Two dozen empty eyes blinked down at the boy’s dead body. Emilia wanted to avert her own eyes, but doing so seemed like the perfect way to give herself away. Just act normal, if normal meant act like your mind has been melted under the oppressive power of magical gifts—or worse, something insidious winding its way through the platform or entire raid system—anyways.
Not having had much of a chance to converse with the other visitors Clarity had acquired, Emilia had no idea if they had already had their brains melted or if something about the labyrinths they’d been taken to before coming here were special, but the two visitors of the other team they’d happened to across were just as strange as Vermilion now was. It was horrible, but at least everyone seemed to have fallen into the mindset of the mission comes before all else, and questions about her own normality weren’t coming up.
She worried for V, though. Her wisp energy hadn’t returned, although she was unsure if it would have, even if it did manage to find her friend. Hopefully, it had found him—warned him about what was happening, even if that meant…
Emilia blinked down at the boy lying at their feet. There was no blood, one of Jerrina’s gifts having the ability to snuff out life like it had never been there. She supposed she could be grateful the woman hadn’t turned that magic on her, but at least then she’d be home, out of here and—
And worrying for the lives she had left behind.
⸂Let’s move,⸃ the other group’s leader said, chin jutting out in the direction both of their groups had been heading.
Apparently there were three teams assigned to each task, coming in from different locations. A stop gap in case two of the groups didn’t make it; if they were caught by the Ingogia family or forced to detour. The other group had run into the Risen Guard back in the city, and while their last messages had spoken of trying to escape, their presence had since been removed from Clarity’s messaging system.
No one had answered her when she asked if that meant they were dead. When she’d been inside the labyrinths, her access to the Risen Guard system had been cut off, but Honey and Boundary had both been able to message her—her name had still existed on their contact lists. If the members of the other group were just gone… Well, it was possible the Risen Guard had ways of completely blocking systems—of faking deaths.
Stars knew The Black Knot could do such things, their technology blocking communication so completely that any messages sent to their captives would be bounced back as undeliverable, just as they would be, were the person actually dead. Unless things had changed in the last decade, they rarely used that technology. It wasn’t something the public knew they could do: create complete black sites, no information in or out unless the group allowed it. Being taken to such a place was a death sentence. You did not escape those places.
It could be like that here as well.
Finally, then began to move again, flying over the purple grass with ease as Vermilion’s gift activated, sending blood-red tendrils cascading out with each of their steps. The lack of night was annoying, the Ingogia Estate existing—Emilia assumed—on top of one of the city system’s buildings, just like the Stringer Estate.
Two suns burned in the sky, filling the world with light that scattered through the foliage of the abundant trees. At least they could sprint between the copses of trees to keep hidden—Emilia didn’t really want to come across more people to kill before she could… do something. What? She had no idea. Maybe, once they were closer to the houses where the Ingogia family lived, she could alert them to their presence and hope they’d give her clemency, or at least stop Clarity from murdering them and every Enclave member they found.
Not that she didn’t have mixed opinions on that. The reality of the situation was that huge swathes of the Enclave were corrupted, and from what she’d heard—although who knew how trustworthy anything out of a Clarity member’s mouth was—the Ingogia family was one of the worst.
The least they could do was let the children live, but then they’d just be hoping those children wouldn’t come seeking revenge another day.
Inevitably, they would. One day, the children they let live would pop out to destroy Clarity and whatever world they built, even if it was likely the majority of the Clarity members taking part in this siege would be dead by then, leaving those soon-to-be grown children without the ability to seek out vengeance on the specific people responsible for the deaths of their loved ones. The visitors among them would be home as well, heading back into their regular lives and leaving memories of this place behind—or dealing with the psychological trauma of whatever the heartcores had done to them. That was also an option.
The point was, Emilia hated this: hated this quest that she’d accidentally been dragged along on. It was stupid and ill thought out and going to get so many people needlessly killed. She hated that she couldn’t do anything about it, hated that V was out there somewhere, and she couldn’t help him—couldn’t keep him safe, hated that these people had been infected by the heartcores and Ajarni’s manipulations.
⸂Shh!⸃ Kyren hissed, everyone tugging to a halt behind him.
Vermilion hissed, one hand slapping over her mouth while another gripped at her overexerted core. It hadn’t been this bad before, when she’d just been moving the two of them. Even their group of six had clearly been too much for them, but Yuka and the leader of the other group had insisted they stick together on their now joint mission. Now, Vermilion was paying the price.
They’d all pay the price later, if her ability to augment their movements was lost because her core broke down.
Emilia blinked around the group, wondering if the world they were hoping to create was worth their lives. Regardless of what was happening inside them—of what or who was manipulating them—they did truly seem to want to make the world a better place. It was unlikely any of them would see that world, their lives destined to be ground to a halt by this mission or ones that would follow.
They had all accepted that fate—accepted their lives were worth the world they wanted to create. Emilia might not agree with their methods or the sensibility of their plan, but she hoped it was worth it—hoped the world they made wouldn’t simply be a mutilated extension of this one.
Kyren’s energy swept out of him, moving over the giant empty field they had stopped short of. It was too open; anyone looking into it would clearly see them and sound the alarm. They couldn’t go through it, so instead they’d simply jump it, even if Emilia could feel how each jump was cracking Kyren’s core.
⸂Let’s go,⸃ the man said, eyes flashing black as magic swept out of him and the aether.
It was the third such jump they’d made, although the first with so many people. The world vanished, the black of the aether pulling them inside it in a move that was similar to sparking but felt impossibly more ominous and dangerous—and this was coming from the person who had designed and tested sparking and definitely worried they would get stuck inside the aether while doing so!
It had been war, though—as this arguably was as well—and safety precautions were pushed aside more often than any of them would have liked to admit. Luckily, only a handful of people had ever fucked up sparking badly enough to have seemingly disappeared—or, in a few extremely unfortunate cases, come out a mangled flesh blob. But! Those had all been outliers and the result of either not using the skill properly or using a hacked Censor!
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It had not been her fault, thank you! Operator, not programmer, error!
That thought stuck with her as the world bent under someone else’s control, and they popped out on the other side of the field, Kyren immediately leaning over and beginning to dry heave—he’d already lost what food he’d eaten that day after the first time.
The aether shuddered, and when Emilia’s eyes followed the stream of angry black energy, she found a line of power leading from Jerrina to another body—another teenager, by the looks of it. Most likely, they’d just been out for a stroll in the early hours of the holiday, celebrations beginning at midnight and continuing for the entirety of the day—apparently sometimes extending into the next day, if there were enough people still going.
They hadn’t deserved to die like this, alone and unsuspecting. Had the other child struck down just as emotionlessly by Jerrina been waiting for this one? How many more children would they kill because it was a necessity?
⸂We will do our best to restrict the deaths that occur at our hands,⸃ Ajarni had sighed from his pedestal, his own hands clean of the lives his followers were now taking. He had almost looked sincere—almost. Emilia had seen that look before, in the eyes of politicians concerned with saying the right thing and being believable. Some could do it well, others not so much. Ajarni almost had it down, but not quite. Definitely enough that, in this world without political broadcasts, no locals was liable to have seen enough to realize their deceptions.
The man had shifted, looking uncomfortable in a fabricated way. His eyes had flickered shut while he just breathed, and for those long minutes where he had sat, seemingly composing himself before needing to lay out the truth of the matter—the truth that they would need to kill everyone—to his followers, the world had been silent.
It had been thoroughly disconcerting, and when she and V had dared to even whisper privately between each other, they had received dirty looks from everyone. Apparently, mister high and mighty overlord was not to be interrupted in his inner contemplation.
Eventually, he had spoken again, his words filled with contradictions about not taking any lives, killing all those who deserved death, enacting suffering on their enemies, forgiving even the worst offences.
⸂We are all children of the universe,⸃ he had said, rising and beginning to pace the room, the heads of his followers swivelling as they followed him—as though to lose sight of him would be a travesty, a sin in its own right. ⸂We return life to the universe, where those lives have strayed from the path. We let lives continue, as they are only following the path the universe has laid out for them. Who are we, to question the way the universe has guided them? Who are we, to allow them to forsake the world we live in and the plan the universe has for all of us?⸃
⸂Talk about contradicting yourself with every word you say,⸃ V had muttered to her, ignoring the disapproving glower Phlostra sent his way. The woman hadn’t heard him, of course—V’s words were for Emilia alone, after all—but apparently she was paying just as much attention to the ripple of aether around them as much as to her leader’s insanity.
This—this stupid ass quest—wasn’t letting people live the lives the universe had laid out for them. This was murdering children because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time—where the universe had led them to be—and it was horrific. No one but her seemed to care. The Clarity members looked down at the corpse of this second child with just as much apathy as they had the first, and even in the brief moments where the other visitors managed to escape the monster pressing down on their personalities, she could see their apathy as well.
To them, these weren’t people. These were just ones and zeros, animated by artificial minds. Who were they to care about their deaths? All they wanted was to win—to escape this world with a prize and as little psychological damage as possible.
⸂Good riddance,⸃ Jerrina sneered, long hair flying as she turned, ignoring Kyren’s hiss to be silent.
The fact that the man’s hacking and coughing was silent was fascinating, his body shifting as his stomach attempted to empty itself. No sound escaped him, however. Emilia couldn’t decide if the lack of sound made the attempts at vomiting more or less gross, but she was leaning towards more.
⸂We’re almost there,⸃ Yuka said, bright red eyes staring into the distance.
On her map—which she had luckily never mentioned to anyone other than the kids she had access to, and they’d been smart enough to never bring up around other people—Emilia could see a collection of houses. Each was marked with a symbol to indicate she had no knowledge of who lived there—or what the purpose of the building was, perhaps? It was unclear, but as they moved closer to said buildings, Vermilion looking more and more liable to pass out as her movement augmentation gift wore on her, little dots began to light up the houses across Emilia’s map.
Emilia didn’t know much about the group that had joined them. When they pulled to a stop and one of their members commented that there were a dozen people inside the closest house. She wasn’t sure whether to assume they had a system map of their own or a gift that allowed them to determine how many people were within a building. None of the locals she’d talked to had ever mentioned their own system access having a map, so it could have been a function exclusive to the Risen Guard. She had no idea, but as someone who had spent a large portion of their life hacking their Censor and adding functions into it—not to mention forcing those functions onto her friends—it was interesting to consider that the Risen Guard system might have exclusive functions—that every group’s system might.
Were she around nicer people, she might have asked about it. These people were not nice, and she definitely wasn’t asking them, especially not when they were starting to argue about whether the mission should be reassessed or not, her eyes lingering on a glob of spit a man from the other group had rudely spewed onto the ground. A memory of Olivier flashed through her head, the man pissed and arguing with her but subtly proud of how much she knew, at least until she poked him a bit too much.
Things had worked out between them, though, after that debate. He’d helped her. She’d annoyed him. He’d left her behind after gifting her freedom.
This—their group falling apart because the sixth member of their group was now snapping rudely at people—was not going to work out.
Yuka stepped towards the woman, apparently intent to calm her. Emilia could understand the newcomer's anger at the mere suggestion they withdraw, at least a little bit. The woman was a spy within the Risen Guard, and while Emilia still thought her being there in general was stupid, if they stopped the mission now, there would be no returning to it for her.
And she was right, someone—two someones, technically—were already dead. The Ingogia family would know they had been there. There would be no second chance, not with this Enclave family, and they were the only ones with a harbinger who had gained system access, as far as any of them knew.
Emilia eyed up the building that Clarity’s intel had said housed a branch of the family who were less involved in the day-to-day workings of the family. It was, allegedly, the easier place to start. They’d know bits and pieces about what was happening within the more active branch—the part that was housing the visitor who had allegedly gained access to the system—but as they were less trained, there would be less risk of a fight breaking out.
They also couldn’t hear visitors, according to intel. Not knowing the source of said intel, Emilia had no idea what to believe, but she wasn’t about to risk getting them caught because she had to sneeze, the spicy air itching at her nose. Given said intel had also stated there shouldn’t have been so many people inside that house, and those extra people were an unknown variable pushing the riskiness of this mission—of her sneezing—higher and higher, she forced herself to swallow down the sneeze.
⸂We will go on,⸃ Yuka was saying, their voice an uncharacteristic growl as they glared down the visitor—a girl from the other team—who had suggested they head back: reassess and try again another day.
The girl seemed… oddly insistent, uncontrollable magic from a gift she had received that granted her easier use of electric magic dancing at her fingers.
If they fought here, they’d attract everyone’s attention. There would be no turning back—no trying to spare any lives. Everyone would die, and while that seemed the endgame anyways, they wouldn’t have even learned anything if that happened!
It would be a waste of dozens upon dozens of lives and—
Emilia sighed, stepping forward in an attempt to stop the fight threatening to break out between the girl and Yuka.
Stupid.