Randel waited. He and the Hand might have decided on direct confrontation, but there was no reason to charge right in. They stood quietly in a cramped storage room, peering out into the airship’s grand kitchen where two cooks and a chef worked diligently on the Engine brothers’ dinner. They chatted with each other about their job, which helped Randel get a sense of the ship’s size and the crew.

The Hand shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his metal armor scraping against the shelves. Noisy. He was getting impatient now; he hadn’t uttered a single complaint so far, but Randel was unsure of how long that would hold. He had a feeling that the Scarlet Hand was more interested in him than the shade they were supposed to be chasing. Was there even a shade in here? Was this ship bound to Skyward at all? Could Randel trust the Scarlet Hand’s word?

Coming here had been a risk—one that a more cautious person wouldn’t have taken. Randel wasn’t too worried, though. What was even there to worry about? He could not be contained, could not be beaten. Sure, he would get seriously annoyed if he was tricked into missing the High King’s ball—but that was hardly something to worry about. The Hand didn’t seem like a man of subterfuge anyway. Most likely he was just trying to figure Randel out – to learn more of his motives and see his Abilities in action – and Randel couldn’t care less about that.

What he did care about, however, was how much noise the Hand was making.

“We’re going in,” Randel said, watching the chef push a cart out of the kitchen to serve the first meal. The Hand grunted his approval as Randel swung the door open and stepped out. One of the cooks gasped in fright while the other paled and froze in place.

“Don’t mind us, just passing through,” Randel chattered, putting his game face on. “You gotta check that storage room more often, though. All kinds of nasty armed boys may hide in there, you know.”

He left the speechless cooks behind and followed the chef’s footsteps with the Hand close at his heels. He didn’t hurry. He didn’t need to hurry; there was no escaping him. He strolled down a carpeted corridor, admiring the airship’s luxurious interior. Knowing how rare certain materials were in this world, he found the decor adequately opulent. Befitting the owners of Fortram’s largest company.

Although the dining room could easily seat ten to fifteen people, currently it was just the three Engine brothers sitting at a square table right next to a set of wide windows. The view outside was gorgeous; slowly rolling landscapes in the light of the setting sun with small puffs of clouds in the distance. The ship glided so smoothly that the scenery felt like—Randel blinked, refocusing his attention.

The Engine brothers were auburn haired and ruddy, their thick beards fashioned similarly—much like the dark suits they all wore. Randel’s first impression was that they would have fit a lumberjack’s work clothes much better than ties and polished shoes. Almost as if they were playing dress-up. They were clearly brothers, but far from identical; the Oldest had the widest girth, the Middle was the shortest, and the Youngest looked almost thin compared to the other two. Randel hadn’t memorized their names, and truthfully, he didn’t care.

“Good day to you, gentlemen,” he spoke just as a handgun was pointed at his head. Its barrel had a weird, messy texture and a thick contour as if someone had drawn it by hand. The person behind it was a middle-aged woman with cold grey eyes. She wore a suit too, and she had a Player’s collar around her neck.

The Engine brothers stared like deer caught in headlights. A silver plate rattled between the chef’s shaking fingers. The Scarlet Hand followed Randel into the dining room and the Player with the gun raised her other hand at him. Something black slithered out from under her sleeve, moving along the skin of her wrist, forming another gun in her hand.

“What—what’s the meaning of this?” the Youngest sputtered.

“Shall I dispose of them, Sirs?” the Player asked. Her voice sounded calm and unbothered, as if killing a Scarlet Hand and the Mad Painter was nothing more than taking out the trash. How cute. She had an impressive poker face for a human.

“There’s no need to ruin this beautiful airship like that,” Randel said with a chuckle. “We’re high up in the air, and some of us cannot fly.”

He punctuated this with a smile that deliberately did not reach his eyes—his eyes, which he kept sharp as he took in all three brothers at once, his minds watching for all the tiniest changes in their expression. Lee scrutinized the Oldest, Tamie analyzed the Middle, and Wolf focused on the Youngest. Nothing escaped Randel’s notice.

“We—” the Oldest began, before shaking his head in an attempt to compose himself. “This is outrageous. Emperor’s Chosen, I demand answers! What are you doing on our ship with this criminal?”

“Observing,” the Hand said with a grunt. “Keeping him in check.”

“There you have it,” Randel said. “No need for violence, gentlemen, he’s got his eyes on me. And I’m willing to talk.”

“You broke into out ship—”

“Yes,” Randel said, stepping forward, heedless of the woman’s gun. “I broke into your ship, and now I’m going to have dinner with you. Just look at that! There’s an empty seat at your table. It’s almost as if you were expecting me.”

He grabbed the chair on the fourth side of the table and pulled it out with a deliberate motion, placing it far enough so that he could keep all three of the brothers in his sight. He wouldn’t be able to dine like this, but then it wasn’t exactly the food he was after anyway. He wanted a different kind of meal.

“Sirs,” the bodyguard began, but the Oldest lifted a hand to silence her.

“It’s alright, Valentine. Stand down. We’ll hear what the Mad Painter has to say.”

“Nice to meet you, by the way,” Randel said. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced yet.”

“No, we haven’t,” the Oldest said. He then turned to the chef who was about to faint. “Serve the dinner, please.”

“So,” the Youngest spoke, looking past Randel, “is it true, Emperor’s Chosen? Are you here assure our safety?”

“You heard me right for the first time,” the Hand replied. “I dislike repeating myself. If it pleases you, know that if the Mad Painter does anything untoward the Emperor will learn about it.”

“Anything untoward?!” the Middle said. “He’s already broken into our ship!”

“Yes. The Emperor will learn about that too.”

“That’s—that isn’t enough! This is outrageous. He’s a criminal, you should stop him!”

The Hand didn’t say anything, but the Engine brothers suddenly flinched. Randel smiled wider.

“Cool! Now that we reached an understanding, are you ready to hear me out?”

“We are not obliged to,” the Youngest said. “Right, brothers? Let us forget this and retire for the night.”

“No,” the Oldest said. “We’ll stay here and dine as usual. I won’t let this madman’s unwanted presence intimidate us.”

“No, we shouldn’t condone this,” the Middle said. “This is our ship. Mad Painter, I kindly ask you to leave. We will hear what you have to say once we arranged a meeting to our mutual satisfaction.”

“Beautiful sentence,” Randel said. “A bit awkwardly said, but very flowery. Did it take long to come up with it? Please don’t answer that, it was a rhetorical question. What matters is that I’m here, I have time to spare, and I have things to say. We’re having this discussion now.”

“You—”

“I know you’re eager to get rid of me, but I’d like to present my case first. You’re probably thinking that I want to talk about the Factory. I can’t deny that there has been some … let’s just say conflict of interest between our respective companies.”

The Engine brothers glared at Randel over their untouched meals. None of them hid their emotions particularly well; they were getting angrier by the second. If there was a shade among them, it hadn’t slipped up so far.

“Well,” Randel continued, “I’m happy to say that discussing the Factory isn’t what I came for. Truthfully, I find it rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Gentlemen, let me assure you that Randel Shadeslayer, the Mad Painter is after something much more exciting. Tell me, which one of you is the shade?”

“Eh?”

“What?”

“Hey,” the Scarlet Hand said in a warning tone. Randel ignored him, watching the Engine brothers. Wolf got too distracted with the promise of an imminent fight, so Tamie took over watching the Youngest too—but all things considered, the brothers’ reactions all lived up to the expectations. Shock. Confusion. Doubt.

“Mind you, my intel isn’t from a source that I absolutely trust,” Randel said, jerking a thumb at the Hand behind him. “I could be wrong, but—”

“You aren’t,” the Hand said. “The shade is on this ship.”

Randel sighed, then turned around to look at the Hand.

“Stop being vague, man. Can you tell which of them is the shade or not?”

“I can’t,” the Scarlet Hand said, hesitating. “Not without exposing myself.”

“Then shut up and let me speak.”

As Randel turned back to the Engine brothers, he could tell that the Hand behind him was bristling with rage. This was another gambit of his; although the Scarlet Hand’s orders were unknown, Randel was increasingly sure that the man wasn’t allowed to harm him. Pushing his buttons while looking out for a shade was going to be challenging, but doable. Hopefully. Randel could already tell that the orange veins were creeping up on his neck.

“I know what you’re doing,” the Oldest said, his voice almost a growl. The Hand wasn’t the only one getting angry, it seemed. “You try to sow distrust among us. You hint that one of us is a traitor so that we turn against each other.”

“Are you kidding me?” Randel asked. “Why would I need such an elaborate scheme when I could just murder you all? No, I’m really here for the shade.”

“Murder us?!” the Middle said. “That’s a step too far. I have half a mind to order Valentine to escort you out.”

Valentine made herself conspicuous by stepping closer. Her hands were empty, but the tattoos were once again slithering along her skin. Randel did not doubt that the woman was dangerous; Players of her age didn’t survive for so long without learning a few tricks. But even if she was a powerful and capable bodyguard, Randel couldn’t take her seriously. There was no way she could deal with him and the Hand while keeping the Engine brothers alive. Which, I noted with a mental sigh, was probably a mistake. Not because Randel assumed that Valentine wouldn’t be able to deal with them—but because he assumed that she wanted to deal with them. That she wanted to keep the Engine brothers alive.

“Look,” Randel said, watching Valentine from the corner of his eyes. “I’m not threatening you, I’m just stating the facts. There’s supposedly a shade up here, and from what I learned so far about these creatures, it makes sense. Possessing the owners of a wealthy company is a good power move. It’s not too obvious and direct – such as trying to possess a Governor or a High King – but it comes with a considerable amount of freedom. If the creature plays its cards well, there’s lots of room to expand. If I were a shade, I could imagine myself doing the same. Weave my webs until I’m a vital part of the city-state that I call home.”

“Ridiculous,” the Oldest said.

“Now the thing we should consider is,” Randel continued, “that possessing a mere mortal must be somewhat inconvenient for a shade. I mean, human bodies come with all sorts of ailments that makes them annoying to live in. Pains, aches, allergies and whatnot. Worse yet, if the shade possessed one of you, it must stick to it without changing bodies—it’d look weird if the owners of the Factory kept changing all the time.”

“What’s your point?” the Youngest said.

“Living as a mere human would be annoying,” Randel said. “Taking control of a Player, however? Players always stay healthy—they don’t have cramps and aches and they never fall ill. They have considerably more personal power too, ways to defend themselves—and more. They might have Abilities that allow them to manipulate and control those feeble mortals. Players are replaceable too. I mean, who would take notice if the Engine brothers changed their hired bodyguard from time to time?”

Valentine fired a black bullet just as Randel uttered his last words, and he didn’t have time to react. As the projectile flew through his head and his Shadeform activated, he was struck with a sudden indecision; part of him wanted to float backward to create some space between him and the shade, and part of him wanted to close that distance. In the end, he did neither. His Shadeform ended, returning him to the Waking World away from where he had sat—the airship had moved past him while he was incorporeal. He was at the entrance of the dining room now, behind the Scarlet Hand’s back.

Randel straightened slowly, watching the Hand as he made a grabbing motion at Valentine and an unseen force crushed her arms against her chest. The tattoos on the woman’s skin shifted, and the Hand squeezed a bit harder by reflex. Valentine’s body burst into a splatter of black liquid—which then flowed to either side of the crushing fist to form two Valentines.

“Oh,” Randel mused out loud. “How cheap. I’ve seen this Ability before.”

Valentine’s duplication Ability was a blatantly recycled version of Devi’s Simulacrum—though perhaps – considering that Devi was the younger Player – it was the other way around. Both Valentines opened fire at the Hand, who in turn blocked the shots with large force-fists. Randel walked closer to the Engine brothers behind the Hand. All three of them were writhing in their seats, barely conscious, with black blood dribbling from the corner of their eyes. No—not blood. Randel poked at the Oldest’s face, smearing the liquid. It was black ink. A fitting set of powers against the Mad Painter, who ironically didn’t have any painting-related Abilities.

A bullet of ink flew at Randel’s head, but part of him had been paying attention to the fight and he teleported Soul Eater into his hand to block the shot. His reaction time had been surprisingly good, all things considered—he felt vaguely impressed at himself. The four Valentines in the diner resumed battling the Hand while the Engine brothers groaned as if in pain. How curious. Was Valentine’s control slipping from them? Had she been in their heads all this time? Her influence seemed to be much more thorough than Randel had first assumed.

Before he could decide what to do, the Engine brothers stirred. They swiveled their heads, staring at Randel with eyes full of black ink, then sprang up from their seats and charged him at once. Randel admired Valentine’s control as he opened the Oldest’s throat with Soul Eater. Not only was this shade controlling multiple clones at once, but it had the presence of mind to direct the three brothers against him. As Randel buried Soul Eater into the Middle’s inky eye, he decided that Roland had been right. They needed this shade. They needed its expertise in multi-tasking and control. They needed experienced shades like this one to grow.

Randel wanted to block the Youngest’s punch with his left arm, but part of him didn’t realize that he was using his left hand to toss the Middle’s body away from him—and so the Youngest struck him in the face. Randel’s second Shadeform triggered out of the available three. Bother. The ship flew onward and so when Randel exited his Shadeform he found himself behind the Youngest. He grabbed the man’s head and broke his neck with a swift motion, then teleported Soul Eater into his hand and stabbed it into the body to feed on the released essence. A sense of unnatural satisfaction washed over him, as it always did when he killed someone with the weapon. It didn’t last long.

The diner’s windows exploded. Cold air rushed in, and the Scarlet Hand’s flailing body whooshed out. Randel clung to the floorboard with his left foot, his toes transformed into sharp talons to find purchase. The walls at the other side of the diner had caught fire and the wind was fanning the flames higher. Valentine stood in the middle, a single Valentine just barely standing on her feet, both of her arms broken and her clothes scorched. Exhausted.

“Any last words?” Randel asked, flipping Soul Eater over in his hand and pulling it back to throw it. As Valentine opened her mouth to speak Randel flung Soul Eater at her head, but I loosened my fingers a bit too early and fumbled the throw. The dagger missed Valentine’s head and sank into the wall behind her, so Randel teleported himself to the dagger to strike again, but he was too slow. Valentine’s foot struck high, kicking Soul Eater out of his hand just as he brought it around. Weapon lost, teleport on cooldown. Valentine lips drew back in a bloody grin.

“The Mad Painter is mine,” she snarled as the tattoos around her neck tightened, biting into her skin and her flesh—and cutting her head cleanly off. Randel tried to trust his taloned left foot into her to drink the shade up, but I bent my knee too quickly and missed her body. As the black mass of the shade burst forth like spilled ink on the fabric of reality, I marveled at how neatly it matched Valentine’s powers. A beautiful coincidence. Then the moment of awe was over and the shade plunged into Randel’s chest. He fell backward, losing consciousness just as his head hit the floor and his last Shadeform triggered.

The dreamscape took shape gradually.

“Well,” I said, sitting on my trusty trunk, “that happened.”

The details unfolded around me gradually. I had chosen a familiar setting; a shady convenience store that I had frequented on Earth just a corner away from my apartment. It sat on a narrow and not exactly reputable street; graffiti lined up the walls, piles of trash gathered on the sidewalks, and the sewer stink twisted noses on windless days. An awfully nostalgic place.

Valentine’s shade entered the dreamscape from above, swelling in the bright sky like an angry storm cloud with glowing green eyes. It located me in an instant, then – surprisingly – it stopped to talk.

“Commendable mind-control,” it boomed with the sound of thunder, “but it won’t be enough against me.”

I waved up at the shade. “I just want us to be friends!”

“No. No deals. No mercy.”

The storm cloud burst forth to swallow me whole. I kept waving at it. I kept waving harder. In fact, I waved my hand so hard that I could easily imagine the movement creating strong air currents, blowing the clouds away. The shade’s green eyes widened in shock as its entire mass was blasted back into the sky. It transformed itself, condensing its gaseous form into a gigantic black skeleton that hooked its bony fingers into the tall buildings around me.

“Fool,” it thundered. “You cannot—”

The rest of its sentence faded into a low buzz as I turned the volume knob in my hand all the way down.

“I think I can,” I said, rubbing at my ear. “Sorry, you were way too loud.”

The shade retaliated by slamming down a hand with the clear intent of squashing me—but I had to wonder; how well would a skeleton with empty eye sockets see me? Not very well, I reckoned. The shade slapped its bony palm onto the concrete in front of me, the tips of its fingers demolishing the convenience store behind me in a shower of glass. I kept sitting on my trunk right between the shade’s splayed fingers, unscathed.

“Woah,” I said, dusting off my shoulders. Green eyes flickered to life within the skeleton’s eye sockets, bright and angry. Now it could definitely see me. The skeleton loomed above me, gigantic and scary. Or was it? I tossed the volume knob away and reached up with a hand, raising it toward the shade’s head. From my perspective, the skull fit right into my palm—so I plucked it off the skeleton. Not so scary anymore!

I turned the skull upside down and spun it on the tip of my fingers, whistling merrily. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but the shade’s glowing eyes widened in surprise once more. It was trying to change shape again, but I supposed it was too dizzy to do that right now. Who wouldn’t be, if someone spun their skull around so much? A few more spins later I took pity on the poor thing and flung the skull against the wall, flattening and splattering it so that it looked like just another patch of ugly graffiti.

The shade finally gathered its wits and began to grow, but I was faster; I drew a paintbrush from behind my ear and used it to smear the shade’s black blotch all over the wall. My brush was wide or perhaps the wall was small, but either way, I finished quickly; the wall’s surface turned uniform black in no time. I then stood up from my trunk and grabbed the edge of the blackness, peeling it off like wallpaper. The shade screeched, or it would have, but its volume setting was still very low. After tearing its flattened shape off, I rolled it up, opened my trunk, and tossed the shade into it.

“There you go,” I said, slamming my trunk shut. My trusty, strong trunk that I had cultivated for centuries. Well, not exactly centuries, but I worked on it for so long that it certainly felt that way. Anyway, the trunk was well-made and resilient. I sat back onto its top and felt a muffled thump beneath me.

The noises abated after a while.

“You defeated it,” disbelieved voices spoke behind me. “You’ve done it without our help.”

“Yeah,” I said, turning around to see Lee, Tamie, and Wolf at the end of the street. I blinked deliberately, and when I opened my eyes the street was much shorter—the three of them stood in front of me. They bore cautious and somewhat uncomfortable expressions.

“How?” Tamie asked.

“Honestly? It wasn’t too difficult.” I snapped my fingers and the surrounding buildings toppled backward—they had been cardboard cutouts all along. “You see, the four of us have been messing around this dreamscape for weeks now. I learned a lot from you. I know that there aren’t many limitations; all you need is sufficient imagination and conviction, and you can make anything happen.”

“That doesn’t explain how you did this.”

“It does,” I said. “No offense guys, but your kind isn’t terribly quick on that imagination part. Add your arrogant attitude to that with your tendency to underestimate me, and you’re in for a surprise. I may be a disappointment in many things, but creativity isn’t one of them.”

“A mortal mind cannot defeat a shade. It simply cannot.”

“Is that so?”

“Sounds like a challenge to me,” Wolf said as he began to circle around. “You think you can beat the three of us?”

I rolled my eyes and conjured a bag of popcorn into my hand.

“Stop being so dramatic. I’m thinking nothing of the sort.”

“We know,” Lee said, “because we’re reading your mind.”

“Hey, I asked you not to do that!”

“That was before you’ve beaten a shade,” Tamie said. “Before you’ve utterly humiliated a shade.”

I popped a piece of corn into my mouth and chewed on it noisily. What could I say in my defense? I couldn’t deny that it felt good to lock that shade into my trunk. It felt good to know my plan had worked and that I was capable of such things. But did I want to fight Wolf, Tamie, and Lee? Absolutely not. Why would I fight them, when I could just sit in the back of my head and enjoy the show? I crunched on some more popcorn.

“You’re weird,” they said.

“Sure, sure,” I said while chewing. “You keep telling me that but it ain’t gonna change anything, you know. I’ll always be awesome. At least until we burn to death or hit the ground. I sort of remember entering Shadeform on a moving airship right before we blacked out.”

The shades stiffened, then backed off in alarm and I was only too glad to let our dreamscape fall apart. The last thing I thought of was how airheaded they could be. Seriously, forgetting that we might be dying right now? And they had the gall to call me absent-minded!

“Gah!”

Randel snapped his eyes open, gasping in the cold air that tore at his clothes. He was falling backward, with an excellent view of a smoking airship above him. His head throbbed. Tears sprang into his eyes. He twisted around, taking in the sprawling farmlands below him. Green farmlands painted yellow in the light of the fading sun. Randel made Soul Seeker crawl up his back, forming a pair of paper-thin parachutes to slow his descent somewhat.

His other asset, Soul Eater, was most likely left behind on the ship. This left Randel with two options to choose from: either he teleported himself to the weapon, or he landed on the fields below. The ship didn’t seem to be doing very well, so either choice would have required walking the rest of the way to Skyward. Bothersome.

Squinting against the wind of his fall, Randel spotted a flash in the sky; sunlight glinting off metal armor. The Scarlet Hand chased the airship on his floating platform, struggling to catch up. He didn’t seem to realize that Randel was gliding through the air behind him—which presented a perfect opportunity for them to part ways. Randel teleported Soul Eater to his hand and flung it downward so that it fell faster than him. Cooldown tickled. Randel followed the weapon with his eyes until it became too small to see, and then he kept track of its fall in his head. When he could safely assume that Soul Eater hit the ground, he teleported himself to it to arrest his momentum. He landed on his right foot and folded up his pseudo-parachute to reshape it into his left leg.

“Easy.”

He was pleased with the outcome of these events. Well, not entirely pleased; he had been next to useless in combat. The outcome had been optimal, but only because the shade believed that possessing the Mad Painter would be more beneficial than keeping Valentine’s injured body. But that was on purpose, wasn’t it? What was?

“Ugh,” Randel spat, clutching at his head. He was supposed to be getting better! Why was he so clumsy? Not on purpose. Or was it? He couldn’t keep fighting like this. His minds pulled him in different directions. Making him react slower, making him too indecisive. Which was good, because he had to rely on his wits more.

“What? No!”

No, it wasn’t good. He was weak. But he had taken another shade.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does!”

“Stop it!” Randel yelled, falling to one knee. His vision swam. He felt—conflicted. He was breathing hard. He … he had to move. Less thinking, more doing.

Up ahead, the airship faded into the dusk. Skyward was close; it had to be. Randel just couldn’t see it in the dark. And also because there were tears in his eyes. He had to get going. Plants grew all around him, lit by some dim orange glow. It took him a moment to realize that he was the source of that glow; the unnatural veins had spread all over him again. He hoped that the Hand wouldn’t spot their light from afar. His light. He covered his face with his hands to hide it.

“We won another battle,” he said, his body shaking. “We are doing great. Soon we reach Skyward and become even greater.”

Why was he shaking? He had to stop it. He rose to his feet. Slowly, agonizingly. He took a stumbling step forward.

The air smelled of manure and felt bitingly cold. He stumbled again. He couldn’t see well, because it was dark and his fingers blocked the view. He peeked through his fingers and adjusted the shape of his left foot so that his next step was much firmer. Yes, this was it. The way forward. All of himself moved forward. Skyward.

He might have felt conflicted, but all of himself knew what he had to do.

“Ascend.”