Just Another Friday Night, In The Sixth Dimension
Disclaimer: I do not own Ace Lightning or any of its associated characters and situations.
It was an innocent-looking envelope. Plain brown, no return address, his name boldly written across the front in spiky handwriting resembling the trail of a spider with ink-stained legs crawling across the page. Knight censors had steamed it open; they would have found nothing untoward. There were other ways of getting messages across, but they chose to use this one when they knew the contents would not be censored, or lacked the time or opportunity to send through more elaborate channels.
He opened it immediately; it had been too long since he had last received a similar message, though then again it always was.
I'll see you—and Lilith Guignola, he read. Be punctual this time.
The note was simply that; he half-smiled as he reflected how typical of her that was. Two tickets fell out of the envelope, and he picked one up to learn the details of the singer's performance. The Opera Spire, in two semicycles' time, seventh rotate, two rather good seats; he mentally reviewed his calendar to make sure that there was no chance he would be forced to be late again. Nothing so far, thank Zoar. He let his mind drift into more pleasant channels, on the subject of the coming meeting; it really had been too long.
--
Save for a brief emergency involving a trainee's minor if dramatic accident involving a bench press and a storeroom full of emergency flares, everything had gone to plan, and his tuxedo was only slightly damaged.
People had already arrived and were milling around the opera's lobby as he walked in the doors; he glanced around, looking for her. She would be recognizable to him if not quite in her true form, and impatiently he waited in line to enter and counted down the seconds.
And there she was, tall and sharp-featured and graceful, stepping through the door in a bright red dress that clung tightly to her body. She noticed him, and with a smile walked to take his hand.
She spoke as though they had barely been apart for an hour.
"I notice you managed to make it on time. What happened?" she asked, running a finger over the small smoke stain on his collar.
"Training accident. Where have you been?"
"Fourth Dimension. Father Time had another demon outbreak."
"He's really got to stop meddling with the fabric of reality itself. I hear he took up golf as a hobby."
"He did, but after he learned there were rules specifically forbidding twisting the time-space continuum to line up shots he quit."
"Pity." They were nearing the front of the line as they conversed, standing together with her arm lightly around his waist. "Leonardo's been active around here recently. Painted the Square red copying the Dona Lora in cubic style."
"I saw a photograph in one of the broadsheets. He made a use of the Central Tunnel I doubt the original painter would ever have envisioned."
"Yes. They ordered a group of trainees to paint it over as punishment for redirecting a swimming pool to Commander Aqua's house, and none of them could stop giggling. Though that may have been Leonardo's designed side effect. It took days for them to finally finish."
She chuckled. "Aqua could use some ego deflation, if I recall correctly."
Ace shook his head, but smiled anyway. "You didn't hear me say anything about my superior officer."
"My lips are sealed. Did anything come of the Benditto bandit affair?"
"They're off the streets for the next five years. Pleaded stressful circumstances and out-of-character actions."
"Rich kids trying for a bit of fun. They didn't know what associations they made use of, but that doesn't excuse them."
"The latest prison reforms might help them learn."
"Perhaps. Miracles do happen."
"Pessimist."
"Realist." She smiled up at him. "Though your optimism is charming."
"Thank you. Have you seen Lilith Guignola before? All the reviews I've seen have been positive."
"A few years ago. She played Ciannon in the Firestorm Circle. Sang the Belarus aria on her stomach."
"Interesting. Is she going to do any more gymnastics tonight?"
"I don't know. I hear there's a fascinating stunt using wire."
They finally reached the entrance, and Ace handed their tickets to the doorman, who waved them inside. The stage was still bare, though the seats were filling up quickly; it appeared the singer was very popular these days.
They had their own box, set towards the back, decorated in bright gilt; very good seats, Ace thought.
"Val Kindaris owed me a favour for reuniting him with the Blue Diamond," Lady Illusion said. "It was entirely booked out over a cycle ago."
"Impressive." Ace glanced to the roof to look at the shining decorations spiraling upwards on the inside of the tower. The Opera Spire had been designed to be one of the most beautiful human-made buildings in the dimension, and it fulfilled the goal, gold and red intertwining spines on its walls flying to the sky as the music would.
"It is. Especially for human-made."
"Perhaps more so. Humans don't take shortcuts."
"And most lack a certain imagination with it, though I admit the Opera Spire shows none of that lack."
"Your point is denied by the evidence around you."
"The reference was to a majority."
"Perhaps. But all people are different."
"True. I have met zombies with no imagination whatsoever." She patted his arm. "Don't worry. I'm reformed, remember?"
Orchestral music started to play from the pit, and he squeezed her hand as they waited for the singer's entrance.
Lilith Guignola was worthy of her reputation, giving a dazzling performance of arias and recitations interspersed with brightly-coloured special effects that Lady Illusion felt the occasional urge to explain.
After a high-pitched final note that would have shattered windows had the Spire possessed any, the curtain rang up for intermission, and they glanced around the building.
Ace pointed to an employee standing with an open tray. "I'll get us some refreshments, shall I?"
"Please."
He ambled down the red-carpeted stairs, casually looking around at the other audience members; it was instinctual Knight training to analyze for potential threats, but he ignored that impulse as much as possible. Most there seemed normal humans out for an enjoyable night…
"Why, if it isn't young Lightning!" A hand clapped him heavily on the shoulder. "Fancy meeting you here!"
Commander Aqua flipped a coin over to the employee, and took two wineglasses in his hands. "I'm here with Doris. You know me, Lightning—a plain man, none of these decadent and new-fangled nights out for me, but she insisted on seeing the show, you know what women are like—or do you? We haven't seen this mysterious girlfriend of yours yet!"
Ace paged through his own wallet for the right electrum value.
"Well? You aren't here alone, are you? Or are you with that young gel whatshername, Sparkle or one of those hippy names?"
"No, sir. I'm here with…" His eyes flickered upwards, and Aqua caught the direction of the look.
"The mysterious girlfriend, I see. Care to introduce her? You wouldn't want to keep a woman like that under a bushel, so to speak, eh?"
"Er…certainly, Commander. Do you have water?" he asked the employee.
"Wonderful. Just between ourselves, there have been rumors in Central Command about you—but that doesn't matter, of course. You've met my Doris, haven't you?"
"Yes; she was at the last official ball." He had a vague memory of a rather pudgy human woman in mauve silk.
"Then we might join your box soon enough. Don't worry, I won't be mixing business with pleasure—no sense in upsetting one of our best Knights on his day off, eh?"
"No, Commander." Ace took some chocolate from the tray as well, carefully balancing in order to sort out the right number of electrum dollars.
"Well, I'll see you in a bit then—and your beautiful lady friend."
Thankfully, he encountered no more of his acquaintances on his way back up, regretting that his superpowers did not give him either extra hands or a lack of potential clumsy accidents, returning to his seat and taking a sip of his water.
"Thanks." Lady Illusion took the wine glass in her hand. "Was that who I thought it was?"
"Yes. Commander Aqua." He watched her nervously. "He decided to…come up here."
"Ah." She smiled slowly, which somehow didn't make Ace feel any less nervous. "How nice."
"He's not that bad," Ace said, a little defensively. "Don't hurt him?"
"He'll be fine, I promise you." She was still smiling, and Ace tried very hard to think of other things.
"Yes, Doris, young Lightning—you met him at the Ball three cycles ago, if you recall—turned up here tonight with the mystery girlfriend. Exciting, isn't it, my dear?" They both heard the loud, braying voice and the two pairs of heavy footsteps headed towards them.
Ace stood up. "I'll ask them in."
"Evening Lightning; you already know my Doris. Marvelous seats," Aqua commented. "Arm and a leg, eh? I hear you have family connections…?"
"The connections were mine in this case," Lady Illusion said smoothly, standing up. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr…?"
"Commander Aqua. And my wife Doris."
"Commander," she said, drawing the word out and making it lose much of its implied prestige. "I never would have guessed. An undercover specialist?" she asked.
"Not in the least. It's always been the field for me. Nothing like the smell of a fresh blast launched at an evil or a burning clearance on a cold day. These days I don't have so much to do—bunch of old women at Central Command, none of these crusades against evils any more, more's the pity, the youth of today are far too soft—but in my day I had quite the collection of commendations and awards for battle duties, though I was just doing my job. Used to use them as kindling on some of the days when we didn't have any better fuel out there in the wild dimensions."
"Ace knows all sorts of fascinating things about the most recent struggle. I'm sure you have your own many tales to tell…?"
The Commander flushed slightly. "Naturally. And where were you during that? So many humans evacuated."
"Yes. I went dimension-traveling, as I hear many who craved sanctuary—or lacked bloodlust—did."
"It was justice," Aqua said sharply. "Justice for our fallen. Those were the days."
"Yes. I hear several thousands of humans perished. As did thousands more minions."
"True. You wouldn't believe some of the stories I could tell you of those times. Those were the days, hunting down the remaining evils, erasing the Carnival's dark influence, fighting next to the best of the Sixth Dimension…"
"Indeed, it sounds so fascinating I am sure I would not believe it. That the Knights happened to win the war was the best possible outcome, despite it all."
"It was." Aqua laughed shortly. "Ah, those were the days…but I don't believe I've caught your name, Miss…?"
"You may call me Arachne," she said. She didn't offer her hand. "And Doris, so delighted to meet you. I can't imagine the life you must lead."
"No, these days our home life is contented and safe enough, cosy and snug barring the odd domestic, though back in the early days we got the occasional evil who thought it would be a bright idea to pull the old hostage stunt. I once discovered a shapeshifter who had changed itself into a mug, ugly thing it was, and fought it through the kitchen and destroyed our dinner service before I could subdue it and bring it in to Headquarters."
"A Lilliput demon imp? Ace has told me they are the ones most likely to transform into small inanimate objects. He says they are very terrifying creatures."
Ace shot a rather nervous look at her, but Aqua didn't appear to notice. "Indeed. Nasty buggers have razor-sharp teeth. Fast, too, and when it took me by surprise I don't mind telling a civilian like you that it was quite a fight." He attempted a subtle wink in Ace's direction.
"Yes. They are rather deadly. Particularly for creatures six inches high."
Aqua peered suspiciously at her. "Do I know you, young woman? Your face seems familiar, though I can't say I've had the pleasure before."
"I have very familiar-looking features. It's almost surprising how many men believe they have a previous acquaintance with me."
"You do? Well, well, funny what people get up to, isn't it? But I believe we were speaking of the home lives of superheroes, weren't we now? Any upcoming announcements from you two? It's hardly fair to hide the mystery girlfriend away, Lightning. When I married my Doris I invited the whole garrison to the wedding, keeping everything aboveboard and showing her off."
"How wonderful for you. For myself, I'm hardly the marrying type." She patted Ace's hand. "Though no doubt the ceremony is lots of fun for those who enjoy that sort of thing."
"It symbolizes commitment and decency," Aqua said. "Both qualities that a Lightning Knight needs if he's to be successful in his career. A Knight mustn't have any sort of scandal—as Caesar's wife, so to speak. In our duties we can't afford to be anything but pure as the driven snow."
"It's…modern times, Commander," Ace said. "Some of the rules aren't so strictly applied these days." He managed a small laugh.
"Scandals that would never have been countenanced in my day." He reached inside his coat for a handkerchief, and coughed heavily into it.
Doris patted him on the shoulder. "Young people these days are different, dear…"
"Nonsense!" Aqua replaced the handkerchief in his pocket. "People are always the same no matter where you go. Difference is that young folks these days openly do what we didn't talk about back then."
"There's no scandal if people are…open and honest," Ace said, "It's when things are hidden away that trouble happens."
"You've hidden her from the rest of your teammates, Lightning. Practice what you preach." Aqua laughed, a braying sound.
"Sparx and Random know me quite well," Lady Illusion said. "Other Knights…well, I haven't always been successful in keeping professional and personal separate, but it is a good thing."
Aqua opened his mouth to prepare some retort to that, but below them the music began again, and they settled back into watching the show.
"I know that song," Aqua said after a while. "Remember hearing it at some posh do just after I was married. Old one, isn't it?"
"Four hundred and ninety-two years old, if I recall correctly," Lady Illusion said, turning on him. "Germanicus' Tovarisch Air. A very famous piece."
"Ninety-three," Doris interrupted softly. "It was first performed a year later, dear. But let's simply listen." She was smiling as she leaned towards the stage, drinking in the music with her eyes fixed on the singer.
Aqua laughed. "Women!"
Lady Illusion fixed him with her most condescending stare, then returned her own attention to the performance.
"Excellent view from up here," Aqua said as Lilith Guignola began to sing another tune. "Who did you say your contacts were, Miss Arachne?"
"I didn't," she replied, staring very fixedly at the stage below them.
Something about the melody seemed vaguely familiar to Ace, though it was more that he had heard one or two of the themes before than heard them performed in this order and style.
It was an almost creepy tune, chiming bell-sounds overlaying a bass almost too low to hear, as Lilith's voice came somewhere between the two, nothing about the timing of her solos regular and her volume varying from loud to almost too soft to hear.
"It's…old," Lady Illusion whispered in Ace's ear. "Too old."
"Carnival?" he whispered back.
"Share the lovers' whispering, or quiet it," Aqua called. "No secrets between comrade Knights like us."
"Twilight Domains," she whispered hurriedly back, referring to what had been the name for the sorcerous areas before the Carnival of Doom's advent. "It's no harm unless someone performs the working belonging to it."
"A Forbidden Tune?" Ace asked.
"Yes. Not something I expected to hear in this place."
"Well? Continue, you two," Aqua said with forced geniality. "Not my type of music, I'll admit, but there's no need to be disrespectful!"
A cold wind blew through the spire, and Ace and Lady Illusion looked at each other in shock.
Lilith's voice found a high note then, and held it.
And the Opera Spire froze in place.
Perhaps it was a minute of the world turning cold and dark inside them, perhaps an hour or even longer. It felt longer.
There was a jerk, and those inside the Spire felt like they had just turned upside down, spinning through space as the building flew. Ace tried to reach out to hold Lady Illusion, but he could not move himself.
The Opera Spire had been designed to point upwards, so that the sounds and melodies would flow freely to the sky, flying as though they were birds. When there was light again, they found they were upside down and the Spire itself pointed to the depths of the black earth.
A laugh split the silence, and then gravity gave way as the audience struggled to hold on to something in the reversed Spire, clustering and clinging onto the ornate decorations as lifelines.
The singer was floating suspended just below the stage; she screamed, the sharp noise cutting through all the other cries.
"Guess who's back?" A cloaked figure floated down to stand just below Lilith. It gestured in the air, and all bar him were once again frozen. "Some of you may know me as dear Lilith's manager, who found such a pretty tune for her to sing tonight. Others know the name of Sianáth the Summoner. Those who don't…well, you soon will. Along with my one true love, the Siren. Coming out of there, darling?"
"The mortal resists," another voice, rich and throaty and somehow everywhere at once, said from somewhere inside Lilith Guignola. "It will not be long before…ah, now I am here!" The last words were said in a shriek, and then Lilith's skin seemed to peel off and disappear to reveal another figure beneath.
The demon was a tall humanoid, female in aspect and impossibly beautiful, naked except for long dark hair swirling around her, with blood-red lips ready to sing a deadly melody.
"Dear Sianáth," she said, floating down to stand beside him. "What do I kill first?"
"Let's see what we have here." Sianáth stared around the crowd, and pulled a long sheet of paper from his heavy cloak. "Oh, Councillor Baton, in row ninety-three with her husband and three daughters. Ray Steele, second richest man in the city, one of the east boxes, very good spot. The star Lavender, incognito for tonight as Mildred Bottom, by special invitation of her dear friend Lilith, front row." He continued paging through the list. "And…oh, dear, if it isn't Commander Aqua, row twenty-six, with his dear wife. Siren, sweetling, we have found our first prey. The Lightning Knights must always be the first to die; they can prove so disrupting otherwise."
Siren smiled, and sung a low note as she floated herself towards Aqua's seat, with Sianáth clinging to her hand.
"Closer, my darling, to the left then right up here, not a very good seat is it but Lilith was so popular…but where?"
There was a scream as Sianáth and the Siren realized their prey was not where they believed it to be, and the Summoner's control of the Spire faltered for an instant.
There were more cries as the people in the upside-down Spire struggled to hold on to something to halt their falls towards the roof, and in their box Ace grabbed Lady Illusion's hand.
"Where is Aqua! Come out, or be deemed a coward!" Sianáth cried.
"He's here." The Commander levered himself out of the box, hanging on to its door to support himself in space. "Bring it on, evils."
The Siren laughed. "See how eager he is for death," she said, her rich voice echoing into every nook and cranny of the Spire, bound downwards.
"You evils never got the better of me yet!" Aqua yelled.
The Siren leisurely flew to face him, looking at him curiously.
Aqua reached inside his coat, fumbling inside searching for something.
"Leave the weapon," the Siren said in her resonant voice, and sang at him. The energy gun made its own way from his pocket, carried along by the music, and flew into Sianáth's hand, where the Summoner crushed it into fine powder and threw it into the air in a grey cloud.
The Siren sang another note, crushing the box and forcing all four of its inhabitants back to the wall.
"Sianáth," she called. "Look what else we have here."
"Ace Lightning," the Summoner breathed. "You defeated us last time. Separated my Siren and I. We will make you the first." He looked to Aqua. "We will reward your honesty with a quick death. After your…your wife, is it?" He glanced at Doris, hanging on to her husband. "And…" He stared at Lady Illusion. "And what are you?"
"To say your nemesis would unduly flatter you," she said, and breaking free from the compulsion jumped at him while Ace flew to attack the Siren.
Lady Illusion forced the Summoner down, trying to remain in her human morph while using every bit of fighting skill she had to bring down the sorcerer. Her surprise attack caught him off balance, and he had never been trained as a fighter; she slammed into him, fingers finding the vulnerable areas of his throat and eyes as her knee hit his stomach and winded him.
Ace fired at the demon, who was too slow to dodge and was flung back by the electricity coursing through her. Aqua and Doris, released from the pressure, fell downwards before he caught on to a gilt spire and held on to his wife.
Pushing her hair from her face, the Siren looked about her and sang again, forcing all the bystanders to freeze again.
"Let the fight continue," she told Ace, almost gently, and aimed a wave of sound towards him, He tried to fly out of the way, but the sound, so thick he could feel it, sheared off the arm of his tuxedo, letting a breath of uncomfortably cold air run across his body.
"Let them go," he said, trying another blast. Without his wrist cannons, he didn't have as much energy or direction as normal, but he would still defeat the demon, he resolved.
She screamed harshly, and in mid-air his blast was frozen into two discs of bright blue. "I will to destroy them. It's so much more fun when they're moving as you kill them—and so much more energy to be gained, too." She grabbed one of the discs in her hand and threw it at him. "All I once wanted was to be together with my Sianáth. But to be in this sunlit dimension, I must destroy to live—and after the way you have treated me, I no longer have even a sliver of regret."
Ace fired at the disc heading towards him, and shattered it, placing a hand over his face to shield himself from the flying fragments.
"The people you kill have lovers and families too," Ace said. "There are other ways for demons to walk the earth. Don't tell me your boyfriend never thought of any of those?"
"This way serves my love's goals—and in doing so serves me." The Siren launched the other disc with her voice, spinning it in a deadly pattern around him, letting him dodge until she finally chose to strike. "You separated us last time. Suffer!"
She slammed the disc into him, hitting his chest and sending him plummeting towards the Spire's tip.
--
The Summoner hit the tower hard, his cloak no longer serving to hold him upright; he struggled from under the woman's attack, trying to get free of her and in the air again.
"It was our night off. You're going to pay for that," she said. Her dress tore as she stood herself. She held on to the tower's side and used that to launch herself at the Summoner again, stabbing her high heels into his midriff.
He gasped, falling further down into the Spire's roof; she was on him in a second, doing something with her hands he couldn't quite identify, and he reached inside his cloak for a surprise of his own. A master sorcerer wasn't so easily defeated, and he activated a blast-rune.
She was flung into the air like a rag doll, suspended on a thick pole of green for a second before tumbling down again, headed for the ground too quickly. She twisted in the air, trying to slow her fall; she hit the tower's slope hard, crashing into the side of the roof, one of her heels snapping under her.
She looked up to glare at the Summoner, with the pattern of the roof's decorations marked dark red across her face. "That's it," she said, and raised a hand.
Something in my cloak! was the Summoner's last thought as his world exploded around him.
--
Ace rallied from the blow, flying upwards again to face the demon as she opened her mouth for another deadly song.
"Sianáth!" she cried, seeing her fallen love, and flew down towards him, crying out as she went.
The scream ripped past Lady Illusion, shredding the red dress still further and pressing her back against the wall.
"What did you do to him?" the Siren cried. "You look mortal!"
Lady Illusion tightened her hand around one of the gilt spines on the wall, loosening it from its position. "Same thing I'll do to you," she said.
The Siren turned, mouth open for another blast, and then screamed as the fragment of wall hit her shoulder like a dagger, releasing a stream of green smoke from her body.
Ace fired at her from above, the lightning blasts widening the wound in her shoulder and forcing more green smoke to puff into the air.
"You first!" she screamed, blasting Ace all the way up to the stage and breaking a few timbers as he crashed into them. "I'll destroy all of you if Sianáth is hurt!"
Ace fell from the stage, slightly stunned and not ready to launch another attack; the Siren screamed again, this time throwing him into a particularly spiked area of the roof decorations. Blue energy bled from him at a rapid rate as he struggled to fight back.
"Freeze!" the Siren commanded, and both Ace and Lady Illusion were forced into place by the power of her voice. They fought as hard as they could—they were more than human, after all, and more easily able to resist power—but her note held them where they were.
The Siren raised her left hand, and concentrated as her fingernails lengthened and sharpened.
"Now," she said, and flew towards Ace with her clawlike fingernails poised to run through his throat.
And then bright blue energy hit the back of her head and sent her tumbling forward.
"Not…a single…evil…got the better of me yet," Aqua said. He was an old Knight, and he had never been extraordinarily powerful; but he was still not fully human, and he struggled to hold the energy-gun in place for another shot. "Now, Lightning."
The Siren's power over him had faltered for an instant; Ace raised his hands, and then both he and Aqua fired.
The Siren screamed as the double blast hit her; Ace put as much effort as he could into it, ignoring his too-low power levels as he focused on the enemy, while Aqua held on grimly to his weapon.
The green smoke in the air started to multiply; both Ace and the Commander's eyes started to water, though they continued to force the energy against the demon.
Gravity was restored again to the Spire, and there were more screams as people struggled to find a handhold again. Aqua continued to hold onto the spike while Doris clutched tightly around his waist, and kept his finger on the gun's switch.
"It's not over!" the Siren screamed in pain, and then all was quiet.
Her body twisted, her hair flying around her and hiding her form, then dissolving into a cloud of green smoke as her features warped.
Then there was nothing left but Lilith Guignola, unconscious and falling through the air, and the Summoner a black heap on the bottom of the reversed Spire.
Ace flew down to Lilith and caught her, bringing her safely down to be placed in the arms of another human, and then the Knight forces finally arrived. Within minutes, an entire squad of Knights was busy loading humans on to Lightning Carriers and bringing them out through the emergency exit.
The Summoner was still lying in a heap on the ground; Ace flew down and picked him up as though he was a sack of potatoes, and unceremoniously dumped him into a waiting prison vehicle.
"Ace," Lady Illusion called to him, and he flew to her, realizing that her form was on the point of reverting to its true one. "We should go. No casualties, and the other Knights have it well in hand." She gestured with one hand towards the humans being safely evacuated. "It's your day off. I'm staying at the Power Switch."
He nodded. "Let's go," he said. He quickly reached behind a light in order to draw power from it, and then taking her hands flew them both out of there.
--
The Power Switch was one of the largest downtown hotels, an enormous building festooned with bright lights. Ace landed quietly a block away, and walked to it supporting Lady Illusion, who with her broken shoe was finding it difficult to walk. It was only walking through the lobby, though, when they realized that in contrast to the well-dressed guests around them they were severly underclothed.
The clerk at the reception desk cast a gimlet eye over them both, taking in the details of Lady Illusion's badly shredded dress that barely covered her and Ace's ripped tuxedo.
"We were caught in the contretemps at the Opera Spire," Lady Illusion explained. "I'm booked here under the name of Arachne Verde, room one hundred and twenty-nine."
"I haven't heard of any disturbances at the Opera House," the clerk said sharply, her eyebrows disappearing into her thick bun, though she tapped a few keys on her computer anyway. "Indeed. Miss Verde. Though you are both in contravention of our dress policy."
"I told you, there was a fight there. Look it up on the latest emergency broadcasts. Please?" Lady Illusion asked.
There were streaks of green starting to show on her arm, and Ace placed it around his waist to hide it.
The clerk reluctantly tapped a few more keys. "Ah yes. Demon outbreak, off-limits area, interrogations currently taking place. How were you two permitted to leave?"
"I'm a Knight," Ace said. He took his insignia from his jacket pocket. "Here."
The clerk examined the lightning bolts suspiciously for a moment, and then passed them back. "That appears to be in order. But I should mention that this hotel has remained free from scandal for the sixty cycles of its existence, Miss Verde…"
"We're married," she said desperately, holding up her right hand, which suddenly had a ring on it. "I…use my maiden name for job-related purposes."
The clerk said something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like "to others", but passed a key over the desk anyway. "Checkout time is by the second demi-cycle," she said sternly.
"Yes. Thank you." Lady Illusion grabbed the key. "Let's get to the lifts," she told Ace. "Fifth floor."
Ignoring the stares they received from others, they passed up the well-lit glass lift and into the room, which was bathed in a soft pink light. Ace shut the door and locked it, while Lady Illusion collapsed on the bed.
"That's better," she said, holding up a now-green hand. She looked down at herself, still wearing the remnants of the dress. "I paid for that," she said bitterly.
"You looked beautiful," Ace said, seating himself beside her with his arm around her waist. "Still do."
"That's not the point." She sighed. "Why does this sort of thing always happen to us?"
"Fate?" Ace shrugged. "At least it happened to us, and not, say, if nobody was around who could help. The Summoner isn't dangerous normally, but if the Siren had destroyed every human in the Spire she'd have gained the sort of power I don't want to think about. So it's good we stopped it then."
"Optimist."
"It's charming." He grinned. "Did you mean what you said to the clerk?"
"What?"
"Us. Married." He blushed slightly. "It's been nearly ten cycles. You're the person I want to share my life with. And it'd make it easier to get into certain hotels…"
"I told you before. We don't need a human ceremony to change anything between us." She relaxed against him.
"I know." He lay back onto the pillow with his arm still around her, and kissed her gently. "We're…no Aqua and Doris?"
She laughed above him, and he felt her breath move from her. "No. You know I'm not that sort of girl."
"You're your own sort. Though he did help us save the day, eventually…"
"It doesn't change his unfortunate personality. But let's not spoil the mood with this topic of conversation."
"Let's not. Did you…enjoy the part of the performance we viewed? I liked it."
"Very. She's most talented." She stroked a hand across his cheek. "Going to help me out of what remains of the dress?"
"You know I'm too gentlemanly to refuse."
--
"'Lightning Knights Save Opera Spire'," she read aloud from the daily broadsheet. "'Commander Aqua, thankfully on the spot at the time of the attack, gave exclusive information to the Thunderbolt. The villain of the case was the Summoner, who making use of diva Lilith Guignola (currently in recovery at West Hospital) brought a demon siren from the Netherworld.'"
"Does it mention us?" Ace asked lazily, still buried under the bedsheets.
"Much further down. 'Alsopresent was well-known Knight Ace Lightning, who assisted the Commander in bringing the evening to a happy ending, accompanied by a mysterious woman.' And after that there's just details on their plans for getting the Spire the right way up again."
"Mysterious woman. Didn't you use Arachne for Aqua?"
"Yes. Miss Verde should check out as a rather inoffensive human, and the rather dreadful photograph of her seems to have turned out extremely blurred."
"That's solved, then. What's the time?"
"One-point-three demicycles." She took another sip of thunder beverage as she continued to contemplate the broadsheet.
"You're leaving soon?" He levitated out of the bed, looking around for his clothes.
"No. I thought I'd stay another few days. Try to find something to do with you that doesn't involve demon outbreaks."
"I'm glad." He pulled on a hotel dressing gown, and joined her at the table, pouring lightning juice for himself. "Any particular plans?"
"I thought the ballet." Her hand reached across the table to rest on his. "Eventually."
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A/N: Reviews will be my sustenance in a foreign country. :P