The Widow was impressed.
The hallway she'd so lovingly turned into an ice sculpture has been utterly ravaged by the remaining Nox sister's assault. Ice had been shattered and reformed so many times it had taken on strange, unnatural shapes -- spikes twisting around themselves, strands of frost like spiderwebs between the floor and ceiling. There were deep gouges in the walls, too, places where the fury of the Nox sister's sickle had gone right through the icy barrier and carved through the metal beyond like so much bloody meat.
The Widow herself was untouched, of course, but that was to be expected. There was only so much pure rage could do against fifty years of experience.
Her left hand was still stuck inside the pierced chest of the first Nox twin -- the girl's body had been transmuted into some kind of obsidian statue, suspended in mid-air -- but it hadn't done much to make her vulnerable. She was ambidextrous, after all, and the cane she wielded in her free hand was more than sufficient to deflect her remaining enemy's blows.
The cane had been laser-carved from the bark of an Apex tree -- one of the hardest materials in the known universe. The number of things that could cut through it were in the single digits, and those sickles were not among them. Keeping it after the collapse of Vantablack Squad had been something of an indulgence, but the Widow had figured she deserved a treat at the time.
She swung the cane again, sending the second Nox twin flying back down the hallway. Their fight had proceeded in this fashion for the last few minutes -- the Nox twin flying at the Widow with the speed of a bullet, and the Widow smashing her cane into the incoming sickle to block the blow.
The Nox sister landed in a roll, hands still holding onto her weapons. Her Aether had run dry quite a while ago, the Widow knew -- it was surprising her arms hadn't shattered from the strain of receiving such attacks, let alone the fact she was moving at such incredible speeds.
The Widow glanced at the frozen mask of the statue next to her. It really was true -- when you provided a person with proper motivation, they showed you their true potential.
"Hands off my sister," the Nox twin snarled, voice ragged from exertion. Her hands shook as she rose back to her feet. This was her limit, clearly. One more good strike.
The Widow raised an eyebrow. "I would if I could, little one," she said, wiggling her trapped hand -- the sound of scraping stone echoing through the hallway. "See? Stuck, yes? Even if you managed to kill me, I am thinking I will still be stuck. Unfortunate for you."
The girl narrowed her eyes. "I'll cut your hand up as much as it takes once you're dead. It isn't a problem."
She'd abandoned the rhyming completely, thank Y. The Widow smiled. "You are so unkind to a poor old woman," she sighed. "But even if you do this thing, what will it profit you? Your sister here has frozen herself moments from death. I assume only you can unfreeze her?"
The stiffening of the girl's body was all the confirmation the Widow needed.
"It is an obvious thing," the Widow went on. "This girl next to me is a statue now, and a statue cannot think. It is fixed in space, as well, relative to the ship -- you really are impressive girls. But if you unfreeze her, as I said, she will die within seconds. Is that your desire, Miss...?"
The girl wavered slightly, her legs wobbling beneath her. With the state her fatigued body was in, there was an even chance she might collapse before getting off that last good hit.
"Alcera," she forced out through her teeth, as if using the task of speaking to keep herself focused. "Alcera Nox."
"A pleasure, little one," the Widow smiled, before glancing back towards the statue. "My thinking now is that it is very unlikely this statue here is truly indestructible. Very difficult to damage, by all means, but invincible? No, I don't think so. How many good strikes to the head before it snaps off, do you think?"
The Widow let her cane clatter to the ground and raised her good hand up, curled into a fist, ready to come down on the statue's skull like a hammer.
"No!" Alcera Nox screamed.
"Well," the Widow shrugged, smile spreading into a toothy grin. "I am a patient woman. Let us begin."
There was a sound like twin gunshots as Alcera Nox kicked off the ground, the last gasps of her red Aether swirling around her as she launched herself towards the Widow. Her sickle was raised high above her head, and her teeth were clenched with such tightness that blood could be seen trickling out from between them.
A splendid display of resolve. Unfortunately, it was not enough.
As Alcera's sickle came down, the Widow twisted her body, avoiding the downward slash and grabbing her attacker by the face with her free hand. For a moment, she simply held the girl up there in the air, legs flailing -- but when Nox unleashed a last desperate swing of the sickle, the time to end things had come.
The Widow spoke, a bolt of pale blue Aether running along her arm.
"Cryogenesis."
There was a flash of white light -- and when it cleared, Alcera Nox had been frozen head to toe, her body trapped mid-swing. Her face wasn't visible through the cyclopean mask, but the Widow knew that the body underneath the girl's armour had been frozen just as effectively as anything else. She had experience, after all.
Gently, she lowered the frozen girl down to the ground, next to her sister. A statue of ice next to a statue of obsidian.
Sometimes the Widow thought it ironic that an assassin's greatest technique was a non-lethal attack. Cryogenesis did nothing but preserve her opponent, trapping them between one heartbeat and the next until the Widow decided to release them. She could throw this frozen girl into an inferno, if she wanted, and the ice would still not melt.
But that was not what she wanted. Pierrot had requested one of these sisters alive, after all -- and the Widow had grown fond of Alcera Nox over this brief engagement. Her determination and bloodlust reminded her greatly of her own youth.
The sister, though? The Widow's eyes flicked to the obsidian statue, her hand still trapped inside the wound. She had no means of retrieving this other girl, nor the inclination -- her performance hadn't been particularly impressive.
Still, she wasn't a monster. Alcera Nox had rushed into what seemed a certain death to save her twin, so the Widow might as well give the youngster a fighting chance.
The Widow twisted her arm within the wound, and there was a sickening crunch as her wrist snapped -- she bit her lip to suppress the cry of pain. She had the resolve to do such a thing, but the body's pain response didn't much care about how determined you were.
Careful not to irritate her wound further, the Widow gingerly pulled her hand free from the obsidian statue. It flopped over grotesquely, hanging limp from her broken wrist.
She'd had worse.
As she grabbed her frozen quarry by the torso and slung it over her back, she only spared the obsidian statue the slightest glance. It seemed certain now that this ship would end up destroyed, and she severely doubted the statue would survive that.
Oh well. The Widow turned on her heel and walked back towards the office, waving a hand to melt the ice covering the door. She knew she'd gotten soft over the years, but not soft enough to go out of her way for a person of little value.
Slowly, shudderingly -- the systems must have been damaged by the flash freeze -- the doors to Langston's office opened. The Widow opened her mouth to address the man who'd just waited in there while she was fighting, but in the end no words came out.
There was nobody there to hear them, after all.
The only person remaining in the office was that Overman -- Yaza, Pierrot had called her -- and from the glassy look to her eyes and stillness of her chest, she'd already departed this world. On the far wall, opposite the Widow, a vent cover had been torn off and left on the desk.
The Widow clicked her tongue. That sly dog.
----------------------------------------
"R-R-Roash," Niles squealed, forcing the words out. "H-Hadrien is -- he's --"
"--Right behind you," Hadrien whispered into Roash's ear.
There wasn't a moment to waste on fright or surprise. Blood singing with the desire for victory, Roash spun on his heel, grabbed Hadrien by the collar, pressed the rifle against his head --
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-- and pulled the trigger.
There was a hollow click -- and Roash didn't feel the familiar heat of his rifle firing, didn't hear the sound of incineration, didn't smell the charred finale to the sad, short life of Dragan Hadrien.
What he did hear was the smug giggle of the boy he was holding by the collar, a mockery in the dark. "Didn't count your shots, did you?" the Cogitant laughed. "But I did."
Roash adjusted his grip to instead smash the butt of the rifle into Hadrien's face, but he had lost the initiative -- and a second later, he felt a sharp and sudden impact strike the weapon in his hands. The force of it was such that Roash was sent flying backwards a short distance, landing in an undignified heap against the wall.
Groaning with pain, Roash blinked rapidly -- realizing with a start that he could now see again. The forest he'd started in stretched out before him, and in the spot he'd just been standing was a sheer dome of pure darkness.
He should have known. If Roash hadn't been able to see, there was no way that Hadrien could. While Roash had been standing still in the middle of that shadow space, Hadrien had been walking around the outside, deciding the best angle of attack.
Well, now the positions were reversed. Roash raised his rifle, ready to fire into the dark, and --
-- his rifle had been split in half, the barrel terminating in a jagged cut that spat out sparks of electricity and oozed with residual plasma. Whatever Hadrien had done to attack him, the impact of it had been enough to tear through such reinforced weaponry.
Still, Darren Roash was a warrior of the Supremacy. He wasn't so weak that he needed a gun to take victory. Slowly, carefully, he reached down and pulled a hidden knife from his boot. Short, but sharp -- more than sufficient to slice open Hadrien's body and see what he was really made of.
"Niles," Roash snapped gruffly. "Report. Is Hadrien still inside --"
Another earsplitting scream, coming right from the darkness, drowning out both Roash and whatever reply he was due -- and a second later, Roash's own hover platform came rushing out of the dome towards him. The machine had been turned onto its side and sent zooming straight forwards, making it look almost like a shield growing larger in Roash's vision.
Ignoring the pain in his ears and the shock pumping his blood tenfold, Roash stepped out of the way of the incoming platform -- and the second he did, he felt an Aether-infused leg slam into his face.
Crack. The pain in his jaw was excruciating, and for a moment Roash couldn't prevent his body from falling limp and crumpling towards the ground. It was all he could do to plant a hand against the cold floor -- through the false undergrowth -- and push, preventing himself from falling fully to his knees.
Hadrien had been counting on that dodge, Roash realized, replaying what had just happened in his head. The Cogitant had been clinging to the back of the platform, using it like the shield it so resembled, and the second he'd caught sight of Roash he'd lashed out with his foot.
It had been a smart attack. Cowardly, but smart. But Darren Roash wasn't the sort of man to go down with one good hit.
Still half-crouched, Roash whirled around and hurled his knife towards Hadrien, the projectile zooming across the room like a silver streak. Hadrien had ended up on the far side of the room, still holding onto the platform as it slammed into the wall -- and with both his hands clutching the sides of his shield, he didn't have the freedom to intercept the knife.
Or so Roash thought.
The second before it would have stabbed through Hadrien's brain stem, the knife vanished in a crackle of blue Aether -- almost as if the object had become Aether itself. Then, it reappeared over Hadrien's shoulder -- now zooming in Roash's direction, nearly twice as fast.
If this was a contest of speed, Roash wouldn't allow himself to be outdone. He lashed out with his hand, limb a blur, and grabbed the incoming knife out of the air, screaming in pain as the act of seizing such a fast-moving object stripped most of the skin from that hand. Smoke rose from his bleeding palm as he squeezed the knife tight.
"I don't go down that easy, boy!" Roash screamed, charging at Hadrien, knife raised high above his head. If projectiles truly were useless, he'd finish this the old-fashioned way -- he still had his last trick.
Hadrien seemed to have the same idea -- the Cogitant boy charged at him too, just as fast, blue Aether sparking around his fist. He intended to go for some kind of cross-counter, then, knife versus hand. Roash wouldn't disappoint.
Their charges met.
Roash brought his knife down towards Hadrien's skull with all the strength his body could muster, just as Hadrien sent his fist flying towards Roash's face. It was a matter of speed, really -- a matter of which of them would meet their mark first.
Or at least it would have been, if Roash had any intention of playing fair.
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Dragan felt a sudden, intense pain in his stomach, and his body seized in a terrible kind of paralysis. His fist faltered inches from Roash's already damaged jaw, flopping down to his side uselessly.
What had happened? Had he missed something?
Dragan's eyes flicked down to look at his stomach and there, finally, he understood. In Roash's free hand was a second knife, and it was buried to the hilt into Dragan's side. He could have laughed -- two knives? It barely even qualified as a trick, and yet he'd fallen for it so easily.
"Not so cocky now, are ya, ya little shit?!" Roash snarled, voice slurred slightly from his damaged jaw, as he went to bring the first knife down onto Dragan's skull.
Instinctually, with all the effort his body could still muster, Dragan reached up with his hand and grabbed Roash by the wrist, straining to slow the descent of the blade. It was a losing battle, though -- his strength was fading fast, even with Aether, and before long he knew this first knife would be buried to the hilt as well.
Plans, plans. Did he have any more plans? He had legs -- could he use his legs? Could he try kicking Roash in the groin? No, it was armoured -- and besides, he knew he'd lose his precarious balance in the attempt.
His hand was shaking with drained exertion as the knife slowly, slowly came down, almost brushing against his scalp. Inches from blood.
The will drained from Dragan Hadrien. He'd lost. Roash lifted the knife back up -- shrugging off Dragan’s grip -- and then brought it down with deadly speed.
“This,” screamed Roash. “Is the might of the Supremacy!”
Then, there was the sound of tearing meat, of metal screeching outwards -- and before Dragan could blink, something had burst out of Roash's chestplate and his chest, spraying vivid red blood right into Dragan's face.
Surprise temporarily shocking him back into lucidity, Dragan blinked rapidly at the foreign object in front of him -- at the pale, dainty fist of Underman Rose. The fist that had just run Darren Roash through. Despite everything, it was still pristine.
Slowly, Roash looked down at his wound, brow furrowed in muted confusion. He mouthed some inaudible word, looked back up at Dragan --
-- and was sent down to the ground as Rose roughly pulled her fist free, taking about half of Roash's torso with it. Viscera oozed onto the floor below -- the ingredients for human life forming a puddle beneath the hologram.
Roash's corpse lay there spread-eagle, tongue lolling out of his mouth, eyes bulging as they stared forward sightlessly. Dragan himself fell back onto his posterior, hand still clutching the knife embedded in his own side.
"What…" he panted, disbelieving as he stared at Roash's corpse. "What did you…?
Rose winced as she stared at her hand, shaking it -- and as she did, specks of blood appeared on the visible portions of the floor. "Ugh," she said, in a rougher tone than Dragan had come to expect from her. "That shit's nasty. Hate doing it with a punch -- clean bullet to the back of the head any day, you get me? Less mess that way."
Dragan dragged himself away slightly, his back thumping against the wall. Even though the man who'd been trying to kill him was dead, he didn't feel any safer. "How did you do that?!" he snapped, trying to sound as commanding as he could even through the pain.
Rose, for her part, ignored him -- stepping over Roash's corpse and tapping his head with her foot. "Man," she chuckled, one hand on her hip. "Imagine dying with such a dumbass look on your face."
And then, a crackle of what could only be Aether sparked in front of her face. It was barely visible -- Dragan doubted anyone but a Cogitant could have noticed it -- but it was there, translucent, like electricity made of glass. The strange colouration of it made the air behind Rose seem to ripple.
Dragan narrowed his eyes at the girl and her translucent Aether. Her body language and demeanour had changed completely -- from nervousness and squeaking to a cocky, almost lazy kind of self-assurance.
"Who are you?" he glared.
"Hah?" Rose glanced back down at him, as if she'd only just remembered he was there. "Oh, right, I've still got this shit on. Well, you can kinda figure it out, right?"
The image of the girl began to flicker.
Dragan and Ruth had stood on that bridge back on Taldan, quietly speaking.
The black pumps of the Underman uniform vanished from existence, replaced by a pair of rough leather boots.
"Have you been told about □□□□□ yet?" Ruth had said quietly, almost imperceptibly.
The jumpsuit Rose was wearing faded away, replaced by a pair of jeans and a black jacket, left open to show off the masculine chest beneath it.
Dragan shook his head. "No."
Rose's green eyes vanished, replaced in an instant with the black sclera and the red irises of an Umbrant.
Ruth had sighed. "□□□□□ was … □□□□□ was part of our crew before you. He wasn't very strong - like you, heh - but he could do things with Aether that you wouldn't believe. Do you, um, do you know how holograms work?"
It occurred to Dragan that, even though 'Rose' had left the control room, the holograms around them were still functioning -- still changing, the shadowy dome fading away and dissipating.
"He could do that more easily than any machine, he could just pour his Aether into the light around him and force it into whatever shape he wanted."
Any shape he wanted. Including the shape of a cheerful young Underman, overlaid over his own until he didn't need it anymore.
One last flicker -- and then the person who was definitely not Underman Rose grinned. Their pale skin was now a tanned brown, and their short black hair had become a slicked-back grey.
The Umbrant looked down at his own hand appreciatively, flexing his fingers.
"Damn, that's better," he chuckled. "You forget what you actually look like sometimes, when you wear a disguise too long, you know?"
Dragan gulped. "You're…"
The man clenched his fist. "The name's North," he grinned. "Nice to fuckin' meetcha."