2006, 31st January

Space Station, Apotheosis

Spirit Magic was turning out to be a lot more investment than Michael had bargained for.

After a rather slow day, assigning Ciara and Aaron a few extra resources to track down Pierre, as well as the help of another dimensional mage, he spent the rest of the day digging into archives, as well as tracking down potential spirits to experiment with.

From what he had discerned, spirits needed a steady stream of essence to maintain a corporeal form and act in the physical world, so they could only be summoned to this side of the membrane for so long.

Spirits were generally more potent than the ghosts a Death mage might command, but they had their limitations as well.

If the Balandin effect or whatever other supernatural protections they may have did not negate the spell of control entirely and turn them against the mage too.

But that was all theory; it was time to put what he had learned to practice, and he had even singled out a likely candidate for his experiments.

So he made his way to the designated summoning area, with a bleed to the spirit plane in the centre, and reinforced walls in case things got out of hand.

Michael straightened his tie in preparation for the summoning.

He would have to use a font; an artefact with a summoning spell encoded on it, since summoning was usually an amplification spell, and he wasn’t quite an adept of the spirit field yet.

That was before a tall, muscular man with no protective clothing walked out of the bleed in front of him.

Anders had finally finished cremating the bodies of his comrades ritually in the spirit plane, allowing the essence held within their physical form to dissipate across the spirit plane.

He walked out to find a mage preparing for something at the Bleed, and curiosity got the better of him.

“What are you doing?”

The man turned a piercing gaze on Anders before he replied.

“Preparing a summoning. And you- you are no mage. If I had to guess… Ulfhednar?”

“As you say. Binding a spirit to your will, are you?”

“Not just any spirit. This artefact is primed to attract a specific spirit, from the Martian firepits.”

Anders merely shook his head at the hubris.

“Well, good luck with that.”

“Not keen on watching?”

“Either you will enslave a beautiful creature as your people are wont to do, or your hubris will kill you.”

Michael was delighted at this statement.

“You still hold kinship with these creatures. You hold sympathy for a race you ostensibly turned your back on.”

Anders bristled.

“If you say so. Now, if you’ll excuse me-”

“You’re excused.” Michael told him dismissively.

Anders muttered something under his breath and was gone.

Now for the summoning.

The artefact sent out its signal, a nearly tangible ripple through the fabric of reality.

Only a few moments later, something responded.

And a manifest spirit from the blazing pits of Mars now stepped through the Bleed into the space station.

It possessed a form composed of ribbons of light and energy, and clouds of dust orbiting them, nothing that could be identified with any physical living organism.

Truthfully, Michael could have chosen an objectively inferior, weaker spirit.

But there would have been no testing his capabilities then.

He threw his will against the creature, to dominate it.

A flash of blazing red energy, heated to several thousands of degrees, zipped by his face, and certainly would have singed him if not for the energy barriers around him.

Meanwhile, the creature continued to struggle against what was its inevitable fate.

If that was how it was going to be, then so be it.

Michael let loose a bolt of kinetic energy, shaving the steel floor just inches to the side of the spirit.

Still, it resisted him.

Still, it struggled to be free.

Another heated bolt of energy gathered in front of the creature, before it unleashed it.

But Michael commanded energy as well.

And with the merest application of his will, the bolt of raw heat hung suspended in the space between them.

And the creature’s will crumbled, succumbing to Michael’s own.

As it was always destined to do.

And just then, for the second time in so many days, the intrusion alarms began to howl.

Michael rushed to the hangars once more, and finding no immediate breach, made his way to the second most likely location to be targeted by a breach.

The Portal network had corpses in grey uniforms strewn about it, each emaciated as if the victim of a particularly vicious assault of Death magic.

Hans? Surely not.

“What’s the situation?” He asked a particularly harried looking Hollow, grasping him by the arm before he rushed past him.

“The lights all went out, instant zero visibility, even for people with augmented retinas, my lord. Then there was also a werewolf, I think. We don’t have the firepower to push back something like that, with all the androids having been removed to check their memory banks.”

“An assault on the one day our security is most lax. This had to have been timed. So most of you instantly rushed to the armoury, I assume?”

“Yes, my lord. We can’t stop that thing without digging into the repository.”

The radios overhead crackled.

Be advised, an unknown number of assailants have breached the armoury. Automated defences have been circumvented. We-

The audio cut out with a scream and a frenzy of snarls.

The Hollow paled.

“How the hell did they find the armoury? How did you get inside?”

“Because you led them right to it. This place is perfectly symmetrical in layout, they’d be idiots if they couldn’t figure that much out.”

“Then we’re finished. If they’ve holed up in the armoury, there’s no way to stop them with that kind of firepower in their hands without magic.”

“How lucky for you then, that I am still here,” Michael replied dryly, before pushing the panicking man out of the way, and marching on, blazing spirit of Mars at his heels and at his command.

It had been rather trivial for Lucia to neutralise the more mundane aspects of the security measures here at the space station, her shadows sweeping over every nook and cranny, photons dying in the wake of her hunger, giving her picture perfect clarity of every corridor.

No traps.

The majority of supernatural countermeasures were sure to have been found in the magis’ living areas, and the two of them gave those a wide berth, lest they find something that could lay even a werewolf low.

They had been singularly lucky to not have run into any of the so-called mechanical men Magnus kept warning her about.

And now they had found their way into the weapons stockpile.

If all cards were to be on the table during a negotiation, it helped to have overwhelming force be one of them.

“I know how one would feel secure, sitting amidst a stockpile of bleeding edge weaponry twenty years ahead of anything the Earthbound armies have come up with. But you know better, don’t you? Toys like those won’t stop the likes of us. And believe me, hiding in that corner won't save you from me.”

Magnus and Lucia both narrowed their eyes; neither was able to pinpoint the source of the sound.

Magnus made a sweeping gesture, still transformed.

Lucia nodded in understanding; the sound hadn’t emanated from the speakers, it had carried through the halls, amplified, behaving in a way soundwaves didn’t normally behave.

“Also, even I don’t know how half of those gadgets function. I’ll cut to the chase, I’m rather averse to getting my hands dirty. Coming out with your hands behind your heads would be rather convenient.”

Magnus hunched over and snarled.

He had sensed something approach.

In a flash of red light, the barricaded door melted to slag, and a creature that appeared to be composed entirely of strings of energy and clouds of dust floated in.

And their surroundings erupted in a conflagration.

Lucia howled, intellect overridden by instinct, primal terror drowning every other thought even as the superheated air around her scalded exposed skin.

Magnus, on the other hand, charged the creature, undeterred, even as his surroundings, obviously not flammable, were set alight in defiance of all logic.

Lucia had to suppress her senses as showers of shrapnel and explosions tore through the confined gallery, curling in on herself.

She felt her skin crackle, the hair rise on her arms causing gooseflesh.

And she made the vaguest outline against the air, appearing a single step behind the obvious target, not obscured by any physical means, but diverting the very thoughts of those that would perceive him, a veil that Lucia momentarily pierced somehow.

But the blaze engulfing the corridor obscured her vision still.

Then Michael dropped the veil, as soon as the massive wolfman charged them.

Magnus’ eyes widened, even as he dug his heels into the floor.

A lance of raw force tore through his side, sending tremors rattling down to every bone.

Even before the flesh began to knit itself together, the spirit lashed out with a crimson bolt of heat, further aggravating the wound, cooking the meat within.

Lucia’s senses were compromised, but there was no mistaking the death howl Magnus emitted, so reminiscent of Victor when she had assailed him with silver.

Desperation sparked the blood within her system, and her hunger lashed out, eager to devour.

And the flames began to die.

Except around the man, who kept them ablaze with the force of his will, even as the light-creature retreated behind him.

Clearly illuminated, one point of white hot light in an ocean of darkness.

That undaunted posture, those blazing eyes, that defiant snarl on his face, the tangible pressure of his presence.

Michael Kane.

The shadows retreated, and the flames around Michael’s feet dimmed as he let go of them.

The other assailant-

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Even through all her transformations, the telltale bulges beneath her lips, the reflective eyes, the elongated front limbs and fingers, all clad in corded muscle, posture balanced on her front leg, ready to burst with aggression-

He could not mistake Lucia Bellone.

The werewolf’s form rippled, seeming to collapse inward on itself.

Magnus, laid on the floor with a gaping wound, thankfully not bleeding because of it being thoroughly cauterised, but hovering a breath away from unconsciousness nonetheless.

Michael’s head raced with a thousand thoughts and emotions, all at once.

Lucia could tell, because of how his expression had gone completely opaque.

She herself was not quite sure what this feeling was, bubbling beneath her own chest.

But whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant.

She lunged at him, her vision clear, her perceptions accurate even as she flew through the space between them with the velocity of an arrow in flight.

Michael’s eyes widened in surprise as he borne to the floor by her weight, her fangs bared, and the light-creature moved to intervene, glowing threateningly.

“Going to kill me, Michael?”

The light-creature was frozen in pace, bound as it was to Michael’s will, paralysed by his indecision.

He looked at Magnus, still insensate on the floor, out of the corner of his eye, and Lucia’s dexterous fingers tightened on his collar.

“Look at me!”

So look he did.

“You can’t be here," he said, "You can’t both be here. This is a trick.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“This is an impossible coincidence,” Michael explained to her, perfectly calm, “Someone has rifled through my memories. I am now either trapped in an expertly crafted illusion, or someone has taken great pains to clone two individuals from my memories. Quite an elaborate fiction though, the part with Lucia seemingly being a vampire, and Magnus an Ulfhednar. But clearly, since this ruse isn’t working, you might as well give it up.”

Lucia debated the merits of knocking the man clean out, but the light-creature was clearly growing agitated, and she couldn’t predict its reaction.

Besides, he had a point; Michael was dead.

What if this was, in fact, an elaborate deception?

The effect, on the surface, may have been diluted by the fact that the man who appeared to be Michael himself was questioning the validity of his perceptions, but that could also be a clever double layer to the ruse.

“Michael is dead!” she growled in his face, “Whoever you are, you’ll soon follow!”

Michael smiled grimly.

“Turning that back on me, are you? Well, if I am to die, at least it’ll be to a nice view.”

The air around the light-creature began to shimmer with heat, even as Lucia prepared to dig her fangs into Michael’s throat.

“Mike… Please…”

The light-creature subdued itself once more, even as Lucia whipped around to see Magnus dragging him towards them with the strength of his upper limbs and considerable force of will.

Michael was at war with himself for the briefest moment.

“This isn’t possible… It’s a statistical impossibility…”

Then his expression set, and he came to a decision.

“It doesn’t matter. Lucia, we’ll catch up later, if you allow me to get up and take him to the hospital wing.”

Beneath that statement lay the unspoken implication that if she did not seem inclined to save Magnus, she was not Lucia, and they would resume their standoff where they had left off.

So Lucia rose to her feet, pulling Michael up with her singlehandedly, then leaned by Magnus’ side, supporting his considerable weight easily enough.

They made their way out of the armoury with Michael in the lead, grey uniformed workers giving them a wide berth, their gazes equal parts suspicious and fearful.

But none of them challenged Michael, and even the doctor at the medical wing admitted Magnus, even though his face showed his reluctance clearly enough.

And they sat and waited as Magnus recovered, aided by some treatments Lucia had never seen in even the finest hospitals, and Magnus’ own superlative regeneration.

They sat in silence, unable to even make eye contact properly.

But they observed each other silently regardless.

Magnus had grown to an enviable stature, as all Ulfhednar were wont to do, muscle development more prominent on the back than the pectorals, as was to be expected for a body forged in war.

Michael noticed Lucia’s changes too, far beyond the obvious physical ones, the edge of hunger to her gaze, the predatory slant in her posture- much like her father, if not quite as pronounced.

There was something else there too- traces of anger and all-too-human resentment.

It was convincing, if nothing else.

If he were ever to truly face Lucia Bellone once more, he expected that to be her reaction.

Indeed, perhaps even that idea had been plucked straight from his mind by whoever had concocted this illusion.

But the convenience of it- both Lucia and Magnus showing up together, embroiled in the supernatural world, even choosing to assault the space station exactly when its defences were weakened by the most recent infiltration.

Too impossible to make a good deception.

Michael frowned, when Magnus began to stir.

“Hello, Mike.”

Upon seeing his old, apparently deceased friend’s troubled expression, Magnus began to chuckle weakly.

“You still think this is some sort of trick.”

“It’s impossible.”

“And you were dead. And now you’ve returned to us, as a mage of Apotheosis, no less. It’s pretty hard to believe, no?”

“It is.”

“And yet, I’m not interested in that. I’m just…. Well, I’m grateful.”

Michael did not reply.

“You brought me here to the hospital. You don’t believe we are who we say, and you helped us anyway.”

“Well, what if I was wrong? If I am being fooled, it’s a fairly bulletproof deception, conjured by powers orders of magnitude greater than my own, as I cannot spot a single flaw. So it is fair to say I am completely at the mercy of this unknown power. And if there is no manipulation, then one of my closest friends is dying.”

Lucia snorted.

“Closest friend? You couldn’t even be bothered to tell us you weren’t dead.”

“That is true. That was entirely my mistake, even though I couldn’t have predicted how… this would all turn out.”

“I know… I know why you did it.” Magnus said.

Michael raised an eyebrow.

“Do you?”

“Your parents… they’re actually dead, aren’t they?”

Michael once more replied with only silence.

“My people have worked with Apotheosis long enough. We know how this outfit works.”

“What, you’re saying they killed Michael’s parents?” Lucia asked, “And he still continues to work with them.”

“I was told it was my own power going wild that killed them. That I had to learn to get myself in control so as to not pose an inadvertent threat to my surroundings.”

Magnus nodded.

“So you decided to stay away from your former life, in case of either possibility. Either the people that had you in their grasp were willing to kill and cut away the restraints of your former life, and you didn’t want to expose us to them, or you decided you yourself were a danger to be around and-”

“Don’t make excuses for him, Magnus,” Lucia snapped, “He made a decision on our behalf without trusting us to make it. The Michael we knew all those years ago wouldn’t ever presume.”

“Lucia…”

“She’s right. And I live among people that could effortlessly trace my timeline to the past, or individuals that may pluck the memories straight from my head, yet the people I treasured from my past remained mostly unharmed.”

Michael ran his eyes over what remained of Magnus’ wound.

“And when they have been harmed, it has been by my hand. No, I came to terms that I have no one to blame for the death of my parents but myself a long time ago. I chose not to contact either of you, even to let you know I was still alive… Well, I suppose there is more cowardice in me than I thought.”

Magnus straightened up in his bed, and punched Michael’s shoulder.

“There’s more cowardice in anyone than they’d like to admit.”

“You’re still taking this rather well,” Lucia observed, her tone acidic.

“I told you already, I’m too grateful to be angry.”

“Who did you lose?” Michael asked him.

Magnus turned a rather surprised look at him.

“What makes you think I lost someone?”

“The very fact that you’re too grateful to be angry. Who did you lose?”

“Ah, it was hardly anything important.”

“It was important to you.”

“Michael. Don’t pretend to care about what’s important to us. We’re not in conflict, but we don’t know you, not after all this time. No, don’t give me that look, Magnus, and don’t try and deny it. The man we’re facing right now is a member of an organisation that we currently may or may not be in conflict with, are definitely in conflict with one of its members in Iceland, and a man that has attacked us and grievously wounded one of us.”

Michael nodded, adjusting the lapels on his suit.

“Then I speak now as a representative of Apotheosis. What can I help you with?”

Magnus groaned.

“Are these theatrics really necessary?”

Lucia ignored him.

“We have grievances against one, perhaps two, of this organisation.”

She told Michael of the circumstances under which she crossed paths with Hans, and Victor, who seemed to be working to a common end.

Magnus filled in his end, beginning with his association with Victor, the ultimate fate of their company, his meeting with Abas in Dubai, and then with Lionel in Paris, and how that ultimately ended.

“Ah. I see.”

“What?”

“I had a meeting with Lionel myself, probably just a little while before you. He invaded my mind as well, and found my connection to…”

He paused in his sentence, met with another of Lucia’s smouldering stares.

“Anyway, he probably found the statistical improbability of it too much to bear.”

“Just like you did?” Magnus laughed.

“Just like I did.” Michael readily agreed.

“Magnus!”

They turned to see Anders storm in, flanked by armed people in grey on either side.

One of them addressed Michael.

“We had this one cornered in his room when the attack took place, my Lord. We thought he might be allied with them.”

“Well, you got that one right,” Anders growled, “You mind calling these guys off, mage? I’d really rather not hurt them.”

“You can go now. The attack was a- mistake. I’ll rectify it, you have my word.”

The people in grey backed away, distrust evident in their gaze.

Michael turned back to Magnus.

“Your boyfriend?” He asked.

Magnus nodded, then gestured to Michael to lean closer, which he did.

“All those years ago, when I told you about Lucia, and why she was upset about you leaving, and you said I had the wrong idea… What did you mean?”

Michael shook his head.

“It turns out, both of us were wrong. That doesn’t matter now.”

He straightened, his voice louder now.

“You two should catch up. We’ll discuss what our next steps should be later.”

Lucia and Michael walked out of the medical ward, leaving the two Ulfhednar to catch up.

Lucia turned on her heel to face him as they were out in the corridor.

“What was that you two were discussing? About my being upset about your leaving?”

“Ah, yes. Magnus thought you had a crush on me. I disagreed.”

Lucia snorted.

“I’m surprised you didn’t agree, with how bloated your head is.”

“My perfectly sized head doesn’t get in the way of an objective analysis. I thought it was abandonment issues. Common enough in teenage girls, especially with absentee fathers. I have reevaluated though.”

Lucia smiled, but there was no humour in it.

“So what does your psychoanalysis tell you now?”

“Well, considering your present condition, a lot of things can be seen in a different light. You obviously never let anyone get close to you, and the reason is obvious in hindsight. A lioness cannot properly mingle with lambs. The reason you were able to form attachments to Magnus and I also seems obvious. And the reason you were unwilling to let go can be chalked up to simple territoriality. Not very complicated. But it also doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“All of your past can be recontextualized with new information, but the exercise is never productive. Beyond being used as a lesson, the past cannot be interacted with, and it doesn’t matter. It’s a dream.”

“This is your way of telling me to get over it? The past can’t be changed, so you wash your hands of this mess? Is that why it was so easy for you to move on and forget about everything? Because the past doesn’t matter?”

“Yes.”

Lucia nodded, not quite so angry anymore, having gotten the answer she had been looking for.

“Well, you’re right, Michael, it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”

“Lucia-”

“What? You were honest, I appreciate that. And you are right. I shouldn’t react the way I did, you were just some guy I knew for a year or so. You’re right, I shouldn’t have expected that much from you.”

“How did you start over with Magnus?”

“We weren’t all that close before. So we decided to start fresh. Since then, we’ve been through- well, I won’t say a lot, but we’ve been through it.”

“We can start fresh too. Nothing hidden between us now.”

Lucia shrugged.

“I got used to working alone. Just like I got used to never seeing the sun again.”

“But you don’t need to compromise. You’ve got the whole universe waiting ahead now, in a way you never did before. As for the sun… Do you want to see it right now?”

Lucia hesitated.

“What is this about, Michael?”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Why should I? The past doesn’t matter, right?”

“The past doesn’t matter, except as a lesson. Do you think you can trust me?”

Michael held out a hand.

Lucia clasped it in her own, and felt her hair rise for an instant, as if from a rush of static energy.

“Come on. Follow me.”

They walked through perfectly symmetrical corridors to the central hall, an ivory statue that Lucia recognised as Alexander the Great atop a steed as the centrepiece of the hall, and massive windows looking out into the void of space.

And there she saw it, the sphere of superheated gases tying the planets around it through gravity in elliptical orbits-

The golden breath of all life she knew-

The sun, it’s light washing over her for the first time in what was really a month or so, but felt like a lot longer.

“I’ve cut off the infrared part of the radiation. I could also shield you from UV, but that’s a much smaller portion; I wouldn’t want to take the risk. There’s no real reason a vampire should be vulnerable to sunlight; I guess your link to the Astral Realms gave you a disadvantage there. Unlike us, your physiology is directly affected by your soul, and since enough people believe you should be vulnerable to sunlight… Well, you are. Unless it’s not technically sunlight anymore.”

“You know, I’ve never needed an invitation to break and enter a residence though.”

Michael laughed.

“Those stories were probably more for their peace of mind than anything. You should be safe in your home, your sanctum. I suppose the average person just doesn’t feel all that confident in the invulnerability of their sanctum any longer, subconsciously. They probably never did.”

“Oh?”

“Either that, or my first theory is completely off base. I’m hardly an expert.”

Lucia let the sunlight wash over her a bit longer, the infrared unable to touch her skin, thus producing no heat.

“That shield does have a threshold, you know. Don’t expect to jump in a fire and be unharmed.”

“Hmm. This sunlight thing; It’s overrated.”

“I am sorry, you know.”

Lucia didn’t say a word.

“I decided on your behalf to keep you in the dark. That was a mistake. I have always been impressed with your strength and your mind as well, even when you were fifteen. This is probably a little presumptuous of me to say, but you’ve developed… extraordinarily. The ability you showed here today-”

“Might want to save some of those compliments for Magnus as well.”

“Yes. I wronged him as well, rather egregiously so, by taking away his choice in the matter. But my decision to keep Magnus in the dark was not wrong. He should not be here.”

Lucia frowned, but she had the sense, deep down, that she understood what Michael was saying.

So instead, she told him, “I need a place to crash.”

Michael pointed her to his room.

“Your bed?” she asked him. “And you don’t intend to rest?”

“I have a bit of work to do, and all three of us have work to do tomorrow, especially regarding the new information you’ve brought to the table. I’ll shoot up a stimulant if I feel tired.”

Lucia shrugged, then walked by Michael, heading to his room, and her shoulder rubbed against his back as she brushed past him.

Michael smiled, then headed back to his office once more.