Aetheral Space

Chapter 550 17.22: The Guest list

DAY 3"Pisces-Paint."

Dragana Hadrien tapped a finger against her silver hair, and the colour brightened to a pastel pink. She brushed the same finger below her eyes, and her pupils went from Cogitant-blue to emerald green. Finally, she tapped her fingers repeatedly against her cheeks like she was sending a coded message -- and with each tap of her fingers, she left behind a light freckle.

It had already been difficult to recognise her as a Hadrien variant, Ruth thought, but now it was pretty much impossible.

"As abilities go, changing the colour of things isn't that impressive, I know," Dragana said casually as she redid her hair into pigtails. "But you'd be surprised how easy it is to trick people. Hair colour, eye colour, freckles… even if the actual shape of your face doesn't change, all the little details like these can make you look like a completely different person."

She finished, lifting her hands up.

"How do I look?" Dragana asked, smiling.

Lurking there in the darkness of a Ward 2 alleyway, Ruth crossed her arms and nodded. "Good," she said. "You look cute."

Dragana's smile faded into a withering stare. "I meant compared to the picture."

"Oh, uh," Ruth's eyes flicked down to the script in her hand. "Yeah, you look basically… yeah, it should be fine."

The way she said it might have been incomprehensible, but she wasn't wrong. The beaming face of the person on the script -- Pixie Herman, one of the lucky winners of Pandershi's lottery -- did look pretty damn similar to the disguise. If you didn't know Herman personally, it would be easy to mistake Dragana for her.

"How did you get this, anyway?" Ruth frowned, turning the script in her hands as if the answer were etched on the back. "I'd have thought they'd keep the lottery results secret, y'know?"

"They did," Dragana took the script back from Ruth before she could break it. "I had to hack into Pandershi's systems to get them. It wasn't easy -- that guy is a genius -- but I'm pretty good myself." She winked, waving the script. "And voila."

Ruth nodded sagely. This version of Dragan was a hacker, then. It was good to know some things were the same as the original, at least.

"You sure we don't have to worry about the real Pixie?" she asked, jerking her head to the side -- to the house where they'd just tucked said real Pixie into bed. "It's gonna get messy if there are two of you at the party."

"Don't worry," Dragana said, brushing the dust off the clothes they'd swiped from Pixie's closet -- a white cardigan over a blue dress. "The sedatives I gave her were pretty tough. From the look on her face, she wasn't having nice dreams, but she'll be having them for as long as we need."

Ruth took a deep breath. The old impulse to worry and agonize was flaring up in her brain. But this was good. Their plan was solid. They'd done everything they needed to. She just needed to chill out.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

"You ready?" she finally asked.

"Of course," Dragana grinned. "Nothing like a party, right?"

They stepped out of the alleyway, and into the teeming street beyond. Ward 2, one of Ward 1's neighbours, seemed to have a sky-island theme to it. Buildings and entire streets were kept aloft via the use of repulsors, while the holograms above and below the Ward proper created the illusion of an endless sky. Ruth wasn't scared of heights, but even she felt a sense of vertigo when she looked down into that false abyss.

The streets were packed now, the crowd all heading in one direction. While only the lottery winners would be attending the gala in Auberon proper, the other citizens of the Wards had been invited to celebrate in Ward 1 together. The river of bodies flowed into the dark mouth of the tram tunnel, reminding Ruth of water pouring down a drain.

A shiver ran down her spine.

Apparently, it was exceedingly rare for free travel like this to be allowed, so whatever Pandershi was announcing must have been huge. At the same time, it was an opportunity they couldn't pass up. Muzazi and the Captain were around too, heading to Ward 1 at the same time. The Captain's distinctive appearance meant he had to stick to the alleys and shadows, but Muzazi was in the crowd itself, disguised using Dragana's Pisces-Paint. The rest of their forces had been left behind in Ward 8 to hold down the fort -- they couldn't afford to devote everything to this operation then get blindsided by a third party.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

"You remember what we need?" Ruth asked.

It was more for her own benefit than Dragana's -- and the look on the other girl's face showed she knew that, but she answered anyway. "Confirm the location of Per Mutation. Steal any information they have on the other variants. Secure an entry route for the main operation."

Ruth nodded vaguely to herself as the two of them joined the crowd. When the time came, they needed to get their forces inside Auberon for their attack. They'd take control of Per Mutation, then, and eliminate Zephyr Pandershi too. Of course, that was assuming that everything went as planned tonight.

She clenched her sweaty fists.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

The Captain watched from a distant rooftop as Ruth and Dragana disappeared into the crowd. Behind his bandages, he closed his wizened eyes. From here on in, he wouldn't be using them to keep track of his allies, anyway.

He had a particularly useful Aether glitch that would take care of that.

Blue Aether trickling up his arm, he raised a hand and muttered the words: "Taurus Mortar."

When the Captain fired a Taurus Mortar, he had a certain amount of control over the starting speed of the projectile -- nothing absurd, just enough to throw off the timing of his enemies. However, while his ability to adjust the initial speed had an upper limit, it did not have a lower one. The Captain was perfectly capable of creating a Taurus Mortar with no speed at all, that would never be able to move from its starting position let alone reach its target.

Ordinarily, that would be useless -- if not for another property of Taurus Mortar.

Once he'd locked Taurus Mortar onto a target and fired it, the Captain was provided with awareness of his projectile's current destination. Even if he couldn't see the target, he could locate it perfectly. So, by deploying a stationary Taurus Mortar and locking it onto Dragana's Aether, he was able to keep track of her position -- and he'd continue to do so even after she'd begun her infiltration of Auberon.

At the first sign of trouble, they would be able to make their move… even if, to be perfectly honest, the first sign of trouble here would probably soon be followed by all their deaths.

Atoy Muzazi walked with the people as they passed into the tunnel.

When he'd gone through one of these to reach Ward 7, the tunnel had been dark and oppressive -- but it seemed Zephyr Pandershi wanted better for his pets. His oppression was of a brighter sort. Lights had been set up through the length of the tunnel to Ward 1, making it as easy to see as anywhere else in Zepan, and Seelie Rangers formed a corridor of bodies to guide the path of the civilians.

The people around him didn't even seem to feel any unease from this situation, but Muzazi -- brushing crimson hair from his eyes -- couldn't help but feel it in his heart. He couldn't get Haisley's story out of his head. Zephyr Pandershi could coddle these people as much as he liked -- if it came down to it, he would still kill them all on a whim.

Muzazi hadn't been there. He hadn't seen it. And yet… the image in his head felt no different from a memory.

Twitching bodies.

Smoking necks.

Falling heads.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The horror noise of fallen fruit merged with the sound of footsteps all around him -- as, together with the people of Zepan, he walked and walked and walked.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Harry Phantasm whistled merrily to himself as he strode up the steps to Auberon, nodding to the Seelie Ranger guards as he passed.

They made no move to question or impede him -- in fact, it seemed like they were used to Phantasm coming in and out of the fortress unannounced. He had a few paramours in the various Wards, and made a habit of visiting them when the work was slow. To tell the truth, Phantasm probably should have been keeping an intense watch over Temperance at all times, but if Pandershi weren't going to admonish him, the Rangers certainly weren't.

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Another reason he should have been admonished, though… is because he had no idea who he was bringing home with him.

There was no marker of Dragoon de Fleur's presence within Harry Phantasm's shadow. No rippling of the black plane, no distortion of his shadows boundaries. But he was there. Lurking in the depths of Phantasm's umbra, sitting and waiting while this man delivered him right where he wanted to go.

Don Hadrien was dead. That was fine. It was sad, but he would have died anyway. All Dragoon de Fleur had to do now was find Per Mutation…

…and he could put an end to all of this for good.

When Dragoon had been young, he had been sold off to the sort of people who smiled without kindness. They were the only sort of people he had ever known. He had passed from hand to thorned hand, a slave in all but name, until he had found himself a servant to the glorious de Fleur family.

'Whipping boy'. That was his title. When the de Fleur child was unruly, Dragoon would be punished in his place. Such punishment! Their creativity was something to behold.

The de Fleur child became even more unruly, enjoying the entertainment that came about as a result. Boiling water and whips and beatings and so many more things one would not think possible. His worth was in his suffering. Like a pet, he truly became part of the family. He even received cosmetic alterations to match their aesthetic.

He lived for the family. He bled for the family. He killed for the family, becoming skilled in the art of murder for their sake. Even his name was changed. Dragoon de Fleur. That was fine. It was a far more worthy name than Dragan Hadrien.

In his unworthy heart, Dragoon de Fleur knew he had the greatest advantage over the other variants. They were participating in this Per Mutation Ritual with the intention of victory, of striding over their competitors to claim existence for themselves. That wasn't the case for him at all. He understood better than anyone else that he was a dirty, vulgar, and hideous sort of creature. Dragan Hadrien was the sort of stain that shouldn't be allowed to exist anywhere.

Which made Dragoon de Fleur's job very easy.

All he had to do was destroy Per Mutation itself…

…and cast this vile ritual and all connected to it into the void.

May Miracle took a deep breath, willing the strength to return to her bones and the focus to return to her mind. Her prayer went only half-answered. At the very least, she could still move.

Even with Aether, there was a limit to how long a human being could function without food or water or sleep. After three days of constant stress, May was rapidly approaching that limit. She knew she wouldn't be able to keep going for a fourth day -- which made today her last and best chance.

With the gala being held in Auberon, surely at least some security would need to be reassigned to make sure everything went smoothly. That would make their defenses weaker in other areas. May didn't know if that was a guarantee, and even if it was true she didn't know to what degree, but it was all she had to cling to.

At the very least, she understood her targets.

May had been listening carefully over the last couple of days, but Pandershi was so boastful she'd probably have found these things out without especially paying attention. Assuming a UAP force was on its way to retaliate for Pandershi's actions on Serendipity, it would be presented with two obstacles: the early warning system and Zepan's shield. Those were what May had to deal with, without anyone finding out she had done anything.

First, the early warning system. As the name suggested, it would keep track of lightpoint jumps in a huge area around the Nehr Müt system, alerting Pandershi once any vessel entered that range. It would give him time to batten down the hatches while the UAP were still several lightpoint jumps away, giving him the advantage in any siege.

Secondly, the Zepan shields. Once the UAP forces actually reached Nehr Müt, this was the next obstacle they would need to deal with. The shield Pandershi had created to defend his ego trip of a city was far beyond anything anywhere else in the galaxy. Left to its own devices, it could withstand continued assault for months if not years -- and there were enough resources in the city itself to support the populace that long, too.

If the UAP operation was to have any chance of succeeding, May needed to use the party to sabotage both of those systems -- and she couldn't afford to leave behind any evidence. The last thing she wanted was to advertise her presence.

May clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms to keep herself present. Her revolver was heavy in its holster. She could do this.

Things were getting started.

She retreated into an alcove as security began moving through, on their way to their new posts. While the Seelie Rangers were Aether-users, their strength varied, and May didn't want to risk some of the weaker ones catching a glimpse of her. It was only once the Seelie had finished passing through that May resumed her journey.

She passed by three members of the Unseelie -- Oé Mattispator, Sōngshǔ, and Terada Takeo -- her gaze fixed forward with resolve. The Unseelie had dressed for the occasion -- Oé and Sōngshǔ in elegant dresses, even if Sōngshǔ seemed to have torn hers short, while Terada was wearing a full tuxedo with a superfluous scarf covering his mouth.

The bulk of the Unseelie's forces would be at the party, too, then. May allowed herself the slightest smile. Her chances were getting better by the second.

This was possible.

It was just unfortunate that, as she passed the corner, she didn't notice. She didn't notice Unseelie Sword, Terada Takeo, coming to a halt. She didn't notice him looking over his shoulder. She didn't notice him slightly frowning…

…as if he'd just caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye.

Dragana Hadrien looked up.

To put it in one word, Ward 1 was white.

With the other Wards, even though their environments had been artificial, Zephyr Pandershi had taken pains to disguise that fact with illusions -- the illusion of nature, the illusion of history, the illusion of imperfection. That wasn't the case here. With Ward 1, it was clear to everyone that this was a false world made from Pandershi's will.

The streets were white, devoid of dirt or even dust. The buildings were white, simple geometric shapes without a trace of imperfection to them. The city was white, structures emerging from the ground seamlessly as though it were all made from the same material. The ground was white, composed of a substance that wasn't quite plastic and wasn't quite concrete. The sky was white, not bright enough to hurt the eyes, but still providing an unnatural shade of light for the entire district.

In this land of pale skyscrapers and spires and souls, Dragana Hadrien looked up -- and saw the gates of Auberon looming over her.

Those who had won the lottery had been brought forward from the crowd, to stand on a platform for transport into the fortress proper. Behind her, Dragana could hear the cheering of the people of Zepan -- they didn't yet know what they were celebrating, but they celebrated all the same. Ruth and Muzazi were somewhere in that sea of faces -- and the Captain would be watching from somewhere nearby, too.

To be honest, though, Dragana didn't think they would be able to do much to help. If something did go wrong in Auberon, she'd probably be dead long before they were able to reach her -- or at the very least she'd be captured by the enemy. Obviously, then, she just couldn't let things go wrong in the first place.

"Is it really that easy, though?" giggled the Archivist.

Dragana glanced off to the side. There her Archivist sat and swung her legs atop a pale wall, the young girl wearing a matching pale dress. As per usual, that smug and mocking smirk was on her face.

I'll make it that easy, Dragana replied. It'll be my first time there, sure, but I'll make it work. I've been through worse scrapes.

The Archivist giggled again, putting a hand before her mouth. "Wrong and wrong!"

Dragana frowned. What do you mean?

"You haven't been in worse scrapes before -- you only started existing a few days ago, remember~? And it won't be your first time in Auberon, either -- that's where they made you, dummy. You and that Captain guy and all the others are just more of Pandershi's lab rats. Hahaha! That's so gross! That's so disgusting!"

Dragana's frown deepened. If the Archivist's words were this scathing, then it didn't mean anything good for Dragana's mental state. She couldn't even refute them, though -- it wasn't like the Archivist was wrong.

Stuff it down, she told herself, making use of training she had never truly received.

A deep breath. A clenched fist. A closed pair of eyes.

A mental reset.

When she opened her eyes again, the Archivist was gone -- and, as if on cue, the platform beneath their small group began to rise. Carried by repulsors, it soared through the air, rising up towards the waiting maw of Auberon. It was time for the party.

The beast of black waited.

It clung to a spire at the very top of Ward 1's tallest building, perfectly still, holding onto the structure with absolute strength. From this distance, it was as good as invisible. To the amateur eye, that dark fur looked like a bundle of wires. Its mask of white bone, peppered with tiny holes in place of eyes, looked like nothing more than the face of another satellite dish.

Far below it, the celebration of Ward 1 was already beginning. The platform containing the lottery winners was on its way into Auberon. This was it.

No instinct had led the beast here, for it was not a creature of instinct. It had come here for a purpose. Rather, a mission.

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Twin sparks of pale pink Aether ran down the creature's spine, and the shape of its body began to change slightly. Before, it had been like a mixture between a gorilla and a bear -- but now, it became lean, thin, more lupine in configuration. The only exception to that lupine category was the pair of massive leather wings that unfurled from its back.

It abandoned its perch, and stalked towards the edge of the roof. The platform had just disappeared into Auberon's gates, and roughly thirty seconds remained before they fully closed again. If the beast were to take flight now, it would surely be visible against the stark white sky.

But the sky was not a constant thing.

While the time of day the false skies presented was always just as false, it was never more apparent than in Ward 1. Every hour, the sky would change to a different shade of very light grey, producing the illusion of passing time in this world where time could not pass. Twelve shades, simulating the passage of a day so as to keep the citizens internal clocks functioning.

When the sky changed like that, all at once, there was a three second phenomenon known as the 'blink'. The sky would turn entirely black before changing to the next shade. While that sounded disorienting, most people of Ward 1 had come to consider the blink a regular part of their lives. In fact, when Ward 1 citizens were moved to another Ward, they often experienced high stress levels from the blink's absence.

And now… the time for the blink had come. Three seconds. The beast spread out its wings, putting all of its focus on the memorized moment.

That moment came.

The sky turned black -- and the beast took flight across its element.