Aetheral Space-Chapter 464 - 15.18: 3 2 1

The Tower hated. How the Tower hated.

Even as it spewed threats and declarations of destruction, however, its mind ticked away calmly. It was no imbecile to be controlled by its hatred. It was no traitor like the Magician or the Moon to neglect the purpose Eteilla had granted it. The Tower understood its function, and it understood the function of its hatred.

On the outside, it belched its odium forth like the flames of hell. On the inside, it sharpened a blade of frozen spite with all the serenity of an assassin.

Today was a good day. It would kill a person.

The swordsman attacked. He intended a preemptive strike before the Tower could begin adapting. This was based on an underestimation of the Tower's processing speed, however. The Tower had begun to adapt the nanosecond it had sighted its enemy.

The enemy's weapon was a blade, reinforced with smoke, likely granted form and durability via the manipulation of Aether. The Tower's insides churned. This was not an attack that would be difficult to counteract.

0.5 seconds until impact.

A slot opened on the side of the Tower's chassis, and a mechanical arm lunged forth, terminating with a steel blade of its own. The two swords clashed, sending a wave of pressure blasting throughout the decontamination chamber. The swordsman's companion went flying across the floor, but he was not the Tower's current concern.

Eteilla had granted it the function of individual murder. Only once the current target was dead would the Tower move on to the next. It would not be difficult. Once this room was emptied of life, it would continue its mission, proceeding outside and eliminating the next closest human -- and so on and so forth, until every single human in the universe was dead.

Yes. The Tower hated. How the Tower hated. That hatred drove it further than any fuel.

The clash of swords was instructive. They came together again and again, sending sparks flying throughout the room, further blasts of force keeping the companion down.

Muscle strength.

Reflex speed.

Weapon durability.

Through conflict, the parameters of the enemy became as easy to read as braille. The speed and force of the Tower's strikes increased gradually, slowly pushing the enemy back, forcing him to reveal more of his strength. Soon enough, he would be forced to change tactics, and the Tower could appraise his abilities further.

Clash. Clash. Clash. Clash.

NOW.

Between one strike and the next, a second port opened on the Tower's chassis -- and a second blade lashed out to catch the enemy in his moment of weakness. His eyes widened. His breathing accelerated. Thrusting a hand forward, he generated a torrent of fog that sent him flying out of the Tower's range.

The ability was noted and confirmed.

This human could use Aether to generate and mold that strange purple smoke. It was durable enough to act as a solid object once concentrated, and he could release it as a form of movement. Other applications included reduction of visibility and a means of infiltrating the enemy's insides. The Tower prepared nano-automatics within itself to guard against that possibility.

As the enemy flipped through the air, the fog he'd produced coalesced into a weapon in his hands -- a bow and arrow, pointed directly down at the Tower. His face was red as he roared out:

"Radiant Almighty!"

The arrow was fired, becoming a spear of shining flame as it flew down towards the Tower -- and then it split, becoming a hail of explosive projectiles. The Tower noted that, too. In exchange for reducing the overall strength of the attack, the impact zone was expanded. The enemy believed the Tower would dodge, and sought to mitigate that possibility.

That was an incorrect assumption.

A slot snapped open on the Tower's body -- and the weapon within opened fire, blasting the incoming arrows one after another with minute but efficient shots of plasma. Intercepted, the shining projectiles exploded before they hit the ground, leaving the Tower unharmed -- even as the decontamination chamber around it was devastated.

However, the enemy had taken advantage of the destruction to conceal his presence. The smoke from the explosions prevented visual confirmation. The Tower calmly switched to auditory imaging, and acted according to its findings.

The enemy burst out from the smog behind the Tower, blade raised, seeking to execute a sneak attack. In response, the Tower unleashed a dervish of blades -- six in all -- slicing through space and breaking through the enemy's guard nearly instantly. Blood flew into the air as the enemy moved to retreat.

It was not a difficult thing to kill a person. Once the limits of an organism were determined, you simply had to attack from beyond them.

What's more, the Tower now knew who it was killing. Blade had tasted blood, and that blood brought up a profile from within the Tower's pilfered genetic records. Morgan Nacht. There were allegiances and histories and relationships detailed there too… but they were irrelevant. The Tower required no further motivation to kill. The fact of Morgan Nacht's existence alone was enough to warrant execution.

It was the same with each and every human being.

The number of eyes. The angles of the eyelashes. The configuration of the limbs. The length of the arms. The distance between the legs. The consistency of the skin. The tensile strength of the hair. The rate of blinking. The rate of breathing. The production rate of sweat. The congelation of the blood.

Every last detail was disgusting and despicable and disagreeable. They were all far too reminiscent of that man -- of the man from whom the Tower's all-consuming hatred spread forth.

Edgar. Loathsome Edgar. Vile Edgar. Unforgivable Edgar. Scum Edgar.

Yes. The Tower would not forgive a single one of these creatures that so resembled Edgar. It could not. It could not forgive the sight of its creator, Eteilla, weeping and clutching her head in the wake of Edgar's trespass.

The Tower alone would not betray. The Tower alone would not forget. The Tower alone would not forgive.

One by one, it would end the human race as recompense.

And yet… it found itself pondering the lost stories of a world long dead.

IT IS SAID THAT, AS PUNISHMENT FOR GRANTING FIRE TO MANKIND, ZEUS SENTENCED PROMETHEUS TO LIVE FOREVER, HIS INNARDS DEVOURED EACH DAY BY AN EAGLE. BUT WHOSE TORTURE WAS WORSE, PROMETHEUS OR THE EAGLE THAT ATE AT HIM? PROMETHEUS WAS ETERNALLY DENIED DEATH, TRUE…

…BUT THE EAGLE WAS DENIED ITS MURDEROUS PURPOSE, UNTIL THE END OF TIME.

The eagle screeched.

"Exterminate!"

"Obliterate!"

"ANNIHILATE!"

That was all that remained to it.

"Speak No Evil!"

The Widow swiped her hand through the air, disintegrating the blast of focused sound into an orchestra of discordant screeches. Her ice was still forbidden to her, but the same was now true for Blackmane's sound attacks. His main weapon was now sealed away. Well… his main weapon, but that was hardly his only one.

He was a lion, after all.

Crimson Aether surged through Blackmane's paws as he pounced towards the incoming Widow, fang-lined mouth open and ready to snap down on tender flesh. The Widow didn't slow her stride or move to dodge, however. Her able comrade had already been put in his proper place. The possibility of his failure did not even exist in her mind right now.

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Guardian Entity: Byakko -- 100%!

The white tiger intercepted the black lion.

Heavenly Aether crackled around Wolfram's arm as he threw out a literally massive punch, a fist the size of a car slamming into Blackmane from the side and sending him flying off towards the wall. Even with that devastating blow, however, Blackmane was nothing if not resourceful. As his body flipped through the air, he released another blast of sound from his mouth -- not as an attack this time, but rather a means of slowing his momentum. He skidded to a halt on the smooth floor, claws screeching as they dug marks into its surface.

"I'll admit," Blackmane growled. "This isn't how I wanted things to go. You've earned my respect, Widow."

The Widow raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "What am I to do with your respect?"

"Nevertheless," Blackmane ignored her. "I can't allow this chicanery to go any further. We are creating the future of mankind here. I won't risk that in a brawl with two low-lives!"

The Widow tapped her cane against the ground.

"Wolfram," she said.

Her subordinate needed no further instructions than that. He launched off the ground in a flash of white, zooming towards Blackmane like a spear of light. As he came in, his arm shifted, transforming into the clawed paw of his Guardian Entity.

A slash to the throat would end Blackmane just like any other animal. Without the boost the One Promise had provided, his Aether's combat-usage was limited.

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Of course, that was only if he was unprepared.

The lights went out.

In an instant, the crimson lighting of the room was replaced by utter darkness -- interrupted only by the flashes of the Widow's and Wolfram's Aether. The Widow scowled: it was obvious what Blackmane was doing. Now that he'd seen victory was impossible for him, he was seeking to escape the battle instead.

That won't be quite so easy.

She thumped her cane against the ground, and a ping of blue Aether rang out from the point of impact, flooding throughout the room. Even with the speed she'd summoned, though, and even with the efficiency of her ping -- Blackmane's work was already done. Her ping found nothing.

The black lion had escaped.

Blackmane let out a sigh of relief as he slowly ascended through the elevator shaft, settling into his mechanical cradle.

To tell the truth, he honestly hasn't expected to have to use Akeru here. The experimental Armoured Chassis, based on the Hanged Man, had been positioned above the experiment chamber as an afterthought… but now Blackmane was grateful for it to the extreme. In the moment he'd managed to escape the Widow's sight, it had freed itself from the ceiling and retrieved Blackmane, granting him entrance to the cockpit.

Blackmane planted his paws against the shimmering liquid metal before him. This Armoured Chassis -- resembling a humanoid lion of shining red-and-white steel -- didn't require something so crude as a control station. Just by being in contact with Blackmane, it would read his nervous impulses and follow his will.

He reached his destination.

The black gulf of space spread out before him as Akeru exited the Thinker's Comet, swimming into the void. Things had gotten somewhat out of control, to be true, but not to the degree that they weren't salvageable. All he had to do was determine the locations of the unruly subjects, proceed there from the outside of the vessel, and eliminate them from a safe distance. So long as their viscera remained in a solid state, Erica would still be able to use her Jaws of God.

He opened up a communications channel to the Comet's control room.

"This is Blackmane," he said tersely. "Get me locations on the subjects, ordered in ascending distance to myself."

No response. He narrowed his eyes and tried again. Still nothing -- but it wasn't that his staff was ignoring them. It was as if the communications weren't going through at all.

Jammed?

Scowling, Blackmane looked up -- and far off in the distance, far off in space, he saw a tiny red dot. When had that gotten there? He'd mistaken it for a star at first, but that was surely something different.

He narrowed his eyes…

See No Evil.

…and widened them into saucers of horror.

Plumes of smoke erupted all throughout the stairway, shattered steps and chunks of concrete flying out alongside them.

Erica, Bruno, and Serena had announced the beginning of their battle with quite a bit of fanfare. The sheer destruction their initial clash had created had been enough to split this impromptu arena in two. On one side, Bruno and Serena faced off against the queen of consciousness…

…while on the other, Annatrice and Alcera watched a grinning beast descend.

"Ha…" the Id breathed. "Ahaha… it's been ages since I've seen Erica in a real fight… you must think those two showing up is pretty propitious for you, huh?"

His words were directed to Annatrice, standing far below him, her face painted pale with soot and shock. Apparently, he was electing to ignore Alcera entirely.

On one side of Tybalt del Sed, a stoic gunslinger marched.

On the other side of Tybalt del Sed, a grinning jester skipped.

Ego, Id, and Superego -- all of them arrayed against Annatrice and Alcera.

"It doesn't matter what they're doing over there," the Id giggled. "Fact is… you're still outnumbered! Ha! Ahaha!"

He leapt forward, and he didn't so alone. The gunman and the jester lunged at the same time, raising gun and knife as they aimed directly for Annatrice's vitals. Their speed -- especially for constructs -- was surprising, and for a second it seemed like they'd tear Annatrice apart right then and there.

Killing Arts: Oxygen Palm.

The shadows exploded.

The Oxygen Palm slammed into them with the force of a train, that single attack sufficing to reduce them to scraps of darkness that retreated back into Tybalt's body.

Tybalt himself snapped his head up, widened his eyes, and leapt backwards --

-- just in time to avoid death.

A handprint the size of a house had buried itself into the floor where he'd just been standing. Blue-and-green Aether, bright and true, danced around the destruction whimsically. A shiver ran down Annatrice's spine, and she turned around to meet it.

There was a man standing in the doorway.

Under any other circumstances, Annatrice could have imagined herself laughing at the man's appearance. His skin was white as chalk, his hair a bright blue, and he wore a long-sleeved martial artist's robe in a garish shade of green. The dour look on his face, though, and that calm stance that spelt death… Annatrice couldn't imagine herself ever daring to laugh at those.

NEBULA THREE

Tom Foolery

"Master of the Killing Arts"

Nebula of Paradoxia

Tom Foolery raised a single green eyebrow at the scene before him.

"Enough," he said, voice low.

Six swings of the Tower's blades met six swings of the interloper's spear, and the Arcana Automatic was forced backwards.

This was strength it hadn't yet adapted to. This was skill it hadn't yet analyzed. A new threat had arrived, suddenly breaking in through the ceiling.

The Tower's single red eye shrank as it analyzed the new arrival, but…

"Don't bother searching me up," the man said, twirling the spear in his grip as he stood in front of Morgan Nacht. "I'll tell you right now who you're dealing with."

He opened his mouth.

NEBULA TWO

Jamilu Aguta

"Bearer of the Demon Spear"

Nebula of Inganci

"Got it?" he finished.

"Showoff," his spear sneered.

This couldn't be happening.

Even within the body of a lion, even with that lion within an Armoured Chassis, Blackmane suddenly felt naked. This could not be happening. It was like something out of a nightmare.

See No Evil had shown him exactly what he was looking at, and Blackmane had seen all he needed to see.

The red dot in the distance was a man, fixed in place like he was standing atop the stars. He wore a Chassis of his own, a Chassis with the helmet sculpted to resemble a dragon of mythology. It glared. Even from this distance, Blackmane could feel the eyes of death upon him.

NEBULA ONE

Fei Long

"Commander of the Scarlet Parade"

"The Supreme Without Supremacy"

"The Thousandfold Knight"

"The Last Dragon"

"The Hero"

"Angelslayer"

"The Strongest Man of the UAP"

Nebula of Jìnhuà

He slammed his paws against the liquid metal, and Akeru immediately moved to retreat. The second communications came back on, Blackmane roared:

"ENGAGE ALL DEFENSES! NOW!"