Aetheral Space

The child would surely die soon.

It lay in the middle of the road, wretched and small, curled up in on itself. It was maybe five or four years old, but from size it looked younger, starvation pulling its skin taut and tracing out its skeleton. Skin burnt by the harsh sun. Eyes glossy and sightless. Lips stained by blood.

The child would surely die soon.

This situation was hardly uncommon, especially in this part of the galaxy. For the last year or so, the Yurt -- one of the ten grand families of the Great Chain -- had been blockading this region, preventing food and other supplies from getting through, in hopes of getting concessions from the Supremacy's Body. The current Supreme was weak, and would allow himself to be bullied into it eventually. It had happened before.

Of course, the child knew none of this. All it knew was that it was hungry and thirsty beyond tolerance. As it didn't have the strength to breathe properly, it did not cry, but it might not have done that anyway. That impulse, like the memories of the family that had raised it, had already been worn away by hunger.

Yes, the child would surely die soon. Only… it did not.

A scavenger bird wriggled free from a hole in the ground, shaking its brown feathers and squawking excitedly. During these hotter months, these birds made their nests underground, waiting for prey above to expire before emerging to strip the meat for their young. It hopped over to the dying child, brought its beak down…

…and the child moved.

Nine times out of ten, the child's efforts would have been fruitless. Its body was too thin and weak to wrestle against the bird. Nine times out of ten, the bird would have just finished the child off. A single peck to the throat would have done it. Nine times out of ten, nine times out of ten…

…but this was the tenth world.

Somehow, amidst the incoherent struggling, the child ended up rolling on top of the bird -- and there was a hollow crunch as the beast's neck broke from the pressure.

Just like the bird would have done to it, the child pulled the carcass close and began to eat from its throat, gore spilling down their gullet. Meat and blood. So long as the child had those, they could continue living.

Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.

The nest, nearby. The child heard it. This bird had not been alone. It had been fetching food for its young. The child salivated as it heard the chirping chicks. Slowly, with the barest strength recovered, it began to crawl over to the hole in the ground.

They would surely die soon.

Mereloco sank his teeth into life, and did not let go.

“Are you ready?” Damon asked.

Mereloco grunted in response. They'd been together long enough for Damon to know what that meant. The easy grin spreading across his own lips was proof enough of that.

“Okay,” he muttered. “Let's go.”

And with that, the two of them stepped off the skyscraper.

It had been three hours since the opening ceremony of the Dawn Contest, time enough for the other contestants to return to their bases of operations on Azum-Ha. The first match would begin tomorrow, with Damon facing off against the Baron Lucien de Fleur.

They had other plans.

As they fell past the 32nd floor of the building, Mereloco activated Unchained -- slowing their descent and leaving the two of them hovering in mid-air. On the other side of the glass, he could see vague humanoid figures, already recoiling from the sudden appearance of Mereloco and Damon. The attack would come in seconds, if that, but Mereloco wasn't concerned in the least.

If you were always the one to attack first, you didn't have to worry about being ambushed. Damon extended a hand, still grinning that cocky grin.

“Quantum King,” he said.

The building imploded, the framework pushed away from Damon with all his might. The structure carved through itself, concrete and plastic and human pouring from the tower like a waterfall of detritus. This would suffice to take care of the weakest manpower that their enemy had access to. For the rest? Mereloco.

Unchained.

Mereloco adjusted his personal gravity, falling sideways into the ruins of the building, and then -- after reorienting himself again -- landing upwards on a half-shattered ceiling. Smoke still billowed through the air, but Mereloco banished it with a gust of Aether-infused breath. Cracking his neck, he looked at the course that Damon had prepared for him.

As expected, most of the Baron's men had been blown away by that initial attack. Quantum King wasn't an attack you could easily withstand without knowing about it in advance. Only two guards remained: identical twins, men, both of whom had beetle-like crests protruding from the tops of their heads.

Far above, black flames began to broil through the sky. It seemed that the Baron had engaged Damon in combat. It was time for Mereloco to do his job, too.

Damon and Mereloco had agreed on this strategy beforehand. It wouldn't do for Mereloco to assist Damon against the actual contestants. That would cause Damon to lose face, and make things more difficult when he became Supreme. Instead, Mereloco would take care of the enemy backup -- guards, agents, automatics, whatever.

These people had countless shadows, after all. Damon only needed one.

The two enemies slammed their fists against their hearts, crying out with all their might: “Transform!”

Mereloco simply cracked his neck again, took a step forward, and allowed himself…

Unchained.

…to fall.

The first of the Rebel Rangers died badly. He lay in a crater that his blood was quickly turning into a pond, twitching weakly as Mereloco made his final approach. What looked like a glowing frisbee flew out of the Ranger's chest towards Mereloco, but he simply shot it out of the air with a single bullet of Unworthy.

His face stoic, his shadow stretching, Mereloco stood over the dying man. The Ranger looked back, terrified eyes visible through his shattered visor. In the end, the bulky armour he'd manifested -- the armour that had seemed so impressive -- had just served as a mobile coffin.

“W-Wait…” the Rebel Ranger gasped. “P-Plea…”

Mereloco crushed his skull with a stamp of his boot, then began to make his way to his second vanquished opponent. The second Rebel Ranger, slightly younger, had been blown through a wall into the conference room beyond. As he went to rise to his feet, wincing in pain all the while, Mereloco simply grabbed him by the throat and raised him up high.

“You bastard…” the young man wheezed, flailing weakly in Mereloco's grip. “Kill you… I'll kill you…”

A single blow to the back of the head ended the Ranger's struggling. Unconscious, but not dead. Mereloco released the boy and let him drop to the ground in an undignified heap.

Why had he spared one, and not the other? Even Mereloco didn't know. It was not an arbitrary decision. Definite rationale had led to one man living and one man dying. But what his reasons were, and the means by which he'd reached them, were just as much a mystery to Mereloco as they were to anyone else.

This was a man who did not understand the contents of his own soul.

If that bothered him at all, he did not show it. Mereloco simply turned his head as the third enemy revealed themselves, leaping out of the rubble and screeching like a harpy. Mereloco had never met this bald, emaciated man before, but he recognised him instantly.

Inimant.

His eyes held the desperation of one who had failed to restrain their bloodlust, and the claws protruding from beneath his fingernails were among the most common of the Killing Engines. They carried a deadly venom -- just a scratch would be enough to bring even an Aether-user to the brink of death. But he was mad, and he was simple.

Unchained.

“Esh.”

With that word, Damon disabled his first Aether Armament. The three tattoos, printed over his body in preparation for the Dawn Contest, were like interweaving chains. As Damon spoke the name of the first one, the red glow that had consumed it faded to its normal black. The intense heat that lingered in the air faded away too.

It was too late for his opponent.

The Baron Lucien de Fleur had been burnt alive, his charred corpse floating in the air before Damon -- held in stasis between the push and pull of Quantum King. Damon used the same technique to allow himself to float, and -- as he allowed the Baron to fall into the abyss below -- he made his way over to the edge of the window.

That whole time, he watched the corpse fall.

It was strange. Many of the people he'd fought alongside were able to kill a man and just keep walking, but Damon always found his eyes lingering on the body left behind. Was that some part of himself reveling in the skill he'd used in the execution? Or was it an altogether more cowardly impulse?

Damon didn't know. It wasn't something he liked to examine about himself.

In any case, the world was better off for having lost the Baron Lucien de Fleur. His reputation for greed had been well-earned, and not just for his thieving flames -- he'd drained his entire planet dry to fill his coffers, triggering famines so very much like the ones back then.

He narrowed his eyes as he remembered it.

Bodies littering the streets, one step away from skeletons. The hunger carving its way through his body like a new organ. His mother making him eat meat that she seemed guilty to give him.

One of those corpses, just one, not being a corpse at all. Taking its hand in his own.

Mereloco leapt through the demolished building, landing in the ruined hallway next to him. Damon gave him a sidelong glance. Unsurprisingly, the man was covered in blood.

“Is it done?” Mereloco asked.

Damon nodded. “It's done.”

He took a deep breath, soaking in the cold night air for a moment. That hadn't been an easy battle, but that had been the idea. The Baron Lucien de Fleur was probably one of the most dangerous opponents in this tournament. Now that he'd been dealt with, the rest would be a downhill sprint.

Yes… the rest.

Damon and Mereloco had decided long before landing on Azum-Ha. This year, there wouldn't be a tournament at all. This year, they'd take care of everything in a single night.

The two of them leapt from the building, already making their way to their next target.

Damon's confidence was not misplaced. Indeed, over the course of the next nine hours, he eliminated every other participant in the Dawn Contest and emerged victorious. He was covered in blood and wounds, barely able to stand, his face beaten to a purple mess… but, in the end, he was the last man standing, and that was what mattered.

His victory was due in equal parts to his own personal strength and his great resolve. Where an ordinary man would have fallen unconscious or even died, Damon was able to push his mind to keep existing. If he did not exist, he could not accomplish his goals. If he did not exist, his dream would never come true.

The goal of the man with the power of god was to bring back the strength of the Supremacy. The Great Chain had curled around great swaths of their territory, strangling it, wielding greater and greater influence as a result. Damon sought to put a stop to that, to ensure the great famines of his youth never happened again.

His dream, though? That was something far more nebulous, far more vague, and far more… unattainable. And yet, he had no choice but to reach for it.

Damon fought so he could become Supreme, so he could change the world to his liking, so he could leave his name in history, so he could prove his strength to the world, so he could destroy those who stood against him, so he could cast away the shadows in his own soul, so he could bolster his homeland against the threats that surrounded it, so that he could spread his views across the stars, so that he could enjoy the luxury of the position, so that he could spit in the face of the world that hadn’t wanted him to exist. He had no shortage of reasons to fight.

Mereloco? He fought because Damon fought. Any other reason either didn’t interest him… or was yet another thing he didn’t understand.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The feeling in the fingers returns first. Not as many as before… but, given what he’s put his body through, that isn’t a surprise. Four out of eight is still a victory.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Sensation slithers up his arms like snakes. He becomes aware of pain. Again, not as much as expected. Again, a victory. He can move his arms. That alone is cause for celebration.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The legs. They twitch. That means they can walk.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

His heart beats in his chest, in tandem with the beeping. He’s aware of the warmth of his blood. He breathes -- once weakly, then again with feeling. He forces his body into being.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The head. Everything begins there. The pain is welcome. The fact that he can feel it means that he is alive.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Atoy Muzazi opens his eyes.

Beep.

He sinks his teeth into life, and does not let go.