“No,” the Drinarna officer replied in answer to Emilia’s demand that he get out of her way—and it really had been a demand. If the man didn’t get his ass out of her way, she was going to move him. It was possible she would be moving him through a wall.
“You think you won’t get in trouble for this?” she asked, giving the man another opportunity to think through his actions. The guy probably wouldn’t—the sort of corruption that led people to be okay with kidnappings wasn’t something so easily shaken up by threats of reality—but it was worth a shot because depending on how deep the corruption went, messing with the guy might result in her being permanently banned from Lüshan. While it wasn’t exactly her favourite place to visit, and she certainly wouldn’t be heartbroken by a ban the way she would be if she was never able to visit Dion or Seer’ik’tine again, it would still suck. Hence, she’d give the guy at least ten seconds longer to realize how stupid he was. “I know the Drinarna all understand what Censors are capable of, and mine has been recording this entire exchange.”
“You think you'll be getting out of here? No one will ever see that.”
“You think I’m not sending my records off as things happen?” Normally, she would be. This room had been blocking her ability to send messages since she entered it, unfortunately. Mostly, she was just curious if the Drinarna officers knew about the block—which, apparently, they did.
“This place is like all the newer criminal bases: insulated against Censor relays. Criminals ain’t stupid enough to not know one of your clones might slip into their group and fuck up their operations.”
What an odd way to phrase it:
fuck up their operations.
Emilia had never heard a Drinarna officer speak about criminal operations like that—usually, their conversations had more of a positive tone. Things like
a clone might slip into their group and use what they find to take down the organization from the inside
—that was the sort of language she excepted from Drinarna officers, and while it was possible this man was just being lax in his language, or that he had picked up some of Baalphoria’s more slang-heavy language—language that sometimes got SecOps and non-clone Black Knot agents into trouble when they spoke too rudely or frankly with random civilians—when combined with the situation as a whole…
No. Emilia had previously been split on whether these officers were being manipulated by someone in the background, issuing threats to force them to cooperate, or if they were willing participants in whatever was happening. Now, she was willing to bet they—or this man, at least—were willingly taking part in this strange scheme to create a situation where they could end up in this room.
Fuck that.
“Move.”
“No,” the man repeated, all big smiles as his eyes skimmed over her. “Anyone got any complaints about me fucking the little silver whore? Always wanted to fuck a silverstrain, and one as young and entitled as this bitch?”
Oh, so they were going there now, were they? Lovely. Worse than just the threat of raping her, was the fact that none of the other officers said anything. Even the one woman in the group simply shrugged, and yeah, fuck them all. Emilia was going to wipe them from existence. Fuck the consequences! She’d rather be banned from ever entering Lüshan again than let these pieces of shit live.
Skills rose through her Censor, ready to crack over bones and rip flesh apart. Emilia never got that far; instead, a core ability surged through the room, sending papers smashing against the wall, changing the bland brown walls into a collage of black and white. Her Censor captured what words were visible—a mixture of contradictory opinions on people with irregular deviations that she didn’t have time to study. One second, the papers covered the wall, the next, the man who had threatened her was smashing into them.
Pressure built through the room, a half dozen defensive skills exploding out of Emilia, although the core ability had yet to do more to her than send her hair blowing. Several of the Drinarna officers tried to hold their ground, their own defensive abilities sputtering under the ability bearing down on them, until—
The officer who had threatened her was the first to collapse under the weight of the assault, his bulky body there one moment and a slash of red against the papers the next. Almost immediately, the room stank of blood and gore, of piss and shit. Almost immediately, the pressure on him ebbed, his gore and bones and what few bits of his clothing had survived the pressure falling to the floor with a wet slap.
Over the rest of the Drinarna, though? The core ability continued pressing down on them, only the woman who seemed to be their leader managing to retain her footing, while the other three struggled to not be turned to mush like the first man. Then, one of them made the mistake of looking at the brutal end of their teammate.
“Never look back at the dead,”
one of the many clones who had taught her and her friends how to fight had told them, early in their training. It had been before they even had Censors—when they had been proverbial babies, all simultaneously identical and unique in their prepubescent bodies and minds. Most people would argue they were too young for such harsh conversations about how some amount of death was often inevitable, if one found themself in trouble. Emilia would have been inclined to agree had she not ended up in a disastrous situation soon after, her life only saved by the knowledge that even though a clone had died protecting her, they wouldn’t want her to look back.
There would be time to mourn later, and looking back could get you killed. You could trip over your feet as you ran—send yourself sprawling, so the monsters of the world could clamp their jaws and skills and cruelty over you. Alternatively, as the Drinarna officer who dared look at their destroyed teammate discovered, looking upon the dead could cause the slightest break of concentration as reality slammed down on you.
Censors were a bit better when it came to concentration. Where core abilities could crumble under the smallest fracture in the mind, the smallest ripple in the user’s energy, Censors took on enough of the burden that there was a little wiggle room for errant thoughts. Still, slips of concentration—moments where your brain slipped away to grieve the dead or worry for your own life—could cost you everything, even for Censor users. For core users, it was worse. The moment the officer gazed on the gristle that remained of someone who may very well have been their friend, their mind stuttered, and then, they were gone—reduced to a pile of blood and sinew and all the things that fill a body.
Blood splattered up the arms of officers who had been brought to their knees beside them. One spit out the blood that landed in their mouth, then, they were gone as well, the scream of the last echoing through the room. Good for them for not dying, but it was annoying, and Emilia really needed to get out of there.
Across the room, the seeming leader of the group continued to wrestle against the core ability, which by Emilia’s estimations, was probably running out of steam. Both core abilities and skills could only last so long, and without a break, whoever was killing the officers was likely risking burning out their core if they went much longer without pause.
Probably.
Hopefully.
Even if the person had yet to turn their power onto her, Emilia didn’t really want to meet someone powerful enough to do this—she had no idea if she’d be able to fight off this sort of pressure. Likely she would. Really, she could go without testing that theory, thanks.
In total, only about thirty seconds passed between when the core ability first ripped through the room, killing three of the six people in it, and it snapping out of existence. It was perhaps the snapping out that worried Emilia the most. Core abilities often fizzled out, was the thing. The user’s meridians would slowly cut off the ability, leaving it to linger in the aether for a moment while everything settled. For it to vanish near perfectly… Emilia knew people who could do that. Almost always, they were monsters—people like the Blood Rain General or Hurinren. Low-devs, mostly.
It was one of the reasons why, when it came to people with higher D-Levels, a properly trained Baalphorian soldier tended to eclipse a Free Colonier soldier with a similar D-Level: Censors were so much better at not wasting aether that filled their user’s aetherstores. That snapping off of meridians was considered essential to a Free Colonier soldier beating a Baalphorian with a similar D-Level, and fortunately for Baalphoria, it was almost impossible to train.
In the end, D-Levels mattered far less than many people claimed, except during war. In war, it mattered so much, and personally, Emilia would rather not fight some random low-dev criminal who fought like they could easily become a war hero, thanks.
“You!”
hissed the leader of the Drinarna group, turning her glare onto the doorway as she panted.
Logically, Emilia had known someone must have been nearby. Even if they were someone capable of using core abilities through watching the aether alone, there was only so far they could be. Still, unlike when the Drinarna had forced their way through the bakery, Emilia hadn’t heard this person coming—she still couldn’t hear them, actually. Instead, her Censor was watching them through the aether, and even then, it were as though something were dampening their presence.
Emilia knew they were there, on the other side of the doorway, just out of sight from where she had slammed herself against the wall, unsure if the person simply hadn’t seen her or if they purposefully hadn’t attacked her as well. Yet, it was only because the Drinarna officer was glaring at the newcomer that Emilia really knew they were there. If it had just been her and her Censor… No, Emilia wasn’t sure she would have seen the person coming at all—their presence could have easily registered as a blip in the aether or some mystery creature for how small it was.
That was terrifying. Whoever this was, they were a monster.
“I see I have some Drini ‘kursta in my business,”
the person—a man, it sounded like—said, stepping into the room.
Almost immediately, his presence filled the aether as it should have— No, that wasn’t quite right. If anything, now his presence was too big, pressing down on them in something that seemed both core ability and not until the Drinarna officer who had been continuing to scream and sob beside his splattered teammates was lurching forward and passing out into the disgusting mess that surrounded him.
“Ah~ quiet.”
Across the room, the remaining Drinarna officer heaved, seemingly fighting down her own reaction to the man’s presence, her body still tensed for a fight that she could send either way: towards this man or Emilia. For that reason, Emilia didn’t remove her eyes and attention from the woman. This situation was a mess no matter what, but the officer must be aware that the moment Emilia got out of the room, all her recordings of the situation were going straight to The Black Knot. Depending on how high this corruption went, it was possible the woman would prioritize keeping those records secret over even her own life.
So, instead of looking away from the woman to check out the man, Emilia was forced to assess him with her Censor—which, as previously stated, she needed to keep mostly trained on the woman. At the very least, the man did seem aware she was there, his own energy brushing against her before pulling away as he continued towards the officer.
“I knew something was stinking in you Drini ‘kursta,”
the man noted, muttering something about how embarrassing it was for the Drinarna to be dragging foreigners into their messes, and honestly, with as much of a mess all this was, Emilia was perfectly happy to take that as her cue to get the fuck out of there.
Defensive skills shuddered out of her as she bolted, microsparking her way to the door that led back to the tunnels and dropping through it, thankful she’d set a target on it because a second more of lingering in that place had felt like a second too long.
Arc 9 | Chapter 385: Never Look Back at the Dead
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