Many years ago…
Chael, the can read, stylized letters running across its surface. High in taste, low in cost!
The boy turned it over in stick-thin hands, his mouth watering at the very idea that food was inside the container. He looked over his shoulder as he hunched there in the alley, paranoid for a moment that someone would spot him and take his treasure away.
The Pit was thought to be the lowest of the low on Taldan, but the true slums were below even that. A ramshackle sub-society formed in the cracks and tiny gaps between the real city. The place was so poor that they didn't know there was any other state of living. Those who had money might as well have been another species -- there was no possibility of rising to their level.
Nobody was looking -- good. Nobody would take the boy's Chael. Briefly, he wondered what Chael was. Some kind of meat? He liked the word, at any rate.
The boy looked up. Countless real districts were piled up above this section of the slums -- the only real source of illumination being strings of disposable lights put up here and there -- but in this spot, the tiniest gap between districts meant that a sliver of natural moonlight could be seen.
Hesitantly, the boy reached up towards the ethereal glow -- as if the moon would notice him and take him up with it. That would be nice. Perhaps he could even hold it in his hands.
Then he heard a squeak from the shadows, and ran as fast as he could. Hesitation wasn't an option when you heard unfamiliar noises in the slums -- the rats down here had gorged themselves on the waste that flowed down from the city. In some cases, they were as big as children like the boy -- he'd even seen them eat a person once. Bite through their skull like cardboard.
The boy kept his Chael tucked under his arm as he half-ran, half-crawled to his shelter. Appearances didn't matter down there. If it was faster for a moment to move on all fours, then there was no question that that was the right thing to do.
If you lived another day, anything you did for that purpose was correct.
It only took the boy a few minutes to reach his shelter. Once, a section of Glory District had collapsed down into the slums -- what valuables had come down with the debris had been looted in minutes, but some things had been left behind. The boy's shelter had been some kind of truck once, and even without its engine and mechanics it still made for a cosy home.
He lifted the curtain and stepped in, noting the lack of the usual raspy breathing.
The other person was sprawled out on a makeshift bed at the back of the truck, sodden bandages covering their face. The boy didn't know who this other person was. Were they a parent of his, or maybe a sibling? He couldn't recall -- but for as long as the boy remembered, it had been his job to look after this person. To feed them, give them water. They'd never exchanged words, but the boy knew this was the way things were meant to be. Perhaps the other person had asked him to care for them once, a long time ago.
Usually, their strained breathing filled the shelter constantly, but not now. The boy frowned. Had something happened?
It didn't matter. Even if something had happened, there was nothing the boy could do about it. Best just to wait for things to go back to normal again. The boy sat down in the corner of the shelter, facing the wall, and held his prize out in front of him.
Chael, the can read -- and under the stylized text was an image of some kind of cartoon chef, holding a two-dimensional version of the can out in front of him. The chef looked happy, an exaggerated grin spread across his face. If the boy ate Chael, would he be that happy?
The watering in his mouth answered that question easily enough: yes. He'd found the can in a pile of garbage, but he knew that cans like this were pretty hard to break -- but only for other people.
After all, he had a special power. He smiled, face stinging slightly from the muscle movement.
In the slums, there was always a kind of feral hunger just under the surface -- waiting to come out when things just became too much. When you hadn't eaten for too long, when you could feel your body shutting down from lack of water, when one last indignity was just too much for you to bear. It was always there, like background music to your thoughts, and if you concentrated you could tap into that hollow determination.
The boy dived in, letting that want be all he was for a moment -- and, as if in response, what looked like tendrils of grey electricity began sprouting from his hands, wafting through the air. The parts of his skin from which the grey electricity sprouted turned just as grey -- and as the boy concentrated, he watched a small, jagged blade sprout from the back of his hand, like a freestanding, misshapen fingernail.
The breath he'd been holding in escaped in a gasp for air, and the majority of the grey electricity died with it -- what little remained crackled only around the blade on the back of his hand, and even as he looked at it he could see its edges crumbling away into dust. He'd have to work fast, then.
The boy passed the can of Chael over to his other hand and began working at it with the blade, running his hand up and down as he sawed the top of the container open. A putrid stink erupted from the can, so bad it made the boy's eyes water -- but it was the putrid stink of food, and that made his mouth water.
The blade disappeared before he could fully open up the can, but the gap it left was big enough that the boy was able to tear the rest of the top off by himself. He ignored the cuts that left on his hand, caution outweighed by hunger.
Scoop, scoop, scoop. His hand moved from the can to his mouth again and again, shovelling lumps of wet, slippery meat each time. The meat broke apart in his mouth, collapsing into a kind of tasteless slurry as it ran down his throat. Before even a minute had passed, he'd eaten just under half of what the can had to offer.
He couldn't eat the whole thing, though, no matter how much his stomach protested. He had a job to do.
The boy stood up and moved back over to the other person's bed, making sure to keep himself low to the ground as he did. He wasn't paranoid about anything in particular, but it was a common occurrence in the slums for shelters to be broken into and their inhabitants killed for their possessions. The boy always tried to make sure he was ready to run for it.
"Food," the boy said simply, in his cracking voice, holding the can of Chael over the other person's bandaged face. "Food. Food."
The other person didn't move. They didn't even twitch. Usually, he'd start to hear some kind of gurgling moan at this point, but nothing. A second glance confirmed what the boy had already expected: the other person wasn't breathing.
A kind of muted panic ran through him. Had the other person died? He wasn't heartbroken -- he hadn't known the other person after all, not really -- but it felt in some sense that he'd failed an obligation.
He tapped the bottom of the can against the other person's face. "Food," he said again, more insistently, hoping they'd reply. They did not.
The boy's frown deepened. What did he do now? Did he bury the other person? Where? Could he just move them onto the street and let someone else take them away?
Slowly, without him noticing at first, his hands moved over to the other person's bandages, at the single loose strand that hung over their ear. He supposed he must be curious about what they looked like. That made sense. He'd lived with this person all his life, yet he'd never seen their face.
He pulled at the bandages, and they came off easy -- taking with them the majority of the skin and meat they'd fused with over years of not being replaced. The top layer of the other person's face sloughed off, leaving only a dark red hole with the barest hints of white bone. The worms and insects that had made their homes there scurried away, towards other parts of the shelter or deeper into the other person's body.
The boy blinked. That made sense -- the other person looked like nothing. He'd never spoken to them and they'd never spoken to him. They'd had no name. It only made sense that they didn't exist.
The boy had no name, either. Did that mean he didn't exist? He ran a hand over his own face, as if to make sure it was there.
His gaze drifted down to the can in his hand, his mouth already starting to water again.
Chael, the can read.
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Chael climbed.
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Chael looked up to the sky, doing his best to ignore the squabbling of the crowd for the time being.
The sky, in this case, was just the sides of the buildings that were visible from this low section of the Pit. The majority were huge grey monoliths, apartment buildings or collective offices, but from the alley Chael was standing in one could see the side of the new Bestwell Communications Center -- the glass coating it's surface offering a reflection of the sky above.
The moon was visible there, even in the day -- Taldan's constant watcher. Idly, Chael reached out an insufficient hand as if to seize it.
"Chael?" one of the local kids poked their head into the alley, their face red from the cold. "They're waiting for you."
Chael clenched his fist, let his reaching hand fall back to his side. "Right," he said quietly -- he was still surprised by how deep his voice had gotten recently. It felt as if he'd become a different existence entirely.
He followed the kid out of the alley, tugging on his leathers as he did so. He was wearing an old flight-suit, presumably once used by a speed bike rider. It had been dug out of the trash, so it was probably useless in terms of defense, but it was useful in hiding Chael's abnormality.
As he walked, Chael allowed a stray grey spark of his power to run across his body -- and he felt the blades push their way out of the skin of his knuckles. Painful, but not so much so that he had to cry out. He made sure the blades curved upwards as they grew, so that he wouldn't be stabbing anyone when he punched -- more like knuckle dusters than claws, when it came down to it.
The person he'd be seeing wasn't too stupid to live, after all.
The crowd of locals were indeed waiting for Chael as he stepped into the square -- all of them, from children to the elderly, looked.at the wretch in the circle's center with contempt in their eyes. It made sense: those who broke unspoken rules pretty much spat on those who remained true to them.
Grayson was a middle-aged man, grey-haired and weathered, but malnutrition had ensured he was no taller than Chael. The thief was on his hands and knees -- he'd clearly been thrown down with some force -- but there was defiance in his eyes. The kind of self-serving anger that only existed inside those criminals who'd been caught red-handed. How dare you? his eyes said. How dare you catch me?
Chael stepped in front of the wretch, crossed his arms -- the movement accompanied by the squeaking of his leather suit. He raised an unimpressed eyebrow.
"I didn't," Grayson muttered, glaring down at the ground. "I didn't do nothing."
"You stole food." When Chael said it, it wasn't even an accusation -- just a statement of fact.
Grayson's head snapped up, gaze fiery. "I didn't -"
Chael punched him hard in the face with an audible crack, sending him back down to the ground. Grayson clutched his head, groaning softly as he writhed on the ground. Red stains covered his fingers.
In an ideal world, that would have been enough, but Grayson had ended up in the unfortunate position of being an example. A signpost saying 'this is what happens if you break the rules'. With a grunt, Chael reached down, seized Grayson by his hair, and dragged him forward -- right to the edge of the watching crowd.
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"Look," Chael growled, lifting Grayson up so he was face to face with one of the watching children, a young girl. "You stole from her. Apologize."
Grayson feebly shook his head, trying to blink blood out of his eyes. "Didn't…" he mumbled. "Didn't steal from her."
Chael whacked him in the back of his head with his free fist -- not using the spikes this time, but hard nonetheless. Grayson's head jerked forward and he began coughing uncontrollably -- and, in response, the young girl he was facing pushed him back in disgust, her face full of rage. He went sprawling back into the dust.
"You steal from one person here," Chael said, standing over Grayson. "You steal from everyone. You steal from her, you steal from me. Understand?"
Grayson rolled over on his side, glaring up at Chael. "Fuck you, slumboy," he rasped, voice still full of venom.
Chael was impressed. He hadn't expected Grayson to stick to his guns past the first few hits. That didn't mean he could let it slide, of course -- two swift kicks to the ribs forced Grayson to double over again, clutching his chest as he yelped in pain like an injured dog.
He went to work. "Yeah," Chael said, slamming a fist into Grayson's back. "I'm from the slums. Further down than even this shithole. I climbed up by myself. I've done things you'd never dream of, Grayson, so trust me -- I get it. I imagine you thought you needed to steal, or else you'd die, right? So stealing was the right decision for you. But you steal from other people, Grayson. You go up. You don't steal from us. You don't shit where you sleep. You get me?"
Despite the calm tone of his voice, the only punctuation to Chael's diatribe were punches and kicks, raining down on Grayson mercilessly. Even as the crowd roared in approval, there was no anger in Chael's heart, not really -- this was more surgery than brutality, making sure that he stopped just before killing the thief. There was no point in learning your lesson if you died right after.
Chael finally ended his assault when he noticed that some members of the crowd were beginning to look uncomfortable, taking a step back from the twitching Grayson. He lifted a fist, glove slick with blood, and spoke.
"This guy stole from all of you," he said again, driving the point home. "So it's only correct you have the right to take back what you're owed. You know where he lives. Help yourselves."
This was the way to direct people: present them with the enemy, and offer them selfish retribution. People only believed in justice if there was something in it for them.
The crowd drained unevenly -- some hurried to take what they could from Grayson's house, others began trickling home, and a few dragged Grayson away. Chael wasn't sure if they were Grayson's friends moving to take him to safety, or enemies getting ready to dispose of him. He didn't much care either way.
Whatever the result, it made good practice. His eyes went back upwards, to the reflections on the side of the Bestwell Communications Center. The moon was no longer visible.
Run all you like, he thought. I'll be up there with you soon.
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Chael climbed.
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"If you ask me," Chael said, swirling the glass of wine between his fingers. "It's all about effort versus lack of effort, when you get right down to it. There's always this, uh, this whining about not being able to afford food, not being able to afford housing -- but when you get down to it, how are you here asking me those kinds of things if you're starving to death? It's just self-pity, in the end."
He was sitting in a Toptown club, enjoying drinks and a meal with a few influential community leaders as part of his election campaign. Gentle music drifted from the automatic piano in the corner of the room to lend a serene, civilized feel to the night's festivities. The moon shone through the window that took up one whole wall, illuminating the room where the scented candles did not.
One of Chael's guests, a ginger-haired man named Abe, nodded enthusiastically in agreement. "Exactly, exactly! To be expected from you, Chael, this level of understanding. If one isn't happy with their position, it falls to them to improve themselves, not others to lower themselves. As you have, so adeptly, my friend."
Chael smiled, taking a sip of wine.
Pig on two feet, he thought, still smiling as he looked at Abe. He imagined standing up, slamming the man's fat face down onto the table, and cutting at it with the knife and fork until he had the thing in bite-sized pieces. Perhaps he'd feed him his own tongue.
"The point is," the elderly woman dining with them said, shaking some salt onto her steak. "It takes strong character to understand your present position in society, and to take the necessary steps to ascend beyond that. It's a matter of will, not means. I wouldn't be averse to having a man with that sort of character make decisions for Taldan." She nodded at him benevolently, before swallowing her food.
Her neck was so very thin, like a branch. Chael knew he could so very easily reach out and snap it in his fist like one, too. With the movement of just a few muscles, this parasite would cease to exist.
No, he reminded himself, glancing at the moon outside the window. Not yet. Once you've climbed to the top, you can change things however you like. This won't matter anymore.
Chael chuckled, raising his glass. "That's very kind of you -- and, of course, I appreciate your support in my campaign."
Nod and laugh. Drink and mingle. Shake hands and curry their favour.
Until it was too late for them to regret it.
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Chael climbed.
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"Congratulations," someone said cheerily for what felt like the thousandth time that day, clapping a hand on Chael's back as he walked past.
"Appreciate it!" Chael called out behind him, not turning back as he got into the car -- a black limousine ready to take him to his new office, the Dawnhouse. Seconds after he closed the door behind him, the limo took off, soaring over even Toptown as it made its way towards the seat of government.
The man who'd been waiting for Chael in the limo smiled excitedly. He wore a red suit and fez, his tanned hands clasped in front of him. Chael recognized him, of course -- Secretary Low, the previous President's second-in-command. He'd been acting President until the election had ended.
"Congratulations," Low said, extending a hand. "Mr. President."
Chael accepted it. "Appreciate it. I'm grateful for your service to this city."
It had been a hell of a climb, but he was here. Top of the heap -- the only thing above him was the moon. He finally, finally had the power to change things.
Low smirked. "Grateful for my service to this city? I have to admit, sir, it sounds like you're getting ready to kick me out."
Still shaking Low's hand, Chael replied: "I'm afraid nothing lasts forever, friend. The Dawnhouse is gonna need a fresh coat of paint."
The thousand-year handshake finally concluded, and Low slouched back in his seat, that same funny smile still on his face. "About that," he clicked his tongue. "I get that, since you're the new boss and all, you wanna throw your weight around, but there's some guys who probably wanna talk to you about that."
Chael furrowed his brow. The confidence Low was exuding wasn't that of a rat trying to flee a sinking ship -- he wasn't worried at all. "What do you mean?" he snapped.
Low reached into his pocket, pulled out a small disk-shaped holoprojector, and put it on the seat between them. The device was thin, black, with a small button on the top. A light blinked, indicating an incoming call.
"Behold," he said, with practiced theatricality. "Your employers."
His finger tapped the button.
A cloud passed over the moon.
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Chael climbed.
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"This is a shitload of money you're offering," the young man said, flipping through the contract. His face was a blur, numerous contradictory expressions dancing over his features. "Sure you can afford this?"
Chael nodded. "I'm the President. A certain amount of embezzlement is expected of me."
The young man folded the contract up and put it into his pocket. "I'll hold onto this. Don't want you getting any fucking ideas, right?"
"No problem. So long as you fulfill your end of the bargain, you can do whatever you like. I'm a man of my word."
They were in an abandoned Pit office -- the windows boarded up, the only other inhabitants being the rats. It had been difficult to find an opportunity to slip away from the Dawnhouse, but well worth it. If he was going to become the Citizen, this person's help was absolutely necessary.
He cleared his throat, nodded towards the young man. "It isn't that I doubt you," he said. "But blurring your face and doing what I ask of you are two different things. I'd appreciate a demonstration."
The young man chuckled, shrugged -- and a second later, the young man was Chael. His entire appearance had changed into a mirror image of the President, from his stubble to the length of his fingernails.
Chael blinked. "Impressive."
"Hell yeah," the young man said in Chael's voice. He grinned in a way that didn't quite match the face he was wearing. "This is all based on observation, though, yeah? So stuff like the junk's gonna look different."
"I didn't need to know that."
"Suit yourself," the young man said, moving his own hand in front of him, carefully watching his fingers. "So -- all I gotta do is be your decoy? Sounds like an easy job. I'm all fuckin' for it."
Chael nodded. "When I am the Citizen, you are President Chael. When I am President Chael, you will serve as my personal bodyguard."
The young man glanced towards Chael, annoyance in his eyes. "Bodyguard? You didn't mention that shit in the contract. I don't do work I'm not paid for, buddy."
"Don't worry," Chael said, raising a placating hand. "It's for appearances only -- an excuse to keep you close by. All you need to do is what we've agreed upon. Once the people I need dead are dead, you'll have no further obligations."
The young man considered it for a moment, rubbing his chin, before breaking out into another crude grin. "Fuck yeah," he said. "Sounds like my kinda work." He spat into his palm and extended it towards Chael. "We'll shake on it."
Chael didn't hesitate. With the things he'd seen in his life, a little saliva was nothing. He clasped the young man's hand and shook it vigorously.
"A pleasure," he said. "We'll be working together closely, then. What do I call you?"
The young man smirked. "My name? Let's, uh...let's have you call me Boreal."
An obvious alias, but Chael wasn't one to talk. There, with the watchful moon shining through a broken window, the two Chaels shook hands. The President couldn’t help but smile to himself: finally, finally, he was almost there. He was almost done with the climb.
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Chael fell.
There wasn’t even pain, just a kind of numb tickling that encompassed everything below his torso. His legs, his toes, he knew they were gone -- but he could still feel them, phantom pain already taking root as he fell off the side of the Dawnhouse.
No scream escaped his lips. There was no fear to drive it, only a sense of hollow despair. It was as if everything he’d fought for, for years and years, was disappearing before his eyes. The moon was growing smaller in his vision as he fell, and he reached out a grasping hand as if to seize hold of it.
It was so close. He was almost there. He’d do anything to grasp it -- anything.
This time, this last time, Chael didn’t just dive into the hollow determination that brought out his Aether -- he let himself drown in it.
Please, he thought, closing his eyes -- letting the moonlight wash over him. At least make this all worth something in the end.
There was a flash of grey Aether, and a sound like a cannon going off.
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There were two techniques unanimously considered unwise for Aether users, methods of Aether-wielding that no fighter in their right mind would use.
The first was the Aether burn -- allowing your Aether to ravage your body, shred your blood cells, demolish your organs, all for a few minutes of increased power and capacity. Generally, it was considered pointless unless meant as a suicide move: if you survived an Aether burn, that usually meant you hadn’t experienced the full ‘benefits’ of it.
There’d been cases in the past where people’s bodies had completely liquified from pushing their Aether too hard.
The second was called Aether awakening. It was much worse.
Skipper opened his eyes as the ship rumbled -- as if something heavy had just landed on the deck. Hurriedly, his vision still blurry, he looked around his surroundings. Apart from the gouges and dents the battle had left in the metal surface, there was nothing that he could -- oh.
Oh.
Right on the edge of the deck, gripping on it with monstrous strength, was a giant metal hand, bigger than Skipper’s entire body -- and formed completely from hundreds of interlocking blades. Grey Aether sparked around the limb, each crackle accompanied by a deafening noise like thunder.
The body that hand belonged to began rising into sight, the metal deck creaking from the pressure placed upon it. A colossal figure, like the upper torso of a massive human, formed entirely from those spikes and knives -- and right where the figure's head should have been instead protruded the upper body of President Chael, the Citizen.
Aether burn destroyed the body. Aether awakening obliterated the mind, the user’s entire being becoming nothing more but a conduit through which their Aether could flow -- the closest thing to consciousness being the scattered echoes of will that had soaked into their power.
Chael twitched, his body the metal being’s crown, his clothing shredded away to nothing by the sheer energy he was exuding. A low crackling groan trickled from his mouth. The red glow of his eyes was gone -- but only because twin bunches of blades had pushed their way out through his eye-sockets, like the antenna of some steel snail.
Like a true Aether burn, awakening was suicide -- you surrendered everything to your Aether, trusted it with your final wish. To protect something, to obtain something…
To destroy something.
There was no true intelligence in Chael’s speech, just the contextless parroting of a final thought. His blind face stared up at the moon as he spoke, his voice reverberating with a sound like singing iron.
“S-S-S-Skipper…” he muttered. “K-Kill, chain, s-snap the chains of this society...k-k-kill you…I’ll change the s-shape of this world…”
Skipper took a step back -- and the moment his foot squeaked on the hull’s wet surface, Chael’s head snapped to look in his direction. A feral growl poured out of the Citizen’s foaming mouth, and one of the massive metal hands rose up into the air -- as if to crush him like a bug.
Skipper gulped.