Aetheral Space

Dragan threw himself to the ground, eyes squeezed shut, as the sound of gunfire rained down overhead. It continued for maybe a second before - suddenly - a deafening sound like a grenade going off consumed the hangar.

When the noise and it's ringing aftereffects had cleared from Dragan's ears, the shooting had stopped.

He opened one eye, gingerly, as if not looking at the guns would mean they didn't exist. He fully expected to see his captors strewn across the floor, blown into miscellaneous pieces. He did not.

There was a huge hole in the metal wall, like a giant fist had punched its way out of the building. Through it, the ten 'engineers' who'd shown up at the door could be seen, lying unconscious in the street. Their weapons lay next to them, sparking uselessly. The cries of a legion of birds, excited by the sudden hubbub, could be heard echoing from the skies.

Skipper stood inside the building, right in front of the hole, his hand extended towards it. His fingers were arranged as if they were a gun - and as Dragan gaped at it, a few stray sparks of emerald Aether coiled around Skipper's index finger.

Dragan put his mind to the task. What had Skipper done? How had he done it? If it was an application of his Aether, what was the method? What were his capabilities? Was this his most powerful Aether application, or a normal attack?

His perceptions didn't have much to go on. Strong.

"A second of warning, please," grumbled Bruno. He was still standing up, his palm extended in the direction where the gunfire had been coming from. A barely visible barrier, tinged violet by Aether, hovered in the air in front of him. When he closed his palm, the barrier vanished.

Forcefield generation. Strong enough to stand against sustained gunfire.

Ruth Blaine was crouched low to the ground on all fours, clad in that strange skeletal armour. Stray lines of red Aether revolved around her as she sighed. "I didn't get to do anything."

Serena frowned. "Me neither."

"Well, I love myself a dull fight, ladies," said Skipper, stretching as he strolled back into the hangar. "Less room for unpleasant surprises." He glanced down at Dragan, still prone on the floor. "You okay down there, kiddo?"

"Don't call me kiddo," glared Dragan. "It's Dragan Hadrien."

"Yeah, I'm aware. You gonna sleep down there or are you planning on getting up anytime soon?"

Grumbling, Dragan rose to his feet and dusted off his knees. "Looks like that Hyena guy hates you as much as I do."

Skipper's face twisted into an expression of mock-hurt. "What?! You hate me?!"

"You kidnapped me!"

"That was hours ago!"

Dragan felt the blood rush to his face. He didn't much like being joked around with. It was a mistake to think this Skipper moron was capable of taking anything seriously.

"Still, though," said Skipper, rubbing his chin as he turned back to his accomplices. "This is a problem. No idea why, but it looks like the Hyena wants us dead. That's, uh, that's problematic. Personally, I want us alive. How about you guys?"

Serena nodded enthusiastically. "Alive please, Mr. Skipper!"

"Nice," Skipper nodded. "Now, step one in my plan of not being dead in twenty minutes time is to take out the inevitable second group of attackers that will be showing up any time now. Ladies, if you'd please get ready."

Serena and Blaine nodded, Aether already clumping around them. Skipper simply continued his stretches, getting himself limber.

Dragan furrowed his brow. "Now hold on a second!"

Skipper cocked his head. "Far as I'm aware, kiddo, you're not a lady. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression you were just a pretty boy."

"I'm not a pretty boy."

"Now don't be too hard on yourself. It's what's inside that counts, after all."

Dragan bit his tongue, turning away and crossing his arms. "How do you even know there are more people coming, anyway? I see no sign of that."

Skipper frowned, blinked. "Isn't it obvious?"

There was a resounding crash from somewhere nearby, and then another - closer, like a giant bunny was hopping down the street. Skipper's frown was instantaneously replaced with a grin.

"Find a corner to hide in and get comfy, kiddo!"

-

When you were in Guimo's line of work for long enough, your moral compass inevitably got adjusted to match.

He'd burnt people alive in their own homes, when they couldn't pay protection money. He'd cut up humans - while they were alive - and left the pieces to torment their family members. He'd crushed the throats of more than one individual too young to spell the word.

So assassinating some Supremacy cadet? Didn't really register as a big deal.

Guimo landed, feet crunching through the concrete below him and leaving a sizable crater. Mingled blue and red Aether danced around his bulging muscle, his glowing skeleton visible through his skin. An Aether tic that made stealth impractical, but intimidation easy. Nobody liked to say no to a red-flaring skull.

His men followed behind him in a truck, the vehicle hovering around a half-meter over the road. It wasn't the best method of transportation - unlike the high-end vehicles you got in places like Abrasa, it was capable of achieving only limited altitude.

Their weaponry was much more impressive. Most gangs on Caelus Breck made do with shitty little punchpoint weapons, the kind that shot lead over large distances, but when it came to firearms the Hyena spared no expense. Plasma pistols, rifles, even a grenade launcher or two. Enough to kill any ordinary human fifty times over.

And when they had to kill the unordinary, they had Guimo.

He didn't have a second name - they hadn't bothered giving him one at the orphanage, and he hadn't found a need for one since. He was the only Guimo on Caelus Breck that mattered, anyway.

Guimo leaped again, his kickoff from the ground sending him soaring high up into the sky. He wasn't especially concerned with attacks from the ground - there wasn't much that could break through his barrier, and anything that could only made him stronger.

The hangar he'd been told was the target was below him now, a small building growing increasingly larger as he plummeted towards it. This was his favourite part of the job: the moment before impact. It was a kind of glorious abandon, like he was a bullet being fired from a gun.

He braced himself, curling into a cannonball, and struck concrete.

-

Again, Dragan threw himself to the ground as he heard the sounds of smashing rock - this time, the roof had exploded inwards, an indistinct shape smashing through it and striking the ground below, barely missing the ship.

Why couldn't this just be simple? A simple ransom payment would have been so much less trouble, and so much less traumatizing.

Skipper's crew didn't hesitate for a moment. Using her skeletal armour to enhance her speed, Blaine leapt towards the indistinct shape, dust still billowing around it, with a predatory snarl.

Serena didn't move, but instead grabbed a nearby steel chair by the leg, lifting it - and as Dragan watched, the violet Aether flowing around the girl's hands expanded to encompass the chair as well. With a chaotic symphony of screeching, bending metal, the chair was reforged into the shape of a crude broadsword in the space of a few seconds. Serena gave it a few practice swings and - apparently satisfied with the balance of it - charged into the fray.

Dragan blinked. How the hell did that work? He'd thought he'd had a basic understanding of how this Aether stuff worked, but that obviously wasn't the case.

Before he could ponder the question further, Dragan was forced to cover his ears with his hands as a series of deafening bangs rang out one after the other. Turning, he saw Skipper, fingers mimicking a pistol as he pointed towards the source of the destruction. Each time a bang rang out, the area around Skipper's hand rippled, a blast of concussive force being deployed.

With the last blast, the dust clouding the air cleared, and Dragan could see the source of the commotion himself. It was the huge Pugnant they'd met at the Hyena's place, red-and-blue Aether coiling around him as he fought off Blaine and Serena.

Blaine was moving more quickly than Dragan had seen before, hopping from debris to debris even as blows from the attacker sent them flying through the air. Her strikes were fast and precise - claws stabbing under the Pugnant's arms, at his eyes, at his jugular.

Serena was the opposite - her sword strikes were slow, but the force behind them was enormous, gusts of air pressure broiling around her as she swung her makeshift blade. She was laughing innocently too, like a child, as she brought the sword down again and again. Dragan got the distinct feeling that he'd be sent flying if he even got close to her.

These kinds of attacks would have killed an ordinary person near-instantly. The Pugnant - Guimo - didn't even flinch. He simply stood there, letting his red-and-blue Aether absorb every blow. Occasionally, he would swing a fist out to try and strike one of his attackers, but he didn't seem especially concerned about the prospect of being hit.

Monsters. Dragan gaped, suddenly feeling very fragile indeed. They're all absolute monsters.

Could he use this as an opportunity to try and escape? No, absolutely not. Skipper was standing near him to prevent that, for one thing. Plus, there was no guarantee that another squad of attackers wasn't waiting outside to grab him as soon as he made it.

He was screwed if he did, screwed if he didn't. Damn it, damn it, damn it!

There was a sudden blur of movement within the smoke - Guimo moving faster than Dragan's eyes could register - and in the next second, a head-sized chunk of rubble was zooming straight towards his face.

He widened his eyes. He took in breath. But he didn't dodge - he didn't have time to. There wasn't even time for the signals to pass through his nervous system.

I'm dead.

-

The first time you see a certain something, you find it incredible. Awe-inspiring. You simply don't understand how people can just live their lives, day by day, and not be reduced to tears every time they see this thing. It's incomprehensible to you.

Over time, though, you adapt to the thing’s presence. You develop a sad resistance to wonder, like the thing you once loved so much is no longer good enough for you. Before long, you don't even know why you loved that thing in the first place.

For Dragan Hadrien, that thing had been the sky.

Crestpoole was no gas giant, but it might as well have been - a rotten little marble of a planet coated in toxic clouds several times its size. If humans had any sense, they would have written the place off as a lost cause and kept on flying. Unfortunately, the gases it vomited were valuable, and men were greedy.

The breather cities were colossal, floating in Crestpoole's atmosphere like giant cigars. If you looked above you, you'd see sickly yellow clouds. If you looked below, you'd see much the same.

All the light was artificial. The idea of a sun was a bad joke.

Quite often - when he wasn't needed as a lie detector for Mr. Fix - Dragan would stand on one of Breather 19's rare balconies and stare upwards, trying to see something but the piss-yellow atmosphere. He wore a gas mask, of course - breathing outside would kill him before long otherwise - but the gas still stung at his skin like scratching nails.

He'd read about them in books, seen them in videographs - these things called stars. Lights that made themselves.

Looking for himself, though, he never saw a thing. For all he knew, these things called stars were pure fiction. For all he knew, Crestpoole was all there was.

But still … stars burned all by themselves, perpetual, never needing anyone or depending on anyone. There wasn't a thing in the world that could hurt them.

Dragan Hadrien thought that he would quite like to be a star.

-

Dragan grunted as he drifted back to consciousness. The pounding pain on the side of his head felt like he'd been struck with a golf club, but he was still alive. He was still alive, so that projectile couldn't have hit him.

The sounds of fighting were still loud and clear, steel striking skin and gunshots ringing out in chorus. He wasn't safe. God, when was the last time he'd felt safe?

He needed to move. Judging from the cold against his cheek, he was lying down on the hangar floor. If everyone was preoccupied with this battle, then maybe it was possible for him to crawl away while nobody was looking.

But first, a precaution. Pushing through his delirium - the dizziness brought about by his injury - Dragan tapped into his Aether. It jumped into life, quietly circling his body like an electric serpent.

Good. Dragan wasn't sure how much good it would do, but he needed some kind of physical defense or he'd be killed by the first attack that happened to hit him.

He knew the direction he needed to head in to reach the exit - and so, slowly and carefully, he began to push himself across the floor. It wasn't especially big on dignity; he couldn't risk shifting into a more comfortable position, so he was essentially dragging his face across the cold metal floor as he moved.

Dragan could hear his heart beating like a jackhammer as he made his slow escape. All he'd wanted was a quiet life. Was that really so much to ask? It was such a simple wish, and now he'd somehow ended up in the middle of a tug-of-war between some asshole dissidents and a crime syndicate.

But that wasn't quite right, was it? The dissidents certainly wanted to capture him, but that Guimo guy had thrown a rock at his skull with the intent of smashing it into pieces. That had been a killshot.

Why the hell did they want him dead? He'd never done anything that bad, and when he had he certainly hadn't let anyone find out about it.

An explosion shook the hangar, and Dragan stopped his movement for a moment - concerned that he'd be noticed. After a moment or two, however, the sounds of fighting resumed and he was free to resume fleeing.

It was a humiliating feeling, though. These people, all of them, had caused him so much trouble and now he was expected to just run for his life like a little coward. Not even run, crawl.

He clenched his teeth, blood rushing to his head. No. Hell no.

-

Skipper danced around the flurry of blows as they came towards him, taking care to tighten up his coat so it wouldn't fall off.

The big guy called Guimo was tougher than he'd thought - his strength was one thing, but his speed was the real wonder. In Skipper's experience, if you could move faster than the other guy, you'd pretty much won already. Unless your opponent was a cheater.

Skipper took great pride in being a cheater.

He stepped to the side as Guimo thrusted a palm towards him. As the air pressure from the blow swept his hair, Skipper pointed a finger towards Guimo's face and let loose a volley of Heartbeat Shotguns.

It was a technique Skipper was quite proud of - absorbing sound onto his body, concentrating it, and then releasing it again as a concussive blast. Usually one or two was enough to knock pretty much anyone on their ass, but this guy was pretty sturdy.

Was that a specific application of his Aether, maybe? If so, there had to be a trick to it. Some source from which he was drawing his strength.

Still, the blasts made the man move well enough. Guimo went rearing backwards from the force - and as he did, Serena appeared from out of one of the clouds of dust.

She was laughing, carefree, as she held a concrete sword in each hand. Skipper couldn't help but smirk as she unleashed a series of blows upon Guimo's back, the swords crumbling in her hands as she did so. With Serena del Sed's Aether, a weapon was never out of reach.

Ruth was busy dealing with the mundane soldiers. That was fine. With her speed and strength, she was well-suited to crowd control.

Skipper let loose another Heartbeat Shotgun - this one aimed at Guimo's feet - and frowned as the giant didn't budge. That wasn't right. Judging from the effect his prior attacks had had, that should have easily knocked him down.

Ah, smiled Skipper, adjusting his position as a wild kick nearly took his head off. That made sense.

Guimo's strength was in his Aether barrier - and that barrier derived additional power from the damage that he did take. Thus, the more damage you did to him now, the less damage you could do to him afterwards.

What a wonderful power! Wonderful, but annoying. Skipper adored brute force, but it seemed like it wasn't going to work here.

Skipper launched twin Heartbeat Shotguns downwards through the soles of his feet, launching himself up into the air. Guimo's gaze followed him up, clearly intending to let loose another projectile, but Serena was too much of a distraction. Roaring in anger, the Pugnant swung his fist at the girl, only for one of Bruno's air-shields to hold the blow for a second. The barrier rippled in the air for a second - then shattered, sending Bruno flying backwards.

Taking in a deep breath, Skipper prepared himself for what he'd need to do next. It wasn't going to be big on dignity.

If Guimo's barrier was blocking all outside attacks, Skipper simply needed to launch an inside attack.

Taking advantage of Serena and Bruno's distraction, Skipper landed on the oversized shoulder of the Pugnant, a wide grin on his face. At a tap from Skipper's foot, Guimo's head snapped to the side, his pupils dilating as he realized just how close the man was. His other fist pulled back, ready for a blow that would smash Skipper to pieces.

Skipper smiled, leaned forward, and stuck his arm down Guimo's throat. Guimo blinked.

Heartbeat Shotgun.

He was fairly sure that one Heartbeat Shotgun would do the trick, but he wasn't taking the risk of Guimo surviving it.

Six simultaneous blasts of concussive force entered the Pugnant's body with sounds like explosions, and the giant stumbled back, hands clutching at his throat, eyes bulging. As Skipper watched, twin trails of blood oozed out from behind Guimo's eyes, joined a second later by a veritable waterfall from his mouth.

He opened his mouth as if to say something - once, twice - and then fell over, a red puddle quickly spreading out from his face. Dead as a doorknob.

"Well," grunted Skipper, stretching. "That was -"

The first shot hit him in the back, piercing through his weakened Aether and striking at his skin. Instantly, he fell forwards, his joints involuntarily locking as the currents spread throughout his body. A yelp of pain escaped from his lips.

Stun shot. Non-lethal.

Forcing his body to move, Skipper turned to look behind him, teeth clenched from the exertion.

Dragan Hadrien stood there, panting for breath, pointing a pistol at him. Bright blue Aether swam around both him and the weapon, concentrated mostly around the barrel. Skipper had thought so, but that confirmed it - the shot had been strengthened with Aether. Otherwise, there was no way it would have made it through his barrier, even if it was weakened.

Hadrien smiled. "Aether's a shitty projectile on it's own, but it's a different story when you add it to something else, right?"

Skipper groaned. Fair enough, fair enough. They'd kidnapped the kid, after all - he couldn't exactly fault him for shooting his shot given the chance.

Still, Hadrien was clearly a good person. The pistol he was holding wasn't a stun-gun - he'd adjusted it to be non-lethal before firing.

Serena hadn't reappeared yet; maybe that blow from Guimo had knocked her out. Ruth, too, was missing - were the randos outside more trouble than he'd expected?

As Hadrien stood there, gun still trained on him, a group of armoured soldiers strode through the smoke and took position, aiming their rifles at Skipper as well. Red lenses stared out from behind bone-white masks.

Ah. The cold hand of the law had made its appearance.

Hadrien glanced at them, eyes wide with relief as he recognised their uniforms. "I'm Dragan Hadrien," he said. "From the ship? I managed to escape!"

Something was wrong. The way the officers were stood, the positions they were taking. They'd surrounded Skipper, but there wasn't the relaxation inherent with an accomplished mission.

They still had a job to do.

"Good work," said one officer, the golden sash across his shoulder marking him a commander. "Men."

At the last word, the soldiers moved, changing their target. Instead of aiming at Skipper, they aimed at Hadrien, fingers curling around triggers.

Skipper didn't have to check to know they weren't set to stun. Hadrien's face twisted in innocent confusion - it was an expression Skipper had seen on far too many corpses over the years.

"No!" he roared - and his voice tore the room to shreds.