2006, 5th February

Space Station, Apotheosis

Lucia stopped talking mid sentence and her gaze focussed on the doorway, pupils constricting, and Magnus felt it a split second later

Something was coming their way.

When Magnus saw Michael leading the way, he allowed himself to relax, but only a little.

A woman followed him, pale skin and golden hair, clad in a maroon dress and a tangible aura of power.

Lucia didn’t avert her gaze, her lower jaw dropping just a fraction to reveal triangular razors, gaze boring into the woman standing before them.

The woman for her part watched Lucia with a wide eyed gaze of surprise, before a smile broke out over her expression.

“My, I knew you liked them dangerous, Michael, but this one isn’t even human.”

“As much as any of us,” Michael replied, flippantly, “Lucia, meet Valentyna Ivanenko, High lord of Apotheosis and for today, your guide through the Hall of the Lords.”

Lucia did not reply with words, barely nodding as her jaws shut with a click,

“Well, come on then, Lucia,” Valentyna turned on her heel and gestured for her to follow, “It’s time to meet the family.”

When they were both gone, Magnus finally asked, “Michael, what was that all about?”

“Lucia will be working closely with the people here for the foreseeable future; She needs to know who they are, but more importantly, she needs them to know her. And being seen with a High Lord of Apotheosis will lead to significantly more credibility for her.”

“Michael… If Lucia’s role is to take over Earthbound operations when Apotheosis withdraws from the solar system, then going this far wouldn’t normally be necessary… There’s something you aren’t telling me.”

“Magnus. This is imperative. Trust me.”

As Lucia walked through the portal to the Hall of the Lords in Mars, she noted how Dimensional portals allowed her to circumvent the one law of passing through the membrane to the Spirit realm, needing a basic understanding of the Spirit Horizon to pass through a normal Bleed.

When Lucia had walked through public areas a time after her transformation, she had immediately been marked out as suspicious and an object for fear and increased attention.

The mages of Apotheosis barely spared her a second glance as she moved by, and if so, only because of the woman she accompanied.

Lucia had the strangest paradoxical feeling about that and she did not know what to make of it.

“It’s high time we also got you to the tailor, dear. Can’t have our newest asset die because she never had a Voidsuit printed out,” Valentyna said.

Lucia ran her gaze through the corridor; no obvious surveillance systems could be made out, but she guessed the building had her exact measurements already.

They made their way to a relatively better lit part of the Halls, where holographic displays scrolled text in several languages, predominantly Arabic, and sections were cut into the black stone walls, or vending stations, as Valentyna put it.

“Your biosig is already on the system. Just tap the panel above one of the vending stations and it’ll fabricate your Void suit.”

The vending station spat out a grey form fitting suit, rubbery to the touch, with capillaries that Lucia could feel under the outer layer, almost imperceptible to the touch.

Lucia could survive physical presence in the Spirit Horizon even without the air filters in the Hall of the Lords, simply because she did not need to breathe; If she needed the Void suit anyway, there must be more to the environmental hazards present in the realm that she had yet to see.

Halfway through turning, she stopped, senses focussing on a single point on a wall.

“See something?” Valentyna asked in a sing-song voice.

Lucia did not answer, closing in on that one point, until it expanded to reveal an entire section, walls laden with all kinds of weaponry.

“So. How did you find that little secret, Lucia?” Valentyna asked her.

“The architecture around it was wrong.”

The Master mage laughed, a rich sound.

“So you defeated induced hemispatial neglect with simple pattern matching? Michael did always find all the interesting ones.”

“So, there’s a spell here blocking off part of my senses?”

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“A fairly rudimentary one; Michael could pull it off too, if he liked… Well, have you decided what you’ll claim from here?”

“What?”

“You pierced the veil to this section; It’s only fair you get a reward. Why not look around, and see if anything catches your fancy?”

Lucia ran her eyes over drone-bombs, camo-paint, spidercam-bots, compression belts with container pockets that were bigger on the inside than the outside, and-

“I get the sense you disapprove,” Lucia addressed Valentyna, who smiled.

“These crutches are meant for our Hollow employees. Magi worth their souls should cultivate their own powers, and do without these tools. But you are not one of us. I will not hold you to our standards.”

“And this philosophy doesn’t extend to the Void Suits?”

“I personally don’t need them, but I understand that some tools are more essential than others.”

Lucia turned back to a rifle that apparently fired superheated silver ferrofluid through a magnetic propulsion system, and was reminded of a weapon the Matriarch of the Draugr had given her, a living serpent of silver that could serve as a bracelet or a whip, and a powerful tool to counter a werewolf’s nigh unstoppable regeneration.

Once, she had pushed her Power to its limits, manifesting as an all-devouring vortex of gravity and collapsing mass, and her weapon had been disintegrated.

Perhaps the rifle would make a worthy replacement.

She turned her back on the weapon rack.

“I don’t need these either,” She said.

Valentyna smiled in approval.

“Then, we should get down to the actual important part. Let’s go.”

Lucia felt her apprehension build as the two of them approached the central parts of the chamber, frowning as she felt something beyond the large, onyx carved doors.

“Welcome to the actual seat of the Lords of Apotheosis, Lucia Bellone,” Valentyna said, before she flicked her wrist and the massive doors swung open with a flourish.

The chamber was vast, and encircled with thrones of black stone rising from the ground, some rising taller than others, which Lucia surmised to be some form of hierarchy, even among the Masters of Apotheosis.

It was immediately obvious that a fairly small percentage of the audience was actually in attendance, as a vast majority of the thrones stood empty, and some of the Masters in attendance were not physically present, their images clearly being projected from afar.

Abas, too, was not in attendance; at least, not that she could sense.

Some of the Masters retained humanity in their appearance, while others projected their personal tastes outward with their appearance, such as a woman that seemed to be carved of gleaming gold, or some sort of practicality Lucia could not immediately discern, such as a creature built like a fantastical tree with veins of pale blue running the length of its trunk, and crimson, glowing amber fruit at the ends of its leafless branches.

And all present masters turned to regard her as one, and Lucia felt the spirit-air tingling at the back of her neck.

Saying nothing, Valentyna walked ahead, and one by one, the Masters seemed to lose interest in Lucia.

She still had to resist the instinct to keep close to the corners as she came to stand beside the throne that Valentyna had perched herself on.

“Who is the vampire you have brought to our hall, Valentyna,” the woman in gold was the first to speak after their interruption.

“The one that attacked our Earth Orbit Space Station. She works with Michael now.”

“Truly? An audacious attack.”

“Well timed too,” One of the projections said, “Right on the heels of our decommissioning most of the automated security after that incident with the loose Fae.”

“The question is,” a man with a projected image on Lucia’s right spoke, “What is she doing here?”

Lucia cocked her head to a side, something having caught her attention.

“A side project of mine,” Valentyna addressed the assembled Lords, “I thought it best that this child make herself acquainted with our organisation, and familiarise herself with the way things work around here, so as not to commit… a faux pas like the first one again.”

“And we’re sure this creature will not fall prey to its baser instincts again? Striking when it sees an exposed weakness?”

“A recording,” Lucia interrupted.

Deathly silence followed, and all the assembled Masters looked at her as one, their expressions inscrutable.

“Elaborate, my dear,” Valentyna said.

“Maybe not a recording,” Lucia peered intently at the projection, “But the voice… is artificial.”

After a brief silence, the woman with the gold epidermis began to chuckle, and was soon joined by a few others; even Valentyna wore an amused smirk.

“Well, I guess that is that,” another of the Lords spoke, “We can move on to more pressing matters now.”

“Like our little Horizontal incursion in Lyon,” the woman in gold said.

The mention of France caught Lucia’s attention.

“I thought we were discussing serious matters,” The Lord who had spoken first said.

“I agree,” Valentyna said, “This is hardly worth any attention from us. I’ll put one of my people on it; it should be resolved within a matter of days.”

“One of your people?”

“Have Michael assigned to it,” The golden woman interjected with a smile, “I’m sure he’s more than capable of handling a triviality like that.”

“Oh?”

“And the boy deserves a little hazing for the fact that he brought this little vandal in under his wing, does he not?”

Lucia blinked as the woman’s gaze fell upon her.

“Well, why not,” Valentyna allowed, “I am certain he could pull it off in a timely fashion.”

“Who is this Michael anyway? One of your apprentices, Val?” Another of the Lords asked.

“Abas’ apprentice, actually.”

Lucia took notice of how that name elicited a reaction even from the other Masters.

“But the boy is talented. I might just have a thing or two to teach him. We’ll see how well he does on this assignment,” Valentyna said.

“Speaking of Abas,” The artificial voice interrupted, “How goes that skirmish on the edge of quadrant 2?”

“I’d heard about that,” The humanoid tree spoke in his grating voice, “Weren’t we losing ground?”

“Abas set out for that particular front; it’s as good as handled,” another of the masters said.

At this point, Valentyna turned to Lucia.

“Could you find your own way back and let Michael know I’ll be expecting him shortly, dear.”

Having been dismissed, Lucia made her way out of the hall, making a subtle effort to not let a single member of the assembly escape her line of sight until the chamber doors slammed shut upon her exit.