Chapter Fifty: Riot Watch

The Authority Regulator disliked the Archagent's office.

He reclined in the chair, tapping hesitantly on the armrest with his nightstick. The Archagent's office was in a prime location—the top of the Amethyst Tower, a place where almost every Enforcer aspired to be. Being a high-ranking Agent himself, as Chief of Enforcement, the Regulator had an office of his own just a few stories below. It wasn't a cushy office, but certainly nothing to turn one's nose up at.

And now, here he was, at the top of it all. The Archagent had gone off-world to one of the eight planets, on some sort of mission for the Black Queen. And while normally that would have left the Draconian Dignitary in charge…the Dignitary, as it turned out, was also sent off-world to one of the eight planets. And then, to top it all off, the Authority Regular had heard through the grapevine that the Courtyard Droll and the Hegemonic Brute had been sent on a covert mission to Prospit and had not been seen or heard from in the past twelve hours.

Something was amiss, the Regulator could feel it in his spine. There was a tingle in the air that he did not like. He was a man of the law. Whatever the cost, order had to be maintained…and now the Regulator feared that the order and stability he had strived so hard to maintain was about to be shattered.

The Authority Regulator did not like how insulated, how far removed the Archagent's office was from the streets below. Derse was an outwardly quiet city, but underneath the veneer of silence was a throng of life, and that life had a pulse to it. The Regulator had had his finger on that pulse for the past few millennia, preventing the Wrathful Veteran and his dissenters from stirring up too much chaos.

Whenever the Enforcers arrested a cell of dissenters, there were always two or three more that sprang up to take its place. But the Authority Regulator was always able to keep them in check. Now, though…the pulse of Derse was much harder to feel when the Regulator was cooped up in the top of the Amethyst Tower, far removed from the streets below.

Just as the Regulator was considering going out on a raid with one of the street units—bust up an underground gambling ring, or something else along those lines—the door to the Archagent's office was thrown open. The Regulator was startled by the sudden entrance, accidentally sending a stack of parking citations cascading off the desk onto the floor.

The Authority Regulator swore under his breath at the mess he was going to have to clean up, rising from his chair. The person who'd just walked into the office was a stern-faced, square-jawed Enforcer Commandant by the name of Arcturus. He wore a gray trench coat with black stripes on the shoulders and the Dersite Enforcement insignia emblazoned on the upper sleeves, gloves and boots, but no hat. He was the commandant of the Lunar Sector, which comprised of the four districts that made up the Obsidian Moon of Derse.

The Regulator had started his days in the Enforcers as a patrolman in the Lunar Sector after he completed his military service on the Battlefield. He went back a long way with Commandant Arcturus; after the Regulator's eventual promotion to a precinct Captain position within the Long Night District—the largest of the four lunar districts—Arcturus had served as his most trusted and capable shift lieutenant.

"Authority Regulator, the Nameless Chief of Enforcement…sitting now behind the desk of none other than the Archagent Jack Noir himself," Commandant Arcturus chuckled, closing the door behind him. "What is Derse coming to, eh?"

"Nothing good, I think," the Authority Regulator muttered, scooping the fallen parking citations off the floor and dumping them onto the desk in a haphazard pile. He knew he'd have to file them soon—if he left the Archagent's office in such a state of disarray, Noir was likely to use him as a practice dummy for his knives. "Too much happening that's above my pay grade. The Agents are restless. Understandable, I suppose, considering what happened last night."

Sensing that the Regulator was taking his joking remark a little too seriously, the Lunar Sector Commandant dropped his swagger and got down to business. "It's been a while since you've been to the Moon; things have gotten a little heated there," Arcturus said to his old friend. "After the Sylph's little midnight stroll down Seventeenth Avenue last night… Our surveillance posts have been reporting increased activity. The dissenters are at it again, old friend. Word on the grapevine is that the Wrathful Veteran will be attending a rally later this afternoon. The Wrathful Veteran. In the flesh. Get the picture?"

The Authority Regulator did get the picture. As fate would have it, the Authority Regulator and the Wrathful Veteran had actually served alongside each other in the ranks Dersite Commandos during the last great war, ten thousand years ago, when the Nobles had attempted to rally the consorts against the Black King. They had both fought in the Skaian Theatre of that war, long after the Cataclysm and the Nobles' resultant deaths, fighting for several centuries to keep the White King's forces from overrunning the Black Keep.

After his experiences in that war, the Wrathful Veteran had nursed a deep-seated hatred of the Dersite monarchs for the way the Dersite soldiers were treated as cannon fodder, and upon his homecoming he'd promptly begun a series of peaceful protests against the war on the Battlefield. He'd gotten the ridiculous idea into his mind to try and transform Dersite society from a monarchy into one that involved the commoners having a fair say in ruling themselves. He even had a word for it—democracy, or something equally ridiculous-sounding.

He'd preached his ideals to the people, successfully broadening their perceptions and initiating a worldwide call for reforms. That is, until the Black Queen forcibly shut down his operations by throwing many of his supporters into the Silent Dungeon in a purge of sorts, having them executed shortly thereafter.

Then the Wrathful Veteran lived up to his title, descending into wrath as his hatred of the Black Queen exploded into a black fury. He rallied the remaining dissenters who still followed him, armed them with equipment stolen from the military, and went underground, practically turning the Obsidian Moon into a warzone with all the crime and mayhem he stirred up—at that time, the Enforcers had been unarmed and ill-equipped; unable to effectively counter the Veteran's campaign of destruction, allowing the situation on the moon to remain highly destabilized for a long time.

Then the Veteran gradually started to go quiet, lying in wait for something that was beyond the Regulator's understanding. And after serving with distinction in ranks of the Enforcers for about six thousand years in the Lunar Sector, the fact that he'd never been able to catch up to the Wrathful Veteran remained the only thorn in the Authority Regulator's backside.

The point was that, since going underground, the Wrathful Veteran had never once been seen in the public eye. And for the past two millennia, or so, even his dissenters had not made any kind of move against the authorities. The Obsidian Moon had, more or less, fallen quiet. If the Veteran was going to make a public appearance this afternoon…it was not something the Authority Regulator could ignore.

The Regulator sheathed his nightstick and strapped his holstered energy pistol to his thigh, donning his black greatcoat and hat. "Fine, I'll bite. Where is this rally going to be held?"

"Greenflame Plaza," the Commandant replied.

The Regulator immediately recognized the name of the landmark—it was a very large square located within the district he'd served in during his early days in the Enforcers. "Long Night District… Who's the District Major there, these days? Rana, is it?" the Authority Regulator noted. Upon receiving a confirmatory nod from Commandant Arcturus, he went on. "I assume you've already ordered her to get her boys ready for action?"

"Her First Precinct Captain has two foot units on standby," Arcturus replied.

That gave the Regulator pause. "Two foot units? That's all?"

"An overly overt Enforcement presence might cause any kind of public gathering to go sour," the Commandant of the Lunar Sector started to explain, but he was cut off by the Regulator.

"The fucking Sylph woke up last night, Arc!" the Authority Regulator snapped, gesturing for the Commandant to follow him into the small transportalizer room behind the Archagent's desk. It was a small chamber, barely any bigger than a closet, and all it contained was a transportalizer pad. It was a master pad, however—able to connect with any other transportalizer pad on-world or on the Obsidian Moon. Luckily, the Regulator had memorized many of the codes for the various pads that were reserved for use by the Agents of Derse, allowing for quick transport to the moon.

"The Sylph woke up last night," the Authority Regulator repeated himself in a calmer tone as he keyed in the code for the Lunar Sector HQ transportalizer pad. "The dissenters have the public up in a simmer as it is, and it won't take much for a simmer to break out into a full boil. If the Wrathful Veteran shows his face, there's going to be mayhem no matter what. Two foot units is not enough—it's a goddamn powder keg out there."

The Lunar Sector Commandant chose his words carefully. "What would you consider to be enough, then?"

"Get back in contact with Major Rana," the Authority Regulator ordered. "I want all three shifts pulled for duty this afternoon. Send in the mounted units, but have them stay in their trucks until ordered to deploy—no need to spook the dissenters prematurely. I want all of Rana's remaining foot units to set up a tight perimeter around the First Precinct, and I mean all of them. None of the initial violence can be allowed to spread to the rest of the district; that will be crucial for minimizing damage. I want the rest of your sector on standby, as well-"

"Damnation, you'd think we were preparing for a Prospitian invasion! Mounted units? You sure you want the crushers involved in this?" Commandant Arcturus chuckled. When the Regulator shot him a withering glare, however, he wisely decided to cease his attempts at humor. The Regulator clearly was under a lot of stress, today. "I'll send out the orders immediately."

"Good." The Authority Regulator nodded. He then took a deep breath before stepping onto the programmed transportalizer pad, relenting on his old friend. He did not need to explain himself to a subordinate, but there were times when it could go a long way. "You remember how it was, Arc. I mean before the Veteran's dissenters went quiet. It was chaos—a government building blown up every week, an Enforcement posting shot up every other day. We were taking losses on the moon, hard losses…and you know why?"

Commandant Arcturus shook his head as he stepped onto the transportalizer pad along with his superior. There was a brief flash of light, and then the two Dersites were stepping off another pad in the Lunar Sector Enforcement Headquarters transportalizer chamber.

The Lunar Sector Enforcement Headquarters was similar in layout to the lesser constabularies, only greater in size. It was no Amethyst Tower, however, nor did it need to be. Its interior comprised of largely unadorned hallways of gray metal and stone, though the offices where the detectives and lower-ranking Enforcers worked were a bit more personalized and less spartan. Arcturus's personal office was also located in this building.

"The threat of the Veteran is one we could have nipped in the bud long ago," the Authority Regulator continued, accompanying Arcturus out into the lobby, brushing through the bustling traffic of Enforcers and HQ staff, heading towards the stairs that led to the upper level. "When he first started his guerilla war, after the Queen's fuckup, you have to remember how our superiors would never take him seriously. He's just foolish soldier, they said. A fool who still thinks he's on the Battlefield. All we could do was react to his attacks! We'd have patrol sergeants, shift lieutenants; even precinct captains, sometimes—good Enforcement who knew the streets, trying to get our shit together so we could crush that son of a bitch, trying to convince the higher-ups to give us the freedom to regain control of the Moon…only to be given a pat on the ass and ignored by the command echelon… We were trying to fight a widespread, organized rebel movement with nothing but nightsticks and unpleasant manners. We stood no chance."

"Unnecessary expenditure of much-needed military resources," Commandant Arcturus chuckled, his white eyes distant as he relived old memories, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I was there when you went behind the last Commandant's back and tried to get the old Chief of Enforcement to allow us access to military-grade equipment. That was the bullshit excuse he gave you before sending you out on your ass."

It was true. The Authority Regulator had been promoted to the position of District Major of the Long Night District, following the assassination of his predecessor at the hands of the dissenters. After many years of ramming his head into a brick wall when trying to deal with the old Lunar Sector Commandant, Arcturus's predecessor, the Authority Regulator had taken Arcturus and gone straight to the Amethyst Tower, complaining directly to the old Chief of Enforcement…only to receive the same treatment. He'd then gone even higher and done the unthinkable—he'd strode straight into Jack Noir's office and complained directly to the Archagent himself.

The only reason the Regulator was still alive today was because the Draconian Dignitary had also been present in Noir's office at the time. Noir's first impulse had been to stab the Regulator for disturbing him, for ignoring the chain of command, and for being too apparently incompetent to deal with the situation on the Moon by himself. But the Dignitary had calmed the Archagent down, kept him from stabbing the Regulator, made him see things a bit more reasonably…and the rest, as they say, was history.

"The fools should have armed us the moment the Wrathful Veteran blew up that first government building," the Authority Regulator grumbled as he pushed open the stairwell doors, stepping across the hallway alongside the Commandant, entering the chamber of cubicles on the other side. At the far end of the large room of cubicles, where detectives sat hard at work, was Arcturus's personal office. "You remember it…the Royal Post Office in the Third Precinct? All those workers…"

"Of course I remember it; I was one of the first-responders," Arcturus reminded his old friend. "And it wasn't really a post office; it was a military weapons cache. That was where the dissenters first got their hands on energy weapons."

The Authority Regulator continued to speak, barely acknowledging the Lunar District Commander's interjection. "If we'd had the proper support and equipment, we could have crushed the dissenters millennia ago, and the Veteran would be languishing in the slammer as we speak! But no… The Veteran was not taken seriously. We allowed him to spearhead what would eventually become a widespread underground movement that still plagues us to this day; all because the higher-ups underestimated him. Arrogant fools who underestimated what could be accomplished by an angry ex-commando with an agenda."

Commandant Arcturus opened the plexiglass door of his office, allowed the Regulator inside, closing the door behind them, shutting the blinds for good measure. "I think you've made your point, AR," he sighed, already wishing he hadn't cracked that joke about a Prospitian invasion. The Regulator could get pretty long-winded at times.

Arcturus sat behind his desk, inviting the Regulator to sit in one of the two chairs in front. He reached under his desk and offered the Regulator some brandy, but his superior declined.

As for the Authority Regulator—yes, perhaps he had already made his point, but he was not one to stop vocalizing a thought midway. But he was almost done. "If the Veteran wants to show his face, he is more than welcome to. But it will be different, this time around. We are not our predecessors. We will not underestimate him. When the Veteran stirs up trouble again, and I guarantee you he will…we'll come down on him and his followers so hard that they'll have to be scraped off our boots before we throw every last one of them into the Silent Dungeon."

Theo wished he'd counted how many times he'd used his inhaler. Maybe then, he'd have some idea of how many uses it had left…

Theo had felt a great relief upon entering the Medium. Understandable, considering the circumstances. From what his friends were saying, his house had been targeted by a meteorite…and he had just barely made it into the Medium before that meteorite had made landfall. His entire neighborhood had been completely wiped out. All his neighbors...gone.

Then winged underlings that resembled flying lizards—banshees, Deltasprite had called them—had completely swarmed Theo's house, driving him from the roof. Then, to make matters even worse, the banshees had friends. There were much larger underlings that resembled giant flying, legged snakes—they had wickedly sharp teeth and claws, and they also happened to be able to breathe fire. Deltasprite had identified them as 'wyrms'. It had taken a massive effort on his part and Deltasprite's to fight his way through the swarms of banshees and wyrms and reach his first gate. But then they'd made it, emerging in a clearing somewhere in the middle of the forest that covered the surface of the Land of Fog and Shadow.

But it was only after the pure chaos of Sburb's entry phase wore off that Theo began to realize that there were a few logistical problems with being located in another dimension that he hadn't really given any thought until now. Did his house's water still work? What happened when he ran out of food? Perhaps the most problematic issue for Theo was what would happen when his inhaler was depleted. It wasn't like he could just find the nearest CVS and get his inhaler refilled… When his inhaler became useless, what would happen when he had another life-threatening attack?

Theo couldn't think about that, right now. That was simply a bridge he'd have to cross when he came to it; for now, he had to worry about not becoming underling-chow.

After accompanying Theo through the first gate into the forest, Deltasprite had then given him a bluish-green sprite pendant that seemed to radiate with a heat of its own—the sprite said that he wasn't able to accompany Theo beyond the first gate—the rest of Theo's quest was for Theo alone. But the sprite pendant could be used to summon him in a time of need. And with that, Deltasprite simply flew off, leaving Theo alone in a monster-infested forest. Wonder-fucking-ful, Theo had thought to himself, watching his spirit guide soar up and away.

The forest floor was quite beautiful. Many of the vines that snaked up the tree trunks, the ferns and foliage that covered the ground…they appeared to be bioluminescent. Theo wasn't sure if they were like that all the time, or only in the dark. It did not really matter, in any case—the Land of Fog and Shadow's sky was obscured by a permanent layer of mist, so it was always dark.

Unfortunately, the forest floor also happened to be infested by swarms of imps, ogres, and God only knew what else. As a result, Theo did not get the chance to sit back and appreciate the beauty of the luminescent forest—he was constantly on the run. And for a severe asthmatic, being constantly on the run wasn't exactly ideal; though he hadn't kept track of how many times he'd had to use his inhaler, Theo knew he'd already gotten over half a dozen attacks.

Even now, as Theo sprinted his ass off towards a fist-shaped rock formation, seeking a place to hide from an oncoming horde of imps, he could feel that hated tightness beginning to grip his chest. As he reached the rock formation and pulled himself up into a ledge formed by the clenched 'thumb' of the fist-like shape that the rock formation held, he could barely take half a breath, and his mind was beginning to enter panic mode. There were thick shrubs that grew on the ledge, which effectively concealed Theo from view, but he had his malfunctioning respiratory system to worry about.

Theo got his inhaler out of his pocket and shook it, brought it to his lips, breathed in the ugly-tasting chemicals that somehow, despite being eraser-flavored, were able to reopen his lungs and save his life. The relief was immediate as Theo was able to take in full breaths, his body relaxing as the oxygen was carried to where it needed to go.

Theo took several breaths, getting his heart rate under control. He forced himself to fall silent as he heard the underlings catch up to him. Dozens of tiny, clawed feet, skittering across the ferns and leaves…dozens of chattering vocalizations… Theo craned his neck around the bush that he was lying behind, getting a look at what he was hiding from.

The swarm comprised mostly of imps—there was a single ogre that lumbered alongside them, but that was it. Even so…imps were easy to handle, but in numbers like this… And especially with Theo's lungs practically conspiring against him… No, fighting was not an option. He had to stay hidden.

Theo could feel his sprite pendant, warm against his chest. He briefly considered using it to summon Deltasprite, but…but in the end, he decided against it. He had no doubt that Deltasprite would help him out, but at the same time…he knew that if he wanted to win this game and make things right again, he'd have to start relying on himself to get out of trouble.

The swarm of imps and its tag-along ogre parted as they skittered around the fist-shaped rock formation where Theo hid, and the forest fell silent once more within a minute. Then, once the underlings were long gone, the wildlife started to reemerge—rabbits and squirrels, as well as moths whose wings glowed a luminescent green, adding to the ambient, biological light of the forest.

Theo let out a sigh of relief, crawling out from his cover. After dusting himself off, he set back off into the forest. He was not simply blundering about the woods with no idea of where he was going—in the near distance, there was a tall mountain of pale rock that was visible, looming above the treetops.

Deltasprite had not left Theo completely lost in the woods; before leaving, the glowing blue spirit guide had offered Theo one last piece of advice: Find the nearest mountain and head in that direction. And when you start to get close, make a lot of noise.

Theo had been on the run for a while, now, and the mountain in the near distance was finally beginning to draw close. Still, Theo did not feel like he was as close as Deltasprite would have wanted, so he pressed on. He moved at a jogger's pace, not sprinting unless he absolutely had to. If he'd tried sprinting the entire way, he'd have depleted his inhaler within an hour, and then he'd be dead anyway.

He was proud of himself, however. In all of his gym classes before high school, Theo had always had a bit of a competition of sorts with Adam whenever they did all the physical fitness tests—he'd reigned supreme over his best friend in nearly every one of them. Push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups; Theo had been one of the best in his class. Despite being slightly overweight and appearing to be soft, he was remarkably strong. But when it came to the mile run, Adam would always kick his ass. Theo would consistently clock in at seven to eight minutes, which wasn't bad, but not particularly fast, either. Running was not his forte. But today, although he was not necessarily sprinting at the speed of light, he'd managed to keep on running at a good pace for a very long time. He was proud of himself, and he felt Adam would have been proud, too.

Theo stopped twice to catch his breath—on both occasions, he didn't need to stop, but he knew that if he didn't take a quick breather, he'd cramp up. So, after resting for a second time against one of the trees, Theo got back to it, jogging in the direction of the nearby mountain. All was going well—he evaded another four or five swarms of underlings after the near-incident at Fist Rock—Theo's impromptu name for the landmark that had kept him safe. He'd been lucky, so far.

But luck was a fickle thing. Sometimes it just ran out.

Theo happened to stumble across a trio of imps who were fighting each other over a patch of what appeared to be some kind of luminescent mushrooms. Not for the first time, Theo took mental note of how a very large part of the forest was freakin' bioluminescent; that was obviously one of the 'themes' of this world, or whatever. These three imps were not on the move, nor were they in such large numbers as the swarms, so Theo did not know they were there until he was practically on top of them.

The three imps quickly forgot the contested mushrooms and bared their claws, leaping straight for Theo. Theo barely had time to backpedal and avoid getting gashed up by the imps' claws. He quickly retrieved his primary weapon from his strife specibus. It looked like a regular old baseball bat—not the glossy, sleek, professional-type bats; just a normal, everyday wooden bat. And for all intents and purposes, Theo supposed, it was a regular old baseball bat…except for the fact that it was unbreakable. A gift from his grandmother; and how she managed to find an unbreakable baseball bat, Theo didn't think he would ever know. It was his most prized possession, though. After his Gran tried time and time again to get him to strife with knives—her weapon of choice—Theo simply kept resisting her efforts. Knives hurt him, and he never felt the passion for them that his Gran did.

However, his Gran was able to see her dreams for Theo becoming a capable knife fighter resurrected within Adam, who'd been taught by his Sis…who Theo knew, in turn, had been taught by his Gran. He was like her knife-grandson, Theo sometimes mused to himself. And so, Gran was able to swallow her pride and allow Theo to find his own choice of strife specibus—he'd settled on Batkind, and his first birthday gift from his Gran thereafter had been the unbreakable baseball bat.

Theo felt some comfort in its familiar grip as the bat materialized in his hands. He brought his unbreakable bat swinging around in a sharp arc, slamming the leading imp in the side of its head, caving in its skull like it was made of sugar glass. A fitting display of Theo's physical strength. Within seconds of having its skull bashed in, the imp's corpse dissolved into a pile of grist, which promptly vanished into Theo's grist cache.

Theo sidestepped a flurry of swipes and lunges from the second imp—the smaller underling eventually lunged too far and left itself open to attack, at which point Theo thrust his bat forward, catching the imp under the ribs, knocking the wind out of it. He then withdrew the bat, only to bring it crashing back down onto the imp's head. Another sickening crunch. Another pile of grist.

Before Theo could kill the third imp, however, it let out a piercing screech. It was still howling even as Theo executed a final blow with his bat, its scream suddenly silenced with the impact of the weapon. While the third imp had been killed instantly, the damage was already done. A nearby swarm of imps, several dozen strong, had heard the third imp's alert, and Theo could hear them bearing down on him inside of five seconds.

Theo made his way into a clearing so that the imps could only approach him across open ground. He felt his stomach sort of sink as he saw how big the swarm was. No way he'd be able to take all of them on his own…and then, he could almost hear the final nail slide into the coffin when he saw an ogre emerge from the woods and into the clearing. He was fucked with all those imps coming his way, but with an ogre bearing down on him, too…

Theo greeted the first imp to attack him by dealing it a blow powerful enough to turn its face concave. The imps were disorganized in their attacks, and Theo was actually able to hold his own for nearly a minute. He whipped around and to his sides with incredible speed, striking out at any imp that came within range of his bat, eventually forming an ankle-deep ring of grist around him from all the underlings he was able to take down.

Surprisingly, things were actually going reasonably well, until Theo started to cough. His throat began to fill with mucus, and the familiar feeling of painful tightness gripped his chest. "C'mon, not now…" he growled under his breath. He was forced to hold his bat one-handed, barely managing to continue defending himself as he fumbled for his inhaler with his free hand. He was finally able to bring his inhaler to his mouth and relieve his symptoms, but at the cost of lowering his guard for a moment.

That was when the ogre stepped in, delivering a crushing blow to the side of Theo's head. Theo went down, closing his eyes and bracing himself for the mauling that was sure to follow, doing his best to ignore the pain that was rampaging through his skull. His eyes then snapped back open when he remembered that there was still help available to him. Fighting against the dizziness and disorientation that the blow to his head had left him with, Theo tried to reach under his shirt and retrieve his sprite pendant.

He never got that far. He could hear the ogre howling in pain as a winged, pale-blue reptilian creature suddenly descended on it from above, swiping its claws across the underling's eyes, effectively blinding it. But the winged creature was not finished—after blinding the ogre, Theo could make out two powerful jaws lined with incredibly sharp teeth, closing around the ogre's neck. The ogre's neck bent at an impossible angle between the jaws when they bore down, and it was impossible to ignore the loud snap that accompanied the action.

The imps all scattered, fleeing from the winged creature as it leveled its head at them and let out an ear-splitting scream. It was only when it turned back to face Theo that he got a good look at what exactly the creature was…and the alarm that ran through his system quickly gave way to confusion.

No way was this possible. No way.

Theo was looking at a pterodactyl. Then his already-blurred vision went dark and he passed out.

Theo opened his eyes and found himself back in bed…but his room was wrong. Everything was indigo-colored. The walls, floor, and ceiling, the bed, the desk and the computer, even the bed sheets; everything had turned various shades of indigo. He found he was also wearing weird purple pajamas, with the symbol of a crescent moon emblazoned on the shirt.

Then he discovered that he could fly when he realized that he was already floating up and out of bed. Feeling a newfound resolve, Theo drifted over to the nearest window, looking out at a cityscape of dark, shadowy, violet and black towers, streets, and buildings. How strange… Theo had never seen this place, before. He had no idea where he was.

But, for some reason…he didn't really care, all that much. His stress was gone.

Derse. Theo remembered the name of the Kingdom of Darkness, located at the very edge of the incipisphere. His sprite had described it to him—Theo hadn't had the slightest idea what the spirit guide was talking about then, but now he started to understand.

As if in the middle of a dream, Theo allowed himself to float through the window and out into the sky. The altered, indigo version of his bedroom was located at the top of a very tall tower, many times taller than any other building in the surrounding city. The streets were not very busy, but Theo could hear noise coming from a distinct direction…the unmistakable din of many thousands of people gathering in one place.

Eventually, after flying down several streets, soaring between the towers and buildings, Theo found himself entering the sky above a large, open square. The square had a couple fountains and statues, but the most prominent feature was a simple obsidian brazier that was mounted atop a stone pedestal in the center of the whole place. Burning within the brazier was a bright green flame.

The square was filled with multiple thousand people. Dersites, with their hard black carapaces in place of skin. All of them gathered in this square to listen to a shorter guy standing on a raised platform in front of the green flame. The speaker wore a wide-brimmed fedora and a dark gray suit, and he was in the middle of addressing the gathered crowd.

Theo hadn't caught any of what the Dersite speaker had said before, but that didn't really matter—he was the subject of the very next thing the Dersite said. "And now, here's proof that I have not been deceiving you!" the Dersite speaker declared loudly to his listeners. "We have all heard the rumors that the Sylph awoke last night, but we now have evidence of the Heroes' return right in front of us! The Thane has arrived!"

The entire crowd fell silent, and Theo immediately began to feel squeamish as every pair of eyes in the square was turned onto him. He hadn't been expecting to be in any sort of spotlight. As he wondered whether or not he should say something, he was relieved to find that this was not the case. The crowd suddenly erupted, cheering Theo as if he were some sort of celebrity. Which, in a way, he was.

At the Wrathful Veteran's latest statement, Major Rana raised her binoculars to her eyes and snapped her gaze over in the direction the Veteran had indicated. Sure enough, there was a strange-looking soft-skinned alien hovering in midair, dressed in purple pajamas, looking about a dozen different kinds of confused.

Trepidation was the first thing Major Rana felt. The Thane was one of the eight Heroes—figures of mythology whose future arrival was prophesied by the consorts. Ever since the death of the Nobles, many Dersites had been skeptical of the existence of the foretold Heroes, Major Rana among them…and now here Rana was, looking at one of them with her own eyes. And this so-called Hero did appear to be the same species as the Sylph.

Rana turned to her Sergeant-in-Charge, a no-nonsense veteran by the name of Alaraph. "Raise the Commandant, Sergeant," the Long Night District Major ordered. "Inform him of what's happened. A Hero has just arrived at the rally."

Commandant Arcturus already knew, however. He was watching the whole thing unfold from the top of a nearby building, alongside the Authority Regulator. The two high-ranking Enforcers watched as the Wrathful Veteran continued to speak, watched as the crowd grew more and more unruly. They continued to cheer for the Thane, but gradually began to turn their attention to the foot units that had been stationed around the Plaza, showering the Enforcers with insults and abuse. The Enforcers securing the plaza tightened their grip on their nightsticks, all of them sharing nervous glances with one another. It was not long until one of the dissenters finally ended up causing the tension to snap by hurling some sort of object at one of the Enforcers—the Regulator thought it had been a bottle, or something similar.

The Enforcer went down, cut up by the broken glass. One of his comrades promptly drew his energy pistol and shot the dissenter who'd thrown the bottle, dropping the Dersite civilian where he stood.

And just like that, on the drop of the dime, the simmering crowd exploded. Having the Wrathful Veteran make an appearance like this was bad enough, but having one of the Heroes arrive, coupled with the frenzy that always arose at the sound of gunfire…the Regulator could plainly see that this rally had just been a giant recipe for disaster. The unfortunate Enforcers who'd been securing the Plaza on the ground were overwhelmed by the masses—none of them even had the chance to draw their energy weapons before they were either rendered unconscious by thrown objects, or taken down by the sheer numbers of the dissenter mobs.

Having seen enough, the Authority Regulator turned to his subordinate and gave the order. "Alright, Arcturus, let's clean this shit-fest up before they get too organized. Have Major Rana send in the crushers."