Ren still couldn’t believe what she was seeing.  A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face, and she tightened her grip on the hilts of her blades.  As Gabriel started to step backward though, dragging Aamin with him, she flipped the blade in her left hand around to face the other direction, and took a different stance.


    She had one pressing question though, “Didn’t you have something you wanted to say to him before I take him out?”


    “Oh…right.” Gabriel realized, and looked past the burned Prince’s shoulder, and through the large feathers of those solid-light wings, “Hey dipshit!”


    Regulus didn’t dignify the call with an answer.


    “When you were trying to tell me what I saw in the mirror every morning, you mentioned that the red was a constant reminder of what happened.  But you were only half right.  Red also happens to be the color of the Fourth…so what I saw was foreshadowing.”


    That awkward silence spoke quite loudly, but not nearly so much as the response that eventually came.


    “…Heh, okay.”


    Aamin grunted a laugh, and looked back over his shoulder, cringing against the pain of his burned skin where those fingers dug in, “I don’t think he cares about your childhood quandaries.”


    “Stay out of it.”


    “Why?  It’s pathetic how badly that went over.”


    “Because ‘shut up,’ that’s why.”


    Regulus could only roll his eyes at the spectacle, “I’ve had enough of this…” He said to himself, and leaned in.  There were no control-sticks or steering-modules to hold onto; his neuroptics linked directly to the mech’s movement systems.  With a thought, the large right arm swung forward, and Ren had three seconds to figure out what to do about that glowing warm-up in the midst of those claws.


    “GET DOWN.”


    Blinding light filled the ravaged corridor, and a horrendous, guttural screech sounded.  The impact was enough to push Ren forward two feet, as she’d flipped around and folded her wings together to form a shield.  She tried to dig-in to stop herself being pushed any further, but the unfortunate existence of two men who weren’t supposed to be there put an extra hurdle on that.  Covering them meant she couldn’t move.  Worst-still, she could smell the burning of metal and dirt all around her.


    The Magistrate pulled one over on her so fast, she could hardly blink.  The beam ceased, a battering-ram replaced it, she went flying forward with a loud clang – bouncing off the walls in the process – and one small metallic arm reached forward from the space Ren had previously been standing in.  Aamin was plucked from the shaken grip of the mediator who’d apprehended him, like less than a grape off a vine.


    Gabriel had been so struck by the sudden barrage that it knocked the Limitless right out of his eyes, and he’d crumpled to the floor with barely a hair’s width between him and the Fafnir that had just been jettisoned by.  He was helpless before the imposing visage of that mechanical ‘face’ as it loomed over him.  Regulus didn’t even have the temerity to mock him; it was just over.  Aamin was nabbed, and Regulus swung both overhead appendages down so hard that it broke whatever was left of the corridor that hadn’t already been disintegrated by the ricocheted of his earlier attack off of Ren’s wings.  The metal groaned from the stress of its support-struts being destroyed, and soon after, the floor collapsed, taking Gabriel with it in a storm of dust and debris.


    Aamin coughed, then gasped as he spotted Ren through the demolished terrain.  Staring back at them threateningly - where the ship’s ancient bones had ripped apart so thoroughly that it left a gaping, twisted hole between them – she flipped the second blade around as well, and made like she was going to leap through those treacherous gaps to attack yet again.  The Prince turned to his ‘savior,’ “What are you waiting for!?”


    Regulus didn’t budge though; he was hedging his bets, and wanted to watch.  Ren’s head was spinning, and she staggered where she stood.  That was all the Magistrate needed to see to know that he’d won.  He put the mech into reverse, and started backing out.  By the time Ren could see straight, the only thing she could see was the subtle heat-glow coming off the anti-gravity drive on the war-machine’s undercarriage…and then it was gone, absorbed by the dark of that unlit hall.


    She grit her teeth and went to the edge of the collapsed section, “Gabe!?” She called down, “Are you dead!?”


    “…N-no…” He grumbled in answer, buried in the rubble below.


    Ren groaned a loud sigh, sheathed her blades, and forced her way down, pushing panels and scrap out of the way until she’d unburied her ball-and-chain.  Be he injured or not, she looked down at him with an air of disappointment and frustration, “This is why I didn’t want you here…” She said aloud…to a muted mic.


    Gabriel could feel the sentiment though, and avoided her gaze.  She kept it well-hidden behind that visor anyway, but he knew what was behind it.  As she helped push the bigger chunks of hallway off of him, he caught sight of something.  He flinched and backed-up, bumping into the Fafnir, but his eyes narrowed as he realized it wasn’t the Magistrate’s war-machine coming back to finish the job.


    It was a man.  Just a man…approaching through the undamaged section of a derelict colony ship that no one else should’ve been in.


    “Unbelievable…” The figure said, and stepped into the red glow of Ren’s wings.  The half-baroque mask gleamed brightly, with that white eye emitting its own faint glow.  Both Knights stopped in their tracks to stare at him “…I practically gift wrapped them for you.”


    Ren drew one hilt from her hip again, and extended the blade with a click, “Back off, whoever the Hell you are.”


    Gabriel’s eyes trembled at the sight of the man though, “…I…recognize him…” He whispered, though his thoughts in that moment were decidedly not on the border confrontation; he hadn’t seen that visage in the wings, not with the Duchess being the only one on-screen, “…But…how?  You…disappeared 22 years ago…”


    Latheroux sneered at the pair, “You don’t deserve that answer.” He said flatly…and then dissolved into thin air.


    “…A mantle!?” The pair both said, stunned and confused in equal measure.


    Nearby, but out of sight, a portable nanotech pod clicked open, and a haze of dust filtered inside.  It closed soon after, the green light shut off, and it went dormant.


    .


    It was evening when they finally limped back to Trazad.  Ren wouldn’t follow Maeve back to the skiff-lot though, breaking off to ascend towards the Aegis instead.  Gabriel noted the drift easily enough, but he didn’t call out to her over it; he was eyeballs-deep in it and he knew.  Instead, when he docked Maeve and sat back in his seat, he just looked up at that darkening sky and sighed.


    “…I fucked it up, Xanarken.” He said aloud, “Pretty badly.”


    As expected, the subtle shifting-sand-like sound of the Eidolon’s mantle taking shape was easy to hear in the quiet of the empty ship.  Xanarken looked on with disappointment, “…What happened.”


    “They both got away.” He answered, “It was too tight a space, and Ren couldn’t fight like she wanted…  Not there, and definitely not with me around.  I tried to get Aamin out while they were going at it, like you said, but…I wager the Magistrate had made contact already, since they were right in the same vicinity.  Regulus fired on all three of us in the end…  Guess it didn’t matter to him one way or the other if Aamin made it out alive.”


    The Fourth stepped closer and lowered to sit in the second seat, “I see…”


    Gabriel tilted his head against the head-rest, looking over at the Eidolon with a dead shadow in his eyes, “…You never did explain how you knew he was there.  I know how Rylen knew the Magistrate was there, but…even he didn’t know about the Prince.”


    “Aamin was spotted by the same people who spotted the judge later.  How and why and whether any part of those witness statements gets through the proper channels, I can’t know for sure…  When passing information between people by word of mouth, things are bound to get lost or twisted.” He answered, “When I realized Rylen didn’t know, I willfully decided to keep that tidbit from him, and thus, from Ren.  I didn’t want her thinking she had to worry about two people getting in her way.”


    “…Cuz one wasn’t already more than enough.”


    “To be honest, I didn’t care if Aamin came back alive or not.  If you managed to apprehend him, that was fine.  If Ren nipped him before you could, it was just as well.” Xanarken shrugged, and sat back with his fingers laced together over his lap, “He was better off dead anyway.  He isn’t missed.”


    Gabriel’s eyes widened as his brow crinkled, “…Do you know how weird it is sometimes when you start talking like Rylen?  Cuz honestly, it’s a little bit scary, since you are always so serious about it.  Rylen just comes across like a chaos-gremlin and it makes him hard to read.”This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    Xanarken was quiet for a moment, looking at the underside of the covered windshield, “Sometimes, politics requires one to get their hands dirty.  Did you have to threaten Aamin to get him to move?”


    “…Yeah?”


    “Well, there you go.  You yourself were ready to end his life for the greater good.”


    “…It’s a little different if I do it.”


    “Why?  You’re my right hand.  Anything you say or do might as well have been said or done by me.”


    Gabriel gaped a little, “That’s not fair.  The difference between you and I is a gulf.  No one takes me that seriously.”


    “They don’t?”


    “Of course not.  I know how people shiver when I leave the room.  At least, in the Council…”


    The Fourth tapped his thumb-tips together, “Maybe they shiver because they’re not used to a mere man acting like an Eidolon.”


    “That’s ridiculous.” Gabriel grumbled, “Just like it’s ridiculous who else was in that ruin.”


    “…Who else?” Xanarken tilted his head towards the blonde, “What’s that supposed to mean?”


    The mediator sat forward and loaded-up Maeve’s forward screen again, and copied his overlay onto it.  With a few searches, he brought up the profile of a certain familiar – albeit different – man’s face, “…This guy was there.  Somehow.”


    Xanarken’s eyes narrowed as he read the name aloud, “Latheroux d’Arras, previously known for his anti-Luminary dissent, he started a riot at the Imperial Palace the day of Rylen’s misbegotten trek into the Exclusion Zone 22 years ago.  In his effort to vilify the Council by saying we would incur into Sargon the same way, and kill innocents, he…was thought to have been killed himself in the ensuing violence.  His actions also lead directly to the death of the Empress; Iresha the Elder’s mother.  Ironic.”


    “Seems the ‘thought to have been killed’ can now be put to rest, since we now know where he is.  In Kitez, wearing a mask over the right side of his face like he’s hiding whatever previously-believed-to-be-fatal injury is hidden beneath it.  He even made it sound like he was responsible for the Magistrate and Aamin being in the same place at the same time…and for making sure we were there to take them both out.  …And for making sure Ren and I both knew we’d fucked it up by failing to do so.” Gabriel continued, “I think he was the source of the rumors.  That town is up in the mountains; it doesn’t have a Sargonian side to spread rumors from.  It’s just a lonely road up through the woods with a check-point guarded by the Kitezans.  He must’ve come into the country to start talking.”


    The Eidolon nodded and put a hand around his goatee, smoothing out those nanotech-made hairs, “…I see.  Sounds likely.  But why expose himself to you in that ruin?  How’d he even get down there?  If you couldn’t even get out because of the proximity to the fighting…”


    Gabriel was dangerously quiet on that part, but then shook his head and crossed his arms, “…I dunno…  If he really orchestrated that whole encounter, maybe he turned up to see it play out.  He’d hardly be the first person to venture in there.”


    “I want you to keep that whole sad circumstance to yourself for now.  I’ll tell Dame Ren to do the same.  Harboring Prince Aamin is a gamble for Kitez.  I don’t know that they’ll want to expose that they have him right away.”


    “What about everything else?”


    “Hm?”


    Gabriel leveled a dubious look, “We sent a Fafnir Knight to kill the Magistrate, and he escaped to tell the tale.”


    “Did either of you ever lose access to the World Cloud?  Did your uniform-jacket ever dissolve?  Did her wings disappear unintentionally?”


    “No?”


    Xanarken shrugged, “Then, as I see it, a Magistrate took a weapon of war across the Sargonian border.  It would be even worse for him if it turns out he struck the first blow.  If he says a word about it, the Luminary Council and the entire Hadiran Accord would be obliged to respond.  He won’t say a word.”


    “…Then what do I do now?”


    The Eidolon set his hands onto the arm-rests and pushed himself up, “Enjoy your leave, Gabe.  In two weeks, you’re going on an adventure into the southern hemisphere.”


    “Huh?  Why?” The mediator was dumbfounded, “We never even colonized down there.  It’s just a wasteland of the original Hadiran landscape.  You don’t need mediators down there.”


    “No, but Seth needs a Limitless canary.” Xanarken answered, and pet the man’s head, “You’re it, kid.”


    “What!?” Gabriel swatted the arm out of his way and stood up as well, coming between the two seats with a grip on each head-rest, “You’re sending me on an Aegis mission!?  You can’t do that…  After what just happened, I’m the last person they’ll want aboard.”


    “Unfortunate, isn’t it?” Xanarken looked at the man side-face, “But since you decided to conscript Seth into your own designs for Prince Iresha, you – maybe unintentionally – got on Captain Rydell’s bad side.  After you two left, he approached me with his grievances.  I happened to agree with your mindset about giving the Prince a friend, since it works towards our ultimate interests, and I didn’t want to give that up.  So, I made a deal.”


    “I feel like I’m not going to like this.”


    “The Aegis’ mission in the south is to secure a newfound colony ship.  One that’s largely intact.  We want the warp core.”


    Gabriel quirked a brow, “…What would you need one of those for?  It’s not like we can warp without a Caeros-level Limitless user.”


    “Every SkyFortress in the Council has a warp core inside it.  They’re not just the anchors Caeros used to keep the fleet together; they can be used for far more.  The more of them we have in our possession, the fewer of them are unaccounted for.”


    “How many are still missing?”


    “Seven.” He answered, and snapped his fingers, forcing the red uniform-jacket on Gabriel’s figure to evaporate, “Anyway, you’re officially on leave.  I don’t want to hear word or whisper about the Connington mission ever again.  You don’t talk about it with me, with Ren, with your pillow at night, or anyone or anything else.  Understood?”


    Gabriel was stunned by the command, and looked down – the absence of his reds made the power-difference between them rather clear – and he nodded, “…Yessir.”


    .


    The dual-moons were closer together in that nighttime sky than before, and they were all Ren could focus on as the icy-cold wind bellowed around her.  She sat on top of the Aegis, helmet off and hanging from one hand, black hair snapping all around her like the tails of an atonement whip.  If she had tears, they were blown off her cheeks before she could feel them fall.  She snuffled though, and rubbed her nose on the back of her armored glove.  She heard the well-known tap of boots on the hull behind her, and she turned her head towards her shoulder without looking over it.


    “You wouldn’t be up here if things went well,” Furion’s voice sounded in her helmet, and she looked at the hollow dome in her grip where it echoed from.  Ren pulled her hair around and the flight-suit hood up again, then replaced the helm and heard the next question, “What happened?”


    “…Well, like you said…”


    The tone in her voice was utterly defeated, and he stepped closer, shutting off his wing-optics as he lowered down to sit beside her.  He slid his arm in behind her back, and pulled her closer to his left side, “Have you had your debrief yet?”


    “No…”


    “I see…”


    “…It all just went so horribly wrong.  And I knew that it would before we ever got there.  I…I told them, and you heard me, that sending Gabe with me was a bad idea.  That he’d get in the way, even if he wasn’t trying to.  Every move I made had to calculate the risk it posed to him, to the structural integrity of the site, to the outcome of the encounter…” She explained vaguely, and pulled her right arm free so she could thread it between Furion’s knees.  She held onto the nearest one as she leaned forward against it, “I had to limit the whole thing to just my melee weapons.  It was hopeless.  I couldn’t cut through…  I…couldn’t reach far enough…”


    “I saw you two heading west.  There’s only one reason you would need to go west right now.” Furion noted, “Lord Rylen somehow set-up a rematch between you and the Magistrate, didn’t he?”


    “…I can neither confirm nor deny that.”


    “I’ll presume it then.” He continued, “If you were worried about structural integrity, you were stuck fighting in close quarters.  …And if you couldn’t cut through, he was in his mech.” He gave her a little reassuring jostle, “I think Lord Rylen underestimated how lethal that man is.  Regulus Laurier rose the ranks of Kitez’s military structure with a famed, cool-headed tactical mind, ruthless effectiveness, and a singular-minded belief that talking was a waste of time.  The Fafnir aren’t the only ones dealing with dangerously powerful Limitless users.  He was their answer to lacking us.”


    Ren turned her head slightly, and pressed her visor to the inside of her arm in an effort to look back at the man beside her, “Did Lequerion ever fight him?”


    “Yes.  One time.” Furion confirmed, “A mission into the Exclusion Zone, earlier on to that final escalation, where the Kitezans had actually launched their own offensive.  They and my father’s unit converged on the same place, and because of the ensuing conflict between them, the target escaped.  Again.  General Laurier never betrayed his calm veneer, but it was clear from the way that he fought that he was ready to take down the entire Wing to make up for it.  My father sent them away though, and faced the man alone.  Neither one of them won.  General Laurier was commanded to withdraw before a victor could be determined.  I remember…when I was promoted to Captain after my father’s retirement, the one thing he warned me about as he passed that torch, was to watch out for that man.  Not a Limitless user, not to be careful if the Exclusion Zone ever became a problem for us again…but General Regulus Laurier.”


    “…Wow…” She answered quietly.


    “I wish I could say I’m surprised you lost against him,” He continued, “But even my father couldn’t eke a victory from Laurier’s hide.  It would probably take the both of us to take him out.”


    “I had it all planned out…” Ren said, brow furrowed, “I was going to cut those stupid arms off, and rip open that mech like a can…  I was going to make him tell me what he did with Ianori…and I was going to make him suffer for what he did to Seth and Gabe.  Then I was going to boil him alive in his own mech with both plasma cannons on full-bore.”


    “…I know…”


    She lifted her hands and looked at the weapons mounted on the backs of both forearms, “…I never got close enough.  Now I’m just…too angry at Gabriel for getting in the way…and for throwing my chance at Captain into the wind.  He could’ve refused to go.  I even told him that if Lord Rylen had sent you out there instead, he wouldn’t have been sent along to babysit.  I just don’t understand what any of them were thinking when they made the choice to send him anyway…”


    “Don’t think about it that way, love.” Furion reassured, and pulled her right hand closer to tap against the front of his visor, “I’m certain Lord Rylen was just as annoyed by Lord Xanarken’s conditions as anyone.  It was an impossible handicap.”


    “I don’t know what to do now.” Ren added, and curled her fingers around the man’s hand, “I came up here to clear my head, but it’s still just…so full of annoyance, frustration, and undignified blame…  If I see Gabe again before I calm down, I may say something unkind.  My whole plan to help him will be derailed if I fracture this relationship over something that wasn’t entirely his idea.”


    Furion pondered for a moment, but then tapped a finger against his beloved’s hand, “Give me one second.  I have an idea.” He said, and sat up a bit straighter as he sent out a call.  It took a moment, but when the answer came, Ren listened closely to the one side of the conversation she could hear, “Sir, requesting permission to debrief Commander Nibasai on her mission and to depart with our armor for the remainder of our leave.”


    Ren’s eyes widened in surprise, “…Lord Rylen…?”


    “Yessir.  Understood.  Thank you, sir.  We’ll be back for the mission.” He concluded, and pushed to stand up, offering his hands to lift Ren to her feet as well.  His wings burst to life again, and he spread them high and wide, ready, “Let’s go see the old man.  I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you, and maybe give you some tips on what to do if you ever get another chance to fight Laurier again.”


    Her eyes lit up then, and she jumped at him to hang on in a hug, “Thank you!”


    “Alright then, soldier.  Let’s get flying.  I’ll debrief you on the way.”


    “You have no idea how much I love you right now.”