Gabriel had no idea how long it had been when he came to again; all he knew was that his back was killing him, and he was hunched over, sitting on the floor somewhere, and his wrists were shackled to his ankles.  What was really bizarre though was realizing his head was pinned between someone’s legs, right before he felt a sharp pain at the base of his skull.  Callous and uncaring, the knife prodded and sliced until it hit the little metal nanotech-nodule embedded in his skin.  Gabriel yelled and struggled as he felt that knife dig and twist, but fell still as he heard the distinct tink of that small bean-sized implant hit the cold, metal floor…only to happen again on the other side.  Another tink, and Gabriel was roughly released, back hitting the nearby wall before he slumped to his side.


    From that vantage, and with his vision clearing, Gabriel spotted the body of his partner nearby, no longer clad in that nanotech power-armor.  He couldn’t see, however, that her own implants had already been extracted; at least, not until their assailant stepped out into the open, and moved around to pick up the nodules from where they’d fallen to the floor around the both of them.  One at a time, they were lifted by deft, blood-covered fingers, and dropped into a small vial – one for each pair.  A cap was twisted onto their tops, and Gabriel looked up to see the image of a man he didn’t know.


    That medium-grey uniform, ochre skin, light-blue eyes, and salt-and-pepper hair were no clue.  But when the man spoke…he knew.


    “M-Magistrate…Regulus…”


    “And you must be Gabriel Lugios.” The older man answered, and crouched down onto a knee beside the downed mediator, holding the vial – and the knife he’d used - in his fingers, “The boy who survived a Fafnir Massacre, only to spend every day of the rest of his so-called life seeing his own mother’s blood in his reflection every morning.  Isn’t that right, Lugios?  Your eye and those red streaks in your hair…all permanent reminders of the day she was murdered in front of you.  Limitless tells, etched into the memory of your very soul, for everyone around you to see and know you by.”


    “You people…talk too much about me…  It’s…weird…” Gabriel struggled to say; the pain in the back of his head was shocking, and he could feel the warm trickle of blood moving down his skin.


    Regulus watched him for a moment longer, but then rose back up to his full height, and jingle-jangled the nanotech nodules in the vial, admiring his catch, “I’ve always wanted to have a set of these to study.  No one who has them is ever willing to give them up, though.  So, for that, I suppose I should thank you.  Now I have two pairs.”


    Gabriel sneered at the judge, “Haven’t you caused her…enough problems?”


    “What do I care about the problems you Luminaries deal with?” Regulus shrugged, and reached up to scratch at the loose flap of his slashed ear, “I’m only disappointed by the fact that the youngest one of your party didn’t have any.”


    “You…know damn well that only adults…can get them…!  You were just…torturing him!” The mediator snarled, and tried to hoist himself back up to a seated position, though he only made it as far as propping himself up onto an elbow before he felt too dizzy and collapsed again with a grunt, “…What kind of…twisted freak are you…?  He’s…just a kid…”


    “There were three mistakes you made today, Lugios.” Regulus explained as he headed back towards the barely-open cell door, “The first was thinking I care about who any of you are, or how old any of you are; you’re all Luminaries to me.  The second, though not in any particular order, was coming to Kitez under the expectation that you could just leave again; the Sargonian border is explicitly my district.  The third, was being in the company of a Fafnir and a Rydell; two kinds of people I hate more than anything in this world.”  He put his hand on the doorframe and pushed the panel open to make enough room to walk through, “Your ultimate fate is up to the Duchy.  Take what comfort you can from that.”


    The door clanged shut again, and locked with a heavy click as the Magistrate took his leave.  Gabriel grunted in pain as he cringed there on the floor, and looked on towards Ren’s still frame, past the ends of his feet and hands where they were stuck so close together.  He stared hatefully at the closed door, and muttered quietly under his breath, “And your mistakes…were having a tragic lack of…imagination about what I can do…and not having access to…SD-helmets…”


    His eyes immediately flared with golden light, and that blood-sticky hair started to hover above him again, lifting up like wet seaweed.  He focused carefully on the shackles holding him in place, and as he saw lines of purple manifest around the segment that kept hands and feet together, he yanked hard, and found them split apart.  The pain in his back, from the strain of having been bent over that way for probably a few hours, was enough to make him gasp, and he spread himself out to stretch and catch his breath.  He could feel the vibration of the floating fortress beneath him; between that and the coolness of the metal floor, the pain soothed a little, and he went back to finish his task; he cut the anchors between each ankle and wrist, and freed all four of his limbs.  He clambered over to his side as he let his Limitless effects fade – his hair flopped back down to normal beside him - and he rolled further again to get onto his hands and knees, though he kept low to the floor for the dizziness to fade.  As his head swam, he crawled over towards his partner.


    “Ren…Ren please…be alive…” He whispered, and reached a hand out to clasp over her waist.  Fingers groped for purchase, and he was able to pull her closer, dragging her prone form across the ground until she was near enough that he could see her clearly.  To his surprise, the ragged, mangled stump above where her elbow used to be wasn’t bleeding right then, and he realized, Her armor program must’ve included an injury fail-safe…she’s got nanotech plugging-up those severed blood vessels; nanotech that won’t easily come away just because she doesn’t control it anymore.  He sighed a breath of relief, and confirmed she still had a heartbeat, placing his fingers against the side of her neck and pressing deep to find her carotid.  It was thready – weak – but present.


    “Mr. Gabriel…?” Came a quiet voice; the mediator lifted his head.


    “Seth?”


    “Oh thank goodness, you’re still awake…” The teen answered, “I’m in the cell next to you…but I...I’m afraid I fainted while the Magistrate was digging around…”


    Gabriel could tell the young cadet had been crying; his voice was tense and hoarse, “There’s no shame in it…  The scalp and face are really vascular, so they bleed a lot when cut…  We’re all probably down a pint or two from this crap…”  He curled his right arm around the Fafnir’s stomach and pulled her back, until he could sit against the wall dividing him from Seth’s.  He pulled her up to lean against his front, and lifted his left knee up, propping her shredded limb against it.  Fingers went for the dark tie around his neck, and he pulled it free.


    “Is Miss Ren there with you…?” Seth asked, sitting back against the wall from his own side, “The way the judge talked…it sounded like…she was…”


    “She’s here, and alive.” Gabriel answered, and tightly tied the length of cloth around the downed woman’s mid-bicep, “I think the nanotech you gave her spared her from the worst of the blood-loss.  I’m not…taking any chances though, so I’m putting on a tourniquet.  …Where the Hell is your brother?”


    Seth was startled to hear the question, “S-Sorry, I…I don’t know…  When the Magistrate took us from the car, my glasses got left behind…  Without them, the Fafnir have no easy way of being able to find us…”


    “Shit…”


    .


    The crash-site had become a swarm of activity; yellow and red alert-lights flashed from several different vehicles – police cars from the nearby town.  Traffic was backed up for half a mile, and people were honking in frustration.  One car at a time was allowed to go off-road to get around the site of the chaos, protecting the first responders. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    All that came to a screeching halt through, when, in the black of that night-time expanse of fields, a line of explosions boomed from forces unseen.  Every officer in the area had their sights set on it, and they didn’t notice the descent – and then ascent – of a figure in the midst of the wreckage.


    Quiet swooshes of air gathered into the sky; against the dark of the night sky, they were impossible to see, but four figures found each other, and one held up the glasses that had been lost in the attack.


    “Damn…” One of them said; a woman’s voice, “Captain, how do we find them now?”


    The hand that held those spectacles lifted them to press solemnly against the front of a draconic-looking helmet.  It held there for a moment before lowering again, and the man’s voice spoke, “…Lord Rylen, this is Captain Rydell.  We’ve found the glasses, but Seth nor his escort are here.  We’ll need to access the contingency after all.”


    There was a moment of quiet in the group; the third figure, quiet thus far, looked far below at the site of the crash.  It wasn’t difficult to read the scorch marks and scars in the ground; there had been a battle there, “Damnit, Ianori…what did you get yourself into?”  He looked to his lady-warrior companion, “Wasn’t Ren supposed to be out here, too?  How did this happen with both of them on point?”


    She could only shrug and lower her gaze, “We know Seth left in a hurry, based on the location-pings from his glasses.  Maybe there wasn’t enough nanotech on-hand to support the both of them.”


    The fourth warrior chimed in as well; another male voice, “What the Hell could they have encountered out here to create that mess, though?”


    The Captain lifted his head, “An old enemy.  I’ve got the location.  Let’s move out.”


    “Sir!”


    .


    The flagship’s cold-storage room was on one of the lower decks.  Within, four mortuary chambers were aligned together on one wall, and one was pulled out with a body on top; Ianori’s.  With several more hours of time to ‘pupate,’ that oily, bruise-like residue on the man’s skin had grown and expanded, becoming more like a chitinous covering over most of his body, just like the leaf Seth had shown before.  The substance had done more than that, though; the chitin was broken in places – more specifically, in the areas where a body might expect to bend in order to move – and the ichor that had traveled up behind his neck had pooled at the crown of his head…and started to create an array of horn-like projections.  Pale, corpse-like white skin was threaded with faint, dark veins, mostly at the level of the neck – where the chitin surrendered to flesh – and around the eyes.


    A field-medic looked the whole body over, holding up a scalpel, but realizing…there was no good place to use the instrument.  He turned away to a mayo-stand with several other tools upon it, and set the blade down in favor of an oscillating bone-saw.  When he turned around again though, bone-saw in hand…the corpse on the table had sat up.


    The tool was dropped, and the mayo-stand knocked over as the medic backed away in horrified surprise, “Wh-what the Hell!?”


    Ianori looked at his transfigured hands; he turned them over once or twice, flexed his fingers, then beheld the rest of his ‘new’ body.  The ichor of coagulated blood-mist bubbled forth from his eyes again, and without a word, he twisted around on that cold metal slab, letting his legs drop off the edge to hang a few inches above the ground.  With a quick shove, he stepped down, and stood upright.


    “Y-you’re s-s-s-s-supp-pp-osed to be d-dead…!  Ho-how are you…!?” The medic cried out in fear.


    Those cold, miasma-spitting eyes turned towards the man.  With unnatural speed, his hand came up to clasp around the medic’s throat, and pulled him forward, “You don’t have the sight.” Ianori said tepidly, and immediately cast the clinician aside, smashing his body against the wall with a bloody, crunchy splat, “Useless.”


    Another figure – a younger man – stood in the doorway to the next room, staring in confusion and disgust.  He dropped a clear plastic tablet in his stupor, his whole body trembling, but in a moment of lucidity…he swung his arm around and smashed the glass on a fire-alarm, setting off the entire flagship’s lights and sirens.


    Gabriel and Seth both looked up at the same time, and thought the same thing, “…Did the Fafnir finally get here?”


    Regulus looked up as well, from the desk he sat in where he was cataloguing his prizes.  With hands now-clean, he stood up and grabbed the long white cloak from behind the door to the office, and stepped out quietly as he threw it over his shoulders.


    That lone remaining medical staffer fled the morgue in a panic, and every soldier who saw him run looked back the way he came in confusion…but only for a moment.  Ianori – or what used to be Ianori – stepped out calmly and quietly.  With those black-blood bubbling tendrils wisping from his eyes, the horns rising from his skull, the pale, veiny white skin of his face, and that nigh-black bio-similar scaling, he looked every inch the image of a demon.


    One soldier managed the constitution to stay and question him, “Wh-what are you…!?  Who are you!?”


    He paused where he stood in that hall, lights flashing from the alarms on the walls, “This body once called itself…Ianori.  And I am…Scyrexian.  So...perhaps, for now…Scyrexianori?” He had the temerity to smile, creepy as it was, “And I am looking for someone with the sight.  This body is…inadequate.”


    Gun-like weapons were drawn by those terror-stricken guards, “What’s…the sight…?”


    Scyrexianori took several quick steps forward; too quick for the guards’ liking, and they started shooting.  The pulses of energy that poured forth from their weapons struck their targets, but the impacts did little more than nudge the entity aside slightly as he continued to walk forward.  Semi-transparent liquid oozed out of the strikes that had gone through the weaker parts of that armor, and filled in the holes without bleeding.  Standing practically within the group now though, those bubbling eyes looked around and realized – with disappointment – that there was nothing of value in any of them, “…It’s something all of you yet lack.  …Worthless.”


    The groans and splatter of those now-flayed bodies filled the hall, until only the sound of the alarm could be heard.  Blood pooled around Scyrexianori’s feet, and he stepped forward, looking for the next potential target.


    “…There was that one…  I could feel him…” The entity said to himself, “…Where did he go…?”


    Gabriel struggled to stand, one hand against the wall as the other held Ren close to his chest.  When he turned, he could see the smear of blood where his jacket had left the imprint of his back, saturated as it was from where his head was still bleeding.  He grit his teeth, “Seth…I need you to go towards the door in your cell.”


    “O-okay…?” The teen whimpered, but did as told, huddling in a corner between the door and the wall.  He watched in confusion as cones of purple light – muted and short like a blowtorch-flame – manifested from the wall where he once sat.  The little projection moved across the wall in four long lines, until a big rectangular shape had been carved straight through it.


    With a kick, Gabriel forced the thin metal plate through, and it landed in the middle of the cell with an incredible bang.  He looked through the now-gaping hole, and turned to Seth, “Come through to this side…  If it’s the cavalry here to help us, it’ll take them less time to get us out if we’re all together.”


    Seth was amazed, taking off the edge of his pain and fear, and he came through the hole.  He marveled at the sight of it, and traced his fingers across the cut edges, “…I…thought you didn’t know what your power could do anymore?  This…is incredible…”


    Gabriel moved back towards the opposite wall, and put his hand against it to steady himself; the blood loss from the ‘surgery’ had left him feeling light-headed, and he had a terrible migraine.  With a barely-controlled thud, he smacked his shoulder against it, and slid back down to sit on the floor near to where Ren had once been left.  He had enough strength to pull her legs around to the side as he lowered down, and set her sideways against his chest then, “I…think I’m gonna drop…  M-more than this, I mean…”


    “Mr. Gabriel!”


    Darkness crept in around the peripheries of his vision, and his ears started to ring in that high-pitched way that preceded unconsciousness.  Seth’s voice, calling out his name, faded into a distant, hollow sound, and then washed away.


    A mile out still, the group of stealthy flying soldiers spotted the flagship; not only that, but the external pulsing flash of its warning lights.


    “…Did they spot us?” The woman asked warily, “There’s no way…”


    “Doubtful,” The Captain answered, “I’m going up to declare us to the bridge directly.  You three get inside by any means necessary and find our query.  If you do before I get them to surrender, notify me immediately.  I don’t care how we get them back.”


    “Sir!”


    “Time to lock and load,” One of the other men said gleefully, and with a gesture, each Fafnir Knight came out of stealth-mode and burst fully into their glory; colored solid-light wings unfurled – uniquely shaped to each warrior - and lines of energy throughout their armor came alive.


    Furion’s armor stayed stealthed for a little while longer, and he broke away from the trio as he went up towards the top-level of the ship, seeking the ‘eye’ at the front.  When he beheld it, he stared straight into it, and revealed himself in an explosive display; white armor, trimmed in gold and black, with four massive wings – transparent and faintly-glowing white, giving them an insect-like appearance, with feather-features at the tips.  As he rose up, he already had some certain choice words ready in his throat…but when he beheld the long line of windows above the ‘eye’ that he knew were the bridge, he choked on them instead.


    Those windows were impossible to see through, with all the blood and gore that had been splattered across the inside.