Randidly was so genuinely thrown by the expression of absolute conviction on this President’s face that he didn’t have much of a reaction for several seconds. He had been ravaged by a storm of emotions over the course of his recent memory and this unexpected non-sequitur of an appearance threw him. In a peculiar way, not even Randidly’s high Stats could help him react quickly to this. The perhaps not-especially-sophisticated President Cale West of Zone 1 took his silence as an admission of guilt.

He shook his head sorrowfully. His lined face creased in a practiced look of empathy. “Look, I can understand that there is a lot on your plate, but as a leader, you need to take responsibility for your actions. In this case, considering most of the infected have been locked down, so long as you publicly apologize and cover the costs of the damages incurred-”

Very rapidly, the President’s somewhat droning voice snapped Randidly’s focus to a razor’s edge. The darkening cloud of his emotions choked off the man’s words without even a physical outlet, as they clogged the air like acrid pollution, causing the man to look at Randidly with an appalled and worried expression.

Randidly’s emerald eyes narrowed as he mentally recounted the series of events that lead him here. He had fought against Duulys to the point he was completely exhausted. He had woken up prematurely from his rest because he felt some disturbances in his Alpha Cosmos, to find the Ascension Pact on his homeworld, a forgivable offense, but also that Fiona was grieving in the worst sort of immature way.

Then he had woken up from his next nap with the intent to train, only to find that his relationship with his mother had become some sort of socio-psychic dumping ground for unmoored significance. As he began to take steps to correct that problem, he was slapped over the head with the fact his father had died an indeterminate amount of time ago without him noticing.

And now this?

Fuck this, A very indignant Randidly Ghosthound thought. Violence was his first impulse, tempted by the very cathartic image of Sulfur’s massive fist doing some much-needed renovations on this man’s face. A mental vignette of turning his cheekbones concave. However, the prospect of cleaning squirted brain matter out of Tatiana’s tasteful couch and explaining to Zone 1 what happened to their leader gave him some pause.

He was a mature adult. Violence was not the way to solve every problem.

Especially when this man really didn’t have any sort of recourse against him. Not when he had so many satisfying options.

Randidly flexed his hands, still slightly sore from the prolonged stiffness during his completion of the Hierarchy of Burden. A dull burn of hateful frustration simmered along the edges of Randidly’s vision as he peered into the significance swirling across Expira to get the real story of this figure in front of him. “I don’t think that’s necessary, soon-to-be-former President West. I have done nothing to earn responsibility for this matter; wasn’t it your troops that behaved so irresponsibly and allowed the situation to escalate? After Ghost had warned you, as well. Tsk tsk.”

“You-” President West’s eyes bulged, trying to figure which part of Randidly’s statement to respond to. He settled on the easiest and first target, his eyes narrowing. “Soon-to-be-former? Is that a threat, Mr. Ghosthound?”

“Just an observation on Zone 1’s political system,” Randidly responded smoothly. His mind buzzed as significance flowed into him, feeding him strange situational context for the presidency of this man. He didn’t even need to ask for it; this world was very literally his body, giving freely as he wondered. Curiosity mobilized Nether to flow through his body and drop off nuggets of information. “You will eventually be replaced by someone whose platform mostly revolves around not being you. No wonder you are so humble, to constantly have that legacy hanging over you.”

President West gapped at Randidly for several seconds. “At least our democratic process gives everyone a voice. While your cronyism in Kharon-”

“Did you know,” When Randidly interrupted, his Nether Weight smothered the other man’s words and access to air, rendering him animated yet stifled. Perhaps usually he wouldn’t vent so directly on random idiots, but it had had a long few days. Randidly’s eyes glittered with Revelation energy as he peered more deeply into significance. “That the 90% of the voters in Zone 1 are between the Levels of 5 and 60? And you- Level 72, right? Pretty impressive, to that group of individuals, it seems.

“Obviously Individuals with a low-Level or without a Class are either too young to vote, don’t care, or rather unplugged from the current political situation. And when you start examining the individuals that make it to Level 60… well, most of those people are either powerful enough they don’t need to putz around with electing a politician to accomplish their goals or they see you for what you are: an individual who shunts responsibility onto convenient targets while accomplishing nothing. A man whose most accomplished skill is pointing.”

Randidly heartbeat quickened as he finished channeling the context of this President’s situation. The man looked at him, bug eyed. Inwardly, Randidly couldn’t decide if the sudden ability to access Nether like it was a reference System was one of the new functions of the Hierarchy of Burden or whether stumbling his way through the final layer had given him some implicit intuition not quite represented in any Skill.

He felt slightly better after ranting at this officious and presuming man, but Randidly still had the absence of his father aching in his heart. The flush of catharsis faded and left him unchanged. The headache of how to handle Fiona loomed over him. And more than anything else, he again found himself exhausted.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

At least my Nether Core has had time to whirl back up to speed, Randidly mused darkly.

Yet despite what Randidly had interpreted as a flimsy character, President West bounced back relatively quickly. He scowled rather openly now, but didn’t lose the conviction of his authority as he sat forward on Randidly’s couch. “I should have expected you’ve been keeping tabs on me- you are too jealous of your own authority to let any other compelling ideas develop, aren’t you? But I’ll say this: you brought this infectious image into our world. If you think the people of Expira are going to sit back and allow you to ruin our carefully protected peace-

Then an expression of cruelty came across his features. “Also, I know for a fact you’ve recently had some of your shell corporations buy highly sought-after land in Zone 1, under extremely unusual circumstances. Some might even say you illegally pressured the seller into parting with B’s Crossing. If this case was brought before the court-”

“No matter what sort of outcome the court came to,” Randidly said with enough quiet heat that steam began to rise from his body. “Do you think you can hurt me as badly as I could hurt you?”

For the slightest moment, Randidly’s image physicalizations partially condensed around his body. The Grey Creature, instinctually sensing the antagonism of another being, raised its head and peered into this ‘threat’s’ soul. A sliver of the lurking emotional monster inside of Randidly reached through, ready to rend and destroy anything in its path.

Choking and trembling, President West fell back on the couch. His eyes twitched, anxiety urging him to keep his gaze on Randidly at all times, but his fear prevented him from doing so for too long.

“Besides, you can’t have it both ways,” Randidly slowly walked forward. Still unable to breathe and with a reddening face, the president crab shuffled sideways along the couch to stay away from him. Randidly’s even steps continued to approach. “You were one of the loudest critics when I closed off trade to the Nexus. I told you it was for your own good. And now, when a figure from the Nexus comes to Expira and casually, mostly to amuse herself and vent some emotions, manages to start a rapacious plague that you bungle into losing half a city? You whine to me about it?”

Randidly felt the Grey Creature struggling and flailing to pressure the man further; just the directed pressure of its attention had the man whimpering. Randidly stopped right next to the man, quite disgusted by the thin film of sweat that covered his brow. He flicked his wrist, produced the Alchemist’s Passport, and opened a portal. “Until today, I didn’t even notice you, soon-to-be-former President Cale West. When you have some time, think about how it felt when you forced me to look at you. Let’s not do this again.”

Without waiting for the man to respond, Randidly picked him up by the scruff of the neck and tossed him through. The portal led directly into the man’s personal bedroom, hopefully another very poignant lesson in why not to mess with him.

Randidly stood there for another minute, the bubbling annoyance subsiding. Expending some emotion on the man had been somewhat cathartic, but again, in the wake of that Randidly just found himself with the dull cloak of loss and supreme loneliness.

Sighing, he shook his head. “This is exactly why I refuse those political meetings… I need a nap.”

*****

Delilah looked around. “Can we really just… make use of the University Forum for this? A lot of people do group practices here…”

Xershi put his hands on his hips and laughed. Somewhere over the past few hours he had found an ill-fitting Kharon Academy hat. He almost looked like a volunteer youth sports coach. “Of course. An area like this, with easy to damage locations around it, helps foster image control. But if you really aren’t sure… Hey, y’all, does anyone have a problem with us using this space?”

The thousand or so Kharon Academy students that sat around on the tiered levels of the amphitheater emphatically shook their heads. They remained curiously silent through the entire motion, while also maintaining their worshipful looks toward the metal liger man. Delilah felt some respect for the student body of Kharon collapsing as she saw this.

“So,” Xershi flashed his teeth. “Shall we begin? Your wind needs to be broader, D. It needs to be bigger and more unrestrained, so it can force its way through anything. Pry open any sort of crack and find its way back to the sky. Well, let me ask you another question, the question at the basis of the entire premise of us training together. Do you want power?”

Delilah ignored the abrupt pivot to a pet name, even if she had only ferried the Ghosthound’s companions and had one awkward night/dinner with them. Instead, her eyes drifted over the sea of watching students, absorbing their rapt expressions. Her thoughts drifted, almost stumbling across his question. She regarded it suspiciously, as though it hid a trick. Do I want power?

She turned briefly to the past. Xershi’s upheaval in the Academy had started this morning when a practice race was being run for the Ghosthound Grand Prix in a few weeks. Students with Scrawled bits of wood and metal filled the sky in a whooshing and zooming slipstream, the entire town’s commercial apparatus taking a half-day off to give them time to practice in a low-stress environment.

Xershi had saw and demanded he be allowed to join in on the fun. Bemused, Delilah had taken him to the scrap yard and taught him how to Scrawl. Of course, his initial dozen attempts resulted in the small piece of whatever shattering into a million pieces. His image was too intense, and he had no knowledge of how to allow it to strengthen material before transferring all its force into the substance.

Delilah had rather enjoyed seeing the powerful man fail. Then he had abruptly announced he was going to seek a ‘more suitable material’. She had shrugged, knowing this was a common reaction that sometimes helped, but that Xershi’s image power was so great that he definitely needed at least a little bit of a sophisticated application to keep whatever unfortunate item from exploding.

Xershi did not go out and pick up a massive log to handle his Mana, as it was rumored Randidly Ghosthound had done during his early struggles. Instead, he found a gangly teen who could successfully Scrawl, talked quickly to the bespectacled youth for under a minute, then applied his Scrawl directly to the youth’s body. Delilah watched in horror as the kid shivered and twitched; the process was obviously painful.

However-

Once it was done, the two shot off as though they were launched from a missile silo. Their incredible speed released waves of wind that unseated almost every nearby Scrawl-er was unseated from their vehicles. They blasted back and forth across the sky, quickly garnering the attention of the entire contingent. It only took them a moment to cross the significant airspace above Kharon and its associate skyislands, bank into a wide parabola of a turn, and then roar right back past.

When they landed, the bespectacled teen was beset by jealous peers. He had smugly announced that today was ‘the most metal experience I’ve ever had’.