INFUSION

It wouldn't be long now. Not long at all.

Edgar took the piece of paper from the table before him, held it between his hands, and channeled his Aether. Hissing sparks of bright blue -- so bright they nearly seemed white -- swam from Edgar's fingers into the paper they were holding. The effects were obvious immediately.

The paper stiffened -- and even when Edgar let go of it, allowing it to fall onto the table, its structure remained rigid. Edgar half-suspected he could even cut through something with the paper when it was in this state. With just a few sparks of blue, any object in the world could become a viable weapon…

…first and foremost, the human body.

Edgar clenched his fists, letting the Aether run through them too. He'd never been in a real fight in his life -- not unless you counted support work like against Gunhild -- and his combat training was minimal… but with this power, he was willing to bet he could defeat any non-Aether-using human handily.

In that sense, it was the great equaliser. A light of the mind that any with the ability to think could reach for.

Strong and weak, have and have-not, master and servant… those distinctions would finally disappear once the Gene Tyrants were eliminated. A world of peace was on the horizon. A world of peace and joy for all mankind.

The most important part was that they grew to understand this power, Edgar felt, as he looked out into the black void from the window of his study. For the time being, the Sapphire Star had been relocated to the most well-defended part of the territory the Zeilan Morhan had wrestled from the Gene Tyrants. While they'd confirmed that Aether could be unlocked without it -- the Malvani Twins were living proof of that -- the Sapphire Star's guidance remained the easiest and smoothest way for a person to unlock Aether. For the sake of producing worthy troops, its safety was of the utmost concern.

So long as they had the Sapphire Star, full understanding would come -- even if it took time, even if it took a lot of time.

The Aether faded from the desk -- and as Edgar raised the limp piece of paper between two fingers, he couldn't help but think of Idra, and he couldn't help but wonder.

The Aether infused them with strength. What exactly did they infuse the Aether with?

Idra, the one they called the Saint of the Wound, said nothing and everything.

His body crackled with a perpetual shroud of hissing red Aether, every movement accompanied by the sickening clicking and scraping of shattered bones. The hole in his chest, the wound that had ended his first life and earned him his title, was still exposed to the air -- but rather than festering, it had bloomed. The blood within his obliterated chest had crystallized, forming a mass of red spikes like jagged rubies.

In his hand, he held a long spear, the blade perpetually dripping with blood. He did not walk, but floated, the tips of his feet only just barely dragging along the ground as he moved.

And his lips kept moving, too. Ever since his first death, his lips had never stopped moving. None who could hear him would explain what he was saying in concrete terms. Perhaps there were no concrete terms that would explain what he was saying.

Whatever the case, it bred devotion.

In the fire-gardens of Myasapol, Idra and a hundred of his followers advanced on the Gene Tyrant they'd been terrorising for nearly a day now. Gunhild, who had once escaped the nascent Zeilan Morhan, had been hunted down like a fox against hounds. His newest form, a beast like a hairless horse, was already covered in bruises and gashes, body smashed against a nearby fountain. Those wounds would heal, of course, but they'd be replaced soon enough.

"Wait…" Gunhild grew a hand with which to grovel. "Just wait…"

Idra's lips moved -- but if that was a reply, it was not one meant for Gunhild's ears. Instead, his self-appointed second-in-command -- a young pink-haired man named Alis -- stepped forward. His eyes wrinkled in distaste as he looked down at the thing that had thought itself a god.

"Y is with us," he said, with the cold certainty of a sentence being passed. "Y is not with you."

And with a simple nod of his head, one-hundred angry Aether-users converged upon the fallen idol. Gunhild, who had once been called the Judge and Jester, could do little more than scream into the night. The worship his servants had offered him had long since run dry.

This was a time for new gods.

ALTERATION

"Watchmaker's Inner World," Granba muttered.

With those words, the power he had developed activated. Rings of green Aether surrounded him and his crafting table on all sides, the rest of the room fading to an utter black. It was just him, his tools, his materials…

…and the girl.

Ruri watched with awestruck eyes as Granba began his work. With a wave of one of his hands, the pistol lying on the table before him floated up into the air and disassembled itself, becoming a collection of individual parts within a few seconds. Narrowing his four eyes, Granba inspected each tiny component.

"Fortify." He tapped the bolts with fingers.

"Repair." He slid a finger over the heating element.

"Incorporate." He stretched out the plasma tank like a piece of putty.

With each contact, green Aether flickered, reflected in the pink eyes of Ruri opposite. To tell the truth, Granba had found it somewhat unnerving at first -- to be looked at so intently with the same gaze that had once belonged to a Gene Tyrant. Ruri was a good girl, though. It wasn't her fault.

"Recombine," Granba waved a hand, and the modified pistol slid back together -- the shape changed only slightly on the outside, but the inside now nearly unrecognisable.

As Watchmaker's Inner World faded away, Ruri looked down at the gun in astonishment.

"So… just like that?" she said. "It's been upgraded?"

"That's what I designed my ability for," Granba nodded. "Aether isn't just power, Aether is change. That's how Azez makes his flames, but there's more than that. The more something is changed, the more it stays changed. I think I'm probably the only one to have taken it as far as this yet, though."

He nodded back at the collection at the back of his workshop -- a pile of seemingly random items, topped with a featureless metal stick and a pile of rope. Granba's test cases: the prototypes for what he was calling 'Aether Items', weapons and devices that could store Aether abilities that could then be used by any other Aether-user. If Granba could perfect the principle, they'd be a great boon in the coming battles.

"How about you?" Granba asked, looking back at Ruri.

Ruri's eyes widened. "Me?" Whenever someone said her name, Ruri looked like she'd just been spotted doing something she shouldn't have been -- like being alive.

"What would you want to change?" Granba said, sliding the gun across the table. "If you could?"

Ruri took a deep breath, looking down at the pistol Granba had made for her. Slowly, she rested a hand down upon it. Pink Aether crackled around her palm, and she felt the gun warm in response.

"Everything," she said at last. "I don't want things to be like this forever."

That thing was the size of the sky.

The last creation of Eleanor the Bloodpath Scholar had been fully actualised and released automatically upon his death. Unlike other students of the Maven of Red, Eleanor's interest had been on megafauna -- hence the absurd size of his magnum opus. Even the tallest skyscraper on Azum would barely have come up to the top of its foot.

It was humanoid, pale, but beyond that no features could be made out. The walking titan was so huge that huge was all it could be. If it had a voice, it was a rumble beyond the range of hearing. If it had a purpose, it was only to walk. The planet Farshard shattered before the titan's advance. Already, an entire army had been crushed underfoot.

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It was impossible to tell if the titan was doing this on purpose, or if it even knew what purpose was… but still, it had to end here.

That was what heroes were for.

"True Flow!"

Bieshu del Mar had become a blur of efficient movement, a ribbon of blue light that wound across the giant's face, slicing through flesh as it went. The titan's cries tore the air apart, but they did nothing to stop Bieshu's ongoing disassembly. An ear the size of a house plummeted to the earth.

"Astral Skeleton!"

White light exploded out from Roland Nebula's exoskeleton as he flew through the air, the aurora washing over him and -- for the briefest instant -- producing the mirage of a young man in his prime. The giant swung a clumsy fist, and the old man swung a greatsword smaller than his enemy's fingernail. The sword won, and fingers flew severed in every direction.

"Supreme…"

The sun blazed in the sky, but day had long since turned to night. Azez Tazir slowly floated down below the veil of clouds. One of his arms was mutilated, burnt, barely held together by bolts and a splint… but in that hand, he was holding ultimate destruction.

The Lantern of Truth.

Granba had provided it, once it became clear that Azez was incapable of unleashing his own power without destroying himself. The masterpiece, therefore, would hold it for him. Slowly, as the giant advanced, Azez raised the lantern up --

"...Shine."

-- and with pristine and precise obliteration, burnt away the lodestone of the giant's brain.

It died standing up.

RECORDING

Azez wiped the sweat from his brow as, flanked by Bieshu and Roland, he walked through their battle camp on Farshard. The shadow of Eleanor's Titan stretched over them, making it actually refreshingly cool on the arid planet.

He released his grip on the Lantern of Truth, and it fizzled away into golden Aether. To tell the truth, this was the Aetheral ability that Azez found most astounding, more impressive than enhancing or modifying things. Making things straight-up disappear and reappear? It really felt like magic.

It wasn't like it was easy, though. It had taken weeks of intensive training with Granba and Edgar before Azez had been able to make even the Lantern disappear. All of that damn image training… sometimes, he dreamed of lanterns even now.

The crowd around them -- slaves, those who had served the Bloodpath Scholar -- cheered in awe, stretching out their hands desperately as if contact with the Zeilan Morhan would grant them some blessing. Roland just continued to walk ahead, his posture rigid and militaristic, but Bieshu reached out and brushed her own hand against the ones reaching for her. That seemed to satisfy them most of all.

The reverence made sense. While Azez and Roland had dispatched Eleanor, Bieshu had been leading the slaves to safety, protecting them singlehandedly from Eleanor's guards and abominations. To many people, Bieshu was just as prominent a figure of the revolution as Azez -- even if some of the stories tended to get her gender wrong.

That wasn't to say Azez didn't get his fair share of awe, though. He could hear it as he moved through the crowd, the whispering. Those who had heard the name of his final attack, and now repeated part of it like a mantra.

"Supreme. Supreme. Supreme."

They said it like a title. Some of them even seemed to think it was his name. Supreme. Supreme.

He didn't yet know if he liked that or not.

MANIFESTATION

"Spear of Stillness."

Newfound weight settled in Zarakhel's hand, and he grinned in satisfaction as he curled his fingers around the length of the weapon. He'd done it. It was like what Edgar had said -- there was such a thing as a magic bullet.

And right now, Zarakhel held it in his hand.

A few hours ago, this had been an ordinary spear -- the general size and shape that Zarakhel had trained himself to absorb within his Aether. Now, though, after bathing in the black sparks of Zarakhel's mind? Now it had emerged as something far greater.

The Gene Tyrants greatest strength was their versatility. Given enough biomass and a second of spare time, they could basically become anything. If they knew what they were doing, it wasn't especially difficult for them to come up with a countermeasure against any method of attack.

The Spear of Stillness would take that away from them.

As the name suggested, once the Spear pierced a target, it would impose 'stillness' upon it. So long as the Spear remained in contact, things like shapeshifting would be sealed away. If timed right, it would even be possible to trap a Tyrant as a useless pile of meat mid-transformation. Zarakhel licked his lips at the thought.

And now he held it in his hand. A weapon bespoke for absolute tyrannicide. It was like a dream.

Time to test it.

It didn't take Zarakhel long to reach Margarethe's chambers. The security staff aboard their new flagship, the Ha, had done their best to keep the location a secret from Zarakhel -- but the Blindman had his ways. He wormed his way through the security systems like they weren't even there.

His Aether crawled around him as he went, like a thousand hands dragging themselves across his immediate surroundings, giving him an approximate idea of what was around him. It was hardly subtle -- he was basically surrounded by a field of hissing shadows -- but Zarakhel had never been a subtle man. He didn't expect the Spear's debut would be a subtle one, either. The cleaners would resent him.

The doors opened, and Zarakhel stepped through.

"Rise and shine, bitch," he giggled.

His Aether revealed Margarethe's location instantly. Over in the corner, reading over reports, a barely humanoid form looking up at Zarakhel as he approached. He wondered what her face looked like. Oh, he wished he hadn't blinded himself. Were her eyes widening in terror? Were her lips pulled taut?

He wanted to know… he wanted to know…

"I'm sorry," said Margarethe.

Zarakhel stopped.

"What?" he said. "No. What? Fuck you."

"You're here to kill me, aren't you?"

Her voice. Her fucking voice, coming from everywhere like she was a god. Even just the sound of it made his blood boil. He couldn't take it.

"Boss says we don't need you anymore," Zarakhel lied. "I'm here to fucking massacre you."

He tightened his grip on the Spear of Stillness.

"What's that?" Margarethe asked.

Zarakhel's grin returned. "You'll figure it out." He took a step forward.

"I'm sorry," Margarethe said again.

Zarakhel's grin vanished. "Why do you keep saying that?" he demanded. "What, do you think I care? Do you think I give a shit? Ha! What the fuck?"

"I'm glad you let me talk before the end," Margarethe went on. "I was worried I wouldn't get the chance to say it in person."

"Fuck you."

"You were a person," Margarethe said. "And I treated you like a thing. I'm sorry."

"Fuck you!"

Zarakhel's Aether was running wild as his emotions went into overdrive, his vague spatial awareness now covering nearly the entire room. His grin wasn't just gone now, though -- it had been replaced by a grimace so tight it felt like his teeth would shatter. What was he doing? Why was he even listening to this bullshit? He should have just killed her the second he walked in.

Well, it wasn't too late.

As Zarakhel raised the Spear of Stillness, however, preparing to throw it like a harpoon, Margarethe interrupted.

"Give me until Azum," she said.

Zarakhel's grip on his weapon loosened slightly. "What?" he said.

"Give me until Azum," Margarethe repeated. "Let me see the end of the war. Let me see mankind's victory. Then you can kill me."

"I can kill you whenever I fucking feel like it," Zarakhel snarled.

"Yes," Margarethe said. "Yes, you can. Could you kill me at that time, then? Think about it. I'll have seen everyone I know die. I'll have torn down my entire world. Won't that be more satisfying for you?"

Zarakhel grinded his teeth together. "If this is a trick…"

"It is," she said. "I'm bargaining for my life… but we both know there's only so much I can do against you now."

Slowly, Zarakhel lowered his weapon.

"Until Azum?" Margarethe asked, the slightest quiver finally entering her voice.

Zarakhel gave a single curt nod.

"Until Azum," he spat.

Josephine ascended the black steps.

She strode through what was left of U4, one of the original lightpoints from the pre-Gene Noble era, clad in a spacesuit -- the dilapidated place was open to the void, after all. The only source of light was a puny little glow from her collar, barely illuminating the steps she was climbing. Carefully, Josephine made her way through the metal skeleton.

Somewhere distant and yet nearby, she could hear whispering. Somewhere far away and yet close, she could hear giggling. She didn't want to stay here long. It wasn't safe. She might see something.

And yet, it wasn't like she had a choice. If she wanted what she wanted, she had to take the requisite risks. Steeling herself, Josephine raised a hand and began channeling her white Aether through it for extra light.

The stuff looked sickening, like maggots crawling over her arm, but at the very least she could see where she was going. A rusted-over communication link, barely functional, on its last legs after the ravages of millennia. She'd chosen this place well.

This would be a direct connection to that planet.

As delicately as she could, Josephine turned it on and began operating it. The audio was connected to her helmet -- and for a moment, she didn't know what to say. What could she say?

In the end, simplest was best.

"My name is Josephine," she spoke to distant Azum. "I know where the Sapphire Star is… and I want something in return for that information.

"The ultimate reward."