Randidly scrunched up his forehead, pouring all his concentration into the task. His Nether Core slowly rotated as he adjusted his mental state. His eyelids fluttered as he almost began to view his inner workings in a cross-eyed manner. His focus became razor sharp.

For several minutes, he just existed in that extended moment of strain. His muscles were tense and his mind buzzed with the effort he poured into it. The Nether Core rotated, inscrutable and unimpressed by his efforts to completely invert the way he had viewed it for so long. His examination shook until it was quite blurry.

Yet when the shift happened, Randidly nearly gasped at the massive difference it made.

His Nether Core spun, pulling in Nether. For several seconds, he kept his attention focused on the Nether Core, marveling at how natural this new perception seemed. Then, almost nervous about what he would find, Randidly expanded his awareness of all the Nether connections that formed ‘him’. He opened himself back up to all the information that he had to ignore to get to this point.

Nether surged toward him in a constant tide, pulling all sorts of different bits of significance into Randily. All rivers of significance flowed downhill to fill him. He seemed to be in the center of the world, a whirlpool of energy that devoured everything. Examining the process, what struck Randidly most of all was how much other people had to give to him. The meaning that flowed along was perhaps not as refined or elegant as his own, but it possessed just as much heft and significance.

His perspective widened. He had assumed that his Nether Core meant it so he was the main source of Nether, especially in the Alpha Cosmos. And that was definitely one of the dominant ways of examining the process.

But Nether came from connection. He had the ability to make those connections in a way that most people lacked, but once the bridges were present, traffic went both ways. Compared to the whole of the Alpha Cosmos, Randidly gathered significance at a snail’s pace.

Randidly raised his fingers and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He pulled away from his Nether and simply allowed some of the aching in his brain to subside. He even felt vaguely dizzy, as he forced his perspective into a new arrangement. But he suspected, quite like his earlier insight into connections being present without him noticing, that looking at the Nether flowing in this manner would help him understand the overall structure of Nether Rituals and organic systems in profound ways.

His emerald eyes flickered. He could imagine the way that he would need to layer these two awarenesses on top of one another, one a Core that produced silky Nether and another that consumed it. And once he had those down, Randidly wondered if there were other ways of viewing the energy that would help him. How many ways would he need to stretch his mind before the end?

He came back into his inner space with those distractions and everything immediately fell to pieces. Part of the problem was some of his focus slipped; he no longer was thoroughly convincing himself that energy flowed in a certain way. Another was his mental exhaustion, making his instincts blunt and hasty forces.

The result was that there were portions that Randidly remembered flowing in one way and others that flowed in a different one. He viewed them a certain way, so that was how they behaved, even if both flows affected the shape. In this case, tides of Nether smashed into each other with a cataclysmic sizzle and screech. Above the island, the storm darkened and thundered. The force of Randidly’s prodigious Nether flows charging into each other manifested in the physical realm. The storm began tearing at itself, ripping huge gashes in the air that imploded in deadly sounding claps.

Randidly reached out to try and correct the flows, but some portion of him still felt backward; his instincts guided him in the wrong direction in a few key points. He tightened his grip on the power and somehow opened a massive, gaping rift in existence above the eye of the storm. Very literally, it seemed like he had conjured a massive, sizzling pupil that looked dispassionately down at all the training individuals. The environment became harsh, the pressure the Nether exerted grew.

Releasing a shaky breath, Randidly forced himself to lean back and relax. His head pounded. The Nether storm has been going for a long time, without my micromanaging. I’m destabilizing it by forcefully interfering. So I just need to… lean back and relax.

Just… relax.

Randidly did so. It wasn’t easy to let go. In his chaotic Nether Core, his First Authority growled at this transgression against its desire for absolute control. His Fourth Authority cheerfully continued to radiate blended Aether and Nether into the surroundings, encouraging constant growth. Gradually, the storm stabilized. The massive pupil closed, the monstrous side of Randidly’s power going back to sleep.

Even he dozed a little bit, letting his mind recover from the experience. When he woke up, he found a message from Tatiana waiting for him. It’s almost time. Are you ready for the trial?

*****

Randy looked at the demolished stone outcroppings with wide eyes. Buzzards circled above, lazy and sluggish in the heat. Men in yellow hard hats slung axes, pickaxes, and rakes across their shoulders, quickly flattening all offending bits of terrain into a manicured desert expanse. Another group looked at drawn-up plans and gestured to the space.

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Everything moved quickly.

However, Randy’s gaze went to one specific area. Nothing was there now, just some broken stone and dust. But previously-

“Takeyhands home,” Randy whispered. They wondered what home would be attacked next. Then they tried to imagine losing this warm little house that Bethyl had made, with a room for Randy. Their heart pounded so loudly that it seemed to be slamming against the inside of their ribcage. Something angry and vicious rose in their chest, urging them to activate the Skill they used to purify food and turn it on these selfish people who dared come here and do whatever they wanted. But Randy would activate the Skill beyond the current control they could display, sucking away more and more until these men were punished for what they did.

Destroying a home was a sin. They couldn’t just be allowed to do that.

But as Randy stood there fuming, one of the men looked up at Randy and they hopped back in shock from the direct eye contact. Randy scampered back down the hill, tears streaming down their cheeks. A few regulars at B’s Crossing waved fondly from their porches, but Randy couldn’t slow down at all to greet them. They careened in through the backdoor to B’s Crossing with enough momentum that they almost slammed into the stainless steel food prep table where they worked.

After scrambling across the tiled floor, they burst into the kitchen. “Bethyl, they destroyed Takeyhands-”

“Easy girl,” Bethyl said, bringing her finger up to her lips. Then she inclined her head toward the television terminal hanging in the kitchen. On the screen, an ugly-looking woman was being led into a room and then handcuffed to a metal table. Both Durro and the other new ogre chef looked at the screen intently.

Takeyhands, hearing his name, flipped down off one of the high shelves. “Eh? Destroyed? Oh, the people building on the hills? Heh, you think I didn’t hear them coming a mile away and moved my treasures? Besides, more people are better! More targets to take from…”

“But still,” Randy whispered. But that ugly feeling receded, leaving them feeling shaky and confused. They pictured one of those men in yellow hard hats bringing a sledgehammer against the wall of Bethyl’s house. “They can’t just… do that.”

Bethyl reached over and patted Randy’s shoulder. But she never looked away from the television.

“What are they waiting for?” Durro muttered. He gave the burger patty in front of him a half-hearted flip and then folded his arms. “Wasn’t this supposed to start at two? And jeez, I hope the trial isn’t gonna be dragged out-”

Even Randy stiffened at the movement on the television, as the camera pivoted to show a man walking into the back portion of the courtroom and taking a seat. Other people moved out of his way. Every eye in the room was glued to him. His hair was cut short and dark. He moved with a lithe grace that Randy somehow knew everyone desire but very few could actually grasp. A frown was etched into his face that made him resemble an austere granite outcropping, all weight and grey implacability.

But the weirdest part was that Randy could feel him. Looking at him, even knowing that he was so far away, she could feel his heartbeat, his headache, his impatience. But below all that, Randy felt the same ugly thing they had experienced earlier, magnified a thousand times. She had briefly housed a drizzle of bile in her body during that flare of anger, but this man was the monster that oozed that vile with every movement-

“Randidly Ghosthound. And he looks fucking pissed.” The new chef said, a sizable amount of awe present in his tone. Durro and Bethyl nodded in agreement. Even Takeyhands stopped his constant fidgeting and lowered himself onto his stomach.

“GUYS! Everyone!” Dessy, one of the new servers, bashed through the swinging doors into the kitchen with the same sort of grace Randy had displayed earlier. Her frogperson knees were constantly splayed out at 45-degree angles from her hips, so she slammed one against the edge of the doorframe and stumbled for a bit. But then Dessy was back up, eyes bright and panicked. “That’s Randidly Ghosthound!”

“Yea, we know,” Durro said sardonically as he folded his hands across his chest. “Just like everyone else knows. I haven’t seen him before, but who could miss those features? Those eyes of his-”

“No-no-no-no,” Dessy’s tongue flicked out and messily wiped across her face. “He’s here! Err, well, he was here. A few days ago. At B’s Crossing. They had a table. Him and two women. Beautiful women, I might add. Do you remember-”

“What?” Bethyl blinked several times.

“Impossible,” Durro announced. The other chef gave Dessy a long look but said nothing.

“-when I got that one hundred credit tip? That was them! They-”

Randy couldn’t look away from Randidly Ghosthound, in the same way that the camera person seemed unwilling to pull back and show more of the rest of the courtroom while he remained there. A scene should begin and end around this dark-haired man. Putting him in the background felt like a mistake.

For several seconds, the television feed was just Randidly Ghosthound, the most powerful man in the world, sitting on a bench and leaning forward so his elbows rested against his knees. His eyes seemed unnaturally bright. His emotions radiated off of him like heat. Randy could barely breathe-

Takeyhands hopped onto Randy’s shoulders, finally making them realize they had probably just stood there bug-eyed for a full minute. They sucked in a hasty breath and began to cough. Takeyhands picked through Randy’s hair for nonexistent bugs, but it did do a lot to calm them down.

The argument between Dessy and Durro was silenced as the camera finally moved away, showing an older woman in a judge's robes. She walked up the small stairs to the judge’s bench and sat down with little fanfare.

“Alright let’s-” The judge began, but from the way her eyes flicked sideways and then visibly widened, Randy knew that the judge noticed Randidly Ghosthound. She recalibrated, swallowed, and then continued to speak. “Ahem. Let’s begin. This will be an expedited trial, governed by a blend of laws agreed on by the World Council. To that end, I will not be pronouncing a judgment, but simply making notes on rules of law for later deliberation. The final decision will come down to the World Council, with input from… representatives from approved Orders.

“Now, council for the prosecution, would you like to make your opening statement?”