The fog of his hissing breath mists up the glossy visor of the helmet. His shoulder pulls itself taut, as his body floats away from his grip. He stares, transfixed in awed horror at this new thing that begins to slowly appear from inside of the cargo hatch, hidden beneath the array of solar-panels.

“…Kai…” mutters Gottlieb beneath his breath, his eyes going wide as he realizes. The man, if only out of reflexive horror, turns his eyes away to look at the single, blue light, which shines with a glow that would hint to him in his mind that it does so alone for him in this moment that they share.

Gottlieb’s fingers press themselves together, gripping onto the rung of the ladder that he’s holding himself against so tightly, that he can feel the circulation stopping in them.

— It’s over.

He looks back towards the thing that is new.

Kai won.

“Damn it…” mutters Gottlieb beneath his breath. The man screams. “DAMN IT!”

Kai does not respond.

[Meridian]

Meridian walks down the street of the city, fulfilling his part of the plan. It seems somewhat odd to have him be the person doing this, given that he’s sort of the key figurehead of their operation. But, given that they are also clouded in secrecy and that he hasn’t been back here in this city in years, he is ironically the least recognizable person amongst the entire troop of soldiers, guards and priests.

To anyone here, he just looks like any other old, scraggly man. There’s a little too much salt and pepper in his beard and the crow’s feet beneath his eyes are deep, worn grooves. He’s essentially invisible to anyone here.

Holding the parcel tightly against himself, beneath the robe that he has on, Meridian walks, shuffling down the busy street, walking through the roaring, vibrant crowds. The shrill cry of merchants and hawkers, peddling their wares, loudly fills his ears. Coins clink all around him and people with full carts and rucksacks make their way into all possible directions, in search of all sorts of various goods.

He stops at a corner, looking around the area. He hasn’t been here in a long time, so it’s a little confusing to navigate a place like this, considering he has lived in his lighthouse for more years than he can count now. But what choice does he have?

As the man looks over his shoulder, trying to find a street-sign, he notices somebody who is apart from the rest of the crowd. Unlike them, those buzzing, active, moving creatures, the person with the hood also stands perfectly still.

They are the only two people here who are doing so.

— He quickly shuffles down an alley to his side, clutching the parcel.

Nobody can know about this.

[Azimuth]

*Bacaw*

Azimuth squats down on the grassy hill that they’ve stopped by, on their way back to the city. She stares in joyous fascination as she finds a brief reprise from her terrible fate of being an important, powerful person.

— A chicken.

It and some others seem to have escaped a nearby farm, if she had to guess.

The chicken clucks and bawks and walks with a prideful strut that still makes her laugh to this day, as it scours the area, looking for worms or seeds or for anything else to eat. She pulls out a piece of old bread from her pouch and crumbles it apart, spreading it out for the animal.

The chicken sees her doing so and quickly approaches her. All of the other birds follow suit, clucking and squawking, as they curiously and hungrily approach.

She looks around the area. It’s unusual for chickens to be out in the wild because, well…

— She looks back down at the chickens.

One of them has seen its own reflection in her polished, metal gauntlet and stands before her, not eating the bread. Instead, it twists its head at a sharp angle and stares intently. Meanwhile, the others eat all of the bread.

The truth is, they’re just kind of dumb, really. They never survive long in the wild, because everything wants to eat them. From foxes to goblins to other chickens, even.

But she loves them for it.

The birds circle around her, going about their business. She turns her gaze, looking at the soldiers of the caravan. She had told them to stop the carriages, after she saw the chickens. “No,” says Azimuth directly, seeing them eying the birds. “Nobody is touching these chickens,” she warns, standing back upright.

A priestess, standing by the carriages, nods, chastising the soldiers for the accused crime of them having even considered doing so, despite the fact that the two men had never said a word or made a single move.

“— They belong to someone else, after all!” finishes the priestess, wagging a finger in front of their faces.

Azimuth blinks, looking at the priestess and then back towards the chickens.

People start to whisper in the crowd by the carts, a new story of her integrity and honesty spreading.

She stares at the chickens, somewhat awkwardly.

She just didn’t want anyone to hurt them.

*Bak… bak… bakaw!*

Azimuth smiles.

Chickens are the best.

[Gottlieb]

The airlock hisses behind himself, like the voice of mocking laughter, as Gottlieb drags himself back into the station.

He looks up towards the blue light above his head and then averts his gaze, taking off the helmet of the space-suit.

Quietly, the man walks through the remaining air-locks that Kai opens without any drama of any sort. In fact, they almost seem to open faster than they usually would. He throws off the space-suit, unceremoniously tossing it into a heap in the corner as he shuffles out of the room, his head drooping down low.

The man stops in the empty corridor, looking down its length. The power has returned to the station and so, it is well lit, visible and empty.

His gaze turns back towards the airlock, behind himself, as he considers his options for a moment.

Gottlieb takes the second of two fates and walks down the corridor, beneath the triumphantly shining blue eyes of Kai, as he returns towards the gunner’s bay.

[Meridian]

The old man looks over his shoulder. He’s doven between several crowds now, ran down many winding streets and many long, meandering alleyways.

— But the person following him is still there.

He rounds another bend, not sure who they are, but sure that they are trouble. He doesn’t know how anyone could recognize him here, let alone fast enough to send someone to hound him down.

That is unless one of their own had already sold him and their mission out to one of the new nobles in power.

It would only take a minute and this sort of information, the fact that someone with the king’s blood was back in the city, would be paid very handsomely for. It would be a hard temptation to resist, even for someone who had witnessed what they had all witnessed together.

— Divine intervention.

He rounds the corner and stops, having run straight into a dead-end.

The man turns around, looking at the hooded figure, who has caught up to him now. The stranger looks around the area, presumably trying to see if it's quiet enough to do what needs to be done, before facing back his way and stepping towards him.

Meridian fumbles with his belt, pulling out the small knife there. “Who are you?!” he yells. “What do you want?!” The stranger walks towards him, reaching for their belt and pulling out a dagger. Their hood drops. He stares in disbelief. “You…”

[Gottlieb]

Gottlieb takes a deep breath, standing before the shaft down to the gunner’s bay.

The man shakes his head. He doesn’t feel like taking this way down today.

Instead, for the first time in a very long time, he takes the appropriate way to reach the bay — The small, side staircase that leads downwards and through the metal door, below the geo-spatial stations.

His eyes wander up towards the gun with a sad melancholy and then over towards the console, where Grunheide sits, fumbling with a control-stick that does not seem to do anything at all.

The monitors are on, but she doesn’t have access. Kai isn’t letting her do anything.

Gottlieb sighs.

She looks over her shoulder, tensing up straight in the chair, in his chair, as she sees him. Her green face turns oddly pale.

Without a word, Gottlieb walks over to her and picks her up. The goblin cries out in fear, trying to escape from him. But he just walks over a step and then drops her into the other chair, where she had always been sitting.

Gottlieb plants himself back down onto his own seat at the gunner’s console, which is now disgustingly warm, since someone else had been sitting in it. He strengthens himself to look up towards the monitors as they buzz, the image changing to one that he knows is a live feed of a camera, from out in space. It is a live feed from Kai’s point of view of what has emerged from beneath the array of solar-panels.

His eyes rise up to look at it, as much as it aches. He knows that he needs to suffer this defeat for this all to come to an end.

It hasn’t come to an end in the way that he wanted, deep down in his heart of hearts, but… he’s simply out-gunned. There isn’t a trick, a prank, an annoyance or anything else that he can do right now to beat Kai on the level that he himself has been defeated at.

On the monitor shines a vivid image of some odd, experimental device that he can’t quite comprehend. He isn’t even close to being smart enough to know what that’s supposed to be. It’s above his pay-grade, as one would say.

But what he can say is that, attached to the long, bulbous, cylindrical extension that shoots out from the station, is a printed note, a printed picture that had likely been hung up by some maintenance robot.

The picture is of him, standing in the showers.

The text beneath it says only one, single thing -

Gottlieb clenches his fists in an attempt to control his hate for Kai, which feels very well placed right now. But it is mixed with an odd sensation of respect that he hadn’t been expecting.

He was beaten in fair combat.

'- ‘Mine is bigger than yours.'

Still. He hates Kai so much.