Living is cold unless we burn. So set yourself ablaze, my children.”
- Boundless Nails’ goodbye to her three Formless as they left for Romul.
The captain of six Seafarers and one ghost ran his hand through his hair as he stood within the heated atmosphere of the Heron’s Wing. He stared at the image taken from Joan’s recorded video on her helmet. Dante’s brows furrowed while his hands sat on the desk before him, slowly crinkling his hands in frustration.
His whole crew stood nearby. Waiting. Watching.
Just about every member had a different opinion. Some, like Lucius, were utterly against Thanaris, while Sonna was empathetic to Astraeus. Joan saw only the risk afforded by such a meeting, and Archimedes remained quiet, unable to share his opinion. Even Eidolon made his view clear. He believed Thanaris to be too powerful of an ally to skip out on.
Almost instinctively, Dante’s head turned to his side. He looked for the man who had followed him longer than any other. But he was not there.
The man closed his eyes and breathed inward. Air from the life support systems funneled into his nose and down between his lungs.
A Praetor is mere hours away. Likely just another jump. Maybe two. Is it worth it? Is...
Dante’s mind flickered to Astraeus. He knew the Dirge’s relationship with Thanaris. The Anathema would go regardless of what Dante said. That was the truth. It wasn’t a matter of Astraeus betraying their trust.
Thanaris was Astraeus’ first mentor, his first ‘captain’ that he followed. She had even gone so far as to tell him to stay with Dante. No one could blame him. Not truly.
That left Dante in a predicament, however.
Is he worth it?
The instant the thought struck him, he remembered the oath he swore on Crislend. His teeth grit as he forced himself to make the difficult choice. It was the captain’s job, after all.
They made the tough calls—the ones that everyone else would argue about. They would accept input from others—good ones, at least—but in the end, the captain made the call.
Just as Claudius’ Judge status set him as the captain to his crew and Elize Sunwin’s Praetorship had her be the captain of tens of thousands, Dante was not alone in such matters. He was, however, the one that all of the crewmembers in his skip looked to.
“Eidolon,” Dante said sharply. The transparent ghost of sleuthing mist stood to attention out of mutual respect. This was not his ship after all, and he had a deal with its captain.
Said captain turned to face Eidolon, lowering his chin as he asked gravely, “What are our chances of escape from a Praetor if they find us in the city?”
The figure before him stabilized for a second, all eyes falling upon it. Eidolon’s hazy hand graced his chin as he thought for a moment. His eyes pierced each of the crewmembers to gauge their strengths, peering into their being.
Then, he shook his head and said, “Zero if you fight. Someone like Oswen would tear you apart all at once. Imagine that Ego, but without any restrictions and ten times faster on his feet. The Darkness’ Sole Survivor is by no means weak, even by Praetorian standards. But...”
Eidolon’s voice trailed off while his eyes fell on Dante, “If you’re just trying to escape, you’ve done it once. It’s possible. Just highly unlikely.”
The captain already saw his crewmember’s reactions to his question. Some were angry, some relieved, and others... expectant.
Dante released a great sigh before he faced them all. He had made his choice. And he would live with it. Or he would die with it.
He began, “We are a crew. We haven’t been together long, but we have survived impossible odds before.” He walked throughout the Skull, pacing between the space of his crew and the raised screens. His eyes first stopped at Astraeus. “We will attend the meeting. But I will make something crystal. You all are a team. I don’t want to see you fighting. Arguing is expected. Encouraged, even. Spars are inevitable for our growths, but...”
Dante raised his finger toward his people. He spoke with words, while not angry nor calm, settled on an unknown manner of force, “You will not fight each other. No matter the disagreement. Our survival depends on each other. With even one of us missing, we would all be dead.”
Eyes flickered to one another. Despite their own feelings about each other, Joan and Lucius nodded in respect. They had saved the other in the Inferose and before it. Multiple times. Sonna smiled at Astraeus, almost ironic compared to their first meeting, while the Dirge glanced at the scrawny child amongst them.
They all had played a part. Even Eidolon.
After seeing them acknowledge each other, Dante nodded and said, “We are a team. And we will do this as one. Arch, get the ship into low orbit. You and Euclid will man it alone. The rest of us will go to this meeting. I will show up alone, but I expect to be found. Oswen is too good. All we can try is to slow him down.”
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Sonna twisted her head, jutting in with a question, “Is that why they’re going into orbit?”
With a curt nod, Dante answered her and added, “Yes. They’ll tear apart any new starships. Especially one like ours. Keep your systems off, Arch. Use your comms to follow us through the city’s cameras. I know it’ll be difficult, but you can do it.”
The boy’s head remained as high as it could go. Dante’s belief in him did wonders and filled him with a swirling energy. For a moment, every soul in the crew heard a low howl emanate from the bowls of the ship.
Dante grinned as Archimedes stepped forward and spoke up, “That’s Euclid! He says we’ll do our best! I’m not too experienced with these cameras since they are Glanecian in origin, but I’ll figure it out! Let me get started right away!”
Without a moment’s hesitance, the boy hurried to his chosen seat, pulling out a touchpad that he flicked through with blistering speed. Dante acknowledged him but didn’t stop.
He pointed to Astraeus, whose tears had stopped flowing for a while, and ordered, “You will listen to my every word. I don’t want you to step out of line or act alone. You haven’t before, but... I know how people can get in the scenarios. This isn’t my first hostage negotiation. Keep a calm head. Listen to me.”
Astraeus lowered his head for several seconds before ending with a nod. He agreed with Dante, and he made it clear, “Okay. I’ll listen.”
“Good. No rest for the wicked. Not tonight at least. Now, Lucius and Re—Sonna. Stake out the location. Astraeus, I want you to follow them but trail a little behind. Joan, you’re with me. And before we go, hand out stimulants to everyone,” Dante said as he burst into motion. His hands grabbed the gear he had set down as he prepared to move.
The doctor did as ordered, though with a grumble about being low on materials. Within the next ten minutes, Lucius and Sonna were out of the starship and heading toward the meeting point, which was ten hours away. Night had already fallen, but the two braved the dark blizzard. The Anathema trailed after them shortly after.
Joan followed Dante’s footsteps as he, too, approached the starship’s exit. She asked, “What about Eidolon?” while they stood at the hissing doorway.
Her captain laughed as snowflakes broke through the gap in the opening door, “He’s fulfilled his deal. Until I do my end, he won’t help us anymore. At least not if he doesn’t have to. I’m keeping him in the ship to protect Arch.”
Pursed lips filled the surgeon’s mouth as she placed her helmet atop her head. Then, her voice crackled into Dante’s ear, “Makes sense. Keep the boy safe. Can’t let him die so young.”
Her words forced Dante’s first step to pause, even as the cold breached into the bowels of the starship. He gazed at her and scoffed, “Maybe you are a complete psychopath.”
Joan, in return, laughed even harder and retorted, “You misunderstand me. I only wish to see what miracles he creates.”
Dante shook his head, broaching the blizzard outside. His thoughts said otherwise as the starship behind him rose into the sky, causing the winds to tear at the earth with even greater vigor. The human merely tightened his hood and continued walking toward his destination.
I don’t know if I believe that.
***************************
“What are you doing? Shouldn’t we be preparing for the meeting? I don’t see why we’ve wasted an hour walking to this empty warehouse,” Joan complained to Dante, lifting herself onto a crate filled with nothing but air.
The man smiled at her and said with a devilish grin, “This is preparing. You are here in case I hurt myself.”
“Hurt yourself doing what?” Joan asked with a raised eyebrow. She tried to find a crate of weapons or poison but found nothing.
Dante shook his head at her lack of creativity. She seemed to only have it with her science. So, he raised his right arm to prove his point and spoke softly, “I made a Lightsea Pact, remember? I am not yet... sure of the amplitude I have received.”
Joan nodded as Dante continued, explaining the intricacies of the deal he had made with the being who seemed to hate him, “It has altered, or enhanced, my Stigmata. I can still only store three Tides within it, and they now have an incubation period of a day. I can sense I can reduce that with practice, but not eliminate it entirely. But what I’ve lost in time, I’ve gained in power.”
The Hydro had three things stored within his Matchlock at the moment. He had his self-made and self-named Tides, Flick, Stem, and Slip. They weren’t anything special, not really. Perhaps Flick was a true technique worth being proud of, but the other two were ramshackle usages of Hydro.
Flick’s high-pressure gout of water could slice through stone and steel while Stem merely halted his bleeding. Slip helped him evade injuries with a burst of water at his feet, a more specialized version of what he did to run faster.
I need to test one of them to gauge the improvement. But the one I use will be gone for a full day and will likely be out of commission for the battle. Definitely not Flick. And... I can’t lose out on Stem, plus that negates the whole reason Joan is here. Slip it is.
Dante had always known which he would try out first. Nevertheless, he overthought it as usual, going over it once more.
At the twitch of his fingers, the condition for the Tide was met. And instantly, Slip activated.
A torrent of water erupted beneath Dante with an ear-shattering roar, far beyond the usual restrained burst he had grown accustomed to. It was no controlled surge—it was a deluge, a violent geyser of water exploding upward and outward with an unrelenting force. The sheer power of it didn’t just propel him several feet to the side. No, this was far more advanced.
The blast hurled Dante across the warehouse like a ragdoll in a hurricane. His legs screamed in agony as the overwhelming force shot through them, his bones groaning under the strain. He shot across the barren expanse, the speed disorienting, as he slammed into one empty crate after another. Each impact shattered the wooden boxes into splinters, their echoes reverberating off the metallic walls. The only thing that kept him together was the dual enhancement to his body of Surewinter and his augments.
The air around him felt suffocating, the water from the burst forming a dense mist that clung to everything, soaking the ground and turning it into a slick mess. The warehouse, once quiet and still, was now a floodplain of broken wood, rushing water, and Dante’s muffled curses as he tumbled to a painful stop near the far wall.
When he finally skidded to a halt, half-embedded in a pile of debris, the only sound left was the soft drip of water pooling around his crumpled form. Dante groaned, coughing as he tried to catch his breath, his vision swimming. His legs throbbed violently, and every inch of his body felt battered from the journey through splintered crates.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath, clutching at his aching ribs and the piece of wood embedded into them, still sprawled among the wreckage.
From across the warehouse, Joan’s laughter rang out. Her steady footsteps echoed as she strode toward him, casual and unhurried, as though she had just watched a mildly entertaining spectacle rather than a near self-inflicted catastrophe.
“Well, that was dramatic,” she called out, her voice laced with amusement. “I see you’ve decided to test your body’s structural integrity by launching it into as many objects as possible. Bold strategy for the night before a possible scrape with a Praetor.”
Joan stopped a few feet away from him, two pairs of hands on her hips as she looked down at the sopping mess of a man before her. Her lips curved into a sly grin while her antenna surged, her eyes glinting with both amusement and admiration, “Honestly, I’m impressed. You’ve outdone yourself this time, my dear Penance. But you do realize that if you keep this up, I’m going to run out of materials to patch you back together.”
Dante let out a low groan, still clutching his ribs, but managed to twist his neck enough to glare at her. “This... this isn’t funny,” he wheezed, though the faintest hint of a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. He shook it away a moment later as he forced himself to his feet and ripped out the shard of wood in his chest.
With a cruel cough, he asked, “What do you think? Ten times enhancement?”
Her head wavered slightly, unsure, “I’d say... closer to twenty.”
Dante’s eyes lit up as though he found a universal truth, “Twenty-four. It just makes sense! The day delay. And... what am I feeling...?”
The human frowned in confusion as he still sensed the presence of Slip within his Stigmata. It hadn’t vanished. It had merely... fallen into the background. Such a change meant he wouldn’t have to replace the same Tide with another every time.
But he also felt something that made his eyes widen.
That stored, fallen version of the Tide was different from the one he had just used. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he did. It had grown. Only a tiny bit, equal to a slight piece of a standard Slip, but the smile on his face outdid the pain of the blood trailing down his chest.
He couldn’t wait to see what Flick would do.
Dante’s stumbled forward to the nearest non-broken crate. Though it was soggy, he sat without complaint and looked to Joan.
“Patch me up. We got shit to do.”