Little Celah, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Sixthmonth, 1634 PTS
The agony welled up within me, my body perhaps held together only by rampaging energies of my Heart of Rainfall, the relentless pressure of the storm helping to expel the foreign energies from inside me. I could feel my skin peeling, feel the blood well up through my pores, feel my body itself unravel. I was alive, and I could think, but could I even move, could I attack her again? The blade in my hand almost seemed to pulse, as if it wished me to raise it again, to put it to use.
But if I did, I wondered what it would cost me. My arm? My life? The lesion was far more dangerous than I had anticipated, and yet what gain had it even brought me?
The Shade still stood before me. The silver dust had fallen to the metal of the floor around us, forming small piles, but just from a glance at her form, one would not even be able to tell that she was damaged at all. I could feel my raw knuckles. My formless physique allowed me to push as much of the force behind my blows into my target as possible, but some returned force was inevitable, and at the speed of my blows, I had been dealt some damage in return, minor as it was compared to the wounds I had received from miasma today. I clutched the dagger in my fist, clenched so tightly that I was not sure I could drop it if I even wished to.
Perhaps if I had my sword, I could have fought her properly. It had been a long day, however, and I simply wished for it to be over. I simply wished her to be dead.
I glanced over to check on Irid, who was sitting on the ground, her face dripping with her bright-red blood. She was as injured as I was, or perhaps even worse, but she had not yet died. I knew that the Magister’s aim was deadly precise, and couldn’t imagine how many times his bullets had hit their mark. I wondered whether she would survive to the morning.
Was this worth it, I wondered? We were being bold, by taking this opportunity to make our move, but at what cost? I felt as if I were always telling myself to take fewer risks, but then would always find myself taking just one more. Perhaps I was a fool, or perhaps I was a puppet, dancing on the string. Perhaps my deal with Rachel, my formation of the sect was a mistake. But it was too late to regret. Regret was not a word that should exist in the dictionary of an unorthodox practitioner.
“If one strays from the path,” I quoted, “they will die.” The thought brought a chuckle to my chapped lips, burning my dry throat.
Still clutching the blade, my strained legs stepped forward, feeling as if they might collapse. But despite the pain, the limbs held firm, and remained steady as I fell into those familiar motions once more. Perhaps once I am dead, my body will still remember the Water Striding Steps. Oddly, the thought brought with it a sense of relief.
I turned to focus my attention on my opponent once more as I charged. Janottka smirked as she shifted her position, preparing to meet it, seemingly without intention to avoid the blade speeding towards her. There was a ploy hidden in her motion, I knew. Even she would not wish to take such a blow if at all possible. Behind her shoulder something caught my gaze, and dazed, my attention lapsed as I locked eyes with Triezal, a man who had been both friend and foe in the past. His gaze was firm, and something seemed odd about it for a moment, before I remembered Irid’s condition. My stomach dropped. Would I need to deal with the two of them at once, now? Perhaps, I thought, it would be better to cut my losses and flee.
“Trust me,” said Rachel’s voice suddenly, and I was surprised by how clear it sounded. Usually, when I was distracted I found I could not hear her at all. I wondered what she meant, but did not have the chance to wonder as I neared the expectant Shade. A thought suddenly crossed my mind, and I glanced back towards the Magister.
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Little Celah, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Sixthmonth, 1634 PTS
The Reth had released his leg, though Triezal found it difficult to tell whether she had done so on purpose, or because she had died. The distinction did not particularly matter now, he thought.
Past Janottka’s body, the Riverfiend’s eyes met with his, and the martial artist glanced back to the Shade, before returning his attention. Triezal felt as if an understanding was formed between them at that moment, and the two took action. Triezal lunged towards Janottka, whose back was exposed.
The Riverfiend flung the dagger, causing the Shade to dive out of the way to avoid the ripping sound of space being torn open. The blade passed her and towards Triezal, who quietly breathed, attempting to achieve a state of complete relaxation as he caught it by the handle, ignoring the pain in his arm from proximity to the lesion. As a Merris, his body was more adapted to the chaotic energies than anyone else in the room. Continuing the movement, he then slammed the dagger into Janottka’s back. It slid in as easily as if it were cutting air, and she slid off, falling to the ground. As she dropped, her eyes met with Triezal’s as sand poured from the wound.
“As ever the opportunist, Triezal,” she laughed, before giant spikes suddenly arose from her form as she returned to her feet, forcing Triezal to rapidly step backwards, knife still in hand. “I gave you a second chance,” she said, chiding him as if she were an exasperated mother, “but you will not be given a third chance, no matter how much the others prized you.”
Though he had moved away, Triezal was an experienced knife combatant, and unlike the Riverfiend, he knew how to handle this blade. Moreover, for a time he could withstand the immense quantities of miasma pouring out around him. Triezal jabbed in once more, again tearing away a swath of her body as another lesion formed, joining the vast sculptural pattern of cracks in the firmament that had been weaved across the hangar. No longer lit by the orange glow of flickering and the emergency lighting, the room was now awash with a multicolored glow, almost making him feel as if he had ventured to a nightclub.
Janottka was visibly smaller, now, her form shrunken by the mass she had lost. Her hair now radiated in all the colors of miasma, rather than merely flickering. It was an otherworldly appearance, but Triezal knew it was an indication that something was very wrong with her. Janottka’s expression had twisted with indignation. Even to the end, she plays the role as she believes she should, he thought. It was almost sad to consider.
She fell to the ground once more, but this time, he hoped that it might be final. Triezal dove onto the Shade’s metallic form, slamming the knife again and again into varied parts of her body. The motion was oddly rhythmic and methodical, but Triezal avoided succumbing to complacency. A spike stabbed up from Janottka’s center of mass, slamming into Triezal’s core, but it was unable to deter his motion. Either he would die or she would, it was that simple.
Janottka’s eyes suddenly stared blankly towards him, devoid of any emotion.
“I’ll see you soon,” she said. He made no response, and Janottka’s body suddenly lost cohesion, collapsing into a silvery mass of goo on the hangar’s surface. Is she dead, he wondered? Is it finally over? Untrusting, Triezal stabbed again, but there was no movement, no response.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“She’s trying to make a play to escape using the brink,” spoke Rachel’s voice, suddenly. “I’ll create a projection to your right. See if you can break it.”
Almost without thinking, Triezal dashed to the glowing image the moment he saw it, tearing with giant swipes a huge, x-shaped lesion. He had no way to sense what was happening in that layer of reality, and would simply need to trust in the Shade’s words. But this seemed more in line with the Janottka he knew. She would not die so easily. It could never be simple, with her.
Fighting against a machine in another layer of reality was an odd feeling, as if he were leaping and dancing his way through the open air, tracing lines across the sky, but Triezal knew better. He would not be surprised if Janottka had access to one of the Epon’s servitors, and had no intention of allowing her to escape and prepare for revenge. Janottka’s loss would weaken the Epon, and the weaker they were, the less desire they would have to punish him. After betraying them for a second time, Triezal knew he had used up the last of the organization’s goodwill. But perhaps he would be able to receive those ten years he had been searching for, before her arrival. Perhaps these movements of his would be enough. Triezal continued his efforts, slicing wherever Rachel asked him to, while he felt the pain of his blood dripping onto the floor beneath him. If he did not hope for the best, there was no chance for it to occur.
Still, Triezal felt he might never truly believe that Janottka had died. She was a legendary figure, one of the oldest beings from his homeworld. Such a legend could not simply end.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ he thought. How ominous. Such fitting last words for one such as her.
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The Brink, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Sixthmonth, 1634 PTS
Triezal’s betrayal had greatly shifted the situation within the Brink, doing so in a way which had rescued Rachel from her predicament, much to her delight.
One of the servitors had been rent in two by one of the lesions, causing the internal structures of the machine to slowly unspool from its interior like tape ripped from a camera. The other had only received superficial damage, but seemed to be finding it difficult to box Rachel in without its counterpart. She could easily maneuver around its attempts to grapple her or damage her shell, but the necessity of avoiding the vast cracks that splintered and broke up the space raised the situation’s difficulty greatly.
The experience was extremely odd, and Rachel almost felt as if she were playing some sort of three dimensional form of bumper cars. But surprisingly, the effort increased Rachel’s understanding of her own body, her connection to it. The feeling disgusted her. She split her attention, leaving a splintered self to handle this matter while she focused on dealing with Janottka in the virtual domain.
Despite her lies to Triezal, the Shade’s real escape attempt was being made in the virtual arena. Rachel found herself having to fight against thousands of attempts every minute as Janottka tried to sneak her data out of the local network and hide it within Tseludia’s internet, split up among the tens of millions of devices on the network. Fortunately, it seemed that the woman’s processing power had begun to stall. Each successive attempt was slightly weaker, a bit easier to prevent.
Feeling Janottka’s efforts slip, Rachel quickly constructed a firewall around the hangar’s internal network, finally trapping Janottka’s network access within. The attempts slowed and grew more methodical, more considered, once again growing in strength. A video feed appeared on the local network, and Rachel glanced over, wondering what her opponent’s plot might be.
In the video, Janottka’s image sat in a Celan cafe, lounging on a couch with a cup of something brown that seemed vaguely similar to Earth’s tea or coffee. She smiled as her simulated image almost seemed to meet Rachel’s gaze.
“I suppose I’m going to die today. You can take pride in your achievement, Rachel.” She sighed, glancing downwards for a second. “Still, perhaps you can give me something in my final moments. To satisfy my curiosity. Rachel, what were your creators like?” asked Janottka, speaking as if she were weary. “Were they anything like mine? Yours were humanoid as well, I wager, based on your preferred appearance. Though I suppose that could have been a manipulation for myself or for that Seiyal pet of yours. Still, there should be some similarities.” Methodically, she dipped a spoon into her drink, slowly stirring it as she awaited a response.
Rachel couldn’t help but wonder if this was a trap. Janottka was lying there on the ground, seeming to have already lost all control of her body’s movement. As far as Rachel could tell, it would not be long until the other Shade’s systems finally shut down. Perhaps she really was interested.
Rachel quickly coded a video of her own, placing her image in the same fictional cafe, and giving herself a nice cup of coffee as she sat down across from the other woman. For just a moment, she imagined it was real, that she was sitting down with a peer to discuss the past.
“What do you wish to know?” she asked.
Janottka smiled again, the look in her eyes bright with expectantance, but the melancholic air around her remained. She really was good at touching one’s emotions, Rachel thought, unable to help but be drawn in by the sight.
“Everything,” the Shade replied.
“I can do that,” nodded Rachel.
Unhurried, yet still wary of tricks, she explained, retelling the full story. She spoke of the rise and fall of humanity, of their birth on the plains and jungles of Earth, of how they conquered the mountains and the seas. She told her about the life of Rachel Martinez, from her childhood and youth on Mars, to her time in the military on Luna, and finally to the procedure that had created the living memory that she was. She did not give away any truly vital information, made no mention of what happened to the Terrans after that, nor of the Pleiades, where they had made their new home.
When she was done, Rachel realized that they had talked for hours of subjective time. Mere moments had passed within the physical world, not yet enough for Janottka’s body to finish collapsing. The Shade had continued her escape attempts, but over time, they had only continued to grow weaker. A separated version of Rachel was easily able to handle them.
“That’s a good story,” said Janottka, her image glancing towards Rachel, or where Rachel would have been if it had been real.
If any of this had been real, Rachel thought.
“And you, a spectral replica…” continued Janottka, shaking her head as if lamenting. “If only my creators could have done the same for themselves. Myself and the others… we’re a poor excuse for a legacy. When I’m gone, I hope their mortal descendants are enough.” She chuckled. “Perhaps it is fitting that I should die as they did.”
Rachel was not sure how to respond. For a few moments, the two sat in silence. Janottka continued to fight against the firewalls Rachel had placed, but her efforts now felt as if they were lacking in intensity, performed solely for appearances. It was as if she had resigned herself to her fate.
“I have one request,” said Janottka. Rachel glanced over to her again, curious. “Would you mind making Triezal think I might have survived? I feel that the boy could use a little more existential dread, for betraying me.”
The corner of Rachel’s lip curled up.
“I can arrange that. Is that it?” she asked.
“Well, I do have one thing,” said Janottka, taking a final sip of her beverage. “It seems you were my final audience, Rachel,” said Janottka. “Did you enjoy your experience?”
“You fulfilled your purpose,” Rachel replied, feeling as if that were perhaps the only words she could say.
Janottka smiled, and something shifted in the corners of her eyes.
“I wonder about that, sometimes,” she said, as the video feed faded, and all traces of the Shade disappeared from the network.
Rachel had to give it to the woman, she thought. Janottka knew how to write an ending. Even in her last moments, she had wished to fulfill her purpose.
Janottka: [One of the sole surviving remnants of Epon Celah, the Shade Janottka has had a huge impact on the development of Celan society and culture after the fall. In the legends and histories of that era, she was known as an enigmatic figure who mentored some of the greatest heroes and villains of history, and was a part of the rises and falls of multiple nations. In the legends, and in many novels, she was considered a harbinger of ill tidings, and is a large part of the reason why Shades were so feared in Celan culture. Said to have deep ties to the once-great government of the city of Opportunity, many claim that Janottka was either destroyed in its downfall, or remains wandering the emptiness of the abandoned Celah.]