Years ago…
Cottian del Sed sat in the interrogation room, hands bound with Neverwire cuffs, knowing that he was not long for this world.
The room was unnaturally clean -- sterile, even, like a hospital -- save for the tiniest bloodstain on the leg of the chair he'd been thrown in. A souvenir from this room's previous occupant, no doubt. The silence of the room since the guards had left was oppressive, unnatural, like all noise had been actively scrubbed away.
The only thing he could hear was his heartbeat. He could feel it in his eyes, like they'd be pushed out of their sockets by the hammering of the organ. Right now, so close to death, he felt like he was appreciating all the functions of his body for the first time. He felt sick.
"Do you believe in destiny?"
Cott looked up from the table, eyes wide. He was certain he'd been on high alert, but the door had opened and someone had stepped in without him even noticing. His interrogator, the Supremacy dog that would be putting an end to him.
He was out of his league here. He was out of his league. He should have just gone home. He wanted to go home.
The man who stepped into the room, sitting opposite Cott with a thin smile, had a bizarre appearance. Pale skin, white hair and a white suit, all as utterly spotless as this soulless room. If not for the tiniest spark of Cogitant-blue in the man's pupils, he would look like a sketch that hadn't been coloured in. He steepled his hands in front of him.
"If you don't mind," he said in a hushed tone, as if concerned he'd be overheard. "I'm going to repeat my question. Do you believe in destiny?"
Remember your training, Cott told himself. Don't give them any ammunition against you. Death is assured, but defeat is not.
"I'm not saying anything," he replied, his voice hoarse from fear and exhaustion. "You should just kill me now."
The man continued as if he'd gotten an entirely different answer.
"I find the way people answer this question -- especially people in the same line of work as us two -- to be very interesting. If it's alright with you, I'd like to explain why: the majority of people like us automatically say 'no'. How could they not? They have witnessed the catastrophe of coincidence numerous times. Countless deaths, incalculable suffering, brought about through no divine plan -- only the end result of mindless chaos. However, my own view of destiny differs significantly. May I tell you about it?"
"I'm not saying anything," Cott said, balling his fists. "You should just kill me now."
"My belief," the man continued, his blue eyes as cold as ice. "Is that destiny is something you concoct for yourself over the course of your life. At the start of your journey, you have near limitless choices, but for each choice you make you limit the routes you can take in the future. Eventually, at some point, a person reaches the point where they have made all their choices, and they can no longer change the course they are on -- at that point, the only path available to them is to witness the conclusion they've concocted for themselves."
"I'm not saying anything. You should just --"
The man smiled. "The majority of choices you make here will end in you being tortured to death. Your destiny is very nearly locked in."
Cott's blood ran cold at those words. Death had been something he'd anticipated, maybe even prepared himself for, but the idea of the pain preceding it… was that something anyone could be ready for?
His mouth betrayed him.
"Tortured… to death?"
The words were nearly silent as they left his lips, but the man heard them loud and clear. His eyes narrowed, just slightly, from satisfaction.
"Yes," the interrogator said simply.
Cott gulped, clenching his hands tighter, fingernails digging into his palms. Even that was painful. How much more painful would his end be?
"I won't talk," he said with all the resolve he could muster. "No matter what you do, I won't say a word."
The man's smile didn't waver in the slightest. "I believe you. Nevertheless, we must torture you to death. The situation demands it."
"What?"
There was a rattling sound, Cott's cuffs tapping the table as he shook. He cursed that noise, that undeniable proof of his fear.
The man leaned over the table slightly further, cold eyes drilling into Cott's own. If Cott had his Aether, he had no doubt he could defeat this enemy -- summon some aspects and beat him down to the ground. But here, now, he was powerless. There wasn't a thing he could do.
"You and your comrades have inflicted a wound on the Supremacy," the Cogitant said. "It is not enough that we have caught you, you see -- the fact that you managed to enter the Supremacy in the first place is damning. Examples must be made, so that such an unfortunate incident does not take place again."
He was going to die in this room. That thought, previously an abstract, became heavy certainty pressing down on Cott's insides.
The man went on unabated, his droning voice like the reaper's slow approach. As he spoke and spoke, he did not blink, only continuing to stare. Cott did not think he'd seen the man blink even once since he walked in.
"You say you will not tell us anything. This is true, but only in a sense. Our methods are very effective: before long you will be willing to admit to anything we accuse you of. Ironically enough, this will make you useless to us, but we will not stop there. We will work at you until you are little but a twitching pile of meat, cognizant only of pain and its absence, and then we will show you to the world. We will demonstrate what happens to things such as you. Only then, when the message is understood, will we put an end to you. Or perhaps we won't -- I can't tell the future, after all."
Hot, acidic nausea rose up Cott's throat -- and before he could refuse the man again, he found himself vomiting on the table before him. A sickening kaleidoscope of his last few meals dripped onto the floor. The white-haired man wrinkled his nose in obvious disgust at the mess.
"You are frightened," he said, scooting his chair back slightly. "That is understandable -- I have just told you of your lamentable conclusion. Know, however, that this future is not fixed. There are options before you -- I told you that the majority of them will result in you being tortured to death, but a majority is not the entirety. There is a light to the side of this tunnel."
Slowly, vomit still stuck to his chin, Cott looked up at the man. Despite everything, despite the resolve he thought he'd tempered, there was hope in his eyes.
"What do you mean?" he asked, voice hoarser than ever.
"Right now, we have only you. The message of your annihilation would be brief. Tell us where your comrades are hiding, and we will do this thing to them instead. A saga rather than a memo, and you will be free to go. All trespasses will be forgotten and forgiven."
"I…I couldn't…"
"Then we will torture you to death. I'll leave you to make a decision."
Dusting non-existent dirt off of his white suit, the man turned away and left the room, closing the door behind him. Once again, Cott was left alone in that pale chamber, his only companion the slow dripping of his own vomit.
He couldn't do that. Not to Yakob, not to Bruno and Serena. There was no way. He couldn't. There was no way he could. No… no way.
Blood.
For a single, startling moment, he managed to imagine the whole thing in impeccable detail. Saws scraping at his bones, knives flaying his skin, toxins soaking through his ruined flesh. A horde of ordeals never quite reaching the conclusion, for years and years…
He couldn't let that happen. No living thing could. There wasn't an animal alive that would knowingly throw themselves to that fate. It was worse than suicide.
It was… it was only natural, then, that he'd do whatever it took to avoid that, wasn't it? Nobody could blame him for that. If this was going to happen to someone either way, why did it have to happen to him? He'd been loyal. He always looked out for others. Didn't he deserve, then, to think about himself for once? Wasn't he entitled to his own safety?
Rationalisation after rationalisation spawned inside his mind, but none managed to take root. Every time he thought himself about to reach a conclusion, the image of Yakob's anguished face would flash into his thoughts, and that same nausea would return to him. Guilt salted the earth before any justification could grow strong.
He leaned forward, head in his hands, sobbing -- and then a single, treacherous thought popped into his head.
If guilt was the problem…
…then couldn't he just excise that tumour?
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Cott stared in wide-eyed horror as the aspect from the coffin stepped forward, smiling sadly down at Bruno. Dragan almost despaired as he saw that the thing seemed to be another puppet, just like the others. This was Cott's big weakness?
"Hello, Bruno," it said quietly.
Bruno's face was utter confusion. "Who… are you?"
The smile faded. "My name is Guilt."
Oh. Oh. In that moment, Dragan understood. Dragan understood how a person could throw away the people he'd grown up with without blinking an eye. Dragan understood how someone could condemn their best friend to torture and sneer at them the next they met.
He could do that because he'd locked his Guilt away a long time ago.
Even if he was lacking guilt, however, Cott's shaking voice showed he still had terror.
"Get back in that coffin," he hissed, glaring daggers at the puppet. "I don't -- you -- get out of here! Get away from me!"
Cott was utterly ignored. Instead, Guilt continued to look at Bruno, staring at the blood soaking through the back of his jacket. "I've hurt you again," he said sadly. "How many times have I hurt you now?"
Serena burst forth from Bruno's face for a moment. "Too many times to count."
Guilt slowly nodded. "Too many times to count," he softly agreed. Steadily, he looked back up at Cott -- and even that was enough to make the young man step back.
Unseen by all, Dragan snuck his hand into his pocket, fingers curling around his script. Whatever happened now, he was ready.
"Are you that frightened of me?" Guilt asked, cocking his head at Cott. "But of course you are. You cannot raise a hand against me. That is what you fear most of all. Alas…"
The puppet slowly raised his hands up, grabbing his own head by the temples, that sad smile never leaving his face. Across from him, Cott paled further, his body shaking.
Bruno furrowed his brow. "What are you…?"
"Don't," Cott whispered, back pressed against the wall.
Guilt closed his eyes. "Goodbye, Yakob. You really are my very best friend."
"Stop!" Cott screamed, charging forward in a thoughtless attempt to prevent what was about to happen, his hands flailing at empty air in panic.
But Guilt did not stop. Instead, with all the strength his wooden body was capable of, he pulled -- and tore his own head clean off his shoulders.
He died immediately, of course, his body dissipating into Aether before it even hit the ground -- and then that orange lightning shot forward. Past the other aspects, past Dragan, past Bruno, until it struck the charging Cott in the chest and diffused throughout his body. His eyes widened, his mouth too, all shaking from his body stopping as he suddenly became still as a statue.
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For a moment, there was nothing but silence.
Then Cott screamed.
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It flowed into him.
Guilt allowed to gestate and mature uninterrupted, days and months and years of sensory deprivation… those feelings and memories flowed into him, as corrosive as acid against paper. Thoughts Cottian del Sed had long abandoned forced themselves to the forefront of his mind. Emotions he'd discarded stabbed at his heart like knives.
What had he done?
What had he done?!
His mind sought places to run, but all thoughts were blocked by the uninvited guest. He'd had no choice in the matter -- what had he done?! They'd deserved it anyway -- what had he done?! Anyone else would have done the same thing -- what had he done?!
What had he done?! What had he done?! What had he done?!
His scream trailed off as he put his hands to his head, as if about to mimic Guilt and tear it straight off. Drool dribbled from his lips. His eyes twitched.
He had to do something. He couldn't stay here any longer. If his mind couldn't run, his feet surely could.
Cott turned on his heel and shouted.
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"Kill them!" Cott roared, sprinting out of the hotel room. "Kill them now!"
The aspects didn't waste any time. Immediately, the grinning one with the mace swung his weapon down at Bruno -- only for the attack to be deflected by a forcefield that appeared over his head. The stunbolt had run its course.
Dragan leapt to his feet, narrowly avoiding the broadsword swinging for him. A split-second use of Gemini World avoided the second blow -- and when the third attack came, Dragan seized the fleeing Caution by the shoulders and used him as a human shield, the wooden puppet eviscerated by the blow.
"He's getting away!" Serena shouted, deflecting blows with a ceramic sword that was quickly degrading.
She was right. They couldn't afford to waste time on these obvious distractions. Dropping to the floor to avoid a flying chakram, Dragan whipped his script out of his pocket.
A human figure, grainy and degraded, was visible on the screen.
"Now or never," Dragan breathed.
It nodded.
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Roy dropped to the ground, planting meaty hands over Valentina's wound to try and stop the bleeding, but a steady puddle was already spreading out around her. Scout looked down at his aunt, eyes wide, shocked into inaction.
"Shit," Ruth hissed, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him with her down behind some crates. "Get down!"
She had no doubt that Valentina would have been using Aether to defend herself while using her ability. The fact that she'd been shot all the same meant the attack must have come from Eli Masadora -- she didn't know how, but somehow that man could create weapons that negated Aether.
Here, under his sniper gaze, they might as well have been naked. Skipper and Fix ducked down beneath a barrier of stone the latter had erected. Only Abraham Oliphant refused to run for cover, his hands clasped behind his back, but his mechanical body likely gave him more protection against such attacks than a normal human being.
"Do you find the thought of danger so terrifying?" he asked dispassionately, looking down at Roy. "Does the sight of blood truly unsettle you so?"
Roy looked up from his labour, teeth bared, tears streaming down his mountainous face.
"She's your daughter, you bastard!" he roared, the air shaking from the intensity of his voice. "Shut your fucking mouth!"
For the first time since she'd seen him, true emotion appeared on Abraham Oliphant's face. It was subtle, but there -- his nostrils flaring as his face turned red, just a little.
"Don't you dare speak to me like that, boy," he hissed, stepping towards his son. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to?"
In that single moment, when the attention of those gathered lapsed, the last Cott puppet picked it's chance well. It leaped out from the pile of rubble, reaching out for Abraham Oliphant, an explosive vest strapped to its body. Blinking, blinking. Half its face was burnt away by flames.
Ruth raised her musket to blast the puppets head off -- but as it opened its mouth and uttered an incoherent croak, she got the distinct feeling she should hesitate just a moment. Her finger twitched, wavering over the trigger. Her moment was missed.
"Heartbeat Shotgun."
The head of the puppet exploded into scraps of wood and sawdust, showering over the dark metal of Abraham's body. What was left of the body tumbled through the air, almost comical as the false limbs flopped around. It was almost like a ragdoll.
But the explosive vest was unharmed, and as it flew…
Click.
The explosion, now that it was close, was both blinding and deafening. Scout, slightly closer to it than Ruth, was sent flying away entirely. Roy and Valentina were obscured by the billowing smoke that poured through the area. In the distance, a fire alarm could be heard screaming.
Ruth nearly went the same way as Scout, only for Skipper to grab her in mid-air by the back of the collar, pulling her into the rudimentary shelter Fix had created. Air pressure and fire crawled over the outer surface of the rock, and Ruth could hear the distinct sounds of creaking metal beneath them.
All in all, it probably lasted seconds -- but it felt like they endured for hours. When it died down, the air was full of the stink of smoke and burnt wood.
Skipper breathed a ragged sigh of relief. "Well," he grinned. "That just --"
And then the floor collapsed.
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The best way to have people do what you say, Dragan had always found, was to make it abundantly clear just how fucked they'd be if they didn't.
The little woman on his script had waited patiently in the hospital as, at great length, Dragan had detailed this plan of theirs -- all the factors that could go into it, all the reasons it would most likely succeed, staring into the depths of that dark screen. Even if they told others about the plan, it would succeed. Even if they'd killed him there and then, it would succeed.
By the end of the night, the Oliphant Clan would be in power once again -- and once they were, they'd come looking for the ones who had hurt them. Or, as it turned out, the ones who had helped them.
If nothing else, mercenaries knew how to pick the winning side.
"Ring," the girl on the script hissed -- and a second later, when she lunged forward, her hand burst forth from the screen, clutching a kitchen knife.
At this range, there was no way for the mace-wielding aspect to dodge. The knife smashed through its porcelain eye and skewered it's wooden head, causing the mace to slip from its grasp as consciousness abandoned it. Still holding the dissipating puppet up by the eye socket, the ragged woman pulled herself out of the script.
She'd changed clothes since the last time Dragan had seen her -- now she wore an oversized white shirt and a pair of torn jeans. To be honest, the casual attire she was wearing detracted a little from the whole videograph-monster vibe she was clearly aiming for, but the way she climbed out of the script more than made up for that.
Her limbs clicked and bent the wrong way as she pulled herself up out of the screen, using the carpeted floor as a base. Her long fingers made her hands look like spiders as they found uneasy purchase. Her ribs crunched like mandibles as they squeezed out of the cramped confines of the device. Her legs shook like those of a newborn deer as she rose up to her full height.
A hollow gasp escaped her lips.
"You and your partner take care of these," Dragan grunted as he pulled himself to his feet. "Me and Bruno will go after the boss."
The chakram-wielding aspect charged at the ragged woman, weapon ready to slice through flesh, but her wide visible eye flicked over in his direction with all the speed of animal instinct.
"Grudge," she rasped.
Her pale ghostly Aether flared around her -- and then a simulacrum of the dead mace-wielding aspect burst out of her body, smashing the head of the chakram user to pieces before vanishing again. The remaining two aspects took a step back, adjusting their stances to a more cautious footing.
Dragan exchanged a glance with Bruno, who nodded back -- and as one, the two of them used the opening to charge through the hole in the wall, in the same direction Cott had fled.
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Abraham Oliphant adjusted the acuity of his vision, the cloud of smoke and smog surrounding him barely even qualifying as an obstacle. What had happened? He'd been distracted at the time, but it seemed the floor beneath them had collapsed.
Where had he ended up, then? Lights activated across Abraham's mechanical body, illuminating the area around him. An abode formed of wreckage -- both of the floor that had fallen down, and of the unfinished one it had landed in.
Shattered glass crunched beneath his steel feet as he took one step. Broken storefronts lay in heaps around him, like garbage mountains -- no doubt those of his entourage who hadn't managed to keep their footing above were buried somewhere beneath them.
"Boy?" he called out for his son. He was a fool, but his strength made him useful in situations like this.
The voice that answered him did not belong to his son.
"What?" Eli Masadora chuckled from over Abraham's shoulder. "You never learnt my name?"
"Nevermore."
The drone automatic hovering behind him was crushed against the floor in an instant, becoming little more than a scrap pancake. Holographic black feathers hung in the air around it for a moment before dissipating into dark purple Aether. It was tempting to think that they were functionless, but Abraham had learned long ago that appearance was a function all its own.
"So very violent of you," Eli laughed from the darkness. "Surely you're not afraid of me?"
"Nevermore."
Again, the drone automatic that Eli's voice had been speaking from was crushed against the ground by gravity's embrace, utterly ruined by the impact. Sparks and shards of metal flew into the air as smoke poured forth from the iron corpse.
Aether was the heart of power itself, but Abraham had never seen a need to make that power complicated. Simply smashing a thing down to the ground with gravity was enough to deal with most any threat. He had commanded that power for sixty-five years, and it had never failed to terrorise.
As such, a situation like this, where one dared mock him when faced with such power, it was, it was…
Vexing.
"Is that you, Masadora?" Abraham called out, eyes independently scanning his surroundings. "I was told you were involved. You've come back to irritate me again?"
Bang.
Abraham's hand lashed out and caught the bullet before it could even come close, clutching the smoking projectile between two fingers. His fingertips glowed red from the heat. With only mild curiosity, he turned the projectile over in his hand, examining it.
"This is one of the Neverwire weapons I've heard so much about?" he mused, letting the pellet drop to the floor. "I haven't seen the like before. Your own creation?"
This time from above. "Nursing a grudge is easy work. It leaves me time for hobbies."
"Nevermore."
The third drone was smashed upwards, pressed against an intact part of the shattered roof. Bolts and scraps clung up there, as if the ceiling had become the floor.
"Seems you're not in the mood for conversation, eh?" Eli's voice came from the darkness. "Well, let's get started."
The darkness was utterly illuminated as dozens of drone automatics let loose, rapid-fire shots of those same bullets hurtling towards Abraham. Any one of those would be enough to disable a fighter who relied on flawed flesh-and-blood. How unlucky for Eli Masadora.
A steel dome, designed to protect Abraham's exposed head, slid over to cover his cranium. The rain of bullets dinged harmlessly off of his armoured body, doing little more than impeding his vision. The rainfall was constant, from every direction, the noise of their deflection drowning out all other sound.
Something was moving among the drones too, as they bobbed and weaved, a humanoid shadow with a sword clutched in its hand. Masadora: how foolish of him to show himself.
The circle of drones was contracting: that much was obvious. Nevermore crushed many, but their complex movement patterns made it difficult to catch them in his stationary gravity fields.
Masadora, too, circled in a sprint as he slowly drew closer. Sometimes, his heels would be caught by Nevermore's fields, but not nearly enough to smash him against the floor or ceiling. After a brief stumble, he'd be running again.
Irritating, but not concerning. Abraham's mechanical body was highly resistant to the crushing effects of gravity -- it would be unpleasant, but he could simply use Nevermore around himself if Masadora grew too close.
But that was a last resort. Abraham Oliphant had no need for last resorts.
Abraham's hands reconfigured themselves, fingers clicking as they realigned themselves into a form far from those of human hands. Twin miniguns hung off the ends of Abraham's arms, and as he turned in place, his own plasma tore through the drones surrounding him, slicing them into pieces as surely as any blade.
As the bodies of the drones were scraped away, they slowed -- allowing Nevermore to crush them against the ground. The air was full of bullets and plasma and fading black feathers. In that clouded chaos, Eli Masadora took his best, last chance.
He leapt out of the smoke, somehow avoiding each and every drop of plasma, whip-sword reared back to stab into Abraham's steel. In an instant, Abraham reconfigured his right hand back into an actual fist and punched at the approaching figure with such speed that the wind visibly broiled around his knuckles.
But his hand did not meet flesh. Instead, his fist simply phased through Eli Masadora as if the man wasn't even there.
One of Abraham's eyes flicked down to the floor beneath his enemy, where a tiny automatic was scuttling across the floor like a spider. The tiny blue light that flickered on its back was undeniably a hologram projector.
This Masadora was nothing but a decoy. Which meant…
Abraham whirled around with horrifying speed, an utter contrast to his formidable size, and seized the real Masadora by the throat, holding him in mid-air. He had been about to strike Abraham in the back like a coward, but that was to be expected for one of his deficiency. His legs kicked futilely in the air as Abraham held him up.
A simple squeeze would be the end of him, but Abraham was not about to let him go to the afterlife content. He opened his mouth.
"It's as I told you, boy," he said, applying pressure. "Not. Good. Enough."
Eli twitched in his grip, his legs falling limp -- but rather than the slackened face of death, a choked grin rose to his face.
"If you say so," Eli wheezed. He writhed in Abraham's grasp, and his coat fell open.
Strapped to his chest was an explosive vest. That, on its own, would be no cause for concern -- Abraham's body was too strong to be harmed by petty explosions -- but this vest was somehow different from those the puppets had been wearing. Bulkier, with blue lights flashing from deep within. What that meant he could not say, but some long-forgotten animal part of his brain screamed at him that this was danger.
He went to squeeze Eli's head, to crush it between his fingers, but it was too late.
Click.
Bang.