Unexpectedly, Dr. Nigel Redmont hadn't died!

The biomech designer who recently joined the Larkinson Clan only to betray its trust should have been killed. The trial was real, the clansmen's hatred towards the traitor was real and Ves truly spilled blood at the execution stage.

Yet despite the very realistic show that took place in front of everyone's eyes, not everything that took place was actually real!

"It doesn't take much stagecraft to present a convincing illusion to our audience." Ves calmly explained as he walked closer to the befuddled and very much alive traitor. "I ordered a few doctors to clone a convincing copy of your body. The brains, organs and all of that complicated stuff doesn't have to be grown, so we easily got it ready by the time of your trial."

He didn't have to explain any further. Projection technology was so sophisticated that it could easily camouflage a body swap.

While Ves addressed the public while borrowing Nitaa's foldable sword, the floor beneath Dr. Redmont's body dropped into the interior of the podium. It then went back up while carrying an identical but ultimately fake body of the convicted clansman.

All of this took place while projectors carefully maintained the illusion that Dr. Redmont had been standing around all this time.

Even though it wasn't strictly necessary, muting the prisoner reduced the variables that could go wrong. Ves was convinced he pulled off the swap so well that no one except the occupants of this room knew that Dr. Redmont was still alive!

A mix of emotions swelled through the biomech purist. Over the course of the trial, he had become more and more distressed. The complete teardown of his actions and beliefs was both damaging and humiliating to him in a way that struck at his very heart!

When the expert pilots that he looked up to vehemently criticised his motivations and his righteous cause, he had become devastated.

The seething glares and the universal dislike from the crowd only made him feel worse.

His shame grew so big at the end that he actually welcomed the prospect of ending his life at the end of his trial!

Yet instead of feeling a blade separate his head from the rest of his body, he descended into the podium and lost consciousness for a time.

He had only just regained his wits, so the amount of time that passed in his perspective was not that much. He still had to shake off the mental preparations he made for his impending execution!

"Will you still kill me?" Dr. Redmont tentatively asked.

"You have been declared guilty. Your sentence still stands." Ves firmly stated. "So don't think you are a free man. You are not. The Larkinson Clan will not welcome you back, not after what you have already done. Even if I am willing to forgive you, the rest of the clan sure won't. There is no home for you there anymore."

"Then why did you take me away?" Nigel looked lost. "I don't understand why you would go through the trouble of preparing a body double to mislead everyone into thinking that I'm dead."

Ves smirked and softly patted the convict's shoulder. "You'll understand soon enough, Nigel. For now, just sit and relax while I make some preparations for the next step of your journey. I'll have my men bring in some snacks and drinks to make you feel more at home."

Redmont sat on a luxuriously soft and comfortable chair as Ves, Lucky and Nitaa exited the test chamber.

Outside, Ves checked the time while Lucky floated upwards until he landed on the top of his helmet.

"Meow~"

Nitaa couldn't remain silent, though. Even though she witnessed Ves making some unusual preparations that culminated into smuggling Dr. Redmont away, she still didn't understand the reasoning behind his actions.

"Sir..?"

"Yes, Nitaa." Ves looked up from his projected comm interface.

It wasn't often that his tall personal bodyguard spoke up on her own accord. In fact, Ves had gotten used to treating her and the rest of his honor guard as background decoration.

Even though he was still peripherally aware of their bulky armored forms, they were so silent and unassuming that it was easy to dismiss them from his consciousness after a time.

Yet despite not even registering their presence during routine days, they were still very much present and watching. Ves extended a greater and greater amount of trust to his honor guard of late. He was so satisfied with their loyalty and discretion that he no longer feared any leaks whenever he engaged in something sensitive.

It didn't matter too much anyway. Most of his most sensitive work was either too technical for his guards to understand or wasn't even perceptible to them in the first place!

Nitaa gestured her heavy rifle towards the test chamber. "Your past stance regarding traitors has always leaned on the harsh side. Sparing Dr. Redmont when there is overwhelming proof of his crime is uncharacteristic of you. Are you…"

"I'm not crazy, if that's what you think." Ves interrupted her. He gestured to her to follow as he walked to the entrance of the nearby observation room. "I haven't gone soft. My stance towards treachery still hasn't changed. In fact, I despise those who made an oath of loyalty to me but turned their backs towards their commitments. I loathe this behavior so much that granting any traitors a quick and clean death is abhorrent to me! I will never grant mercy to someone who betrayed my trust and stabbed my back! The fate that I have in store for individuals like Dr. Redmont is much more cruel than a simple decapitation."

Ves smiled as he entered an observation room that he had already prepared beforehand. Different from the controls he was used to, every workstation and console was organic instead of metallic.

No one else was present aside from the three as he could not afford to expose what he was about to do. To that end, he activated numerous jammers and other interference systems in order to completely isolate this space from the outside world.

"Lucky, go sweep the surrounding rooms for bugs and other suspicious devices."

"Meow?" His cat shifted from the top of his helmet.

Ves angrily swatted Lucky's lounging body from his head!

"MEOW!"

"When I say you should get to work, then you better get moving right away! You can take a nap afterwards, but first do your chores!"

"Meoooww…"

Lucky's tail drooped as the cat slowly went to work. He deeply attuned his senses while beginning to phase through a workstation.

Since it would take some time for the gem cat to sweep the observation and control room for bugs, Ves fine-tuned his plan and made sure that all of the relevant instruments were calibrated.

Despite his lack of familiarity with organic tools and equipment, their mechanisms and parameters were almost identical to their mechanical counterparts. As long as he took the differences into account, he could operate them with great familiarity and obtain his desired results without too much fuss.

Once he finished his latest check, he waited until Lucky returned before performing the most pivotal step.

"Everything okay here?"

"Meow."

"I see. Well, those dormant bugs are of little concern since they were in place long before we took this place over. Good job cleaning them up anyway."

"Meow."

While Lucky jumped up to a dormant workstation and made himself comfortable, Ves grinned wider as he was about to engage in his next experiment.

"I've made four statues of Lufa, but I've only tested three of them so far. Do you know why, Nitaa?"

"I presume the fourth one is dangerous, sir." 

Ves nodded. "Correct. It is supposed to have a beneficial effect, but its requirements are so harsh that I don't exactly predict a good end to those found wanting. The problem is that this is all guesswork. I need to obtain solid data and clear proof to confirm my suspicions. It is just that I never dared to subject any human to my fourth and most intense statue. The substantial risk of danger makes it irresponsible for me to subject clansmen or refugees to the glow of my final statue."

"What changed?"

Ves gestured to the other side of the observation window. After Dr. Redmont realized that he was truly spared from execution, he slumped in his chair in order to ease his frayed emotions.

No one was able to face his own execution while remaining unaffected! That went doubly so for someone who felt so confident that his actions would be celebrated rather than vilified!

Though the traitor did not like to be confined, he knew he couldn't show up in front of other Larkinsons again. He slowly became more accustomed to his current conditions and even started to eat some nuts while washing down his throat with fruit juice.

Redmont burped. "Are you listening, Mr. Larkinson? If it is not too much to ask, can you give me an alcoholic beverage? I am craving a real drink."

Ves activated a communication channel. "I can't do that, doctor. In order to obtain the most authentic possible result, you need to be in a sober condition. If your mind and body becomes even slightly impaired, my test results will certainly become skewed in an unknown direction. I don't want to add any superfluous variables to my experiment."

"...Test results? Variables? Experiment? Mr. Larkinson… what are you talking about? Wait, this chamber… where am I? What are you doing?"

Ves grinned wider as realization finally dawned on the traitor-turned-test subject.

"Wait, whatever you are trying to do, let's just talk about this. It is illegal to engage in unsupervised human trials in the Life Research Association!"

"It's too late to complain, Redmont! We may be on LRA soil, but their research supervisory organs are far too busy to pay attention to my little experiment. Besides, you are a traitor who has already been sentenced to death. You're not a Larkinson anymore, and since you are already 'dead' you are not a human anymore either! From the moment you have lost your rights, your only purpose is what little life you have left is to serve as my test subject!"

He did not give Dr. Redmont had more time to panic and complain. He pressed the button that formally commenced the experiment.

The chambers shook a bit as large mechanical movements took place. A dozen seconds passed until one of the walls to the testing chamber slid open.

A pair of heavy-duty bots slowly carried a very distinctive statue forward. Just the sight of it caused Dr. Redmont to shake. Though he was just a mediocre biomech designer, some instinct within him felt deeply unsettled at the angel statue.

Something about it seemed ominous to him! Together with all of the other clues that Redmont had gathered, a deeply unsettling picture emerged.

"No! Stay away! Don't let it get close!"

Just as the traitor attempted to jump from his seat, an antigrav module erected a field that firmly kept him in place!

The man could do nothing but scream and plead as the statue drew nearer.

Even though Ves had already measured the distance from the observation room to the range of the fourth statue's glow, he carefully took a few steps back to make sure he wasn't affected himself.

"Don't get too close." He warned Nitaa and Lucky. "I don't know what will happen if you get affected, but I won't be able to save you if anything goes wrong."

The cat and bodyguard decisively moved to the back of the observation room. Having witnessed some of his experiments before, they knew that he never took it easy!

As soon as the statue came close enough to envelop Dr. Redmont in its glow, the biomech designer abruptly ceased his futile exertions.

An expression of wonder and fascination appeared on his face. The Aspect of Transcendence was about to enlighten its first individual!