Chapter 63: Gaze Upon My Works, Ye Mighty…
"I said, I don't want to talk about it," Kasios grumbled, leaning back so deeply on the plush purple couch that he looked as if he might sink into it, the very picture of depression, despite being surrounded by his luxurious den room inside his luxurious retirement manor in the most affluent part of Mercury.
"Well, what else is there to talk about right now?" Serenity asked, hunched over from her seat on the edge of a neighboring cushioned chair. "It sounds to me like Endymion is about to get away with everything, and we're just sitting here letting it happen, I think that's worth at least talking about!"
"There's nothing left to do," Kasios grunted. "Me trying to do something to stop it is why I'm here right now, I got...I basically got grounded by the Grandmaster."
"You're...you're the former High King of Earth and I'm the former Queen of the Moon," Serenity said, rather lamely. "How can it be possible that two people like us are this powerless?"
"Well, we are," he grumbled. "Nothing I can do about it anymore. He's getting away with it, and that's all there is to it. So, all things being equal, I'd prefer not to talk about it."
"O-Okay," Serenity said slowly. "So, that's it, for now. But, once this is all over, and you...resign your council seat, then we strike, right? You can dig something up on him after!"
"What the hell will I find now?!" Kasios asked, clearly irritated now. "You think Kunzite's leaving anything that I can find by myself?!" He shook his head, leaning back even heavier. "Evidence trails don't warm up as time goes by. They just get colder. I'm done with false hope, I...he's in the clear. As long as he doesn't touch the imperium black market again, it's over. I meant it when I said it a few days ago, and I mean it now, there's nothing left to do."
Serenity slowly looked away from Kasios, tilting her head over towards the large window that provided a view of the ocean. "Well. That doesn't sit well with me."
"You think it sits well with me?!" Kasios snapped. "Look, I know that...people like us...we're not used to not getting what we want. Getting a desired result just feels like a given sometimes, but...it's not that simple this time. Once I resign, I doubt I'll be able to speak to anyone on the council ever again. Hell, anyone who works for the agency, they'll all be told to steer clear of me, I won't have so much as an ounce of pull over there."
"Can't you just...you have money, don't you?" Serenity suggested. "Bribe someone! Getting our hands dirty is a small price to pay if it means bringing your son to justice! Come on, now's the time to get creative!"
"Serenity, I...tell you what." He put his right palm up to rest on his forehead as he slowly laid himself back. "How about we just...why don't you go somewhere else for a little while?"
Her face tightened. "What, you're kicking me out now?"
"Not...don't take it like that," Kasios said, though his facial expression, which resembled that of a man who had just smelled something very unpleasant, wasn't doing anything to convince Serenity that her presence was welcome right now. "I would just rather be alone right now, I...I'm just as unhappy as you are. Actually, hell with it, I'm more unhappy! I spent years hunting Tuxedo Mask down, and now I have to watch him get away with it, you think I'm not furious? I'm just...I'm tired, and I want to be alone."
Serenity stared over at Kasios for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of trying to continue this conversation. Finally, however, she stood up. "That's...well, I believe you, of course. And I can understand that. I'll leave. I'll, uh...go see how things are back on the Moon. I should show my face at the palace every now and then. Call me whenever you're feeling more sociable."
"I just...I need some time, right now. Right now, I don't really want to be around anyone, it's not you. Just go spend some time at the palace, that's a...good idea," Kasios mumbled.
"Mmm," she murmured. "You know, Kasios, don't misunderstand. I know you've worked very hard on bringing Endymion to justice. I'm not accusing you of anything to the contrary."
"Yeah," Kasios grunted, slowly turning away from her to look back out towards the shore through the window. "And don't misunderstand me. I know that none of that means a damn thing if he still gets away with it."
"I just don't want to hear that you're giving up," Serenity said sternly. "So long as you're alive, you can keep pursuing justice." She turned away from him. "And I don't think you'd be able to live with yourself if you didn't. So, don't try to convince me it's over."
Serenity waited a few beats, giving the former High King a chance to reply, but it became evident that he had nothing further to say, so she started sauntering away. Kasios sighed, sinking even further into the couch.
"
Endymion twirled the silver fork around in his fingers, a looping cycle of mildly impressive dexterity that young children might have been impressed with. However, it was certainly no way for a High King to be spending his time, a fact that was not lost on Endymion even as he concentrated on maintaining the constant switching of fingers and slow spin.
At least doing this mind-numbing task was allowing him to not think about anything else, something he deeply appreciated right now. Because the more he actually thought about important things, the more he was being forced to accept the reality of his situation and settle on the only logical conclusion. No matter how hard he tried to stay irate and stubborn, he was too smart and had too much to lose. He almost hated that fact about him, even as it might end up saving him.
It had been a day since his encounter with Kunzite, and each minuta he put between him and that heated exchange was slowly dragging him back down to his right mind. He couldn't justify going against Kunzite's advice, no matter how hard he tried. And the endless inane rounds of questioning from the agency's interrogators just hammered the point home even further, that he wanted to be done with all of this. Even if it meant handing his father some degree of victory.
He suddenly wound his arm back behind him and flung the fork across the room, sending it clattering to the floor and sliding up against a wooden dresser. Launching himself to his feet with far more energy than was necessary, he marched over towards the room's only door, his more impetuous side giving its final gasps through his sharp scowl and over-exaggerated motions.
He jabbed his finger into the intercom button to the right of the door, rapidly pressing it over and over several times before relenting. He stood there for maybe a secunda, slowly working the more obvious signs of anger off, wanting to present himself with dignity and professionalism.
The door slid open right after the red indicator light above it turned green, one of the many sentries of The Savery standing at attention right in front of it. "Your Highness, how can I serve you?" he asked, visibly tense and nervous.
Endymion sighed. "At ease. Don't worry, you're about to make your superior officers very happy," he grumbled. "Trust me, this is a good thing for you."
He visibly, and audibly, swallowed, but nodded. "Y-Yes, Your Highness." His arms slacked ever so slightly.
"Go report to whoever it is that you report to. Tell them that I'd like to amend my initial statement and change my plea." Endymion paused for a couple beats, feeling the horrible taste of the words that he was trying to get into his mouth. "And...have Earth General Kunzite contacted, and told to come here immediately. I have nothing more to say until he arrives."
The sentry's mouth dropped open a little bit, quite stunned by this set of orders, enough for him to temporarily ignore his strict directives to act completely professional at all times, and give the High King nothing to react to. "Uh...um—"
"Do you need to be writing this down?" Endymion asked brusquely, in no mood to humor anyone right now, wanting this to be concluded as fast as possible. "Or was what I just said unclear in some way?"
"Ch...um, Your Majesty, there are...there only, uh, two pleas you can...make," he said, slowly, the part of his brain that knew he should just be answering in the affirmative and leaving the room simply not working due to his shock.
"I didn't know that, tell me more," Endymion snapped bitterly. "Now, are you going to go tell someone important, or do I have to get someone else who actually knows how to follow orders?"
"Y-Yes, Your Highness!" he yelped, practically turning around and sprinting out of the room, realizing that he had overstayed his welcome.
Left alone again, the High King sighed and lumbered back over to his bed, sitting down on the bottom edge of it and rubbing at his face anxiously. It hurt his pride tremendously to allow even this small concession, but now that it was officially in motion, he did feel a significant sense of relief that at least this was all about to be over. With no other choice but to find some way to be mentally at peace with this decision, he quickly found the bright side. Less than a day from now, his father would be off the high council forever, the agency would have absolutely no interest or reason to suspect him of being guilty of anything beyond what he had already admitted, and he'd have nothing to do for the rest of his life but serve as High King and raise his daughter. He had fought tooth and nail to not acknowledge it, but he had to admit, it was a pretty good arrangement.
"
"So he's pleading guilty?" Tiberus said incredulously. "You're sure he said he's changing his plea?"
"Y-Yeah, uh, y-yes, Sir," Appius replied, standing at attention in front of the high council member, an office desk separating the two. "I even repeated it back, and...w-well, that's what he said."
"Does he know there are only two pleas that he can make?" Tiberius said, eyes wide as dinner plates as he frantically started searching through his desk's drawers, yanking each one out before slamming it home after looking through it for a beat or two.
"Um...I...I think so?" Appius grimaced.
"What do you mean, you think so?! What does that mean?" Tiberus roughly sifted his hand through the contents of one of the drawers.
"W-Well, I...I asked him that very thing," Appius admitted, nervously glancing over to his right. "And...I think...I think he said, 'I didn't know that, tell me more'."
Tiberus stopped ransacking through his desk and looked up at the station sentry. "So...he didn't know?!"
"Um...I think he was being sarcastic, but...I-I don't know," he answered, sounding like he was about to panic. "I left pretty quickly after that, he...he wasn't in a good mood."
"Okay, okay, uh...well, it doesn't matter, right?!" Tiberus exclaimed. "He said it, so...I mean, it's common sense, if you're changing a not guilty plea, you must understand that the only thing you could change it to is guilty, and...and…"
"Sir?" Appius asked, watching as the high council member suddenly froze, his hands still partially-submerged in the contents of one of his drawers.
"I...I don't even know what I'm trying to find," he said slowly, pulling his hands out of the drawer and quietly closing it. He quickly took in, then pushed back out a deep breath. "Alright, alright, calm. He...we shouldn't overreact until we know what he's changing his plea on, anyway. It could be a lot of things." He pursed his lips. "Really, it's not like we've even charged him with anything yet, just...asking questions. Very odd."
"Do you need anything more of me, sir?" Appius asked, still looking rather nervous and tense.
"Oh, uh, no. I'll take it from here," Tiberus said, reaching over his desk and grabbing his communication disk. "Dismissed. Whew." He gave his head a sharp shake.
"
"Understood, sir," Kunzite said, fighting to remain audibly professional and straight-laced, which was difficult due to the tremendous relief he was feeling. "I will depart for The Savery immediately, I should be there in less than four minutas."
"Y-You do understand the ramifications of what I've just told you?" the voice on the other side of the communicator disk connection asked. "The High King told us that he wished to amend his statement and change his plea, which...unless we're misunderstanding him completely, means he wishes to admit some guilt surrounding involvement with the Tuxedo Mask case."
"I understand that, and I'm sure I'll be able to sort everything out once I'm there," Kunzite assured him. "Inform the dock controller to prepare for my arrival, the sooner I can get docking permission, the sooner we can resolve this."
"R-Right, I'll...I'll have them pre-transmit it, you should be cleared by the time you get close to the dock."
"Be there shortly," Kunzite said, reaching over to close the audio connection, immediately exhaling a strangled breath and practically staggering back into his desk chair, allowing the full sensation of relief to wash over him for a short period of time. It was the best way to allow himself to move forward without displaying or being distracted by the emotions later, to give himself a moment to allow them to do what they would. Part of him was scared that, no matter how good the plan was, Endymion would be stubborn. He had expected him to initially react with anger and disgust, but also to eventually come around to the idea of tossing his father a bone just to end everything. But, no matter how obvious the solution was for him, he knew that the High King might just hold fast. And now, even though the storm hadn't exactly passed, at least Endymion had seen reason.
The relief passed through him, and after several beats, he let it go. Now, it was time for business. All he had to do was negotiate with the agency, and this would be over forever. He picked up the communicator and prompted it to connect with Queen Serenity as he moved for the door out of his personal quarters.
"Hello?" Serenity asked, sounding a little sleepy and listless.
"He's going to do it," Kunzite said confidently, sliding his quarters's door open and peering out into the empty hallway. Satisfied that no one else was around, he emerged and began purposefully heading up the hall. "I just got the call, he's going to do it."
"Well, this'll be a fun couple of cycles," Serenity said dryly.
"It'll pass," Kunzite assured her. "We should be back by tonight. Be ready, and tread very lightly. I promise this will pass. The hard part's over."
He ended the call, permitting himself a genuine smile.
"
Damali leaned back, peeking at the computer screen in the middle of the gigantic console full of buttons, switches, and displays that spanned one entire side of the room. He took a couple beats to process the information on it, a few lines of text.
"Pavlos, can you pull up the confirmation signal we used the other day?" he asked, twisting his head around to look at his companion within the traffic controller room of The Savery. The ever important chamber, which exercised complete control over which ships were permitted to so much as come close to the massive space station without being blown to bits, much less make use of the docks.
"Uh…" Pavlos pulled his rolling chair down the large console, reaching for a set of switches. "It was that Kunzite guy, right? The Falconeri?"
"Yeah, that's right." Damali swiped his finger on the screen a couple times. "He's coming back in a bit, they want us to start transmitting the confirmation signal now."
"Alrighty then." Pavlos tapped a directional pad a few times, eyes glued on another display screen right in front of him. "There we go."
"So you wanna check out 'To Live and Die' tonight?" Damali asked. "Urias said it was good, I got nothing better to do."
"Sure, but it's gotta be your dorm. Mine's still getting mold removed," Pavlos answered. "How does mold even get on a space station anyway? All the protocols we have around here and mold gets into my room? I gotta ask about that."
Suddenly, about a dozen little light nodules started blinking an angry red in one section of the console. Both middle-aged men who were in the room immediately focused all of their attention towards it, as they were aware of exactly what those warning indicators were alerting them to. Pavlos quickly pulled his wheeled chair over towards the array of lights.
"Holy shit, that's gotta be a dozen of em," Damali said, all thoughts of watching movies immediately dashed from his mind.
With practiced fingers, Pavlos started rapidly tapping a joystick to the left and gluing his eyes to the screen right above the blinking lights. Various angles of the prison area of The Savery were shown, hallways, cafeterias, individual cells, and recreational rooms. Sure enough, several of the cameras were showing the beginnings of fights breaking out among inmates.
Pavlos jammed his right index finger down onto a small green button on the console, leaning his mouth down towards a small speaker built into the dashboard. "I assume you guys are seeing this?"
"We're on it."
"Why are so many fights breaking out at the same time?!" Damari wondered aloud. "This has to be planned."
"Not likely," Pavlos uttered, still flipping through camera feeds, seeing more brawls breaking out in various areas of the prison, some simple fisticuffs between two or three people, while others had already escalated into full-on wrestling matches between a dozen or so inmates. "God damn, it's everywhere!"
"
A very abrasive alarm rang through the air as the criss-crossed arrangement of thick metal bars slid to the right, opening a passageway between the guard hallways and the inmate cafeteria. The moment the gate was open, half a dozen uniformed and armored men piled in in a tight formation, eyes trained on the violent scene on the opposite side of the row of large tables.
"Alright, enough of this shit!" one of the sentries called out, bringing out a gray rod with a red orb on the tip. A large collection of prisoners had started to fight each other across the room, a wild and haphazard collection of haymakers, with no discernable sense of squads or sides. "Knock it off!"
The other five guards pulled out identical batons, hoping that the weapons would be enough to overcome the numbers disadvantage they were at. All six had been trained for situations like this, but none had expected it to ever actually happen. Given the absolute impossibility of escaping and the lack of accountability for the agency in how they treated their prisoners, disobedience was rather rare among inmates.
One of the rioting prisoners turned towards the oncoming guards. His eyes were glowing a faint red, a detail that was hardly noticed in the chaos of the ongoing fight, and with no regard for himself, he charged straight at the sentries. It was a display of wild aggression that made no sense on any level that any of the guards could conceive of, and it nearly shocked them into non-action.
"HEY!" One of the sentries managed to jab him with their prod, sending a large blast of energy into his body through the orb after contacting his chest. The prisoner was knocked off his charge, body spasming as his muscles were forced to wildly contract. He staggered back, but somehow stayed on his feet.
Several of the other brawling inmates had also turned away from the initial fight and were now rapidly advancing on the guards. It was a rather bizarre strategy, to break away from the crowd and allow the guards to act defensively. As they wildly charged forward, the initial attacker had already recovered and was leaping back in towards the guards.
"The hell?!" one of the sentries yelled. The charged baton should have been more than enough to put any normal human being out of commission for several secundas at the minimum, both from the general loss of muscle control and the extreme pain that they caused. That the inmate had shrugged it off in less than five beats was highly improbable.
The focus of the squadron of agency guardians was now split between multiple attackers. They all held their batons out, hoping that future uses of the tools would prove more effective. The room crackled with the sizzling charges from the batons as three of them fired off into three different prisoners, forcing them back and slowing their rush.
But that's about all they did. Each zapped inmate treated the shocks as a minor nuisance, taking a moment or two to regather themselves before going back on the attack. It was becoming clear that a clinical and smooth return to order was not going to be happening, as all the present prisoners began to realize that things were in their favor and that this was an opportunity to perhaps take some hostages.
One of the inmates lifted another one up over his head, lobbing him towards the formation of guards, arcing his ragdolling body through the air. It was just the little extra bit of chaos that the prisoners needed to actually break through the guard's defense, and the screaming prisoner-turned-projectile crashed into the group like a wrecking ball. With the line of defense broken, the previously unorganized and haphazard fight shifted dramatically to prisoners-versus-guards. And with the batons providing little more than a distraction, the numbers advantage told the story.
The severity only escalated, the unmistakable sound of breaking bones filling the air as the half-dozen guards were surrounded and dogpiled.
"
Across the prison wing of The Savery, that same macabre scene was playing out over and over again, leaving the head warden, Drakon, in absolute shock as he watched from the several dozen screens in the control room. Everywhere he turned his head, he saw a video feed of another area of the detention center, and where there was any motion at all, there were guards being beaten to bloody pulps by prisoners.
"You've got to be kidding me!" he hissed. He glanced down towards one of the surveillance controllers. "How is this happening?!"
Visibly nervous, perhaps even terrified, the woman sitting at the main control panel of the collection of screens slowly turned to look over her shoulder. "I…I just…I just run the cameras, sir."
The head warden grunted, mentally acknowledging that she was correct. "Why aren't the damn batons working?!"
The doors behind the head warden whisked open, two other agency employees quickly entering. "Well, what the hell's going on in there?!"
"It's…it's as if some of the inmates feel no pain," Drakon explained slowly, aware of how absurd that concept sounded.
"I've had one of those zappers used on me before, it took me three secundas before I could even move my fingers!" The first new occupant of the room, Kerberos, shook his head in denial of what he was seeing on the dozens of screens in front of him. "How is this possible?!"
"I…I don't know." Drakon pointed at one of the screens. "It's not all of them! Some of them have been spasming on the ground for awhile now, look!"
"Fat lot of good that does us!" Kerberos growled, paying only cursory attention to the prisoner that Drakon was pointing out, who was indeed incapacitated in a hallway, the fight having moved away from him some time ago. "Gods, they're taking hostages!" He pointed towards the upper left of the screen wall. "Those ones aren't dead, look!"
"The batons are definitely charged, they're…they're working," Drakon insisted. "They're just…not having the expected effect, I've never seen anything like it before."
Kerberos hissed through gritted teeth, then turned towards Drakon to address him directly. "It's pointless to let this continue to play out, I have a second wave of men ready to move in, I just need your approval for them to arm themselves with rifles."
"Do you have any idea how much worse this gets if a prisoner gets their hands on a gun?!" Drakon snapped. "Look what they've already managed to do without so much as a stick!"
"You're the one who said they couldn't feel pain!" Kerberos countered. "Do you have a better idea?! And don't you dare try to tell me that these pricks don't deserve to be put down! I've got over a hundred men dead already, if we have to stack some corpses to quell this thing then so be it!"
"Oh, Gods." Drakon pulled a small tablet out of a holster on his right hip and brought it to life. "If I do this, you better make sure your men understand that this isn't target practice, and they do not have permission to mow down every inmate in the prison wing!"
"Of course," Kerberos said with a hacking scoff, gesturing towards the wall of screens. "We've got men to save, I won't tolerate friendly fire."
"Not just that!" Drakon hissed irritably, swiping his finger rapidly from right-to-left on the tablet. "We need as many rioters alive as possible, so when this is over we can figure out what the hell happened! I won't be able to get answers out of corpses!"
"I'll give you the answer right here!" Kerberos shouted, sounding somewhat incredulous. "It's a prison riot, what answers do you need beyond that?! Plain as day!"
"No no no, not here, not like this," Drakon insisted. "This was coordinated, I'd say three-quarters of the prisoners in this place were involved! These inmates can't even belch without us knowing about it, so how could they coordinate something like this without us knowing the moment someone conceived the idea?! No, I want to find out, and I need survivors. This isn't going to be a massacre, you get that?!"
"Understood," Kerberos said, sounding a little testy. "So, I have permission to arm my men with rifles?"
"Yes. But I'm ordering an evacuation now, just in case, we'll go down to a skeleton crew." He turned back to Kerberos and pointed at him. "Whatever happens, there had better not be a single prisoner who gets out of that wing. Keep it in the prison section!"
"Naturally," Kerberos responded, reaching up towards his left ear. "Everyone arm yourselves, we've got permission to utilize firearms."
"I don't like this one bit," Drakon groused. "Kerberos, keep this contained. And promise me you'll support my proposal to the council to have knockout gas vents installed everywhere in the prison wing."
"
Endymion stared at the wall across from him in his cell, lost in thought, trying to logically plan out his next few days. How he was going to deal with the agency, how he was going to deal with Kunzite, his inevitable interactions with his wife, public relations with his subjects on Earth…as if he was still trying to find something he could rationally be angry about, now that he knew everything was about to be over.
Suddenly, the little red light directly above the one door in or out of his quarters flickered off to be replaced by a green one, and Endymion robotically rose to his feet and turned towards the door, sure that he was about to be escorted to a meeting with Kunzite and a few council members to negotiate terms.
He waited a few beats. Then a few more. But the door did not budge, nor did he receive an audio cue over the intercom system, finally drawing his curiosity. He took a few slow steps, eyes still on the small square green light above the door, not flickering back to red.
"Hello?" he called out, trying to reason out an explanation for this. He waited a few beats, then went right up to the door. "Who's there?"
He glanced over to the right of the door, at the touch pad. Experimentally, he reached over and touched the panel. The door slid open to a vacated hallway, white walls and gray doors. He poked his head out, looking left and right, still seeing nothing.
Cautiously, he strided out into the hall, waiting for someone to emerge, his guard only just now to start to be raised.
"Hello?!" he yelled. "Something the matter?!" He scanned down both sides of the hallway again, this time noticing another inexplicable oddity. Every single door had a small green indicator light, meaning that they were all currently unlocked, very much not the typical state of things in a station this obsessed with security.
Endymion took off to his right, breaking out into a jog, his suspicion that something was wrong on the verge of being confirmed. He saw an opening in the hallway up ahead with no door and practically sprinted over to it, trying to listen to hear for something other than his clapping footsteps.
The hallway he turned into was vacated of any other people as well, but there was a communicator hub on the wall to the left. He quickly darted up to it and ripped the fob out of it, placing it by his face as he started to play with the dials on the hub.
But he didn't hear anything from the fob, signaling a dead line, not connected to anything and unable to make or receive calls. He gave the base a couple of quick taps with the butt of his fist, then a firmer smack, but nothing happened. Replacing the fob, he turned back down the new hall and took off into a downright sprint.
"
Endymion had, over the last several years, been exposed to many ugly things that a royal was typically not ever supposed to see. He had been directly involved in many things that a royal was supposed to have at least five layers of insulation from at all times, if at all. He had not been repulsed by these things, be they mere illicit black market dealings, two-faced deception on a galactic scale, and even outright murder. In fact, he had often taken to it like a fish to water, almost comfortable when surrounded by these things.
But nothing could have prepared him for this. And he was most certainly not comfortable right now.
Endymion had dashed down countless hallways, finding every single door he encountered unlocked. He had long since concluded that there was no way that each one had been individually swiped, and that there must have been some sort of command given in a security hub to open up everything. The question was why, as he had still not encountered another person during his entire journey. Until now, that is.
One of the random pathways he had chosen around The Savery finally led to a clue, although all things being equal, he would have preferred to not find it. The hall, roughly identical in design to the prior ones, was littered with about ten corpses, each one covered in and pooling blood, evidence of much physical harm on their bodies in the form of bruises and misplaced limbs. Down at the other end of the corridor, a few others were brutally fighting, a no-holds-barred wrestling match featuring haphazard punching, kicking, biting, and everything inbetween.
The High King was too shocked and disgusted to process meaningful information at first. All he saw was the aftermath of extreme violence in a place where there should have been only order. He was positive that his journey had not taken him to the prison wing, where something like this would be at least slightly understandable.
As the macabre fight on the other end of the hallway came to a sudden close with a vicious neck snap, Endymion partially gained some clarity of mind to actually process information. Some of the corpses were wearing agency guard uniforms, others prison jumpsuits, meaning there had to have been some sort of a breakout of the prison wing. Among the many visible wounds on the bodies were some evidence of plasma burns, meaning that plasma rifles had to have been involved. He glanced up briefly, seeing that one of the prisoners had been the lone survivor of the fight, and was now slowly getting to his feet.
He was about to turn and run away, when he saw the butt of a plasma rifle between two of the twisted bodies. Figuring it was better to be the aggressor here, he quickly stepped forward and grabbed the weapon, subconsciously holding his breath as he strided over the lifeless corpses to it. With shaking arms, he brought the weapon to bear and pointed it towards the survivor. The bloodied and battered prisoner turned around, slowly putting Endymion in his sights, and started stiffly approaching.
"I'm n-not afraid to use this!" Endymion yelled, still shaking as he planted the stock of the gun into his shoulder, trying to remember his firearms training through the immense shock that was still processing through him. "B-back off!"
He kept his slow approach up, seemingly not concerned at all about the deadly weapon in Endymion's hands. Regardless of what the High King had just said, he was actually not entirely comfortable shooting someone who wasn't armed, knowing that a security camera was almost certainly recording the scene from somewhere. Endymion took a couple shaky steps backwards, trying to defuse the situation without having to actually pull the trigger in his hands.
"You take another step, I'm putting you down!" Endymion shouted.
To his surprise, the prisoner did actually stop, still at least a dozen paces away. He continued to give a dead-eyed stare at the High King, and as Endymion took a moment to study this without being just concerned about being attacked, he noticed that his eyes had an unnatural red glow to them.
And then, he started to speak, in a flat, emotionless monotone that could not possibly have been his real voice.
"The way out is clear. Leave, now, before reinforcements arrive. Your father is being handled. We'll discuss my payment later."
And then, as if having a seizure, the man collapsed to the floor, spasming about before going limp, leaving Endymion no time to process his words and respond. The High King blinked rapidly a few times, slowly bringing the rifle barrel down.
"W-What?" Endymion stammered, staring at the now seemingly unconscious prisoner. "What was that?!" He waded over a few corpses, going up to the man who had just spoken to him. "My father?!"
With each step he took, things started to add up in his mind. This agency inmate could not possibly have been of his own mind just now, and he knew enough about The Savery to know that a normal prison break couldn't possibly have gotten this far without outside interference. And there was only one person he knew of who could have accomplished all this.
"Wait, WAIT!" Endymion tossed the rifle to the side and bent over to grab the collar of the just-collapsed inmate, trying to shake him back up. "No, NO! Do NOT interfere with this, call it off now! Beryl, you stay away from my father!" he yelled. "You hear me, Beryl?!" He violently shook him back and forth. "Call it off! I don't need your help, stay out of this!"
But nothing happened. All the High King accomplished was yelling at a hallway full of dead bodies. He wasn't even sure if the prisoner who had been controlled by Beryl just now was still alive, but either way, it was clear that whatever connection there had been between the two was now severed.
"Shit, shit, SHIT!" Endymion grunted, roughly spiking him back down to the ground and straddling over towards one of the guards. His disgust and shock at the grisly scene was gone now, and he didn't even react as he flipped the uniformed man's body over and ripped the earpiece out of his ear.
He placed the small device up to his right ear, immediately not hearing even the faintest crackle of static from it. He tapped it a few times with his fingertip, and when he didn't hear any sort of blip from it, he quickly discarded it, reasoning that communications throughout the entire station were cut.
"SHIT!" He took off into a sprint down the hall, skipping through the assorted corpses as if they were an obstacle course. He was certainly aware that he was very possibly going to run headlong into an in-progress battle between guards and prisoners, and that if self-preservation was his objective he should turn back around and find some place where he could barricade himself in. But right now, self-preservation was taking a back seat, and the only thing that mattered was that he get to the ship hangar, as fast as possible.
"
One of the many benefits of owning a stately manor in the richest part of Mercury was the security. Sure, most who were wealthy enough to own property there would have their own personal guards to keep the actual land clear of trespassers, but the community itself was very well insulated, so that anyone with bad intentions would have difficulties even getting close. Gated and walled-off, with aerial security constantly active that would detect anything within Mercury's atmosphere that was above the area.
So, the only way to actually get into the area without dealing with an army of sentries or a slew of automated weaponry was tunneling underground. Given that the planet was largely made up of iron, that was no less far-fetched an idea. However, if someone really wanted to cause trouble among the wealthy elite of Mercury, it was probably your best bet.
Right now, three large men were marching through a narrow cave, a vein between massive iron chunks deep below Mercury's crust, towing behind them a rectangular silver box the size of a coffin on a levitating platform. Although all three men were quite used to being in dangerous situations, as danger was just part of business with someone like Beryl, this particular gambit had them all a little jumpy. They knew what was inside that large box, and even the slow, gentle movements of the hovering platform were worrisome. Every time the box bumped into one of the walls, even a gentle tap, the men would practically freeze up in fear.
"We're close enough now, let's just leave it and go!" one of them cried.
"Almost, almost," the second one in line assured him. "We've come all this way, we may as well make sure it's perfect."
"It doesn't need to be perfect! Did you see the energy readings from this thing?!" he retorted.
"Hey, keep it down," the one in the back hissed, head turned over his shoulder to watch the box as it delicately drove through the narrowing cave. "You keep yelling like that, you'll set it off."
The front man sighed. "Well, anyway, that thing could practically power the sun, nobody up there is surviving once it goes off, we'll probably collapse half the planet! What's the difference at this point?" he hissed.
"Don't over-exaggerate," the back man chided. "It's not nearly that powerful. And it's mostly iron all the way up, you'd be surprised at how much of this will be absorbed. This thing was built with exact specifications in mind, so let's be exact with the placement. Right underneath Kasios's manor, we're just about there, and then we can go."
"Mnggh," the front man groaned, nevertheless slightly picking the pace up, encouraged to placate his partners quickly so he could put some distance between him and the massive bomb they were carrying.
"
"I repeat, this is Earth General Kunzite, requesting verbal permission to dock aboard The Savery," Kunzite stated firmly into the microphone on the center console, eyes glued to the screen right in the middle of the collection of buttons and switches.
He clearly saw that his initial docking hail had been approved, in fact it had been immediately approved as soon as he had sent it, clearly indicating a pre-programmed approval that he had desired. He also saw that, as he approached the docking bay, gently floating towards the giant door built into the side of the massive space station, the doors began to open, again signaling that he had permission to utilize the bay. And yet, he was unable to get so much as a syllable from the traffic controller.
"Hm." He shrugged, reaching forward to tap the auto-pilot on so it would take over the docking procedure. "Feeling shy today, I suppose."
Although he verbally dismissed the oddity, his many years of training and experience did force him to acknowledge the possibility of something having gone wrong, and that he might be walking right into danger. Tapping the butt of the plasma pistol on his hip, he alertly watched as his personal ship floated towards an empty docking slot.
The hangar seemed normal, nothing more than a tan brown chamber partially filled with ships, not betraying anything out of the ordinary. However, Kunzite's suspicions were only raised further as, despite being given permission to dock, the traffic controller was not transmitting a specific docking station for him to utilize, which was obviously standard procedure on a station like The Savery. His scan of the room also did not pick up on any welcoming parties for him, something he also would have fully expected. Taking the briefest of moments to direct his auto-pilot towards one of the empty bays, Kunzite quickly darted back into the central chamber of his ship, knowing that something had to be wrong.
The white-haired Earth General grabbed a large, black, wide-mouthed rifle from a holster in the left-side wall, pulling a plasma clip from right next to it in the same motion and shoving it into the rifle's ammo slot. As soon as he was more heavily armed, he darted back into the cockpit, looking out the front windows, trying to spot any signs of obvious trouble.
The ship settled into the bay, spinning about to give Kunzite a view of the entire docking chamber, and nothing made itself overtly obvious. Of course, he was aware that one of the defense turrets could suddenly spring to life, open fire, and he'd barely even have time to shout in surprise before being vaporized, but it hadn't happened yet. As soon as the ship had settled in, Kunzite sprinted to the back side of the ship, opening up the back hatch and dropping down to one knee, weapon pointed out towards the slowly-expanding hatchway.
Nothing but the dead and eerie silence of a massive, vacated room. He quickly sped down the ramp, waiting for something to pop out and attack, but it wasn't happening. Aware that his charge could very well be in trouble right now, Kunzite dashed for the door that led into the actual facilities.
After several dozen long strides, Kunzite was at the door, which was suspiciously unlocked. Steeling himself, he tapped the pad to the right of the door, letting it whisk open as he pointed his weapon towards it.
After finding nothing waiting for him on the other side but a blank wall, he pivoted out into the open hallway, again mostly expecting to see nothing out of the ordinary. This time, however, he was immediately proven incorrect.
The Savery's most identifiable trait was how sterile and bland it all was, an endless maze of halls and rooms, mostly not looking any different than any other hall and room in the entire station. So, when something like a pile of human bodies and smears of blood were present, you really noticed. The contrast was downright staggering, particularly given how the station basically stood for all that was law and order in the galaxy. And there was, no question, a pile of human bodies and smears of blood down one of the corridors, Kunzite looking right at it.
Kunzite's training meant that he didn't experience any reaction of shock at the sight. But he certainly had a reaction of shock, buried underneath that training, which was quickly followed by an alarmed one as he considered what this might have meant for the High King that he served.
The sound of rapid, running footsteps from the other side of the hallway got Kunzite to pivot back through the open door, peeking his head out to watch, weapon ready to be fired at a moment's notice. It only took a couple beats for a sprinting Endymion to appear from down the hall, hurdling the stack of bodies.
Kunzite couldn't even feel relief for so much as a moment, this situation was still so obviously bad. Endymion was running with such speed it seemed as if he was being chased by someone, so Kunzite stepped out into the hall, preparing to protect his charge.
"GO!" Endymion shouted, waving his arms towards Kunzite. "GO BACK!"
The Earth General's entire life was built around his uncanny ability to quickly react to any situation, understanding when the stakes were high and he had to make the right decision fast in order to survive. So, embarrassingly for him, he froze up at this order from the High King, lowering his weapon so he wasn't pointing it at him, acting like someone with dulled senses.
It wasn't until Endymion was just a few steps away, looking like he was going to crash right into his General's chest at maximum velocity, that Kunzite jumped back out into the hangar bay. Endymion skidded across the metal floor, practically throwing himself out after Kunzite, avoiding falling to the floor by a miracle. He did not take so much as a beat to gather himself, or shut the door behind him, bolting off into the hangar.
With so much that he still didn't know about this situation, all Kunzite could do was follow his charge's lead, so he quickly took off after him, assuming that he wanted to get off The Savery as soon as possible.
"Your Highness, what happened?!" Kunzite yelled at Endymion's back, glancing over his shoulder, half-expecting someone to appear behind them in pursuit of the High King.
"KASIOS!" Endymion shouted. Unfortunately, that single word did absolutely nothing to illuminate the situation for Kunzite, and if anything made things all the murkier. Nevertheless, Kunzite was able to decipher enough about this situation in order to figure what Endymion's immediate goal was, and quickly tapped his chest, prompting the ramp on the back of The Falconeri to start opening up. That was all the visual cue that Endymion needed, and his sprint made a slight rightward shift so it was directed right at Kunzite's personal craft.
The distance between them and The Falconeri was closed in record time, Endymion's tall thin frame proving capable of great speed when he was properly motivated, and although Kunzite was significantly heavier and was carrying a large rifle, he was also covering ground at a rapid pace. Every couple beats, Kunzite gave a look behind him, again finding nothing emerging from the doorway.
Endymion got to the ship first, boarding the back ramp and slowing up slightly as he got inside, gaze immediately falling on the communicator hub on the right-side wall of the small central room. He went right up to it, but before he could grab the earpiece Kunzite boarded the vessel right behind him.
"Your Highness—"
"Get us out of here!" Endymion said, the words piling out of his mouth in a painful-sounding burst, grabbing Kunzite by the collar and roughly shoving him towards the cockpit. "Mercury!"
Kunzite knew better than to press his line of questions further for the moment, swinging into the cockpit seat and starting the ship's engines with a couple button presses.
As the ship lifted up out of the dock and started turning towards the outer doors of the bay, which began to automatically slide open, Endymion started rapidly manipulating the dials on the communicator hub, the earpiece shoved in his ear, trying to establish a connection with his father's personal communication disk.
"Come on…come on…" he muttered to himself, frantically jabbing his thumb into the center button and listening as the beep in his ear told him that the device was attempting to make the call.