Time remaining until FTL jump…

4 minutes, 52 seconds.

4 minutes, 51 seconds.

4 minutes, 50 seconds.

Thank you for flying aboard the Deus Nobiscum.

Automated Readout, Auto-Brain “Aquinas”

The thing that resembled Pablo Wrae crawled through the hallways of the Deus Nobiscum, panting through haphazard lungs.

It didn't matter. As he was now, breathing was nothing but an aesthetic. He wasn't a thing of flesh and blood -- he was a light of the mind, sculpted into perfection by his own willpower. He'd never felt better.

Magnificent. Magnificent!

He glanced over his shoulder as he smashed his way through a pair of sealed doors, entering the command deck of the ship. That bitch Ruth Blaine was still a short ways behind him, dispatching the ants that blocked her path just as quickly as he could summon them. She'd been chasing him this whole time. Anger crawled up his impression of a spine.

That didn't matter, though. As long as he kept her at that distance, everything was fine. His only concern should be reaching Giovanni Sigma Testament. Yes, he had to get there -- to the bridge. He had to see Giovanni slip and fall onto his face. Nothing else mattered.

His Aether Core was victory. So long as he experienced that ultimate pleasure, synchronized with that sensation fully, he could continue to exist. He could achieve greater coherence than even this.

Ah, what a beautiful sensation that would be! Already, he could feel the distances inside himself narrowing. He was going from an incoherent beast to the pinnacle of intelligence and existence once more. He was coming back to life. He was coming back to life!

That was right. He'd died, hadn't he? What a strange thing to realize. That woman had killed him, shot him in the back like a coward. He'd bled out on the floor, and his body had gone cold.

He hissed in displeasure, summoning another set of ants. They were clad in plate armour, warped into vague humanoid shapes -- but they didn't last much longer against Ruth Blaine than the others.

To think that bitch had killed him, though. Unbelievable. Unforgivable. He couldn't accept it. He had to get revenge. No, he'd already gotten revenge, hadn't he? He'd destroyed her. It was difficult to recall. His memories were fuzzy.

It didn't matter what had happened to his old body. His consciousness had simply transferred from it to his Aether because he was so skilled. That woman simply hadn't known who she was messing with.

His old body… now that he thought of it, he'd taken something from the cadaver, hadn't he? Before he'd left the amphitheater, before that man had shown up. Pablo looked down at his hand with the so-long fingers, and opened it.

Ah. The tracker. A tiny device the shape and size of a button, slowly flaring with dim red light. He'd had it commissioned ages ago, corresponding to Giovanni's medical implants. It kept track of his vital signs, and haptics within it directed Pablo to his location.

Yes, as long as he had this light, victory was possible. He'd follow it to its terminus, witness Giovanni's humiliation, and become perfect. That was the natural development of his life.

How much further to the bridge? Pablo was practically salivating. He looked down at the tracker, feeling its insistent buzzing --

-- stop.

The light died. The device went still. Pablo's crawl came to a halt as he stared down at it. There was only one reason why the tracker would completely deactivate like that, but no… no…

Giovanni had died? And Pablo had missed it?

If the thing staring down at the tracker had been the real Pablo Wrae, it would have remembered the Tenth Verse that Giovanni had possessed -- the counter-ability to restart his body and return from death. But he was not, and he did not.

No, the only thought that passed through the Pablo-thing's mind was this: Victory is impossible.

Ruth Blaine finally reached the monster, slashing at it with her claws, but that was no longer necessary -- for the spell was broken. With the slightest change in air pressure, the warped body disintegrated into bolts of yellow Aether, which weakened into tiny sparks, which weakened into…

…nothing.

Giovanni thrust the spear down towards Hadrien’s prone body -- but as expected, it struck nothing but the floor. Hadrien had recorded his body into Aether, the resultant cloud slowly inching across the room. A snail’s pace.

Your willpower is at a mere ebb, Dragan Hadrien.

Giovanni allowed himself the slightest smirk. Hadrien could record that injury into Aether to prevent it from progressing during the fight, but the pain he would have felt would impact his psyche all the same.

His mind was already at breaking point. All Giovanni had to do now was finish off the body.

He kept careful watch over the Aethercloud as it slowly, slowly crawled across the room --

-- only for it to suddenly fire towards him with the speed of a bullet.

Hadrien reappeared in mid-air, save for the hole in his torso. His fist was pulled back for another punch, and the blaring light on his knuckles was enough to confirm he was using pinpoint Aether once again. No time to move.

But he didn't need to move.

Tenth Verse!

The enhanced fist smashed through Giovanni's skull, opening up his face and revealing the red and pink behind it.

That death lasted only a moment, though -- before Dragan could so much as blink, Giovanni had already regenerated and come back to life. He straightened back up, stopping his body from falling to the ground, and retaliated with a barrage of crystal spears.

Gemini Shotgun!

The spears vanished in the moment before they hit Dragan -- and he fired them back immediately, lances of red-and-blue light surging towards Giovanni and --

Tenth Verse.

-- shredding him.

As expected, that didn't kill him either. Before the chunks of his body could hit the ground, the missing tissue had already reappeared, restoring his form just in time for him to fall to one knee. A chain burst out of his back, pulling him away from Dragan's next attack.

That was fine, though. By no means did Giovanni coming back to life mean that this was a hopeless fight. Far from it.

When he'd come back the first time, he'd said that he used recorded flesh to repair the damage that had been inflicted. Assuming that was true, that meant there was a limit to how much Giovanni could heal.

So… all Dragan had to do was keep killing him until it stuck.

The void of death was coming again and again, closer each time. The feeling of utter cessation was a truly terrifying thing… but that voidish maw had been at the back of Giovanni's mind for a long time now. He would not let it unsteady his grasp.

Tenth Verse was a counter ability just like his Auto-Dodge. He had to activate it before the fatal attack hit or else it would be useless. Dragan Hadrien had already demonstrated the intelligence required to get around the Auto-Dodge anyway, so Giovanni would be better off relying on his resurrection now.

He would meet Dragan Hadrien with sheer, crushing force again and again and again… until it stuck.

First and Second Verses.

Sharp red crystal sprouted out of his Aether, forming a shell of armour around Giovanni's body. Red spears protruded from red gauntlets. Red spikes punctured the ground from the bottom of red boots. Red tears poured down the surface of a red helmet.

All the world became a crimson shade.

"Now then…" Giovanni rasped, standing tall. "Shall we do it…?*

Fragments of crystal broke off his armour as he moved, but new crystal instantly grew in to repair the damage. This was the first time Giovanni had combined the first two Verses in this way, but he could already feel that it was the perfection of the technique. Only now, at the very end, did he feel such clarity.

Dragan Hadrien looked pale. No wonder, with the substantial blood loss he'd endured, and the stressful situation he now found himself in. Blue Aether fizzled around the donut hole in his torso, maintaining the injury's non-existence. As soon as that recording ceased, his body would resume its inevitable journey towards death.

All the same, though… he would never reach that specific conclusion. As they'd been fighting, Giovanni had been keeping track of the time. The monitors that showed the actual readings were no longer operable, but Giovanni's internal clock was impeccable.

He lunged towards Dragan, the ring of the Fourth Verse appearing behind his armoured back and pushing him forward. Hadrien fired off another volley of redirected spears to try and slow him down, but Giovanni simply slapped them out of the air with a wave of his hand.

Win or lose, it didn't matter. Whatever happened now, there was only one minute left until the FTL jump. No matter what, there wasn't enough time for Hadrien to do anything!

The intercom system clicked on.

"Notice," the auto-brain said. "FTL jump aborted. Reason: insufficient power for stable jump."

Giovanni skidded to a halt, his crystal spikes spitting up sparks as they ground against the floor. He looked up at the intercom, eyes wide, uncomprehending.

"Huh?" he whispered.

"Man," Skipper chuckled. "Ain't technology a crazy thing?"

To be honest, he hadn't expected the vending machines on the Deus Nobiscum to have such an extensive stock. He took a sip of his perblome juice as he watched the scene below the observation room. It was a little hard to see, what with all the lights having gone out, but it was a spectacle all the same.

The repaired Hierophant had latched onto the engine core like a spider, its adapted limbs trickling into its workings and draining the power directly. It had taken quite a while, but at last it had managed to suckle the thing down to its last gasps.

Backup power would be sufficient to keep things like gravity and life support going, but the FTL jump the Chorister had warned him of? No way.

The Chorister himself looked at Skipper from the neighboring seat, one eyebrow raised as he partook in a box of candy. He nodded down at the smoke pouring out of the Hierophant's chassis.

"You realize, of course," he said. "That this automatic cannot possibly hold such massive amounts of power for long. Am I right, Paradisas?"

The automatic Hamashtiel was controlling lingered by the door, its arms crossed. It nodded. "Quite right. As I told you, Skipper, you've effectively turned the Hierophant into a massive bomb. The engineering section will be quite wiped out."

The Chorister clicked his tongue. "Well, I wasn't told I'd be inheriting a ship that was a blasted wreck."

Skipper shrugged, standing up. "Eh, come on. The damage won't be beyond repair, yeah? It was either this or everyone gets blown up. I know which one I prefer." He wiped his hands with a napkin before tossing the can over his shoulder -- it landed perfectly in the trash can. "Well, either way, I don't think I need a front row seat to that. We heading out?"

Hamashtiel nodded. "That seems the rational course of action."

"After you, then, pal," Skipper grinned at the Chorister. "Work your secret passage magic, yeah?"

The Chorister rolled his eyes. "You people work me far too hard… but very well."

They made their way out, following the Chorister through the secret paths that only the Quiet Choir knew -- but Skipper lingered in the doorway for just a moment. He looked up at the ceiling, as if he could see through all the levels of the Deus Nobiscum to the confrontation that must surely be happening on the bridge.

"Come on, kid," he muttered. "Time to put an end to this."