure something out." He reached out to bring her back to eye level.

Once they were standing, he nodded at them, trying to get them to relax a bit. "Alright. So, do you want me to come with you to defeat some monsters? Clear out a zone? Just tell me where and I'll get it done before nightfall." He promised.

The lion queen lowered her head. "It isn't a specific threat that pressures us, but our pride is struggling. A patch of land outside your walls for our cubs, however small, where they might be safe to grow is all we wish for."

She explained that only a few had accepted sponsorships to become Chosen at the start. Then, during the course of the assimilation, more were empowered on their own, but for the most part, even after all the lions formed a united pride, the vast majority were still regular animals. It sounded like maybe five percent of 20,000 lions were wielding mana at all, and of those, ten had evolved into these humanoid forms.

From what Coop understood about the galactic community, these numbers were actually amazing. Basically, with their survival rate and mana adoption levels, lions would have been a candidate to be the principal species of Earth if not for humans taking that role. During a normal assimilation, they would have had another 90 years of only contending with the planetary sponsor as they established their settlements. In other assimilations, the candidate species would have been forced to leave their unempowered kin behind, but the lions of Earth had maintained their familial bonds at the risk of their own survival. Coop judged that if they had their own faction, they would have become a force to be reckoned with in the old system.

Coop listened to their concerns, nodding as he thought of solutions. The main problem was safeguarding the unempowered members of their pride after Earth completed the final stages of mana activation. They had managed exceptionally well on the pace that the assimilation set, but after the Eradication Protocol the newest awakened individuals had been pushed all the way to their limit. It would have been like if Coop and Jones had to survive the start from inside the mana well rather than on the island. They probably wouldn't have been able to succeed either.

He also realized that they thought the fort was all humanity still had. The lioness braced for what she predicted would be an inevitable refusal at best, but Coop looked forward to surprising his guests. "A patch of land huh?" He mumbled before smiling at them. "That's easy enough." He declared.

They seemed a bit confused by his seemingly spontaneous response, but they dared not argue with what might have also just been an incredible stroke of luck.

"It probably took quite a bit of courage to come all the way here for a chance to secure some future for your kin. I respect that." Coop continued, doing his best to sound like a responsible leader. "Instead of a patch of land, I can offer you more."

"More?" The lioness questioned.

Coop nodded. "This fort and the islands are just scratching the surface of what we have secured. How about you join my faction and we develop a permanent habitat for you among the rest of our lands? Everyone from your pride will be welcome."

The leader of the lions hesitated, confused by the lack of details. "But, would that really be okay? A few of us may have taken on similar forms to you, but we are not like you."

Coop shrugged, not worried at all. "We will adapt and learn to coexist. You already made it through unthinkable hardships, just like us, you understand the resilience that this place has been built to celebrate." He offered his open hand to shake. "We can make you a new home together."

She looked at his hand, more confused by his words than his gesture, then she looked past the peristyle buildings at the modest grassy fields of the northern courtyard, surrounded by solid walls, and in her mind's eye, imagined cubs playing in the sun. She felt herself involuntarily imitating a smile before she took his hand.

That was the start of another round of changes for the Lighthouse. They took the first step toward becoming a faction that was truly representing Earth instead of just humans and a few of their allies. Earth's pride of lions joined without any trouble, though only the individuals who had awakened to mana actually became members of the faction.

Over the years, Coop found himself shaking hands with all sorts of new types of people. As word spread across the planet about the refuge of Ghost Reef, and the members of the Lighthouse shifted their focus on the surface from hunting down any hint of the forces of mana to visiting the various strongholds of life, more and more of the evolved individuals came to find Coop on behalf of their brethren. Many were similar enough to humans to easily blend in, but others retained prominent unique features that separated them from the crowd.

Mammals were well represented. There were dozens of different cat types and there were just as many dogs. Cattle, sheep, and all of the primates, from monkeys to apes all showed up with one, two, or three newly evolved individuals concerned for their unempowered species. There were also bird groups that ranged from ducks and geese, sparrows and finches, to pigeons and doves. Snakes, turtles, and crocodiles joined the first alligators who had already fought side by side with humans since before the Eradication Protocol. There were even amphibians, fish, and arthropods who made a pilgrimage to Ghost Reef to meet with him and negotiate for a place in their sanctuary.

Others were strange enough to be basically alien. Coop met with an ambassador for deep sea cephalopods, an awakened octopus who carried two sea water-filled jars housing tiny offspring, and did his best not to wince when his hand was covered in slime after shaking a tentacle. He met with the humanoid ant scouts who carried ant farms on their backs, sharing some sugar cubes to drop into the nests after shaking their appendages.

Then, there were some that were well into the realm of fantasy. A few dryads and treants appeared with a handful of variations. Some were from massive families of flowering plants, others were coniferous pines and cypress, and the really strange ones originated from carnivorous plants who had grown powerful during the assimilation.

Earth even had some cousins for Balor, calling themselves Rock Fairies and Rock Devils. They originated from the inside of geological formations called hoodoos that existed all across the world. They awakened in different variations from tent rocks in Cappadocia, Turkey, to the hoodoos throughout North American Badlands like Bryce Canyon and Goblin Valley down into Sombrerete, Mexico. Separate communities of rock people appeared in Armenia, France, Taiwan, and Japan independently of the others. They were distinguished by the materials that made up their bodies, such as mudstone, clay, sandstone, volcanic ash, limestone, and basalt.

The other major elements of the planet were represented by an extremely small group of individuals who ventured to the Lighthouse. They came more out of curiosity than necessity after mana ignited a spark of intelligence in them, not having unempowered kin the same way that animals or even plants did. Most of them had to fight their way out of their incubating habitats as their brethren became manabeasts rather than awakened creatures.

The Undines formed from some of the most pristine rivers deep within forest filled with wild magic, from high altitude mountain lakes, hidden waterfalls, and from the unexplored subterranean caverns and their underground grottoes. They were the most diverse of the elemental creatures. Earth was a blue planet, after all.

The Sylphs who came to Ghost Reef were born from the Mistral regional winds flowing across France toward the Mediterranean Sea, the Santa Ana Winds in Southern California, the Harmattan in West Africa, and all across the Roaring Forties in the Southern Hemisphere. It seemed possible that more might appear during hurricanes or other major wind events, but none had been born since the first wave when mana reached the threshold necessary to uplift them.

The Ignians came from the Erta Ale lava lake in Ethiopia or from the Burning Mountain in Australia. The ones who ventured to Ghost Reef were calm, stoic beings, but they had the biggest battles to escape their spawn zones.

Basically, Earth was absolutely packed with potential life, even beyond what had already been known by humans. Coop welcomed everyone. It didn't matter if they had unawakened brethren seeking shelter or not. Assuming they could abide by the principles established by the faction, the Lighthouse was open to them all.