Ascendant-General Alexandrius Toll frowned deeply, his eyes narrowing to golden pinpricks as he took in the sight before him.
The Supre, dead. The Supre, with his head resting on the ground before him, severed by a single clean blow. The Supre… proven false. That is what would be said now, even if nobody truly believed it.
Far behind him, a wall of fla towered up to the sky as the incoming ships continued their incineration of the Regint RED base. The fools. No doubt the captain of the Rashomon had ordered them to do so, but they risked destroying this vital scene in the process. This was a shard of history they were almost burning.
At least they’d managed to subdue that tal monstrosity, if nothing else.
With a steady hand, Toll reached out and closed the Supre’s… closed Kadmon’s staring eyes. If nothing else, he was smiling at the end. He looked happy. That was the kind of expression Alexandrius hadn’t seen in a long ti, not since the final battle against the Kingdom Moon Cult. It seed the man above all had found a worthy adversary at the end.
Speaking of which…
Toll turned his head to look at the ruined corpse of Kadmon’s counterpart. The corpse of Zachariah Esralda was in a much worse state, burnt and charred and dismbered to such a degree that he looked like a chunk of used firewood. He was smiling too, though.
It was strange to think about. This man surely must have passed after Kadmon, so by all rights he had been Supre for at least a minute or two. They’d lost two Supres in one day, then. The line of succession was now unclear -- without a doubt, there would be a Dawn Contest. Just like last ti.
Those injuries of Esralda’s, a dark and false corner of his mind whispered. They could have been caused by Sevenfold Serpents: Inferno. You could say you ca and finished him off. You could be Supre.
Toll banished the notion imdiately. Such a falsehood would bring sha to the entire Supremacy, not just himself. It was not sothing that could even be considered.
So, instead, he brought a finger to his ear and activated the communicator there.
"Hazzard," he said gruffly. "Send word to Azum-Ha."
He had to take a deep breath before he could continue, before he could speak those necessary words.
"The false Supre has perished."
Ruth Blaine could still feel her legs.
They were gone, without a doubt, leaving her in a wheelchair for the ti being -- but if she closed her eyes, she could feel pain sculpted into their shapes. The sensation of their loss was almost like a replacent for their being. Cold ghosts stabbing her in retaliation.
But when she winced, when she gasped, when she acknowledged that pain, she couldn’t help but feel an accompanying pang of guilt. After all, she hadn’t even gotten the worst of it.
Dragan Hadrien lay on the bed before her and Bruno, wires and tubes connected to him from every angle. Enough bandages covered his form that you wouldn’t have been able to tell his identity without knowing in advance. One arm was missing, one leg, one eye too… and so much more.
The doctors had explained it in great detail -- perhaps far too much detail -- and so words and phrases, divorced of context, could do nothing but swirl around in Ruth’s head.
Stomach… lung… kidney… vocal cords… facial bones, facial muscles… an eye… hip bone… so much more… still tallying up the list… possible neural issues…
In short, it was a wonder that Dragan Hadrien was even alive. He’d recorded so much of his body into Gemini World, just to keep moving… and when his fatigue had finally caught up to him, he hadn’t had ti to deactivate the ability. Every damaged part he’d banished away had just vanished into the void, leaving him like this.
Bruno’s mouth moved silently for a mont before he could finally force speech through it. "Do you think he’ll wake up?" he asked, voice hollow as the body before him.
Ruth swallowed. "They don’t know. They’re not sure… I guess."
"But do you think he’ll wake up?" Bruno asked again.
There was a strange tone to his voice, a strange pleading note. It was like Ruth was the one who’d decide if he woke up, like he had to beg her to make it so. But she was in the sa ship as him. All she could do was watch with tired eyes.
"I guess…" Ruth repeated. What else could she say?
The two of them remained there for a long ti, looking down at Dragan’s ruined body, listening to the beep of his assisted heartbeat and the gasp of his assisted breathing. The doctors had said he was stable, at least.
So long as he was hooked up to this machinery -- this room of machinery -- he was stable. What a joke.
Tears rose to Ruth’s eyes once more. She’d done a lot of crying over the last few hours -- she’d started to think she’d run out of tears. It seed not.
"Hey," Serena said soothingly, crouching down next to the wheelchair. "Don’t cry, Miss Ruth. It’s not your fault."
Ruth thumped a fist against her thigh -- once, twice, each ti accompanied by a face flashing through her mind. Skipper, Dragan. One gone, the other very nearly so. Her fault? What did it matter if it was her fault? It had still happened.
Skipper. His face returned, lingered. They didn’t even have a body. No doubt it had burnt away to nothing in the bombardnt of Elysian Fields.
Ruth spoke, her throat dry. "I thought I had all of this figured out, you know…"
"What do you an?" Serena blinked.
Ruth shrugged weakly. "I… I don’t know what I’m talking about. I just thought… I thought I understood what I needed to do, what I was here for." She looked up at Serena, and glistening tears stread down her face, her teeth clenched to restrain another sob. "I thought I was strong, I -- I thought I was strong enough to stop things like this from happening. I thought I didn’t have to worry anymore… think anymore. I’m so stupid. What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking. I’m so…"
It was clear to anyone watching that Ruth was about to spiral, bla driving her deeper and deeper into despair with each revolution. Serena had experienced sothing similar in the past -- back on the Cradle -- and her friend had been there to pull her back. So she owed her one.
Serena knelt down, embracing Ruth and cutting off her distraught mutterings.
"Get off …" Ruth whispered, shaking like a leaf. "I don’t deserve it…"
"You didn’t do anything wrong, Miss Ruth," Serena said firmly. "You didn’t. So don’t talk about yourself like that."
"But…"
"Don’t," Serena repeated, pulling her in tighter. "I’m sad too, Miss Ruth. But that’s all it is. Don’t bla yourself."
Beep, beep, beep… The room remained rcilessly still, and rcilessly quiet, as the two of them hugged each other tight. Quiet, quiet… all the way until the mont they were called away, and finally had to leave Dragan Hadrien to his long slumber.
A slumber that showed no signs of ending.
Dragan Hadrien thought that he would quite like to be a star.
The only one who decides what happens to … is .
"I’ll show you. That people can be good. That they’re not what you think of them."
"You really don’t understand anything, do you? Of course people are vulgar. They live in a vulgar, awful world. There’s no choice in the matter. But there’s nobody in the world equipped to make decisions, not really. You think the people on top got there for being wiser, more advanced, more worthy than everyone else? Of course not. They got there by being vulgar on a big scale, rather than a little one. They’re just the people who could bring themselves to be the most awful. It’s the sa everywhere. There’s no deeper aning to any of it."
"Can you make this stick for , kid?"
A single eye opened, nearly sightless, and a shredded mouth took a shallow breath.
Gemini… World…
"So," Bruno said, crossing his arms. "What happens now?"
The three of them -- Bruno, Ruth and the Widow -- sat in the captain’s quarters of this ship, the Vertigo. Apparently, the captain had disappeared shortly after the evacuation, and so the Widow had taken official command over the vessel. The running theory, according to this woman, was that the captain had stolen one of the escape pods and ran for it to avoid any Supremacy retaliation, but Bruno didn’t buy that for a second.
He’d worked for the UAP before, after all, running black ops as part of the Sed. He knew how these things went.
"Now?" the Widow asked, fingers steepled on the captain’s desk before her. "I suppose that mostly depends on you. What would you like to happen now?"
Bruno glared. "I find it hard to believe you’d spend all this effort getting us out of there just to let us do whatever we want."
"Well…" the Widow smiled thinly. "I’d say you’re a very distrusting person, then. The fact that you escaped Elysian Fields is the important part. Any number of things can happen now, and it’s all the sa to us."
He narrowed his eyes. "What do you an?"
The Widow clicked a long, bony finger against the tal surface of the desk before her. "If you, Esrelda’s comrades, were all killed on Elysian Fields along with him, the story ends there. Even though the Supre was killed, his murderers were all destroyed as well. It doesn’t serve as a very effective statent -- basically, what it implies is that defying the Supremacy is only possible through total sacrifice."
"And that’s not the ssage you want to send."
"Precisely," the Widow nodded. "Now that you’ve escaped, and the Supremacy is forced to acknowledge that, it doesn’t matter as much what becos of you. If a Special Officer was to find you tomorrow and kill you, it would be very easy to dismiss news of your death as desperate propaganda. The stage has been set for that sort of thing."
"Ha," Bruno made a noise so humourless it couldn’t honestly be described as laughter. "And that works well for your propaganda, huh?"
The Widow nodded again, shalessly. "That’s right."
Outside, Ruth could see another ship drifting alongside theirs, one of the few that still remained part of this ramshackle fleet. As they’d traveled, more and more ships had broken off to act as decoys for pursuers, or to transport survivors to other prearranged locations. Now, it was just these two -- the Vertigo and the Sky-High. No doubt the Sky-High would move off at so point as well.
Leaving them alone.
Bruno leaned back in his chair, suspicious eyes scanning the Widow’s face for any signs of deceit. "Ideally… in an ideal situation for you, what would we decide to do?"
"You’d co with us back to Serendipity," the Widow replied without hesitation. "From there, we could arrange all sorts of other things."
"Like what?"
"I’m not the one who would be making those decisions," she said. "So I can’t say."
"Would those decisions be bad for us?" Bruno demanded.
The Widow took a mont to consider the question, her finger sliding across the tal desk and clearing a line of dust. "It rather depends on how you’d classify ’bad’," she finally answered. "You wouldn’t be injured or killed, if that’s your concern, but you would be put under a spotlight. If you think that’s bad for you, that’s your business… but it’s a natural consequence of continuing Skipper’s work."
"I’ll pretend you didn’t bring my dead friend into it," Bruno said with a clear and steady voice. "But by ’continuing his work’, you an continuing his personal war against the Supremacy, right?"
The Widow nodded. "I would think that’s a given. As you say, we didn’t rescue you out of the goodness of our hearts."
"Maybe we’ve had enough fighting," Bruno said quietly, suddenly very tired. "Maybe we think we deserve a rest…"
That thin smile faded, and the Widow raised an unamused eyebrow. Ruth shivered -- and she found that the air in the room was suddenly growing very cold. She frowned. Had soone turned up the air conditioning or sothing?
"We’re not asking you to do all of this out of the good of your hearts, either," the Widow said, her own voice just as frosty. "We can offer a great deal of compensation for your cooperation. The Supremacy may strike back at you -- we can provide the protection of mbers of the Ten Nebula. If comfort is what you’re looking for, that too can be facilitated." Her eyes flicked over to Ruth. "You’ve suffered injuries as a result of your heroics… we can arrange specialized treatnt, the most advanced prosthetics."
Bruno took a deep breath, before glancing towards Ruth. "What do you think?"
Ruth didn’t answer. She was still staring out the window at the Sky-High floating alongside them.
"Ruth?" Bruno asked again.
"What?" Ruth snapped her head back towards the conversation, suddenly pulled out of her haze of consciousness. "Sorry, I, uh… I got distracted for a second. What were we…?"
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Serena smiled with Bruno’s mouth. "Don’t worry about it, Miss Ruth," she said, before Bruno reasserted himself and turned back towards the Widow. "This is a big decision to be making on the spur of the mont."
"I wouldn’t say it’s the spur of the mont, given the amount of ti we’ve already been in transit…" the Widow frowned. "But if you need more ti, that can be arranged. It’s a long way to Serendipity, after all."
Bruno’s eyes flicked back over to Ruth, who was already spacing out again, before they returned to the Widow. He took a deep breath before speaking.
"How about this?" he proposed. "This ship is going to have to refuel soon, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ve prepared for that. Get Ruth so prosthetics while we’re waiting at the lightpoint -- and before we leave, we’ll have your answer."
Tap. Tap. Tap. The Widow considered Bruno’s proposal for a good long mont, and…
"That’s acceptable," she finally said. "But the prosthetics we can get hold of on short notice will only be rudintary. Sothing more advanced may be possible once we have our answer. Is that acceptable?"
Again, Bruno’s eyes flicked over to Ruth, who now had her cheek pressed against the window -- her dull gaze wasn’t even aid at the other ship anymore. He seed to be waiting for her to say sothing, even prodding her with his elbow, but she remained silent. Eventually, he just went ahead and opened his mouth to answer for her.
If only he got the chance.
Before he could get the words out, the doors to the captain’s office suddenly slid open, and a young Cogitant man with fluffy black hair ran through, holding onto the door fra to catch his breath. As he did, raised voices and running feet could be heard from the hallway beyond. The Widow raised an unimpressed eyebrow.
"We’re busy here," she snapped. "What is it?"
The boy took one last deep breath before finally speaking: "It’s Dragan Hadrien! He’s gone!"
Things progressed naturally from there.
The Widow went to find out where Dragan had gone. Bruno and Serena went with her. Ruth didn’t know if they’d just forgotten she couldn’t follow in a tily fashion, or if they’d decided she’d be safer here, but the end result was the sa -- she was left alone in the captain’s office, looking out at the void of space. Full dark, no stars.
It had been getting worse, this malaise clinging to her bones. As the day had gone, even the slightest effort had beco a great labor. Now, even keeping her eyes open was a pain… no, not a pain. It was the hole that pain left.
Ruth let her eyes fall shut.
It was a stupid comparison fit for a stupid girl, but she felt like a balloon being emptied of air.
"See… you… later… Ruth…"
Her eyes snapped open, and she looked around for the source of the voice. There was nothing; she was utterly alone in the room. Even the Sky-High outside was gone. Had she hallucinated that, then, or had she really heard Dragan’s voice? Had she been imagining things, or had she really seen that spark of blue?
No answers ca.
All she could do was sit there… and wait for a return that would not co.
He existed only in part, for monts at a ti. He allowed only the tip of a finger to erge from his Aether, enough to apply pressure on a button, enough to select an option on a screen. Everything else was unnecessary. He didn’t need eyes or ears, or even a brain. All he needed was his Aether. All he needed was his consciousness.
Even with all that, though, how long did Dragan Hadrien have?
It was difficult to say. Exhaustion had conquered him once before, had left him in a state completely unfitting for such a journey. But fatigue was an opponent he knew now. It was sothing he could withstand. So long as no body existed to be tired, the only thing he had to do was keep thinking. He could do that. Couldn’t he?
Tasks kept him pinned to the present.
He needed to activate Gemini World. He needed to get through the hallways. He needed to say goodbye. He needed to pass into the shuttle bay. He needed to steal a shuttle. He needed to lock in coordinates. All of these were easy. All of these were physical phenona accomplished by physical phenona.
He needed to wait. That was the hardest part of all. With the destination he needed to get to, it could take weeks to arrive, even assuming he could make use of lightpoints. Left alone for that ti with no body, with only thoughts… concentration could waver, and then that would be it.
But his thoughts did not go unaccompanied. He had one more task to consider, after all. One more physical phenona to be accomplished by physical phenona.
"Can you make this stick for , kid?"
"Can you make this stick for , kid?"
"Can you make this stick for , kid?"
Yes. His mission. He ran through the words again and again, fixing them in his mind, fixing them in his soul…
…as the shuttle began its long journey to the planet Panacea.
"Full lockdown!" Jordan scread as the vault door closed behind him. "Activate all prison seals!"
One-hundred people dead in sixty seconds. Sixty-four more in the next three minutes. Before this attack reached the ten-minute mark, Jordan honestly wasn’t sure if anyone would be left alive on the Shesha. Their attackers seed intent on a full purge -- and their strength was such that they couldn’t be resisted.
Jordan Halacourt had survived this long by luck alone -- when the attack started, he’d just co off his shift on Prisoner duty. He’d been stepping out of the safety lock when he’d seen it. He’d been able to turn right around and retreat back into the prison, but the mories of what he’d seen could not so easily be avoided.
A litany of horrors.
Tiny chanical drones, the shape and size of pens, burning holes through the heads of guardsn. Corpses warped into turrets of blood and bone, shredding through their victims with tooth-bullets. Black tentacles lunging out of the walls, seizing his comrades and crushing them into jam against the tal bulkheads.
It wasn’t as if the Shesha Prison Guards were a helpless force -- they boasted Aether-users of considerable power, who’d been able to put down assaults upon the Shesha by terrorists in the past. Jordan harbored no hopes that they’d be able to do anything in this case, though. Any optimism had been snuffed out when he’d seen the strongest of their number impaled on the mighty greatsword of that thing.
The Abyssal Knight.
His sword and armour had been drenched in gore, purple light flaring from beneath the rusted tal, his distended muscles squirming like serpents. The image of that monster remained so clear in Jordan’s mind that he could imagine it standing behind him even now, breathing down his throat, waiting to devour him. Its agonized howl would echo in his nightmares, if he survived long enough to have any.
It wasn’t looking good.
The surviving guards regrouped in the observation chamber, sealed behind seven layers of security -- and behind it, the cell where the Prisoner hung suspended above the engine by thousands of Neverwire chains. Even one of those layers surpassed the most complex security asures available to the rest of the galaxy -- and yet sweat coated the faces of each and every guard as they pointed their guns at the closed vault door. The thirty or so n could not hear through the soundproofed walls, but they could well imagine what was on the other side. The death that was waiting for them.
"Where’s the warden?" Jordan asked, voice shaking.
Nobody answered, but under the circumstances the answer was obvious: dead. His direct subordinates were dead as well. Which left them, the rank and file. Soone had to take charge. Jordan cleared his throat and spoke up again.
"Have we sent word to the Accompanint Fleet?" he barked, with all the authority he could replicate from his old drill sergeant. "Soone get the distress signal going!"
One of the few surviving technicians looked up from their console, their face flooded with ghastly light by the screen. "We’ve tried," they whimpered, trembling violently. "B-But nothing’s getting out. The whole system’s down. A virus? But even so… we have asures for…"
Jordan stopped listening after that, and instead just took a deep breath. The gist of things was that they wouldn’t be getting help. The thirty of them here had to repel this attack on their own -- and their enemy was obvious. Everyone knew what the Abyssal Knight ant: Darkstar. The most wicked group of killers in the galaxy.
But…
"We are the Supremacy," Jordan spoke aloud. "And this is the Shesha -- the seat of our power! Are we just going to let these freaks do as they please?!"
A mont of silence, nerve-wracking silence, before…
"Hell no!" ca a collective cry with more confidence than was perhaps warranted.
"Who are we?!" Jordan roared.
"The Supremacy!"
"This is nothing!" Jordan declared, heart beating a jackhamr in his chest. "What is this?!"
No answer at first. Jordan’s hands shook as he pointed his rifle at the waiting doors. If this group was able to hack the Shesha -- the beating heart of the Supremacy fleet -- to such a degree that it couldn’t coordinate with other ships, then it was only a matter of ti until those seven seals were opened. It was no surprise the other soldiers weren’t joining in. Bravado could only do so much…
…but even so, false courage was sotis needed. Jordan might not have been good enough to beco a Special Officer, but he understood so things perfectly well. Hope needed a vessel to point it forward.
And so he repeated, his roar bordering on a scream: "What is this?!"
"Nothing," replied a serene voice from behind him.
A hand landed on his shoulder.
Slowly, Jordan turned his head, knowing and dreading what he would find there. He was now alone in the observation chamber. No, no, that wasn’t right -- a man had stepped up behind him, a man with so little presence it was easy to miss his existence entirely. The man this entire prison had been built around, who should have been suspended by Neverwire chains above the main engine -- just on the other side of this chamber.
The Prisoner.
His eyes narrowed as his lips spread into a calm and kind smile, but his pitch-black pupils went unchanged. What was going on? Jordan stared at the seemingly young man who was grasping his shoulder, too shocked even to tremble. The suprely reinforced glass that the Prisoner should have been held behind had a massive hole lted through it. The rest of the guards were gone -- not even corpses remained. It was as if they’d just ceased to exist entirely.
Jordan’s mind raced. Was he going to die? He was going to die. He didn’t want to die. Oh, Y.
The Prisoner released his soft grip, instead patting Jordan on the shoulder reassuringly. "Are you sad?" he asked, his voice as calm and quiet as an ocean made still. "There’s no need for that. Even though all your friends died, you alone were able to survive. You should be happy."
Jordan’s mouth opened, Jordan’s mouth closed, but no words ca forth. His eyes felt so heavy in their sockets that it felt as if they’d slip free onto the floor. His gaze shifted to the prison cell beyond the lted window -- and there, he could see the countless Neverwire chains that were ant to keep this man restrained. They hung limp, broken, gnarled as if gnawed upon by thousands of tiny mouths.
"How…" he finally managed to get out. "How did you…"
"How did I get out?" the Prisoner asked, cocking his head as he looked up at Jordan -- he was slightly shorter. "I’m sorry, but that question is based on a false premise… it assus that there was a point where I was ’in’. I’d be happy to explain it to you further, but I don’t think that will be possible." His gaze shifted past Jordan, to the vault door behind him. "After all… my friends will be here in re monts."
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Thunk.
As Jordan had expected, as Jordan had dreaded, seven seals were overridden in just as many seconds. He watched, eyes wide, as the vault door slowly turned open. Beyond the opening, silhouetted by gore-soaked light, stood the people who had made the Shesha into their slaughterhouse. The ones who -- Jordan realized with dull and tired fear -- had surely killed everyone aboard but him.
Five people, Jordan realized, looking at them… they’d done all of this with just five people. If all of them could even be called people.
The massive head of an elderly man peeled itself away from a shadowy spot on the floor, swaying in the air from a long black tendril. It smiled a genial, wrinkled smile as it gazed upon the Prisoner. Jordan just stared, mouth open, a strange creaking sound trickling involuntarily from his throat. He was looking at sothing incomprehensible, and his mind was feeling the weight of it like a fragile piece of wood.
Before the horror masqueraded as a human, the Prisoner lifted his hand in greeting. "Smith!" he said, a note of cheer entering his voice. "I’m so happy you made it. Your timing is impeccable as always. Have you been keeping healthy?"
The… entity nad Smith broadened its smile, a blush creeping across its cheeks. "Oh, sir…" it breathed. "My form is as magnificent as the day you crafted it. As if it could ever develop a fault! Darkstar has awaited the return of its king for a long ti, such a long ti, my liege."
As the Prisoner stepped past Jordan’s frozen form to address his rescuers directly, he chuckled lightly. "You’re so earnest, Smith. It makes so happy to see you again. That’s McCoy with you, isn’t it? Ah, what a reunion! What a truly auspicious occasion."
The second person he’d addressed was a woman wearing a red fedora and trenchcoat, her entire body wrapped in stark white bandages -- even her face completely concealed.
McCoy gave a curt nod to the Prisoner. "Boss."
"I hear they make videographs of your old adventures now, McCoy," the Prisoner said. "Have you watched them? I hope they’re interesting."
She snorted. "That’s a bad joke."
The Prisoner opened his mouth to say sothing else -- but before he could get it out, he was interrupted. Jordan froze reflexively as an unprompted voice rang out through the observation chamber. This was not the sort of conversation to be interrupted: he understood the fear of it as the ant understood the boot.
The one who spoke was a girl with blue hair and blue eyes, a black beret perched atop her head. Cogitant, no doubt, but very young. She couldn’t even have been out of her teens.
"Ahem," she said, stepping forward. "If you’re done talking, we need to get out of here. My virus won’t fool the Supremacy forever, you know."
The Prisoner stared at the young girl for a long mont, the smile still plastered on his lips, before replying. "My apologies, Noel. I was just so happy to see everyone once more, but you’re absolutely right. Ti is of the essence."
This girl, this Noel, blinked -- and the confidence on her face faltered for a mont. "How do you know my na?" she asked quietly.
As though Noel had asked sothing absurd, the Prisoner furrowed his brow. "What do you an? You’re one of my beloved co-conspirators, Noel. It’s only natural that I’d know your na, isn’t it?"
Noel took a step back -- and the young man standing behind her took a step forward, planting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He was dark skinned, his grey hair tied back in a ponytail, a bandana pulled up to cover his mouth. The young man narrowed his golden eyes at the Prisoner, but said nothing.
For his part, the Prisoner just scratched his cheek, his smile taking on a sowhat sheepish quality.
"Ah, please don’t make such a frightening expression, Reynash. I’m rely greeting my new friend. Of course, I appreciate your hard work as well… but you’re not truly fighting for my sake, are you?"
Reynash’s expression hardened, but still he said nothing. Eventually, the Prisoner seed to grow bored of waiting for a response, and turned to the final mber of the party: the Abyssal Knight, looming tall like a misshapen statue behind the others. The thing grunted and groaned as the Prisoner looked it up and down.
"Knight," the Prisoner said coldly. "We’re leaving."
Jordan’s body was drenched in sweat. His eyes had been open for so long they were bloodshot. Saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth and pooled onto the floor. Every aspect of motion had been forcibly ceased by sothing beyond the conscious mind -- so animalistic instinct that knew the first sign of movent would an his demise. Still, his mind raced to such a degree that his thoughts were feverish and indistinct. Dancing lights inside his skull. He could recall carnival music from his youth, growing faster and faster, further and further away.
They were leaving? They were going to go away? Was it really so?
Jordan stayed there, still as a statue, daring not even to hope as the Prisoner strode past him. In the minute or so that he’d been out of Jordan’s sight, he’d acquired a pitch-black cloak from sowhere, throwing it over his orange jumpsuit as he walked. His feet made not even a sound against the tal floor. A man who didn’t exist. A man who didn’t exist.
The rest went with him. The tentacled thing, the Abyssal Knight, the bandaged woman, the young girl and her companion. They all went to leave Jordan alone and depart the Shesha. A sickly, vacant grin of relief began spreading across his face. He was going to make it. He was going to --
"Boss," grunted McCoy, glancing back into the observation chamber. "What about this guy?"
The Prisoner stopped. The Prisoner turned his head to look at Jordan. The Prisoner smiled a smile that lacked even a trace of benevolence. No, not a Prisoner at all, not anymore. It was as the old man had said. That was the rciless dignity of a king.
"I’m so sorry," he said softly. "I forgot about you."
Jordan opened his mouth, and the one word he had left erged from his throat as a hysterical scream. "Wai --"
"Angra Mainyu."
Tartarean Aether dimd the world.
A black sphere. No, darker than black. It wasn’t even the absence of colour -- it was the absence of existence. A hole in the world, the size of a soccer ball, hovering over the palm of the King’s hand. The last thing Jordan Halacourt saw. The last thing Jordan Halacourt could bear to see.
There was no ti to dodge, no ti to fight back, no ti to even beg. All Jordan could do was register the existence of the void, and in that sa mont…
…the King waved his hand twice, and Jordan Halacourt ceased to exist.
"Well," said the King cheerfully, turning back to his fellows. "Shall we go, then? There’s a great deal that needs to be done."
"What do you an?" Noel asked, holding onto one of her arms with the other. Her eyes kept flicking between the scenes of carnage they’d left outside the cell, and the utter absence they’d left within. "What do we do next?"
The King smiled.
"The putrid light of false progress needs to be snuffed out," he said, in the sa tone of voice one would use to discuss the weather. "It’s our duty to replace it with a dark star. We shall beco the hamr that breaks the shape of this world."
The King continued strolling down the hallway, his monstrous companions following behind him.
"Our first order of business," his quiet voice sunk into the shadows. "Is to begin assembling our nails."
Silence claid the world that had been wiped of people... Darkness engulfed the man who did not exist…
…and, after a mont, Noel and her companion hurried to follow them.
AETHERAL SPACE
END OF PROLOGUE
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