04:29
It had been twenty minutes since the lives of everyone in the Silvereye Azum-Ha offices had ended.
They'd all technically still been alive at that point, of course, but the principle of the thing remained the same. Their fate had been sealed. Why did it matter if their hearts still beat blood, or their lungs still pumped air, if nothing but oblivion awaited them anyway?
Now that she thought about it, the Sixth Dead supposed that most people were actually dead. Zombies that walked to their predestined ends without deviation or resistance. In a way, since she'd provided them with new conclusions entirely, the Sixth supposed that she'd actually brought those people back to life -- if only for a little while.
Even a temporary resurrection was still a miracle, though. People had been declared saints for less. Perhaps she had a future in the Final Church?
“Just kidding!” the Sixth Dead cackled as she looked over her shoulder, sticking out her tongue. “Can you imagine me as a nun?”
The offices were bathed in blood and gore, mangled corpses robbed of their arms and pressed into paste by the massive spectral hands that protruded from the walls and floor. The Sixth leapt over a bisected corpse with the grace of a gymnast, bringing herself face to face with her conversational partner. It was always good to look people in the eye when you talked to them. She'd never been ashamed of it. Even if the eyes were no longer connected to the head, she always made that little extra effort!
That wasn’t the case here, though. This man was still alive -- at least in the biological sense.
“So, Mister Randall,” she said in a sing-song voice. “Have you thought any more about my proposal?”
“Go to hell.”
The Silvereye branch manager had certainly seen better days. His face and hair were caked red with the remains of his friends and colleagues. He was being held against the broken shell of his desk by half-a-dozen unkind hands. Both his legs, obvious obstacles to negotiation, had been twisted around until his feet were facing the wrong direction.
And yet there was still a wonderful gleam of defiance in his eyes. The Sixth Dead loved that in people. She admired it. The bravery to declare oneself separate from the wishes of those around them, and to maintain one's ego without contamination. That was how a true human ought to live their life…
…but, right now, it wasn't especially convenient for the Sixth Dead's mission, so some convincing was in order.
“Oh, come on,” she pouted, dragging a finger up his bruised-blue chest. “I know you want to, Mister. Having your legs twisted like that must suck. Losing your employees like that must be annoying, too. At this point, you're basically doing all this to yourself, though, you know? Just give me the Emerald Eyes, okay?”
“A freak… like you?” Randall grunted, struggling against his restraints. “No way!”
She smiled sweetly. “Actually, I'm normal. I can be trusted with them.”
If this were any less important, she'd have torn this guy apart by now and been on her merry way -- but she needed the Emerald Eyes. The Hive of Malkuth was on the planet, and she had no doubt that it had managed to hack into the official surveillance channels. If she tried to use those same channels, she ran the risk of exposing her own location. The Hive wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of that, and it would cost the Sixth Dead valuable time.
To locate Muzazi, all she had to do was access the tracking information the Emerald Eyes had recorded. They'd been keeping watch over the various contestants for the entire Dawn Contest, after all. They'd be able to acquire Muzazi's location and lead her there in a snap.
So, so, so. She had to be patient with this guy, this cretin, this jerk. She couldn't kill him until after she had what she needed.
“Listen,” she said softly, leaning into his ear. “Want to hear about my ability?”
“Go fuck yourself,” Randall growled.
“No, I'm gonna tell you about my ability, silly,” she giggled, flicking at his earlobe with a finger. “Have you noticed all these hands waving around? Well, of course you have. I call them my Redundancies. It's kind of a mean name, but I can be a mean girl sometimes, you know?”
He just glared at her. For a second, the Sixth Dead mimicked his stern expression with exaggerated effort, before letting a sunny grin blow it all away.
“Anyway, the point is -- anytime I kill someone, their arms automatically get recorded into my Aether…” she said, reaching out -- and clasping Randall's hand in her own. “And I can summon them anywhere I want.”
“I don't care,” Randall said -- and spat in her face. “If you're going to kill me… just kill me.”
The Sixth Dead sighed, wiping the spittle from her face with a hand before licking it clean. “I don't know if you're getting it, though. I mean, knowing something and understanding it really are two different things, you know? That's the core of all learning. Stuff like that is why we have an education crisis right now. So, what I mean is… I don't think you’ll understand what I mean by ‘anywhere I want’...”
She grinned viciously.
“...until I show you.”
Purple Aether crackled, passing from the Sixth’s hand into Randall's -- and the skin of his arm began to ripple. His eyes flicked over, wide and manic. His face, which had thought itself accustomed to pain, began to stretch into a new and exciting expression.
“See?” she said, poking his nose. “You didn't get it, did you? I can bring those hands out of anything I’ve infused -- so, if I infuse your arm…”
She narrowed her eyes.
“...there's nothing stopping me from bringing out a buddy from inside it.”
Pop.
Randall's arm burst -- shredded skin and muscle splattering over both the Sixth Dead's eager face and Randall's twisted one. The scream he let out brought all his previous efforts to shame. A spectral Redundancy waved mockingly from Randall's ragged stump -- as though his real arm had just been a glove, now cast aside.
As his scream died in his throat, smothered by exhaustion, Randall panted for breath.
“Sick…” he wheezed. “Sick… You're sick…”
“If you still don't get it,” the Sixth Dead chirped, reaching for his other hand. “I can go for an encore and --”
“No,” Randall hissed, squeezing his eyes shut. “No, damn you. I'll give you access. I'll give you access…”
The Sixth Dead smiled widely, extending a script with both hands. “Thanking you!”
Randall looked with wavering eyes at the screen before him -- and for a moment, it looked like he might actually keep resisting. Only for a moment, though. The pain wouldn't allow anything but that.
“Authorization… Randall,” he gasped, shame in his voice. “Grant admin access to… to the Sixth Dead. Recognise next login attempt as… the Sixth Dead.”
A red light turned green, and Randall slumped down in his bed of gore. The Sixth Dead stood up, brushing her hands together -- smothering them even further in red -- and turned away.
“Thanks a bunch, Mister,” she said, waving a hand in farewell as she strolled away. “I hope they give you a good pension!”
Barely conscious, Randall glared at her as she went.
“The last one… wasn't this crazy…”
The Sixth Dead stopped.
The Sixth Dead turned.
The Sixth Dead spoke.
“Sorry?” she asked, her eyes wide and uncompromising. “What did you say? What did you say? What did you say? What did you say? What did you say? Sorry, what did you say?”
Randall didn't say anything, but it was too late for silence. The Sixth Dead advanced on him with all the merciless inevitability of a machine. This was no longer an amusement to her.
There were some things that couldn't be forgiven in this world -- and to deny the individuality of another individual was the most vile of them. A person shouldn't be connected to anything else. Bonds of blood existed to be broken like any other chain.
When a child is born, by all rights the parent should disappear. To imply that the raw materials of the person before you had once been part of someone else was to deny that the person in front of you even existed. That was tantamount to attempted murder. When faced with such malice, who could fault a person for their acts of self-preservation, however unsightly?
Yes, she couldn't forgive it. She couldn't forgive the idea that she had come from something else. That was why she'd taken such pains… that was why she'd scourged the UAP, butchering every one of them she could get her hands on -- every person that bastard Fifth had been close with, or whatever had counted as ‘close’ for him.
‘The last one wasn’t this crazy’. Was Randall speaking of reputation, or had he actually met the last one? She couldn't take the chance. No, she couldn't take the chance. Nobody could fault her. A child needed their parents to disappear…
…until then, they couldn't truly be born into this world.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
----------------------------------------
04:34
Aclima ran for her life.
Since the moment she woke up in that pitch-black room, she'd been running. She didn't know precisely what from… but she understood, instinctively, that it was a matter of life and death. The words she'd heard on the videograph -- perhaps it was those she was running from.
It was me. I killed the Supreme. Me. With my own hands. Kadmon.
Muzazi's confession whirled through her head like a merry-go-round, inviting nausea into her stomach. That had to be a lie, right? That had to be a lie. No. It was true. She'd been betrayed from the first. Any control she thought she'd managed to wrestle away had been an illusion.
She was all alone now. She'd always be all alone now. He'd stolen it from her and he'd lost it.
He'd -- he'd -- he’d --
Aclima skidded to a halt and seized hold of the railing behind her, throwing up into the urban canopy below. For a moment, she remained there, heaving and coughing -- the taste of acid in her mouth. Bitter tears betrayed her eyes. She managed only a strangled half-sob before she threw up again.
She had to get out of here, wherever here was. She understood that instinctively as well. That subordinate of Hadrien's had brought her to an abandoned and dilapidated part of the city. The apartment building she'd woken up in was so rusted and worn-down that it looked like some fossil from the deep sea.
Since she'd managed to free herself, she hadn't seen a single other person. This was one of the few parts of the city-planet Azum-Ha where silence still reigned. Silence, save for her footsteps. Silence, save for her panting. Silence, save for her crying.
She was so loud right now. No, no, no. She couldn't afford that. She needed to be out of sight. She was no longer the Heir, but she understood it. The position she occupied was now that of a threat. They'd already be moving to eliminate her. She couldn't be here, out in the open. She couldn't exist here.
A disguise.
As she began to move down the stairwell, she snatched a red coat from the piles of clothing on the floor -- no doubt left by vagrants or urban explorers -- and pulled it on. It was filthy, stinking of things she didn't even want to imagine, but the hood would serve to hide her face. She had to take what she could get now.
It wasn't like she had anything else.
Y, how high up was she, though? She went down the steps two at a time, circling round and round, nearly tripping each time she went. She couldn't stop, or even slow down. A frenzy had hold of her now, and she had to keep moving, she had to keep running, or else --
She caught a glimpse of it.
Aclima slowed, and Aclima stopped. Her eyes widened in their sockets. She pulled her new coat tight around her body. It accomplished nothing, but it was the closest thing to armour she had now.
Slowly, almost unwillingly, her legs took her to the edge of the stairwell. From here, she could see the dilapidated district beyond. From here, she could see skeletal skyscrapers and crumbling roadways. From here, she could see it.
A hound the size of a house sat atop the ruined building opposite, staring at her with glowing red eyes. It did not move. It did not blink. It did not even seem to breathe.
Oh, Aclima thought vaguely. This is what I'm running from.
Seizing hold of her senses, she went to whirl around, to continue her retreat, to get away -- until the silhouette howled.
That sound
That sound
T h a t s o u n d
IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS
By the time Aclima realized she was screaming, she was on her knees, hands clamped over her ears. No matter how tightly she pressed against them, though, she could still feel warm blood trickling between her fingers. The pain was beyond excruciating. It was as if someone had jabbed a fork into her brain and was wiggling it around.
That sound, that sound, that sound. It was that sound that was doing it, that she knew. It had to be an Aether ability of some kind, a sonic attack, but even if she knew that, it wasn't as if she could do anything about it. To use Curse Hand, she had to make physical contact with the target's Aether. Even Curse Cloud had a relatively short range.
The howl was killing her, and any Aether creating it existed only in the throat of that monster. She couldn't get close to it. She could barely even move from this spot. It was all she could do to take a step backwards… no.
That was beyond her too.
Aclima's foot slipped on a wet patch, and in an instant the world became a blur of disastrous movement. She fell backwards, down the stairs, corners of steps thudding into her stomach and back like vicious fists. Her hands flew away from her ears, and as she landed she could do nothing but writhe -- writhe, and scream, as the howl boiled at her thoughts.
I'm dying.
I'm gonna die.
This how I die.
The threefold thought passed through her mind unopposed, their certainty undeniable…
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
…until the hellish howling suddenly stopped.
Aclima didn't question why. In an instant, she was back on her feet, adrenaline pushing her battered body onwards as she rushed through the lobby. Ragged, blood-flavoured breaths ached their way up and down her chest. The blood had started to dry around her ears, and her hearing was muffled, like she was underwater.
But none of that mattered. None of that mattered, because she was going to live, she could live. She could see the doors -- the exit to this place -- growing larger and larger in her vision. They were made of glass that had long since broken. She could jump right through. They were a portal to continued existence, moonlight leaking through to chart a path for her.
She reached out to that moonlight…
…only for it to suddenly be cut off.
A heavy object landed outside the doors with a thump, blocking her path. As Aclima skidded to a halt, her shoes squealed against the floor, the high-pitched noise echoing throughout the cavernous space. For a second, she didn't know what to do. For a second, she didn't know what she was even looking at.
Aclima blinked.
There, bleeding before her, was the severed head of the massive dog that had nearly killed her with its cry. A tongue the size of her entire body was hanging grotesquely from its misaligned jaws, and the crimson of its saucer-like eyes had faded to a milky white. Blood poured freely from its neck -- whatever had killed it, it had been a clean cut.
No. Whoever had killed it.
Aclima looked up. There was someone standing on top of the dog’s head, after all. They hopped down as she caught sight of them, walking forward casually, one hand in their pocket… and the other a glinting blade.
She took a step backwards.
“Don't worry, Aclima,” Gregori Hazzard said, blood dripping from his sharpened arm. “I'm here to save you.”
He smiled, but it didn't reach his scarlet eyes.
----------------------------------------
04:37
“This is an awful idea,” Jamilu muttered as they weaved through traffic. “You understand that, don't you, Muzazi?”
Muzazi said nothing.
He just stared ahead, at the skyway their car was making its way through. The lights of neighbouring cars had been blurred to vague impressions by the thunderstorm that raged around them. The rain that battered against the windscreen was evaporated away by the heated glass, creating a trail of steam that lingered behind the vehicle.
Needless to say, Jamilu was exchanging safety for speed as he followed the direction of his spear -- law enforcement would no doubt be in pursuit before long, but that didn't matter. Every second they delayed was another second Muzazi’s comrades could be dying. That, he knew, he would not be able to take.
This was an act of self-preservation as much as anything else.
Jamilu’s hands tightened on the wheel as he looked back at the skyway. The spear Victory was floating in the air next to his head -- he was using one of its abilities, Compass, to track Morgan's location. That only meant they had the direction he was in, though, not how far away he was. There was no telling how long their pursuit would take.
“The Ultraviolets are still making preparations,” Jamilu muttered -- more to himself than anything else. “Even if we lose some time here, we should be able to make it back to the Shopping Centre before anyone catches on.”
“I don't know what these Ultraviolets are all about,” Ruth Blaine interrupted, an unconscious del Sed between her and Muzazi in the back seat. “But can't you just tell them to wait?”
“This is time sensitive,” Jamilu replied. “By now, the hunters have probably acquired some means of tracking us. If they know we're getting transport prepped, there’s nothing stopping them getting ahead of us and just --”
Thump.
He blinked, looking up at the car roof. Then, he looked back at his passengers.
“Dodge,” he said simply.
There was a flash of red -- and in the next instant, the car they were sitting on had been sliced in half clean down the middle.
Ruth had pulled del Sed into her side of the car, so they'd managed to avoid injury, but the two halves of the car were quickly dropping out of the sky. Muzazi knew it would only be seconds before explosions claimed what was left of the vehicle. With what little strength he could muster, he tried to manifest thrusters to take flight, but they quickly spluttered out and died.
He was spent.
“Hold on,” grunted Rufus, vaulting over from the remains of the passenger seat and grabbing Muzazi by the back of the collar. He flipped his shield as he leapt over the void, turning it into a platform for the two of them to stand on -- and a second later, a jet of vivid flame poured from its underside, keeping it aloft.
It seemed that Ruth Blaine was in somewhat better shape than Muzazi -- she'd manifested her armour, each piece connected to the next, forming a metallic rope that had attached to a floating billboard above. Her face pale and covered in sweat, she bean to pull herself and del Sed up towards it.
As for Nebula Two?
He was floating with the aid of his dread spear, traffic swerving to avoid him as he faced off against the horde that had come to take their lives. For a second, Muzazi thought they were surrounded by giant flies, but no -- it was worse than that. Circling them were dozens of grotesque mechanoids, their bodies abominations of bleeding flesh and ink-black cybernetics.
Muzazi had never seen these things before, but he knew them by reputation. The Hive of Malkuth.
One of the enemies had stopped, floating a short distance in front of Jamilu, its glowing compound eyes fixed directly on the Nebula. A slot where a mouth should have been slid open, and an artificial voice poured forth.
“Surrender them.”
By way of reply, Jamilu extended his spear.
That was the end of the conversation. As one, the drones of the Hive of Malkuth swooped in to tear their enemies apart… and as one, the two Nebula of the Unified Alliance of Planets went to meet them.
----------------------------------------
04:37
Last checks. How many times had Moore done his last checks on this ship now? He swallowed back the dread that thought tried to conjure.
“Any problems?” he called over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” Roman's voice drifted in from outside. “We're missing some real unpunctual pieces of shit.”
Moore wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. As per usual, Roman put voice to what both of them were thinking. After a year of laying low on Azum-Ha, their two-man Ultraviolet team had been suddenly mobilised by Nebula command and ordered to prepare an escape for the most wanted man on the planet.
Was it too much to ask, then, for those Nebulas to show up on time?
Moore prised himself free from the pilot's seat, making his way towards the exit of the ship. This was a small merchant vessel, easy to blend in with the rest that would be leaving Azum-Ha following the conclusion of the Dawn Contest. It even had an identification scrambler -- making it easy for the ship to change its registration markers on every step of the journey. All useless if it never actually took off, of course.
“You got the masking set up, Roman?” Moore said, stepping out of the ship and into the rooftop’s rainfall.
They didn't have large-scale cloaking on hand, but a masking perimeter would serve to hide this ship from any surveillance systems. That was the best they could hope for right now. At the very least, if the Nebula weren't here yet, there wasn't anything to draw enemy attention.
Only…
“Roman?” Moore called out.
No response. Through the curtains of falling water, Moore saw a dark lump on the other side of the rooftop. A corpse.
Discipline moved Moore’s hands. He whipped out his plasma pistol in an instant, pointing it in the direction of the body. He narrowed his eyes as he slowly advanced, sweeping the rooftop with his weapon as he walked. A flick of his wrist activated the band there -- and the one on the corpse buzzed in response.
Roman.
A shudder went down Moore’s spine. Was he dead? Could he still be saved?
“Um…”
Moore whirled around the second he heard the voice -- but too late. The blur moved past him faster than he could shoot, the sheer speed whipping against his body and knocking him down to the ground. Aether-infused, without a doubt. Moore shifted the movement into a roll and went to point his gun at the interloper once more -- except his gun was no longer in his hand…
…and his hand was no longer on his arm.
Moore screamed.
As he rolled on the ground, clutching his bleeding stump, the figure before him straightened up -- face pointing towards the sky. It was a gaunt, bald man with a body covered in scars, Moore’s severed hand clutched tight in his jaw. He spoke with the hand still in his mouth, words slurred by the fresh blood pouring from his lips.
“I-I don’t wanna be mean…” he mumbled, eyes rolling up in ecstasy. “But I-I’m, um, I’m surprised… I guess… I didn’t r-really think you guys would still use this building, you know… but it was never exposed, so I guess there’s no reason… ah, uh… not to…”
He threw the hand up into the air like a seal with a fish, catching it in his mouth again on the way down. Slowly, he began to chew, the sound of cracking bones filling the air. He looked back down at Moore, his mismatched eyes unblinking, like some lost spark of human wisdom was trying to push its way to the forefront.
“I-If I were still around… I’d have said you ought to have been fired… but I guess… a fella’s gotta eat… fella’s gotta eat…”
Mid-Tier Bounty Hunter
Anduan the Cannibal
But then, the spark was gone -- and he greedily swallowed his meal.
----------------------------------------
04:38
In the instant before Jamilu charged at their attackers, there was a blast of pink light -- not his Aether alone -- and a crimson halo appeared over his head. His Principality. These things weren’t the only ones that could share information.
Jamilu snapped his eyes shut -- and the accumulated knowledge of the Inganci people flowed into his head.
The Hive of Malkuth.
Originally, they had been known as the One Legion, an experimental squadron of soldiers operated by the Absurd Weapons Lab. By networking the minds of the soldiers together with state-of-the-art neuro-implants, the AWL had hoped to increase the efficacy of their fighting force tenfold… and, for a time, they had been successful. By fighting as one, the One Legion had been able to perfectly coordinate their movements through the battlefield… by thinking as one, the One Legion had been able to withstand anything the enemy could throw at them.
However, history had not been on their side.
All of this had taken place during the last hot war with the UAP, with borders moving back and forth like a panicked heartbeat. When the Supremacy was forced to retreat from a key battle, the planet the One Legion was being developed on -- Malkuth -- was suddenly far behind enemy lines. A full UniteFleet force, three top-rank starships and ten thousand soldiers, laid siege against a facility holding the one-hundred-and-eight soldiers of the One Legion.
It didn’t end how one might think.
The One Legion, as a gestalt consciousness, was nothing if not creative… and they were surrounded by the abandoned equipment of the Absurd Weapons Lab. So -- as days became weeks, and weeks became months -- they worked. They turned that genius inwards, cannibalizing themselves to become something new, something capable of succeeding where humans had no choice but to fail. They even seized hold of a light of the mind, using Aether to enhance themselves further.
By the time the UAP cracked the egg of the facility open, they had already lost the battle. One-hundred-and-eight monsters tore their way through ten thousand mere humans, and the swarm left their nest to terrorize the galaxy entirely.
Jamilu opened his eyes -- and leaned back to avoid a slash that would have taken his head off.
The drone before him had changed. Its arms had stretched out and flattened into structures like mantis blades. A collar of thorn-covered vines had wrapped itself around the beings neck. A long horn, like that of a unicorn, protruded from between its eyes -- a kaleidoscopic light shining from the tip. Three abilities made it a Malkuth Warrior, a formidable fighter for any normal combatant.
This was how the Hive of Malkuth worked. Each time an Aether-user was assimilated into the collective, their abilities were stolen too, and the Hive Queen distributed them freely among the soldiers. It was what made fighting them so tricky -- their capabilities changed from moment to moment, and losing a fighter to them meant giving them even more options.
Of course, there was a way to deal with any enemy, regardless of what abilities they possessed. You just killed them before they could use them.
He’d bitten his tongue a little when the car was sliced in half. That, at least, was good news.
Jamilu spat blood onto his spear.
Calamity.
Victory’s third ability activated -- and the blood burst afire, engulfing the spearhead in a demonic neon-pink flame, its unnatural hue a stark contrast to the fire Rufus could produce. Jamilu thrust it forward, lightning-fast -- and the heat produced was such that a hole was melted through the Warrior’s head before the blade even made contact. The body shuddered, life lingering in it just for a moment… and in that same moment, all three abilities vanished in a storm of blood-red Aether.
When one of the one-hundred-and-eight members of the Hive of Malkuth died, any abilities they currently possessed were lost with them. That was something the distributed Queen was quite careful about -- and so she’d used the last moment of the drone’s life to snatch away all of the abilities she’d given him. She was nothing if not a frugal abomination.
Those abilities were still in play, then.
Conquest.
Jamilu swooped down, narrowly avoiding a rainbow blast aimed for his head. Even with him dodging, though, the projectile passed through the area of effect of Victory’s second ability -- and so information about the attack flowed into Jamilu’s mind.
Duke of Candyland -- it was the ability he’d observed on the first Warrior, the unicorn horn. It fired blasts of energy that triggered a gradual transmutation in whatever it hit, slowly converting it into candy so long as the user invested Aether. Against an Aether-user with sturdy defenses, a single shot wouldn’t trigger transmutation, but the concussive force was still such that it was better avoided.
Information warfare was one of the central pillars of Aether combat, as far as Jamilu was concerned. Even if he could only access mere shadows of Victory’s true abilities, he was still grateful for the information gathering.
As Jamilu went to zoom towards the drone that had fired the blast, two more Warriors swooped in. One’s jaw had stretched out to crocodilian proportions, while the other donned a blank white mask. Jamilu prepared to activate Conquest again. It was then that he heard it.
Crack.
His eyes widened. Shit. That blast hadn’t been aiming for him at all, had it?
With a flare of pink Aether, Jamilu kicked off the chest of the crocodile-drone, launching himself back towards where the blast had hit. The billboard Blaine and the del Sed’s were clinging to was rapidly turning into peppermint -- far more rapidly than Conquest had indicated. Had the Queen boosted that shot with another ability during its flight-path?
Shit.
Crack.
Even with her injuries, Ruth Blaine could have hung on to that billboard for a good long while. Instead, it was the structure itself that failed, damn near breaking in two as the gap between candy and metal became pronounced. The damaged section swung in the wind, still barely attached -- but the sudden jolt was enough to cause Blaine to lose grip on the del Sed body.
They fell.
As Blaine’s scream of horror rang out through the night, Jamilu moved to catch them -- but as he did, the massive club-arm of yet another Warrior slammed into him, sending him flying off course. He quickly righted himself, but the barrier of drones between himself and the falling body made it obvious he wouldn’t make it. Rufus was fist-fighting two more Warriors on his shield like a boxer in the ring -- he couldn’t break away either. Neither Blaine nor Muzazi were in any physical shape to pursue.
Shit, shit, shit.
Jamilu sucked in a deep breath as he watched the twins fall -- towards the waiting plaza down below. The first deaths of the evening. He’d anticipated that they’d take losses on this foolhardy mission… but it didn’t bring him any pleasure to see it.
With rain battering against their body, and lightning illuminating their descent, Bruno and Serena del Sed fell… and fell… and stopped.
Jamilu blinked.
Slowly, the falling body had slowed to a halt in mid-air, like gravity had suddenly lost sight of them. They turned in the air for a moment, and then -- as if they’d been grasped by an invisible hand -- they were pulled towards the rooftop of a nearby building.
----------------------------------------
Ego Emulation: Samael Ambrazo Zakos.
----------------------------------------
A miracle had occurred.
A girl with long blonde hair, clad in a hospital gown and slippers. Jamilu would have thought he was hallucinating if the night wasn’t already this insane. She sneered at the unconscious del Sed body as she lifted it up with one hand.
“Hard to believe a top-tier Special Officer is having to save trash like you,” she said, her voice full of affected gravel. “Ah, this is the worst of the worst of the worst…”
----------------------------------------
04:38
“There’s no need to be so tense,” Gregori Hazzard said.
Aclima scrambled to her feet and turned to run. To be fair, she was a good runner, and if she were in her best condition she stood a fair chance of escaping her former bodyguard. Needless to say, though, tonight was not her best condition.
She took one step, and then the pain and the exhaustion and the rain won, and she slipped. Her face cracked against the hard floor as she fell. Quickly, she pushed herself back around, so as to not expose her back to the traitorous First Quarter Moon.
“You don’t need to run,” Gregori said casually, plunging his other hand into his pocket as he strolled through the shattered doors of the apartment building. “Didn’t you hear? I’m here to save you.”
“Like hell!” Aclima snarled, clutching her injured nose, tears of pain brewing in her eyes. “Do you think I forgot what just happened?!”
“That was then,” Gregori said. “This is now. It was the situation we were in, you know? It’s not like I had anything against you personally. Now the situation has changed -- it benefits both of us to work together.”
Aclima narrowed her eyes, slowly rising to her feet. “How do you mean?”
Gregori smiled thinly. “The Banquet has begun. That bastard Hadrien has sent hunters against any of the remnants of his competitors. That includes me… and that includes you. So he wants us both dead. Understand?”
“S-So what?”
“You don’t get it?” he sneered. “Think about it for a second. Why does he want us dead? Because now that he’s Supreme, we’ve become political obstacles. Pieces that can be moved against him. So… I say, let’s move. We escape Azum-Ha, you and me, and we prepare your counterattack. There’s another way for you to become Supreme, isn’t there?”
Aclima looked up at him, her eyes widening. “...by killing the current one?”
“Wow, and here I thought you never went to school. Exactly.”
“No,” she replied quickly. “No, I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you at all, Hazzard. What do you get out of that?”
Gregori took half a step forward -- and for a second, Aclima thought he was finally about to launch his attack. Then he stopped. Slowly, Gregori closed his eyes… and when he spoke, it was with a sense that these were words he truly hadn’t wanted to surrender.
“I have a dream,” he said quietly. “A dream I’m alive for. A dream I’m willing to die for. It’s a dream that needs resources… a stupid amount of resources… and the only way I’m getting those resources is by being in the good graces of a Supreme.” He opened his crimson eyes. “Hadrien’s a wash, so now I’m betting on you. That’s all there is to it.”
Aclima said nothing, her gaze flicking towards the floor, and Gregori pressed on.
“Besides,” he said. “I’m not asking you to trust me. I don’t trust you either. All that I’m asking… is for you to trust the principle of mutual self-interest. Deal?”
She looked back up at him. She clenched her fists. She took a deep breath.
You’re so full of shit, she thought.
“Deal,” she said.
Right now, Aclima couldn’t afford anything more than self-preservation.