Waterstrider

Canvas Town, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fourthmonth, 1634 PTS

Cinto had been surprised when Cyrus had returned after almost two weeks to inform her that Hidoro was dead and that he had taken over his gang. She had been flabbergasted when he had explained that he intended to form it into a sect, and she was expected to participate. She had not been given a choice, no more than she had when he had first brought the option up to her weeks before.

She supposed that there was little chance of her comprehending the workings of a mind such as Cyrus’. His goals remained unfathomable to her.

It had been almost a week since then, and everything seemed to have turned out well. Cinto, however, knew that it was only a matter of time before it all fell apart once more. Everyone in the newly founded Redwater Sect knew it, and they were all waiting for the other shoe to drop. None of them understood the issues as well as Cinto did. They knew that Cyrus was an unorthodox practitioner, but she was certain they didn’t quite understand what truly differentiated someone like Cyrus from someone like Hidoro. Cyrus’s type was far more dangerous.

Hidoro had been a cruel man, a murderer, and one who enjoyed bullying his subordinates. But he had understood the way of things, and how the societal hierarchy functioned. He was, ultimately, an orthodox practitioner. He wouldn’t dare antagonize more powerful groups such as the Hadal Clan or the Heirs of Ottrien. The Riverfiend had already proven himself to be different on multiple occasions.

He had already antagonized at least two forces, or perhaps even more that she didn’t know about. He demonstrated no regret or consideration for this, and had not even bothered to speak with these forces. He even dared to form a sect right within the Hadal Clan’s territory. Soon, she knew, the clan would arrive to either destroy the fledgling sect or subordinate it.

If it were not for the fact that she had already become embroiled in his organization before she knew it, Cinto would not dare to be anywhere near him. He would inevitably doom himself sooner or later, she was sure of it. She feared that she and her students would be dragged down with him. Unlike Hidoro, who she had known wouldn’t hurt her personally due to their shared history, she expected that Cyrus would easily kill her if she were to betray him.

She worried for her students, though. It was clear he wanted soldiers, cannon fodder to use as he pleased. It was also clear that he intended to doom them by teaching them unorthodox techniques. It hurt, but Cinto knew that all she could do was try her best to assist, hoping desperately that he would succeed in whatever insane goal he was working towards.

She sighed as she continued reading the documents that Hidoro’s former second in command Kein Huang had given her. It was unpleasant to be working with the same people again, making her feel as if she had rejoined Hidoro’s gang. Kein did at least care about his subordinates, which was good, but nobody willing to work for Hidoro was trustworthy. A fact that applied to herself as well, she thought sadly.

The documents involved the structure of how disciples were to be sent to her for training and development, before being sent to another ‘palace’, as they were calling it, to work as enforcers for the sect. Her Charging Puma Martial Academy had been transformed overnight without even her knowledge into the Redwater Sect’s Iron Palace.

She was just thankful that they had let her keep the Charging Puma signboard.

???, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fourthmonth, 1634 PTS

Rachel felt herself flow through and around the flows of the universe’s energies. She could sense each and every soul within the station, and in the distance she could feel the barest hints of life at the edges of her perception on the various inhabited moons and mining platforms elsewhere in the system.

Though she only had two senses now, neither related to the five she had once had, the information she acquired from them every instant was several orders of magnitude more than she had ever received as a human. All of it was processed and ordered for perusal easily by the powerful supercomputer that Rachel had become.

She still missed her human body at times. Back in the Pleiades, her people had created a few hidden stations and colonies where they were able to live replications of a true human life as best they could, given the nature of what they had become. She had tried to join them once, to pretend she was just a normal human woman with an interest in reading fantasy novels on the commute to work. She had felt nostalgic for the much happier life she had once lived.

But it was not the same as it had once been. Ultimately, there was no way to hide one’s true nature. She and everyone else had become monsters, and there was no way to undo it.

They had once tried to clone bodies, to recreate humanity as it had once been. Even if they could no longer be a part of it, perhaps they could become custodians. Even that had been too much to ask for. The bodies had been perfectly fine, but the fledgling souls had rotted away, as if the universe was refusing them the right to exist. The cruel hand of nature held no pity for the abominations that had spurned it.

That was when they realized just how much the Osine hated them. They had unleashed a contagion that had been trapped in a nearby star cluster for eons, allowing it access to what had once been human space. While the well-defended souls they, the Terrans, now had were able to eliminate it before it infected them, the children could not. They all withered mere moments after being born, no matter what was attempted. What was left was nothing more than an empty mass of flesh and blood.

To Rachel, this had been the cruelest aspect of her current existence. She had given up on trying to live a peaceful life in hiding. She had decided that her destiny would see the empires of the Osine crumble. They would hide in fear as her own people had.

This destiny had brought her here, one of many sent to infiltrate the territory of forces controlled by ascendants rather than Osine. She would fulfill her role, and the mission would progress.

The tendril of her soul that snaked out through the conduit had long accessed Tseludia Station’s internet, analyzing everything available for public access and many things only available for private access. She constantly analyzed the movements of important figures of both the white and black hat variety by looking at the few security cameras that existed, through posts on social media, and purchases made through certain bank accounts.

This time, her search was for a specific person. A certain traitor. She had noticed the attention that the Heirs placed on Unit 3623, and imagined they would soon discover traces of Hestky’s presence. He had fled the place before betraying her and Cyrus to the Venin Group. While that could have turned out much worse than it had, he could still not be allowed to remain alive.

It was hard to guess just how observant and knowledgeable he was, how much he had guessed of Rachel’s true nature, or of the plans she and Cyrus had come up with inside of his home. They would need to kill him before those slaves of the Epon found him and learned all that he knew. If they were lucky he would refuse to give any information to a force he knew would kill him afterwards, but Rachel was not the type to rely on luck alone.

Hestky had experience in hiding, obtained from the decade of subjective time that he had spent running from his former employers. However, in a space such as Tseludia Station where the amenities of modern society flourished among the population, it was impossible to hide from the eyes of a Terran. The immense sphere of data that was obtained every instant was all accessible to Rachel, and she was able to quickly process all of it. She knew every detail of the man’s height, voice, appearance, and habits. It had taken her in total less than six hours to find his exact position.

She was very surprised to find out that the Heirs of Ottrien had somehow gotten to him first.

The Riverfiend: [The protagonist of various impactful recent events on Tseludia Station, the Riverfiend is a mysterious unorthodox martial artist who has presumably recently arrived to the station. Since then, he is claimed to have stolen from the private organization ‘The Heirs of Ottrien,’ and participated in the creation of a large and incredibly destructive battle located in the eighth district a week and a half ago. Since then, he has disappeared, creating many questions as to just what this figure is up to.]