Morgan Nacht gasped for breath as he lay on the floor, a pool of blood slowly spreading out below him. He could feel the warmth of it soaking into his clothes, matching the burning agony of the wound through his body. It was all he could do just to keep breathing, and yet each breath was bringing more and more pain.

"Jeez, Baltay," he heard Gretchen say. "You didn't have to do him like that."

"It was the most effective way of doing it. How're things going with the corpse? Is it done?"

Morgan moved his head to look up, to get as much of a view of this situation as he could. He saw Gretchen, sitting back down on that wooden couch, holding a script up. Behind her, Ionir Yggdrasil just continued to stand impassively.

Of course, Morgan thought bitterly. Baltay probably told him not to interfere before we even got here.

He couldn't believe how stupid he had been. Just because Gretchen was involved in all of this didn't mean Baltay wasn't. From the looks of things, she was acting on his orders. She'd been the obvious culprit, diverting his attention, while Baltay made preparations elsewhere. Had they arranged that after Morgan had first confronted Baltay in the corridor?

Morgan still didn't understand why exactly Baltay had killed the false Heir, if this whole thing was his plan, but he couldn't ignore the evidence pouring out of him.

Gretchen was talking. "He killed it just a minute or so ago. I was surprised, y'know? She was kicking his ass, then he said something and she just fell down. He got some kind of killing ability through words or something?"

"No," Baltay said quietly. "But it would have been impossible for anyone else. That corpse was stronger than she herself was in life."

Gretchen nodded down towards Morgan. "Guy's still alive, you know."

Shit.

Morgan gasped in pain as he felt Baltay press a boot down on his wounded back, forcing him against the floor. From this position, he couldn't exactly see, but he had no doubt that Baltay was holding that toxic sword up high, ready to finish him off. He needn't have bothered -- even without the bleeding, Morgan could feel the poisonous muzhang infecting him, draining him of energy and scrambling his senses. Distinct nausea was crawling up out of his throat.

Even so, though, the expected coup de grace never came. Instead, he heard metal hiss as Baltay sheathed his sword once more.

"He'll fight you harder if he thinks he can help someone," Baltay said seriously. "Keep Nacht alive until he shows up. Is he on his way?"

"Should have had the same bright idea as this one," Gretchen nodded. "What should I tell him?"

The pressure of Baltay's boot was lifted from Morgan's back. "The truth. I'll be waiting for him in my quarters. If things get too rough here, have Ionir Yggdrasil cover your retreat. He'll pursue me, not you."

"Roger, roger."

With that, Morgan heard Baltay's footsteps -- footsteps quickly growing quieter as the commander of the Seven Blades left the room. Gritting his teeth, Morgan mustered all the strength he had left and spat through his pain: "Why?"

The footsteps stopped.

Baltay answered readily. "You know about Gretchen's involvement with the Kingmakers -- it'd be bad for me if you were to keep living. It isn't anything personal, if that's any consolation. I like you well enough."

Even with his fading consciousness, and a body that was slowly but steadily betraying him, Morgan could tell that the words Baltay was speaking were nothing but the truth. A liar always recognised another liar, and in this case Morgan did not. It really wasn't anything personal -- as if that would console a dying man.

"You killed Gustavo, too, didn't you…?" Morgan groaned, trying in vain to drag himself across the floor. "He figured it out…"

"No," Baltay's voice was firm. "I killed Gustavo because I needed a spare spot. Nothing more."

The footsteps resumed, and darkness claimed Morgan's mind. The last thing he saw was Ionir Yggdrasil, off on the other side of the room, slowly cocking his head.

Aclima clutched her hands to her chest, backing up rapidly as Baltay approached. The person she'd thought of as one of her primary protectors was unrecognizable. The assuring gaze he'd always offered her now seemed glossy and false -- like the eyes of a painting.

He looked down at her. It wasn't that she saw a spark of malice in his eyes, or anything like that. No, quite the opposite. There was no spark in his eyes. Just an utter absence, like whatever had once been there had shriveled and died long ago.

How could she have not seen that before?

"Supreme Heir," Baltay said calmly, extending an arm down to her. "If you'd accompany me?"

Aclima looked down at the hand like it was some kind of explosive. "What are you doing?" she whispered, horror tinting her tone. "What have you done?"

Baltay sighed. "This must be very confusing for you," he said. "But please rest assured -- everything I am doing now, and have done until now, has been for your sake. I am not your enemy, dear girl."

She looked down at Morgan Nacht, laying face down on the floor, a puddle of blood spreading out around him. "You killed him," she hissed, shaking.

The calm certainty in Baltay's voice didn't change in the slightest. "Right now, the Seven Blades are most heavily connected to Paradise Charon, the Second Contender," he explained patiently. "But Mr. Nacht had strong ties to the Fourth Contender, Wu Ming. If he lived, he could have passed along information regarding our activities here. I just couldn't risk it. Do you understand?"

Gretchen, calling out from behind Baltay, seemed less reasonable. "Just knock her out!" she cried. "It'll be easier, y'know?"

Baltay sighed heavily, taking off his hat with one hand and scratching his hair with the other. For a good long moment he was silent, and Aclima feared that he'd suddenly lash out and follow Gretchen's advice. Finally, though, he spoke.

"When all is said and done," he said soothingly. "And I've explained everything, you will understand why it was necessary. I daresay you'll even agree with me. Until then, can you please just be quiet and do as I say?"

A protest almost rose to Aclima's lips, but before she could speak a green glow shone into her eyes. She squinted. The illumination from the lights above had reflected off of Baltay's Leviathan and right into her face. She had no idea if that had been intentional or not, but a single glance at that emerald blade was enough to shut her up. She'd seen what it could do.

A strong person would have told Baltay to shove it. A strong person would have forced her way past him. A strong person would have helped the person on the ground.

Aclima turned and allowed Baltay to lead her away, silently weeping as they left the room.

I really am the worst.

The area of space that the Child Garden was passing through was the site of one of the final battles of the war against the Great Chain, a mercantile government that had once controlled much of the galaxy's commerce. To call it a war may be too generous: what with the numerous betrayals of greedy corporate allies, and the brutality of the Supremacy's forces, it really didn't last too long at all. All that remained of that great nation now were debris fields like this, and those that now called themselves the Lesser Chain -- officials who had fled to the UAP.

The Child Garden drifted past torn-open cruisers and blasted chunks of fighters, pieces of scrap and metal bouncing off its hull. The exterior cameras were deactivated. This was not because of the disruption field.

It was because of the small ship approaching.

The vessel was jet-black and sleek, barely the size of a car, yet still big enough for the Child Garden's secondary sensors to pick up. They did not do so. This was, again, not because of the disruption field.

It was because the pilot of this craft did not want to be seen.

As it approached the Child Garden, the hangar doors opened to allow it entrance, as though it were a honored guest. Usually, docking with the Child Garden would require any number of access codes and identity confirmation, yet these measures did not seem to activate as the ship made its landing. The automatic guards stationed at the hangar, bulky models with bodies like refrigerators, went limp and deactivated as the doors to the small ship slid open.

The occupant made their way out, their stride unbreaking, their destination clear.

Someone has come for you.

Hans Allier opened his eyes, an easy grin slipping over his face. His ability had sensed something. Some freak of the hull, maybe, or a distant thump of a ship landing. Enough to tell him now how things would play out.

Finally. He'd been waiting for ages.

To begin with, it was bullshit that Gretchen Hail hadn't just broken him out in the first place. He'd gone out of his way to test the Fusion Tools for her, sacrificed his best buddy Victor Yun, and this was how she repaid him? Unbelievable. Once he got back to his real sponsors, he'd have to make a request for her assassination.

The person coming for you is your real sponsor.

Hans' grin widened. Nice, nice, nice. He'd known things would shake out his way eventually, but it was still nice to have it confirmed. He had a policy, after all. This cat didn't do a thing without certainty.

He heard the automatic guards outside blare something, only to be cut off mid-sentence, deactivated. A second later, the doors slid open, and the person who's gotten him out of prison entered the room. Hans laughed uproariously.

She was wearing a black coat and pants, clearly aiming for some kind of camouflage in this blackout, a beret perched atop her pale blue hair. Cogitant eyes regarded him warily, looking him up and down, no doubt surprised by how much the Fusion Tool had changed his form. She slipped the script she was holding into her pocket as she approached the glass, two security drones bobbing over her shoulders.

His real sponsor: Noel Edmunds, the contact from Darkstar.

The young Cogitant girl plunged her hands into her pockets as she regarded him. "That you, Allier?" she asked calmly, cocking her head. "You look different."

"I told you about these Fusion Tool things, right, sweetie?" Hans grinned easily. "Sent you a whole message about it. They make you look pretty wacky, huh? I don't even --"

You will be killed in the next few minutes.

"-- b-bleed like this…" Hans spluttered, trailing off.

Noel's cold stare did not change in the slightest. "Something wrong?" she asked, her voice dull and droll.

Huh? What the hell? No. That wasn't how these things went. Hell no. This little bitch was going to kill him? Take him out? Haha, haha, no. He wasn't the kind of guy who went out like that. No way, no how. He'd show her.

"I don't think that's a good idea," he said slowly, forcing calm onto his words. "You know?"

Noel raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Getting rid of me. Silencing me, yeah? That's why you showed up here, huh? Thinking I might squeal? Like a fucking rat? It's a bad play. Bad move on your part."

"How's that?"

The script came back out of Noel's pocket, and she looked distractedly down at it as she spoke. Hot rage flared through Hans' skull. This little fucking brat. She wasn't even paying attention to him. He heard beeps and boops as she played a game, tapping her finger against the screen.

"I'm not the only free bird flying around, missy," Hans growled. "You remember Nin, huh? These bastards didn't get her. She's running around with all those dirty little secrets of yours. I'm the only one who can lead you to her. Still think you can get rid of me?"

Noel glanced up from her script. "We already found her," she said. "She bled out in the jungle on Ipsum. Sad, huh?"

Hans' mouth just opened and closed silently for a few moments -- like a goldfish -- before he tried again. "You really want people to know what you guys are doing? You kill me now, in a secure facility, you're pretty much saying that Darkstar's behind all this. I'm guessing your bosses want you to keep this quiet, right? Well, baby, you kill me -- it's gonna be loud."

Noel yawned. "Gross," she said. "But it doesn't matter. They killed the terminal already, so they'll know it was us. Smith doesn't really mind. This was a longshot anyway."

Hans swallowed. "What?" he hissed. "You're just gonna -- just gonna give up? Just like that? Seriously?!"

"Seriously," Noel sighed, putting her script away. "Anyway, if that's all you've got, then…"

"No!" Hans cried, his voice bouncing off the walls as he strained against his restraints. "No, no no, you can't. You need me -- for what's coming."

Noel said nothing.

"There is something coming, ain't there?" Hans pressed on. "Darkstar's been busy -- busier than usual, I've done my research. That stuff on Nocturnus, the murders, and now this little try for the Supreme Heir? You guys are gearing up for something -- and it's gonna happen soon, right?"

Noel glanced away. "Darkstar awaits the return of its King," she murmured.

She doesn't really think that, his power told him. Good, good. Leverage. The information was flowing again. He could do this.

"Yes! Yes!" Hans shouted, spittle flying from his lips. "And a king needs soldiers! He needs powerful soldiers, people who can advise him, right? My ability?! there's nothing better than that! This King -- he'll want me! Just think!"

His power told him the thing he'd most wanted to hear.

Noel Edmunds will not kill you.

A delirious grin returned to his face as he panted for breath.

There is someone else behind you.

The grin didn't even have time to fall from his face. He turned his head as much as his restraints would allow him, horror crackling in his throat. The heat of terror lingered against his eyeballs.

Behind him, something was bleeding through the wall, overwriting it like the chamber had been an illusion all along. A mass of writhing dark tentacles, framing the gargantuan head of an old man, the face stretched into an exaggeratedly kind smile. It chuckled, it's voice disconcertedly ordinary.

Hans gaped. Against this, even he was robbed of words.

"Don't play around, Smith," he heard Noel say. "Just do it."

The massive head -- Smith -- chuckled. Despite his bizarre size and obvious inhumanity, he had an unsettling grandfatherly quality to him. Hans found that he was shaking violently. What the hell was this? Was it even a person?!

His power dutifully answered him.

Not human, it said. Never human.

"Wait!" Hans shouted. He never said anything else.

In an instant, those black tendrils had seized him, tearing him free of his restraints and crushing the remains of his limbs in their cruel embrace. He was pulled into the old man's open mouth, beyond which lay only a black void, and he screamed and screamed. As he was submerged in the void, he could feel his flesh melting, feel everything that was him becoming part of something else -- and even through the agony, his ability was still reassuring him that he would not die, he would not die, that he was right: that Darkstar still had need of him, he would continue to live but in another format, in an intolerable format.

Hans Allier started screaming, and never really stopped.

Atoy Muzazi had seen better days. His clothes were in ruins, his body covered in wounds, and exhaustion swam behind his eyes. Even with all that, though, the sword held in his hands didn't so much as shake. Luminescence's dominance was immutable.

He took in the sight before him. Morgan Nacht, laying face down in a puddle of his own blood. Gretchen Hail, lounging on a sofa of twisted branches, making no move to help. Ionir Yggdrasil, standing by, his roots spreading out and covering the walls.

It wasn't difficult to work out what had happened here, but it was only right to seek confirmation.

"What is this?" he asked, voice low.

Gretchen looked up at him, a smirk playing across her lips. The warmth with which she'd greeted him aboard the Child Garden had disappeared entirely, replaced by something malicious and mocking. It should have stung, but it really didn't. Atoy Muzazi had already grown used to betrayal.

"Kojirough wants to talk to you," she said, scratching her hair. "Can you head over to his room? Thanks."

Muzazi took a step forward, pointing his sword at Morgan's prone body.

"I said," he hissed dangerously. "What is this?"

Gretchen's smirk disappeared. "These things happen, y'know? It's the Supremacy, man. You gotta expect this kind of stuff. It's survival of the fittest. He was stupid, so he got tricked."

"Stand up," Muzazi demanded, glaring down at her.

Gretchen rolled her eyes. "I don't wanna stand up," she said, getting comfortable.

"Fight me."

She yawned. "I don't wanna fight you."

Muzazi took another step forward, Luminescence clutched in a combat stance, his teeth pressing together so hard it felt as if they'd explode out of his mouth. "Your desires are irrelevant," he snarled. "The moment you betrayed a comrade, you made yourself my enemy!"

A shift in the air. The smirk returned to Gretchen's face, and as she shifted in her seat Muzazi saw she was clutching something behind her back. A golden crossbow. An Aether Armament.

Around you, warned Nigen Rush.

Muzazi leapt back -- and it was a good thing he did, for six arrows immediately speared into the spot he'd just been standing. They were the same as the ones that had attacked him in the bathroom, long and golden as the crossbow that had fired them, and each had come from a different direction. Gretchen must have fired them before he'd even entered, and had them waiting on standby.

"Sorry, guy," Gretchen cracked her neck, sitting up. "Playing fair is for chumps. You can't really blame me, y'know?"

"No, I can't," Muzazi snorted, his gaze fixed on the arrows as they pulled themselves out of the floor and reoriented themselves to face him again. "But I can still punish you for it."

"Oh," Gretchen grinned. "He's got jokes. God's Pursuit."

The arrows came for him in a hail, points gleaming in the light. Muzazi blasted upwards with his thrusters, deflecting the arrows with his sword as they struck again and again and again. As he came back down, he accelerated, aiming right for Gretchen -- Luminescence raised high above his head. The arrows were right behind him, but he was just slightly faster.

Gretchen just held her free arm up.

"Aegis Imperious," she said, burning Aether crawling over her arm -- and a moment later, the limb was encased in a black metal bracer, like something stripped from plate armour. Another Aether Armament.

Muzazi's strike was deflected -- not by the bracer, but instead the space in front of it, as if there was an invisible barrier there. He blasted off to the side, arrows still pursuing him as he escaped Gretchen's melee range.

"No matter how many tricks you think you've got," Gretchen called after him. "I've got more! Let me show you. Luminescence."

Before Muzazi could even register what she'd said, the light in his blade died, turning it grey and cold.

Then the pain began.

A high-pitched screeching, intolerable even through his Aether, radiating out from his rapidly vibrating blade. Despite his best efforts, it was not something Muzazi could ensure. He found himself falling to the ground, thrusters sputtering out as he rolled into an undignified heal, the screaming sword still clutched in his hand.

Toss it away! he urged himself. Quickly -- get rid of it!

But no. He could never do that. He could never do that to Luminescence.

Gretchen finally stood up from the couch, looking victorious. "Well, this isn't exactly how Baltay wanted you to go out, but he'll just have to deal with it. You really thought I wouldn't leave a failsafe in that sword I gave you? You're a little too trusting, y'know?"

Shaking, Muzazi tried to pick himself up -- but no, the screech was too much. It was like something was eating its way into his brain. He fell back to the ground, wheezing.

The arrows were upon him.

"Well," Gretchen clapped her hands together. "See ya!"

Muzazi heard the arrows hit -- but he felt no pain, no matter how long he waited. Confused, he looked up from the floor. Even when he did, though, he didn't quite understand what he was seeing.

Ionir Yggdrasil was standing above him, facing Gretchen, one thick arm held off to the side. Each of the six arrows were embedded into that arm, and as Muzazi watched they sunk deeper and deeper, bending and breaking, like they were being consumed by the Fell Beast.

Gretchen narrowed her eyes. "Not such a loyal dog after all, huh?" she spat.

Ionir Yggdrasil, for his part, simply growled…

…and charged.