Aetheral Space

Forgiveness Irons was a lucky man.

You might wonder how that can be true. It's understandable. After all, Nebula Ten was defeated by his enemies in the UAP and brought to heel. He had implants put in his brain to keep him under control, and was tasked with defending the institutions he once sneered at. Even if you were to ignore the invasive medical procedures, the level of humiliation alone was staggering.

But still, Forgiveness Irons was a very lucky man.

One, he'd survived one of Dragan Hadrien's strongest attacks at nearly point-blank range.

Two, he'd survived a fall through the wreckage of the Seat of Man, landing intact in the now-exposed underworld of the government building.

Three, he'd landed at the feet of the one man who could set him free.

Niain smiled thinly, raising a hand crackling with sinister black Aether. It was getting about time for him to start heading for Ultraviolet Tower -- but while we had a minute…

…there was no reason not to help a person in need.

Dragan Hadrien barely had time to register that he had been punched before he was punched again.

The second strike was an uppercut to his stomach, sending him flying up into the ceiling -- scratch that, crashing through the ceiling, piercing into the next floor like a cannonball before he could recover control over his flight. Blue Aether hissed from above. Pink Aether snarled from below.

As Dragan looked down, his demolished eye already being pushed out its socket by a replacement, he got his first glimpse of his assailant. A dark-skinned man in ceremonial gold armour that exposed his midriff, staring at Dragan with bright pink eyes -- pupils shrunk to their utmost with malice. He'd reclaimed his bloody spear, holding it in one hand -- his other arm was missing.

Jamilu Aguta, Dragan thought grimly. Nebula Two.

No, Dragan Hadrien realized. This was not Jamilu Aguta. The expression and behaviour did not match prior knowledge. This was clearly one of the Old Demons of the Dawn, known as Victory. The 'second-born' of the group, Wisdom's attack dog, the third to fall to the corruption of the eon.

Dragan cringed as he felt the Prince provide the additional information. It was like having someone whisper to you in a voice that was just slightly unlike your own. He'd much rather it just talk like a robot than pretend to be his inner monologue.

Oh, well. If it ended up trying anything, he had Pan. Without her in his head, he'd never have been bold enough to claim the Prince personally.

Dragan's old eyeball splatted on the floor far below. Without looking Victory, adjusted his footing and crushed it beneath his boot, smearing it onto the ground. The demon's face remained blank, locked into murder mode.

"Do we have a problem?" Dragan called down, eyes narrowed.

Victory's lips spread out into a thin, humourless grin. "Oh, wow. You're the Supreme, aren'tcha? Man… I only came here because I sensed that thing, but to think I get to take you out too… must be my birthday."

'That thing'.

He knew about the Prince.

Dragan Hadrien realized he needed to kill this thing immediately.

It would be difficult, but not impossible. The Prince had information on Victory's combat tactics and abilities. Given the new level of power and control Dragan had acquired, he should be able to destroy that spear and eliminate the enemy for good.

Dragan raised his fists…

…and then froze as he felt a deathly presence behind him.

He turned his head -- and saw that, outside the window, floated another enemy. Fei Long -- the strongest man of the UAP, the Supreme without Supremacy. Seriously? North was meant to be keeping him trapped in an illusion. Had something happened?

Shit, shit, shit.

Dragan was confident in his ability to take on Victory alone. But Victory and Nebula One?

This was perhaps just a little bit unfair.

Atoy Muzazi was beginning to accept that Zep Koel wasn't coming back.

He'd been trapped in this packed atrium for hours now, surrounded by the frightened masses, sealed on this level by the automatic defenses. The security forces were doing their best to keep the people calm -- but the frequent rumbles of explosions from above and the sight of the Sheshanaga in the sky were undermining their efforts. They were fish packed in a barrel, to be blunt.

Muzazi lowered his script to his side. He'd tried calling Morgan, but no answer. Perhaps the communications were down… or perhaps something had happened to him.

Bang.

Muzazi snapped his head up towards the ceiling as yet another explosion shook the building. Damnation. Without a doubt, there was a battle going on up there. He couldn't just keep waiting here.

He turned to his temporary companion, the medic named Rico. The young man had finished helping the injured, and was now sitting on the floor against the rim of the fountain, looking out at the silent city with a pale worried face.

"I'm going," said Muzazi.

"Going?" Rico echoed, glancing up at him. "Going where?"

"There's clearly conflict further up in the building," Muzazi replied, standing up straight. "I'm going to do what I can to help. It's better than standing here, at least."

"Are you crazy?!" Rico hissed, eyes wide. "It's chaos up there. You'll get yourself killed!"

Muzazi simply sighed and turned, pushing his way through the crowd as he made his way towards the fleet of elevators at the back of the great hall. Rico stood, watching him go in bemusement. Right at the edge of the crowd, though, right at the boundary between the civilians and the line of guards keeping them orderly, Muzazi paused.

"Yes," he said.

Far behind him, Rico furrowed his brow.

"Yes," Atoy Muzazi repeated. "I'm probably crazy."

He stepped free of the crowd -- and was immediately stopped as a security officer planted a hand against his chest.

"Stay back, sir," the man said. "The incident is being dealt with. I need you to just stay put while we get an evacuation route sorted."

"My name's Atoy Muzazi," Muzazi said quickly, stares of recognition boring into his back. "I was invited here by Jaime Pierrot, from the Department of Efficiencies. Call him if you don't believe me. I can help. I'm able."

The guard looked away. "Jaime Pierrot?" he asked quietly.

"That's right," Muzazi nodded. "Put him on. He'll tell you to let me through, I swear."

"We…" the guard looked around before lowering his voice further. "I'm very sorry. We had a report not long ago. The panic room Mr. Pierrot was taking shelter in… destroyed. The current thinking is… survival seems unlikely."

Muzazi blinked.

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"Huh?"

The guard's lips moved as he repeated himself, but Muzazi didn't hear him. All he could hear was a high-pitched ringing, growing louder and louder, as though something inside his ears was screaming. A cold sweat ran across his skin. For a moment, he felt nauseous.

He's done it again.

It didn't take a genius to figure out who had brought the Supremacy's flagship here: the Supreme, Dragan Hadrien. He had come here, and he had killed Jaime Pierrot. He had destroyed the feeble hope Muzazi had scraped together of saving Aclima.

He's done it again.

Every time, every time, it was the same. Muzazi bolstered his resolve, drawing upon reserves he thought long since expended -- and right as he took the first step, Dragan Hadrien was there to trip him up. Always him. Always like this.

He's done it again.

Caelus Breck. Taldan. Panacea. The Dawn Contest. The same trick, over and over and over and over and over, and he fell for it every time.

Again. Again. Again.

This is the last time.

"Move," Muzazi murmured, barely audible.

The guard stopped in the middle of his explanation. "What?"

Muzazi looked up, eyes sparking with angry white Aether. "Move!"

He marched forward to the elevators -- and as he did, he threw the man off to the side. The officer landed in an undignified heap, fumbling his pistol free from its holster and pointing it at Muzazi. "Halt!"

He wasn't alone. Every guard in the area pulled their weapons out as well, pointing them at Muzazi as they spread out in a semicircle, the leader of the squad with his back to the elevator.

"Hands on your head!" the squad leader barked, grey moustache quivering. "Kneel on the ground!"

Muzazi kept marching.

"This is your last warning!"

Muzazi kept marching.

"This is --"

Ding.

Muzazi stopped marching.

The doors behind the squad leader slid open -- and as they did, a heavy shadow fell upon him. There was a man in the elevator, a man who had just arrived. A huge man, wide-bellied and thick-armed, with a pitch-black cloth draped over his face and a pair of massive scissors sheathed in the skin of his back.

Nebula Ten. Forgiveness Irons. Muzazi had never met him, but he knew the human garbage by reputation.

The squad leader turned his head to look at the new arrival, his expression relaxing a little as he saw who it was -- but only a little.

"Nebula Ten," he let out a breath. "Uh, good. Good. We have someone here we believe is involved with the incident upstairs. If you could take him into --"

Forgiveness Irons reached out and plucked the man's head off.

Muzazi blinked. The action had been so smooth, so casual, that he almost hadn't recognized it as an attack. The squad leader's body dropped to the ground, delicately decapitated, and Forgiveness Irons raised the head resting in his palm to inspect it.

"Ah…"

Forgiveness Irons spoke. His voice wasn't anything like what Muzazi had expected. He'd expected something gruff and hoarse, filled with malice, like a demon crawled out of hell. The voice that came from beneath Forgiveness Irons' cloth, however, was soft and breathy -- utterly unsuited to his hulking body.

It was no comfort. The contrast between his form and his words somehow only made him more uncanny.

"How did it feel, my friend?" Forgiveness Irons whispered, looking up at the head in his hand. "Are you frightened, even now? Or were you engorged at the end? Tell me, tell me. Alas. No voice to speak, no words to give."

He let the head drop…

"Honest Contagion."

…and it splattered into a pile of meat slurry down below, tendrils of flesh gripping tight hold of the floor.

The air itself seemed to take a deep breath at the gruesome sight. The crowd stared at the horror. The guards stared at the horror. Muzazi stared at the horror.

And then the screaming started.

The crowd behind Muzazi became a tidal wave, each and every person doing their best to get as far away from the madman as possible, regardless of what was in their path. Rico had to vault over the fountain's edge and land in the water to avoid being trampled, and even then it was a close thing. Muzazi himself was pushed backwards as the outer rim of the crowd barged into and over him, the site of the battle quickly growing smaller in his vision. He could break free, but in such cramped confines that would mean injuring the civilians around him.

Not everyone had seen what had happened, not everyone had heard it, but the terror swept through the grand atrium like a wind. The screams bounced off the wall, the screams stretched up the cavernous ceiling, the screams screamed and screamed and screamed until they became a crescendo.

"He's free!" one of the other guards cried, already firing wildly at Irons. "Lethal action! Engage lethal --"

He didn't get to finish his sentence. Forgiveness Irons was upon him with speed that someone of his size should not have possessed, and -- again, with such casual ease -- he tore the man in two with his bare hands. The scream of terror became a strangled song of gristle, organs that the man had not possessed moments earlier spilling out of him and raining on the floor. Red and pink and green and purple, swirling together like toothpaste, the floor becoming soft and fleshy where it made contact.

"Yes," Irons said softly, even as bullets and plasmashots bounced off his skin. "The chains that bound my neurons have slackened. What luck, what day, what foul recompense. But why weep, my beautiful friends? A scream is not a scream from the throat of benevolence."

He darted forward, scraping his hands through the floor as he went -- kicking up twin trains of bloody dust.

"You mistake yourselves for the flesh dolls 'human', but oh no no no, kitten, that is delusion, that is arrogation -- you must know the difference. Did you not hear it in the cradle? Knowledge faded. Ah, I weep, I weep. The pus of my eyes is all the proof you need that I am true."

One guard turned to run -- mistake. Forgiveness leapt into the air and used him as a landing pad, compressing him into what was basically a human puddle.

"You are inside a stomach, green men, and you have been forevermore. Why fight your nature? You are shit to be shat. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Look inside my mouth and see where my shame is."

Blood sprayed across the floor as Irons tore his scissors free from his back, charging at the last guard standing. The young man screamed in terror, firing useless bullet after useless bullet at the incoming death.

"This world is a Great Pig. This is its body, and this is its blood. The genitalia of reality brings no concern to those it entwines. With your death, the battle against god advances. With your death, you achieve meaning in this world. Be happy. Be true."

The scissors came down…

"Amen."

…and met not flesh, but light.

Radiant Ablaze.

A barrier of shining swords burst from the floor, covering the area around Forgiveness Irons, cutting him off from the crowd beyond. Irons slowly cocked his head, but not at the newfound boundary. No, he was looking down.

Down at the man who had blocked his strike.

"A paladin?" Forgiveness Irons murmured.

"I'm grateful to you," said Atoy Muzazi, his voice low, pushing against Irons with all his strength. The guard behind him retreated, scampering off beneath the barrier to escape.

"Grateful?" Irons said casually. "Yes. You should be. I have returned from the dead to save the world. Come here. Let me love you."

"You are a monster," Muzazi continued, looking towards the floor, his eyes hidden by the shadow of his hair. "You've just demonstrated that to me clearly. Your words, your actions… not one part of you is even close to redeemable."

"The judgement seeks to judge. An hour of comedy."

"Yes, I'm laughing," Muzazi agreed, his voice deadpan, his mouth a flat line. "I'm really very happy right now, you know. You're not someone I have betrayed. You're not someone I failed. You're not someone I care for, or pity, or dread."

He pushed harder, and Irons found even his huge bulk skidding backwards on the floor.

Atoy Muzazi looked up, and his eyes were wide with resolve.

"You're a monster I can slay without regret," he growled, tiny thrusters popping into existence all over his body. "Radiant… Almighty."

It wasn't the finest light Atoy Muzazi had ever produced… but it was enough to bathe the room in white.