[-=Nox=-]

“I have broken plenty of spirits, Voidling. You had surprised me at first, but now that I know exactly what you are we can move forward.” Zimmerman held the pain and cognizance spell on me. He was enjoying my suffering, enjoying toying with me. I felt that ninety five percent of my nerves were no longer functioning. The remaining five percent shot endless, intense pain into my brain. It was a good thing that Valerianne was catatonic, otherwise she would likely be driven insane by this torture.

At least he was tormenting me and not June.

“I do believe it’s time to deal with a little foxkin as well.” Zimmerman noted, guessing what I was thinking about. “You seem to have taken a liking to her. A rather rare trait in spirits, to appreciate a selected humanoid enough to bless them power. Let's see how you react when I hurt her.”

The pain let go as he turned the spell circle away from me, pointing it at June. I tried to leap forward, to attack him but my body refused to comply as most of the connections between the mind and the body were now shredded, fried beyond use. I slumped into the floor and whimpered. The pain ray struck June. She did not move or scream. She wasn’t breathing. Was she already dead?!

“What… ” The Rimmer Archmage barked as his artifact eye rotated towards her body, looking away from me. “An illusion?!”

June suddenly appeared in front of him, a figure woven from light and darkness. Her finger was pointing straight at his divine eye.

“Dodge this, bitch,” she said.

A line made of pure darkness and light struck from her fingers. The power of divine Void and Starlight sliced through the shimmering, barely perceptible shield over his head. He moved his head away, accelerating, but the ray seemed... alive, cognizant. It followed his motion and struck the Baron’s divine eye. The eye ignited and Zimmerman screamed, pearlescent-steel fingers clawing in the air. The Acazian eye hissed, flashing with increasing intensity, steam billowing from within the eye socket of the Archmage. With a final flash half of Zimmerman’s head exploded, showering the cabin in blood and gore.

“Noxxy! Noxxy, are you okay?!” June leapt to me. As she moved, after-images of her person remained in her wake. She hugged me.

“Somewhat okay.” I whimpered. “Fucker fried all of my nerves with his bullshit pain spell.”

“Oh thank the Gods!” June hugged me tighter. I smiled. She licked my face and looked back at the slowly fading afterimages. “Guess, I’m an illusion mage now, eh? What a twist!”

“Chiaroscuromancer.” I muttered.

“Don’t care for fancy names. I thought I was going to carve out that magical eye of his with a shadow blade, but I guess this is even better. Very messy though. Eeesh.”

“A mere Shadowblade would not be able to pierce his face-shield.” I muttered. “Most shields are designed to stop color-specific spellfire. Doubt he expected you to fire a Void-Light ray at him, since well… frankly, no one could before you became an Apostle of both these conflicting affinities.”

“Oh.” June re-evaluated the benefits of her fancy new title. “Well, that would suck a lot of balls if I was still a Shadowmancer. Status!

A good thing then, that I’m so full of Void and… Starlight? What the shit is that? Is this… the magic of Virtue? Pfff. Sheet, did I just kill the Baron of the Rim? Yes I did. Well, this is awkward. Not everyday I get to kill an entire Baron.”

I nodded, trying to pull Valerianne back out of her slumber. [Vali? You alive in here?] She didn’t respond. I sighed. The divine eye had hurt her immensely by pulling a ton of information from her mind all at once. I decided to let her rest.

“Can you check the cabin for healing potions? That prick did a number to this body, commanding it to move is fruitless.” I said.

“On it, love.” June winked. She didn’t simply stand up. She flickered towards the desk. “Whoa. Chia-whatever is cool. I think I can teleport or something.”

“I think you can turn into pure light and shadows.” I muttered. “It’s similar to a Phantom class, maybe.”

She returned with a healing potion and poured it into my mouth. “Less talking, more drinking.”

As I gulped the healing potion from the desk of Nicodemus, feeling returned to my body. My broken wrist repaired itself. It hurt. Everything hurt. Pain was highly unpleasant. I decided to put the pleasure matrix back into my brain and realised that I couldn't remember how to cast it. Argh.

June squinted at me. “Noxxy. What’s Systemfall?”

“A pact binder," I replied.

“Binding what to what?” She inquired when she realized I wasn’t going to elaborate.

“Binding the stability of the voidstar to your life.”

“Say ….what?” She stared at me hard.

“I sent voidstar a message - if you die, the System must fall.” I explained.

“Why the fuck would you do this?” I felt that June wanted to smack me. Repeatedly.

“Because I love you.” I said.

“Uh-huh.” June rubbed her head. “So if I die, what… everyone loses their levels?”

“No.”

“Worse, then? The continents will fall into the Voidstar?”

“No, June. Do you think I’m some sort of an idiot? Wait, don’t ans—”

“Sometimes.” June cut in.

“Okay, I am clueless about some things, but I designed the supermassive Void engine, June!”

“So then?”

“I simply declared your life more important than that of the System’s stability. Voidstar is designed to keep everything together and stable even in catastrophic conditions. Europa is a thousand times smaller than the original earth yet it has earth-gravity and it spins exactly to replicate twenty four hour cycles and seasons. Stability, June. If you die, even if you shatter, my voidstar will keep you stable. Just like it kept me stable even though I had shattered into a thousand little pieces. Basically, I declared you really important. Maybe the System will protect you from death, maybe not. Regardless, it has made our mutual pact stronger. Unbreakable.”

“I see.”

“Try not to die though. Voidstar is unfinished and decaying, so I don’t really know how well it’s going to respond if you do perish.” I muttered.

“Well that makes me feel marginally better,” June hugged me again. She looked at the corpse of the Baron. "Uhhhh… Noxxy, Rimmer warships usually have two Captains. One who's really good at murder and the other who's really good at defence and planning."

I glanced at her, getting my blood magic ready.

A girl with long, curly pink hair in a blue jacket stepped into the cabin and whistled. "Well, I'll be damned. You've made quite a mess of my ship, darlings."

"Ah fucking hell, its Glenn Millian." June cowered into me. I noticed that she was trembling.