Aetheral Space

Chapter 553 17.25: Beyond Bullseye (Part 1)

Many Years Ago…May Mayacull was an empty person.

It wasn't an uncommon affliction. On Hepox, things often ended up hollow. The desert planet had once been the home of the UAP's largest weapons refinery, but those glory days had long since passed. Now the land of firearms was nothing but a polluted wasteland, filled with those gone mad and those without souls.

May was one of the latter, following after one of the former.

She walked alongside June and July, the three children pulling the sled containing most of their supplies. The stupid thing was meant to float, but one of the repulsors had gone the other night, and now it needed their help to pull it along. Her arms ached. They'd been at this for hours.

Her dull gaze drifted to the head of their little procession, moving through the ravaged desert with purposeless purpose. With his oldest follower January by his side, Herntz Undecimber strode jauntily across the contaminated sand, his wild white hair creating a sharp and jagged silhouette. A golden rifle was strapped to his back, glittering in the sunlight. The old man often liked to boast of how his gaudy rifle had been the work of the Maker-Guild's Gunsmith, but May had seen him painting it at night. Even if it was a fake, though, the bullets worked just fine.

Undecimber was what people called a 'maniac'. He often liked to tell stories of when he had been a hero to the people of Hepox, of when he had fought bandits and robbers to protect others, but if those stories had ever been true they certainly weren't anymore. Now he was little more than a bandit himself, wandering the wastes with a gang of orphans.

Maybe Hepox had just hollowed him out too. This was the sort of planet that allowed only the exterior of a person to survive. He had more lucid episodes, though, and when those came he could even dispense what might have been wisdom.

May often thought to the time he'd been showing them how to shoot. He'd hung a circular target from the branch of a withered tree and fired six times. Under the watch of a rippling sun, he'd landed six perfect shots right in the centre of the target. When she'd asked him how he did that, he'd just giggled and replied.

"The target don't mean nothing. The bullseye don't mean nothing. So long as what's beyond the bullseye is something you wanna hit more than anything else… you'll land the shot every time."

That was when May took a step to the side, and saw what he meant.

They weren't alone out on the plains. Undecimber had built a reputation for himself over the last few years -- bounty hunters and lawmen were always trying their luck for the price on his head. Right before Undecimber's demonstration, someone had been climbing off of a hoverbike on the horizon, facing their direction. Putting whether or not the guy had truly been after the Calendar Gang aside… he definitely wasn't now.

Now he lay on the ground, his head a ruin, brought down by six perfect shots.

AETHERAL SPACE 17.25

"Beyond Bullseye (Part 1)"

DAY 3

"Hey there," said Gregori Hazzard smugly. "Hands up."

With a gun pressed against her back, May Miracle didn't have much choice. Slowly, she raised her hands, her gaze fixed straight forward. She could see the reflection of her captor in the the tank that surrounded this massive room -- Gregori Hazzard, the prisoner that had escaped during the chaos on Serendipity. It looked like he'd fully thrown in his lot with Pandershi and Darkstar, then.

Hazzard was wearing a thick white parka, blonde hair hanging low over his right eye, his lips quirked upwards in a smirk. The bright orange pistol he was holding May up with wasn't any kind she'd ever seen. Probably a Pandershi original, in that case.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

One by one, the remaining Seelie Rangers leapt up to the third level of the backup control centre, repulsors in their boots propelling them high. Soon enough, three rifles had joined the pistol keeping May in place. She took a deep breath.

"You seem surprised," Gregori said. "Honestly, you shouldn't be. This was a really stupid plan. Did your brain turn into mush after going three days without sleeping?"

May's mind worked as she listened to Gregori's words. She hadn't just gotten unlucky here. Hazzard had been lying in wait. Judging from the angle he'd appeared from, there'd probably been some maintenance compartment in the auto-brain -- he'd been hiding there until May made her appearance.

But this guy was strong -- she'd seen that back on Serendipity, when everything had come to a close. He shouldn't have been able to see through her cloaking. How, then…?

May wasn't at her best. Her emotions were showing on her face, and Gregori's smirk spread further as he recognised them.

"Just because Pandershi isn't over in the UAP anymore," he said slowly, as if explaining something very simple to a baby. "That doesn't mean he doesn't still have eyes and ears over there. If the Nowhere Woman is nowhere to be found, there's only so many places she could have gone… and there's only so many things she'd want to do here in Auberon."

"So it was a trap," she muttered.

"Obviously. Seriously, how stupid can you be?"

It seemed Gregori hadn't recognised May's biggest question from her expression, so she finally decided to voice it aloud. "How did you see me?" she asked.

"What's that?"

"My ability," she snapped. "Someone as strong as you shouldn't have been able to perceive me at all. Even if you were waiting for me, you shouldn't have been able to spot me. How?"

"Oh," Gregori chuckled. "That's easy. I've already been making preparations for getting rid of my Aether, so I just used that experience. I was able to reduce my infusion to the level of one of these weaklings…" He nodded at the nearest Seelie Ranger. "...so I saw you just fine. Did you think we didn't know how your ability worked? Pandershi's put together files on all of you Nebula."

She took in a deep breath, her hands still up, her long shadow cast over the surface of the tank. Despite everything, though, despite having a gun to her back, despite her complete defeat, despite her impending death, her thoughts weren't on any of those things. Instead, what she kept thinking, over and over again, was…

What am I doing here?

Why did I do this? This isn't like me. This isn't how I am. This is just my job. I do it for the money, and nothing else. There was no possibility of reward here. Why did I go out of my way to do all this?

What was I thinking?

It was a genuine question, aimed at herself. May Miracle was an empty person -- or, at the very least, a person who didn't know her own interior. What was behind the bullseye she'd been aiming at tonight?

Nobody else would tell her, and she couldn't tell herself. At any rate, the time for introspection had passed. In the reflection, she saw Gregori Hazzard's index finger tighten around the --

The lights went out.

bang-bang

The shots were simultaneous.

As soon as the room was plunged into darkness, May Miracle whirled around. Even in this pitch-black space, she was confident in her aim. She fired her revolver at the exact same time Hazzard fired his own weapon, and twin muzzle flashes illuminated the chamber for the briefest of moments. Neither of them were hit. The two bullets collided in mid-air, fused together by heat and motion, the gestalt ricocheting and lodging deep inside the railing.

The room turned black again.

bang-bang-bang-bang

Four shots, three screams, three falling corpses. The remaining Seelie Rangers had been efficiently killed with three bullets -- while the fourth, aimed at Gregori Hazzard's head, had been deflected by a blade-arm at the last moment. When the muzzle flashes died again, however, darkness did not return to dominion. Whatever miracle had turned off the power had come to an end.

White light blazed around the chamber once more -- but, to the eyes of Gregori Hazzard, May Miracle was no longer there.

Gregori's crimson eyes flicked around, taking in the situation.

He didn't know what had taken out the power for those couple of seconds. The timing couldn't have been coincidental. Something Miracle had arranged in advance? If it wasn't, she was certainly living up to her namesake. The power was back on now, but he'd be ready if it happened again.

Four bodies at his feet, three of them corpses. That had been some fancy shooting. May Miracle had managed to land three perfect shots in complete darkness. If she'd hit Gregori, too, it would've been a hat-trick, but he wasn't incompetent enough for that to work.

He pulled the melted bullet free from the railing and stuffed it in his pocket before looking down, one eyebrow raised.

Scratch that. Two corpses.

The Seelie Ranger at Gregori's feet was still letting out a gurgling death-rattle as blood poured from the hole in his neck. Gross. Gregori wrinkled his nose at the sight before looking up again to address the empty room.

"How cruel!" he called out, walking across the dying man's body. "Don't you have a human heart?"

No response. After all, the room was supposedly empty -- but Gregori knew better. May Miracle was still here. All she'd done was reactivate her cloaking.

Paper-white Aether crackled around Gregori's body. In order to counter Miracle's attack in the dark, he'd returned his infusion to its usual potency -- but in doing so, he'd restored the efficacy of Miracle's cloaking on him. He could easily spot her again by just reducing his infusion…

…but if their positions were reversed, that was exactly what Gregori would want.

He had no doubt that she had her gun trained on him, even now, ready to fire the moment he made himself vulnerable. With his infusion reduced to the minimum, one of those powerful revolver shots could bring about a serious -- maybe even lethal -- wound. He couldn't afford to be careless.

No. He would not lift his infusion yet.

If he was her, then the thing he'd least want in this situation would be this. Gregori lifted his arm and tapped away at his wrist-bound script. Immediately, the white light all around shifted to a menacing red, and a secondary seal slammed shut over the doors.

"Deadlocked," Gregori explained, lowering his arm as he slowly walked across the walkway, circling the auto-brain and looking down at the room. "I know you haven't already escaped, since I didn't hear the doors open or close. Right now, your goal is to get out of here, isn't it? Let me tell you -- the only way those doors are opening is with this watch. And just in case you're thinking you can use your cloaking to steal it off me or something…"

Click.

He unclasped the script from around his wrist, lifted it high into the air by the band…

…and dropped it into his open mouth.

Gulp.

Some creative folding of the inside of his throat dealt with the gag reflex quite nicely, and so the watch went down easily. Gregori licked his lips mockingly as he leaned over the railing, still scanning the floor far below. A sign, a tell, a single mistake -- his eyes were on full alert for any of those things.

"If you want to leave this place," he said. "It'll literally be through my dead body."

The chamber was silent, save for the soft swishing of water as the eel-things swam around the perimeter. Gregori gripped the railing tight. From here on in, it was a game of resolve. Both of them knew that Gregori had reinforcements on the way -- plenty of Seelie Rangers who could see right through May Miracle's ability. If she let them arrive, then her defeat was assured. Meanwhile, all Gregori had to do was stand here long enough to achieve victory.

Without a question, the mental pressure on his opponent was immense. If she didn't act first, she would lose. If she didn't discard her advantage, she would die.

Gregori smiled to himself as he imagined the turmoil his enemy must have been feeling.

This is the limit for a human being.

You're trapped right now, aren't you? Not just within this room, but within the limits of your abilities. Limits you can stretch, but never truly exceed.

It's awful, isn't it? Don't you feel disgusting? Trapped in such a useless body?

bang

It's unbearable.

Gregori spun around, his arm already folded into a blade, and deflected the incoming bullet -- but when he went to follow up and counter, he found no target before him. Despite the level angle of the bullet, he was still alone on the walkway. Had she cloaked again? No, according to the file, the cloaking should have been deactivated when she attacked -- and there had to be more of a cooldown than this.

Then how…?

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He realized just in time. A ricochet!

Miracle had used the reinforced curved tank that surrounded the room in order to reflect her bullet, sending it flying towards Gregori from a deceptive angle. Now that Gregori was facing that way, Miracle exploded into motion -- charging out from behind the cover of the auto-brain and running directly at him with everything she had. Her eyes were burning with a furious resolve.

Shit!

Gregori spun on his heel once more, raising his gun to point at the incoming enemy. Pandershi had hyped this gun up, but now would be the true test. A direct hit would be quite the show.

He lifted his finger towards the trigger.

Wait. Why is she running at me?

His finger curled around the trigger.

Wouldn't her best move have been to shoot me in the back while I'm distracted? It would have been the most natural course of action, too. She intentionally decided to charge at me like this. Why?

Is she trying to bait me into something?

His finger did not pull the trigger.

Her cloaking deactivates when she launches an attack, but how exactly does her ability define an 'attack'? Would an act of sabotage count? Hepox is the holy land of firearms. They worship gunpowder gods over there. If anyone could do it, she could.

The gun felt warm.

What if she wasn't just hiding or trying to escape earlier? What if she was already making her preparations?

At the last moment, Gregori hurled the pistol towards Miracle -- and barely a second after the weapon had left his hand, it exploded. Whatever the woman had done to the gun, it had caused a disastrous buildup of heat within the chassis. If Gregori had been holding it for even a second longer, he could have had his hand blown off.

He leapt back, away from the spreading cloud of acrid smoke, and as he did --

bang-bang-bang-bang

-- four bullets zoomed through the smokescreen. Even with Miracle being unable to see Gregori, her aim was perfect. If the shots had hit, they surely would have dealt serious damage.

If they hit.

A gun had been an unnecessary crutch for Gregori Hazzard from the beginning. Folding both of his arms into blades, he easily deflected the four shots, the bullets thudding into the floor of the walkway around him instead. All that remained was the shooter.

White smoke continued to spread out from the ruptured gun on the floor, but May Miracle was nowhere to be seen. Surely she wasn't hiding in that smoke, though. Given the properties of the gun, just making contact with that vapour would inflict nasty chemical burns.

A thought occurred, a dull brick in Gregori's stomach. How long had it been since Miracle had deactivated her cloaking? Ten seconds? Fifteen?

What if that was the extent of her cooldown?

His dread was proven valid just a moment later. Nothing appeared in front of him. There was no blip of vision where something ceased to be invisible.

He just looked down, and realized that May Miracle was already right before him, pressing the barrel of her revolver against his stomach.

bang

Paper Moon!

Folding wasn't the only thing you could do with paper. Right as Miracle fired, Gregori twisted his torso, mitigating the damage and turning what would have been a gutshot into a long scrape against his abdomen. Even with the pain, Gregori grinned widely.

He'd been keeping count, after all.

Most likely, after Miracle had killed the Seelie Rangers and cloaked for the first time, she'd taken the opportunity to reload her revolver. Any shots before that point were irrelevant. She'd fired once to distract Gregori, then four more times through the smokescreen, then once again with her point-blank attack. Six shots in all.

So now she was out.

The blades that Gregori had made out of his hands danced through the air, slashing at his opponent. Miracle managed to weave past the first strike, but the second caught her on the shoulder -- a high-pitched cry of pain rang through the air as blood sprayed across the walkway.

May Miracle was a stealth specialist. She was strong enough to be counted among the Nebula, sure, but a head-on fight like this wasn't her forte. Add her exhaustion and deprivation on top of that, and Gregori's dominance was assured. His victory grew closer with every passing second.

Still, he couldn't be careless.

As he continued to advance, striking at Miracle again and again, grazing slashes opening new wounds in his opponent's body, he was very much aware of his enemy's cooldown. If he could take the interval from before as accurate, then Miracle could reactivate her cloaking about fifteen seconds after deactivating it. That time had already passed while she'd been dodging his attacks, so now she was making a conscious choice not to use it. That meant she was waiting for the perfect moment. Such an ability had more uses beyond sneaking around, after all.

Miracle went on the attack.

She flipped her revolver around in her hand, gripping it by the barrel, and swung the handle towards the side of Gregori's head. He went to duck, to let the blow sail over his head, but right before he did so, May Miracle vanished from his perception.

His eyes widened as he froze for an instant --

A feint!

-- and then the handle of the revolver slammed into Gregori's temple.

Just as Gregori had predicted, the cloaking had been used for a feint, but he'd underestimated the extent of it. By suddenly cloaking in the middle of a swing, Miracle had made him think she'd change her angle of attack -- and that assumption had caused him to hesitate. In actuality, she'd simply continued with her original trajectory and allowed the cloaking to deactivate barely a second later.

Gregori backed up, unfolding his blades and clutching his head with one hand. With the other, he first seized tight hold of Miracle's jacket -- but when she kicked him away, he staggered back and grabbed the railing instead. It was obvious looking at him that he'd been thoroughly dazed by that hit to the head, his vision wavering as he kept tight hold. More than confusion, though, there was rage.

He ground his teeth together, full of the fury of someone pulled down by one beneath them.

"Miracle!" he snarled.

May Miracle was an empty person.

She knew that, in a very real sense, she was incomplete. There was something other people had, some vital spark, that had been snuffed out from her when she was young. A mother bleeding out from shrapnel and a father hanging from a rope.

Were those images what had done it? She couldn't say. The necessary understanding of herself was something she also lacked. Her life was a path clouded in fog -- she could barely see anything around her, but somehow she still knew with certainty the direction she would go.

She pursued glory, but she didn't know why.

She pursued wealth, but she didn't know why.

She pursued victory, but deep down, deep down, she didn't know why.

Under these circumstances, though, she didn't pursue anything at all. This time she retreated. May leapt off of the walkway, gripping hold of the bottom of the floor to swing onto the second level below. In terms of close-quarters combat, she wasn't a match for Hazzard -- once he saw through her tricks, it would be over.

She took advantage of the brief freedom. Her weapon was empty, but her hands were well-practiced. She reloaded her revolver, all six bullets, in the same time it took to breathe -- and that was just in the nick of time.

A spear came for her life.

It came from the walkway above, piercing down through it and nearly getting her on the top of her head. She rolled away to avoid the first blow, but more soon followed. The white spear crackled with Aether as it retracted and lunged -- again and again and again, each time opening a hole in the ceiling above her. May was forced to dance backwards to avoid the successive blows.

This was Hazzard's ability, Paper Moon.

Just like he'd twisted his torso earlier, he'd now twisted his leg into a long spear -- and he was driving it through the floor in pursuit of her. It was a smart choice. Hazzard didn't want to risk exposing himself to more of her shots -- so he was attacking from a position where she couldn't return fire.

His blind strikes were getting more accurate each time, too. Sooner or later, if things went on like this, he'd get her.

I gotta reactivate cloaking.

The ability activation accompanied the thought… but just as soon as her cloaking returned, May realized she'd miscalculated. The white Aether that had been crackling around the spear suddenly wasn't confined just to it. Instead, that paper-white Aether was coursing through the entire structure at the centre of the room -- auto-brain, walkways, and all.

He'd been ready for this. Her gut confirmed it -- something about this place was now extraordinarily dangerous. There was no time for strategy or complex tactics. The only thing her brain could latch onto was the oldest animal instinct.

May leapt off the side of the walkway --

The Unfolded World.

-- and in doing so, saved her own life.

The auto-brain, the walkways… as one, they suddenly changed shape, becoming a chaotic mass of spikes that surely would have torn her to shreds. Sparks flew from the auto-brain as the sudden change in configuration thoroughly decommissioned it. The metal walkways screeched as they were twisted illogically.

In a single moment, a murderous tree had been shaped in the centre of the control centre.

May prepared to hit the ground. With her infusion, she didn't necessarily have to worry too much about injury, but you could never be too careful. She really didn't want to lose track of Hazzard in the chaos either, but --

-- oh. There was no risk of that.

Hazzard had leapt off of the walkway too, right as he'd used his ability on it, and now he was plummeting to the ground as well. He was upside down, but May could still make out the smirk on his face… and more than that, she could tell exactly what he was looking at. Her.

His leg was normal again, his blades returned to hands, only the tips of his fingers just slightly folded into claws. His Aether infusion was minimal. It was the same way he'd seen through May's cloaking in the first place -- by weakening himself enough that it wasn't effective.

Well, that was fine. That just meant he'd let his defenses down at last. Still in mid-air, May pointed her revolver at her fellow falling one.

That was when May Miracle saw it. The look on his face. The expression that made some distant primitive part of her brain recoil.

A wide grin, made ugly by malice.

"Heh."

Everything happened, all at once.

White Aether roared.

His hand folded.

And a blade like a scythe… slashed.

May Miracle's ability wasn't difficult to get around at all, once you understood the mechanics of it.

When she was using it, those heavily influenced by Aether would be unable to perceive her. The efficacy of the cloaking technique decreased the less infusion the observer had. By reducing his own infusion to the minimum, Gregori could see through it just fine.

Perhaps his enemy had thought that was somehow still to her advantage. But what was stopping him from just using his weaker state to spot his target, then restoring his infusion right before he launched his attack? Being unable to see the enemy just for a second wasn't that big of a deal. Everyone blinked, after all.

Gregori flipped in the air and landed on his feet, appreciating the results of his gambit.

The attack he'd just unleashed had taken him one step into the realm of the Aether burn. Steam rose from his body, and a faint ache pulsed in his bones. The air pressure from his slash had even struck the tank, leaving a deep gash in the glass -- if it wasn't as reinforced as it was, the whole thing surely would have shattered there and then.

And then there was the enemy sprawled across from him.

May Miracle had twisted her body in the air at the last moment, avoiding the worst of the blow, but even the best of it was nothing to scoff at. Her right arm had been ravaged, scorched by proximity to the strike, blood pouring from the limp limb. Gregori smirked to himself as he rose up fully.

"I doubt you'll be reloading again with an arm like that," he teased. "You'd better make these last six bullets count."

Miracle panted for breath, glaring up at him from her knees… and without a word, she pointed her gun at his face. He rolled his eyes at the futile gesture. How sad. This woman was about to die, and she was still engaging in clichés like this.

"Oh, forget it," he said. "Even when I'm like this, I can still dodge such an obvious shot. You need to --"

Booster Shot.

Indeed, so long as Gregori knew the trajectory and timing, he could have dodged a bullet.

But May Miracle did not fire a bullet. She fired a bolt of her own Aether, zooming at the speed of thought, and it struck Gregori head on before he even realized she'd fired. He only realized he'd even been hit when he blinked…

…and May Miracle vanished from his perception.

He narrowed his eyes in annoyance. It didn't take a genius to work out what happened, and the file had mentioned this anyway. May Miracle had a second ability -- Booster Shot. It intensified the Aether of the target for a few seconds, bringing weaker targets under the effects of Miracle's cloaking. It seemed that, in her desperation, she'd opted to use that tactic here too.

Moron.

Even if she intensified it, this was still his Aether. It was easy for him to reduce it again and bypass her cloaking. In fact, he did just that without moving a muscle.

Miracle was still right there in front of him. Still on her knees, still pointing her gun, still bleeding. She'd accomplished nothing.

Gregori Hazzard took a step forward…

…and May Miracle pulled the trigger.

Gregori had been prepared for another bullet like all the ones fired so far -- something he could easily block or deflect. Any other time, he would have been correct. But this time he had looked away.

That mistake would cost him.

May Miracle's revolver exploded with the force of a cannon, a colossal blast of heat and force surging through the air towards Gregori. He went to leap back -- he went to get out of the way -- he went to escape! But the second he did…

…the little Aether around his body disappeared completely.

"Huh?!"

The blast struck him head on.

A few seconds earlier…

The instant after Booster Shot hit Gregori Hazzard, May Miracle put the gun to her own head and pulled the trigger.

Booster Shot.

Booster Shot.

Booster Shot.

Booster Shot.

Just because this ability was designed to power up her enemies, it didn't mean she couldn't use it on herself. Using powers in unintended ways was the very foundation of Aether combat. Just like when she used it on an external target, the boost would only last a few seconds, but she'd make it count.

Hazzard seemed pretty intent on the strategy he'd come up with to get around her cloaking. That made it easy to predict what he'd do once hit with Booster Shot. He'd just lower his Aether infusion again…

…which was exactly what May wanted.

Assuming Hazzard lowered his infusion to the very limit again, then in the moment that Booster Shot's surplus disappeared, he wouldn't have any Aether infusion at all. That would be the same moment that May would fire her own attack, powered-up by four uses of Booster Shot. Even if the blow wasn't fatal, it would surely be debilitating.

She had judged her opponent correctly. Just as she'd predicted, Gregori lowered his infusion, looked her right in the eye…

…and went flying back as she filled him full of lead.

The resultant cloud of smoke devoured half the room, and the crack of Hazzard's body hitting the tank bounced across the walls. Slowly, taking care of her injured arm, May rose to her feet. Her breathing was laboured, her skin clammy.

She wasn't out of the woods yet.

One of her arms was out of the picture, her revolver was out of bullets, and she wouldn't believe Hazzard was dead until she saw his corpse. As if that wasn't bad enough, the room was still locked down, and Hazzard's reinforcements would be here any minute. But that didn't mean she would give up. She couldn't give up.

May Miracle was an empty person, but even so…

I don't know what's beyond my bullseye… she thought, steeling herself. …but damn. I must want it real bad.