The Vindicator, too, would join this crusade, although it planned to stay in the middle, defended, and safe. It was not a fighter. It was not a soldier. It had been created to bring Order through peace, friendship, and grace. It had not been made for combat.

But it would defend its family should attacks come and threaten them. That was what it had been training for.

Where they all gathered for the calm before the storm, the Vindicator, too, offered itself. It poured its mind, its being, its connections into the Hivemind, to be stored away and remembered should it somehow fall. Its love for gembound, for life, for Doru and Luminary, for the Hive, and hoped that, if a new Drone was hatched from these memories, they would forget its moments of faltering faith. The cracks would heal, as they were healing for it now.

A moment of silence as it did, so, and then it was drifting out, behind the others.

*exit