The girl took a step forward, fire in her hair, resolve in her voice, and declared: “I’ll show you.”
“Hm?” the boy said, blue eyes twinkling in the dark. “Show me what?”
"That people can be good. That they're not what you think of them."
That the world isn’t what you think of it.
The boy looked away.
“Fine… do what you want.”
----------------------------------------
The world stank of blood.
That wasn't entirely true, of course. It was Dragan Hadrien that stank of blood. That was inevitable: he was covered in the stuff, from head to toe. The life and times of Victor Nezhel, painting his skin and clinging to his nostrils. A shudder went down Dragan's spine.
“Caravan,” Dragan muttered, raising his hands up. “Number of contestants remaining.”
Gemini Shotgun.
Recorded rainwater began to fall from Dragan's Aether above, cascading over his body and making him at least a modicum cleaner. Clean enough that his face wasn't a grisly red, if nothing else. He cracked his neck as Caravan spoke.
“Eight contestants left, including you!” the little bastard cackled. “We’re down to the sticks, huh?! Don't get cocky, though! You still got some work ahead of ya, buster! Don't go getting lazy now!”
“And how long left in the first hour?”
“Fourteen minutes!”
“I see.”
As the impromptu raincloud vanished, Dragan considered things. Fourteen minutes to eliminate seven people. It was hardly impossible. Some of those contestants would surely already be fighting each other, and so Dragan could dispatch them while they were distracted. It'd be a race against time, but it was a race that could be won.
If only he wasn't preoccupied.
Dragan's eyes flicked to the entrance of the mall -- what was left of the grand archway.
The face of a nightmare grinned back at him, hunched down to fit in the gap. The paleo-beast had returned. That barbed tongue tasted the air. Those quills twitched on its head. Those claws tapped against the ground. Every aspect of this thing's biology was perfected for killing -- and every single bit of that arsenal was aimed at him.
That grin widened.
Dragan sighed, turning towards it fully, water still dripping from his hair.
“Fine,” he said. “Let's do this.”
AETHERAL SPACE 12.22
“Star (Part 2)”
In the days to come, the Absurd Weapons Lab would pore over all available footage of the clash between Dragan Hadrien and the specimen known as the Kaiser. For some, it became an obsession. Entire theses would be written based on what they observed.
It went a little like this.
Dragan's leg snapped up -- ankle shining with blue pinpoint Aether -- and smashed into the midsection of the Kaiser, sending it flying up into the air.
The roof of the mall was finally destroyed as the paleo-beast tore through it, an unearthly screech emerging from its open mouth. Its limbs, muscular arms and legs, flailed uselessly at empty air as the creature rose into the sky. Yellow Aether crackled.
Scholars would come to write about this moment.
Phenomenon: confirmation of Aether development. Yellow colouration. Confirmation of infusion to boost innate attributes.
As it reached the crest of its flight, the scales on the Kaiser's back rippled -- and a moment later, two massive leather wings burst out, their emergence raining blood on the city below. They flapped, rapid as the wings of an insect, and the resultant gusts tore Bone Heaven apart beneath it.
Phenomenon: development of wing structures. Aerial capacity confirmed. Note significant increase in speed of evolution compared to pre-Aether levels.
A flash of blue -- and Dragan Hadrien appeared out of the air, already firing a volley of Gemini Shotguns towards the Kaiser's back, right between its new wings. No doubt he intended to sever them before the Kaiser could put them to proper use -- but that didn't happen. The paleo-beast twisted its body as the projectiles approached -- and so they simply scraped at its sides. The attack gouged out long strips of angry red flesh, but left the wings unharmed.
Again, the Kaiser roared -- whether from rage or pain none could say -- and the sheer force of the sound was enough to throw Dragan Hadrien up into the clouds.
Phenomenon: pinpoint infusion of Aether in vocal cords confirmed. Following observation of Hadrien's Aether usage, subject incorporates his technique into its own attacks.
With another flap of its mighty wings, the Kaiser launched itself upwards, pursuing Dragan.
Yellow Aether continued to crackle around the wounds on its side -- and as the camera watched, those wounds slowly slid shut, like the natural healing had been put on fast-forward.
Phenomenon: confirmation of already accelerated regenerative abilities infused and enhanced with Aether.
By the time it broke through the cloud layer, spreading its wings wide, it was already fully healed. Those countless razor-sharp teeth snapped open as the thing roared once more in triumph --
-- then recoiled as a bolt of blue Aether flew into its throat.
Taking advantage of the distance that roar had put between them, Dragan Hadrien had entered Gemini World and waited for the Kaiser to reach him. He'd finish it off the same way he eliminated Victor Nezhel -- an attack from the inside.
Gemini Shotgun.
The Kaiser writhed in agony as blue light strobed within it, shining through the skin of its belly, but it did not die -- and within the span of a few seconds, even the pain seemed to fade.
Phenomenon: adaptation against previously successful B-Rank attack ‘Gemini Shotgun’. Adjustment of scale density, strength of internal tissue, and pain tolerance.
Deep in the belly of the beast, stomach acid pouring over him, Dragan Hadrien gritted his teeth.
Fine, he thought.
Gemini Railgun.
The Kaiser's unsettling calm came to a quick and violent end as the blue light suddenly intensified -- and Dragan Hadrien tore his way out of the paleo-beast's stomach, chunks of gore flying in every direction. Balance utterly lost, the Kaiser flipped in the air, plummeting down towards the ground.
Hadrien flew far above the Kaiser as it fell, his legs recorded into Aether once again. In his hand he held a pulsating and unknowable organ -- a souvenir from his brief vacation inside the Kaiser's stomach. With a grimace, he crushed it. The strips of melted skin that covered his face were already regenerating, too. Neither of them would die so easily.
Yes. Dragan Hadrien had experience with this sort of thing. That was why he wasn't naive enough to think a mere disembowelment would finish the Kaiser off.
From far below, there was movement.
Phenomenon: partial shift in body plan. Evolution that would have previously taken days is now accomplished in seconds.
Six bloody red tentacles whipped up towards Hadrien -- and they would have slapped him out of the sky if he hadn't retreated into Gemini World once more. Each time he reappeared, they struck out again, seemingly automated -- the only purpose of their existence being to destroy the enemy. In that way, they were much like the Kaiser itself.
The paleo-beast was barely even recognisable anymore. The gaping wound on its stomach had transformed into a massive mouth, lined with huge square teeth, and the flailing entrails had become those roving red tongues. Strike, strike, strike, strike.
On that last hit, the Kaiser was just a tad too fast, and Gemini World just a tad too slow.
The tendril slapped Dragan out of the air, shattering his arm and spiking him through a series of buildings. Brickwork and dust flew up in great clouds as the cannonball named Dragan Hadrien tore through the cityscape. The Kaiser did not move to pursue -- instead, as it landed, it planted itself into the ground and began to inhale, its skin billowing wider and farther as it took in air. Yellow Aether crackled around it.
Phenomenon: three-hundred and seventy-seven seconds following development of Aether, creation of second Aether ability.
The Kaiser breathed blood.
It was so copious and focused that the release was more like a solid red beam than an actual liquid, but it did its job all the same. The blast of blood -- superheated by Aether -- carved through the city like a knife through butter, aimed at the spot Dragan was due to land. Coordinates were calculated more accurately than any computer.
As Dragan flew through the air, he recorded his arm into Gemini World -- and immediately banished it, dismembering himself. It was easier to replace a missing arm than repair a damaged one. By the time he landed in the courtyard on one knee, a new tree of limbs was already working its way out of the stump, iterating and determining the ideal replacement.
He wasn’t alone in the courtyard. Another contestant, a man in a black-and-white striped shirt, wielding a massive pair of scissors. His eyes wide in surprise, he pointed those scissors at Dragan.
“Hey!” he roared. “Don’t mo --”
The blood-blast smashed through the building and melted him in an instant, flesh sloughing off his bones. Dragan had only a moment to react before the attack struck him too. Fortunately, it was a reaction he was already used to.
Gemini Railgun.
The massive projectile vanished in a flash of blue Aether -- and then reappeared, blasted out by Dragan, redirected at the Kaiser. It scorched its way across Bone Heaven once more.
While the Kaiser’s speciality was evolution in response to a threat, it could not evolve in anticipation of a potential threat. It was only once that threat was a reality in front of it that adaptation could begin. In order to withstand and survive the strength of its own redirected attack -- blasting towards it at absurd speeds -- it could only calculate a response in the few seconds before that attack struck it.
It performed admirably all the same.
Phenomenon: development of rudimentary ‘parry’ limb.
The tip of one of the entrail-tentacles suddenly flattened and widened, producing a strange structure that looked more like a tennis racket than anything else. Light gleamed over the glass-like scales that covered its surface. Before the blood could strike the Kaiser, the limb whipped forward and deflected it -- the singular projectile scattered into countless tiny drops that rained down on the city, melting whatever they touched.
That wasn’t something Dragan had to worry about. As he marched through the crumbling streets, each drop of blood was recorded into Gemini Shotgun before it could touch him. He put a hand to his chin as he considered the titan on the horizon, its silhouette barely visible through the red clouds.
I see, Dragan thought. This is some Gene Tyrant leftover. It adapts and evolves to whatever I throw at it. After I hit it with Gemini Shotgun, its hide became tougher to withstand those shots -- and I bet it’s adapted to withstand the level of Railgun I hit it with after that.
Dragan stopped, cracking his neck once again as the distant beast roared another challenge.
If I want to do any damage, I have to constantly use stronger attacks. But it’s got better regeneration than mine -- so there’s no point giving it the chance to adapt if I’m not sure I can get a kill. How can I guarantee that?
Slowly, he raised his finger and steadily pointed it at the Kaiser.
Every other time I’ve fired, I’ve done so without gestures. So it has no reason to assign any meaning to me pointing like this. It doesn’t know I can use this to narrow down my aim.
He’d already made preparations above, when he was knocked into the sky. A cloud of Aether left behind, floating up there, cloaked until it was needed. The Kaiser had developed that limb to deflect projectiles, but from the looks of it the thing still had to see the attack coming. If it believed Dragan would be attacking from in front of it…
… it had no reason to be cautious of the skies.
Gemini Railgun.
The Railgun had been charging for nearly two minutes, and it was as devastating as one would expect. A bright blue glow consumed the clouds, so incandescent that the rest of the sky seemed to turn black in comparison. There was only a single moment to appreciate the eerie beauty of the scene -- before, like a meteor, the projectile slammed down into the Kaiser below.
Dragan’s hair billowed back from the shockwave, a pillar of flame consuming the paleo-beast and a good portion of the city with it. The blast stretched from the top of the sky to the deepest recesses of the tunnel below, gale-like winds tearing the rest of the urban landscape apart. Even with the waves of force cascading into him, however, Dragan did not blink. He just stood there, focused on the explosion, waiting and watching for the counterattack that was both dreaded and inevitable.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t disappointed.
Phenomenon: execution of Dragan Hadrien’s A-Class attack confirmed to destroy the majority of the subject’s body. This includes vaporization of the forebrain located in the body’s chest.
A tendril speared out from the smoke -- and Dragan dodged it by inches, a bloody gash carved into his cheek as a result.
However, approximately 15% of the hindbrain located in the subject’s tail is believed to have survived, allowing Aether-enhanced regeneration and evolution. Subject begins transformation into a third body plan.
Dragan leapt upwards, retreating into Gemini World as a wave of flesh barreled down the street, utterly consuming it.
This transformation constitutes a significant increase in body mass, sufficient to occupy most of the structures within ‘Bone Heaven’.
He reappeared in the air -- and immediately had to retreat again as dozens of tendrils slashed at him, each aiming for his vitals. Blinking in and out of existence, he barely managed to avoid their strikes, even as their numbers increased. By the time he managed to rise above the forest of hostility, there were hundreds of tentacles aiming for him. Long, thin extensions tipped with blades of razor-sharp bone.
Replication and refinement of existing attack structures also noted.
The new head of the Kaiser wormed its way free of the city, breaking out of the town hall at Bone Heaven’s heart. Massive, dwarfing the building that had previously spawned it, like a cross between a skull and a fly trap. It opened a mouth filled with so many teeth that counting them was meaningless, and it roared.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Increased size of skull and brain to withstand future attempts at instant neural destruction.
Dragan floated high up in the sky, out of reach of the creature, looking down in disgust at the thing that had infested the battlefield below. Could it even be called a paleo-beast anymore? It was more like a plant now. This constant transformation… was this what the Gene Tyrants were like? Was that what this creature was on its way to becoming?
Given speed of threat detection/adaptation since developing Aether, the subject would have been reported as an exponential threat.
If so… then this was something worth taking out. Dragan clenched his fist. Right now, if the Serpent of Pesh had done his job, the eyes of the galaxy would be on this place. He’d give them something to see.
He took a deep breath, Aether surging around him -- his body approaching the lofty limits of what it now considered an Aether burn. He had a plan. He’d need to use everything, but he had a plan. This thing evolved only in response to things. That meant that, if Dragan presented it with the right stimuli, he could make it evolve along the paths he desired.
If he managed to force it into the right form, he could win.
“Heya,” said Caravan.
No. He would win.
“Hey,” snapped Caravan, a touch more annoyed.
Dragan glanced at the black bracelet, his own gaze just as irritated. “What?”
Caravan cleared a throat it did not possess and declared, in a voice full of practiced exuberance: “Contestants remaining: one! The winner is…”
Dragan blinked. “Huh?!”
“...Dragan Hadrien!”
Before Dragan could so much as blink again, there was a blur of light -- and when it cleared, he was gone, teleported away as the victor. Dragan’s lingering Aether fizzled out of the sky. The Kaiser, still fused with the city below, seemed to pause in confusion for a moment -- before accepting its own victory and roaring against the distant sky.
Seven contestants were killed in the unintentional crossfire between Dragan Hadrien and a non-participating animal.
In the end, that was how the final Inner Melee came to a sudden and strange end.
END OF ARC 12
“Well,” Rufus said, taking a final swig of his sixth drink. “That was a weird way to end it. He was strong, though, right?”
Jamilu nodded, his eyes closed. He was scanning through the information on his Principality, trying to see if he could find anything on this ‘Dragan Hadrien’. There were some old news reports about a defecting member of the AdminCorps, but he doubted that was the same person. That young man had been one step above a civilian, while the one he’d just observed was one step below… one step below…
…well, he dared even to think.
Jamilu opened his eyes. Rufus was right -- that had been an unusual way to end the fight. No doubt some of the people watching would be disappointed. He couldn’t imagine those like the Tree of Might fanatics, for example, approving of someone who’d won with the help of an uninvolved monster. Even if it hadn’t actually been that way, tongues would talk… and enough tongues in unison could bring down even the strongest contender.
He stood up from the table. “We’ll be at Azum-Ha within the next few days. I’ve compiled an order in which we should investigate the contestants, ranked from highest danger level to…”
His voice trailed off. Rufus clearly wasn’t listening. He was still staring at the screen, a frown on his face, absent-mindedly wiping the beer from his chin.
“Rufus,” Jamilu said sternly. “Are you listening? We have a job to do.”
It wasn’t his companion who replied… at least, not his physical companion.
Boy, Victory snarled, nearly salivating. Shut up and watch.
Jamilu followed Rufus’ gaze back to the massive screen -- and he realized that everyone else in the club was still watching too, transfixed by the image before them.
It wasn’t over.
----------------------------------------
“This fucking bracelet,” Dragan Hadrien sighed as he strode across the desert. With one hand, he tore the black band free. “It takes ages to get back down here.”
He took his shredded red jacket and tossed it to the side, letting the wind pluck it away and carry it off. On the horizon, he could see the unholy infusion between Bone Heaven and the Kaiser, its countless tentacles still flexing through the air. It noticed him too -- that massive head swinging in his direction.
“Sorry,” Dragan smiled. “But I need to make a good showing here.”
The air turned still. The ground began to shudder. The sky seemed to press down.
One moment -- silence.
And the next? Anything but.
The Kaiser’s gargantuan jaws slammed open -- and another torrent of burning blood blasted forth, this time so wide and massive that Dragan would stand no chance of recording it. He dodged instead -- using Gemini World to appear above the blast -- his arms already Aether-infused and ready to deflect the subsequent rush of tendril slashes.
As Dragan flipped through the air, punching and kicking at insane speeds to block the encroaching tentacles, he saw the blood-blast strike the mountain behind him -- and keep going, boring through the rock and leaving a glowing red hole all the way through to the other side. Needless to say, that wasn’t an attack he could survive. Just like the Kaiser, if the enemy destroyed his entire body in a single blow, he was done.
No doubt it had realized that too.
As one tendril struck from another’s shadow, Dragan intercepted it, swinging around its circumference with one hand. Using the moment of surprise, he began to sprint across the tentacle as a bridge, slowly but surely making his way towards the head at the city’s heart. The other tendrils quickly turned on their fellow, instantly butchering it and causing Dragan to fall down into the flesh-encrusted streets.
From now on, Dragan told himself. Don’t disappear into Gemini World entirely. It needs to see you dodging everything. That’s the most important thing.
Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t use Gemini World at all. Nearly all of him vanished into it -- save for his skin, eyes, hair and teeth. Everything that wasn’t required to sustain the appearance of Dragan Hadrien was cast aside. The reduction in his weight brought with it increased speed and maneuverability… hopefully enough to survive the incoming onslaught.
And what an onslaught it was.
The tentacles struck so quickly and so closely together that there existed nearly no space and nearly no time between them -- but that was only nearly. Dragan Hadrien used everything he had to persist within that space and that time, narrowly avoiding hundreds of deaths every minute, feeling oblivion brush past him by mere atoms, again and again and again. A single misjudgement, a single mistiming… would mean his end.
But, here and now, Dragan Hadrien did not misjudge and he did not mistime. That was the crux of his strategy.
This thing has hard-coded limits, he thought. There’s no other explanation. The most basic adaptation against a threat is power in numbers, yet it hasn’t tried to split itself. That’s because it can’t. So… if I force it into a situation where it has to take a new form, it’ll have no choice but to abandon this old one.
A hundred slashes, a hundred dodges. A thousand, and a thousand more. As Dragan moved, he donated attacks of his own, striking at the softest spots on the thing’s anatomy. Nearly useless -- but just effective enough to be noticeable, just effective enough to technically -- technically -- constitute a threat.
Come on, you stupid bastard. That massive body makes you too big a target, and I’m too fast for you to catch. What do you do?
All around him, the flesh began to ripple. Dragan smiled.
That's right. You become smaller and faster.
The head of the Kaiser popped like a grape -- and the next form of the beast emerged from the rain of blood and brain matter. It couldn't have been more different.
By this point, the Kaiser bore very little resemblance to a paleo-beast at all. It was humanoid and human-sized, covered in those reflective scales from head to toe. No ears, no eyes, no nose and no mouth. A long, thick tail swayed threateningly through the air behind it.
The strangest part was what had replaced the quills -- a shock of silver hair, sticking out in every direction from the Kaiser's head. Dragan frowned. Was that meant to be like him?
“K…” the Kaiser muttered with an empty and echoing voice. “Ki…”
Standing amidst the decaying remains of the Kaiser's abandoned fortress-form, Dragan raised his eyebrows, looking up at the newborn destroyer.
“Oh?” he said. “You can talk now? Got something to say?”
The Kaiser raised a claw-tipped finger and pointed it at Dragan, in a replica of the gesture Dragan himself had used not so long ago.
“Kill…” the Kaiser said. “Kill you…”
Dragan smiled. “Funny. I was thinking the same thing.”
----------------------------------------
Morgan Nacht burst into Atoy Muzazi's recovery room, the script already clutched in his hand. The Full Moon looked blearily up from his bed.
“Morgan?” he mumbled, pulled out of dreamland. “What is it…?”
His lieutenant held up the script. “Footage. From, uh, the last Inner Melee. I thought you'd want to see it, right away. Considering.”
As the script was placed in front of him, Atoy Muzazi was still half-asleep. However, when he saw that face, that Aether… his eyes snapped wide open.
“Dragan Hadrien…” he whispered.
----------------------------------------
“Dragan…” Ruth breathed, watching the video once again. It had apparently just reached a billion spins on Sfeer -- footage from the last of the Inner Melees.
The unbelievable spectacle from the one they were calling the Star. The absolute destruction. The strength that could not be challenged.
Was she dreaming? She'd known Dragan would be participating, but this was something else entirely.
She looked up as the doors slid open. Bruno swayed in the doorway, holding a script of his own. She recognised the thumbnail of the video on the screen.
No doubt those same cold eyes were reflected on countless scripts for many nights to come.
----------------------------------------
Twin ribbons of blue and yellow clashed through the skies of Bone Heaven.
With each punch, the Kaiser struck a hole through a cloud. With each kick, Dragan cut one in half. The heavens themselves seemed to twist in response to their combat, a divine dance over all the earth.
Dragan gritted his teeth as he continued to ascend, forcing the Kaiser to pursue him. He needed somewhere with enough free room, where nothing could get in the way… but would he make it in time? He'd been confident before -- but now, so close to the moment of truth, the first bead of sweat was beginning to trickle down his cheek.
To begin with, the Kaiser's attacks had been basic and animalistic -- simple swings and kicks. Deadly, yes, but easy enough to get around. But with each dodge, each block, the monster's moves became more refined -- until now, a minute and forty-four seconds into their clash, they were enough to put the finest martial artists to shame.
The Kaiser spun into a kick -- and, as Dragan blocked the thick limb with a knee, it took advantage of his error. That massive tail lashed out, constricting Dragan's own leg in a moment and pulling him close. Against anyone else, that would have been check -- and the following palm thrust to the head would be checkmate. Once trapped like that, no sane person would have a way to escape.
But Dragan Hadrien had already put his sanity on hold.
He retracted his infusion from his trapped leg -- and then, with the enhanced strength of the rest of his body, he tore it away, leaving it in the Kaiser's grip. Blood poured from his jagged stump to the distant city-corpse below. Without missing a beat, the Kaiser tossed the severed limb aside -- and lunged directly for Dragan, claws aimed at his face.
Gemini Dominion.
Three seconds. The instant the Kaiser entered the simulated space, it began to surge its own Aether, resisting the recording and ejecting itself early. It reappeared in the same spot and went for Dragan again, hissing at him.
Gemini Dominion.
Two seconds.
Gemini Dominion.
One second.
Gemini Dominion.
Zero point two.
It was doing this on purpose -- intentionally getting itself caught in Gemini Dominion so that it could adapt further against the ability, beating its own escape record each time. It was kind of like a time trial in a video game. This thing was playing with its food now. Was that sadistic personality something else it had developed in response to Dragan Hadrien?
It didn't matter now. They had reached their final destination.
The Kaiser reappeared right in front of Dragan.
“Die,” it snarled.
With all the speed and strength of a titan, it thrust its fist forward and --
Aether ping.
-- hesitated.
Dragan Hadrien had just done something inexplicable. Instead of dodging, blocking or attacking, he had lowered his defenses for a moment to scan empty space. It was clearly the suicidal move of a fool -- and yet the Kaiser knew now that Dragan Hadrien was no fool.
So it had no choice but to stop, at least for an instant, and analyze the nonexistent threat it had been presented with.
The purpose of this ping had not been reconnaissance. The ping itself had been immaterial. What Dragan Hadrien was really doing…
…was forming a grand sphere of Aether.
Gemini Railgun.
----------------------------------------
Ruth Blaine put a hand to her mouth in horror.
Bruno del Sed could not watch, nor could Serena.
Atoy Muzazi watched, his mouth a straight line, his gaze inscrutable.
From deep within Jamilu’s head, the Old Demon of the Dawn they called Victory let out a low sigh of pleasure.
Azez… it hissed.
The name of the First Supreme. For, in this moment, that was who it thought it was seeing.
----------------------------------------
What Dragan Hadrien had done was very simple. The strategy consisted of four steps:
1. He had formed a sphere of his own Aether, encasing both himself and the Kaiser.
2. He had fired Gemini Railgun inwards from that sphere, aiming at the Kaiser and blasting through it.
3. Upon reaching the other side of the sphere, the Railgun projectile was recorded and then fired once more from another point within the sphere.
4. Again, and again, and again.
With each shot, the speed increased, and so did the power -- and thus, the projectile was always slightly more powerful than the Kaiser's maximum tolerance. But that speed increased exponentially.
At first, it seemed like the single shot was bouncing around inside the sphere, like a pinball. Then, the afterimages increased to such an extent that they seemed like a legion. Soon enough, it was so fast that there was no distinction between one path of travel and the next, until that single shot was occupying every spot within the sphere nearly simultaneously… and so the sphere shined incandescently, burning through the sky.
Dragan Hadrien had become a star.
Indeed, he himself was in the midst of his own attack. For his plan to work, he could not allow any space save his own body to be free of that intolerable heat and force. To make sure there wasn't a tiny gap between his skin and the attack, he allowed the projectile to come perilously close, scraping away at him.
The body that he'd brought back to reality had been cleaned of skin, his flesh and bone forming a grotesque silhouette in the midst of the makeshift star. Dragan Hadrien's skull stared sightlessly into the burning brilliance of his own making. His limbs spread wide, tendons snapping like steel cables. Blood rained down like wine.
This is what the world is like, Ruth… he thought. And this is how you change it. You tear yourself apart. You flay yourself alive. You sacrifice everything… until all that's left is what you've created.
The Kaiser would have survived this. Dragan already knew it would. Some tiny scrap of flesh, some tiny chip of bone, would persist. Like always, it would adapt, seeking the path of least resistance to survive and overcome.
Dragan would present it with that path. It would take no road but the one he chose for it. Fate would contort itself into a shape of his own design.
From now on, the only one that decides what happens… is me.
He lifted the infusion from his own body.
Phenomenon: the subject assumes its final form. Nigh-incorporeal and parasitic.
As it flew into Dragan Hadrien's vulnerable body, claiming the vessel for its own, the Kaiser made its final mistake.
----------------------------------------
It was a flame.
No. It was not. However, the physical form flickered in such a way. What was the meaning of it? The Kaiser did not understand. There was a need to understand, and so it soon would, but for the time being it did not.
It ‘looked’ up. In this format, it had no head or eyes, but it adjusted the angle of its observation all the same. This was an imaginary space. Such theoretical movements were permissible.
A black void, with a long wooden dinner table stretching out in front of it. Only one chair. ‘Dinner table’ and ‘chair’ were old concepts ingrained in the brain. They should not have been relevant in this context.
The organism at the other end of the dinner table, sitting on the chair, was relevant. A very young human woman, sitting with her legs crossed, a knife and fork clutched in her hands. She had bright orange, messy hair that she had to shake out of her similarly orange eyes. When she grinned, there was a gap in her teeth.
“Hiya, lizardo,” the girl said.
An enemy? An obstacle. This was something that could be understood.
“Who… you…?” the Kaiser rasped.
Previously, it had never needed verbal communication, and so this initial attempt was clumsy. Give it an hour or so, though, and it would be among the most eloquent and efficient of speakers. Its consciousness was already undergoing the necessary restructuring.
The girl didn’t answer. She just twirled that fork in her hand. Her eyes flicked down towards the table. The Kaiser’s ‘gaze’ followed her own…
…and, for the first time, something approaching fear returned to its mind.
Lying there on countless plates, spread across the table, were the Kaiser’s severed body parts. Arms, legs, its tail, all shapes and sizes it had possessed through its venerable life… and there, right beneath the girl’s fork, was the Kaiser’s head. Blood oozed from the stump of its neck.
The Kaiser raised a hand that did not exist.
“Wait,” it said.
The fork lowered.
“Wait!” it screamed.
The girl looked up at him, and the smile on her face was just a tad sympathetic. All the same, though, the fork speared down -- and skewered the Kaiser’s head. Fear did not return alone. For the first time in a thousand years, it experienced pain.
“Sorry,” the girl said. “This place is taken.”
Panacea chewed, and the fire of the Kaiser went out.
----------------------------------------
The star flickered away, remnant Aether coloring the air as Dragan Hadrien floated there, twitching in the sky, his legs already recorded to stop himself from falling. He took a ragged breath through ragged lungs. The air ran its sharp hands over his exposed muscles.
He’d done it.
Down below, the once great city of Bone Heaven had been reduced to a massive crater. The rubble glowed red from the sheer heat it had been exposed to. Nothing was left.
He’d done it.
Even the corpses of the other contestants had surely been vaporized.
…he’d done it.
As skin began to grow back over Dragan Hadrien’s naked form like moss, he reached out -- and snatched his discarded jacket out of the air.