Scout Oliphant-Dawkins did not open his eyes. Even that could be enough of a distraction to kill him, when he was dealing with an opponent like this.
He could sense the Aether of those moving through his Perfect Palace, the structure itself effectively serving as a sustained Aether ping. The Baron's Aether, for instance, had just split in two -- one part remaining in the kitchen while the other ascended the stairs to the lounge. Not good. That must be one of those pitchforks, judging from the shape of the Aether.
Scout wouldn't be able to hold this enemy long. He'd known that from the start, and there was no way he'd be taking down such a foe on his own anyway. All he could hope for was that everyone outside would be able to come up with a plan while he was gone.
The pitchfork moved from the second to the third floor -- and immediately, Scout switched the levels around, the third floor becoming the second and vice versa. That way, the pitchfork would never actually reach the fourth floor, or the fifth, or him. An endless loop.
In a perfect world, the Baron Lunalette de Fleur would have just tried the same thing again and again. But this was not a perfect world.
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Lunalette smiled softly to himself through stone lips. He could instinctually sense the position of his pitchfork, and so he knew exactly what had happened straight away. The floors had switched places.
This truly was a wasteful ability.
It captured the opponent and the user, shrunk them down to less than a pinprick, then placed them in a six-floor abode where the user could switch the positions of individual floors. Why not just record the target into a simulated environment? Lunalette didn't understand at all.
That was fine, though. The Baron was happy to show his adversary just how foolish he was.
There were no words, no threats, no gloating. Lunalette simply took a deep breath, threw his arms out…
…and a flood of pitchforks rushed out of his body, flowing up the stairs.
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Sweat ran down Roy's forehead as he looked up at the spot his son had vanished from, expecting a flash of pink Aether at any second. Despite what he'd said, Ruth Blaine was still trying to cut away at the skin wrapped around his form, but it was no use. He was too damn strong for his own good.
He couldn't waste time thinking about that. If they just sat here and did nothing, there was no point in Scout using his ability at all. Roy's eyes flicked over to Ruth.
"Betting you don't have any spare skin on you?" he said.
Ruth looked up from her useless labor. "What?" she said, even having not understood or not heard him.
Slim chance she had what he was looking for, anyway. He didn't relish this idea, but… needs must. He had his arm and head free, after all. It'd be stupid not to use them.
He didn't give his companion a chance to protest. In one smooth movement, Roy put his own forearm into his mouth, bit down, and -- pain flaring through his body -- tore a long, bloody strip of skin free.
Ruth shot up. "The hell are you thinking?!" she cried, as blood poured down Roy's flayed arm.
The pain was excruciating, even worse than Roy had anticipated, but he answered all the same. "Reloading," he gasped, spitting out the length of skin.
The second it left his mouth, the skin began floating in the air, seized by Roy's ability. With a thought, he twisted and compressed it as far as it would go -- until he had formed an epidermal bullet no bigger than a fingernail.
"The second that fucker shows his face," he seethed, powering through his pain with anger. "I'm firing this right through his forehead. You should get ready, too."
Ruth Blaine stared at him long and hard, reluctance written all over her face. That was a surprise. He'd have thought Skipper's kid would be way more ruthless than that.
She was a fighter, though -- and as the seconds passed, her expression hardened. Resolve shone from her eyes like diamonds.
"Right," she nodded, baring her claws. "Let's kill this asshole."
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Scout moved the floors as fast as he could, but he already knew he wouldn't be able to keep this up forever.
An endless stream of pitchforks was flowing up towards him, and it was all he could do to keep them quarantined to the lower floors. Floor two and three swapped, floors three and four swapped, floors four and five swapped, floors two and five swapped, floors four and three swapped, floors three and five swapped, again and again and again. It was like shuffling a deck of cards, as quickly as you could, shuffling for your life.
The second a pitchfork got up to floor six, it was over. Scout wouldn't be able to defend himself. His limbs shook beneath him as he lay on the floor, devoting all his energy to the shuffle.
Perfect Palace wasn't the best ability -- Scout knew that. It was pretty impressive in what it could do, but the way it went about it was unnecessarily complicated. It could only be used with an Aether battery -- with Sidekick, clinging to Scout's back -- and even then it was exhausting.
For some reason, Scout found himself thinking back to Rico, who had left the Oliphant family back on the Cradle. What was he doing right now? He'd said he wanted to help people with his Aether. Had that worked out? Was Rico happy? Had he really escaped from all this? Why was Scout thinking of that now…?
What was he doing here?
One to three.
Two to four.
Four to three.
Three to two.
Two to three.
Three to four, no, back to --
A mistake was made. A mistake that Scout Oliphant-Dawkins couldn't afford. The tiniest instant of hesitation -- and a single pitchfork flew up the stairs and onto the sixth floor. Scout stared at it, wide-eyed, as slowly he reached for the back of his neck.
The weapon showed no signs of coming for him. It just hung there, pointed up towards the ceiling, an ominous monolith. A marker declaring its master's victory.
And then…
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Damnation Invidia.
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…it was replaced by the stone body of the Baron Lunalette de Fleur, who landed on the carpet of the sitting room with a dull thump. His lips cracked as he regarded Scout, laid out before him.
"An interesting ability," he said calmly. "But manual control made it fallible. You should have made the shuffling an automatic process. But… I don't suppose you'll be able to put that advice into practice, will you?"
Scout said nothing. He just looked at Lunalette, chest heaving, blood slowly trickling from his nose. With what he'd just done, he was slowly crossing the boundary of the Aether burn.
Should he release his ability? No. If this plan of his didn't work, he needed to give Pa and Ruth as much time as possible.
The Baron's smile deepened. "Nothing to say? I respect that. That's how a person should die. The last moments of a human reveal their true character. Your silence credits you."
As one, the hundreds of pitchforks Lunalette had released flooded up the staircase, slamming into the Baron from behind and returning to his body. Scout could have stopped them, but now there was no point wasting the energy. It took maybe a few seconds, and when the process had completed, Lunalette sighed in relief.
"Well, my silent friend," he said, cracking his knuckles. "Let's finish this, shall we?"
The Baron jumped forward -- and something else jumped at the same time. Something that had crawled up the chandelier and positioned itself, waiting for this perfect chance. A tiny creature, looking like some kind of insectoid tardigrade, mandibles clicking as it leapt for the back of Lunalette's neck.
Sidekick.
An Aether battery was essentially a mirror of one's own consciousness, allowing the owner to generate and hold more Aether at once. For a short time after being detached from Scout, Sidekick essentially served as a second Scout. A plan concocted while the two were one could be executed while they were separate again.
Lunalette skidded to a halt, looking over his shoulder at the incoming beast -- and smashed it out of the air with the back of his hand, reducing it to bloody pulp in an instant.
It was as expected. It was what was needed. A second of distraction.
Scout whipped his hand to his holster and pulled out a pistol, pointing it at the statue-man before him. At the same time, he let the five floors below them dissipate into Aether -- sending all that spare energy into the bullet in his gun, infusing it to its limits. Lunalette lunged for him again, but too late.
Finger had already met trigger, and the barrel was already pointed at the glowing crack in the Baron's chest.
The gun spat oblivion.
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Pink Aether flashed as Perfect Palace ended -- and the shockwave caused by the sudden cancellation of the shrinking clawed across the earth.
Roy squinted, infusing his head and arm as much as he could to withstand the blast. It was like being caught in a hurricane, shock after shock slamming into him as he was held still by the tent of skin. Crack. Crack. He felt bones fracture inside his body, insufficiently protected, but he didn't dare succumb to pain. He had to time this perfectly.
To stop it from being blown away, Roy held the bullet of skin inside his mouth, balanced on his tongue. He could taste the blood, that metallic tang crawling over the inside of his mouth. How many more seconds would the blast last? Two, three?
The instant it stopped, he'd open his mouth and fire. Before the Baron could get his bearings. That would be their best chance.
There!
The shockwaves ceased, and the second they did Roy snapped his jaw open -- the bullet firing out as a wild pink smear. It shot towards the silhouette that had appeared on the giant's head, weaved through any defenses…
…and thudded into the corpse.
Roy blinked.
There, atop the metal titan, were two people. He had not hit Lunalette de Fleur. Lunalette was standing tall, unharmed… with his arm extended, impaling someone else from behind. Someone else, with their green hair hanging low and their golden eyes dull and dead.
Someone… someone… someone Roy knew.
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The Baron Lunalette de Fleur's crimson gaze flicked down to the watching Roy, and he grinned maliciously.
"This is your boy," he said, shaking Scout's corpse. "Isn't it?"
Roy screamed loud enough to shake the world, and long enough for it to trickle off into a vain crackle. Scout -- Scout -- Scout -- Scout -- Scout. Just like that, his mind ground to a halt. That body became the entirety of his vision, and that silence became the entirety of his universe.
In that moment, Roy Oliphant-Dawkins understood how it felt to die himself.
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“Direwolf Set!”
Ruth had only just unlocked this ability, but even so she understood instinctively she didn’t have long to use it. After repeated deployments during this battle, right now she could only manage it for a few seconds at a time. Before long, even that limited time would surely trickle away.
She leapt up behind the Baron and brought her claws down in the same moment. It was horrible to think, but surely if Lunalette was holding Scout’s body with one hand it would limit his mobility. If nothing else, it could give her an opening to strike unimpeded.
Naive. This man was used to handling corpses.
In one smooth movement, Lunalette hurled the corpse towards Roy as he whirled around, slamming his other fist directly into Ruth’s helmet. There was a loud crack as the mask shattered -- and in that same instant, she went flying back down into the ground, armour crumbling around her as she left a trail in the soil. Reduced to an undignified heap, she hacked up air -- and found that blood was coming out along with it.
A sound echoed throughout the battlefield. For a moment, Ruth thought that Roy had started screaming again, but no -- it was laughter. The Baron Lunalette de Fleur was cackling madly, arms spread wide, soaking in his victory.
“Splendid! Splendid!” he cried out, red Aether crackling around him as he regained control of the mecha. “You did everything you could, you pulled out every dirty trick -- and yet! And yet! It just wasn’t enough, was it?! You fools! Buffoons! Fucking idiots! It’s over! I win!”
His ranting boomed out, enhanced by his Aether, loud enough to shake what remained of the trees. Slowly, Ruth picked herself up -- but she already knew she was in no state to launch another attack yet. Direwolf Set was still recovering, and Lunalette would be ready for it.
They’d run out of chances.
His face spread into a grin so wide that the corners of his stone cheeks were cracking, Lunalette raised one hand up, ready to snap his fingers. Above them all, countless dark portals began to open, pointing downwards -- ready to unleash their payloads on the ground below. There were so many, clustered so close, that they seemed to create an artificial night all by themselves.
Ruth grit her teeth. Roy looked down at Scout’s body, his eyes just as dead.
Lunalette sighed, expelling some of that manic energy, and a calm smile returned to his lips. “Well,” he said softly, looking down at her. “It’s been a pleasure. Truly.”
Aether shining, he snapped his fingers…and nothing happened.
Lunalette blinked. “Eh?” he said, looking up at his stone fingers.
They weren’t stone anymore.
Slowly, from his fingers downwards, his body was returning from stone to its previous flesh. Majestic sculpture was being replaced by clammy skin, even as Lunalette looked up at it -- uncomprehending. Even as his hand returned to normal, cracks were spreading out over it, blood spilling from the fractures.
“Huh?!” he exclaimed. “That’s, that’s not… uh… I don’t…”
All above them, the dark portals began to clear away, and the pink filtered sunlight returned. There was a mighty creak as the black mecha began to buckle under its own weight, one arm breaking off entirely and shattering into red Aether as it hit the ground. Lunalette, still clinging to the top of the construct, rubbed desperately at the flesh spreading over his arms -- as if that would somehow stop the reversion, and the damage that seemed to come along with it.
Her eyes widening, Ruth realized just what was happening.
Oh, Scout, she thought. You genius. You stupid genius.
Roy had explained the way Scout’s Perfect Palace worked a little. It shrank Scout and his target into a space so tiny it couldn’t be perceived or interacted with -- and then, when the shrinking was undone, it created a massive explosion due to the sudden displacement of space. Ruth and Roy had known it was coming, and so had been able to prepare for and withstand it…
…but what about the countless Aether batteries the Baron had created?
At the very least, the explosion had taken out a large chunk of them -- and so the abilities Lunalette had been able to use as he pleased previously had now become a massive Aether burn. His body was breaking apart even as the abilities were released. He was being destroyed by the very power he’d cultivated.
There’d be no better chance to strike back than this. Ruth tried to pick herself up again, but her body screamed as she rose to her feet, and she was forced back onto one knee.
She needn’t have bothered. Someone else had a better claim to vengeance, after all.
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Roy Oliphant-Dawkins had been emptied out.
There was no anguish, no grief, no sorrow. No rage, no fury, no bloodlust. All of those things had been cast aside, for they were too great to be constrained in a single mind. Like a computer, Roy’s mind was laser-focused on the objective before him. He had to eliminate that man. He had been reduced to an abstract. It didn’t even feel personal. It was simply a condition that needed to be cleared.
Thump.
You brought him here.
Roy slammed his own fist into the side of his head, nausea welling up as he felt his brain bounce around in his skull. Not hard enough. The ability he had right now was actively keeping him trapped. He had to get rid of it.
Thump.
You brought him here, you bastard.
It was not enough. Not nearly enough. He felt blood in his mouth, and pain in his head, but it was not enough. It wasn’t the oblivion he needed.
Thump.
You killed him.
Third time the charm. Roy did not remember his fist striking his head the third time, for in that instant he lost consciousness. Only for an instant, but an instant was all he needed. Save the Day refreshed his ability each time he lost consciousness for any reason, not just when he fell asleep. All of this was a reroll.
Save the Day.
As his control over the skin around him relinquished, it lost its rigidity and strength, reverting to a loose pile that Roy could easily tear his way out of. A few seconds after his hand touched the pile of skin, a burning handprint appeared in the same spot, melting through layer after layer of the epidermis.
Ability confirmed: hand contact applied great heat after a brief delay. That was all he needed.
Breaking free, Roy launched himself up -- and in that same instant, the black armour fully collapsed, sending the enemy's bleeding form falling down to the ground. He would not reach it. Instead, he fell down right into Roy's path.
He flipped in the air, limbs flailing, and his head turned just in time to see Roy's hand reaching for his face.
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"Nothing to say? I respect that. That's how a person should die. The last moments of a human reveal their true character. Your silence credits you."
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"Wait!" screamed the Baron Lunalette de Fleur.
Roy did not wait. His hand seized hold of Lunalette's face -- and he kept it there even as the heat manifested, even as he heard that muffled scream against his palm, even as that head began to bubble and boil under his fingers.
By the time the two of them hit the ground, mecha dissipating around them, the Baron's head had become a red soup that splashed into a puddle at Roy's feet.
After that, there was nothing else to do, no victory to revel in. Roy Oliphant-Dawkins simply stood up, staggered over to the corpse of his son, and knelt down next to it.
He stared.
He breathed.
He stared.
He breathed.
He stared.
He breathed.
That was all there was left of his consciousness.
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"Roy?" asked Ruth quietly.
He said nothing. He just stared down at Scout's body, his eyes dull.
"Mr. Oliphant, uh… Dawkins?" she tried again.
Nothing.
Ruth was just about to try a third time when there was a sudden rumble -- a vibration coming from below. Roy still didn't react, but Ruth whirled around, Skeletal claws appearing on her hands. Her eyes flicked around, looking for the threat.
Morgan Nacht rose out of the rubble he'd been buried in, the branches emerging from his back lifting the chunks of debris away as if they were toys. He looked at her with those moss-green eyes, cocking his head unnaturally.
She took a deep breath. "Guess the truce is over, then?" She lowered her body, ready to launch back into combat, ignoring the pain radiating through her.
Slowly, Morgan shook his head. "This body is damaged," he said, voice strangely raspy and distorted. "Morgan Nacht… requires medical treatment. There is no reason for me to fight you."
"Oh," Ruth lowered her claws a little. "So you're just… leaving?"
Morgan's head snapped to the side -- for behind Ruth, a young boy had come running out of the woods. It was one of the Cardinal Beasts -- Wolfram of the White -- and Bruno and Serena were limping behind him, blood coating their pained face.
Ruth couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. They were okay. Well, not okay, but… alive. What about the others, where were they? If things were going according to plan, then Skipper would have been fighting the Supreme right about now. How was that going? And where was Dragan?
She was brought back to reality by Nacht's next words -- or the words of whatever was currently controlling him.
"You helped eliminate a traitor who should not have existed," Nacht's body said. "And you saved the life of my friend. I am obliged to return that favour."
Ruth narrowed her eyes. "How?"
"This is a planet of simpletons," Nacht said. "Many have been destroyed, but a layer of observation still surrounds this planet. It is not a thing you can understand."
He was right. Ruth didn't get it at all. Nacht turned his head up to the pink sky, as if to find something hiding there.
"A vessel has just entered the atmosphere," he declared. "A vessel stolen and drowned in blood. It is headed for Zachariah Esmeralda. It is not your friend. That is all."
With that, the branches lunged out from Morgan's back once more, pulling him away into the scorched forest like tentacles.
Behind her, Bruno spoke up: "The hell was that?"
Ruth didn't answer. She was too busy considering those words. Someone was on their way -- someone hostile -- but who? An image was beginning to form in her mind.
Someone who would have had to hijack a ship to get here, someone who'd want to be here at all costs, someone who'd get here as fast as possible…
Ruth's heart dropped. Avaman. It was him, wasn't it? The First Contender was on his way -- and he'd be heading straight for Skipper. There was no way he could fight Avaman and the Supreme at the same time.
She thought things through. With the pyramid destroyed, Klaus was probably dead. If Klaus was dead, they'd lost their secondary means of communication. There was no way to get more people in time.
That meant… they'd have to take the First Contender down with just the people here. Roy was in no state to fight, so that left her, Bruno and Serena, and Wolfram. Three exhausted fighters and a literal child.
Ruth gulped.
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The Baron Lunalette de Fleur awoke, gasping for air through ruined lungs.
The three spikes of the pitchfork protruded from his chest, and he was careful to keep them there as he pulled himself out of the ground. If nothing else, he had to make sure the pitchfork remained inside this body. That was the only thing keeping him extant.
With shaking hands, he inspected the body he'd found himself in -- the antlers coming out of his head and his current state of nudity. This was the man who'd become a dragon, then. He was one of the batteries who'd been right on the edge of the final battle -- far enough to escape the explosion.
Good. A hardy body. One that wouldn't expire quickly. He had time.
He'd done the same thing as Scout Oliphant-Dawkins. An Aether battery was a mirror of one's consciousness, a generator and battery in one. The consciousness in his main body had died, but this could still limp on for a time. Time enough to find a way to survive.
Hot anger bubbled through his stolen brain. How dare they do that to him? He'd died spluttering, looking like a fool… screaming as his face melted. Disgraceful. The thought alone sent shivers of humiliation down his spine.
No, no. He couldn't lose himself in thoughts of vengeance yet. He could worry about that later. For the time being, he had to find a way to keep going after this body fully expired.
He'd heard from Harrowing that the blacksmith -- that woman, supposedly dead -- was in attendance at this battle. If she'd managed to sustain her consciousness after death, perhaps she could do the same for him? He'd make her. He could be persuasive.
Lunalette's grin spread across a face not suited for it, warping the expression. A firm plan in mind, he took a step forward --
-- and his head fell from his shoulders.
The cut was clean, so much so that the Baron didn't realize at first what had happened. He blinked as he fell to the ground, looking at the headless body crumpling down next to him. He opened his mouth to question, to shout, to rage -- but to no avail.
Even if a head alone could talk, the connection to the pitchfork had been severed, and his consciousness was already disintegrating.
The last thing the Baron Lunalette de Fleur heard in his fading existence were the words of the man who'd finished him off.
"Caravan," said the weary voice of Atoy Muzazi. "Point update."