Aetheral Space

"I gotta say, Ruth," North shrugged, a smirk on his lips. "Not really sure what ya thought was gonna happen here."

He strolled down the steps of his fractal castle towards her, hands in his pockets, as carefree as could be. His leisure was such that Ruth could have cut him down six different ways in the time it took him to descend the stairs -- if only she wasn't stuck. Indeed, the only movement she was capable of right now was a very slight clenching of her jaw.

Cathedral at the World's End.

It was part of North's Nightmare Underground ability, specialized illusions that wreaked havoc on the human body and mind. The Cathedral was particularly nasty -- its structure contained an absurdly high level of visual detail, locking the target in place as they struggled to process it all.

Ruth's vision was already growing blurry, a pain scratching behind her eyes -- she wasn't even able to blink right now. With as much effort as it would take to lift a boulder, she was just barely able to move her eyes to look at the things floating around North.

Six blades, white in colour, long and thin. They seemed to be protecting North automatically, orbiting him like planets around a sun. These were new.

North noticed where she was looking, stopping in his tracks. His smirk opened into an easy grin as he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the strange weapons.

"Oh, these babies?" he said. "The Ribs of Granba. That guy had a hell of a body, huh? I was allowed to take my pick out of the Supreme Collection, and these little guys seemed to fit my style the most, ya know?"

Ruth said nothing -- she wasn't able to. Still, she supposed the look in her eyes told the whole story.

North cringed. "You're looking like ya really wanna get at me right now, Ruth. Can't say I blame ya. We ain't exactly got the sunniest history, huh?"

Once upon a time, Ruth had mourned what she thought was North's death. The images of bones sinking into plasma had haunted her dreams for months. Now, though? After Taldan, the UniteRegent, Panacea, Azum-Ha? Now she'd like nothing more than to dunk him in herself.

"I was hoping to take out Nebula One, too," North sighed. "But I guess you'll have to do. Don't worry, Ruth -- I ain't gonna stand here and monologue at ya all day. I got a busy itinerary. Ribs of Granba."

At North's command, the Ribs of Granba flew out in front of him, spinning together as if to form the barrel of a rifle. With a snap of North's fingers, a fiery light -- superheated air -- began to coalesce between them. The bullet, loaded.

North lazily pointed a finger at Ruth's face.

"Fire," he yawned.

That was the first mistake he'd made today, and he'd chosen the right word for it. Fire. As the flaming shot launched from the Ribs of Granba with enough heat to scorch the air, its crimson light blasted through the room for an instant -- just for an instant, but still…

…for the briefest of moments, Ruth Blaine could not see.

Noblesse Set!

The blast struck the white armour -- conjured while the Cathedral was concealed -- and was repelled, surging towards North with just as much strength and speed.

His black eyes widened, and the Ribs of Granba moved to automatically defend -- wrapping themselves around his body and lifting him up into the air to avoid the projectile. The blast slammed into the far wall, erupting into a wave of flame that incinerated half of the throne room in an instant. Even better, North's concentration had been broken -- as Ruth rose to her feet, she could see that the Cathedral at the World's End had become a fuzzy outline of vague intention.

She could move. She could fight.

Direwolf Set!

Avoid the flames. Avoid the blasts. Move like a wolf, and strike for the neck.

Ruth kicked off a pillar and then the wall opposite it, launching herself up towards where North had repositioned himself. The Ribs of Granba resumed fire -- smaller blasts from each individual blade -- but Ruth twisted her body in mid-air to avoid them. When it seemed her leap wouldn't reach her target, she manifested the Noblesse helmet beneath her feet -- and kicked off of it to launch herself further.

Her claws lashed out…

Nightmare Underground: Eleven Devils in the Rain!

…but didn't reach their mark.

North vanished from Ruth's vision. Instead, she was faced with an endless rainy sky, the misty light refracting into eleven vague silhouettes. An instinctive nausea welled up in her throat -- like a thumb was being driven into her brain -- and, against her will, she found herself retching right then and there.

Ruth dropped out of the air, landing on all fours as she wheezed -- and North, still carried by the Ribs, floated above her.

"That was, uh…" he wiped the sweat from his brow. "That was a close one. Don't think you'll get me like that again."

He was still off his game, though -- Ruth could tell. That last illusion had been projected as a flat plane -- like a videograph screen between them -- rather than a three-dimensional illusion surrounding her. That was why the effect had been reduced so much. If she'd been hit by Eleven Devils at full-blast, a vomiting fit would have been inevitable.

She couldn't let him get his focus back no matter what. If he did, he'd just trap her in another Cathedral at the World's End, and that would be it. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

So… even though this wasn't the right environment for it… she didn't have much choice.

Ruth Blaine took a deep breath…

Monarque Set!

…and let it out.

Monarque worked best in the open skies, where it could fly and bombard freely. Even its manifestation needed a lot of open space to avoid collateral damage. Here, in the relatively cramped confines of the Sheshanaga…

…it was nothing less than a bomb.

North was a person who had come to exist through coincidence.

His birth name wasn't North, for one thing. When he'd been 'born' into this world -- for lack of a better word -- he'd been labelled DH6. Disposable Human #6. The product of endless happenstance.

Coincidentally, a mid-ranking Minister of the Body had experienced a health scare.

Coincidentally, that scare had awakened a terror of death in him.

Coincidentally, he had reached out to a Superbian sect -- and commissioned a set of spare organ banks for himself.

Coincidentally, an error in one of the stasis pods had woken DH6 up.

Coincidentally, a change in guard shifts meant that nobody had been there to stop DH6 from wandering off.

Coincidentally, a maintenance worker had taken pity on the doomed child, and released him out onto the streets.

Coincidentally, he had survived one day.

Coincidentally, he had survived the next.

Coincidentally, he had felt fear and reached for power…

…and coincidentally, he had felt transparent strength crackle between his fingers.

And so on, and so on, and so on…

Coincidentally, coincidentally, coincidentally, he had barely managed to squeak his way into the world from outside of it -- and so he understood its shape better than anyone. It was a rigid thing of dark iron, like a clenched fist, and the only thing it would answer to…

…was blood.

North had been born through coincidence, and he had lived through coincidence. He had no doubt he'd survive this through coincidence as well.

Bang.

North cried out as light and Aether burst forth, the sheer air pressure sending him flying. He raised his arms to shield himself, and the Ribs of Granba responded to the attack at the same time, arranging themselves into a star-pattern as they maintained a barrier of frozen air. As the force abated, North rolled to a halt on the floor -- and he darted away in the same instant.

If he stopped now, he would die, after all.

The Monarque Set's blast struck the spot North had just been standing, reducing it to a smoking crater in an instant. Immediately, it continued firing through the smog, blasts of absorbed force flying throughout the chamber like spears of light. The Ribs of Granba took hold of North once again, pulling him this way and that like a ragdoll as they weaved through the onslaught.

She's an egg right now, North thought. In a room like this, she shouldn't be able to move too much. She won't give me time to get a complete Nightmare Underground going, but I should be able to wrap a 2D illusion around her position and at least get her with something.

As the blasts abated, just a tad, he threw his hands forward and called out:

"Nightmare Underground! Turbopsychoworld!"

Movement.

Ruth had been keeping herself still, positioning herself in the middle of the chamber like a turret -- but all of a sudden, she was certain that she was moving at a dangerous speed. It felt like the floor was shifting beneath her, the red and purple lights flashing from above making it feel like a disco party out of control.

He hit me.

No time to think about it further. If she let the effects of whatever Nightmare Underground this was sink in, she had no doubt she'd be floundering in seconds, struggling for a foothold her scrambled equilibrium wouldn't allow her. She had to deal with it before then.

All the illusions are visual. Just don't look at them.

She redirected her blasts downwards, towards the ground directly beneath her -- kicking up enough smoke and smog to blot out the flashing lights. Immediately, the sense of rapid motion began to fade. She was still. She was in control. She was --

North leapt out of the fog before her.

Shit!

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

He'd played her.

He'd known she'd respond to the Nightmare Underground by creating a smokescreen -- a smokescreen he could use to get in close. North jumped at her egg-shaped shell, a single Rib of Granba clutched in his hand and rippling with transparent Aether. This was it. This was his coup de grace.

Crimson Aether surged for a moment as Ruth focused all of her infusion into the front, preparing herself to tank the blow…

…only for a thought to occur.

Where are the other Ribs?

Cold certainty settled in her chest.

With his first attack, North had made a mistake. He'd temporarily blinded her by attacking from the front, allowing her to break free of his illusion and counterattack. And now he was attacking from the front again, clearly about to unleash a similar attack. Only… she'd thought so herself, hadn't she?

North wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

Within the Monarque egg -- transparent on the inside -- there wasn't enough time for Ruth to turn around, not fully… but she was able to look over her shoulder. She saw it then. The five remaining Ribs, circling each other to form a barrel, that barrel forming a burning bullet, ready to fire at her back in a move right out of the Dragan Hadrien playbook.

She began to redestribute her infusion, to shore up the defenses she'd lowered --

Bang.

-- but too late.

The Monarque Set shattered in a fiery explosion as the bullet slammed into it, Ruth flying out of the wreckage and slamming into the throne room's entrance. Slowly, she slid down to the floor, her body pierced by white shrapnel and sparking with red Aether. When she coughed, it tasted like blood.

"And there ya have it," North grinned, tossing the single Rib over his shoulder -- where it joined the others in floating defensively. "Bamboozled, your honour."

Gritting her teeth and mustering what strength she had left, Ruth grabbed a rock and infused it with Aether -- but when she threw it, North didn't even bother to block. He just cocked his head and let it sail off into the distance.

"Damnit…" Ruth gasped, clutching her side as she sank down to the floor. "Dragan can't be paying you enough for all this bullshit, can he…?"

"You'd be surprised," North replied as he advanced. "I'm in my charitable phase right now."

"What do you…?"

"Yeah, we ain't having a conversation. Nightmare Underground: Cathedral at the World's End."

Unfiltered, unabated, undiminished. All detail pressed in on Ruth from all angles, locking her unarmoured form into place. It was all she could to just barely -- barely -- force tiny breaths in and out.

"You're soft, Ruth," North continued, putting his hands in his pockets again as he looked down at her. "You believe. You wanna believe. That's why it's so easy to trick you."

He raised a finger, and the Ribs of Granba flew upwards, out of Ruth's sight. She understood it. Attacking from the front had been a big mistake the first time, so this time North would deliver her death from above.

His instinct was right. There was nothing she could do if that bullet fired this time.

North opened his mouth to give the final command…

"Fi --"

…but he never finished the word.

North stopped.

North stopped, and looked down at the claws that had just speared through his chest.

Slowly, he turned his head -- and finally saw the third figure now standing in the room with them. The Skeletal Set, unoccupied, moving like a puppet driven by Ruth's crimson Aether. While North had been preparing the final blow, it had snuck up and stabbed him from behind.

North wasn't the only one who could take a page out of Dragan's book.

The Cathedral was already growing fuzzy, indistinct, and so Ruth found herself able to move… able to speak.

"Your ability stopped me from moving…" she forced out. "But it couldn't stop me from thinking… from controlling something…"

North finished the thought for her.

"The rock," he chuckled bitterly to himself, even as blood began to trickle down from the edges of his mouth. "You weren't trying to hit me with it at all… you were just sending your Aether behind me for the manifestation. Man… hahaha… you got me."

Skeletal Set…

The armour transferred back to Ruth's body, and North began to fall, the wound in his chest open and bleeding grievously. She caught him before he hit the floor. It was the strangest thing. She'd been sure she was sick of this guy.

And yet… when she blinked, her eyes were wet.

"Why?" she whispered, looking down at a face growing pale. "Why?"

What did she even want an explanation for? There was so much. Maybe she needed to know what had gone wrong with the whole world.

North's lips moved.

"I guess I wanted to be tricked…" he murmured, his gaze distant.

"But why all this?!" Ruth screamed, her voice echoing through the dark chamber.

North sighed, his breath shallow. "I wanted to… believe in something too… but bastards like me…? They can only… believe… in other bastards…"

His last word trailed off, and he never picked it up again. Slowly, with a shaking hand, Ruth reached out and closed North's black eyes. Slowly, with shaking arms, she lowered him down to the floor. Slowly, with shaking lips, she let out a shallow breath of her own.

And then the lights went out.

"I'm in," Noel said -- with no small amount of smugness -- as she leaned back in her seat. "We have full control over the Shesha's systems."

Pandershi clapped as politely as she was able to, which wasn't saying much. "I'll admit," she chuckled. "That was good work. It would have taken me a similar amount of time to get through security like that."

Noel shot her a glare -- but quickly sighed, choosing to avoid the annoyance and just accept the backhanded compliment. She cracked her fingers, leaning back towards her holographic monitor as she prepared to resume working.

"Give me a couple of minutes," she said. "I can plot a course to lose tracking and get the ship somewhere under our control. From there… we can figure out how best to make use of it."

"Oh," Pandershi smiled sweetly. "But we already know how we're going to make use of it."

Aclima glanced between the two of them, her expression uneasy. "We do…?" As far as she'd been told, the job they were here for was stealing the Sheshanaga from the Supremacy. She'd been on board for spitting in the face of the new Supreme, but what was this now?

"Huh?" Noel looked up at Pandershi, blinking with the same confusion as Aclima.

"Oh, Niain didn't tell you?" Pandershi giggled. "Tsk, tsk. What a terrible leader he is."

The woman clasped her hands behind her back, taking a step into the gloom -- her rigid posture like that of a general surveying the battlefield.

"We have access to one of the finest weapons in the galaxy," she said, facing away. "Who knows if we'll get another juicy chance like this? Send the attack signal to the Sheshanaga. Let's open fire, hm?"

Noel stood up from her chair, the drones that had formed it whizzing around her like a swarm of wasps. "Are you crazy?!" she cried. "There's no way I'd --"

Amber Aether flashed.

Thunk.

The attack was so fast that Aclima could perceive it only as a thin orange line, visible for a fraction of a second. Noel's argument trailed off… and, slowly, she fell to her knees -- and a second later, down to the ground entirely. Her drones bobbed up and down in standby mode.

Aclima blinked.

"Don't worry," Pandershi chuckled, swirling a set of glowing orange marbles -- like the one she'd just flicked -- in the palm of her hand. "Even for a weakling like her, an attack like that isn't enough to kill. I just couldn't be bothered to deal with her hesitation right now. It's like I said before -- it'd take me some time to hack into the Sheshanaga…"

She snatched one of the drones out of the air, holding it in her hand like an apple.

"...but much less time to just hijack little Noel's interface."

Orange tendrils sprouted from her palm -- constructs formed by her Aether ability -- and they speared through the drone's metal surface. It was only the work of a few seconds before the blue lights running along the drone shifted orange as well. All Pandershi had to do was toss the hijacked drone up into the air, and it projected an amber screen in the air for her, ceding control.

"Ah," Pandershi sighed. "I truly am a genius."

The scientist didn't even flinch as Aclima pressed her massive sword against her throat, her gaze steady… and deadly.

"What do you think you're doing?" the former Supreme Heir asked, voice low.

"Context should make that obvious," Pandershi replied. "I'm about to activate the Sheshanaga's automatic attack systems. Things are starting to get a little too cozy around here, so it'll serve to stir the pot. Even if I only activate the most basic attack systems, we're still looking at macro-arrays of plasma turrets and legions of combat automatics. It'll be quite something."

Aclima tightened her grip. "You think I'll just stand here and let you do that?"

"Were you not paying attention a minute ago?" Pandershi rolled her eyes. "This is just one of several bodies I have running around on Serendipity right now. Even if you cut this body's head off, I can just activate the sequence from another one now that I have access. It wouldn't even qualify as an inconvenience."

There was the briefest silence -- one that Pandershi quickly filled.

"I've implanted this body with a countermeasure for your Curse Hand, too," she went on. "I won't go into specifics, but if you try it you'll almost certainly kill both yourself and young Miss Edmunds."

"That's a bluff," Aclima swallowed. "And… even if it isn't, I'm sure I can become an inconvenience if I go around taking out those bodies of yours."

"Maybe," Pandershi slowly nodded. "Maybe. But if that isn't enough to dissuade you…"

With a twirl of her fingers, she flipped the holographic screen around to face Aclima. The girl's eyes widened -- and the blade moved, just the tiniest bit, away from Pandershi's neck.

"...this is what's happening in the atrium right now."

A security feed was playing right in front of Aclima's face, a battle taking place between many different people. Her gaze wasn't focused on any of the others, though. It was locked onto one thing, one face, the face of the man swinging his sword made of light.

Atoy Muzazi.

"I'm not a sadist…" purred Pandershi. "But there really is something to be said for the sight of a righteous expression collapsing in on itself. You're right, young lady. The good and noble thing to do would be to hunt down my bodies as you proposed. If nothing else, you might be able to delay the cataclysm. But if you do that… you very well might miss your chance. He's there, right now, waiting for you. What you need to do… and what you're going to do."

She rested a finger on the massive blade, pushing it further towards her own neck.

"You already know which is which… don't you, Aclima?"

The girl steadied her breath.

The girl tightened her grip.

The girl steeled her resolve.

And…

…the girl broke.

Pandershi smirked to herself as she watched Aclima whirl around and charge out of the room, leaving her with the unconscious Noel. Settling back into a seat, she crossed her legs and beckoned the holographic monitor forth. From there, a single swipe was enough to switch the system to voice activation. She preferred the gravitas of a verbal command.

"Sheshanaga," she said pleasantly. "Begin civilization assault."

The air was still, and the Sheshanaga floated still as well -- a new fixture in the sky like a flying statue. It had been like this the entire day, an ominous omen casting a shadow over the city. No movement, no light, no true signs of life.

Until now.

There was no warning. In a matter of seconds, panels opened all over the surface of the great starship, revealing so many plasma-turrets that the shape of the vessel itself seemed to change from their presence. From there, there was only the briefest pause as the turrets acquired targets -- buildings, streets, infrastructure. A command had been given to spare the Seat of Man itself, and so the Sheshanaga locked on to everything around it.

The starting time had come at last. With a boom like an apocalyptic drum… the Sheshanaga opened fire.

A sea of flames poured over Serendipity as the countless turrets let loose their payloads, converting the eerie silence of the afternoon to the chaos of armageddon in an instant. Mighty skyscrapers began to topple. Explosions devoured entire streets. Serendipity's defenses returned fire, turning the landscape into a fireworks show of blazing shots.

Choked by smoke and soot, the sky shifted to a bloody red.

The Sheshanaga wasn't even done. The automatic hangars throughout the structure began to slide open, releasing swarms of massive combat automatics like giant mechanical insects. They zoomed and swooped through the battlefield, firing their own plasma-bolts at the automated defenses. The children of Imperator One had come to play.

Within around a minute, the cold war between the Supremacy and the Unified Alliance of Planets had no doubt become as hot as a supernova.

High in the sky, blue Aether erupted -- finally spitting out the three figures it had been holding. The heated battle between them, which until now had been a ferocious and flowing dance, suddenly came to a halt. Even for warriors of their resolve and stature, the sight before them was enough to demand their full attention. One of them laughed in wicked admiration at the audacity of the display, while the other two stared in horror.

Dragan Hadrien let out a shaking breath as he looked at the burning world below.

"What the hell is this…?"