Mage Tank

Celeritia ceased his examination and looked momentarily confused, then he leaned over to see past Ayamari’s tall frame to the ‘Empress.’ The Littan had not yet meaningfully moved since their conversation started.
“That’s a
impressive illusion,” said Celeritia. He leaned back to face her. Like with the matter of Thrushmahogany, he knew Ayamari enough to trust anything she said, no matter how ludicrous or bizarre.
“Tyvus doesn’t seem to realize, either,” she said. Celeritia’s eyebrows leapt considerably at that.
“If Grand General Connatis isn’t aware, and they’re supposedly in the same party,” Celeritia trailed.
“Very strange, yes,” said Ayamari. “Given the circumstances, it is prudent that you know.”
“Not yet. There are many reasons a fake ‘Empress’ might exist, and some of them are well-advised. The Littan Imperial Party is too paranoid to answer my questions, but they might answer someone with a more ‘kingly’ charm.”
Celeritia crafted his skepticism into a well-pointed expression. “I don’t even have cause to ask,” he said, looking back at the fake.
“Just tell them that I told you.”
Celeritia’s still-furrowed brow did a double-take, but then his expression softened and his eyebrows raised. “I suppose there are advantages to having your reputation,” he said. “You really don’t engage in espionage at all, do you? You would just have me tell them straight-up that you know, and you don’t care that
know that
Ayamari scowled. Celeritia sighed.
“All right, fine,” he said. “If you want to put all cards on the table, that’s how I’ll play it. The truth is generally a better pry bar for intel, anyway.”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to steer the circumstance to your advantage regardless,” said Ayamari. It was Celeritia’s turn to scowl.
“
of us achieved a lot with subterfuge back in the day,” he said. “Are you really going to stand there as Pigeonpink’s party leader and tell me you’re all about honesty and fairness?”
“We made a lot of mistakes,” said Ayamari. Celeritia started to open his mouth, but the minuscule narrowing of Ayamari’s eyes informed him exactly how unwise it would be to continue with that line of conversation.
“I do my best,” he diverted. There was no silver tongue there. Dedication was never Celeritia’s shortcoming; of that, Ayamari was well assured. “May I ask to be looped in this time? It would help if everyone at least
like we were all on the same team.”
Good diplomacy was also never his shortcoming. Ayamari met his eyes, which made him uncomfortable.
“At this stage,” she said, “I believe there is no future alone.”
Celeritia’s mask of resilience slipped, which was the rarest of moments for him, but he knew when to seriously consider Ayamari’s words. It exposed the soul-deep weariness caused by the man’s century of rule.
“Okay then,” he said, straightening his collar. “Well, let’s say hello to our would-be assassin, shall we?”
Ayamari nodded. “You’re looking for a Deijinon with red plumage. Don’t go out the front door. Take the garden exit, wait seventy-eight nanoseconds, then hop over the wall next to the second bush. Don’t fly, don’t change phase state, it will trigger an automatic defense you won’t like. She is overconfident in her speed. You’ll catch and subdue her easily with a left-arm chokehold.”
“Left-arm chokehold,” he repeated. “You got it.” Celeritia gave her an only partially sarcastic salute as he walked backwards towards the atrium. Once finished, he spun on his heel and strolled through the doorway.
And then Ayamari was alone.
Everything was still, quiet, calm. As much as Ayamari reasoned that spending too long in the stillness of time was socially unhealthy, she nevertheless found herself going there more and more as the years went by. Leading Ayama took effort, but it was not particularly demanding. Rather, the constant pull and needs of so many people frustrated her to no end. Some select few had real problems that needed serious solutions, but most had trivial inconveniences they could solve themselves if only they would try.
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Here, in the stillness, they were just statues. Simple cutouts Ayamari could politely ignore. Here, she was truly alone.
With one exception.
When Celeritia returned, the would-be assassin was flailing like molasses in his grip. She was faster than the average superhuman here, but that was a bell curve with a much longer tail than she apparently realized. Still, where everyone else was a statue, she was at least a snail.
“And that’s why you don’t sleep on Unarmed,” said the king of Hiward.
Ayamari’s expression did not change.
“Not in the mood for flattery?” he asked. “I grabbed the skill to follow your example, you know. Not sure if I ever told you that.”
“Can you bring her up to speed?”
He nodded. “Sure can. I even have more charges for it now.”
Celeritia’s body began to vibrate with increasing oscillation, and that vibration rolled through the assassin until her limbs quickened out of their tarry sludge and her yellow eyes shot open wide. Celeritia held the Deijinon’s arm with an implacable resilience as her mind caught up to the vast acceleration of her body’s locomotion.
Celeritia looked to Ayamari, who then gestured back to him. After a short pause, the king of Hiward shrugged and turned to the would-be assassin.
All of the amiable charm and kingly air of his speech vanished. A voice like cracking stone broke through the still air and shattered the assassin’s facial expression into a fine panic.
“Who is your target?” demanded Celeritia.
The Deijinon began rapidly searching the room for a means of escape, but no matter how hard she pulled, how fast she moved, or how dextrously she wriggled, he would not let go. The woman’s feathers tore in Celeritia’s grip as she fought, halting in time the moment they fell away from her body.
“Who is your target?” boomed out of Celeritia’s mouth like a cannon blasting away any willpower the assassin had left.
“The Empress of Litta! Rona Littae!” screamed the assassin, eyes tearing under the onslaught.
“Who assigned this target to you?” commanded Celeritia.
The woman’s gaze flickered to Ayamari, her eyes going even wider than they had been. “C-Carewe Vyxmeldo’a!”
Ayamari listened to the name of Nuralie Vyxmeldo’a’s mother, spoken so earnestly that it nearly
sound like a completely absurd claim. The assassin was lying, she could easily tell, although the woman likely thought herself an expert in Subterfuge. Ayamari shook her head slightly.
“Who assigned this target to you?” Celeritia demanded once more. Water flowed freely down the woman’s cheeks. The feathers on her head were puffed up and standing on end.
“It’s– It was Cera Heronwyte!”
“Lies,” Ayamari said softly.
The force of Celeritia’s presence grew until the assassin could no longer maintain any awareness of Ayamari; until she couldn’t be aware of
, except for Hiward’s king.
“There’s– I took an oath!” the assassin stammered. “I– I can’t!”
“YES,” said Celeritia. The assassin’s pupils fractured, and her irises went spiraling across her eyeballs.
“YOU,” continued Celeritia. The assassin’s mouth tore open, a sloshing foam billowing from between her teeth.
“CAN.”
“MMmmraAAgvv,” spat the assassin. Then, she began to scream. “Mercy!” she shrieked. “Mercy! MERCY!!”
A bolt of energy appeared in the air around the Deijinon, forming the shape of a Spiritual rune. It flared with an annihilating psychic distortion that moved to encompass the assassin.
In normal time, this would have been imperceptible. One instant, the assassin would be alive, the next instant, she would be a brain-dead ragdoll. Here in the stillness, however, Ayamari could study the rune carefully, see how it formed, where it manifested, and with whose handwriting. She didn’t recognize the scribe, but the complexity of the rune revealed their exceptional talent at extraordinary lethality. There were a scattering of individuals who could survive a psychic oath like this, and the assassin was not one among them.
Fortunately, while oaths could not be dispelled so long as they were intact, some of them could be averted once the oath was broken.
you were fast enough.
And Ayamari was just so.
She stepped forward and put her hand on the assassin’s shoulder, then nodded to Celeritia, who released his steel-clawed grip. Ayamari then yanked the assassin through the collapsing bubble of psychic force, just before it could implode entirely on her position. However, even the glancing blow was enough to break the Deijinon’s consciousness and send it reeling into the void.
Celeritia looked at the limp woman with uncertainty. “Did asking for mercy violate her oath?” he asked.
“No. It was a name. Mercy.”
“One word? No surname?”
“Correct,” said Ayamari.
The king of Hiward sighed and rubbed at his eyes again. “Well, we know what
sounds like.”
“Indeed.”
He let out a long breath and gestured helplessly at the assassin. “Is she dead?”
“Comatose.” Ayamari released the woman, who floated mid-air, a simple statue like the rest. “She will recover under Ayaman care.”
“Yes, of course,” said Celeritia, the tone of regal camaraderie once again flowing from his tongue. “I bet she will. Whisking her off to your private sanctum after all that talk about keeping everyone in the loop, eh?”
“That was your talk,” said Ayamari. “Though I do agree with it. Let me at least remove her from the immediate danger of reactionary reciprocity. I would prefer you wait to inform the acting ‘Empress’ tonight. You can do so here, if you wish.”
Celeritia looked around at the frozen figures, understanding that Ayamari wasn’t referring to the venue, but their current time dilation. “How benevolent of you,” he said dryly. “And if I prefer otherwise?”
“Do as you think is right. As I said, you’re the one with the kingly charm.”
“Ha. No, you’re right. Of course. There are too many listeners for my liking in the moving world. I was just curious what you’d say.”
“You already knew the answer,” said Ayamari.
“Sure,” said Celeritia. “But it’s still nice to hear you say it.”