Chapter Three. We enter into the vast open space between asteroids, the pink eclipsing the black of space as far as the eye can see. A scant few rocky shapes float in the distance, with two larger ones framing the opening. Atop the asteroid at the bottom sits a large glassy dome with the silhouette of an entire city inside; this is labeled "Romekkanne Station." Above it, a black speck smaller than some of the stars is labeled "Escape Pod." Our perspective shifts to that of just outside the escape pod as it comes in close for landing; from here, the metal supports of the dome and spaceport opening at the top look like a looming eye as the pod approaches. And finally, we see inside the pod. Silence sleeps in the copilot chair, head resting on her arms as Ano reaches up above the main piloting console and grabs a small radio. "This is pilot Nmos," she says into the radio. "Requesting permission to dock on Romekkanne." We get a close-up of the radio in her hand as it buzzes and crackles. "This is Portmaster Cairogin of Romekkanne Station. What's your make and crew size, Nmos?" Ano scrolls through what appears to be the pod manual on the console screen. "Three crew. Coming in on a Rirranil III Ejector pod..." She pauses as she reads. "Underdog model. It's a standard low-capacity pod as far as I can tell." The radio crackles as Cairogin replies. "Understood. Will you folks be needing medical assistance on arrival?" "No, we're fine. Boss and I were at the Coliseum and he spotted an ex. He didn't want to wait for our usual ride to get the fuck out," Ano lies. "Ah. Your boss there right now?" Cairogin asks. Ano glances to the bathroom door behind her. "He's in the bathroom." Cairogin laughs, immediately dropping the professional air. "Payrollers, eh? Skippin' town just to take a shit." Ano turns her attention back to the front. "Tell me about it." "Yeah, yeah," Cairogin chuckles. "You're clear to land at dock 43 and house in hangar XIV." "You can engage landing autopilot and we'll guide you in." "Thanks." Ano flips a switch on the console. "Take care, Nmos," Cairogin finishes, and Ano hangs the radio up before standing and shaking Silence's shoulder. "We're here." Silence wakes with a grumble, but is quickly woken up by the beauty of the station out the window. Her excitement and awe are shattered by Ano's question of, "That gonna heal, or...?" Silence looks up, confused. Ano taps her own forehead, indicating the scar that cuts through Silence's carapace, and understanding dawns. "Oh. Eventually?" "Know any good ways to cover it up?" Ano asks. This immediately puts Silence on the defensive. "Why would I hide a trophy of a fight hard won?!" Ano ignores the outburst, tugging her cloak on as the station grows larger outside the window. "Because your coliseum battles get trillions of views every week, and it's in all of our best interests to lay low. That's a hard thing to miss." Silence deflates with a quiet "Oh," crossing her arms and pouting with a glance around the room. She joins Ano's side as the station's spaceport opens in the background, welcoming them in. Grumpily, Silence says, "That one's harder." Ano glances to where she's indicating. "... Yeah." The puddle of goop that is the Champion sits inert on the floor, two eyeballs floating at the top as if they're looking up at Ano innocently. "We will leave them here, I assume?" Silence asks. "Absolutely not," Ano says. "They're worth 1.5 billion credits right now." "But-" Ano plows on past Silence's attempt at interrupting her. "If we leave the dead zone, I don't want anyone connecting this pod to the escape and hunting the rest of us down." Silence cocks her head. "Then how are we taking them with us?" Ano looks at the floor, and we look with her over her shoulder as she hums in thought, glaring at the goop. And then we see her look at the janitorial cart and mop to either side.A few moments later, Silence knocks on the door to the bathroom, and the camera swoops inside to see the Janitor sitting with his back pressed to the door as she speaks. "Unless you want to be found on a stolen pod by the local enforcers, I suggest you disembark after us." The Janitor waits patiently for her footsteps to fade away, and then begins counting slowly, reaching "Four" before the moment fades. "Several minutes of counting seconds later..." the Narrator says, and we return to the Janitor pushing himself laboriously up from the floor. His arms shake and he grunts, having to pull himself up with the edge of the sink and leaning heavily on it once he's on his feet, panting hard. He looks at himself in the mirror, tired and small in the darkness of the room. "What's wrong with you?" he asks his reflection. His knuckles tighten on the edge of the sink, his body now shaking with something other than exertion. "There was a time when you'd have blown this ship up before letting yourself get caught like this." He sighs and turns away from the mirror. In the reflection, we see the eye tattoo covering his back and the faint aftershock reflection of the being that showed themself to him in the Coliseum's window, their eye with a tally-mark pupil weeping silently before fading away. The Janitor opens the door- -and freezes immediately, sweat beading on his brow. Ano and Silence wait for him in the next room with folded arms. He goes to retreat back into the bathroom, shutting the door swiftly, but Ano blocks it from shutting all the way with her elbow. "Not so fast." The Janitor throws his hands up, backing away slowly as he starts to stutter. "I-I saw nothing, I know no one, just-just let me take this back to the Coliseum, and I'll-" Ano interrupts him, drawing one of her blades. "Forget this ever happened?" She presses the trident dagger to his throat. "I don't think so." The Janitor sweats harder as Ano closes the gap further between them. The top of his head is barely level with her shoulder; she has to lean down to look him in the eye. "P-Please don't kill me-" "It's not worth killing you without a paycheck attached." As he sighs in relief, Ano glances to his wrist, noticing the glow of the strange lights embedded beneath his skin. She grabs his arm, lifting it up to get a better look - and we get to see it up close, too, as she holds it tight. "P.O.W.?" she asks. "Y-yeah." "Microchips?" "They have trackers-" "I'll add signal jammers to the list," she says brusquely as she releases him and leans away. Before she can fully let the matter drop, though, her attention catches on the mirror behind him. And we see, along with her, the tattoo over his back as she shouts, "How many gods-damn identifiable marks do you people have?!" She storms out of the bathroom and past a confused Silence, throwing open the door to the bunk room as the Janitor hesitantly inches out into the main room. A moment of rustling, and then one of the gray blankets from the bunks is chucked across the room, hitting the Janitor square in the chest and knocking him back with a choking sound. "Cover up," Ano says. "You're coming with us." "But I-" the Janitor starts to protest, holding the far too big blanket to his chest with growing frustration. "But nothing," Ano says, reaching for the janitorial cart at the far end of the room and shoving it towards him. "Here." He catches it with a grumble of "fine"; the mop squishes, and he looks down curiously, only to stare in abject shock and horror at something off-screen. And then we get a detailed view of the contents of the janitorial cart, which consist solely of the mop and the bubbling, roiling mass of the Champion around it, two eyeballs floating towards the top. "Congrats," Ano says as the Janitor questions every choice in his life that has led up to this moment with a quiet "what the fuck". "You're the Champion's new getaway driver. Now let's go, we don't have all day."A few moments later, we see the backside of the escape pod as our protagonists depart, the Janitor now wearing the blanket like a cloak. The door at the back of pod opens to a catwalk, the back thruster and a chunk of the hull separated from the ship on a hinge and propelled by jets of steam. The hangar they exit into is massive and dark, the only light coming from the guiding lights on the escape pod itself. Soon, they exit the hangar itself through a circular shutter-like door, emerging into a brightly lit hallway with light walls and dark floors, Ano in the lead. She glances over her shoulder at her companions and asks, "What do I call you two?" The Janitor and Silence look at each other. The Janitor clears his throat. "Ghost's fine," he says. "Hm." Ano glances over her shoulder again, more pointedly now. "And you?" Silence hesitates, before answering, "They called me Silence in the Coliseum. That will suffice." "Fun," Ano says. They continue on down the hall without another word, passing through an intersection with directions to the nearby hangars printed on one of the walls. The only sound is the clack of Ano's claws on the floor and the squeak of the janitorial cart's wheels. "And what do we call you?" Silence eventually asks. "Ano Nmos," Ano answers. "S-Class bounty hunter." Ghost squints at her. "... Anonymous." Ano grins, though he can't see it. "How the fuck did you get that past the database censors?" he asks sharply. "Hunting pays well for a reason," she replies. "I'm sure you've taken your fair share of bribes." In the background, we start to hear a scatter of tapping, the frequency increasing as the panels progress. "Money ain't worth shit to prisoners of the Coliseum," Ghost counters, still glaring at her. "And before?" As the distant tapping increases, we get a glimpse of the Champion in the janitorial cart as they peek two eye stalks out to take a look around. "If I cared about credits, I wouldn't be here." The tapping becomes a pitter-pattering as Ano approaches another shutter door. "Good for you," she says as the door opens ahead of her, revealing the rain pouring heavily outside. "Not all of us have such noble callings." And she steps outside into the rain, and we see the inside of Romekkane Station in full for the first time. The street ahead of her looks like any rainy city with a tendency towards neon lights and brownstone apartments. Several market stalls line the street, the nearest selling what appear to be baubles of blue fruits that hang from their stall's support beams alongside strings of fairy lights. Across the way, a pair of children, one of which is a white hovering robot, chase each other in a game of tag lit by the light pouring from the nearby apartments and the neon sign advertising a business called "Taysa's" behind them. The fog created by the rain hides much of the city beyond, with just hints of silhouettes in the distance. We get a couple of beauty shots, focusing on a neon sign for "Salduran Cuisine" with a bowl of noodles as its logo, as well as a closeup of the fruit stall as the merchant hands a fruit to their froglike patron and a look at the rain falling from directly overhead. Ano has little reaction to the reveal, while Silence looks around in mild surprise and Ghost grumbles over the rain as he tugs up the edge of the blanket to form a hood. Below them, though, the Champion's eyes are full of wonder at the sight of the city. Ano looks back once again. "You coming?" And with that, Silence and Ghost follow her out of the spaceport and past the sign for the Romekkane Subway into the city street.As they walk through the streets, they pass a myriad of people and buildings. As they pass from the street they entered on into a new area, Silence has a lightbulb moment, rushing to catch up with Ano at the front of their procession and tugging on her sleeve as they reach an intersection. Ano turns, leaning down with a glare to listen to her. "I thought we needed a ship with a warp drive?" Silence hisses. Ano shrugs her off. "To leave. We've got business to tend to while we're here. Like getting Ghost a signal jammer." Silence doesn't relent, even though she lets go. "Why care about him? He said himself that he doesn't want credits. He won't turn any of us in." "Lots of people say they don't want credits until they're handed enough money to pull their entire planet out of poverty," Ano says. "Just--look at him," Silence insists. For a brief moment, we see Ghost behind them through Silence's vision, marked in the panel with a trademark. He's small, and backlit by an orange and yellow flash. Around him are various arrows pointing to various points on his body. They read: "Grumbling at no one." "Limping." "Barely protested to wearing a blanket." and "Old as balls." "Better safe than sorry," Ano relents, resuming walking. "If nothing else, we need one for the cart if we're going to keep our... mutual acquaintance in there." "And you know where to find such things on a dead-end fuel station like this?" Silence asks. As the trio and conversation progress, we slowly lose focus on Silence and Ano, instead zooming in on Ghost as he falls further and further behind. "You wouldn't know dead-end if it lived in your asshole," Ano says. "I can name three off the top of my head. One's even legal." Ano and Silence have all but abandoned Ghost at the back of the party by the time they pass a dumpster and a trio of aliens huddled around a small barrel fire, chatting away together. The three are all taller than Ghost; he comes up to the chin of the shortest, who is covered in a tawny fur that blends into a large, fluffy mane of darker brown hair atop their head. They and their slightly-taller, ruddier companion in the middle both have four cat-like ears each; the ruddy one is smoking a cigarette as the shorter one talks at the third in their group, who is extremely tall and somewhat elephantine in appearance. The one who is talking has their eyes closed as Ghost passes, initially, but once he's fully passed out of frame, their eyes open, and recognition takes hold of them. We see over Ghost's shoulder as they abandon their companions to jog and catch up to him - - and then see, when their hand claps to his shoulder, that on their bicep is a tattoo dyed into their fur of a blindfolded Watcher. Ghost turns to look at them, confused. "Is that really you?" they ask. Between the end of that question and the start of their next sentence, Ghost seems to realize what's going on, and reaches for his mop. "Old Ph-" Their words cut off with a choke as Ghost slams the head of the mop into their groin with enough force to lift them slightly off of their feet, bits of pink goo staining their pants. They fall to their knees with a groan, tail wrapping around their waist as they hold their crotch and Ghost stows the mop back into the janitorial cart. In the background, Ano and Silence have stopped at an open window in the side of a building up ahead, talking with a faceless alien inside. "Leave me alone," Ghost grunts. "But-" "I don't know you," he insists. "I'm not who you think." Oblivious, Ano and the faceless alien exchange something. "You look just like him," the stranger says from the ground, eyes teary and all four ears pulled back. In the foreground, Ghost's brows are pinched, and a few drops of sweat have beaded on his face. And then we see from behind as he starts to move away again. "Just leave it." We see the stranger, forlorn, as he goes. And we see Ghost, regretful. And we zoom in on the many folds of Ghost's neck, the wrinkles and scales and mess, and see the same blindfolded Watcher tattooed into a fold that's usually hidden among the rest. From the edge of the cart, one of the Champion's eye stalks peeks out at the scene Ghost leaves behind, with a single thought bubbling up: "Interesting." A short while later, Ghost catches up with Ano and Silence outside of a doorway spilling red light out onto the street. We find them while Ano's in the middle of a sentence as she talks to Silence sternly. "... contact inside," Ano says. "While I'm talking to xim, you do not interrupt me. Are we clear?" "Crystal," Silence answers, arms folded. Ano turns to Ghost as he limps up. "This one's not old enough to drink, so don't get her anything strong." "You're taking an underage kid to a bar?" he asks, skeptical. "Kids aren't banned," Ano replies, digging in the depths of her cloak. "She can have water. Just keep an eye on her for ten minutes and don't wander off." She finally stops digging and tosses something to Ghost. "And put these on while we're in there." He catches them smoothly, and holds them in his hands. They appear to be a pair of bracelets with clasps that look like those of a belt. "They won't last forever," Ano says, "But they should give us a solid ten days under the radar." Ghost takes the signal jammers wordlessly, and Ano sweeps into the doorway without so much as a glance over her shoulder. "I'll try to be quick."The group enters the bar, with Ano in the lead, closing the door behind them. Inside, the walls are a dim purplish-brown, and red pendant lights hang over each of the booths lining the walls. As they walk further in, and Ano leaves Ghost and Silence behind at one of the tables, the colors of the scene shift to solely those of Ano's palette; the purple-brown walls become a similar purple to that of her cloak, and all hints of yellow, orange, and gray in the decor become shades of green, blue, and teal. As she walks, she casts a glance over each shoulder. Behind her and to her right, a wall of mostly empty booths, save for a single individual wearing a cowboy hat with orange fringe engrossed in their phone. To her left, several of the booths are occupied; the one closest to the door hosts two people wearing headscarves deep in conversation, and the one closest to the bar hosts a single being toying with a blue drink. The latter isn't wearing any clothes, as they're both serpentine and arthropod-like, with two appendages that curl downwards from their mouth like those of an Anomalocaris. Ano doesn't react to either view as she steps up to the glowing bar at the back of the room. The bartender doesn't look up as she approaches, engrossed in a book laying flat on the counter. They're tall, with cool-grey skin, multiple pairs of arms, and a set of large, dark ram horns sprouting from their salt-and-pepper hair. Ano leans on the counter as they continue ignoring her. "I'd like to order a drink for myself and a friend," she says, "but it's been a while since I was here last. "Mind running through the menu for me?" The last sentence is underlined, and makes the bartender look up. We see that on their cheeks are the same geometric orange tattoos as Ano's. "What's the taste?" they ask, gaze dropping to the book again, bored. "We've got a few..." And, tattoos sparking, the real conversation takes place entirely psychically as both of them continue the ordering cover story. "Who you meetin', Nmos?" the bartender asks. "Azyx. Anything I should know?" "Xe's had a shitty couple days. If you didn't get your mark yet, I wouldn't talk to xim." "Xe's always having a shitty few days," Ano replies. "Anything else." "Cowboy fringe over there looked at the bug funny when you walked in. Still lookin', too." Ano glances over her shoulder again; the individual has put their phone away, now. "Good to know. What should I order?" "Two Valkyrian sours," the bartender answers psychically, and she says aloud in time. Silently, the bartender gets to work mixing the drinks, shoving their book aside. As they pour the green liquid over ice, Ano thanks them aloud, and adds silently, "Can't pay for the info right now." The bartender looks up sharply with a frown. "I fucked up getting the mark," Ano explains, sliding a data card over the counter to them. "My account will lock in a few hours, and I'm not trying to leave a trail here. For now, this is all the cash I've got. I'll wire the rest once I've transferred my funds to a new account." The bartender shoves the drinks to her with a growl. "I'll open a tab for you." "Perfect," Ano says smoothly, taking the drinks and whisking away. She sets one of them down on a table next to a nearly-empty drink with a straw sticking out of the glass. "Azyx," she says, as a three-fingered, chitinous hand painted with orange nail polish reaches for the drink and shoves the old one away. "Long time, no see." Azyx plucks the straw from xis other drink as xe lifts it up; xe's the serpentine arthropod we saw earlier. Now, we can see that xe is tattooed all over xis face in an orange that pops against xis dark carapace. Two of xis "fins" on xis right are pierced with silver earrings, and xis eyes are a piercing neon green. "Long time, indeed," xe says, before taking a sip of xis drink. "Did you get the goods we agreed on?" "Oh yeah," Ano says, digging into her pocket under her cloak after sitting down. Once she's retrieved it, she slides the item across the table to Azyx with a smirk. "Pure entropic crystal borrowed from one beloved businesswoman. Most effective when implanted at the base of the brain stem." We see the entropic crystal in all of its glory from above as it glimmers in the dim light of the bar. It looks much like a rhodochrosite geode, but the crystals are a gleaming mix of pale blue and green set in a dark outer layer of rock. No two crystal segments are the same shape, and many of them look more like pebbles than crystals. Azyx snatches the crystal up quickly, peering at it with one eye as xe hums. Satisfied, xe holds it closer to xis chest, and asks, "Same account as last time?" "I'll be setting a new one up shortly," Ano says. "I'll send you the specifics once I do." Azyx's eyes narrow. "That's not like you, Nmos." Xe cocks xis head. "I wonder what would happen if one simply... forgot to open the channel. Not saying I would, but you could miss out on a lot of money if you keep this up." Ano doesn't miss a beat in mimicking xis subtle, threatening tone and stance. "Theoretically, it would be good for xim to remember who xe's dealing with and why xe hired her." She leans forward glare intensifying. "I'd put a reminder on if I were you. You're the only one leaving a trail right ow, and it'd be a shame for someone to go to the authorities on Loroboros about an illegal proposition." Azyx shrinks back, eyes widening, and squeaks: "Right. Like I said, I'm not going to." "Good." Ano stands up, tapping the table. "You can have that second drink." And she walks swiftly away from xim - only to come to a sudden, unexpected stop as she notices something. Ghost is completely alone at the table. "Where's Silence?" she demands forcefully. He avoids her gaze, fiddling with one of the signal jamming bracelets. "Bathroom." Ano rolls her eyes. "You really expect me to -" And she stops mid-sentence as she realizes that the stranger with the cowboy hat has disappeared from their booth. "Shit." She grabs Ghost by the arm, yanking him up hard. "Get up." "Wh-?" "Someone recognized her. We have to GO." She drags him from his seat and out the door, beginning to jog as they reach the street until they fall into a headlong sprint through the rain, the buildings blurring as they pass, and we watch from above as they flee through the streets of Rommekkane Station, making their way back to the spaceport as fast as they can without Silence - or, conspicuously, the janitorial cart with the Champion - anywhere in sight.We flash back, now, to a few moments earlier when Silence and Ghost are both still at the table, the janitorial cart sitting between them. Ghost is putting on the signal jamming bracelets, while Silence stands glaring around the room, noting that the duo who were sitting closest to the door are now gone. She glances behind her, towards the cowboy, humming in thought, before turning back to Ghost. "I need to relieve myself," she says. "I shouldn't be long." He looks up at her with a side eye, having finished putting the bracelets on. "Look, kid, I don't think that's a good idea." "You were hogging the bathroom for hours. I don't think it unreasonable that I have to pee." "And what happens when you manage to escape here?" Ghost asks. "You can't fly a ship. I overheard as much." Silence narrows her eyes. "Are you calling me a liar, you shriveled prune?" "I'm saying you're bad at it, and you should think things through more when dealing with bounty hunters," he retorts with a glare. Silence slams her hands on the table and hisses, "I'm going to the bathroom." And with that, we watch her stomp off - from the perspective of the Champion as they peer surreptitiously out from the janitorial cart. "Uh oh," they think to themself as the camera focuses on them instead of the arch through which Silence just disappeared. An arrow points to them, the label reading, "Knows she's recognizable + supposed to be dead."Reaching a tentacle over the side, the Champion awkwardly propels the cart after her, leaving beneath everyone's notice. The arch leads to a small hall where the trash and recycling bins are located, as well as the door to the bathroom and a large, venus-flytrap-like plant sitting on a counter. The Champion settles the cart down next to the bathroom door to wait a moment, and once they have, they enter the bathroom with little more than the quiet squeak of the door hinges to stand watch. A few moments later, the door squeaks open again as the cowboy walks in with a strut. Now in the palette of the Champion and Silence, we see that his skin is a light blue, and his fringed hat a warm pink. Two belts cross his torso diagonally, layered over one another, and his left hand rests on a gun holster on one of them. His cowboy boots are pink and a pristine white. He either doesn't notice or doesn't care to acknowledge the janitorial cart as he struts over to the sink counter that lines one wall and waits, scrolling on his phone directly across from the one occupied bathroom stall. We see that his mouth sits at the top of his head, and his eyes at the bottom; he grins sharply and reaches for the gun when Silence flushes. She gets enough time to sigh when she walks out, before she's faced with a pink revolver aimed directly at the broken carapace in her forehead. "Silence, huh?" the cowboy gloats, stepping forward towards the startled Silence. In the background, the Champion peeks over the rim of the cart with wide eyes. "Now, I don't know about you," the cowboy says, "but it don't seem to me like you're supposed to be here." Beneath both his and Silence's notice, the Champion scurries from the janitorial cart in a slug-like blob. "And I've got a pretty good nose for, ah - bounties yet to come, shall we say." Between him and the row of sinks, the Champion begins to morph into something larger, the solid pink slime of the slug starting to run with streaks of white. "I'm curious, though -" The Champion is now an amalgam of muscle, bone, skin, and metal still in the process of constructing themself in the cowboy's likeness behind him. "- how'd you get out?" the cowboy asks with a cocky tilt to his head, oblivious to the monstrosity of crawling muscle and warped bone rising up behind him with pinpoints of hatred shining bright in their eyes. "I helped her," the Champion answers, their own pistol that's still tearing away from their constructed flesh pressed to his lower back. They shoot him. The bang overtakes the screen, for a moment, with a red and white burst. And then we see the would-be bounty hunter collapsed to his knees on the floor, gun arm limp as he seems to still be registering what's happened to send viscera splattering out behind him onto the cold white floor. A gaping hole has been ripped into his lower back, bits of bone peeking out through the mess of blood. The Champion's arms dart out; one, having formed an actual hand with skin and nails, covers the cowboy's mouth, while the other, which is just a pair of thick, twisting strands of muscle, wraps around his throat to bend him backward. His hat falls off, now, and the hand that was cradling his stomach is ripped away. And then we see, from his perspective, the completed mimic of his face in the color palette of the Champion. It is upside down and covered in his viscera, eyes all black but for the pink-shining hatred in their center, their neck bent at an odd angle and their teeth sharp like blades. "Do you know how high her bounty is?" they ask, speech bubble dripping with blood much like their chin. The cowboy whimpers, crying, eking out a muffled "No..." through the hand covering his mouth. "Interesting," the Champion says. And with that, they snap his neck in one quick motion, so that when he collapses dead to the ground, his head is on the right way up. "So Ano wasn't lying about that..." they muse as they continue to morph and shift, giving themself shoes as they weave themself some proper legs. Their thinking aloud is interrupted, though, by Silence growling, "So you choose NOW to speak?!" They look up, curious, all blood gone from their newly-rearranged face. Silence's glare is intense, her tentacles up and ready to strike. "And to a coward so stupid and greedy they'd start a fight they couldn't win for a bit of cash?!" The Champion looks at her in wide-eyed and ironic innocence, before answering slowly, "Yes?" "Was there a better time that I missed?" they ask her, genuinely concerned. Between the two of them, we see the door to the bathroom, and hear muffled whistling coming from beyond it. Silence's anger deepens. "Don't you start with -" The bathroom door swings open. Both of them turn to see the newcomer as their whistle dies on pursed lips; they are a pale, lanky individual with a blue toga and golden jewelry, eyes wide as they absorb the scene in front of them. And then they let out a scream that overtakes everything in the panel but the three characters in frame.The screaming individual turns tail and sprints back out of the bathroom, mouth still wide open even though they seem to have run out of air with which to scream; before they can get more than a few steps out, though, a half-flesh harpoon shoots from the open door, impaling them through the chest. Their body goes limp as they're yanked back into the bathroom, blood spurting from the wound. A few seconds later, we watch as the bathroom door slams open, and the psychic bartender looks around. And, from their perspective, we see an empty room but for the two bodies piled atop each other in the middle of the floor, no sign of Silence or the Champion to be found. The bartender whips out their phone and starts dialing. As they wait to connect, they reach for the doorknob with a stern shout of, "Everyone stay put. There's been a murder." With that, the door slams shut once more, and we see the seemingly-empty bathroom again - - this time, with a pop to nudge the reader's attention to the fact that the vent on the far wall is gone, and that wall is about one Silence-width closer than it used to be. The camera pans from the bright open bathroom to the dark nook the Champion has created, their back melding with the fake wall, as Silence berates them. "What the fuck was that?!" she demands. "They were going to call the cops!" the Champion says, eyes wide and stance defensive. "And?!" "Do you want to be caught by the Watchers?!" "I am perfectly capable of defending myself!" Silence insists. "You shouldn't have to! You're a kid!" "I AM NO LARVA." she shouts. "I am just as capable of violence as you." "You shouldn't be." "I was sent to the Pit for a reason!" "AND I HOPE YOU LIVE TO SEE THAT THE REASON WAS COWARDICE ON THE PART OF EVERY ADULT WHO TOOK PART IN THE PROCESS." Quiet, for a beat, as Silence reels. Then: "How dare you - Imply such a thing -" "Are you spitting mad yet?" the Champion interrupts her. She freezes with a flat mutter of "What." "Just aim it towards the wall so we can get out of here," the Champion says. Silence thinks for a moment, before settling with a quiet "fine" and turning to face the outer wall instead. Her tendrils curl up, and it seems to take quite a bit of effort for her; she isn't able to produce much of her acidic spit before she has to give up with a pant. "Th- that's all I've got." The Champion, meanwhile, has opened up their own ribcage, the bones tying themselves in knots. They smile at her. "That's all we needed." And with a loud BAM, the wall explodes into the alleyway outside from the punch of their makeshift battering ram. Silence steps gingerly out into the rain, tip-toeing over rubble. After her, the Champion doffs their fake wall disguise, reaching back into the bathroom with a more humanoid form as Silence gets her bearings. When she turns around, she finds them holding the janitorial cart in their arms. And from a meta-narrative perspective, we see the last of the trio of Watchers still paying attention to the video feed as they talk to their screen. "The mop! Grab the mop!" Unaware of this, Silence asks the Champion, "What are you doing with that? Just leave it." The Watcher - Orb - panics, an exclamation point replacing their pupil. "DO NOT!!" The Champion bows their head to Silence. "... No." "Good," Orb says. "Now grab the mop." Silence looks as if she'd roll her eyes if they weren't compound. "Oh, for-" "It's the last piece I have of them, now," the Champion explains. "What? Who?" The Champion looks up to the sky, not answering for a moment. "The Coliseum. My people." Completely powerless, Orb has started to grab at their face. "THE MOP. GRAB. THE. MOP." Silence looks away from the Champion, down at the rain. And the Narrator says, "Despite her anger..." She joins the Champion in looking at the sky. "Despite the staining of her honor..." We see, with the two of them, a glimpse of the pink nebula beyond the clouds and the glass of the space station's dome. "She can understand that." Meanwhile, Orb has started clawing scores into their face as their meltdown progresses. "THE MOP!!!" Silence finally breaks the stillness, turning back to the Champion. "Fine. Where are we going now?" The Champion lingers on the view for a moment more, before answering, "The spaceport. While I hesitate to trust Nmos's word on anything, she wasn't wrong about us needing to get a faster ship." Orb's meltdown becomes a full-on panic. "NO! NONONONO-" They whip around to address someone off-screen. "Romekkanne station!! They're on Romekkanne station!!" Their panic turns their pupil into a pinprick. "It'll take HOW LONG?! WE DON'T HAVE THAT MUCH TIME-" And they and their spying mop are abandoned as Silence and the Champion switch gears. "This way," the Champion says, leading Silence to their right. She follows without hesitation, now, and as they run off down the alley, the Champion molds themself into a new form. One that looks as if a wingless wasp were turned into a pack animal, perhaps, using all six limbs to run as two pairs of feathery tendrils pull the janitorial cart up onto their back instead. As they get faster and faster, Silence has to take wing to keep up. "You're Varied," she calls once they've apparently reached top speed. "Can't you just turn into a ship?" The Champion's eyes narrow. "I have made a point of not learning how warp drives work, so the Watchers cannot mold me like they molded my kin. I do not wish to risk learning now, when they're still so close." The two of them get closer and closer to a light at the end of the alley, and as they do, they slow down, eventually emerging onto a busy street as Silence lands gracefully. Glancing around, we see a plethora of neon signs written in incomprehensible alien languages; Silence crosses her arms. "Do you know how to find the spaceport? I can't read any of these signs." "Don't worry, Si," the Champion says. "I memorized the route." She scoffs, turning to them. "Don't get friendly with me. I am coming with you so that I do not lose the chance to get a fair rematch and reclaim my honor, and nothing more." The Champion droops, head bowing. "Right. Forget I said anything."A short while later, at the spaceport, Silence and The Champion stand in front of a map of the port on the wall. The Champion has changed from the insectoid form into one like a humanoid robot whose joints float independently of one another. They wear a brown cloak, and have one hand up to their chin as if in deep thought as they look at the overwhelmingly-large grid of the map. "So you don't know how warp drives work," Silence says, arms crossed, "but do you at least know how to pilot a ship?" The Champion lets their hand drop from their chin with a hum. "No, but it should be a trivial matter to figure it out." "It takes six years of schooling to get a D-Class license," Silence says. "And?" "D-Class pilots can't use warp drives." The Champion looks at her, surprised. "If I told you I regularly have to memorize and reverse-engineer the exact chemical makeup and biological structures necessary to shift into the forms I choose, would that change your mind?" they ask. "That's chemistry and biology." "And material science, and engineering, and computer programming, sometimes," the Champion lists, as if that helps. "I can wire myself into the ship and flip the right breakers without knowing all the ins and outs of how it works." "But could you steer us accurately enough to not hit a stray asteroid at such a speed as to aerosolize my exoskeleton?" The Champion freezes, then cringes, looking a way with a mutter of "when you put it that way...", and the Narrator answers for them with a simple "No." "I think we need Ano," Silence says. The Champion whines. "Ano *specifically*?!" "Like it or not, she's currently the only person incapable of turning us in to the Watchers." The Champion pouts, in much the same way as Silence herself does on the regular, arms folded and looking away. After a beat, Silence adds: "And I did promise her I'd wait." The Champion takes a deep breath, morphing their robotic face to look the part of someone squeezing their eyes shut to steel themself, before relenting with a mutter of, "Shit. Okay, hold on -" They facepalm with one hand, and extend their other arm - the metal of which sprouts a myriad of tiny feelers that wiggle in the air. With a closer look, we can see the swirls of sensory information winding their way through the tendrils on their hand and making the feelers tremble; twin smoke-like wafts of orange and blue. The Champion looks up, confused. "Huh. She's... She's been here. More recently than we were." Looking at the feelers confusedly, Silence asks, "How can you tell?" "These scent glands -" The Champion cocks their head. "It's hard to describe to someone without ones like them. But she and Ghost have both been here in the last few minutes." They pause, look at Silence. "Which means they're on their way out, too." "Along with our only escape." "Exactly." The Champion sweeps past her, following the scent. "Let's go." They run through the halls, the thin wispy trails of scent growing thicker and more fresh as they go - and the environment shifting out of the warm color palette of the two of them to add in the cool blues and muddy grays of Ano and Ghost. Eventually, the trails terminate in a set of threads that wind around the two of them as we finally catch up and reunite the group - though Ano seems oblivious to this fact as she speaks into a wall mounted radio next to a hangar door, notably not the one the group came from upon arrival. Along the hall, one can see two security cameras; one pointing directly at the door, and one at the intersection beyond, looking down the hallway. Ghost leans against the wall under the one across from the door, minding his own business as Ano gets to work. We watch the following mostly from over Ano's shoulder, with such an angle as to see both her and Ghost behind her. "Hi, Portmaster Cairogin. I've got a bit of an issue. Looks like the door code you gave me isn't working." It's at this point that Ghost notices the arrival of Silence and the Champion at the other end of the hall, and starts looking frantically back and forth between them and Ano. "Oh, joy," comes Cairogin's voice crackling over the radio. "Can I get your dock, hangar, and callsign?" "Dock 26, hangar xi, one of the private ones," Ano says. "We're in a Trident GQX-50 Cruiser." She leans to one side, eyes flashing with the digital HUD we've seen before as she looks through the panes of glass in the hangar door. Behind her, Ghost takes notice of the camera, beginning to panic. "Callsign..." Her HUD pops up, a target on a strip of barcode painted onto one of the thrusters of the ship inside; it reads "INTERPLANETARY VEHICLE REGISTRY", and the results for "Plate #203948104-AMPII". The callsign is listed as Peregrine, with the make and class as she already determined. She makes a sound of annoyance, covering for the delay in her answer. "It's either Peregrine or Paladin. We had to update it recently and they were way too close." The HUD scrolls further down, and we see a bit more specific information. Deployment: luxury travel; Registered crew: 5; Pilot: Hico Corcinna; Owner(s): Roswen Nt'Carno, Calamity Kinciir (Non-crew). "No worries, no worries," Cairogin assures her, as Ghost clutches at his head, the panic setting in fully now. "Can I get your name?" Ghost starts waving for Ano's attention with one hand as she says, calmly, "Hico Corcinna." "And you are the...?" "Pilot." Ghost has now started waving with both arms, hissing "Hey! There's a fucking camera!" while Ano continues to either not notice or ignore him. "Perfect," Cairogin says. "Just because I know we all forget sometimes, the code 56-83-89 isn't working?" Ano types the code into the keypad next to the door as Cairogin reads it off, only to hit backspace at the end instead of enter. "Nope. Just tried again." "Huh. That's strange," Cairogin says. "I'll send a locksmith down for you, should only be a minute. Just have your planetary ID ready for him when he gets there." "Thanks," Ano says, hanging up. When she turns around, she finally sees Silence and the Champion, as well as Ghost's pose of both arms spread and pointing to one side dramatically in the camera's direction as he pants. "Well look who decided to show up," she says, still ignoring Ghost's enthusiastic pointing. He's not having it, though. "Really?!" he all but shouts. "Nothing about the cameras?!" "Yes," Ano says. "Put your hand down before someone on the security team notices." "And what about that code?!" Ghost demands. "Why didn't you just open it?! We could've been out of here already!" "Because my hotwiring kit is on *my ship*. *At the Coliseum*. The locksmith will have the wires and datapad I need," she explains sharply, before turning to regard Silence. "And just what the fuck happened to 'stay right here'?" "I had to pee!" Silence says as she and the Champion near, arms crossed and more than a little upset. "What happened to checking on someone if it takes too long?!" Ano and Ghost look at her dumbfounded. "You *actually* went to the bathroom?!" Ghost asks. "Yes." "And you *didn't* try to escape?" Ano says. "There is no honor in running from a fight." More than a little mystified, Ano takes a moment to reply. "Right. Honor. Whatever." The Champion glares at her. "Do not mock her culture." "Not trying to. Since when did you stop being slime?" "SLIME?!" "SHHH!" Ghost interrupts them with a hiss and a gesture for them to listen. In the distance, we hear footsteps approaching. Ano turns to the group on more placid terms, now. "You all want to be as far away from the Watchers as possible, yeah?" When they nod, she says, "I want the same thing. So if you don't mind looking the other way while I deal with this locksmith-" "I'll handle it," the Champion interrupts. "*Without* leaving a gore paste behind?" Ano specifies. "Look, I'm capable of more than just violence -" She shoves them in the direction of the footsteps. "Then prove it." The security camera on the wall, on its routine patrol, turns to follow the motion of the Champion stepping forward. The arm attaching it to the wall is being quickly covered in pink wires as they dart, snakelike, over the metal, and a pair of thin pink tendrils crawl along the corners where the walls and floor meet. We watch the rest of this moment through the camera's lens, the hallway a little warped from the strange perspective, glitches seeping in at the edges of the frame. The locksmith rounds the corner, seemingly unaware of the tendrils to either side of him as he approaches. He's a humanoid fly, and he wears a matching dark hat and vest, lighter pants, and a toolbelt with a touchpad hanging from it at his side. He's carrying a clipboard and actively writing as he nears. "Hi," he says, still oblivious as the tendrils start to move towards his gear. "Just need to see your-" He's cut off suddenly with a startle as the tendrils whip forward and grab his things, and he watches in confusion as they're ripped away - and as the camera focuses on the Champion, still mostly in their robotic form but now with several large tentacles sprouting from them in various places, the glitching at the edges intensifies. We see, in a series of arrows pointing at each other, three thoughts that we can presume are those of the locksmith as he sees this, too. 1. Pointing directly at the being in front of him: "Varied" 2. Pointing at 1: "Only one (1) exists" 3. Pointing at 2: "The Champion" The locksmith stands there in silence for a moment. Slowly reaches up to grab the cap from his head - and chucks it to the floor, stomping it down into the ground angrily before pointing directly into the camera. "FUCK YOU. I QUIT." He turns around, stomping back the way he came with a mutter of, "15 an hour. Suck my proboscis." The hall stands empty and silent for a moment, before Ano says, impressed, "Take care of that camera, will you?" "Right. Yeah." With that, the glitching overtakes the screen entirely, a static fuzz overwhelming the feed and a warning popping up in bright red. "! VIDEO FILE CORRUPTED ! Attempting to restore..." It takes a moment for our view to separate from the camera; in that time, we hear the tap-tap-tapping of typing, and then the SHHK of the hangar door spiraling open. Inside, the hangar is dark, the majority of the light at first that spilling from the open door as the group rushes in with Ano in the lead. But as the others continue on apace, the Champion slows down, coming to a full stop before setting foot on the on ramp into the ship. They look up, pensive, hurt. The ship before them is massive. "Trident cruiser, huh?" they say into the quiet. The idle lights that ring each of the thrusters glow a dim yellow, the thrusters themselves still warm. The ship's landing gear looks like two pairs of the spiral mandibles of Anomalocaris, unfurled and flattened at different angles to hold it stable. "Are you one of us, too?" We see two shots of the ship at different angles; the thrusters and on ramp from the side, so we can see yet another massive thruster positioned behind the ramp; the front of the ship, the sleek glass lined with light up at the cockpit and the hints of the wings off to either side. "Did the ones who made you build a ship -" the Champion caresses the support beam of the landing gear with one hand "- or mold a body?" The cold metal has no response for them. A few moments later, we watch from over the Champion's cloaked shoulder as a door slides open with a hiss, and the cockpit opens before them. Ano sits in the pilot's seat, the ship having already taken off and now at the gate out of Rommekkane's bubble. Already, this ship is more fancy than the escape pod in more than one way; instead of a single screen and uncountable switches and buttons, this ship has three separate screens, a keyboard, a few gauges, and a much more reasonable number of switches off to the side. The chairs look more comfortable, too. The Champion enters the room silently; from over Ano's shoulder, we see the door slide shut as she focuses on the world in front of her, ignoring them for a few beats. As they near her, though, she breaks the quiet. "If you're here to threaten me for taking you to safety," she says, "Silence beat you to it about six hours ago." The Champion pointedly sits down in one of the copilot seats next to her with a glare. They've changed their shape once again; now, they look like the same species as her, just with a few minor differences. Instead of corkscrew-like horns, theirs are simply curved upwards like those of a bull, and their ears are much wider and less sharp. Their cloak is now tucked in to a metallic waist cover, and they wear tight magenta pants. Settling in to the chair, they roll their eyes, looking away from her as she continues to monitor their travel. "I know better than to think I can cut through Mordin skin." Ano looks at them, unimpressed. "Smarter than her already." We see the both of them from behind the chairs as they exit the bubble and enter open space. "She's a child who has spent the last several cycles either preparing for or actually in the Pit," they say. "It's to be expected." Ano doesn't grace that with an answer as she types a warp destination into the console. The pink nebula beyond the windows wrapping around the room stretches and blurs as they accelerate, turning into streaks of light. "Your people are good at hiding your weak points," the Champion muses as they look out the windows. "But not good enough to fool me." They tap at the metal waist guard with one finger, almost casual in their threat. "I happen to know where exactly to put a fingernail to start you bleeding out." Ano, unfazed, says, "And I happen to know that if you could have gotten out of there without me, you would have." A beat. The Champion looks at her, sly. "Then it seems we're on the same page." "Seems so," Ano agrees. "You got a name?" The Champion looks down at their hands, gripping one wrist with the other. "You were in the audience. You heard what they call me." "It's a phrase, isn't it? Something like-" "It's the name I deserve." Ano lets the quiet hang for a moment before shrugging. "Aralian it is, then." The back of Aralian's chair has carved their name into itself, and is partway through carving a set of tallies. End Chapter Three.

CHAPTERS

Chapter Three

Posted on June 7, 2025 by P. K. Finn

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