The forest was fused.

As Dragan forced himself to his feet, groaning, he could see it. Great white pillars and bookshelves were rising out of the ground amidst the trees, the sky above brightening until it became an empty blanket. His Archive intruding upon reality.

If he was seeing this, he must be in some serious trouble.

"Well, aren't you smart?" the Archivist asked, sitting down on a nearby tree-stump, legs crossed.

"Shut up," Dragan wheezed, tasting blood in his throat. "What happened?"

The Archivist nodded to Dragan's opponent. "Take a look for yourself."

Commissioner Marcela Caesar was still standing in the middle of the clearing, looking at him with dismissive eyes, one hand lazily resting on her sheathed sword. The feather on her tricorn hat seemed to rest at a strange angle -- and when Dragan looked further, he realized that it was fluttering in the wind. To be more accurate, it was frozen fluttering in the wind.

This was all happening incredibly quickly, then, his mind dilating time to its utmost.

"It's been a while since you came here," the Archivist said casually, idly leafing through a heavy tome on his lap. "But I suppose you've had plenty to keep your mind busy in the real world. How's that injury treating you?"

The memory of pain twinged as Dragan was reminded of it. That attack Caesar had hit him with -- that mighty invisible blow -- had been devastating. Just from the sensation, he knew that it must have shattered some of his ribs. If he couldn't feel that right now, then that could only mean…

"I recorded them?" Dragan asked.

The Archivist nodded. "Whatever ability disabled your Gemini World, it was temporary. Probably didn't belong to Caesar, then. As for the recording itself, you must have done it subconsciously, at the moment of impact. Your insides are fucked, don't get me wrong, but that's a problem for future Dragan to deal with. You really excel at putting things off, don't you?"

Dragan glared. "Don't have to be a dick about it."

"You're preaching to the choir. More importantly, though -- what are you going to do about this? The only reason you were able to respond to that first attack was because it hit your center of mass -- a pretty easy target to anticipate. This lady's not stupid. She won't do the same thing twice. The next hit will kill you."

With a shaking hand -- the other arm was broken -- Dragan went to wipe the blood from his mouth, only to stop when he realized it would have no effect. This wasn't really happening, after all.

"What was it that hit me?" Dragan muttered to himself. "The attack was invisible, but there should still be a principle behind it, right?"

"Her ability, probably," the Archivist nodded. "You want a replay?"

Dragan furrowed his brow. "A replay? What do you --"

An invisible blow, slamming into his chest.

Ribs splintering under merciless force.

Air and blood forced out of his mouth.

"Asshole," Dragan growled, dropping to one knee.

The Archivist ignored the insult. "You get anything?"

"M…Maybe."

Dragan hated to admit it, but that 'replay' had been slightly helpful. There was something familiar about the way that attack had hit him, something his Aether had just barely recognised… If he was right, then he had a chance of surviving this.

His eyes focused on the Commissioner's boots, frozen mid-step as they strode through the leaves below. Those leaves were everywhere, littering the ground all around. Why hadn't Dragan heard her coming, then?

It was so close to all coming together, but…

"I need to get hit again," Dragan declared. "I need to get hit again, and then I'll know for sure."

The Archivist blinked. For the first time since he'd shown his face here, he looked somewhat surprised. Dragan wasn't sure whether or not that was a good thing, necessarily, but it sure was satisfying.

"Well," the construct said, half-wincing. "It's your life, dude."

And with that, time started moving again.

And with that, Dragan returned to his body on the floor.

And with that, the second impact came…

…and never made contact.

Gemini Shotgun.

It was hard to think. Had Vex hit her head somewhere along the way? She couldn't remember.

One foot after the other. That was the only thing she needed to focus on right now. Just keep walking. Keep walking. Her head had fallen off, but that was fine. It was just a scratch. A scratch.

She walked down the hallways of the Tartarus, following the route they'd discussed beforehand. Vex and Lily. They'd discussed it. This was the way she needed to go, if she couldn't get the Heir -- if she couldn't get the Heir. She'd failed to get the Heir, so she had to go this way instead. Yes. They'd discussed it.

A long and glowing orange cord, like a rope made of magma, connected the stump of Vex's neck to her severed head as she walked. The head waved and swayed through the air like a snake, eyes glowing fiercely, like miniature suns trapped in their sockets.

Her wings were broken behind her back. She'd sustained damage. That was fine. It was just a scratch. They twitched. They twitched.

But she couldn't get distracted. Her… destination. Yes, she was almost there. She had melted a hole through the wall and stepped through. A shortcut. She was nearly there -- nearly at the engine. She had to get there and fulfill her mission.

The engine section was filled with people, recoiling and fleeing as they saw Vex enter. Plasma-shots, fired by security officers, thudded harmlessly into her body, leaving smoking holes. Why were they scared of her? She wasn't here for them. She had a job to do.

Vex breathed, and the flames purged her enemies.

She looked up as she strode through the ashen bones, her glowing eyes focused on the main engine unit. A glowing cube, rapidly spinning, suspended between two energy leeches -- powering the ship. Cold harvest engine. Her target. She could feel the chill radiating out from it, see the frost covering the glass container. If she could get rid of this before it restored power, that meant that they could… they could… t-t-they… it would be good.

Yes, it would be good.

Vex took another deep breath, preparing to release flame from her mouth -- when she felt the world around her stir. Unfamiliar movement. Hostile movement. An enemy.

Her head spun around, hissing at the intrusion, just in time to see the attack. Seven snakes, made of water, lunging at her. No problem. N-No problem. The ambient heat of her body was enough to evaporate the liquid. The attack never even reached her.

Five men stood before her, in white military garb. They were getting in her way. Vex strained to observe them.

A bald man with shaded sunglasses, wielding a rapier, a smart white tuxedo clutching his form. Enemy.

A young Scurrant with curly white hair and rabbit ears, a playful spark in his red eyes. He wore a white waistcoat and a pair of black shorts. Enemy.

A giant, hulking and wide, with a considerable belly hanging down. A white neckerchief rested above a black jumpsuit. The closest thing he had to hair was a single black spike protruding from the top of his head. Enemy.

An inhuman-looking fellow with a smooth white mask of bone covering his dark-red face entirely. Two wings made of what looked like teeth spread out from the back of his white cloak -- and from the ends of those wings stared two green eyes. Enemy.

And there, leading them, was a man Vex had been briefed about. The enemy commander, and the one who had attacked with the serpents. Ascendant-General Alexandrius Toll.

Enemy.

"E-Enemy," Vex echoed, her voice an artificial-sounding rasp. "Out of my w-way. I have a job t-to do." It was frustrating. The words wouldn't come out the way she wanted them to. Her head was full of cotton candy.

"As you can see," Toll looked at her, but his words were meant for his comrades. "My abilities are a bad matchup for this Awakened. I will continue to pursue the Heir -- you lot stop this creature."

Without another word, he departed, the liquid serpents coiling around his arm and pulling him up into the maintenance tunnels. Vex twisted her head in the air as she regarded the four who'd remained.

The man with the sunglasses scowled at her, his voice gruff as he spoke. "Guess there's no chance you're surrendering?" he asked.

Vex stared. "I have a j-job to do." She didn't get what he meant.

The bunny boy sighed as he put his hands behind his head, swaying on his feet. "Forget it, On," he said, with a voice as clear as a bell. "This thing's already dead, right? There's nothing to negotiate with."

Sunglasses sniffed. "I see," he said, tears running down from beneath his sunglasses. "What an awful world we live in."

The giant looked at Vex impassively as he took a single, silent step forward. "The cord seems to be the weak point. Cover me and I'll use Bloodsoak."

Bunny frowned. "Who put you in charge?"

"Me. Just now. Is there a problem?"

A shrug. "Guess not."

Vex didn't like this. She didn't get what they were talking about, but they were definitely enemies. There was something she shouldn't do against enemies, she shouldn't… she shouldn't let them strategize, right? She needed to take them by surprise.

She had a job to do.

Vex Terna breathed -- and a curtain of hellfire sprayed forth, engulfing the engine room. Giant and Sunglasses quickly moved over to Wings, who seemed to be projecting some kind of protective field around himself, but Bunny wasn't quite as lucky.

He was swallowed by the flames instantly, not an inch of his form escaping the cruel heat. As the fire cleared, he was revealed to the room -- or rather, what was left of him. His whole body was charred black save for his red eyes, which were left curiously untouched on his face. That wasn't right.

The body collapsed into ashes as Vex watched -- but still, still, those red eyes were unharmed. They rested atop the pile of soot, like twin marbles. And then…

…they blinked.

As Seen On VG.

"What?" Vex said, but the time for questions was over.

Before she could get a grip on the situation, the pile of ashes had somehow reconstituted themselves back into Bunny -- utterly unharmed as he charged towards her. His legs were moving fast, bizarrely fast, so fast that the blurs of the limbs looked somewhat like wheels. As he advanced, Bunny reached into the tiny pocket of his tiny shorts and pulled forth a massive wooden mallet, several times his own size.

Vex belched forth another torrent of flame, forcing Bunny to dodge -- but she'd been so focused on his bizarre powers that she'd forgotten about the other enemies. Somehow, without her even noticing, Giant had crossed the entire room and positioned himself behind her. Even with that massive body of his, he'd managed to conceal his presence entirely.

She whirled her head around, getting ready to spit out more fire, but too late. Giant whipped out a combat knife -- it looked like a toothpick in his huge hands -- and slashed at the cord connecting Vex's head to her body. In the moment of recoil that created, Giant retreated entirely, melting away into the shadows.

Crimson blood began to spray freely from the wound he'd created, but that didn't make sense, did it? The cord was made of magma, and magma didn't have blood. What was going on? Was this an ability? Her head was foggy. She couldn't think straight. She had a job to do, and this wasn't helping.

Forget this, she decided. F-Forget this.

She didn't need this. It was irrelevant. Lily Aubrisher had trusted her with this job. She didn't want to die. She didn't want to die, but she had a job to do. Like she'd die. L-Like she'd die. Ignoring the gushing blood, ignoring the attacks pelting her, ignoring the distractions, she swung her head back around to face the engine core above --

"Stop her!" someone screamed.

-- and gently breathed apocalypse.

The attack did not hit Dragan. There, before the master of the Special Officers Commission, he stood unharmed. As ash rained down from the burning forest, he blinked, staring dumbfounded at his adversary.

Was it really something that easy? Something that stupid?

For the first time, something similar to apprehension had trickled over Caesar's expression. She'd stopped her advance, boots paused on the crispy leaves below. Still, still, they didn't make a sound. That confirmed it.

This was the Commissioner of all the Special Officers.

This was one of the elites of the Supremacy.

This was Marcela Caesar, the woman with the hidden ability, the invincible ability.

This was pathetic.

"Your ability," Dragan said slowly. "Is astral projection. You're not here right now."

Caesar visibly paled. "What are you talking about?" she said quickly -- a quickness that betrayed her.

"The reason you didn't make any noise as you approached is because you didn't approach," Dragan said, Aether flaring defensively around his body. "You just appeared. The reason I can't hear the leaves when you touch them is because you're not touching them. You're not even here."

The Commissioner settled back into false confidence, raising an amused eyebrow. "People have been known to lose their minds on the verge of death," she said casually. "But it's always sad to see it in person. You seemed like such a --"

"When you attacked me earlier," Dragan continued. "That wasn't an ability, either, or at least it wasn't a very impressive one."

Caesar did her best to hide it, but she took a step back all the same. The facade of the invincible Commissioner was falling apart right before Dragan's eyes. He couldn't help but feel a distinct sense of disappointment, even as he drove the point home.

"My ability detects and absorbs projectiles," he insisted, taking a step forward. "And as soon as I suspected your attack was a projectile, it looks like it didn't hit me. Isn't that weird?"

Another step.

"Isn't that wild?" he grinned.

"Shut your mouth," she snarled, fists balled at her side. Useless fists. She knew it. She knew that, for Dragan Hadrien, the illusion of Commissioner Caesar was broken.

Once you knew the trick, it didn't work. All she had was the shadow of strength.

"And the best thing is," Dragan wheezed, continuing to advance, continuing to force Caesar backwards. "Since I absorbed that projectile, I can tell you a little bit about it. For example…"

Gemini Shotgun.

The blast of air passed right through the fake Caesar, splintering the tree behind her. With the shocked look on her face, it almost made it seem like she'd been hit herself -- and the way she faded away a moment later made it clear she'd realized how his sentence ended.

He said it anyway.

"For example… I can tell which direction it came from."

Time to pay the Commissioner a personal visit.

Gemini World.

Dragan stuck low to the ground as he surged across the forest floor, heading right in the direction of the attack. He didn't know who had disabled his Gemini World the first time, but it was a good bet they'd needed to see him to do it -- so if he remained concealed by the trees, he could protect himself. As he leapt out from the treeline, crawling like lightning across the rocks that led up to the mountains, he got a sense of the battlefield around him for the first time in a while.

The world was burning.

Flames the size of skyscrapers raged, consuming everything in their path, the smoke they produced choking the very skies. Dragan could see huge chunks of rubble that had fallen from the atmosphere, still curiously intact, embedded into the earth like mighty stakes. Every bit of infrastructure outside the pyramid seemed to have been demolished -- and the pyramid itself had definitely seen better days.

A shiver ran down a spine that did not exist. This wasn't good, was it? They were losing, weren't they?

Strangely enough, though, that thought did not inspire fear. Instead, a burning anger took hold on Dragan's heart. He'd just seen for himself how bullshit the Supremacy's supposed strength was, the smoke and mirrors it took to produce an iron fist. Intellectually, Dragan had understood that the Supremacy was just as much propaganda as anything else, but he'd grown up in the Supremacy. He'd grown up among those stories. To have them so starkly torn apart in front of him was like realizing the sky wasn't real.

Nothing but a fairy tale.

They were up against something as pathetic as that, and they were losing? No way.

The only one who decides what happens to me… is me.

Dragan spotted her on the cliffside, behind a jagged section of rock, a massive rifle clutched in her hands. The two of them, right now, were an incredible distance away from the battlefield.

That was how she did it, then -- she sent in a projection to locate targets, and then shot them from far outside the danger range. A sniper-spotter team all by herself. A coward.

Dragan remanifested in midair, plasma pistol clutched in his hand, firing even as he fell -- but not one shot hit its mark.

In the moment before the plasma would have struck Caesar, someone had stepped in front of her, deflecting his shots with a barrage of punches. A woman in scrapyard red armour, with white hair covering her eyes. Her mouth was already spread out into a fanged grin.

So the Commissioner of the Special Officers even needed a bodyguard to feel secure. Dragan finally understood the anger in his heart. He hadn't been betrayed, or misled, or duped. No.

The world was exactly as he'd expected it to be. That was what really pissed him off.