Niles gulped as she watched the blue glow of Dragan Hadrien through the walls. Was it just her imagination, or was his head angled towards her, as if he could see her too?

No, she shook her head. You're being paranoid. There's no way.

Was there?

"Niles?" Roash's voice came over both the communicator and the tracker she'd put on him, the mixed audio quality creating a unique duet. "I already told ya, boy. The name's Darren Roash. Ain't no Niles here."

"Oh, don't play dumb!" Hadrien's voice, made crackly by the microphone, sounded cheerful. "You think I couldn't figure out someone was feeding you instructions? It's nothing for me to figure out who that is and where they are, given my Aether ability."

Niles' hands tightened against her script as she listened to Hadrien go on. What kind of ability did he have? They hadn't even known he'd had Aether until she'd spotted him with her Ether Lens, so it wasn't out of the question that he had some kind of unknown tracking power too.

Wait, what had he said? It was nothing for him to figure out where she was?

A chill ran down her spine.

Hadrien's chuckle came from the script like a death bell, low and distorted. "It's kind of weird, don't you think?"

She heard Roash cock his rifle. "Y'really want those to be your last words, boy?"

Just shoot him, she wanted to scream over the communicator. Don't let him talk -- just shoot him now!

But she couldn't do it. She couldn't muster the will to open her mouth and utter those words -- a formless, irrational anxiety seemed to hold down her tongue every time she tried. Hadrien already knew she was there. It felt like if she opened her mouth, if she engaged with the situation any further, he would suddenly be here in the vents with her.

It was an absurd notion, completely impossible -- and yet terror made it seem nearly guaranteed.

"My last words?" She could almost hear the frown in Hadrien's voice. "But I'm still talking. I'm just saying -- isn't it kinda weird how two people came in here, but now there's only me?"

The script slipped from Niles' shaking grip, clattering to the floor. She stared sightlessly down at it, eyes wide, turned unblinking by horror. Oh, no.

Just as she'd heard his frown, now she could definitely hear Hadrien's victorious grin. "My friend's on their way to see you, Niles. Good luck."

She didn't stay in those vents for even a second after that.

Dragan really hoped that bullshit had worked.

Rose wasn't on her way to deal with this Niles person, of course -- she didn't have Aether, for one, and she was too busy operating the holograms from the control room anyway. The script he was holding in his hand was a feint -- still useful, but not for the reason Roash would think.

It was open to a communications channel -- connected in a call with Rose's script, which they'd left back in the locker room. With that, just by listening in, Dragan had been able to get advance warning before his enemy had arrived. In a fight to the death, that kind of preparation time was vital.

But he'd gotten much more than that. Dragan smirked. The brief snatch of conversation he'd heard through the script had formed the basis of this strategy.

"I'd expect nothin' more, Niles," Roash had said. "Locker room's clear -- I'm goin' in. I'll keep the line open if I need you to keep tracking him. Wish me luck."

From hearing that, a few things had become obvious: Roash was in contact with one of his comrades, a person called Niles -- and this Niles was capable of tracking Dragan somehow. They hadn't hacked the security cameras -- Dragan had blasted them into molten slag the moment he'd entered the holographic suite -- so it was most likely some kind of Aether ability. Maybe something similar to an Aether ping.

If Niles truly was tracking Dragan through his Aether, that meant whatever kind of distracting environment he created in the suite would be useless -- Roash would just be able to aim right for him, no matter what he did. Therefore, the first priority was to throw Niles off enough to negate that advantage.

Hopefully this little gambit of his had done that -- he had no way of actually confirming it, after all. Instead, he simply spread his smile a little wider, his arms stretched out to his sides.

Spark anger. "Don't suppose you'd let me go if I surrendered, would you?"

Roash's eye twitched -- now that Dragan got a good look at him, he was fairly intimidating. Silver armour, a huge rifle and a bright red bandana around his forehead, barely visible behind his long brown hair. Dragan was pretty sure he'd seen a thousand guys with that exact look in trashy war videographs.

The rifle he held was a concern, but the man himself not so much. Without Aether, he was pretty much an inferior version of Atoy Muzazi.

"I'm not taking you in alive, Hadrien," Roash growled, gun aimed at him. "If you wanna die brave, then fight -- otherwise I'll just shoot you down here and now. What'll it --"

Dragan dropped the script, and it clattered to the ground. That was the signal. Almost instantly, before Roash could react to the sudden movement, there was the buzz of the room's hologram projectors preparing to switch images --

-- and then everything went black.

The room was flooded with shadows, like they'd both suddenly been teleported to the ocean floor. This was darkness without distinction -- not even general shapes could be made out through the haze.

But Darren Roash didn't need eyes to win.

Before even a second passed, he fired his rifle in the direction Hadrien had been standing. He heard his rifle fire, felt the pulses of heat through the weapon, but what he did not hear was Hadrien going down.

Worse, he didn't even see his shots fire -- he'd expected the bright light produced by the plasmafire would have given him a moment of vision, at least, but it seemed this darkness could not be penetrated so easily.

Had he hit Hadrien? Had he killed him? Impossible to know -- fumbling around for a corpse in this darkness was a fool's errand.

"Niles," Roash muttered, crouched low, body tense as he aimed his rifle in front of him. "Where's Hadrien? I need to know."

He heard Niles' intake of breath through his communicator -- she still had the presence of mind to do her job -- but the words she was saying didn't reach his ears.

They were drowned out by a bloodcurdling scream, so intense it caused the armour he was wearing to vibrate. It felt as if knives had been plunged into Roash's ears -- even his own gasp of pain was rendered inaudible.

Back on Yoslof, Helga had used Aether sparingly -- focusing it into the most minute parts of her body at the very instant she needed it. For someone like her, an adept, that provided greater power -- but for someone like Dragan, still gaining experience, it was much more efficient.

Aether focused inside his own body, infused into his own vocal cords, amplifying the sound of his voice until his yell became a deafening scream. He wasn't immune to the sound -- his ears were ringing seconds in, and his throat felt like it was being scraped down with sandpaper -- but it was all he could do to drown out Niles' instructions.

He had to negate the advantages his opponent had, no matter how undignified the means. That was how Dragan Hadrien would achieve victory.

Even after the scream stopped, Roash couldn't properly hear -- all sound seemed muffled, as if he were listening to it through a pillow -- and the constant tinnitus was just as distracting as the original screech. Niles' panicked speech down the communicator was nothing but noise.

First, Hadrien had taken his sight. Now his hearing. Anger gripped Roash's heart as he imagined the Cogitant's smug face.

A warrior of the Supremacy didn't need eyes to see, or ears to hear. They fought with their heart, and with the strength of will their philosophy granted.

Roash spun on the spot, pulling the trigger of his rifle as he did, so that the blasts of plasma flew out in all directions. Even if he couldn't see Hadrien, he'd surely get him if he destroyed everything in the immediate area.

The second his barrage ended, Roash skidded to a halt, rifle raised up in front of him as he narrowed his eyes -- willing himself to pierce through the omnipresent darkness.

His nose twitched. He could smell burning, but not burning flesh. Had he somehow missed?

"It's kinda weird, right?" Hadrien's voice sounded out from beside him. Instantly, Roash spun around and fired again, his shot sailing away unseen.

But Hadrien's speech continued unimpeded. "I mean -- you're meant to be some great warrior of the Supremacy, but I'm beating you so easily. I mean --" Roash fired another shot at the moving source of the voice. "-- you're just spinning around and missing me everytime. You're a soldier and I'm just a clerk, right? But you still can't hit me. Isn't that kind of embarrassing? I know I'd be embarrassed if I were you."

"Shut your mouth," Roash growled, still holding his rifle up in front of him as he tried to ascertain where exactly Hadrien's voice was coming from. He knew he could kill the brat with one shot, but getting that shot was proving more troublesome than anticipated.

"Huh?" The word was drawn out mockingly. "Shut my mouth? You really want me to stop talking so bad? I mean… what exactly will you do if I don't? You're not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, let's be honest. It's that thing between your ears, you know? Your brain? Are you familiar?"

The communicator in Roash's ear crackled, and he realized with a start that he could hear once again. So long as Hadrien didn't pull out another one of those screams, Niles could give him the directions he needed.

"Where are you?" Roash sniffed, tapping his communicator as he closed his eyes -- they were useless to him in this darkness anyway. "Where are you hiding here?"

He heard Niles' quiet intake of breath over the line -- she'd heard him, then, loud and clear. There was rustling, fumbling as she returned to the script.

"Roash, a-are you there?" she whispered. "I-I've been t-trying to escape, but--"

"Where are you, Dragan Hadrien?" Roash repeated grimly, tensing his body as he prepared to move. The second he knew Hadrien's position, he had to be able to act on the information.

Niles' heart jumped. Oh, of course that was what he wanted! Hands shaking, she brought the Ether Lens to her eyes -- looking straight down through the glasses to get an idea of Hadrien's new position.

She'd run for quite some time after Hadrien had spooked her, but she hadn't forgotten where Roash was fighting. Tracking the enemy was her only strength, after all -- she could hardly do that if she forgot where she needed to look.

The Ether Lens was the only thing she'd been allowed to take with her when she'd left home: it was her duty to master it.

Her eyes adjusted quickly, sight beyond sight becoming available to her through the Aether-infused glass. There was Hadrien, an indistinct blue glow, moving slowly as if sneaking. She glanced down at the script in her hands, cross-referencing what she could see with Roash's position…

Oh. Oh no.

She hurriedly brought the communicator to her mouth.

More rustling -- then a sharp gasp over the communicator.

"R-R-Roash," Niles squealed, forcing the words out. "H-Hadrien is -- he's --"

"--Right behind you," Hadrien whispered into Roash's ears.

There wasn't a moment to waste on fright or surprise. Blood singing with the desire for victory, Roash spun on his heel, grabbed Hadrien by the collar, pressed the rifle against his head --

-- and pulled the trigger.