Aetheral Space

"I have to say," Morgan said shakily, taking a cautious step back. "You guys wouldn't be my first choice for an assassination squad. Is the Supreme short-staffed?"

He considered his situation. In short, it was bad.

Gretchen Hail, a blacksmith who had forged countless Aether Armaments. She herself wasn't so tough -- Ionir had once managed to splatter her against a wall with a single attack, after all -- but there was no telling what kind of tricks she'd come prepared with. That crown of leaves, for one. Who knew what kind of benefit it was giving her right now?

Ash del Duran, one of the most skilled users of the killing arts in the Supremacy. His Aether tic of accelerated aging meant that the amount of infusion he could use was limited, but he'd learnt how to compensate for that. If Morgan got within melee range of that man, he would not escape.

And then… Mereloco.

The man from two-hundred years ago, the man who had taken every attack Morgan could muster and barely even flinched. Taking him down in the Dawn Contest had nearly killed Muzazi… Morgan knew that self-belief was important to Aether usage, but there was no way he was beating all three of these people at once. It just wasn't happening.

It was strange, though. The last time Morgan had seen Mereloco, he'd been working to help Muzazi get off of Azum-Ha. The man didn't seem like much of a schemer… but maybe…?

Gretchen cut off Morgan's train of thought by repeating her question.

"Where's Muzazi?"

"I'm not gonna make it easy for you," Morgan glared. "It's going to take you a lot of work to get that information out of me."

"He was looking at the Seat of Man," Ash commented, glancing over Morgan's shoulder. "Maybe he's there?"

"Everyone's looking at the Seat of Man," Gretchen snapped back. "That's no guarantee. I'm not throwing myself into the middle of all that chaos for no reason."

Interesting. So these guys hadn't come from the Seat of Man? Whatever force was attacking that place now, Gretchen's group must have arrived separately from them.

Morgan took another small step back, towards the balcony. Snapping into alert, Gretchen raised her bow and pulled the string taut in his direction. Her golden eyes were dull with killing intent.

"We wouldn't try it, Morgan Nacht," she said softly. "Our arrows track their target. Even if you were to jump off, they would strike you before you landed."

Morgan's eyes flicked over to Mereloco, who still hadn't said anything. He just lingered in the back of the room, crossing his arms as he leaned against the wall.

If you're going to betray these guys and save me or something, this would be a great time…

Mereloco just stared back at him.

I guess not.

"You can't imagine I'm just going to tell you," Morgan said, shifting his gaze back to Gretchen.

"I've brought the tools," she replied simply. "You'll tell us."

"Right…" Morgan slowly nodded. "And if you --'

Morgan moved.

F! A! J! A!

The room was filled in an instant, flooded with Fog and illusionary copies of Morgan himself. They rushed through in a mass of confusion -- and as they did, Morgan leapt up towards the ceiling, planting his hand against its surface.

"Get him!" he heard Gretchen scream, and then…

Killing Arts: Bullet Step!

…he felt a hand grip his collar tight.

Ash del Duran had blasted off from his position at the back of the room, reaching and grabbing Morgan before he could so much as blink. For a moment, the two of them wrestled each other in mid-air. Ash tore away Morgan's collar, and Morgan tore away a strip of his tracksuit. Just as Ash lashed out his hand to grab Morgan again, though --

L! A! I! A!

-- he escaped, leaving an inferno of ignited Fog behind him.

"Unchained."

Mereloco tapped his foot against the floor -- and the resultant pulse of gravity cleared the room of flames and illusions instantly. Morgan had disappeared -- he'd clearly used that Inside ability of his to move to another room. Gretchen clicked her tongue.

Ash landed back down on the floor, head still angled up towards the ceiling. "He went up there," he muttered, readying his fist. "I'll break through and pursue."

"Wait," Gretchen said. "There's a better way."

Taking a deep breath, she readied her bow and fired towards the open door. The golden arrow flew out of the hotel room, turning the corner into the hallway and leaving a shining trail behind it.

"It's still locked onto his Aether," Gretchen explained. "Follow the arrow and it'll lead you to him."

Ash nodded, rushing off in pursuit of the golden trail. Gretchen looked at Mereloco. The burly man just raised an eyebrow.

"You go wait at the entrance," she ordered. "If I give the command, be ready to bring the building down."

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Mereloco said nothing. He just gave a curt nod, strolled over to the balcony, and hopped right off the railing. He disappeared from sight, but Gretchen already knew the fall wouldn't be a problem for that man.

Gretchen would trust the man from the past to survive, but that was the extent of it.

She couldn't blame Morgan for the confusion in his eyes a moment ago. It was the same for Gretchen herself. Mereloco had done his best to ensure Atoy Muzazi got off of Azum-Ha intact, and now she was expected to believe he was up for killing the swordsman? Their impromptu squad -- stray scraps of Dawn Contest rivals -- had been given this last chance to earn a pardon for their supposed impropriety. Gretchen didn't see Mereloco as caring enough about that to partake.

Still, all she could do was keep an eye on him. His accompanying them had been the Supreme's decision, not hers.

Gretchen turned back to the hotel room. The fact that Morgan Nacht had used his fire ability on the way out… that was very, very interesting. He would have known it wouldn't have been enough to hurt them, and it cleared out the smokescreen of Fog that was causing confusion, so why? There was only one explanation.

There was something in this room he'd wanted to destroy.

Silversaint Prototypes.

Two suits of silver armour slipped out of Ragnarok Forge, each dropping to one knee before Gretchen. As far as puppets went, they weren't nearly as useful as those of the Maker-Guild, but they still had their uses. Simple searching was well within their wheelhouse.

"Search the room," she commanded. "There's something in this place -- something that can lead us to Atoy Muzazi. Find it."

As the Prototypes moved robotically to carry out their task, Gretchen put a hand to her chin. What should the next move be? How should she proceed?

It was three against one, and the levels of strength were far from equal…

…but she didn't expect MorganNacht to go down easily.

Ash del Duran was all but out of time.

His blood was dry, and his flesh was stale. Only so many punches left, and only so many footprints. Already, he could feel a hollowness within his bones, becoming more and more insistent with each passing day. An awful ripeness. It was like he was becoming a corpse before he even died.

This was his last… last… last chance. The final opportunity for whatever glory he could scrape together. Even that notion was laughable now. These crumbs spilled from the table… could they really be called glory?

If he could defeat Atoy Muzazi… if he could be the one who brought down the Full Moon, a momentary enemy of the Supreme… it wouldn't gild his gravestone -- that was a distant dream now -- but it would surely carve an epitaph. There would be something… something… to remember him for. Some evidence of his existence.

And so he ran, with legs that shouldn't have been capable of running any further.

Gretchen Hail's golden arrow did not go the way he'd expected. Instead of heading upwards to the next floor up -- the floor Morgan had touched -- it swooped down the stairwell, descending. Morgan Nacht was on the next floor down.

He must have touched the floor with an unseen tendril of fog, Ash supposed, and used that contact to activate Inside there instead. Once upon a time, Ash surely would have caught that. His eyes wouldn't have missed it.

When did I become so easily fooled? he wondered. It can't have been so long ago.

With a body that could barely hold the training it had received, Ash del Duran descended in pursuit of fleeting gold.

Morgan Nacht ran for his life.

His trick with the floor wouldn't buy him much time. His opponents were smart enough to figure it out, but it would still take them a couple of seconds to start properly pursuing him. He had to use those seconds to put as much distance between himself and his enemies as possible.

Using tendrils of Amplified Fog like strings, Morgan swung through the hallways of the hotel, senses heightened to their utmost -- waiting for the moment the attack would come.

It didn't take as long as he'd hoped.

Distant but fast footprints -- growing far less distant far too quickly. Something was running straight after him. Alarm spiked inside Morgan's brain.

He'd known they'd come down to this floor, but how had they figured out his exact location? He'd taken care to be as quiet as possible as he moved, and he hadn't felt the buzz of an Aether ping, so how…?

"Our arrows track their target. Even if you were to jump off, they would strike you before you landed."

Shit!

Gretchen must have fired off another one of her arrows, and now they were just following it to Morgan's location. His trick with the ceiling had been pointless. Damn it, damn it, damn it. He needed to do something. He had to buy time.

So the arrow was tracking him. How? What were the conditions? He hadn't been struck by it, so it didn't have his blood or anything… it had to be Aether, then. It was locked on to his Aether specifically. Could he cloak, or was it too late to hide it?

Or…

Morgan looked down at the blue fabric still clutched in his hand. The strip he'd torn from Ash del Duran's tracksuit when they'd been fighting. The faintest, slightest bit of orange Aether was still crackling around it. If Morgan understood the arrow correctly, then…

K.

Morgan's purple Aether shifted to a matching shade of orange itself…

…and the golden arrow vanished.

Ash skidded to a halt in the middle of the hallway. Goddamnit. Morgan Nacht must have figured out how they were tracking him, and executed a countermeasure. The young man was clever, after all.

What now?

Ash was at something of a crossroad -- forward, left, or right, with no indication of which way Morgan had gone. What should his next move be? An Aether ping was absolutely out of the question, of course. Should they just have Mereloco demolish the building? No, that would accomplish nothing. Their objective was to capture and interrogate Nacht, not crush him in the rubble.

Should he return to the hotel room and…?

No.

There was no time for hesitation. There was no time for anything. Only movement could be permitted now.

Ash took a deep breath…

Forbidden Killing Art: Full Power!

…and charged.

Crash.

Morgan looked over his shoulder.

Crash!

Morgan sped up.

Crash!

Morgan ran for his life…

CRASH.

…but he wasn't quite fast enough.

Just as he reached the hotel's grand dining room, the wall behind him exploded inwards, showering him in clouds of dust and shards of wood. He swung his sword, deflecting the most dangerous bits of shrapnel… but the damage was done. He'd been cornered.

He whirled around, already swinging his sword once more, already knowing it was too late.

To be honest, from looking at the state Ash del Duran had been in, Morgan had expected this to be somewhat more of an even fight. It wasn't. In an instant, Ash was upon him, time having turning him skeletal and ravaged, face pulled taut to expose desperate eyes and teeth. Grey hair cracked through the air like a whip…

…and Morgan felt the palm thrust slide through his defenses and slam into his chest.

He was sent flying back, landing on the long dining table and sliding all the way down it's surface, scattering cutlery as he went. For a moment, Morgan was lost to momentum and pain, gasping for air as his path of destruction continued. At the last moment, though, just before falling off the table, he summoned strength back into himself, leapt up -- and took a single step towards his opponent.

It was already too late.

"Four."

The word echoed inside Morgan's head, and the voice that said it was more than familiar. It was his own voice. His subconscious, his instincts, speaking to him -- informing him with the cold courtesy of a reaper. Slowly, Morgan looked up, a shiver already running down his spine.

He knew this. A Killing Art, one that a master like Ash del Duran would be more than familiar with. Black Timer.

With a single, inhumanly aimed palm thrust, a series of biological reactions is triggered within the body of the target. Their own subconscious bubbles up to the surface, telling them how many steps they have left to take -- and once all those steps are taken…

Morgan gulped.

…they die.

"So," Ash del Duran said coldly, bones cracking as he straightened up -- standing exactly five paces away. "Now that I have you… shall we talk?"