Nobody in the Talo escape ship noticed that Myasma had disappeared until the ship’s automated system announced that the emergency pod had begun its detachment sequence.
Flint floated out of his seat and followed a frantic Allef and Aurein out of the ship’s main room towards the escape pods. Behind one of the hatch windows in an escape pod was Myasma, detaching her pod with skilled manipulation of the countless controls on the dashboard. Allef pounded on the glass with a fist, yelling for her sister’s attention. Myasma gave her sister only a glance before continuing the detachment procedure.
“MYASMA! NO!” Allef screamed.
“Cancel the detachment! Override it!” Flint yelled to a nearby Talo guard who came to investigate the commotion.
“Don’t try to stop me,” Myasma’s voice rang over the ship’s intercom. “I’ve already locked the hatch and destroyed the mechanism. Flint, you better not try to stop me either. I’ll be departing soon.”
“Myasma! Don’t do this!” Allef begged. “Please! Please don’t leave me!”
“Allef, I can’t hear you anymore—I can only talk to you through the intercoms, but I want you to listen to me.”
Allef stopped pounding on the hatch. She seemed to be on the verge of tears.
“I know that you know I would never leave you. But this is something I have to do. I have to punish Keila for their crimes against our family. Although Talo wouldn’t let me leave, I think you’re in good hands with them. I trust Flint and Aurein to take care of you. Just know that I love you.”
Myasma pressed a button on the dashboard, and the escape pod detached from their ship with a flash of steam. Her pod slowly shrank into the blackness of space. The intercom went silent.
“MYASMA!”
Two Talo soldiers rushed to the scene, but only too late.
“She’s gone,” Flint said.
Less than thirty seconds later, with a flash of blue light, the pod warped away.
“You three had better not try and do the same,” a soldier explained. Flint faintly recalled having seen the woman before back when he was a Talo member. “Because as far as Talo is concerned, you’re traitors. Don’t worsen your situation. You’re at the mercy of the Talo Additional Leadership Committee now.”
The sight of Talo’s domes amidst a sea of scorching blue sand instilled far more fear in Flint than he expected it to. Having once been his home, Flint anticipated at least a modicum of nostalgia or relief. But the only emotion he felt towards the domes, backlit by a recently fallen sun, was terror. Talo knew his weaknesses better than any other faction did. What would they do to him if they deemed him guilty?
The ship that had transported Flint, Aurein, Allef, and once Myasma did not land in the residential domes like Flint was used to. Instead, it bypassed the main docks and flew straight towards the biggest dome where Talo officials resided. The ship didn’t even land itself—upon entering a wide, inconspicuous chamber in the dome that opened on their arrival, large robotic arms grabbed the house-sized vessel and aligned it along a set of tracks in the floor, slowly sliding forward until it came to a stop.
Like the ship he arrived in, Flint did not enter the dome on his own free will. He was cuffed with sickeningly familiar, thick, dense cuffs and pulled out by a thin but surprisingly strong soldier who manipulated Flint’s ghostly form by pulling on dense chains that connected to his handcuffs. Once he and his (also cuffed) friends had been dragged out of the ship, they were ushered inside by their respective soldiers. Flint glanced around his soldier to see the ship they had arrived in continue along its tracks in the ground, sliding towards another chamber where seemingly countless other identical ships were kept.
The following events that Flint experienced were shockingly similar to the events that had preceded his own escape from Talo. He was separated from his friends, brought to a sterile interrogation room where, thankfully, they allowed him to possess the body of a death row prisoner Talo had taken before the investigation began. He was asked an extensive variety of questions, ranging from his reasons for fleeing Talo to the escape from The Ray. Flint gathered from the kinds of questions he was asked that Talo higher-ups were attempting to get a better picture of the nature of The Ray’s destruction. Flint answered every question honestly, not daring to give them a single other reason to worsen his sentence. He reflected on the sheer irony of escaping The Ray only to come home to his old faction and face a potentially more dire fate.
The investigations ended unceremoniously after having persisted for over an entire day. Flint wondered if his interrogators actually needed to sleep. Eventually, after a long elevator ride, he was shunted into a new room which Flint recognized as the decontamination chamber before the leader’s suite. Pinholes in the walls emitted a choking white gas which he was forced to breathe until he adjusted, then sucked the gas up once more. The door opened to the leader’s suite and Flint’s handcuffs were removed. He took that as a good sign.
Flint sat at a table in front of Talo’s leaders—the Calamity Crew, as Jim, also present, called them. Neither Allef nor Aurein was at the table. Colma, the green-haired member of the Calamity Crew, was the first to speak.
“Must we be the ones to tell you the havoc that you’ve caused?” she asked, the question dripping with rhetoric. Flint ignored it.
“I would like that,” Flint replied. “Given that I’ve been the one answering your questions for the past thirty hours.”
Jim, seated opposite Flint, actually chuckled. Flint heard someone’s teeth grind on the Calamity Crew’s side of the table.
“Tymin has fallen,” Nelja stated. “Their leader, Hazni, did not make it out of the battle. Before they could properly respond, Aikajo took over 60% of their territory. The power vacuum in Tymin’s place has caused the entire Domain to descend into chaos.”
Even this was surprising to Flint. His eyebrows raised.
It was Kaksi’s turn to speak now. “Your comrades, both Aurein Sovrano and the cyborg woman, Allef Noll, underwent similar interrogation to you. From both their stories and yours, it has been determined that the ringleaders of the escape from The Ray are Myasma Noll, who escaped during transit, and is currently being tracked by a Talo squadron, and you. Is that correct?”
The question hit Flint like a bullet. He, a ringleader of The Ray’s escape? Responsible for the most historic prison break in the galaxy? Just before he retorted with vehement denial, Flint stopped himself and considered. From start to finish, he had been instrumental to the entire operation. It was only because of his ability that he was able to meet the brains of the operation, Myasma, in the first place.
“Yes. That is correct. Myasma and I were the ones responsible,” Flint answered.
The Calamity Crew descended into whispering. Even the simple-minded Jim seemed to be considering something, although he wasn’t a part of the Calamity Crew’s conversation.
When the whispering subsided and the well-dressed Talo officials returned to their dormant yet assertive poses, Nelja said:
“It is time to discuss the matter of your sentence. In a usual scenario, this would be done in private, and you would be informed of your sentence the following day. But the charges and circumstances surrounding you do not make this matter so simple.”
“What he’s trying to say,” Jim began, with obvious amusement, “is that you screwed up so badly, we don’t even have charges yet for the things you did wrong.”
Nelja gave a reluctant nod. “Which is why we have you present to clear up such matters.”
“One one hand, you have committed treason,” Kaksi said. “You have disobeyed direct orders from the Talo Additional Leadership Committee, destroyed a Talo transceiver, and fled. This would usually be punishable by expulsion or death, but in your case, neither would be effective.”
“There is also the complicated matter of The Ray,” Colma added. “Hundreds of Talo captives have rejoined our force, but so have hundreds of other factions’ prisoners.”
“Tymin’s fall is a useful development, but with it comes the strengthening of other factions. The volatile situation the Domain is now in has also disrupted all common order and made planning for the future significantly more difficult,” Nelja finished.
“Is it true you have found further information on the Terminus?” Colma asked.
Flint was caught off-guard, his mind still on his impending sentence. “Uh- yes. When Aurein and I went to Erista to investigate the Erista Flash, we found that the Terminus wasn’t there. Someone had taken it.” The image of the two bootprints in Erista’s regolith, at the epicenter of the Erista Flash, flashed into Flint’s mind. “Tymin was investigating who, though I don’t know if they’ve found anything else. We were sent to The Ray right after that.”
This time, the Calamity Crew didn’t deliberate the matter—they only glanced between each other.
“Your sentence has been decided,” Nelja said. “Death, both for you and your comrades. We will ensure that even your ghost is destroyed. It will be brought to a vote, and unless there is a clear majority against it, the sentence stays. My vote is death.”
Flint’s heart sank. Should he make a run for it now? Would he even be able to run?
“My vote,” the blue-haired Kaksi started, “is life.”
The rest of the Calamity Crew looked at him with barely-suppressed surprise.
“I believe that the developments Flint and his comrades have brought to Talo outweigh his crimes. I vote that he be forgiven,” Kaksi elaborated.
“My vote,” Colma said, making eye contact with Flint, “is death. The name of Talo must be kept in high regard, and treason is not a forgivable crime.”
Flint’s heart froze. Four pairs of eyes moved to Jim.
“Life, obviously,” Jim said, lifting a hand. “He and his friends took out an entire faction. I don’t really think it’s their fault for disobeying your stupid orders.”
“Two votes for life, two votes for death,” Nelja restated with barely-suppressed satisfaction. “Meaning that the sentence remains. Flint, you have been sentenced to death by-”
“Hey, hey, hey!” Jim interrupted, an offended expression on his face. “Are you serious? Didn’t we say that my vote counts for more than one? I’m Talo’s leader, not you!”
Nelja ground his teeth. Flint realized that he was the source of the teeth-grinding he had heard earlier.
Colma leaned to Nelja. “We did establish that Jim’s vote counts for 1.5 in matters of executive decisions. I’m afraid the sentence has been overturned.”
“Hey, man, nice job,” Jim said to Flint. “You made it. Now that you’re a free man, why don’t we welcome you back into Talo? Or are you guys gonna object to that, too?”
Nobody in the Calamity Crew said a word.
“You can let your friends in, too. Find a spot in the residential dome, and you should be good to go. I think that’s it, right guys?”
Again, the Calamity Crew was silent. Spite seemed to emanate from their bodies.
“Let me know if you need anything. You know where to find me,” Jim told him with a wink.
“I have to say,” Allef said through a mouthful of food, “this place really is a lot better than The Ray.”
“Of course it is,” Aurein said. “This place isn’t a prison. Also, we’re not in Tymin anymore.”
“What’s wrong with Tymin?” Flint asked. “I mean, aside from the obvious.”
“Tymin’s a piece of shit,” Aurein said after swallowing a bite of food. “Generally speaking. The Domain isn’t missing out on anything with them gone.”
The three were eating breakfast in Talo’s mess hall on their first day as proper Talo members. Eating actual food designed to taste good in a place not designed to punish him felt far better than Flint realized it could. He savored the metallic smell of cobalt desert sand that lingered in the hallways and dining hall of the Talo domes. Stuffing his mouth with his first proper meal in months, he had a hard time participating in Aurein and Allef’s conversation.
“Wait, wait,” Flint blurted. “Allef. What were you expecting Talo to be like, anyway?”
“I don’t know. It’s better than I expected, at least. The food here sure beats rations.”
“Did you usually eat rations before this?”
“Of course,” Allef said. “My family and I had to live off of the other factions, remember? Fresh food wasn’t the priority.”
“Your life sounds terrible,” Aurein pointed.
“Hm. Yeah, now that I think about it, it might have been. I hope they find Myasma soon. She would like it here. Hey, what’s this thing?”
Allef picked up a flat, round, fluffy pancake off her plate and looked at it, confused.
“That’s a pancake. Have you not had pancakes before?” Flint asked with disbelief.
“No. Am I supposed to have had pancakes before?” Allef asked, taking a bite.
“Every advanced civilization has their own version of pancakes,” Aurein interjected. “So, yes. You really didn’t get out much, did you?”
“Wow, it’s good. And, no, I didn’t really get out much. Our ship was our home.”
“Good thing we’re here to expose you to some new stuff, then,” Flint said. “Not having had pancakes is just sad.”
“It does appear I have been missing out, yes,” Allef affirmed between bites of pancake. “I hope Myasma will let the two of us stay here.”
“Speaking of, Allef,” Flint began, “where are you going next after this? Surely you and Myasma won’t leave Talo, right? Haven’t you had enough of living on a ship?”
“Or a prison?” Aurein added.
“I wanna stay in Talo, but it’s Myasma’s call, ultimately,” Allef answered. “She might not wanna stay after Talo catches her and brings her here. She always was the perfect child for our parents, echoing their beliefs. Living on a ship still might be in the cards for me.”
“Um,” Aurein interjected, “It’s not Myasma’s call, though.”
Allef tilted her head, frowning.
“I mean, doing what Myasma does has been working pretty well for me so far. So I was planning on just going wherever she takes me.”
Flint raised his eyebrows with incredulity.
“Not to be rude, but did we not just establish that that lifestyle hasn’t been working well for you so far?” Flint said.
“I guess I’ll just go wherever you guys go, then. I’d rather live in Talo, anyway.” Allef shrugged.
“Allef, you’re missing the point,” Aurein said. “What do you want to do? Not us, not Myasma, but you? You need your own goal, not someone else’s.”
At this, Allef visibly retracted into herself. The tall, tungsten-reinforced woman in front of Flint seemed to crumble a bit.
“I mean…” Allef began, just barely over a whisper, “I want to be happy… obviously. I don’t really give these things much thought.”
“I don’t believe you,” Aurein replied, a bit too harshly. “You must have something you want. How are you going to be happy?”
Allef was silent for a moment, looking at her only uneaten pancake like it was a book containing all the things she wanted to say. Then, she finally blurted:
“Aren’t you guys tired of fighting all the time?” Her volume returned to its usual magnitude, almost startling Flint.
“Uh…” Flint started.
Allef continued, “My parents said they didn’t want to join a faction in order to oppose Teo Nora’s will, to oppose the galactic war that kept ruining everyone’s lives. But then, we fought all of the factions at once anyway! If there… if there is one thing I could change about the universe, I would make it so everyone wasn’t fighting so void-damned much. I don’t think my life would have sucked as much if this war never happened in the first place. You guys said you were looking for the Terminus, right?”
“Yes, why?” Flint asked.
“Then I want to find the Terminus, too. Maybe that thing would be able to end the war. Wherever you plan on searching for it next, take me with you. And, speaking of, where are you planning on searching for it next?”
Flint and Aurein shared a look.
“Erista, right?” Flint asked his comrade. Aurein nodded.
“Not to mention, if the Lucre Main is still intact, that’s where we would find it,” Aurein added. “Chances are, Tymin used it as a transport ship to and from Erista before The Ray, well…”
“Before we inadvertently destroyed the living shit out of it?” Allef suggested.
Flint couldn’t suppress a snort. “Yeah, that.”
“Returning to Erista is a sound plan,” Aurein continued. “We had unfinished business there. The only issue is, we first need the blessing of the Calamity Crew.”
“The Calama-hoo?” Allef repeated, confused.
“Talo’s leaders,” Flint explained. “Yeah, they’re gonna be an issue. And we can’t exactly just leave again if they shoot down our idea. They’re gonna be keeping an eye on us this time. Not to mention, I think I’ve had enough of living outside of Talo’s protection.”
“You learn to live with it,” Allef chimed. “By the sound of it, this is gonna be some bureaucratic nightmare. I’m not gonna like these guys, am I?”
Flint winced, sharing a knowing look with Aurein and then turning back to Allef.
“I doubt it.”
“I don’t like these guys,” Allef whispered to Flint, only barely loud enough for him to hear over Nelja’s rant.
“-And you still suggest that we send a recon mission directly into Keila’s territory, after all that has transpired over the last several days?” Nelja finished, settling himself back into his seat with a perfectly straight back to match the rest of the Calamity Crew.
“Is that supposed to be a rhetorical question, or are you just confirming that that is our plan? Because it is,” Allef answered, to Nelja’s immediate displeasement. Flint turned to Allef with wide eyes and gestured to stop doing that! Allef only rolled her eyes.
Aurein explained, “Our plan, sir, is intended to recover as much information about the Terminus as possible in the shortest possible amount of time. We can only do that by revisiting Erista, the place the Terminus was seen last.”
All eyes moved back to the Calamity Crew, except for Jim’s, whose eyes were focused on the jellybeans he continued dispensing from the hilt of his sword.
“A wiser course of action,” Colma began, “would be to investigate Teo Nora’s grave here on Epstrum. Nelja makes a justified point—the state of the galaxy at the moment is too volatile to be sending missions directly into enemy territory.”
Flint tilted his head. “Teo Nora’s grave? Here?”
“Are you uninformed about Teo Nora’s grave?”
“I suppose so. Forgive me—I spent most of my life under Talo on my home planet. I’m not too familiar with Teo Nora’s lore.”
“More than strategic power, Talo’s ownership of this planet, Epstrum, holds symbolic power. Before Teo Nora’s death, it was the capital of the Domain. That is why it is still one of the most highly-contested locations in the galaxy. Defending it has been the primary goal of Spine and every other of Talo’s greatest leaders for generations,” Kaksi explained, a hint of pride in his voice. “His grave is here, but seldom visited due to Epstrum’s hostile climate. These domes are the only hospitable places on the planet. Despite these challenges, I second the motion to sponsor a mission to Teo Nora’s grave.”
“I, too, support this endeavor,” Nelja added. The attention in the room shifted to Jim, sitting cross-legged in his chair, but he was asleep. Nelja continued, “We can have an escort prepared for you within a week. Unless, of course, you three decide to decline?”
Flint, Aurein, and Allef looked between each other. Allef shrugged.
“Good enough for me,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll at least learn something new by going there.”
“Then it is settled.”
“Oh, and one more question for you guys,” Allef began, catching the gaze of the Calamity Crew. “How’s the search for Myasma going? Have you figured out where she is yet?”
Nelja only shook his head.
Keila’s forces were gathering here on Nitel. More than Myasma thought would be necessary.
She had tracked the escape ship that carried Tro back to Keila’s capital in secret, following the unique warp signature the ship had left behind. In search of Zero, Myasma had followed a Keila fleet from Keila’s capital to an inhabited planet called Nitel, hiding in a small town outside of the fleet’s landing site. The sun on this planet was hovering over the horizon, preparing to set, filling the small town with a beautiful, reddish light.
“If I could guess,” said a local woman Myasma asked, “they’re here to take our planet from Aikajo! Keila’s been eyeing us for a long, long time. I only hope my worries are unrequited…”
“Why is that?” Myasma asked. “Why don’t you want Keila's leadership?”
“They’ll conscript my children, I know it,” the woman said, massaging her hands nervously. “Aikajo does too, on occasion, but Keila’s infamous for it. What will I do if they take my children away? Where do I go?”
Myasma was struck with a powerful anger.
“You don’t need to worry,” she said to the woman. “I won’t let them.”
The woman’s story served as further confirmation in Myasma’s mind of Keila’s evil. Even now, growing dark splotches in the sky indicated the arrival of yet more Keila battleships outside of town. Was this firepower really necessary simply to take a single planet from the weakest faction? Even despite Aikajo’s recent growth from taking much of Tymin’s territory, it was a battle of the strongest against the weakest. What was it about this planet Keila needed to have so badly?
Myasma stepped towards the growing fleet outside of town, which had already taken a neighboring city. A large, expansive field separated the small town and the fleet of Keila ships. If the information she had gleaned during her trip to this planet was correct, Zero would be somewhere within the fleet or the city it had taken. Myasma had to draw him out. Why not cause some havoc?
A small spaceplane designed for aerial gunfights stood stationed on Nitel’s orangish grass alongside the rest of the fleet. Unbeknownst to the Keila pilot within, distracted and waiting for orders, gas was leaking into the cockpit. Slowly, steadily, without a sound, the gas entered, and by the time the pilot noticed the odorless substance, he had already breathed a lethal quantity. The pilot fell dead onto the dashboard.
The gas formed into the shape of a person, Myasma filling the cockpit as a tangible being once more. She pushed the corpse of the pilot aside and took hold of the controls.
The deafening rattle of machine guns rang out in the middle of the grounded fleet, tearing into soldiers and ships alike. Myasma spun the ship as she peppered her surroundings with bullet holes. Eventually, Keila soldiers, many of them Valins, surrounded her ship, tearing off the wheels and disabling the weapons that she had destroyed several other ships with. There was the faint blare of a siren outside, and her spaceplane was abandoned by the surrounding Keila soldiers. Myasma noticed the bafflingly large barrel of a battleship’s railgun aimed at her spaceplane. Before she was shot, Myasma launched her ship’s missiles.
It seemed as if a chunk of Keila’s fleet was surrounded in one large explosion, but in fact it was a group of smaller ones. Myasma’s missiles obliterated several battleships and, simultaneously, the railgun aimed at her turned her spaceplane into a pile of scrap and hot plasma. Amidst the smoke, Myasma had defended herself by becoming a gas, letting the rising air of the explosions carry her upwards. She waited until the right moment to return to her physical form and draw out Zero further. After the havoc she had caused, Myasma knew he was imminent.
Myasma landed just outside of the fleet when she noticed a familiar figure. Iskay, the second most powerful of Keila’s Big 5, had appeared on the scene to investigate. The perfect bait.
A nearby Keila soldier collapsed, her system inundated with toxic gas, and Myasma picked up her gun. She fired a single high-caliber round at the back of Iskay’s head, and a hole appeared in the back of their head where the bullet disappeared. For an instant, Myasma celebrated—was it really such an easy kill? She had hoped that the fight would last longer to attract Zero’s attention.
Then, a bullet tore through Myasma’s leg. She yelled in pain and confusion, falling to her knees, looking at what should have been Iskay’s corpse. Unable to expect the attack, she hadn’t transformed to a gas in time—she hadn’t even heard a gunshot.
Iskay’s body had two wide, perfectly round holes in it. One in the head, where Myasma had aimed, and another in their back. Through the hole in Iskay’s head, Myasma could see her own, agonized face.
Portals.
Iskay turned towards Myasma, perfectly intact. They looked completely unfazed by the attack. Myasma then realized that the landscape she had seen through the hole in Iskay’s head was simply the landscape behind her—Myasma had been shot by her own bullet.
“Are you the one causing this mess?” Iskay asked. Their voice was perfectly between a woman’s and a man’s, almost like two people speaking the same words at once. One of their eyes was reddish, and the other a deep violet, and for a moment Myasma was struck with how bafflingly different the person in front of her was from anyone else she had ever seen. A shame that such uniqueness had to go to waste on Myasma’s bait.
Iskay rushed towards Myasma with practiced speed, and Myasma quickly transformed into a gas which Iskay barreled through. She attempted to enter Iskay’s lungs to poison them, surrounding Iskay in an inescapable cloud of toxicity. Iskay created a large portal underneath them which they began to fall through, but Myasma simply fell with them. There was no escape.
Iskay covered their mouth for a brief moment before returning to a battle stance. Something bizarre now seemed to obstruct their mouth—the backside of a portal. They had created a breathing apparatus, taking fresh air from a faraway portal which connected directly to Iskay’s mouth.
Myasma flew towards Iskay’s small breathing portal on the ground, hoping to poison them directly, but once her gaseous body was halfway inside, the portal abruptly closed, separating her body into two separate clouds of gas.
The clouds of gas reconnected into one body, and when Myasma became a physical being once more, her heart was racing. She was intact, but if her body was spread thin enough in a gaseous state, she would die. Thankfully, the two portals were only separated by a few feet. Iskay could only make two portals at once, and only at locations they physically touched, but their Val was dangerous nonetheless. Myasma couldn’t let herself become separated again.
Myasma picked up her gun and fired several more rounds at Iskay. Each bullet was flawlessly deflected, a portal appearing on Iskay’s body at the target location to redirect the bullet to an exit portal which was always aimed at Myasma. Expecting the deflections, Myasma let herself become gaseous each time one of her own bullets hit her, firing until every round in the Keila firearm was expired. Iskay made a move to attack, but Myasma’s plan was already complete.
A disembodied arm began to choke Iskay, wrapping around their neck tightly. Myasma had been firing small pieces of her gaseous body every time she pulled the trigger, letting herself be carried to Iskay by the momentum of each bullet. Now, the arm she had fired at Iskay suffocated them, and no amount of portals they made could stop her.
Myasma transported the rest of her body to Iskay to choke them properly, both hands around their neck.
“Call him if you can!” Myasma yelled to the struggling Iskay. “Call Zero! Bring to me the one I’m after! SCREAM!”
“There’s no need for that.”
A calm voice caught Myasma off-guard. Standing just behind her was Zero, watching the scene silently. A shiver went down Myasma’s spine, followed by unbridled rage.
“Zero, sir,” Iskay managed, “please, I can handle this-”
“It’s alright, Iskay,” Zero reassured. “She wants me.”
Zero turned to Myasma. His expression was unreadable, but there was a hint of satisfaction. Myasma let go of Iskay and turned to face Zero.
“Let’s take this elsewhere,” Zero told her. “Iskay, will you do the honors?”
Iskay pulled a gun out of a holster on their side and aimed it towards the expansive field behind the Keila fleet. Zero watched the barrel of the gun closely and grabbed ahold of Myasma’s arm before she could react. In an instant, she and Zero were soundlessly rocketing across the landscape, wind blasting across the two. They came to a stop two seconds later, before Myasma could process what had happened. Zero let go of Myasma’s arm.
What did Zero do? The fleet was barely visible anymore, barely peeking over the horizon. They were still in the field, but the scenery had completely changed. They had to have been moved from the fleet, but Myasma had felt no motion, no change in momentum, no acceleration or deceleration. She was moving, then she wasn’t. Myasma took in the man in front of her, the source of her misery for over a year. Rage, disgust, hate, confusion, fear—there was more fear she felt in his presence than Myasma hoped there would be. She took several steps back from Zero.
“You were looking for me?” Zero said. “Seeking revenge, maybe?”
“I’m here to take everything from you,” Myasma growled. “The way you did to me.”
“You made a mess of my fleet,” Zero commented, nodding towards the smoke on the horizon. “Was that enough?”
Myasma was silent.
“Killing your parents was a necessary evil on my part. Are you surprised I remember? It’s become hard to keep up over the years, but I remember the faces of the ones I kill. They were my obstacles in life, the obstacles towards Keila’s greatness. I learn from my obstacles, and I remember them. You want to kill me? Go ahead. I’ll give you the fight you’ve been seeking. Come.”
Thinking of her parents, the misery she and Allef had been put through in The Ray, Myasma found her legs running towards Zero at full speed. Blinding rage fueled every punch she threw, every kick she swung, every attack she made that Zero flawlessly dodged.
Myasma’s arm became a gas and launched towards Zero’s face. Zero lifted a hand from his side and swiped it in the air in front of him. Myasma’s gaseous arm hit something solid, white, and translucent where Zero’s hand had just been, dispersing into the air. Zero’s other hand curled into a fist and slammed into Myasma’s face.
Myasma recoiled, shocked. She had transformed her head into a gas—Zero’s fist should have traveled straight through her. But, tasting the blood from her broken nose, she had to accept the facts—she had been hit.
And she hadn’t only been delivered a punch—a deep, paralyzing cold was spreading across her face from the site of the strike, freezing her skin solid. The blood dripping from her broken nose almost instantly became a frozen red stripe on her face. She removed the solid blood and felt it between her fingers.
“Never been punched before?” Zero asked. “I know the feeling. Invulnerability is intoxicating, isn’t it?”
“Stop it!” Myasma screamed. “Stop talking! Just shut up! You know nothing about me! You know nothing about why I’m here! I’m here to end you for me, my family, and for everyone! I’ll be the one to end your bloodline, now and forever!”
A brief, rare expression of confusion crossed Zero’s face.
“You didn’t know?” Myasma said. “I thought not. Nobody else does.”
“Quiet,” Zero demanded. “Your words are meaningless.”
Myasma swung a leg at Zero. This time, he didn’t defend, but her attack was just as useless as if he did. The instant her leg touched Zero’s body, it stopped. There was no resistance, no sensation of deceleration, just an absence of movement. Once again, that agonizing cold spread from the cloth in her pants to her skin, freezing it solid. Sensing a kick from Zero, she tried to turn into a gas, but her frozen leg remained rigid. Zero slammed his boot into Myasma’s chest, knocking the breath out of her and throwing her to the ground. To her surprise, Zero turned around and sat next to her, looking up at the emerging stars.
“I have respect for people like you,” Zero started. His tone seemed genuine, but it only infuriated Myasma further. She pushed herself up and desperately tried to unfreeze the frozen parts of her body to no avail. The last attack’s cold had almost reached her heart.
“Calm down,” Zero ordered. “Sit. I’m trying to talk to you.”
Myasma threw a punch at Zero’s face which stopped the moment it touched the tip of his nose.
“See? You’ll wear yourself out trying to kill me that way.”
Myasma sat.
“You may believe I am saying this to rile you up, but I do have genuine respect for people fighting for what they believe in,” Zero explained. “Especially for those they love. You’ve earned my respect, so I won’t shame you. It takes grit to come out this far just to seek me. Since you revealed your Val to me, I think it’s only fair that I reveal mine to you.”
Zero continued to watch the stars in the sky, which was still partially lit by echoes of a fallen sun. The shape of Alue Galaxy was coming into view.
“You might have caught on by now,” Zero began, “but I can stop anything I touch. On the surface, it’s a pitiful power. Why stop something when you can make it move? Many of my subordinates have telekinesis—I’ve seen firsthand how versatile such a Val can be. But, you see, I’m resourceful. When I say I can stop anything…”
Zero placed a hand on Myasma’s shoulder. That deep freeze spread once more, the agonizing chill that penetrated down to Myasma’s flesh and bones. She refused to give Zero the privilege of hearing her scream.
“I can stop anything. Temperature is the movement of atoms—what if atoms stopped moving? I can spread a deep chill anywhere I go. The atmosphere itself freezes in my presence.”
A third of Myasma’s body had frozen by now. She cursed the idea that even her racing heartbeat would stop at this man’s touch. Zero had yet to even look at her—his gaze was still affixed to the stars peppering the sky above the field.
“The most important facet of my ability, however,” Zero continued, “is that I choose what I stop. Motion is relative—a bullet fired in a gun might be moving from our perspective, but from the bullet’s perspective, it remains still. Instead, the whole rest of the world is flying away behind it. If I can see something, I can stop anything I touch relative to it. Relative to you, to me—ah, there it is—and even to the universe itself.”
Finally, Zero turned his gaze to Myasma. His eyes were deep, cold, an icy blue that almost seemed to radiate in the darkness of night. In neither iris did Myasma see a hint of humanity.
“From our current latitude, this planet’s rotation is roughly 716 meters per second. Do you want to know what would happen if you stopped relative to this planet’s rotation, to the stars we see rotating above us?”
“You’re a monster,” Myasma uttered. Her mouth was about to freeze shut. “You’re a fucking monster.”
“See, there’s the defiance I respect in you. Never stop fighting for what you believe in. But, despite my respect and your attitude, there’s one key reason I can’t let you live. Do you know what that is?”
A tear dripped down Myasma’s unfrozen eye. I’m sorry, Allef.
“You’re on the wrong side of history,” Zero growled.
One moment, Myasma was sitting by Zero’s side. The next, she was gone.
Invisible to the unaided eye, Myasma flew through the air at 716 meters per second towards the nearest city on Nitel, and by the time she hit a building, all that was left of her was a colossal explosion and a few specks of red mist.
