Kore
When finally she came to, it was a disorienting experience indeed — for a great deal had changed, and yet so much had remained the same.
Kore woke in an infirmary on Holy Mercury, deep within the heart of the Panopticon, and was for some brief moments terrified that she had somehow been returned to Tsen's miserable cell. She saw only onyx-black walls; heard only the pounding of her own heart in her ears. But that terror passed as quickly as it came, and soon Kore was astonished to find that she had been transformed.
It was as though the past months had simply been rolled back. Her body was more than healed, it was rejuvenated, and Kore felt herself brimming with newfound vitality — a product, no doubt, of some miraculous Mercurian technology.
It was explained to her, later, that the Jade Emperor cared little for her dormant Wayfarer genes. For the Architect, Wayfarer-hybrids could be found in abundance, and thus the degenerative disease was simply purged from her body — again by some impossible Mercurian miracle — and thus the Passenger had been forever silenced. Erased. Killed. Kore felt a profound sense of loss, at that, though she would never articulate to another living soul the unique and irreplaceable kinship she had briefly shared. Never would she give voice to her grief, at the knowledge that a millennia-old consciousness had been so swiftly and mercilessly excised. There were many kinds of death, after all, and perhaps it was a kindness that the ancient Wayfarer had been finally allowed to rest.
When she made her return to the Cloud Gorger, some days later, there too did Kore find things profoundly changed.
There was the matter of Sekhmet's condition, for one. The Se-dai's slipshod resurrection had enacted a heavy toll; where once she had been loud, boisterous, and energetic, she was now oftentimes quite mellow and reserved — content to sit at the edge of the party, watching with an easy smile and an arm around Kore's shoulder, rather than dominating at the epicenter of attention. She tired so quickly, now. She quit drinking and smoking entirely. Worst of all, there was the state of her mind — once a steel trap, now a sieve through which thoughts sometimes just...slipped away. At least once daily, Kore would see Sekhmet freeze as she entered a room, her short-term memory vacated entirely as she struggled to determine just what it was she had been doing, exactly.
Sekhmet was still a ferocious warrior, through and through. But she was also diminished, and she knew that she was diminished, as so Kore was determined to remain a steadfast and supporting presence at her side. Now that Sekhmet was considered 'publicly acceptable' in the eyes of Le Sang Neuf and the Jade Emperor, she and Kore served Jaheed side-by-side, and if nothing else her constant company was great comfort indeed. Yet still, late in the artificial night, Kore would remain awake and stroke the renegade Se-dai's hair as she tossed and turned in the throes of some panicked, miserable dream. Sekhmet would deny it, of course, but Kore knew terribly well that the Se-dai's weakness was eating her from the inside.
And then there was the matter of Jaheed.
He had...changed. Or had he always been this way? Or had Tsen's manipulations somehow permanently warped Kore's perception? She understood that, now, at the very least — that Tsen was merely a charismatic sociopath who had gaslit a delirious, delusional, dying woman, and that ninety-nine percent of what he had said was to be disregarded. Kore was very, very happy that he was dead, and she truly held no regret for pulling that trigger. And yet...
And yet, she couldn't get Tsen's words out of her head. Couldn't help but see Jaheed in a different light, now — which, in turn, flooded her with baleful self-loathing and miserable guilt, because after all Jaheed had saved her. He had saved Sekhmet, too. Jaheed had used all his incredible power and influence to do right by his people, and he had in no way betrayed her. And yet. He truly had changed: of that, Kore was increasingly certain. While he remained gregarious and pleasant to the crew, as always, his demeanor towards anyone else had taken a decidedly darker turn. He was quick to anger, now, and slow indeed to forgive. He held grudges. He punished mistakes. He in no way hesitated to wield Kore and Sekhmet as twin cudgels, and all too often the price of his displeasure was either torture or outright execution. In the three months that followed her awakening, Kore killed no less than twenty-three men on his behalf — and not one of them in self-defense.
She thought, often, that she should remind him of the promise he had made, all those years ago: We will make the world a better place. But she was too terrified of the answer to ever dare beg the question. She did not want to know if he still remembered. What she wanted was to bury her head in the sand, to enjoy her life with this hodgepodge family she had been so lucky to find. She wanted to trust Jaheed, her adopted brother, with all her heart and soul. They were two halves of one whole, after all, she his right hand in all things. A dyad, now drifting apart.
Worst of all was the fact that she could not possibly share these sentiments aloud. Ever since Kore's rescue, the crew practically worshiped Jaheed — even Sekhmet, insouciant as she was, now saw the Highborn as something resembling a friend. The well of the Se-dai's gratitude simply ran far, far too deep. And even then, even if there had been some manner of receptive ear, Kore would not dare speak such thoughts aloud. In her eyes, such an act would be tantamount to the betrayal of a man who had given her everything, and thus she kept her worries bottled up inside.
And oh, did she worry. Kore existed now in a state of permanent unsettlement, of a looming black cloud of guilt that hung heavy over her head, casting her every word and deed in interminable shadow. Most nights, she rarely slept — she just paced and paced and paced, trapped like a wild animal in a cage of her own thoughts.
She had absolutely no idea what to do.
And so it happened, one night, that she was drunk and alone at the Gorger's dusty little bar — and it happened, then, that Abel Diesch appeared to join her.
Though he had warmed considerably, in the days following her rescue — the crisis had brought them all closer together, in truth — there yet remained a wound, a certain distance between Diesch and Kore that simply refused to heal. Thus, Kore's first thought when he sat down was to stand right up — but she was drunk, and she was tired, and in truth she was quite desperate for some company, in that moment. And so the two set to chatting idly, about the ship and their previous mission, and about who would win in a fight between all the various Se-dai they could name, and then — without warning, surprising even herself — Kore just blurted it out: "Do you ever feel stuck?"
Diesch blinked, caught off guard by the sudden turn in conversation. He, too, was quite drunk, and he took another sip now to belabor that particular point. "Stuck?" he repeated, cocking his head to the side. He was a former detective, after all, and nothing if not an attentive listener.
"Like..." Kore trailed off, uncertain if she should dare depart down this particular road. Inebriation overrode her fear; she continued on, unabated. "Like the whole universe, all of it, has just come together and conspired to make you stay put."
Something came over Diesch, then. The scraggly-bearded man just closed his eyes and nodded his head, slow and steady. "I've felt that way for a long time," he told her. "Like someone picked me up and set me on a track." Which was, quite literally, exactly what had been done to him. No metaphor, that.
"I just feel like, I don't know," Kore muttered. "Like I'm doing something wrong. Like everything is wrong."
"Wrong how?" Diesch asked. Again, there it was — a detective's probing, prodding question. An incision at the surface of one Kore Vell, to peer beneath the skin and glimpse at that which lurked within.
"I don't think," Kore went on, voice shaky, after a heavy pause, "that we are good people. I don't think that we are doing the right thing."
"We are serving-" Diesch started.
"We're serving ourselves!" Kore snapped, overcome by a sudden wave of panicked emotion. Fear, anger, a sharp sense of malaise — a powerful urge to simply get out. Her glass tipped over, spilled its cold contents across her lap, and all the while Diesch was eyeing her carefully, now. His metal fingers drummed against the countertop, and he said not a word.
"I never believed in anything," Kore said, after a long pause, because if he was not going to speak than she had to speak. Someone had to fill that wretched silence. "I just...carried on, existing, ignoring the world around me. And then I hurt people, Abel. I hurt a lot of people. And I can't-I can't die knowing all I ever put into the world was hurt. I just can't. I'm not built for it — call it weakness, I don't know. So I signed on with Jaheed, to try and make things right, but this...but we..." She put her head in her hands. "I'm still just hurting people. It's all I ever do. I break bones, I pull triggers. I know just the way to slide the knife in, right between the sixth and seventh ribs. And Jaheed..." She trailed off, afraid to say it. "I think all he knows how to do is hurt people, too."
Diesch was silent for a long, long time, his expression unreadable. Kore, whose energy had all but fled her, just sat there, head in her hands, the guilt rising like bile in her throat. She knew that she was unfathomably fortunate to be in the position she was — to exist in this happy little bubble, privileged in a way that ninety-nine percent of the Great Domain was not. She knew that she should just shut up and be grateful. She knew that-
"It's too late for me," Diesch told her, finally, in a low voice, and Kore looked up to see the Black Hound with a truly dire expression upon his face. Any and all traces of warmth had fled him, and in that moment he looked as tired as anyone Kore had ever seen. "My life, I..." He gestured vaguely. "It ended on Proxima, all those years ago, when I shot that man and didn't feel a thing. This is all just..." He gestured, this time, to himself. "Epilogue. It's just waiting to die. But you-" He leaned in close, his voice growing thick with portent. "You're a good person, Kore. You care, which is more than just about anyone else can say in this wretched fucking universe. And you've got someone you love, someone who loves you in return. You've got things to make it worth it. So I'll ask you, Kore, just this once — do you want to leave?"
Kore blinked.
"Leave?" she asked, slowly. "You mean...?"
"The Gorger. Jaheed. The Emperor. All of it." He pulled back, now, and so too did the shadows pull back to illuminate his sunken face in clear detail once more. The Black Hound nodded his head. "I've been making...plans, for a while now. Call it an emergency exit of sorts. An escape, from which one could just vanish. And I do mean vanish, so thoroughly that even the Jade Emperor would never find you."
"What are you telling me...?" Kore was cautious, now. Wary. Unsettled and uncertain, because she was beginning to understand that she was at the crossroads of a truly momentous decision.
"I'm telling you that I won't ever use that option," Diesch said, bluntly. "I don't value my life, and I don't intend on sticking it out for much longer. But you, Kore — I think you deserve to leave, if you want to. And I'm willing to help. "
"It'd be treason," Kore blurted out, barring any better response. And then, quickly: "Jaheed would never allow it."
"You understand what I'm offering, then."
"Abel, I just...I can't," Kore insisted. And she really, truly could not, even though the possibility of that Other Life was now unfolding like a vast and intricately-detailed storybook within her mind. Because she really, truly, sincerely did want to leave, in that moment — with Sekhmet in tow, of course. All she ever wanted and all she ever needed was her. Damn the rest! Damn the wealth, the riches, the power, the prosperity!
And yet, how could she? How could she possibly spit in Jaheed's eye, after all he had done for her? For them? And so, miserable as she was, Kore could only shake her head. "I just can't," she told him.
"I understand," Diesch nodded sagely. "Even still — tonight, I'll forward you a document with instructions and a list of contacts. If ever there comes a moment when you need to go..." He trailed off. "I hope you make it."
And with that, he rose to his feet, patting her once on the arm — perhaps the most affectionate gesture he had performed to Kore in his entire life — and then he was gone, and Kore was completely and utterly alone.
"Fucking hell," she muttered to herself, after a long silence and far too many wayward thoughts. Sleep, she knew, would be impossible tonight. And so, barring any better ideas, Kore just reached across the bar and poured herself another drink.
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Jaheed
The Jade Emperor worked — and the Jade Wolf watched, with arms folded and eyes alert.
This was commonplace between them; the Emperor would step into a cylinder comprised of a dozen different holographic displays, and then he would work, humming tunelessly to himself as he alone charted the course of an entire universe. Jaheed had long come to understand that there truly was something different about the Emperor's brain, something quirk or aberration allowed him to process such a vast flow of data — some manner of compartmentalization, perhaps, wherein he simply put each problem into a different box and then went about solving them, one by one. He had advisors and generals, of course, though he largely ignored their counsel and was, in time, almost invariably proven to have been correct. He was an expert in every field. A master of every discipline. One single man, standing at the precipice of an entire species. Jaheed admired him greatly — and loathed him beyond belief, too, for the jealousy curdling within his heart was one that could not possibly be sated.
"Tell me, Jaheed," Volsif spoke, apropos of nothing, and Jaheed tilted his chin up in the requited gesture of interest. "Have you yet surpassed your father?"
Jaheed glanced around, briefly caught off guard. He met Kore's eyes, then Sekhmet's. He avoided Anansi, who at all times loomed like a shadow, and who at all times cast towards Sekhmet a frigid, withering gaze. Beyond the three bodyguards, he and the Grand Architect were truly alone, and thus help would be in no way arriving.
"Is there any possible doubt?" Jaheed scoffed, anyway. It was a ridiculous question, one clearly intended merely to unsettle — for there was nothing that the Jade Emperor loved more than needling his young protege and observing the reactions that followed. "My father was the aging Duke of a failing world. I study at the feet of the Seventh-Venerated Emperor himself. My father attained his title by right of birth; mine was hard-won by determination, and by guile. I have surpassed him a thousandfold." He let out a short, callous laugh. "My father never even set foot upon Holy Mercury!"
"Indeed, he did not," the Emperor agreed. Though Jaheed could not see his face, he was certain he could hear the smirk in that modulated voice, plain as day.
"A rather droll inquiry, no?" Jaheed remarked, after a moment's silence had passed. "Bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, if you ask me. Long gone are the days where you might rile me up by mere mention of my father. That man is long dead and buried; his ghost, all but forgotten. Callisto is behind me."
"Is it?" the Emperor said. It was not a question. And then, abruptly, every screen vanished at once, and suddenly Jaheed was staring straight into those piercing emerald eyes.
The Grand Architect was stepping forwards, now, hands clasped behind his back, feet soundless as he approached. And Jaheed, all the while, just met that stare with calm indifference. He had existed in close proximity to the Emperor for years now, after all. And though the Emperor was indeed a creature beyond belief, a specimen that defied understanding, Jaheed had nevertheless come to be certain that Volsif XCVII was still nothing more than an ordinary man. Not omnipotent. Not omniscient. Certainly not a god, by any measure of the word. He was merely an intelligent, ambitious, arrogant man, one who had started with nothing and climbed to The Mountain's very peak.
The Jade Emperor came to a halt. Jaheed arched an eyebrow, in silent question.
"You wish to be made a Scion," the Emperor remarked. A smile tugged at the edge of his metal lips, as though the prospect were in any way funny. Fiery irritation flared up within Jaheed, though he masked it at once.
"I do."
"You are no longer content to serve as my Acolyte."
"That is untrue."
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
"Lying to one who sees all, hears all, and knows all — what a waste of breath."
"I intend to serve as your Acolyte for as long as you command me to do so," Jaheed told him, his voice kept carefully neutral. He was beginning to understand, now, that there was real danger to be had in this conversation. His life was so, so fragile in the palm of the Emperor's hand.
"You have no choice in the matter," Volsif reminded him.
"Of course, Architect."
"And that galls you," the Emperor went on. His gaze was like a sweltering desert sun, bathing Jaheed in rays of vile light. The Acolyte was beginning to sweat. "You crave choice, above all else."
"So you say."
"You wish to speak with my voice."
"I do."
"You would beg."
"Yes."
"Kill."
"Without hesitation."
"Would you kill Kore?" Volsif asked, tilting his head to the side. Behind him, he saw Sekhmet stiffen — whilst the Chief of Security remained perfectly still, eyes masked in shadow beneath her cap. The rogue Se-dai's eyes, by contrast, were flicking rapidly between Kore and Anansi, and Jaheed could already see her calculating, preparing to do whatever necessary to protect her partner's life.
"No," Jaheed told the Emperor, quite firmly. The Grand Architect tilted his head the other direction, at that.
"More lies," Volsif scoffed. "There are finite words in your life, Jaheed. It is most unwise to waste them."
"What do you want me to say?" Jaheed demanded, suddenly uncomfortable, because worse than the Emperor's stare was the feeling of Kore's eyes upon him. "I wouldn't be here without Kore. I know that, she knows that, you know that. I told you from the very beginning that we were a package deal, Architect. There will be no Ascension without Kore by my side."
"You are mine, Jaheed, and you will do as I command."
"Then what's the point of this damned hypothetical in the first place?!" Jaheed threw up his hands, consciously burying his deeper thoughts and feelings behind a flare of outraged indignity. It was as much a display for Kore as it was for anyone else. "If you told me to kill her, I'd just have to kill her, no? You're Emperor of the whole void-damned galaxy. You get what you want. We're all just your property, right? So what the fuck is the point of asking me my opinion!?"
"You're avoiding the question," the Emperor laughed, delighted.
"You're trying to put me in a box," Jaheed countered, daring to jab a finger. Gone where the days wherein Anansi would have appeared at his throat, for that — yet still, he knew she was watching him with keen intently. "Trying to make me look bad in front of her." He turned his head. "Kore, I'm sorry you have to hear all this. You know how the Architect loves these infantile little games."
"Of course, my liege," Kore answered, the response one of sheer mechanical rote. The Emperor, meanwhile, was chuckling merrily to himself.
"Infantile!" he exclaimed. "Oh Jaheed, my most beloved pet. You never fail to entertain me. One-thousand, six-hundred, and twenty-four days since we first met, and still you remain so effortlessly easy to unsettle." He grinned. "And even now, your reactions still amuse me. Very well, then! A Scion you shall be."
For a moment, Jaheed was truly and entirely still. And then he asked, in a tight and quiet voice: "...really?"
At that, the Emperor just threw back his head and laughed.
----------------------------------------
The Lord of Ceres; The Father of All Se-dai
Trillions of lightyears away, the Sovereign's mind was reaching out like an octopus with infinite tentacles — like the roots of an ancient, gnarled tree, digging in so deep as to be inseparable from the soil itself. His consciousness split — no, spread, expanding outwards as it danced across those billions of pathways, seeping like a cancer into everything it touched. The Sovereign was Ceres, then, its body his body and its mind his mind. He was in everything and everyone, three individual consciousnesses that had longed distilled into a single millennia-old gestalt, one with so much memory and knowledge and self that an entire moon was required just to house the enormity of it all. The enormity of him.
The appointed time had arrived. Like a blind man grasping in the dark, the Sovereign reached out into the void — grasped it firmly with both hands, then tore reality in two. And suddenly there was light, and sound, and color, and all was made clear, and before him now there lay a long, dark tunnel.
A tunnel bearing a faint light, one peering out at the very terminus of it all.
And so, gracefully, the Sovereign slipped inside. And so the light grew brighter. And brighter. And brighter. For a moment, the light was all that there was.
And then, the Sovereign tore violently back into realspace, and the ancient moon of Ceres materialized without warning inside Holy Mercury's upper atmosphere — directly above the Panopticon, the seat of power for all the Great Domain.
----------------------------------------
Jaheed
Jaheed opened his mouth to speak — and then there was a sound the likes of which he had never imagined, a sound that was not just deafening but obliterating, and then all present were pitched violently to their feet. The lights went out, and all was black, and all was howling darkness and the feeling of the air itself pressing in like a vice around his his skin, and though Jaheed bellowed in panic and pain his voice was entirely swallowed by that almighty roar.
And then, the lights flickered back on, and suddenly it was as though all the weight had been lifted. The roaring, mercifully, fell silent, and all were left with what felt, after that, like the deepest silence any of them had ever experienced.
Jaheed was sprawled out on the floor, drenched in sweat and panting like a dog. He glanced around; Kore was in a similar state, while Sekhmet was braced against the wall, her eyes flickering rapidly. He turned his head — saw that the Emperor had been laid out as well, and that now Anansi was upright, helping him to his feet even as her eyes, too, were cycling rapidly on-and-off.
"What was-" Jaheed managed, despite an impossibly dry throat. His ears popped, then, and he shook his head, trying to somehow bring himself back to proper lucidity. "What the fuck was that?" he demanded.
"That," the Jade Emperor said, standing up straight and dusting his robe off, "was the Sovereign, right on time." He paused, furrowed his brow. "Well, perhaps a tad later than expected. But nevertheless well within the anticipated window."
"The Sovereign...?" Jaheed trailed off. Kore, sitting upright now, had a finger to her earpiece, and after a moment she turned to them all with wide eyes.
"It's Ceres," she told them, and for once in her life she appeared well and truly awestruck. "It just...came out of voidspace. Right there." She pointed straight up. "Right above our heads."
Sekhmet recoiled as though physically struck; Anansi just narrowed her eyes and folded her arms. "Finally," she declared, her voice thick with a lifetime of hate.
"He's come for me," the Emperor eagerly declared, clasping his metal hands together. "With all his Se-dai, no doubt, and likely thousands of my half-brother's soldiers in tow. He's trying to cut this whole thing short, you see. To cut the head from the body in one fell swoop." The Emperor grinned. "A fatal mistake. The moon will require forty-eight hours at minimum before it can jump again. The Sovereign, that malignant fool, has placed himself right within my grasp — and now, all we need do is fend off this paltry invasion."
"We're in a bubble," Kore explained, upright now, for everyone else's benefit. "The entire Panopticon has its own artificial gravity well, which is why we're not being crushed right now. But the rest of the planet..." She trailed off. "We need to get out of here."
"There's a bunker, yes?" Jaheed shot the Emperor a pointed look. "Surely, you have some manner of safehouse!" But the Grand Architect was paying both the Vell siblings no mind. His attention, instead, was fixed entirely on Anansi — his constant companion, the only living being he might possibly consider a friend. And this time, for once, the Emperor was not smiling.
"You remember our promise," Anansi told him. Volsif nodded his head.
"Of course," he said. "Your place is elsewhere. Go; gather your sisters, and wreak vengeance upon your father."
"Wait-what are you-" Jaheed sputtered. Anansi's head turned, then — not to Jaheed, but to Sekhmet, who was now standing taut and alert, like a coiled spring ready to explode at a moment's notice. Her hand remained at all times upon the hilt of her blade — reforged, once again, this time no doubt from the corpses of other fallen Se-dai.
"Sekhmet," Anansi said, moving lithe and graceful to stand before her. Where Sekhmet was twitchy and tense, Anansi was smooth like flowing water, and in that moment the distance between them could not possibly have been more clear. Now, Sekhmet stiffened, watching at the leader of Le Sang Neuf with wary eyes.
"You are perhaps the fastest living Se-dai," Anansi told her, quite bluntly. "Your swordsmanship is adequate. In all other areas you are deficient; nevertheless, your talents will have to suffice. You have spurned your sisters, Sekhmet, and thus I shall not permit you to stand beside us. Your task, instead, is to protect the Jade Emperor — our benefactor, and our liberator — with all the strength you can muster." All watched in transfixed silence as, slowly, Anansi reached out and extended a hand. The itinerant Se-dai bristled, yet did not move.
"You may have chosen to turn away," Anansi said, "but nevertheless we are of one flesh, and of one blood. We are, the both of us, victims of the same monster. And as your sister, Sekhmet, I must now ask of you this favor. Protect Doss's life. See him to safety." Her eyes blazed bright. "I was cruel to you, Sekhmet. I treated you harshly. And now, instead of an apology, I can only entrust you with this."
Jaheed watched as a dozen different emotions played across the Sekhmet's face — confusion, anger, spite, indifference — and then, finally, her expression hardened into one of solid steel, of unbreaking rock. Of iron resolve. Sekhmet reached forward and clasped Anansi's hand tight.
"Par le sang neuf," the rogue declared, unsheathing her blade and crossing it across her chest. "I will not fail."
"Par le sang neuf," Anansi repeated. She unsheathed one of her own blades, crossed it over Sekhmet's own, and Jaheed had a keen sense that this was to signify a transference — a passing, of something immaterial, from one Se-dai to another. "I believe you."
And with that, both sheathed their weapons, and Anansi stepped back, casting towards the Emperor one final glance. Her face was set tight with resolve — and Volsif's was as solemn as Jaheed had ever seen.
"Good luck, Doss," she told him.
And the Jade Emperor — the ruler and god of all humanity, the man for whom reality itself scrambled to meet his demands — replied only thus: "Good luck to you too, Anansi."
No all-powerful command. No assertion that he willed Anansi to win, and thus it would be so. No confident declaration that all would play out in perfect accordance with his intricate design. Instead, the Emperor had merely expressed a hope. A prayer. The most powerful man in the world, then, was powerless to keep his friend alive.
He had never appeared more human, to Jaheed, then in that particular moment.
Nor had he ever appeared so weak.
Then, the doors hissed open and Anansi was gone, and the throne room was momentarily flooded with sounds of gunfire, explosions, and screams of pain — then, the doors were shut, and all was silent once more.
Jaheed, Kore, and Sekhmet all exchanged a look.
"Well, then," the Emperor interjected, and all turned to see him confident and casual and effortlessly imperious once more. The master of mankind, through and through. For the third time, today, he tilted his head to the side. "Kore. You are the most adept among us in such matters; thus, I entrust the mantle of leadership to you. There is, some distance from here, a ship of truly unique design — a vessel capable of disappearing from sight itself, as undetectable to sensors as it is to the human eye. There shall be no bunker; instead, we shall make haste to this vessel and escape. I have just now sent a set of coordinates. Lead me, now, to salvation, and I shall dutifully follow."
Kore, then, looked like she had just been run over by a hovercar. She shot Jaheed a panicked look — and the Acolyte shrugged, because what else could he possibly offer — and then, after a few seconds of disbelief, the Chief of Security's expression grew stoic and stolid once more. Her fears, her anxieties, the insanity of being made to command the Jade Emperor himself — all were subsumed by sheer professionalism. She had a job to do, after all.
Jaheed's admiration for her was beyond all measure.
"Right then," Kore said simply. She pulled her cap tight; then reached down and unholstered her pistol. It was a disruptor, sleek and long-barreled — and when she thumbed it on, the weapon began to hum with barely-restrained power. "Sekhmet, what's your status?"
"I can fight," the Se-dai confirmed, with not a trace of the expected indignation.
"For how long?" Kore asked.
"Long enough."
"Could you fight a Se-dai?"
"I'll fight anyone I have to," Sekhmet growled. "Don't worry about me, Kore. I'll be fine."
"Lord Emperor," Kore said, then, turning to face the Grand Architect. He raised an eyebrow. "Are there any weapons concealed within this room? Any weapons concealed within your body?"
"No," the Emperor smiled. "To both your questions. No God would ever deign to defend himself."
"Okay," Kore grunted, at that. And then, finally, her gaze fell upon Jaheed.
She had changed, ever since her rescue. Jaheed had seen it clear as day. There was a distance between them now, a certain wariness with the way she regarded him. A silent accusation, lingering at the very edge of her words every time the two of them spoke. And Jaheed, in turn, had felt himself growing increasingly uncomfortable around her. Growing almost distrustful, in fact, for her reticence was entirely without explanation.
Nevertheless, in that moment the distance gave way, and he found that he trusted her implicitly. He trusted her with his life.
"Still got that holdout gun?" Kore asked. Jaheed's response, then, was to extend his right arm — and with a flick of his wrist, a boxy little las-pistol sprung from a mechanism in his sleeve, the weapon sliding smooth and effortless into the palm of his hand. Kore nodded her head. "Last resort only," she ordered. "We don't want them marking you as a combatant, and you're a lousy shot anyway."
"That's what I pay you for," Jaheed shot back, with faux-indignity, and for a moment there was just a hint of their old banter. But then Kore's back was turned, and she was making her way to the door with that black military trenchcoat flaring about her like a pair of dark wings. Instantly, Sekhmet was beside her, and both Jaheed and Volsif followed promptly behind. Kore reached out, then, and put a hand against the door-panel.
"You have a small army here," she said to the Emperor, without looking. "Surely some of them are coming to protect you?"
"My Centurions are fractured," Volsif replied. "The network is down, and thus my soldiers are in disarray. The forces of the Sovereign, too, work swiftly to divide them." Jaheed could only wonder as to how he could possibly know any of this, and pondered momentarily whether the Emperor was simply being fed information by some unseen comm-unit — or if it was all just sheer intuition, stated now as fact.
"So we're alone, then?" Kore demanded.
"For the foreseeable future," the Emperor agreed.
"Fucking hell," Kore muttered, pulling her cap tight over her eyes. She stepped back — leveled her pistol — and keyed the door.
"Ready?" she asked. Beside her, Sekhmet dropped low to a crouch, her eyes bright and her hand tight around the hilt of her sword.
"Ready," Sekhmet confirmed. "Let's gut these bastards."
"There is nothing for which I am not prepared," the Emperor declared. "My divinity is self-evident; my immortality is assured."
Jaheed felt the weight of that concealed pistol in his sleeve. His heart was beginning to beat faster and faster.
"Ready," he told her. And then, with a pneumatic hiss, the doors slid open before them.
And so the four of them plunged, headfirst, into hell itself.
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The Spurned; She of Enmity With No End
"Please, Lady Volsif!" the attendant insisted. "We have to get you to safety!"
Yet Hiela Der Zenket Nashosa Tel-Ban Volsif, Noble Primarch Incipitor Princess of the Great Domain, continued to merely lounge upon her couch, casual and unbothered. She was surrounded by a plethora of grey-suited servants and black-masked Centurions, all of whom were waiting quite impatiently for her to get up and go. Attendant Jeren Mosk, majordomo amongst her servants, stood beside a hawk-faced Praetorian called Renevnik Thars, and together the two of them were trying everything they could to make Hiela see the urgency of the situation. They had to get to the bunker, after all. This door would not possibly hold, after all.
Hiela regarded them all with utter disinterest, and made not attempt to disguise it from her face. "Please," she scoffed, gesturing lazily. "I'm sure my half-brother has the situation well in hand."
"Ma'am, this situation is in chaos," Thars insisted. Hiela's gold-flecked eyes flicked to the Praetorian. She knew everything there was to know about every one of her people — it was her great talent, after all, her penchant for faces and names — and though she knew Renevnik Thars by name and personality both, she had never before seen him unhelmeted. She found herself disappointed, then, to know that his countenance was a woeful mismatch for his oft-modulated voice. His appearance irked her greatly.
"Chaos is temporary," Hiela yawned, leaning back even further. Some of the Centurions were by the door, now, and one of them was shouting something. "Order will always restore itself, given time. The universe is a mannered place, is it not?" She flashed them both a brilliant, dazzling smile. "My half-brother, Doss, has made it so."
Then, with a sound like a thunderclap, the doors were blown clean open, and a dozen red-cloaked warriors of the Death Knell swept in like a tide of blood, their glaives whirling as they carved servant and Centurion into gory pieces. Hiela saw Mosk beheaded; saw Thars blow one warrior's head clean off, then pivot to kill another with a burst of disruptor-fire. He reached for his pistol, unholstered it as a shadow loomed above him — and then, with a titanic crash, the cyborg descended, and Renevnik Thars was split from stem to stern.
By that point, every one of Hiela's people was dead, and the room was flooded with a sea of gore and ruined corpses. It all smelled positively foul, and so Hiela disabled her sense of smell as twenty-four cyborgs approached, all of them with bloodied glaives in hand.
Finally, Hiela was compelled to sit up. "Well?" she demanded.
At once, every warrior knelt in unison, and all held that pose for ten uninterrupted seconds before, eventually, one of them rose and stepped forward.
"Lady Hiela," he rasped, extending a scar-crossed hand. "The Crimson Emir bids you fond greetings."
"Does he now?" Hiela remarked dryly — but nevertheless, she took the proffered hand, allowing the warrior to help her to her feet. She looked out over the assembled supplicants, then, and slowly her mouth twisted into a hungry smile.
"Your master owes me a great debt," Hiela remarked, with a laugh. It was a strange, musical little sound. "He wouldn't have made it half as far without my assistance." She snorted. "Fond greetings, indeed."
"Lady Hiela," the lead Death Knell repeated, crossing arms across his chest and bowing at the waist. "I ask that you allow us to escort you safely to Ceres. The Sovereign wishes to speak with you, at your earliest convenience."
"You take orders from the Sovereign now?" Hiela raised an eyebrow.
"For the time being," the cyborg replied, with no small trace of bitterness. Again, Hiela let out a laugh.
"Very well," she declared, bidding all to rise with a two-fingered gesture that was, in every way, perfectly reminiscent of her half-brother. All rose at once, in perfect synchronicity, and at that she could not help but grin. "Lead the way."