Aetheral Space

"You know," muttered Skipper, tearing apart one of the security drones with his bare hands. "They really don't make these things the way they used to."

"Oh yeah?" Dragan replied, stepping out of the way as Skipper dropped the two metal chunks to the ground. "And how did they used to make them?"

"There was a, uh," Skipper said, waving a finger as he searched for the words. "There was a sense of quality, yeah? Real, real love put into these things. You felt bad when you tore them up because of it. You know what I mean?"

"I don't. Normal people can't tear up security drones."

"Guess I must be extraordinary, then. Yeah?" Skipper grinned.

Dragan rolled his eyes. Since Ruth wasn't talking with Skipper right now, he'd been left to bear the brunt of the man's irritating personality. Even now, while they were meant to be finding Bruno and Serena, the idiot couldn't help but inflict his inane opinions upon Dragan.

Obviously, what they were actually supposed to be doing was securing Sait - but Dragan was much more concerned about Bruno and Serena. He didn't know the old man, and he seemed like a dick anyway, so the idea of climbing the entire hospital to protect him from threats he'd himself invited wasn't the most enticing.

The elevators had been shut down, so they were making their way through the lobbies to get to a manual stairwell towards the back of the building. Dragan didn't relish the idea of climbing god-knows how many flights of stairs, but they weren't exactly flush with options here.

"Keep alert," growled Ruth - she was leading the threefold pack from a short distance ahead, Skeletal Set covering her body. "There'll be more drones."

Dragan grunted, nodding. Ever since they'd entered the hospital, they'd been beset by the facility's pre-existing security - professional-grade drones, presumably directed to eliminate any intruders other than the ones Sait wanted. That, or that Noel girl had already gotten to them all.

He glanced back behind him, towards the strobing police lights visible through the windows. Assholes. The S4 talked a big show, sure, but they were just sitting outside with all those armaments they'd brought. Securing the perimeter - bullshit. They were just waiting for the expendables to make sure the coast was clear.

Canaries in the mines. That was all they were.

"This is too slow," growled Ruth from up ahead, frustration clear in her voice as she sliced another drone into bite-size pieces. "If they're really after Sait, they'll get to him before we even reach the stairs."

Skipper clicked his tongue. "Shit," he muttered. "You're right. I have a plan, though.*

Dragan sighed. "Dear God no."

"Nah, nah, nah, nah," Skipper said, skidding to a halt as he raised his hands. "Don't worry about it. This is a good one. A real nice piece of business. We split up, yeah?"

Dragan wasn't impressed. "Is that it?"

"It's what's necessary, kiddo. We've got a bunch of objectives here, and the Citizen's only got one. The only way we're beating him in terms of speed is if we divide the labour, yeah?"

Ruth nodded. "It makes sense. I'm the fastest here, so I'd go after Sait, get him out of sight."

"Nice, nice," Skipper interrupted before Dragan could voice any more protests. "Mr. Hadrien, you'd go grab Bruno and Serena and make your way out the building. Easy, right?"

Making his way through a dark, hostile building didn't sound easy, but Dragan didn't see a way complaining further would profit him. "Fine," he sighed.

Skipper snapped his fingers. "There's that can-do attitude we all know and love. I like it, I like it."

Dragan cocked his head. "What will you do? Don't you dare say you'll take it easy while we're doing all the work."

"The youth are so unkind to their elders," whimpered Skipper in mock-sadness as he ran a hand over his face. "Ol' Papa Skipper isn't even allowed to put his feet up anymore."

"Please never call yourself that again."

"It's a promise," Skipper lied. "But what I'm doing, Mr. Hadrien, is heading to the security room. If we don't get that locked down tight, it's bad news. You remember that Noel girl?"

"The smug toddler?"

"That's the one. She's got some kind of hacking ability - if she can assume control over all the building's security, that's bad news for us. These random patrols will all be headed right for us. Which, uh … which is bad. You get me?"

Dragan bit his lip. He hated to admit it, but Skipper had a point. Maybe splitting up was the best course of action.

"Time's burning, guys," called Ruth from up ahead.

Dragan groaned. "Fine."

-

Bruno did his best to stay upright, clutching his wounded arm as he leaned against the wall for support.

Damnit. Reyansh had got him. Bruno had managed to maneuver himself enough so that the knife had gone into his arm, rather than his chest, but it was a painful wound all the same. Blood oozed out from between his fingers as he applied pressure.

Reyansh was a short distance away, turning his knife over in the red light as if to inspect the blood decorating it's surface.

"A shallow wound," he mused. "But a wound all the same. It is a harbinger of things to come, my friend. I would suggest you surrender yourself to me. You could be an asset to our cause."

Shallow? Bruno severely doubted how much Reyansh knew about medical matters - and surrender wasn't an option.

He'd fallen for that ploy once before, after all.

Reyansh raised an eyebrow at Bruno's lack of reply. "You shouldn't remain silent upon the battlefield," he said, almost scolding Bruno. "It is the duty of the survivor to communicate the will of those who have perished. How am I to do that if you do not make your soul known?"

Bruno's voice was croaky as he forced the words out, ignoring the pain from his exhausted lungs. "You like to hear yourself talk."

"Yes," Reyansh nodded. "That is how I communicate my own will. I ask again if you would surrender, brave one."

Cott's grin - one of them, at least - flashed through Bruno's mind. His eyes narrowed into a hateful gaze. "Never."

"Splendid."

He had to think. Reyansh was clearly stronger than him right now - his bombing ability was absurd, and he hadn't been in hospital for the last week. Bruno's abilities and the current situation forced him on a constant defensive, while Reyansh's ability to detonate point-blank explosions served as both attack and defense.

How did he do it? There had to be a way. Reyansh's Aether defense wasn't strong enough that an explosion just wouldn't phase him - at the start of this encounter, Bruno had managed to down him with well-placed blows.

There was a trick to it, then. He just had to figure it out before Reyansh finished him off.

The knife came for him again - dancing between Reyansh's fingers as he slashed and stabbed, each blow meeting either empty air or a split-second forcefield. Even still, though, Reyansh's attacks were growing more ruthless, more unrelenting as he grew used to the placement of Bruno's defenses, the way his body dodged.

To figure out the trick behind the explosions, Bruno would have to observe one. So far, Reyansh had only used them either at range, when his knife couldn't reach - or when his knife was unavailable. He'd need to replicate those conditions.

He'd need perfect timing - or else he'd actually die this time.

Bruno took a step backwards away from a testing slash and made as if his foot had caught on some debris on the ground, allowing himself to stumble. It was an obvious deception - but in the heat of battle, Reyansh didn't have the presence of mind to question it.

His eyes widened and his pupils dilated as he thrust the knife at blinding speed towards Bruno's exposed chest.

Now.

There was a crack of purple Aether in the air, illuminating the dark hallway for a second, replaced a moment later by the persistent sound of screeching metal. Reyansh, sensing danger, jumped back - and he left his knife behind.

The weapon remained where it had been mid-thrust, kept suspended in the air by the forcefield intersecting it. It shuddered in place, a piercing screech coming from the knife as both it and the forcefield attempted to repel each other. A gentle line of steam ran from along its surface.

Perfect Parry: immobilising an enemy by intersecting a forcefield with their attack. Every time Bruno did it, the uncertainty of whether it would work was unbearable - it needed perfect timing, after all. But he couldn't deny the results.

Reyansh clicked his tongue as he watched the knife twist and shake in mid-air. "I see…" he muttered. "That's an interesting technique. You've used your superior sense of timing to relieve me of my weapon. How salacious of you."

Salacious? Bruno got the feeling that this guy didn't know what most of the words he threw around meant.

"However," Reyansh went on. "This masterstroke is only victorious if I cannot fight without my knife. That, unfortunately, is not the case. Behold!"

He shifted his stance slightly, readying himself for hand-to-hand combat. Bruno wasn't really sure if that was dramatic enough to warrant a 'behold'.

What might have been dramatic enough, though, were the pebbles clutched between his fingers. Bruno steeled himself.

This was gonna suck.

-

Moving on his own meant that he could be so much faster, but it was just so damn lonely too. Skipper sighed as he rushed through the hospital corridors, using an occasional Heartbeat Shotgun to redirect his momentum.

Things had gotten so complicated lately, much earlier than he'd expected them to. Ruth wasn't happy with him, and Dragan was unleashing so much sass he just couldn't believe it. He missed those few minutes that had presumably happened, where everyone just got along.

Still. They were all breathing, for now - not everyone was so fortunate. He had to count his blessings.

The security room was usually beneath buildings like this, so that they could be sealed off from the rest of the complex in the event of an incursion. He and Ruth had therefore parted ways at the stairwell - her going up, towards the penthouse, and himself heading down to cut off the hacker girl.

As he blasted round another hallway, Skipper idly wondered if the Citizen would show himself this time. Probably not - he seemed like the hands-off kind of guy, which was kind of a problem all on its own. How the hell was Skipper meant to kill a guy he'd never met? Like, physically.

The thought of that bull's smug voice sent an urgent surge of rage running through Skipper's head, but he pushed it down. There was a time for all these things, and they weren't now.

As the hallway in front of him terminated, Skipper planted his feet back onto the floor and skidded to a halt, sparks flying up from the metal casing on his boots.

Bingo. He knew a high-security location when he saw one.

Big metal door, with a keypad to the side and a palm-reader beneath that. Not bad in terms of security. He'd seen better, of course - he'd heard that the Superbians of the Final Church scanned your entire genetic structure before letting you into certain areas. Still, this was fine for a budget.

He didn't know the code, though, didn't have the magic hand that would let him in. No problem.

Skipper took a step backwards, extended a hand towards the door, and cleared his throat.

"Heartbeat Bayonet."

A second later, there was a high-pitched whistling - and two huge gashes appeared in the door's surface, as if an invisible sword had sliced it in time with the whistling. The whistling continued, intensifying a further three times, each fluctuation accompanied by another attack against the door.

It took ten seconds to completely gouge a hole in the door, big enough for Skipper to climb through.

Still got it. He grinned and climbed through.

-

Ruth threw the cafeteria table up in front of her - and a second later, it was impaled by the five pink arrows that had been aiming for her face. As the arrows flopped back down into normal human hair, Ruth tossed the table aside - and a moment later, remanifested her Skeletal claws.

An amused chuckle rang out from the third floor of the cafeteria - where her attacker was observing her, down here on the ground.

The pink-haired man - Simeon, Ruth remembered - licked his lips as he kept that ornate bow aimed at her. The thing was obviously recorded, but it looked like the arrows themselves were made from infused hair.

Simeon's pink locks continued to grow as his Aether crackled around him, his hair now almost brushing against the floor.

"I didn't expect to see you again," he called out leisurely, as if this was a party they were meeting at. "The Fifth Dead went after you, right? Most people don't survive that sort of thing."

Ruth kept her claws bared as her eyes flicked around the cafeteria, looking for anything she could use. "I'm not most people," she said, voice low.

"Sorry? I didn't quite catch that. There's something of a distance here, you know, and you're talking pretty quiet."

She glared up at him, meeting his gaze. "I said I'm not most people."

His eyes narrowed, as if he was properly looking at her for the first time. "No," he mused, fingers playing along his bowstring like it were a harp. "You're not, are you? You've seen it too, haven't you?"

"Seen what?"

If she threw another of the tables as a distraction, she could maybe make it to the stairs and at least ascend to the second floor. From there, she could burst through the floor right beneath Simeon and take him out that way. It wasn't the most reliable plan, but it was better than nothing.

Simeon grinned mirthlessly as he answered. "Terror."

She faltered.

Broken bones dripping with plasma. A lashed corpse strapped to a post.

"I'm right, aren't I?" he smirked. "I already know I am. I know a coward when I see one."

She took in a deep breath through her nose, glaring up at him. "I'm no coward," she said, voice low.

"Again, didn't catch that - but I'd bet you were denying what I said, right?"

He grinned, wicked humour dancing in his eyes.

"Well," he breathed, drawing his bowstring taut. "Why don't you prove it?"