IV-26 Rhetorical (I)

To my esteemed adversaries at Aviary:

I have recently come across a few of your agents. Please don't blame them for being discovered. These things happen sometimes, especially when you train your little birds a little too well. Hence, I think I would like to offer some constructive criticism.

Firstly, people have flaws. People don't have these neat and unproblematic personalities. The receptionist you sent to serve me in replacement of my last one was a little too cheerful, a little too bright, and the way she spoke belongs on the page of a novel rather than the messiness of daily life. Same thing goes for several other people you've decided to seed into my daily life. My gardener, housekeeper, all people I've had to replace due to previous members of my staff leaving or passing from age. They're also too neat, too perfect. You made them to appeal to my personality, and that's what ultimately tipped me off. So, first thing, don't do that.

Secondly, why did you assume that I was the weak link between me and my grandmother? You really should just send younger men and women to feed her lust. Of course, you won't be getting them back after she sates her desires, and their fates will be unenviable to say the least. However, her lips will loosen, and you will learn things. If they're to your benefit, I can say my grandmother is a double-edged sword in many ways, for me and for you. Involve yourself with her at your peril.

Now, some suggestions. You should target some of the other avatars instead of me. Maybe go find Anthony. The old man needs some fun in his life. Thank you for keeping me on my feet and refining my alertness, but please understand your position. I am not someone you can deceive. I am not someone you can blackmail. I am not someone who can be bent to the will of another.

Everything I do has been on the basis of manipulation and influence. We might not be of the same cloth. I'm no spy, I'll tell you that much. But politics is war by other means. And politics is war once you get past a certain level of power. Words have power. Power enough to kill the first person that reads this letter.

And, as a final warning, if you continue to annoy me, I will dictate a strongly worded letter, and when it hits your shores, New Albion will experience a mass casualty event that goes on for a decade.

Anyhow, thank you for your time, thank you for reading my letter, and please, if you're going to disobey me, at least send better agents. And by better, I mean flawed.

Legend Councilwoman Veronica Chandler

-A Letter from Legend-Avatar Veronica Chandler to Aviary

IV-26

Rhetorical (I)

Veronica's command struck Shiv like an explosion. A literal explosion. It assailed him physically, mentally, and spiritually. From the very first syllable she spat, he felt something crash against his Shapeless Tides. It felt like the sky was falling on him, like a massive hand was squeezing him tight. He tried to resist using his own Legendary Skill, but Veronica was powerful, and he felt himself gasp before her impossible might.

Then his Shapeless Tide malfunctioned once more as the poisonous Animancy curdled inside his being. His vectors vanished. Suddenly, Shiv had no means at all to resist the Legend-Avatar's power at all. He cried out in pain as a foreign force forced its way into his very bones. His ligaments tore, his muscles ripped; he launched himself forward, even though he didn't want to.

Another order was unleashed by Veronica, but Shiv felt it rip by him and strike someone else instead. “And you! Fire at him!”

Adam cried out in alarm, but Shiv couldn't hear anything anymore. Instead, the only thing that echoed through his mind was the command Veronica spat. Over and over, her words became like a mantra until it was all he knew, and it wasn't simply resonating in his mind, but in his very soul as well.

Show me how you burn, then, Deathless. Make it worth my words.

Notifications flashed before him as he accelerated toward the Legendary councilwoman. The other avatars remained in place, simply regarding Shiv as a problem already resolved.

And then there was Veronica herself. She stared him down with a look of anticipation as he drew closer. A searing flare of pain consumed every part of him once more. Shiv detonated as a Necromancy arrow split his back open.

Another blast of soul fire burst free from the Deathless's already mangled body and darkness spread across his eyes. With his Icon of the Paindrinker still active, the misery he endured reached new heights. The Deathless was burned to the foundations of his soul, and he found himself yearning for unconsciousness. Yet unconsciousness never came. Veronica wouldn't allow it. Her voice thundered inside his soul, commanding him still, refusing to let him go.

At the same time, as the flames expanded out from him, as they came close to marching over the ascendants, Veronica spat another command, and Shiv's bloodshot eyes widened before her display of awesome power.

"Curve," Veronica said.

He caught the faint hint of shivering blue that emanated forth from her voice. It was the color of Animancy, followed by a distortion of Dynamancy. Shiv's mind was spiraling. The explosion of soulfire never came close to touching Veronica. Instead, it did as she bade, folding around her and the other avatars, leaving them entirely untouched. The same could not be said for Adam and the other prisoners.

Nightmarish screams came from behind. Shiv smelled cooking flesh, caught sight of several badly burned bodies toppling over.

As Veronica's voice faded within the Deathless, he turned. He tried to go back for Adam, but Veronica whispered to him once more. “Break.”

Her voice hit him like a falling hammer. Something struck his knee, but just then Shiv's shapeless tides came back, and instead of feeling his legs shatter, he found himself driven through the air by a blow of magical and material force. As Shiv tumbled, trying to get his bearings, he caught sight of Veronica's face once more, of how she frowned so deeply.

"Well, how are you doing that?" she asked. "Anthony said he stabbed you already. How are you still using your skills?”

Shiv's reply was a near-feral growl as more of Adam's screams reached his ears. This fucking bitch was keeping him from his friend. Shiv cast a quick look in the direction of his companions and found everyone beyond disfigured by his soulfire. Five was writhing; patches of fur had been replaced with long stretches of smoldering red flesh. Adam barely looked human at all. He was practically bald by this point, and his skin melted off his body. Gone was missing, as was Kura. Shiv hoped they had fled rather than being disintegrated, but he wasn't sure. Rebis had already been missing for a while; Shiv had no idea where he was at all. Bonk resembled a charred husk of meat rather than an orc. Even so, he gave pained wheezes that faintly sounded like laughs.

Shiv's mind whirled. A second ago, he thought there had been hope. He thought that he might just be able to escape. Now, everything had gone straight to hell, and even his most desperate strategy had failed before the Legendary Councilwoman. But without Harlock twisting his mind and spirit, Shiv reacted how he truly would when faced with a hopeless battle.

He went berserk.

Berserk 21 > 23333333[Error]

An animalistic roar escaped the Deathless as he felt his strength explode. He flung himself at Veronica, his vectors doubling in size and flaring with kinetic energy. Shiv lost all sense of coherence. He was no longer able to maintain Overflow Tides because he couldn't cycle them. But what he did have was amplified, and he intended to tear the Legendary Councilwoman limb from limb if it was the last thing he ever did.

"Miss," Veronica cried out. The statement struck Shiv in the chest like a bomb. He felt himself get driven back slightly, but it didn't stop him. He didn't obey. His hands swung in a wide haymaker, and the air around him crackled with booming force. A sonic burst expanded around Shiv, and Veronica’s ebony hair flapped around her face. However, her face remained unbruised.

“A bit sloppy,” Veronica muttered. “Lots of wild anger, too. Yeah. Definitely your mother’s boy.”

It wasn't nearly as fast as he needed to be on his Inertial Overdrive, and Veronica was never in his reach in the first place. With a splash of Dimensionality, she vanished and appeared right behind him.

"Stop."

Another order hit him, this time crashing into the center of his back. He felt a part of his lower spine fracture before the heavy blow, but he ignored it. He spiked his Shapeless Tides backward, ignoring his wounds. His legs were wrenched out of their sockets. His skin was partially flayed free from his inner flesh. Without cultivating more Toughness, Shiv couldn't sustain these forces. Agony consumed him, but that only fed his anger, fueled his berserker rage.

He slammed a fist against Veronica's chest for the first time, and her Dimensionality pulsated as if the surface of a lake struck by a falling boulder. The councilwoman smirked and gave Shiv a look of appreciation. "Well, I guess Cripple wasn't lying earlier. Pain's not enough to put you down. Just feeds the beast inside you, does it?”

An incoherent howl left Shiv as he wrapped his hands around her head. He squeezed, but her arms remained low by her sides. Her skin flashed red-gold, then incandescent. Veronica smirked, even as Shiv exerted more of his strength. His fingers were pressing against her skin, grinding against bone, but he inflicted no harm. Tide after tide slammed into her head, but they simply broke apart without inflicting any true damage.

It was then that Shiv heard a faint melody rising in the background, and over Veronica's shoulders was Kathereine. Her ethereal form was both elegant and ghostly. A pale white dress glided around her body as she shrouded her avatar in an aegis of song. Her entrance brought Shiv's rage to new heights. He poured every bit of his anger into his Berserk, and as his shapeless tide slammed into Veronica once more, her head flinched back slightly. The councilwoman's expression flickered then. A faint look of concern passed through her features as Kathereine choked in surprise.

Before she could do anything else, however, his Berserk skill cut out, and his Shapeless Tide followed thereafter. Suddenly, he plunged from the air, clinging onto the councilwoman's neck as he tried not to fall. Clumps of mutilated meat swayed from his body, and he tried not to go insane from the absolute suffering he had to endure.

A slight breath escaped from Veronica. "I can see why Cripple had trouble with you now. But I’m going to need to train a lot of bad habits out of you. No need to worry about your fearlessness, though. You got plenty of that in you.”

Shiv snarled. He kicked wildly, trying to climb back up her. She was around as tall as he was at baseline, but due to his monstrosity, Shiv was practically twice her size. Even so, his weight barely seemed to affect her, and with a casual shrug, she managed to flick him through the air as if he was some kind of insect.

Shiv let out a surprised cry as he sailed through the opening in the cube where he and the other prisoners were trying to escape from earlier. As he landed against the ground, a miserable scream escaped from his throat as every single burn on his body came ablaze in unison. Shiv didn't know how long he writhed on the ground or how he maintained his consciousness.

What brought him back to coherence was Adam. The Gate Lord was whimpering. Shiv followed those pitiful noises to the man himself and let out a gasp of horror as he caught sight of Adam. He was curled in on himself like a ball. Shiv could see countless burns and exposed sinews through patches of missing flesh lining the Dimensional Archer's body.

Shiv grunted. He tried crawling toward his friend, but his body wouldn't obey. Shiv was about as broken as Adam was, perhaps even more so. It wasn't a matter of pain tolerance anymore. His muscles wouldn't function. His bones were a map of drifting shrapnel inside a bag of leaking meat. So Shiv didn't use his body to move. Instead, he projected his vitae. He extended strands of white and red and pressed them against Adam.

At his touch, Adam stilled and managed to lift his head ever so slightly. The Gate Lord's blue eyes were filled with such pain Shiv looked away.

"We're never doing this again," Adam whimpered, shuddering with every syllable he forced out. "Bloody hells, you didn't tell me it was going to be this bad. How did you even take this the first time?”

Despite everything, Shiv couldn't help but laugh. "It's not that bad," Shiv said. "You can get used to it… ‘cause you’ll end up blacking out eventually.”

Adam clenched his teeth and tried to stop himself from shaking. Nearby, Shiv could hear Five begging for death as the Deathless sank his vitae deeper into Adam's soul. He realized that the gate lord was charred here as well. He tried cycling Adam's injuries into himself but then there came a declaration that forced him to stop.

"No, none of that."

Hearing Veronica's words was like experiencing a new natural law being erected in existence. One moment Shiv could do something, the next it was absolutely impossible, for every part of him fought himself. Something inside Shiv turned sour at the unfairness of it all. Despite every challenge he'd overcome, despite how hard he'd struggled, despite becoming Legendary, he was powerless. Powerless in the face of the Ascendants, powerless to protect the ones he cared for. To be honest, his life felt like a shitty joke with no punchline right about now.

Adam blinked at Shiv and tried to communicate something through his many gasps of pain. As the Deathless attempted to project his Psychomancy toward the gate lord, Veronica called out again. "None of that, either."

Another natural law was driven down upon Shiv’s soul like a spike: one that forbade him from using any magic at all. Physically crippled, spiritually compromised, and mentally shackled, Shiv's mind whirled for anything, anything he could do at all. And just then he managed to activate non-sequitur once more, but it was a futile action. 

As he snapped free from his body, his vitae were as wounded as his flesh, and he only managed to writhe across the ground, flinching in pain with every centimeter he moved. Even parted from his body, he could still feel Veronica's words nested in a place deeper than his bones. He couldn't reach out to Adam using his Psychomancy. He couldn't try to fix him using his vitae, and he couldn't escape, not in his current state. Shiv had no options at all. All he had now was a temporary distraction he couldn’t exploit.

Veronica slipped past the threshold of the cube. Plates of metal were bent along the edges, they vanished behind a veil of static darkness as the Legendary Councilwoman came to claim her prize. She walked toward Shiv, and her shroud of protective Dimensionality billowed as if it was a grand dress. "It was a good try at an escape," she said, "but this outcome was inevitable once I returned.” She wrinkled her nose and glared at the other avatars behind her.

Shiv’s eyes were blurry from the pain, but he could see Stormhalt hovering in the crawlspace, black lightning spilling free from him. There was also another one of Daughter’s avatars, a few he couldn’t recognize, and finally, a large rectangular automaton that might’ve been with Cripple.

Cripple… Fucking help me, godsdammit. Do something. It took a lot to make Shiv desperate for aid, but he was at that point now. Past that point. There was nothing he had left. Nothing he could do to stop Veronica from taking him and everyone else as prisoner once more.

She cocked her head and looked down at Shiv. Unbeknownst to her, his true self wasn't nested in his body anymore. Instead, he was a few centimeters away, pressed up against Adam.

"You have a Master-Tier Psychology skill, don't you?" When Shiv didn't say anything, she kept going. "I can tell. That was the thing I had to struggle against the most, aside from your Magical Resistance. But even without Kathereine, I fear this wasn’t an even engagement. My Legendary tier skill is as multifaceted as yours, probably even more so. Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides is a three-skill fusion, according to my knowledge. My main Legendary Skill is made up of six previous skills. And it’s not nearly the only Legendary Skill I have.”

Part of Shiv was tempted to tell the Legend-Avatar to go fuck herself one final time, but through a maelstrom of pain, a thought occurred to him. There was one skill he could still use, but there was no guarantee he wouldn't be compromised soon due to the Animancy affecting his soul. Shiv reached inward and began constructing a golem, but it wasn't just any golem.

Animated Skill Infusion: Shadows of Futures Coming

He'd taken an Animated Skill Infusion from Kura earlier, and he recalled how her skill worked. She had golden shadows, which were temporal clones. She directed them in battle and could spawn a near countless amount of them. More importantly, she could swap her positions with one of them, and where Shiv was compromised, his golem might not be. Even so, it took a substantial amount of vitality to create, and with him already down a fourth due to his use of Non-Sequitur, he needed to be strategic.

There's no fighting the ascendants and avatars, Shiv thought to himself. He decided against giving the golem any skills beyond Shapeless Tides and the Animated Skill Infusion. After that, he whispered a command to the golem, one he could barely recall himself afterward due to an overwhelming surge of pain that passed through his body.

That done, the golem flared with Chronomancy mana, and it parted into two, then three, and then many, many more. The sudden appearance of the golem caught Veronica off guard. Behind her, the other avatars watched as if an audience to a play. They, too, responded with the manifestation of the golems, but most of them acted too late to stop the golem's first action.

Shiv flinched as one of the golems smashed through his material body. He couldn’t remember if he told it to do that, as a puff of red-white mist filled the air.

"Stop moving!" Veronica called aloud. The golem was halted, but the others could still move. And then came a lull of confusion as Shiv's Vitae Anchor was destroyed. Veronica forgot who she was fighting, and that was the opening Shiv was looking for.

At once, he pulled his cape off and threw it over one of the golem's necks. He flung himself inside the cape right after, and as he landed on the ground, Shiv arced his back and let out an agonized howl. He returned to context in the same instant, unable to sustain the vitality bleed any longer. His howl reached a new octave as Adam was launched inward, slamming against his body. With that collision, Shiv remembered the commands he gave his golems. They were to gather all his present companions and throw them inside his cape. Once that was done, they were to flee, flee as far and fast as they could, dividing over and over again to stay ahead of Veronica.

Hammering bursts of Chronomancy washed over Shiv, and every impact made him cry aloud. Adam moaned nearby, and both of them were all but incapacitated. Soon, Five and Bonk joined in, but the orc ended up making a gagging noise as if he was choking on his own tongue.

“Hurts… Hurts… Bad…” Candles was somewhere beyond Shiv’s sight, and the Pyromancer let out hissed gasps of misery.

And then a loud voice bellowed in Shiv's mind. It was too much for the Deathless to bear at first, but as he managed to fight through his debilitating suffering, he realized he'd clutched the core that Cripple gave him earlier.

"Shiv? Shiv, are you still there?" the Ascendant called out.

"Barely," Shiv coughed. He regretted coughing immediately thereafter, as an intense sensation of burning torment flowed through his very veins.

Before anything else could be exchanged between Shiv and the Ascendant, something burst through the dimensional portal leading into the forest of alloy. Gone appeared, and she dragged a legless Kura behind her. Rebis remained absent. Seeping shadows flickered in their protective dimension, and Shiv felt his heart plunge as he realized Harlock was back once more.

His heart promptly fell through the floorboards when he also remembered the fact that he didn't give his golems any Vitality Drain. They wouldn't be able to sustain themselves for long.

There came another burst of golden mana, and suddenly the darkness dissipated. His golem had temporally shifted once more, swapping places with one of its golden shadows. To where? Shiv didn't know. He was on the inside, but he knew this was unsustainable.

But Kura was back…

He projected a few strands of Vitae toward the wounded elf and seeped into her body once more. He needed another skill infusion. And he needed her to carry on when his golems were used up. He stole her wounds with his Aegis, and her legs suddenly returned into existence. Gone, who was trying to apply a tourniquet to Kura’s right leg blinked in surprise as she looked toward Shiv.

Aegis of Assimilation > [Error]

"Shiv, listen to me," Cripple continued. "I know you are badly wounded right now, but you must keep moving. The other ascendants will be upon you soon. You're not supposed to be in this place. In fact, no one in this prison is supposed to know of the atomic core's existence, but that can be used to our advantage. Do you know where the cube’s nuclear reactor core is?"

"What," Shiv cried out, "not even a little. The hell is a nuclear reactor core?”

"I think I do," Adam croaked out beside Shiv. The Deathless blinked. He looked at Adam and found the gate lord kneeling. He was on his hands and knees, and a faintness of flickering blue popped and flickered just above his head.

"Adam, no, just stay down, you're—"

"Oh, shut up," Adam wheezed. "If I'm going to die, I'm going to die standing."

And with that declaration, his Righteous Dawn flared to life once more. It wasn't nearly as bright as it was before, but it still packed that righteous glow, that soul-mending balm. Adam's radiance infused Shiv with just enough strength that his shaking stilled. And it wasn't just Shiv who received Adam's aid. Shiv saw Bonk getting up in the corner of his vision, rising from a web of silvery veins that grew along the ground akin to vines. Five was still crying out with pleas for someone to end his misery, but it sounded like he had more breath in his lungs now as well.

"I know where nuclear reactor is," Adam growled. "I met the owl there. But why? Why are we heading in that direction? Harlock attacked me there. He assumed Shiv’s guise and tore through the ravens to get at me."

"Because if I increase the core reactor's activity to maximum level, it will suppress all magic in the area, ambient or not, and that might give us a chance to escape," Adam summarized.

Another wave of Chronomancy slammed into Shiv. The Deathless nearly doubled over. Adam helped him stay upright, but both of them cried out in pain as their burn wounds collided.

"Yeah," Shiv said, "if I'm going to fall over, just let me fall."

"Sorry," Adam coughed out hoarsely.

"And so? And so?" Bonk called out. Shiv looked at the orc and winced as he realized that Bonk's eyes were melted shut. "Might not be able to see very good right now, but did I happen to hear a plan in motion? Is this something I could hit?"

"I think we're going to find out in a couple of seconds," Adam called out to the only healthy members of their group, relatively healthy anyway. "Chronomancer!"

"Give me a felling moment," Kura groaned in reply.

"No, there's no moment!" Adam said. "We're going to need to rely on you. You too, Gone. Most of us are in no condition to fight.”

"Do I look like I'm in any condition to move?" the elf called back sarcastically. She wiggled her foot. “I just got these back.”

"More than us," Adam snarled. "Shiv is going to run out of vitality soon." He slurred and blinked. Shiv snapped a hand in front of Adam, and the Gate Lord managed to stop himself from passing out. "Ah, wait! His golems are going to run out of vitality soon. The Chronomancy is going to run out. It's not going to be able to last. We're going to move this cape onto one of your shadows. We need to... you need to start making clones right now. We need to make the transition fast."

"Got it," the goblin said. “I’ll make sure you all get across.” Her words left her lips like crossbow bolts, and in a burst of speed, she vanished.

"Alright," Adam called aloud. He waved a hand as he slumped toward the exit. "Everyone out! Prepare to transition! Shiv, get the wolf up! He can whimper later!"

The Deathless grumbled as he followed Adam's orders. He reached down and plucked Five off the ground. The wolf-man let out a shriek, and Shiv empathized with his pain. "Alright," he slurred, "you're gonna be fine, I think. I hope.”

"I don't feel very fine," Five shot back, barely managing to retain his dignity.

Something drifted past Shiv. He caught sight of a golden shadow passing through the dimensional portal, then another, then another, and soon a small army of golden shadows slipped out ahead of Adam. Just then, he felt something flutter by. Before he could react, something slammed into him, dragged him out into the open, into the humid tunnels once more. The world blurred around Shiv as he let out a pained growl. In the next moment, he found himself tumbling, and he landed on the ground, only to discover he was back within the forest of alloy.

Gone leaned over him. There was a deep gash running along the left side of her chin. A droplet of blood splashed against Shiv's nose. She held something up for him to see, and Shiv blinked as he realized he was looking at his own severed arm. Shiv look at his right forearm and found it missing. Blood spurted out from his stump and his bone flickered between a red-gold hue and the plain white of a Pathless’s skeleton.

"Sorry," Gone said, apologizing tersely. "Managed to rip this off while pulling you through. Your Toughness suddenly got really bad.”

"Yeah, that happens… That happens," Shiv repeated. "I got stabbed with an Animancy dagger. It's not your fault." He pushed himself up. Again, to his surprise, he couldn't really even feel the dismemberment. No, the main source of pain concerning him was still the burns. Blood gushed out from his many wounds, but as he swiped his aegis through himself, he managed to replace his missing arm. "Alright, what now?"

He looked to his left and found Kura strapped to Adam's back. Ripples of Chronomancy radiated free from her body, and a look of concentration left deep furrows on her brow. Her legs were missing again; a series of tightly tied cords choked the blood to her stumps.

“The hells keeps tearing your legs off?” Shiv asked.

“Daughter,” Kura snarled. “And when this is done, my debt to you is paid proper. You have no idea how many times I preserved your life at the cost of my flesh.”

“If we get out of this, I’ll even godsdamned cook for you as thanks,” Shiv muttered.

The elf stared at him. “Is that a jest?”

“No. I’m a good cook. I would be a great one if the system would stop trying to fucking kill me and give me a second to rest!”

Adam's eyes were glowing, and Shiv realized he was using his Seer of Horizons to navigate. Time and time again, Chronomantic wavelengths crashed into Shiv. Every transition made him bite back a scream of pain, but they were moving. They were fleeing somewhere.

"Keep going, follow the tunnel, just keep following the tunnel," Adam let out a miserable groan as he readied a Veil Piercer. Shiv wondered if he had the strength to release the arrow, and his answer came as Adam nearly folded over the moment he tried to draw his bow back.

Shaking his head, Shiv staggered over to his friend and gripped the string as well. "We'll do this together," Shiv breathed. “Come on, Gate Lord. Bend that little arm of yours.”

“Eat shit, you oversized ape,” Adam gritted his teeth. Still, he gave Shiv a thankful look, and they both pulled. Thanks to Shiv's Shapeless Tides suddenly working again, Adam managed to draw the bow back, and he released it. As soon as he did, a piece of his finger went missing. Even so, a gap was sheared open before them. 

A dimensional pathway was revealed, and through that pathway, they saw the tunnel once more. A small army of golden shadows were racing down the curving path. There was no more steam in the air, and as they sped ahead, a wave of crawling darkness chased after them.

"Candles!" Adam cried out. "Candles, get in front of the pathway!"

Shiv blinked. He barely noticed where the Pyromancer was earlier. As he swung his head around, he found Candles being propped up by Bonk like he was some kind of weapon, and that was ultimately necessary considering Candles no longer had any limbs. For the first time, Shiv heard the pyromancer complain about something.

"Too much fire, too much," Candle shook his head. "I don't want to burn anymore. It hurts too bad."

"You have to!" Adam shrieked. "If you don't, we're gonna get taken by the Ascendants! They're gonna put us back in those cells for years! Do you want to spend years in the cells again?"

Candles let out a sob, and with that, flames erupted around him, brilliant flames that spilled free from his being and poured forth through the dimensional pathway. Before the Ascendant of midnight could reach in and compromise Shiv's final sanctuary, it was scoured from the world by a beam of dense pyromancy. Candle channeled his flame with an agonized cry, and Bonk joined in soon as his hands started burning anew.

"Yeah!" Adam cried out. Suddenly, he looked over his shoulder, and the elf flinched in surprise. "Go right! Go right here! Go through the door!"

There came a loud sound outside. It was the noise of a blade carving through dense meters of alloy. Another Chronomantic burst hit Shiv, and this time he collapsed. An inky darkness crawled over his vision, and the pain he felt faded to prickles of static. He didn't know if he was unconscious for one second or ten years, but by the time he returned, he found himself on his feet, getting dragged every step of the way.

"Come on!" Adam cried. Shiv found himself being pulled along by the gate lord. Behind, the sound of clashing metal and buckling walls made Shiv push forward. A small army of golden shadows were left in place to hold the doorway, preventing the darkness from pushing through. He realized he was moving along a circular walkway right now, and at the center of the room was a large, spinning pillar. It hummed loudly with energy, and a prickling sensation danced across Shiv's many burns.

"Where the hell are we?" Shiv asked.

"Reactor," Adam replied quickly. The gate lord held Cripple's core high and called out, "Cripple! We're here! What do we do now? Cripple? Cripple!" But the Ascendant didn't reply. "Godsdamn it. Alright, we need... we need..." He paused. "You said Five is a member of Aviary?"

Shiv nodded.

"Bonk, pass me the wolf-man!"

"Here you go, Gate Lord!" Bonk cried aloud. Shiv turned just in time to see Bonk literally chuck Five into the air. Of course, he also chucked him in the wrong direction. Bonk's blindness had caused him to throw the wolf-man against a nearby wall instead. Five gave a pained squeak as he tumbled down, and in the next moment, he was dragged along and placed next to Adam by a suddenly appearing Gone. The goblin's face was a mess of cuts and bruises by this point. She was also missing a few fingers.

"Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry," she repeated over and over again, her head snapped back between Shiv, Adam, and the entrance the small army of golden shadows were trying to hold.

"Yes, hurry!" Kura groaned with building strain. Shiv could feel the sheer amount of Chronomancy pouring out from her body. There was so much mana that it put the Recollector to shame, but even that wasn't going to be enough against the avatars and Ascendants.

"Five! Five, get up! Look, look at me!" Adam reached down to shake the wolf-man, and he tried to push the gate lord away, but Five was ruined, and his ability to endure pain was near non-existent compared to Shiv.

"Stop! Stop! It hurts! It hurts too much!"

"It's going to be worse if you don't help me! You're going back in the cage! Do you want to?"

At the mention of the cage, Five managed to open one of his eyes, and Shiv saw the wolf-man's pupils dilate. "Agh. Okay. Okay. It doesn’t hurt too much.”

"Good! You're an Aviary agent, right?"

Five hesitated. "I told him that," Shiv called out.

"Technically, I'm burned," Five began.

"I don't care what your official listed status is! Do you know how to do anything to that?" Adam pointed toward the large rod spinning at the center of the room, and Five's eyes widened.

"Is that... is that some kind of nuclear reactor?"

"You tell me," Adam said. "I have no idea about this ancient technology business. The owl introduced this thing to me, and he said that it gave me radiation."

"Radiation?" Shiv muttered. "What do you mean radiation?"

"This place, it's filled with radiation! We are all irradiated!”

“Then why did you bring us here?!" Kura nearly screeched.

"Because the Ascendant told me to come here!"

"What Ascendant?!" Kura's eyes went wide. "Why are we listening to some Ascendant?!"

"I am trying to help you!" Cripple's voice echoed through the room like a crashing wave of thunder, echoing from the reactor core in Adam’s hand. "Shiv! Adam! You’re in place. Good. You need to find the mainframe within the reactor core and set everything to maximum capacity. That will create a mana suppressing effect and give you an opening to escape.”

"And where might this mainframe be?" Adam asked.

"I think... I think I know." Five suddenly stood up. His head snapped toward the ceiling, and Shiv looked upward for the first time as well. He saw additional rings, additional ringed walkways extending above, and a few shredded ravens hung over the edge. Their tattered remains dripped with viscera, and Shiv shuddered at the state of their bodies. They had been absolutely ripped apart by Harlock. 

The poor bastards didn't have a chance at all, Shiv thought to himself.

"I need to go up," Five said. "Can someone—" and then he vanished in a burst of speed. The next moment, Shiv saw Five appear a level above him. The wolf-man cried out in surprise and pain, but then Shiv heard Five follow up with, "No! It's still higher! As high as you can go!”

"Shiv!" Cripple continued. "I am moving a specialized cube nearby. I cannot get it in place to be directly adjacent with the reactor, however, it shouldn't be far away. If you can manage to open a gap through one of the nearby walls and enter the space between, I should be able to guide you to the cube. With the reactor active, it should make it difficult for the Ascendants to track you as well, but only if you move fast."

Shiv didn't even bother replying. Instead, he sprinted along the walkway, ignoring the bursts of pain passing through his body. As he came to a halt in front of the aluminum walls, he pressed his hands against it and willed his shapeless tides to come back. It took around three seconds for his skill to fully reactivate, and by then, Kura was on the verge of breaking.

"I can't hold them back! I can't hold them back much longer! Hurry! Hurry!"

Shiv drove his first tides into the wall, and he began to pry in two directions. The metal peeled—but then Shiv’s skill cut out once more. “FUCK!”

Still, it was enough to make an opening in the wall and—

“You know, Cripple really isn’t very good at the whole being subtle and slick thing.” Through the gap Shiv made, Veronica stared flatly at Shiv. “You got a pretty interesting Unique Skill, though. You and the Young Lord both. How about you both surrender and submit yourselves to me and put this misery to an end?”