As Ruth walked into the Slipstream BRAVE, she kept a hand to her mouth, face pale. Her other hand still held the script in front of her, even though the screen had long since turned off. Her grip made clumsy by shock, she stuffed the device back into her pocket.
Her mind raced.
There was no way. Dragan was trying to enter the Dawn Contest? Why? He definitely had no interest in becoming Supre, and -- and there was no way, anyway, even if he did. He wouldn’t betray Skipper like that. They’d all fought to take down the Supre, not take his place. That hadn’t been what it was about. Never. Was this even real? Maybe soone else was using his face and na. But this ant that Dragan Hadrien was still alive. She’d started to doubt. But if it was fake, he could still be dead. But if it was real, it didn’t make any sense. But…
Ruth planted a hand against the wall of the hallway to steady herself, heavy and ragged breathing stabbing at her lungs. It had been a long ti since she’d had an attack like this. For a good minute, she remained there, hoping against hope that none of her crew would walk past and see this. This wasn’t the kind of image she wanted to convey.
Finally, the panic subsided, and Ruth could stand up straight. The issue… the issue wasn’t what Dragan was or wasn’t doing, not yet. She had to keep that in mind. For now, the issue was just what she needed to do next.
Bruno had wanted to et up and pursue Dragan together, but that wasn’t realistic. Even if it was really him, the locations Inner lee participants were assigned to weren’t available to the public in advance -- just to prevent this kind of pursuit. They couldn’t very well check all of them, either -- there wasn’t nearly enough ti to zip all over the galaxy like that.
Besides, even leaving concerns like that aside, she couldn’t just run off like that. She had people to look after, a business to run. She wasn’t as free as she’d been back then.
Sleep on it, she told herself. You can make a decision once you’ve had ti to make a decision.
Steeling herself, she pushed off the wall and strode into the common area, hoping that her face wouldn’t give away her distress.
The Slipstream BRAVE was a fair bit larger than most of the ships Skipper had ever managed to get them. The common area had so couches, a videograph on the wall, a ping-pong table, along with a hologram projector built into the floor if they needed to run a briefing. Even with all that, there was room to spare -- room that was currently being taken up by storage boxes lining one wall.
Ruth raised an eyebrow as she saw that their pilot, Ellis Maine, was not using those boxes for their intended purpose. The young man -- a couple of years younger than Ruth -- was sitting atop one of the higher piles, his legs swinging in the air as he occupied himself with so ga on his script. The young man had shaggy brown hair barely restrained by a hairclip, his baggy red sweater and black skirt looking like they’d never seen an iron in the entirety of their existence. Anything that wasn’t the cockpit or a simulation of one held little interest for him.
"Maine," Ruth snapped as she walked past. "Get down from there."
Without looking at her, he offered a lazy salute. "You got it, Miss Road," he mumbled, gaze still fixed on his script as he hopped down to the carpeted floor. As a cheery litany of victory music was emitted from the device, he finally looked up at her -- and imdiately frowned. "You okay?"
Damnit. Maine had seen through her. You’d think the kid was a Cogitant if not for his brown eyes.
"Fine," Ruth lied. "Just got back from negotiating with Allizon -- she’ll be passing us so more work before long."
Maine’s eyes flicked back to his ga. "Cool," he mumbled, already lost in the screen.
Cool? Ruth rolled her eyes as she continued her walk to her personal quarters. She guessed it was cool that they might actually make a profit this month, even if it wasn’t as interesting to everyone else. Was she the only one around here who worried about these things?
Alice Pirouette, one of their heavy-hitters, was pacing across the center of the room as Ruth approached. The young Scurrant woman’s pink hair and pink eyes might have been attention-grabbing if not for the curling horns, like those of a ram, that extended down from her temples. Those were a little overshadowing. One hand plunged into the pocket of her leather jacket, she nodded to Ruth as she passed.
She was on her script as well -- although she was calling soone, not playing a ga. Ruth caught a snippet of it as she walked past: it was a familiar conversation.
"Listen," Alice -- or as she preferred to be called in the field, Alice☆Alice -- said sternly to whatever unfortunate was on the other end of the phone. "That’s bullshi -- sorry, no, I just don’t think you understand the angle I’m going for with this. Haven’t you heard of Tai Nigatsu? It’s like what she does. How is it different? You can just censor that stuff!" She visibly gritted her teeth together as the other party spoke. "Have you even watched the reel I sent you guys? I bet you haven’t even watched it. Wow. Wow, that’s very disappointing for a company with your reputation. Is there soone more senior I could speak to, or…"
Poor Alice☆Alice had been trying to get so weird docuntary series about rcenary life off the ground for a while now. Seed she wasn’t having any more success with this production company either. Ruth had to admire her tenacity, if nothing else.
Near the door, as if on guard, stood Roman Hitch. His arms were crossed and his gaze -- beneath the military helt he wore on his shaved head -- was hard. Ruth hadn’t seen this guy smile once since he’d joined their crew three months ago. She expected the day she did would be the sa that hell froze over.
"Mr. Hitch," she nodded professionally as she passed him. He just grunted in response.
A hallway from the common area led to their individual crew quarters -- again, bigger than they’d been in most of the previous Slipstreams. More room for absence. Ruth opened the door to her room and closed it behind her, letting out the shuddering breath she’d been keeping deep inside.
Dragan. Alive. If it was him. It had to be him. It couldn’t be. Could she really sleep on that? What if the chance was gone by the ti she woke up? She’d have ssed up. She’d have ssed up again. She’d have gotten cocky. Again.
It was like the last two years had been stripped away from her. It was like she was the sa as she’d been back then, bleeding down on the ground, having given up on thinking for herself. Back on that UAP ship, wondering why her friend had left. Fearing the worst.
She couldn’t do this -- she couldn’t get lost in her own head. Bruno would be waiting for a response. She couldn’t just sleep on it.
Ruth threw herself down onto her bed, clutching her temples as she tried to navigate through that labyrinth of fear -- when there was a gentle knock at the door.
"Yo, Ruth," Rex’s voice was muffled by door and mask both. "You good? Ellis said you seed a little funky."
The kid was a damned snitch. "I’m fine," she called back -- but from the hoarseness in her tone, it was obvious that wasn’t true.
At least Rex pretended he believed her. "Cool," he said, without missing a beat. "Mind if I co in? Got so stuff we gotta talk about."
With a sigh, Ruth pulled herself up off the bed, running her hands through her hair in a vain attempt to quell the chaos that falling down had wrought. "Sure," she replied after a mont, accepting the futility. "Co on in, I guess."
The doors slid open, and Rex Restorossi -- her business partner, co-founder of Restorossi and Road -- poked his head inside. If the face behind that mask had changed any in the two years since they’d t at the Final Church Trueet, Ruth wouldn’t have been able to tell. She’d never seen him without it, after all.
Coming from Abra-Facade, Rex always wore a mask -- he considered that his ’real’ face. Swapping those masks out was just like changing his expression, and so today he was wearing a new helt, bright red with a circular visor like a porthole in the center. A digital exclamation mark blinked in the center of the circle, the closest thing to eyes Rex’s current visage had.
The door slid shut behind him.
"I’ve been talking to so of the chanics," Rex said casually, offering a hand up in a casual wave. "They’re thinking that even if we end up having to settle for the XLD fuel, there’s a converter they can rig up that’ll --"
"Bruno found Dragan," Ruth said quietly.
Rex’s hand paused awkwardly in midair, slowly lowering down until it rested by his side. "...your old friend Bruno?"
"That’s the only Bruno I know," Ruth nodded.
For a good while, Rex didn’t say anything else. He just stood there, discomfort radiating from his posture, that red ’!’ blinking idly in the center of his face. It was obvious why. More than once Rex had accompanied her on one of the wild goose chases Bruno had called them out for, and so he had a pretty good grasp of the situation when it ca to Dragan Hadrien.
So, seeing her like this -- so somber -- and hearing that Dragan had been ’found’... the conclusion he’d co to is obvious. No wonder this situation seed so excruciating for him.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringent.
Ruth decided to put him out of his misery. "He’s not dead," she said -- smirking ruefully despite everything.
"Oh. Oh!" Rex’s face was concealed as ever, but Ruth could hear the smile in his voice. "Well, that’s great! Right?"
With a sigh, Ruth ran a hand over her face. "He’s entering the Dawn Contest."
"Oh." And just like that, the smile was gone. "That’s, uh…"
"It’s a ss." Ruth threw up her hand in so vague and indecipherable gesture before rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I don’t… I have no idea what’s going on. Whether it’s even true or what… argh…"
Rex silently stepped over to the chair in the corner of the room and sat down, leaning forward, his gloved hands clasped together. "Well, what does Bruno say?"
No doubt he already had an idea, but Ruth told him anyway. "He wants to et up," she said. "Go after him, that kinda thing. I don’t even know how we’d do that, but…"
"Do you want to do that?" Rex asked calmly.
Ruth shook her head. "It’s not even about that. I -- we can’t. There’s stuff we need to do. We can’t just go running around on an -- an adventure or whatever."
It was Rex’s turn to sigh -- but through the mask, the noise was distorted until it could barely be recognised.
"If it’s what you want," he said. "Then I’ll make it happen."
"Don’t say that," Ruth said, looking away. "Just getting to where Bruno is on such short notice, and then doing whatever plan he’s put together to find out Dragan’s location… it’ll cost us a fortune. We can’t."
"You keep saying we can’t," Rex observed. "But you won’t say whether or not you want to."
The room grew quiet. For a long ti, Ruth just sat there, the words she wanted to say hovering on the edges of her lips. Finally, though, she had no choice but to let them escape.
"I do. I do want to find him. I want to know what’s going on. He’s…" she sniffed. "He’s my friend."
And again, when Rex spoke, she could hear that damned grin of his in his voice. "Then we’ll figure it out. Hey -- we make money so we can spend it, right?"
"Right…" Ruth rolled her eyes at the line she’d heard so many tis already.
"Besides," Rex tapped his finger against his visor -- his nose was obviously out of reach. "I’m a pretty savvy businessman, as you well know. I’m sure I can figure out a way to turn a profit from this."
Ruth snorted, despite the tension still churning in her stomach.
There was sothing about Rex, the way he could put on the faux-greed like that, that put people at ease. People expected those in their line of work to be money grubbing, she supposed, and Rex just gave them what they wanted. A businessman uninterested in business would be far more unsettling -- even if that was closer to the real him.
They didn’t talk about the past. They didn’t concern themselves with it. That was how they found sothing close to stability in this crazy world.
And now, Ruth thought, they were just throwing all of that away. A shiver went down her spine.
"You know…" she muttered, leaning back on the bed as she ran a finger along her temple. "You know what worries even more?"
Rex cocked his head, and the ’!’ on his mask switched to a ’?’. "What’s that?"
"After everything that happened, I really did try to lay low for a while -- don’t laugh, I did. Hiding out in Final Church territory, joining up with you… hell, I even changed my last na, just to be safe. Doesn’t look like Dragan’s done any of that. You get ?"
"Ah."
Ruth lay back fully, staring up at the familiar ceiling. "If Bruno noticed him…" she said. "Who else did?"
The world was on fire.
The reason why it was on fire was simple enough. In the chaotic brawl that constituted an Outer lee, a pyrokineticist had clashed with an oil manipulator. Things had escalated naturally from there, flas quickly consuming the wooden temple that had been the site of the battle.
This place, where two-hundred hopeful warriors had co together to discern who among them was strongest, was a recreation of a real temple that existed far beneath the depths of Azum-Ha. The efforts taken by the Organizational Committee -- a combination of respected military figures and Body officials -- to replicate the site had truly been exacting. It was as close to 1:1 as a counterfeit could get.
But the reason they’d elected to make this the arena for an Outer lee? There was no great purpose, no reason this specific environnt would draw out more strength from the fighters. They’d simply decided this would be an interesting locale for people to kill each other in.
Daisuke Ono supposed it did make for quite the spectacle.
Now, it was like the temple itself was composed of flas. Great walls of fire surrounded him on all sides, and the grand statue of the Secret Chief that resided in the center of the main hall was quickly lting. Daisuke paid no mind to any of that, though, even as the flas licked at his body and the molten tal scorched at his feet.
From pain ca power, after all. That was his Devil’s Mantra.
Daisuke growled as he looked out into the haze of flas all around, his heavy armour rattling as he adjusted his weight. He was a massive Pugnant, nearly eight feet tall, and almost all of his body was wrapped in thick tal armour. If not for his infusion, though, even that would have surely lted away by now. This had long since ceased to be a temperature at which normal human beings could survive.
The only part of his body Daisuke’s armour didn’t cover was his face -- that was concealed instead by a leering demon mask, his golden pupils glaring from beneath it. Searching for his final enemy.
Six hours ago, there had been two-hundred fighters here. Now there were but two.
Grunting with effort, Daisuke lifted his massive nodachi and roared out into the flas: "Show yourself! Show yourself, coward!"
For a mont, there was no reply save for the growling of the inferno. There was a crash as the Secret Chief’s head, finally losing integrity, collapsed down to the floor. Only then did Daisuke’s adversary reply.
"I’d advise you to surrender now," the swordsman said calmly as he stepped out of the fire.
He wore a flowing white war-robe, sohow unmarred by the flas around him or the soot raining down. Beneath that, a red shirt and a black tie, utterly contrasting the traditional attire above. This was a man who defied chronology. He kept one arm tucked behind his back, like a traditional fencer -- while from his other hand, palm extended out to the side, a burning blade of white light blazed.
One half of the man’s face glared at Daisuke -- the expression calm, stern, rigid but still human. The other half of the man’s face was taken up by a pure white mask, a jet-black artificial eye staring out from it. The face of a doll, lacking even colour. Inhuman. Eerie.
Special Officer Atoy Muzazi. The supre commander of the Eight Phases of the Turning of the Heir. The one they called the Full Moon.
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