Aetheral Space

Several Years Ago…

It was not cold, that night at the Sed. Amidst the fool's snow, only the mildest of temperatures was permitted. As purgatories went, it was strictly room temperature.

And yet, Tybalt del Sed couldn't help but feel a shiver go down his spine as he stepped through the graveyard.

It wasn't much of a graveyard. The graves were just black bolts, planted in the ground, lacking even names to identify those who rested beneath them. The people who ran this place didn't have much in terms of sentimentality. This clinical resting place was the most they could muster for their failed experiments.

"Well," Tybalt sighed theatrically. "I guess we're all failed experiments now."

Penelope looked up as he approached. She'd been sitting on one of the graves, hand on her chin, staring off into space -- until his words had pulled her back into life.

"What?" she said.

"I said I guess we're all failed experiments now," Tybalt replied.

"Yeah, I know what you fuckin' said," Penelope scowled. "But why'd you say it? Don't tell me you were finishing off some big monologue in your head or something."

Tybalt smiled.

"Ugh," Penelope smirked. "Asshole."

Tybalt's gaze drifted past Penelope, looking to the silhouette that stood looking out at the white planet. "How's she doing?"

Penelope shrugged lightly. "She hasn't said anything to me."

"Does she ever?"

Penelope shrugged again. "If you want to know," she muttered. "Just ask her."

Tybalt swayed on the spot for a moment. He'd like to, he'd really like to… but Erica could be so sensitive. The last thing he'd want would be to make her cry. The first graduate of the Sed had been the first to test its knives, after all. She'd given her weight in tears already.

And yet… if the situation demanded them…

Tybalt strolled past Penelope, past the graves, and stopped just behind Erica.

"It's official," he said casually. "Word from the very top. The Sed shuts down, today. Effective immediately. Nobody's sure why."

Still facing away from him, Erica clenched her fists tight. "Just like that…?" she asked quietly.

Tybalt clicked his tongue. "Just like that. Dr. Corleo is arranging a shuttle to New Compass Lightpoint, but from there we're on our own."

"And we're just meant to accept that?" Erica said, her voice shaking slightly.

"What else can we do?" Tybalt frowned. "If there was a purpose to this place… I guess we failed at it. There's nothing else to be said."

He stood there for a moment, waiting for Erica to respond, waiting for her to look away from the black sky. When she didn't, he turned and went to --

"No," said Erica.

Tybalt glanced over his shoulder. "No?"

"No," Erica repeated, although this time her voice was oddly strained.

Penelope looked up from the gravestones. "What do you mean 'no'?"

Erica turned around…

"No."

…and her eyes were stone.

Oh, thought Tybalt. She's changed her mind.

Erica del Sed opened her mouth and spoke with the voice of a monolith.

"It can't have all been for nothing."

Present Day…

"Do you understand now?" Erica asked. "The purpose of this experiment. The purpose of the Sed. The purpose of you and I, our very existences. It should all be clear."

Serena narrowed her eyes.

Bruno tightened his fists.

She's lying. It's a trick or something, to throw us off our game.

She doesn't seem like she's lying.

She's got perfect control over herself. Would we even be able to tell?

…

Do you really believe her? What, this Prince thing is pulling the galaxy's strings behind the scenes?

…

Serena?

Are you still there?

"It seems you're having a debate," Erica said calmly. The red light of the Prince-Regent poured from the doorway behind her, turning her into a bloody silhouette. "That's fine. I understand the truth of this world is a lot to comprehend. Tybalt and Penelope reacted the same."

"If I did believe you," Serena said carefully. "What would it matter? What do you expect me to do?"

"I don't expect you to do anything," Erica replied. "In this situation, I still have to kill you, then I have to go kill Annatrice, and then whoever I turn into afterwards will become the Prince-Regent's host."

"Then why tell us?!" Bruno barked.

"Because you deserve to know. It's like I said… it's the reason for our existences. It's too sad for a person to die without knowing why they were born. Don't you think?"

Bruno slowly shook his head. "No. I still don't get it. More than anyone else, you should understand what happened down there, right? What happened at the Sed? Why the hell would you want to keep it going?!"

Erica blinked.

"Because it can't have been for nothing."

Narrowing her own eyes, she looked up towards the ceiling, the crimson light dancing across her face.

"It's as you say. I understand what happened at the Sed more than most. As the first graduate, I experienced it all before anyone else. But that's exactly why the job needs to be finished. If it isn't, then everything that happened back then was meaningless."

She looked back down.

"I won't allow that. It can't have been for nothing."

Erica del Sed took a step forward. Bruno opened his mouth to call something else out to her -- but Serena beat him to the punch.

"Why not?"

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Erica frowned. "What?"

"Why can't it have been for nothing?"

"Surely you don't expect me to dignify that with a response."

"I mean it. What happened at the Sed… it was awful. But it's over. Even if it was meaningless, it still ended." She frowned, a distinctly pitying look in her eyes. "What you want is for it to mean something… and for it to mean something, it has to go on forever? That doesn't make any sense to me."

"You just don't understand it."

"Yes, I do."

"No," Erica stomped forward, resuming her approach. "You don't."

"For you," Serena said softly. "It never ended, did it?"

Erica hesitated --

"Shut up."

-- and like a beast from the jungle, she lunged forward with horrifying speed.

Two bodies moved at once. Serena raised her hands, crushing Bruno's forcefields into death-thin blades -- and Erica surged her grey Aether, the crackling energy forming a shape like a scorpion's tail as it struck at the del Sed twins.

"Sting of God!"

"Is she alive?" Tom Foolery asked.

Alcera looked up. She'd scooped Annatrice up off the floor -- and out of the blood -- and now held her in her arms. The girl was gone from the world, her face strangely peaceful as her head lolled back. It wouldn't be strange to think that she had perished.

And yet, Alcera Nox shook her head. Annatrice was still with them.

"Splendid," Tom said. "Then all we have to worry about are them."

Was the situation before him an Aether Awakening? It was difficult to say, and the border between that phenomenon and a posthumous ability was blurry anyway. Whatever the case, it was something that had to be dealt with.

Rather than disappearing upon the death of their master, the two giant shadows had persisted -- and if anything, they had grown. The jester had engorged into a chaotic chimera of human limbs, chaotic laughter pouring out of its skin of shade. The insectoid had extended further, becoming more like a serpent, the top half of its body sliding open into a pair of dripping jaws.

Both now seemed especially ferocious, too. That wasn't something Tom Foolery was afraid of, but it did mean that this whole thing would take slightly longer. He disliked that.

"Nox," he said calmly, cracking his knuckles as he stepped forward. "I'd like to defeat these things promptly. Do you concur?"

Alcera Nox nodded, gently laying Annatrice del Sed down on the ground. It seemed she wasn't one for words. Splendid. Useless chatter was another thing Tom Foolery disliked.

"Then, cooperation would be our best move. My ability can facilitate that to the utmost extent," he turned his closed fist into an open palm and extended it towards her. "Do you consent?"

After the briefest moment of hesitation, Alcera nodded -- and took the hand offered to her. Tom Foolery smiled thinly. This, too, was splendid.

Tomfoolery.

Blue-green Aether crackled around their forms -- joined a second later by Alcera's crimson, the chaotic strings wrapping around each other. An aurora of light erupted from them as the tricolour current coursed around and around, their bodies brightening into vague silhouettes of light. For a moment, those silhouettes wavered in and out like a fading mirage… and then, they slammed into each other.

Two became one.

The light faded, and the person that had come about through the union of Tom Foolery and Alcera Nox clenched their fist. Blue-green-red Aether sparked between their fingers. Blue sparkles danced behind red eyes. This form was a compromise, a median between two, a vessel in which to mix the strengths of its components. A fusion.

The beasts lunged for them.

Killing Arts: Nitrogen Palm.

The androgynous figure thrust both their hands forward -- and a second later, explosions of pressure tore apart the outer shell of the shadows coming for them. Ordinarily, that would be a lethal blow, but these enemies were divorced from biology. Nothing but evisceration would do.

How long would this dual consciousness exist, they wondered? Not long enough to warrant naming themselves. For now, they'd just be the One.

The One climbed the air.

It was all thanks to their -- to Alcera Nox's -- ability. By freezing and unfreezing their feet with perfect timing, it was possible to ascend the air like an invisible staircase and get above their opponents. The freezing ability didn't just turn body parts into stone -- it pinned them in space as well. Combined with the Killing Arts of Tom Foolery, it made for a formidable toolkit.

The One dropped from their nonexistent foothold and seized hold of the massive clown -- tch -- twisting their body around its neck and forcing it into a vicious headlock. Then, the One simply froze their arm -- ensuring this was a hold that the Superego simply could not physically escape.

Behind them, the Ego pulled open its midsection further, revealing an array of twitching gun-barrels. They opened fire as one, unleashing a barrage of shadow-bullets that surged through the air towards the One.

Killing Arts: Crazy Dance.

Ordinarily, this technique would be performed against a flat surface, so as to produce tremors that would unsettle the opponent's footing. However, for one with the skill of Tom Foolery, it could easily be adapted for use in the air -- combined with elements of the Oxygen Palm. The One kicked at the air with the speed of a gatling gun, sending a barrage of invisible projectiles out from their legs -- parrying each and every bullet with flawless precision.

Freezing and unfreezing, twisting and turning, the One moved like a spinning top -- and, with strength emboldened by dual Aether, slammed the two shadows together.

The two shadows were nearly indistinguishable from each other as they lay in a pile. As the One gently landed on the ground, they thought that perhaps they too had started to fuse… but no. It was just a matter of pain.

Well, pain was not enough. The One cracked their neck, and the One cracked their knuckles. They had already decided, after all --

-- nothing but evisceration would do.

The decontamination chamber had become something of a mess.

The walls and the floor had been torn apart by the caress of hundreds of blades. Bullet-holes punctured nearly every inch of available space. Flames, both pink and crimson, lingered all across the room.

There was more, too -- other wreckage that the Arcana Automatic had left here. Twisted structures of frozen liquid metal. Swarms of ravenous nano-automatics, dropping out of the air as they lost their connection. Even a replica of the Tower itself, half its size, was impaled upon Jamilu's spear.

That was what it had used to escape.

Jamilu let out a deep breath, standing amidst the rubble and the flames -- his temporary companion, Sam Set, standing a short distance behind him. All in all, this had gone well. His abilities weren't best suited to taking on an Arcana Automatic. A draw like this, with the Tower forced to retreat, was a desirable outcome.

Victory didn't agree.

"Tch," the spear clicked a tongue it did not have. "Coward."

At any rate, the battle was over.

The battle was not over.

The Tower moved through the maintenance tunnels that ran throughout the station, its mind calmly ticking away even as it whispered threats to the empty air.

Ordinary methods would not allow it to defeat the one known as Jamilu Aguta. Even extraordinary methods would find difficulty under these circumstances. It was not because Jamilu Aguta was such an adept fighter, or that the Tower itself was not up to the task.

It was because of that boy.

The Cogitant. Black hair. Blue eyes. Glasses. 'Sam Set'. A disgusting creature. He was like the Moon. He had led Jamilu Aguta through the golden path of battle, allowing the man to adapt to the Tower's adaptations before they were developed. In such a scenario, the battle would stretch on for an unreasonable amount of time.

That was why the Tower would take alternative measures.

No matter how far into the future Sam Set could see, and how well he could direct Jamilu Aguta, both of them still needed to breathe. Neither of them could survive in the vacuum of space. Prophecies were irrelevant. The targets already existed inside the scenario that could kill them.

All it needed to do was destroy the station. No complex weaponry or esoteric means were required. Sustained firepower upon the central cold harvest engine would suffice.

It would be --

NEW TARGET ACQUIRED.

The Tower spun, its chassis already opening to reveal a thin rifle that it aimed into the darkness and --

"Thoth."

-- the gun did not fire. That word, that old word, the first of many, prevented it. That word permitted the speaker a ten second grace period against the Tower's aggressions. Ordinarily, that would not mean much.

But it gave the speaker a chance to speak the other words.

"Rider."

As the man spoke, he stepped out of the darkness of the tunnels, shadows sliding over his face. A bald, older man, with a thin white beard beneath calm grey eyes. It was not a face that the Tower had seen before. Even so, though, it knew who it was looking at.

The fact that the man knew these words at all was proof enough.

"Waite."

He stopped before the Tower, looking down at it, not even flinching as it shuddered violently in place. Right now, it was fighting against these immutable aspects of itself, against the response to these words preprogrammed into it nearly a millennium ago. It slammed its hatred against its own bones and its own nerves, to no avail.

It knew him.

It knew this man.

Only one man could inspire such odium.

It strained to speak, to berate, to curse. Its programming did not permit speech under these circumstances, and yet…

"ED… GA --"

"Marseilles."

To no avail.

The Tower fell silent, and the Tower fell still. That single red eye stared out into nothingness, waiting for the final word, waiting for the final curse…

"Etteilla," the host of the Prince spoke the name of its first victim.

"OVERRIDE ACCEPTED," said the Tower. "AWAITING COMMANDS."

Jaime Pierrot smiled.