Aetheral Space-Chapter 471 - 15.25: Potentate (Part 4)

Ruth collapsed on her back, looking up at the night sky.

"I gotta say," she mumbled to her companion. "I feel kinda bad for you. I know you were trying to betray me and whatever…"

She glanced over to the side. There, Penelope del Sed lay, groaning even as she sank into unconsciousness. Ruth had tried to hold back as much as she could, but the phrase 'to a pulp' still came to mind.

Ruth winced.

"...but the thing is… I was kinda in the zone."

She lay her head back on a pillow of rubble. The city was a ruin of a ruin at this point, and the trail she'd left through the mountains as she'd crossed the distance between herself and Penelope wasn't looking much better. This Empereur Set really wasn't something to be taken lightly.

Still… if she looked up, she could see the swarm of shuttles descending from the sky. It seemed like someone had finally shown up to take a look. Ordinarily, she'd have agonized over whether these were the enemy, coming for her after defeating her friends…

…but right now, she couldn't bring herself to feel worried at all.

Ruth smiled. It was strange, what with the pale snow all around her and the pitch-black sky above -- but damn, it was hot out here.

One Week Later…

Ruth Blaine stood atop the world, her armour reflecting the sunlight, her cape billowing in the wind.

Skeletal. Direwolf. Noblesse. Monarque. Revolutionnaire.

Empereur.

The hulking armour she wore now was the culmination of everything she'd gathered until this point. Everything she'd received was now wrapped around her skin. When she reached out with that bulky hand, she felt as if she could snatch the clouds out of the sky.

And yet… when she looked down at her other hand…

Spindly, black, lined with veins like it was made from molten rock. This was something else she'd been given. Something else she hadn't yet repaid.

Rufus' last words still echoes in her ears:

"It would have hit you, though."

He'd said that as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and perhaps it should have been. Ruth had been standing in the middle of a hurricane of doubt, letting it blow her this way and that, when -- all along -- things had just been that simple. You see someone who needs help, and you help them.

She'd already promised herself. Lily would be the last person Ruth would fail. Lily would be the last person Ruth would lose.

And she understood now how to make that happen.

Atop the skyscraper, looking down at Serendipity, she felt like she was in control for the first time in a long time. Her lips curled into a smile. No point in delaying. She put a finger to her earpiece, connected to her script, as the call connected at last.

"Miss Von Frostburn?" she said calmly. "We need to talk again."

"All in all," Pierrot said, turning off his script and letting the holographic display fizzle away. "I think things ended well."

"Well?" Shen Xiurong raised a thin black eyebrow. "I'm interested in knowing how you can say that -- how you can even speak the words."

The two of them sat alone in Pierrot's dark office, the door locked and the window shaded over. Koel was waiting outside as a guard, but Pierrot wasn't worried about anyone intruding on this meeting. In fact, he hadn't felt this assured in ages. The last traces of the Sed disappearing had lifted a great weight from his heart.

Shen furrowed his brow, his own gaze unamused. It seemed he had worries to spare right now.

"Gregori Hazzard," he muttered. "To capture a member of the Special Officer's Commission isn't great… but at the end of the day, it's one man -- and not a vital one. It's the sort of thing that can be negotiated away, along the back channels."

He leaned back in his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose between two fingers.

"But the Thinker's Comet?" he muttered, aghast. "One of the Supremacy's three most advanced ships… the headquarters of the Absurd Weapons Lab… not to mention all the personnel we've taken into custody… it's a damn nightmare, Jaime."

"What would you have us do instead?" Pierrot asked, steepling his fingers. "Just let them operate inside UAP space? Just let them carry on whatever that bizarre experiment was?"

Yes. Pierrot had made sure that what had happened at the Sed would be reduced to nothing more than a 'bizarre experiment'. Records had been wiped before the boarding parties arrived. AWL personnel with direct knowledge of the project had met with the Tower's embrace.

There were only a few witnesses from the incident who knew of the Prince's existence, and none of them were aware of Pierrot's true identity. He could feel no push from the Prince to deal with them, and so he did not. When he had gone against it that once and closed the Sed, he had sworn to himself that would be the last time he would defy the Prince.

Nothing had changed. The train still ran smoothly down the tracks.

"This could be the excuse the warmongers on the other side are looking for," Shen murmured, looking up at the ceiling. "The new Supreme has been quiet, hiding himself from the public… but for how long?"

Pierrot didn't match Shen's exasperation at all. The Prince was not worried, and so neither was he. He just stood up from the desk, clasping his hands behind his back.

"The upcoming council will decide the UAP's response," he said calmly. "Until then… all we can do is wait and watch. Let me see you to your shuttle."

Luna watched Pierrot go from a distant windowsill, her legs dangling out into the endless sky. One of her light-rabbits nuzzled against her side and she scratched it under the chin in response. Another perched atop a light fixture, ready to retaliate against any attack.

In the distance, through imagined space and time, a multitude of Jaime Pierrots escorted a multitude of Shen Xiurongs to a multitude of shuttles. The two-man walk was as a pilgrimage. Luna observed it calmly through just as many eyes.

It was always strange to look upon the Prince.

Its behaviour was nearly always the same, no matter how many versions of the future Luna inspected it from. It was an entity of pure reaction -- its actions were dictated strictly by all that it had observed and all that had occurred. It possessed none of the neuroses or deficiencies that would produce spontaneity in a living being. Whether the Prince was even truly a thinking being was a matter of debate.

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So long as the past remained the same, the Prince would continue on in the same straight line.

But even Luna was not aware of the entire past. She had witnessed a thousand years in person, to be sure, but her perspective and that of the Prince could not be more divorced. The information they had taken in was different to the extreme. That was why the end of the Prince's path was yet shrouded in fog…

…and that was why she could not understand why it had taken Tower.

It could have done so at any point over the last millennium. The override codes it had retained from its second host were compatible with all of the Arcana Automatics -- should it have wished for it, it could have mustered a formidable army of metal at any time. Yet, it hadn't. It had chosen to hide itself away, and keep the Arcana in play.

So why now? What had changed?

Something must have. The sleeping beast had begun to stir, making adjustments where for so long it had been content to watch and wait. Something, somewhere, had happened -- and the Prince was moving again in response.

If Luna had a spine, a chill surely would have gone down it.

What do you intend, O Prince? Luna wondered, watching Pierrot return to his lair. What do you intend, O creator of us all?

Serena del Sed rested her hands on the railing as she stood on the balcony of their apartment, looking out over the skies of Serendipity. One-thousand and twenty-four stories up. A landscape of clouds and shining skyscrapers.

Beautiful.

Bruno del Sed stepped up next to her, took in the view for a second too, then leapt off the balcony. He plummeted out of sight. Even so, Serena just kept looking forward.

She tapped her fingernail against the metal railing.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

Bruno reappeared in a fuzz of purple Aether next to her, stepping out of the aurora like it was a portal to another realm. His new appearance was as strange as ever -- a cross between a ghost and a crystal, frozen mid-moment, his eyes blazing with white fire. Each time he moved, it was accompanied by an audible crack.

"How far did you get?" Serena asked curiously.

"Around thirty meters," Bruno replied.

"That's actually not that bad."

Bruno nodded to himself. "So we can go thirty meters apart now… that feels weird. I don't know if I like it."

Serena shrugged. "Just because we can doesn't mean we have to."

Bruno crossed his arms, looking for all the world like a glowing statue as he looked off into the distance. "So… where do we go from here?"

"What do you mean?"

There was a crunch as Bruno smirked wryly. "You know what I mean." He nodded down towards the floor. "These guys."

Indeed, the Sed Incident -- as it was being called -- had ended as cleanly as could be expected. The Thinker's Comet and all surviving personnel aboard had been brought into the UAP's custody. Erica and Blackmane -- the ringleaders of the operation -- had been killed in the battle. Tybalt was dead, too, and Penelope del Sed locked away.

That meant that the only loose end… were the children of the Sed. The survivors of that place that Erica had gathered. Someone had to take responsibility for them.

And, in this case, it had fallen on Bruno and Serena del Sed. The three floors beneath them were overrun with the children of the Sed. Pierrot was paying for their accommodations at the moment, but there was more to living than just where you did it.

Down below, there was a brief yelp -- and then a crash. They'd broken something again. Bruno sighed, running a hand over his new smooth face. Serena just giggled.

They could complain, they supposed, but it wouldn't change anything. As the older siblings, they had a job to do.

And that was that.

"I see," Muzazi said, swinging his sword -- again and again and again. "Well… that sounds quite thrilling."

Morgan leaned against the wall, arms crossed, as he finished telling Muzazi everything that had happened while he'd been unconscious. The spacious training room was empty, apart from them, and so his story echoed more than a little. The only interruption were the swings of that sword -- whack, whack, whack.

"So," Morgan ventured. "What now?"

"You're eager to start moving again already?"

Sweat poured down Muzazi's face as he continued his practice swings. Strictly speaking, he probably wasn't fit for this kind of physical exertion yet, but that had never stopped him before. Whack, whack, whack.

"No," Morgan shook his head. "What I mean is… what do we do now? Us? The Phases?"

"There are only two of us now," Muzazi said gravely. "Hardly enough to group us together as the Phases anymore, I should think."

Morgan narrowed his eyes. "Three, if you count that bastard they've got locked up."

Whack, whack, whack.

"You're talking about Gregori?" Muzazi murmured. "Nothing good will come from them keeping him. The Thinker's Comet, too. The world is about to start moving again, I should think."

"And how do we move?"

Whack, whack, whack, whack…

Muzazi stopped swinging. The man who had defeated countless opponents, who had ascended the ranks of the Dawn Contest, who had nearly become Supreme -- he turned and looked at Morgan.

His smile looked like it was about to shatter into glass. His eyes were so sad that they seemed to pity the air itself. He offered a hopeless shrug.

"I have no idea," he confessed.

It was cold in the shuttle.

Dragan Hadrien watched, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the videograph on the far wall. He didn't take off his mask. It made the picture a little awkward to see, but he couldn't risk it.

The videograph was displaying a grainy transmission -- a news broadcast, intercepted from the Serendipity communication network. The Tsarina of Adrust had called a press conference on short notice, and so crowds had gathered outside the Adrust embassy. The Tsarina stood before them, and behind her…

Dragan's frown deepened into a scowl.

The Tsarina went on for a while about the loss of her brother and the necessity of moving forward, but Dragan was only half-listening. His eyes were fixed on the familiar figure waiting behind the Tsarina. Her strong hands were clasped in front of her. Her golden eyes were gleaming with resolve.

With a wave of the Tsarina's hand, she stepped forward.

So, thought Dragan, biting his lip until it bled. You're putting yourself back on the board?

This wasn't what he'd wanted.

This wasn't what he'd wanted at all.

The woman, framed by curious eyes, opened her mouth and introduced herself to the galaxy. As she did so, a new set of armour flared into existence around her, cladding its mistress like a tank. The introduction became an announcement -- something mythic, yet true.

Something that made Dragan Hadrien clench his fist.

Goddamnit, Ruth.

NEBULA FIVE

Ruth Blaine

"The Supernova"

Nebula of Adrust

END OF ARC 15