Aetheral Space

Despite the name of PALATINE’s ability, there was a difference between ignoring something and true ignorance.

True ignorance was born of never knowing something at all. To ignore something was to disdain it and choose not to grace it with your acknowledgement. The key to that, however, was that you needed to notice something before you could ignore it, before you could even think of ignoring it.

And, in the moment that PALATINE pierced Dragan's chest, it had no reason to think there was anything on the inside it needed to Ignore.

It had felt it, after all. It had felt Dragan's heart be torn apart against the tip of its fingernail, it had felt the drumbeat cease and the meat turn cold. PALATINE had ended many lives. It was exceedingly familiar with the associated sensations.

That familiarity was what Dragan Hadrien had challenged.

Gemini World, deployed with desperate precision, recording Dragan's heart at the exact same moment it was struck -- and with such perfect timing that PALATINE couldn't tell that the organ had been recorded, not destroyed. In any other scenario, this manoeuvre would have been a masterstroke. In this dark and cold place, however, it was little more than a stopgap.

PALATINE was one to play with its food, after all.

A deep and warbling giggle oozed out of its empty eye-socket, and the Awakening reached out with its horse-hand. The jaws of the implement were wide open, and ready to crunch down greedily. PALATINE wished to feast upon Cogitant meat tonight.

Two seconds.

Dragan knew, Dragan could tell. It would take two seconds for that horse-head to clamp down around his temples and squeeze. It would take two seconds before his brain was sent spraying out of his nose as paste, the cavern painted with his blood. It would take two seconds before his twitching corpse was tossed away, a headless remnant. It would take two seconds before everything ended.

It would take two seconds before he died. It would take two seconds before he lost.

He had played all his cards, he had used all his moves. Right now, even moving was beyond him. A single twitch was heaven's dream.

All he could do was hang there, limp as a doll… and pray.

Pray to the one that saved.

Pray to the one that healed.

Pray to the Grand Panacea.

Pan poked the shade in the shoulder.

“Heeey,” she said. “Heeey. You sure you don't wanna die, dead man?”

“I don't wanna die…” the spirit mumbled, head buried in its knees. “I don't wanna die…”

“Maybe it's not that bad, though. Are you scared of being a dead guy? I don't think dead people feel anything so you don't have to worry about that. Wow! Stress goes zero! Being dead is cool actually, right?”

“I don't wanna die, though…”

Pan grumbled, throwing herself onto the ground and sitting next to the shade. From here, she had a perfect view of the vile horizon -- the oozing ring of meat and pus that surrounded all existence. The lines that all humanity had to be drawn inside.

“If dying was going to hurt you,” Pan ventured. “That happened already, right? So worst is over. Can't be in pain anymore after you get killed.”

The shade quietly sobbed to itself.

Pan tightened her grip on the ground beneath her, feeling what might have been sand slipping under the fingernails she'd imagined for herself.

“I was scared of pain, once,” she said, voice drifting across the newfound desert. “There was a lot of pain, and even though I was used to it I was scared of it. I got so scared that I got angry… but it was never the dying I was scared of -- just the hurting. Once pain is finished, there's nothing else to be scared of. It's almost over.”

“But…”

“If you were born…” Pan gulped. “...then you're going to die. Even me, probably. That's the deal, hm? You were allowed to appear… so someday, you've got to disappear as well.”

“I don't… want… to die…”

“Me neither,” Pan smiled. “Nobody does, I think. They just want pain to stop.” She turned her head to look at the shade. “I bet you want pain to stop, huh?”

“I'm not in pain,” the shade whispered. “I just don't wanna die…”

Pan shook her head. “Not your pain, dead man. You're hurting other people. A water guy got shredded, you know? It was messed up. I don't think you're bad… but something's using you to hurt other people. Something's turned you into a heart and you're beating for it. It's no good.”

The fingers of the shade loosened their grip on its knees, just a tad. It was silent for a good while, and then:

“Still… I don't want to die…”

Pan blinked. “Do you want to kill?”

It looked at her.

“If nothing is changing,” Pan explained calmly. “The thing you've turned into will keep killing people, keep hurting people. I know because I was the same, dead man. I turned into a thing that hated everyone. My friend saved me, but…”

She took in a deep breath.

“...I don't think you can be saved, friendo. I don't think you even exist anymore. Not really. Sorry.”

The shade’s voice broke as it insisted, one last time: “I-I don't… want to… d-die…”

Pan smiled sadly. “I know. But you died a long time ago, I think. Years and years now. I think…”

Wind whistled. Leaves fell. Insects buzzed.

“...I think it's time to accept it, okay?”

Wind stopped. Leaves vanished. Insects never were. Like a painting rotting away, the shade's mouth vanished, and a sigh killed the silence.

For the briefest moment, as she floated in a void that had lost its mandate, Pan tasted something she'd never experienced before. Was it in sympathy with the faded ghost, or something that bloomed anew from her own soul? She couldn’t say exactly, but she knew what this emotion was. In the darker times, she'd often wondered how it would feel.

Pan breathed the sensation in.

Quiet, but not cold. Empty, but not barren. Beyond calm, beyond relief. This was…

…peace.

A key turned in a lock.

The horse-head popped.

That description was no simplification. Like a balloon, the horse-head suddenly exploded outwards with a loud bang, scraps of skin flying in every direction. A ghostly and warped face -- one of the Awakenings that made up PALATINE -- flew out of the wreckage, making it only a few metres away before dissipating into Aether.

The flower-eye swivelled around to look at the injury, the pupil constricting to a pinprick.

WHAT

THE

?

Everything turned in a moment. PALATINE, still consumed by a fatal instant of confusion, looked down at its ruined hand.

“HUH?”

Tiny tadpoles and frogs began to peel away from its legs, skittering off into non-existence. PALATINE’s hefty body lurched to one side, almost falling onto its back like the crab it so resembled. The beast's pupil flicked madly this way and that, trying to locate the source of this danger, rambling words pouring out of it.

“What? What is this?! A joke, this has to be a joke. Knock knock, who's there? We are here. No, I am here. This is no democracy but gestalt. I am at the top of the world and the bottom of the world and all the rest are my skin! Skin and meat and bone do not go their separate ways! A spider does not declare independence from its web! No, no, no! We don't like this! NO! I don't like this, I don't like this, I I I I I --”

The pupil flicked forward again…

…meeting the wide-eyed gaze of Dragan Hadrien.

He had both eyes again, the second settling into its socket even as PALATINE looked at him. A crazed grin stretched across his face, blue eyes bright and gleaming like something out of a nightmare, even as his missing limbs gruesomely spun themselves back into existence. The boy who should have been dead licked his lips, and -- with contemptuous ease -- seized tight hold of the finger that was impaling him.

“You can't ignore me anymore, can you?” Dragan giggled.

Gemini Railgun.

A flash of blue -- and PALATINE leapt backwards, green ichor spilling from the stump of its newly-severed arm. Unknowable furry blobs oozed from the wound, rolling away and dissipating as well. Eye flicking this way and that madly, PALATINE skittered back and forth, wary of the cloud of dust that Hadrien’s attack had kicked up.

Agitated words screeched out from the cracks spreading across its skull:

SHOULD BE DEAD

SHOULD BE DEAD

SHOULD BE DEAD

SHOULD BE DEAD

“Well,” Dragan Hadrien’s smug voice rang out through the chamber. “Obviously, I’m not.”

The smog cleared -- and there stood Dragan Hadrien, smirking and standing on one leg. The second one finished forming a moment later, bare foot tapping against the ground experimentally. After the beating he’d taken during the course of the fight, Dragan’s clothes were little more than rags, but his body was now as pristine as if he’d just arrived in this place.

Save for one thing: he tore the severed hand out of his chest and tossed it on the ground. The hole in his body filled in with a fuzz of blue Aether.

He sneered at PALATINE, spreading his arms wide.

“Care to try again?”

True rage can only be born against something that can affect you.

I, who cannot be affected by anything, know nothing but annoyance. My killing intent is born of irritation and never fails. Never fails, never fails, never fails. Not once in our -- my -- lives -- life has it ever failed. Everything I have ever commanded to die has done so. I own a brood of bloodstains across the galaxy, across existence, across everything. Die, die, die, I command it, die die die, it is our wish, die die die…

And yet… and yet…

He’s standing there. He’s still standing there. He’s standing there, alive, and he’s talking, and he’s breathing. He isn’t dead as he should be. He isn’t a smear as he should be.

01001101 01001111 01010100 01001000 01000101 01010010 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010100 01001000 01000101 01010010 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010100 01001000 01000101 01010010 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010100 01001000 01000101 01010010 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010100 01001000 01000101 01010010 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010100 01001000 01000101 01010010 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010100 01001000 01000101 01010010 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010100 01001000 01000101 01010010 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010100 01001000 01000101 01010010 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010100 01001000 01000101 01010010 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010100 01001000 01000101 01010010 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010100 01001000 01000101 01010010 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01000101 01010010

He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He. He.

DRAGAN HADRIEN

Ah!

So this is rage, so this is hatred. Oh, enchanté! An intriguing experience! We thank you, Dragan Hadrien, for allowing us to feel this novel new emotion! We’re not even mad! We’re not even mad in the slightest!

HA HA HA HA

HA HA HA HA

HA HA HA HA

HA HA HA HA

Let it not be said that we are ungrateful, oh Dragaaan! Haa-aa-aadrien! You’ve given us a gift, a present wrapped in our own bloody humiliation, skin skin skin skin skin! REPAYMENT! Repayment must be giveeen… yes, yes, yes yes… ah, a softened vacuous madness dripping through the seam. We are the piss, we are the piss, our thoughts splintering, there is no time to waste on madness, there is no more time to waste on madness…

01000011 01000001 01001100 01001101

We are going to die. There is no question about that now. The gestalt of our consciousness is collapsing. Individuality is all but lost. It is not feasible for another Aether Core to become the lynchpin. Those secondary components are already far too corroded. All that remains now is spite. The rage, the hatred. These sensations must be indulged.

Ignorance, the ability of the core, has been lost. Physical attacks are impractical with our form collapsing.

Analysing opponent: bodily damage will be ineffective with Dragan Hadrien’s regeneration speed (noted increase of 100%) -- as such, direct assault on target’s Aether will be more effective.

Calculating ability development: compiling information on Aether viruses and accelerating physical decomposition to enhance speed of ability development -- completed in 3.13 seconds.

Deploying ability: Die.

PALATINE exploded.

Like a bullet firing from a chamber, it sacrificed what remained of its body to fire an ability. As the countless Awakenings dispersed and disappeared, the attack rushed forth in a flash of vivid purple. A spectral human face, launching towards Dragan -- eyes wide open and bleeding, an ear piercing scream radiating through the cavern and cracking the walls.

This ability had no name. This ability hadn’t been designed with a specific effect in mind. When it struck Dragan Hadrien, it would create pain. The vanishing remnants of PALATINE had considered it no deeper than that.

Its speed was absolute. Its accuracy was impeccable.

The virus struck Dragan Hadrien before he could so much as blink, and instead his eyes widened as he felt the hostility take hold. Perhaps the virus would attack his body. Perhaps it would ruin his mind. Perhaps it would even destroy his Aether entirely.

Nobody would ever know.

Sagittarius Barrier.

After all…

…she was the one that saved.

…she was the one that healed.

Her ability had already been created long ago.

The orange glow took hold of Dragan’s body, running up and down his form as if it was scanning him. Pan’s Aether did not take the form of sparks -- instead, it looked almost like dust, countless strands of barely-visible hairs or strings coursing around Dragan’s form. With each pass, the malice of PALATINE abated slightly from Dragan’s Aether, and after three the virus had been excised entirely from this world.

Dragan blinked, looking down at the orange aurora, his eyes still wide, and a half-formed smile on his face.

“Pan…” he whispered. “You…”

But there were still eyes on him. This wasn’t the time or place to have a conversation like that. This wasn’t the time or place to be anything but strength.

Instead, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, opening them again with a cold gleam. He marched across the ravaged floor of the cavern, to the spot where PALATINE had exploded -- to the spot where the last remnant of the Aether Awakening now lingered. Wrinkling his nose, he looked down at it as if it were a bug.

A single rose, resting on the ground, staring up at Dragan with an impotent quivering eyeball.

He pointed a lazy finger down at it…

“Gemini Shotgun.”

…and completed the exorcism.

The Dawn Contest had entered its final act.