Renzis IV was a desert planet, scorched and inhospitable, with what little rainfall that did occur being artificially induced by charitable ventures. For the small groups of people that called the planet their home, hosting an Inner Melee of the Dawn Contest would surely be the most exciting thing to happen in their entire history. The sheer payoffs they would have received would keep them going for decades, if nothing else.
Dragan Hadrien would be fighting there.
The Trawl was one of the last battlegrounds of the Thousand Revolutions, where thousands of ships had smashed into each other in the atmosphere of a particular Gene Tyrant's prized garden. Now, it was both a graveyard and a junkyard -- the ruins of the Tyrant's domain coated in the wreckage of countless vessels from all across history. When there was no easy way to dispose of something, people said, you sent it to the Trawl.
Dragan Hadrien would also be fighting there.
The tropics of Hesa, said to look like a paradise even on its worst days. A vacation spot for the wealthy and distinguished. With an Inner Melee scheduled to take place there, they wouldn't lack for entertainment.
And again… Dragan Hadrien would be fighting there.
Qratte. Ior-Turn. Zank's Bane. Dirge. Caelus Nir. Brakashatorata. Peal. Ocean Hate. The Red Marble. Ellis' eyes ran down an endless list of names, each and every site chosen to host an Inner Melee of the Dawn Contest. And each and every site, according to these records… playing host to one Dragan Hadrien.
He swallowed. There were two possibilities. Either Miss Road's old friend had unlocked the power to clone himself… or these records had been tampered with. Not by the Provvidenza -- he could tell they hadn't edited this information at all -- but by the source itself. Someone within the Supremacy, someone powerful, had meddled with this information.
"Ellis?" Miss Road's voice came through the script. "What's the problem?"
Ellis exchanged a glance with Roman, who was lingering by the door of the trailer. "They got us," he mumbled.
"What do you mean? Who got you?"
Despite the fact that Road obviously couldn't see him, Ellis shrugged. "Someone's tampered with this info. It's got Dragan Hadrien down as being at every one of the Inner Melees."
"What the fuck?"
"It'd have to be someone high up… I guess," Ellis murmured. "I think maybe they'd have to be in the Organizational Committee? There's nothing like this for anyone else. It's just Dragan Hadrien's records that have been messed with. It's weird. What do we do, boss?"
Silence lingered on the other end of the line.
"Boss?"
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Ruth squeezed her fists for a moment, sinking down into deep and hopeless thought -- before she managed to break free, snapping her head back up.
"If that's all we're gonna get," she said, injecting authority into her voice. "Then there's no point in us sticking around. Roman -- like I said, give us an opening to escape that Special Officer. I'll join up with the others on my way out. Got it?"
"Right." Roman's gruff voice was certain as ever.
Disconnecting from the communicator, Ruth let out the long breath it felt like she'd been holding in for hours. Damnit. Damnit. All of this had been pointless. Someone was making them look like idiots.
Not pointless.
A sly, unwelcome thought crawled up the back of her skull. How was this pointless? They hadn't found out where Dragan was, but they'd found out something else, hadn't they? Dragan's records alone had been meddled with to conceal his location. There was only one person they knew who'd have a reason to do that in the first place.
Fix had told Bruno, after all. Dragan Hadrien didn't want to be found -- and, wherever he'd been these last two years…
…he'd made some very powerful friends.
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The Third Thigh of Granbä sliced through the air, the knife of bone slamming into Omni-Gungnir Timer as Rex raised it to defend himself.
He caught the display in the moment before the clash -- 09:13. The sheer amount of time left wasn't comforting: what kind of state would Rex be in by the time the prediction came true?
They lingered there for a moment, Lucius pressing his Armament against Rex's -- and all around them, the overgrown weeds and plants began to wither and die. Green stems and leaves quickly turned brown and empty, huge bushes becoming limp masses on the floor. Rex adjusted his stance as they clashed: he didn't want that knife coming anywhere near him.
The thing about famous Aether Armaments were that they were a known quantity. Some of the Godsmith's creations -- like the Ribs of Granbä, kept in the Supreme Archive -- had multiple powers, but the majority did one thing very well. The Third Thigh of Granbä was also known as the Thigh of Preservation -- it rapidly drained the moisture from anything around it.
As Rex's orange Aether sparked past his face, he surely could have kissed it. If not for the infusion it was providing, he had no doubt he'd have turned into a skeleton already, given his proximity to the Thigh. Even with that defense, though, he could feel it taking effect… his skin growing taut under his armour, his head beginning to pound with pain… this was not a thing people were supposed to stay near. Letting it make direct contact would be fatal.
Well, the solution was simple, anyway. Get it very far away from him.
Rex transformed his weapon into Omni-Gungnir Hammer -- the changing shape of his Armament throwing Lucius off balance -- and planted a useless blow right against his chest. As Lucius leapt back to avoid the second attack, Rex twirled the weapon in his hands again -- turning it into Omni-Gungnir Spear, the head pointed directly at his enemy.
He'd figured something out about this guy, fighting him. This guy wasn't some Armament specialist or anything like that. No, he was a collector. Even as he swung these things, he treated them like treasures, honouring the intentions of their creators.
Lucius Victri Provvidenza had far too much respect for these weapons. That was why he would die.
The spear stretched, slamming into Lucius as he blocked it -- and it continued to stretch, pushing him high up into the air as it went on and on. Rex had never tested the exact distance, but Omni-Gungnir Spear had an effective range of just over a kilometre. Striking from that range reduced the accuracy to such an amount you were basically guaranteed to miss, but in terms of pushing the enemy away it was unmatched.
Besides… Aether-user or not, a fall from a kilometre up would certainly do some damage.
Thump.
As Lucius' back hit the top of the dome, Rex focused all of his incandescent Aether into his hands, keeping the spear steady. This was the most important part. So long as this spear stayed exactly where it was, he could…
Bang.
Lucius broke free of the gap between the spear and the dome, beginning his plummet downwards. Before he could hit the ground, though, he unsheathed yet another sword, the flat weapon allowing him to perch atop the blade like it was a surfboard as it zoomed down towards Rex.
Shit. He had to shorten the spear again, bring it in close so he could defend himself.
It was like Lucius had read his mind. As his face came into view, those lips curled into a smirk, even as his crimson eyes remained cold.
"Band of Tranquility," he said. "You can't revert it."
Rex's eyes widened -- and, indeed, he could see the tiniest black speck wrapped around the handle of the spear, right below the blade. The Tranquility series, the Aether ability of the revolutionary known as the Blind Man, had originally been used against the Gene Tyrants -- they locked a mutable object into its current form, preventing transformation.
He couldn't get the spear back.
Lucius' foot slammed into Rex's stomach, the impact sending him sprawling down to the ground. The spear remained in place like a giant stilt as it slipped from Rex's grasp, and Lucius stepped forward menacingly between him and Omni-Gungnir. Victory glinted in his eyes.
"It really is a splendid Armament," the Black Sheep mused. "The more I see it, the more I want it."
"Sorry," Rex winced, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "It's a family heirloom."
Lucius' eyes narrowed. "That's irrelevant. Any last words?"
"I got a couple," Rex grinned. "Omni-Gungnir Turbo Heal!"
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Of course, Omni-Gungnir Turbo Heal was not a real thing. The Aether Armament had no abilities that would allow it to heal him or anyone else. Rex had completely made that up on the spot -- a ploy to make Lucius hesitate, if only for a moment.
It wasn't a terribly well thought out trick, either, but it was all Rex had been able to throw together in the moment. Lucius' words had hit home a little too hard.
During Rex's childhood, when he and his family were driven from Abra-Facade, his father would often talk about Omni-Gungnir. It was the same thing he'd say, every time -- every time they discovered an old family friend wasn't so friendly anymore, every time they had to compromise their morals in order to survive. Always the same words.
"We may have no home, no allies, no place to go. These people might even say we have no faces. But we have our past, Rex. Don't forget that. I'm holding it, here, in my hand."
As if he'd let someone else put their hands on his past.
Omni-Gungnir Turbo Heal was not a real ability -- but that didn't mean he couldn't use a real ability when he said those meaningless words. Lucius Victri Provvidenza had made far too many assumptions about how Omni-Gungnir worked, and what it could do. That was another reason he'd die.
The force the hammer had collected burst out from the handle of Omni-Gungnir Spear -- it could come out of any spot on the weapon -- snapping the Band of Tranquility. There was a flash of orange -- Rex didn't need to be making contact to have it transform -- as the weapon became Omni-Gungnir Timer, flipping end over end as it fell from the top of the dome. And finally, as the angles lined up perfectly, Timer became Spear once more…
…and the blade, stretching all the way down from the top of the dome, pierced right through Lucius' back.
The Black Sheep looked down at the bloody spearhead emerging from his chest, utterly flabbergasted. His mouth opened uselessly once, twice, as if he could pose some argument to stop his blood vacating his body. Then -- as Spear became Timer once again, opening his wound -- he collapsed face first into the mud.
Another little thing Lucius hadn't realised: when Rex transformed Omni-Gungnir, he could choose any part of the old form to become the source of the new form. With Spear, it essentially meant he could transport the next instance of Omni-Gungnir anywhere along its length.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Rex kept an eye on Timer as Lucius gurgled on the floor.
00:03…
00:02…
00:01…
The twitching stopped.
Abra-Facade was called the land of precognition and, although Rex's family had been exiled before he could learn any of those secrets, his weapon was more than capable of seeing the future. Timer was the proof of that. It would endlessly count down, to the second, how long was remaining until Rex would next see a person die.
00:00.
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Blue raised his eyebrows at the spectacle down on the ground below, at the surging orange Aether and the spear that had momentarily stretched up into the sky. What the hell was going on down there? The client was paying him good money not to ask questions, but still… curious minds wanted to know.
Beep.
The Special Officer stiffened his body in the cockpit of the Armoured Chassis as he heard the all-clear come in. As previously agreed upon, he was to destroy this site and everyone still inside. Whoever that guy was who'd been using the spear, he wasn't long for this world.
Too bad, so sad.
Red Aether surged through Blue's arm and into the workings of the Chassis as he began to activate his ability. Some people told him this didn't really count as an ability, that this was just normal infusion, but he said they were full of shit. If it helped you win, it was a special power -- end of story.
"Gunpowder Plot," he grinned with sharpened teeth.
The ability was simple and effective: it would triple the explosive power of anything Blue used it on. For example, the missiles his Chassis was packing would surely make quite the fireworks show. An involuntary giggle of anticipation rose to his lips. It was always like this. He resolved himself to come in like a professional, get the job done, and head on home. But oh man… he just couldn’t help but love his work!
That tower sure was an eyesore. He'd demolish it first. Blue’s hands tightened around the controls, and that giggle erupted into a cackle -- as it always did. No more waiting. Fire! Fire! Everything he had!
He clicked down on the trigger…
…and nothing happened.
“Eh?”
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The Special Officer called Blue wasn’t the only one tightening his fist. In the dark trailer that Ellis had converted into a crude command centre, the man they called Roman Hitch had just crushed something in his hand. A dog-tag, bearing not a name or ID, but just one word. Escape. He looked down at it emotionlessly.
A Miracle Tag.
Upon joining Road and Restorossi, Roman Hitch had explained his ability like this: by crushing a Miracle Tag in his hand, he could unleash the ‘miracle’ it had stored up, manipulating probabilities to bring it into the world. He could store three types of miracles: ‘escape’, ‘assault’ and ‘advantage’. Once crushed, it took Roman around an hour to make a new Miracle Tag, and only three could exist at any one time.
In this situation, it would indeed do exactly what Ruth Blaine had requested of him -- create an opening for them to escape. It was just too bad that the explanation he’d given was a complete and total lie.
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“Are you fucking kidding me?!”
Blue smashed his fists furiously, impotently, against the controls before him. The weapon drivers had crashed. The weapon drivers he’d paid an absurd amount of stator for. The weapon drivers that were the best on the market. The weapon drivers that were never, ever supposed to crash…
…had crashed.
The expletives that burst from his mouth were made even louder by the cramped confines, all but obliterating his hearing for a while: “Fuck! Bitch! Piss! Shit!”
All in all, it would take the drivers two minutes to properly reboot. Then, two more minutes for them to reconnect to the rest of the systems. Another minute to run the proper safety checks, which he couldn’t disable no matter how hard he tried. All in all, five minutes where he could do nothing but sit here with his thumb up his ass.
Unbelievable.
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“So what the hell happened?” Bruno asked as they ran down the drainage tunnel.
Ruth gritted her teeth, boots splashing against the filthy water below. She’d run out of time on the Direwolf Set, but that was fine. Even if the bombardment did begin, they should be able to escape the worst of it underground like this. All they had to do was get back to the trailer, grab Ellis and Roman, and get the hell out of here before more Supremacy officers showed up.
But still… there was no denying it.
“Mission’s a failure,” she muttered. “The records had been tampered with already. There’s no telling where Dragan is.”
“What?!” Bruno barked incredulously. “What do you mean?! Did your guy mess it up or something?!”
The drone hovering above them bobbed up and down in irritation. “Hey,” Ellis mumbled simply. “I didn’t.”
“If we’re doing the debriefing now…” Rex said casually, jogging alongside them with that gaudy spear of his slung over his shoulder. He nodded at Bruno. “What the hell happened with you?”
Bruno furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
Rex nodded again. Apparently, it seemed that Bruno had forgotten about the unconscious girl strewn over his shoulder. Who was she? One of the Provvidenza? She sorta looked like one of the archive images they’d gotten of one of the Black Sheep. The Del Sed one. Had they come to some kind of understanding?
It was Bruno’s eyes that looked away, but Serena’s voice that responded. “We couldn’t just leave her.”
Ruth had known Serena long enough to tell when questions wouldn’t get answered, at least coherently. Instead, she just looked ahead, steeled her gaze, and sighed. “Anyway… this place was a wash. We couldn’t find anything.”
The drone bobbed up to her face again. “Not true…” came Ellis’ drowsy voice. “We found out that there are people in the Supremacy -- high up in the Supremacy -- who don’t want information about Dragan Hadrien getting out.”
“Someone’s trying to hide him?” Bruno asked. “Who?”
Ruth’s sigh deepened. The answer, she thought, was obvious -- given what they’d seen so far. The person trying to hide Dragan was Dragan himself, and whatever allies he’d managed to bring together over the last two years. Bruno should have recognised that, too, judging from the information he’d already been given…
…but it seemed that was beyond him.
As they continued their run down the drainage tunnel, a human silhouette came into view before them, sitting against one of the walls -- their exact identity obscured by the putrid fog. Ellis’ drone cast a flashlight down to illuminate them, but Ruth never had any doubt about who’d be there before them. Given her ability, there was no way that girl would have lost to small-fry like this.
Indeed, the one sitting there was Alice, her clothing ragged and her face covered in blood. She raised a hand in greeting -- and even that effort was enough to produce a noticeable wince. Her transformation ability was powerful, but it put her out of commission for several hours. That, at least, was a mercy. It meant Ruth didn’t have to see that horrifying magical girl all the time.
“Hey,” Alice called out, her voice hoarse. “We win?”
Bruno was the one who answered her. “We didn’t get what we came here for, if that’s what you’re asking. Why’re you still down here? Weren’t you meant to be dealing with one of the Black Sheep?”
Alice raised a pink eyebrow. “You’re standing in one of the Black Sheep right now, buddy.”
Ruth glanced down, and saw that that was no exaggeration. A single eyeball was floating down the stream, brushing past her boot. Swallowing down nausea, she stepped out of the way of the viscera and let out a shuddering breath.
There was no hiding that she was disturbed by this sight, but Bruno’s mind still seemed to be fixed on the failure of their objective. He ran his hands over his face, pacing back and forth in the filthy water. All the while, he muttered to himself.
“I was sure…” he said. “I was sure of this. Damnit. Goddamnit. This is such bullshit. No, no, no, no…” He looked up at Ruth, and the despair in his eyes was such that her heart nearly broke there and then. “I’m sorry, Ruth. It’s another one of my wild goose chases.”
Ruth shook her head, stepping forward and seizing him by the shoulders to stop him in his tracks.
“No,” she said forcefully. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You were right. We don’t know where Dragan is, but we know he’s out there. And we know where he’s going.”
Bruno swallowed. “Where he’s going…?”
“Somehow…” Ruth said. “Somehow… I can’t picture Dragan losing anymore. He’s clearly been planning whatever this is for a while. Wherever he is, whichever Inner Melee he ends up at, I feel like I just know he’s going to win. And when he wins…”
Bruno finished her thought. “The Dawn Contest proper. Azum-Ha. The capitol. But… you’re not saying…? We can’t just --”
Ruth’s eyes shone with resolution -- resolution that would allow no more argument.
“If Dragan’s going to Azum-Ha… then we just need to be there waiting for him.”
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Golden Grid Luxury Suites
Pesh
Supremacy Space
Minister Grisha Mors, known to some as the Serpent of Pesh, sipped his wine as he watched the videograph before him. He’d only just gotten out of the shower, and so was clad only in a bathrobe, his wet hair slicked back and dripping on the marble floor behind the couch. With all these creature comforts, he couldn’t help but feel a tad decadent -- but sometimes that wasn’t so bad.
The Outer Melees had officially completed, and so the winners would be passing on to the thirty-two Inner Melees, after which they would pass into the Dawn Contest proper. It also meant that the Dawn Pardons would be coming into effect: temporary immunity to prosecution for past crimes, so long as the individual remained part of the Dawn Contest. That meant that his ‘friend’ had less to worry about, of course, but it also meant a great deal of work for Mors and his colleagues on the Dawn Contest Organisational Committee. Best to get the decadence in while he still had a spare minute.
He’d received word from Blue a few hours ago: the Provvidenza facility on Granrue had been thoroughly destroyed, but there was a good chance some witnesses had escaped.
Mors couldn’t quite decide if that was a blessing in disguise or not. Originally, he’d been frustrated, but once Blue had sent over his footage from the scene he’d realised that killing some of these people could have been disastrous for him. At least this way the facts of his involvement had been destroyed, if nothing else.
Ring, ring…
He sighed and steeled himself. Now came the conversation he’d been dreading. Mors calmly picked up the script from the coffee table before him and put it to his ear.
“Speaking,” he said.
As expected, he was greeted by the loud and crass voice of the usual middleman -- the one who never gave his name. “Yo!” the young man said, volume forcing Mors to move the script away from his ear. “You fucked up, my guy!”
Mors didn’t rise to the bait. “If this is about the incident on Granrue,” he said. “Then I can confirm those people made it out unscathed. I had no way of knowing they'd be there when I sent Blue to eliminate the place.”
The voice chuckled. “Still… bossman ain’t happy. He’s wondering why you didn’t ask him before setting this whole thing up. Kinda weird, y’know? Not really feeling the team spirit, with you going behind his back like that.”
“Perhaps he’s your boss,” Mors raised an eyebrow. “But I would consider our relationship one akin to business partners. It’s only natural for me to act independently -- when the need arises.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the contact went on, clearly not having listened at all. “Not really feeling the love here. Hey -- you want to tell the bossman yourself? He’s sitting right next to me.”
Mors stiffened, his hand tightening around the script. It wasn’t as if he’d never met or spoken with this man before, but… after they’d made their initial agreements, all further contact had been done through this rowdy fellow. Why would he want to speak directly to Mors now? Had the incident on Granrue been that serious?
“I don’t know if that’s necessa --”
There was a click, and the line shifted. The loud voice of the previous man was replaced by dead silence. If Mors really listened, though, if he strained his ears, he could just barely hear something -- the quietest breathing. Mors found himself having to swallow back his anxiety before he could build up the will to speak.
“Hello?” he finally said. “Mr. H --”
The person on the other end answered.
“This was your mistake.”
In sheer contrast to the previous man, their voice was soft and calm, as if every word they spoke was an utterly obvious fact. Yes, completely calm, seemingly calm… but didn’t the mere fact they were having this conversation mean that this man was furious? Mors would have to play this carefully.
“If we’re talking about the Granrue incident,” Mors said slowly. “Then I understand I acted inappropriately. Your… friend made that quite clear. But I feel as though I acted as best as I could, given the information presented --”
“No,” the voice interrupted, as calm as ever. “You misunderstand. This is your mistake. You only get the one.”
The call ended.
Mors let out a heavy breath -- one that felt like he’d been holding it in for several minutes. His hand groped around the couch, finally grabbing onto the arm of the furniture to keep himself steady. Even though he’d just gotten out of the shower, his face was slick and burning with sweat. That man… it was as if he’d had some sort of pressure, one that had trickled out through his voice and somehow reached Mors an untold distance away.
Planting his forearm over his eyes, Grisha Mors lay back on the couch and chuckled in relief to himself.
Really… what a frightening man this Dragan Hadrien was.