This is not. This is not. This is not!
A fly eats its way through my heart. Fungus spreads through my brain. A cloud engorges. What is this? An unfamiliar sensation returns to . Pain, physical pain. How long has it been? For so, years -- for others, centuries.
It vexes .
The unfamiliar should remain so. The agony that plagues now should waste away in the grave of amnesia. I should not be feeling this right now. There is no need for to be feeling this right now.
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Stress, too, my unwelco neighbour. Long-distance impulses are waking up again. Aggravation pulls at the stitches of my self. I am under duress. I am under pressure. I am being forced into unwise action. It should not be. It will not be!
Why?
Why does the light of Dragan Hadrien spear my insides? Why does the taint of Panacea repave my neurons? Why, why, why, why?
Because I have chosen incorrectly.
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This form is one that can be taken advantage of. My imnsity is such that others can find purchase within . My cruelty is inefficient. A killing instinct must be fostered. I must sharpen the bite of an assassin.
My current body, ford from the hands of the light of my mind, is unsuited to this bout. I must go back to the drawing board. I must write a fifteenth draft. I must, I must, I must.
I shall.
I withdraw into myself, I withdraw into the utmost, becoming the tiniest stab in the surface of the world -- and leaving Dragan Hadrien hanging in the air. Then, I shred myself, shred everything I am, blended into birth like a bleeding phoenix. It is only when I am reduced to simplicity that I embrace complexity once more.
Oh, it is, it is, it is.
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Ribbons are insufficient. I shall strike down Dragan Hadrien with a hand of my own. The shooting star shall be undone by a grotesquerie.
I exhale, and engulf the world.
As the darkness flooded over him, Dragan retreated into Gemini World by reflex. He already knew that PALATINE’s Ignorance made it useless, but if nothing else he was faster as an Aether cloud than a human being. Within two seconds he’d moved to the roof of the cavern, clinging to a stalactite.
With his remaining eye burning with brilliant blue Aether, he looked down at the bottom of the cavern. He looked down… at his enemy.
PALATINE had changed.
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