0400 HOURS
JOTUNHEIM
YGGDRASIL FACILITY 13: CERASUS
1 DAY AFTER THE JOTUNHEIM INCIDENT.
A long, sleek limousine pulled up outside the steaming wreckage of Cerasus. The entire facility, once two-hundred stories tall, had been reduced to nothing but a pile of melted metal and stone. Cerasus alone, however, was not worth the asset that had nearly been lost in the cataclysmic explosion that had occurred a day ago.
Bianca Rossweisse was here for the Kaiser of Motion.
"Lady Rossweisse. We... did not expect your timely arrival."
The girl exiting glared at her subordinate, tossing her long, strawberry-blonde hair back. She was, in stark contrast to the rest of the hazmat-suited men and women, dressed in what appeared to be gym clothes. The crew sifting through the rubble stopped to bow to her. They'd heard of her. The daughter of the Rossweisse family. Founders of Yggdrasil, and people with magic strong enough to annihilate entire countries. Bianca Rossweisse was said to be the most powerful of them, aged sixteen or not.
"Albrecht. Why was I not notified of this immediately?" Bianca said. She surveyed the cranes and excavators with contempt and disdain. She opened and closed her hand once, and a large glyph opened, high above the cranes. A translucent, golden, gauntleted arm almost the size of Cerasus itself descended from the skies, reaching down towards the rubble. It grabbed the red-hot rocks, seemingly unaffected by the heat, and hurled them aside. It had cleared the site in a matter of seconds; something the machines Yggdrasil had brought in were incapable of doing in weeks.
"Lady Rossweisse. Let me state that it is a pleasure to witness your magic in action. I assure you, we had every intention to inform you as soon as we extricated the Kaiser of Motion-"
Bianca's hand shot up and wound itself tightly around Albrecht's throat. She lifted him high into the air, suspending him helplessly by his neck. In the background, the giant arm she'd summoned did the same thing.
"Let me rephrase my question, Albrecht. What have you been doing in the past twenty-four hours? Why do I not see any Yggdrasil-certified Mages on the scene? Who let the Kaiser of Motion get free in the first place?" She said, her voice perfectly calm. Albrecht swallowed. Speaking to any one of the Rossweisse family was terrifying enough, but Bianca exuded a scary aura of calmness. Everything about her was cool and collected, from her movements right down to the magic she used. She might've specialised in Light and Fire magic, but her fire burned so hot it was almost cold. A deadly chill crept down Albrecht's spine as he struggled to get himself free of Bianca's grip.
Her muscles tensed as she lifted Albrecht even higher. The man was choking now, kicking his legs in futility as he squirmed.
"I-if you would just let me go-" Albrecht choked out. His formerly pale face had turned a deep shade of purple. Sighing, Bianca loosened her grip, and Albrecht tumbled to the ground. Panting for air, Albrecht had only managed to inhale a single time when he found Bianca's boot in his ribs. He rolled over, shrieking in pain.
"Talk."
"Alexei Belitrov did it. We checked. He requested to transfer here. We saw no reason to deny his request. He had a spotless record. The Kaiser's presence was classified information. There's no way a mere researcher like him could've known."
"And yet, Albrecht," Bianca spat, "This Belitrov man knew. Someone must've told him. Yggdrasil has no shortage of moles, I am aware of that. Corporate espionage is unavoidable. But what did he want to do with the Kaiser of Motion? We have many more Kaisers under lock and key. Why this one specifically?"
"You see, Lady Rossweisse." Albrecht's face had regained some of its colouration, or lack thereof. "We suspect he wanted to use the Motion's molecular acceleration abilities to revive his dead daughter. It would appear she died before Dr Belitrov started working for Yggdrasil, and therefore was not flagged as a possible psychological liability."
Bianca took a second to process what she had just heard. "Professor Albrecht. Yggdrasil pays, quite frankly, an exorbitant salary for you to use your head. You're telling me with the entirety of our organisation's facilities at your disposal, you failed to do a proper background check on Alexei Belitrov? You let a walking security breach transfer to a laboratory that houses one of the most dangerous entities alive?"
She yanked Albrecht to his feet. Behind them, the golden arm re-adjusted itself so that it was now hovering directly over Albrecht. "Choose your next words very wisely, Albrecht Lehmann. If I find out that you have not managed to recover the Kaiser of Motion in the next few seconds, you will die a very slow and painful death. I'd like to see you and your intelligence-enhancing magic go up against the hand of god, egghead. Now listen closely - to me, you are nothing more than pond scum. But father would much rather have you kept alive as the caretaker of the Kaiser of Motion. If the Kaiser of Motion is gone, I suppose he wouldn't really have a reason to keep you alive anymore, would he?"
Albrecht nodded. A wet stain had started to form in his pants.
"The Kaiser of Motion is alive and well, Lady Rossweisse. But there is one caveat. Dr Belitrov... he succeeded in bringing his daughter back to life. The Kaiser has successfully bonded with Ilise, his daughter." Albrecht whistled. Two men hurried over, carting with them a motionless girl on a stretcher.
At these words, the golden arm dissipated, showering the both of them in radiant sparks. Bianca looked at her with something like nostalgia. A longing, even. And was that... pity? Albrecht's keen mind had been trained to hone in on things like that. The late doctor's daughter was a looker, no doubt about that, but when she was covered in the lightning-bolt cracks that had plagued so many Kaisers, she looked almost monstrous. It was most peculiar, that Yggdrasil's heir would be attracted to her.
"Can we undo the bonding process?" Bianca asked.
"I'm afraid not. If it was completed in a conventional, scientific way, then yes, perhaps we would've been able to accomplish such a feat. Dr Belitrov invoked ancient blood magic preceding even that of the Kaiserforce to revive his daughter. However, if I may, Lady Rossweisse-"
"What is it, Albrecht?"
"We may yet salvage the situation. If we were to insert her into Mistilteinn Academy - place her under your watchful eye, Lady Rossweisse - perhaps the Kaiser's power will once again be ours to wield."
Bianca narrowed her eyes at Albrecht.
"Do what you must. I'll make sure father doesn't hear of this."
"But how do you intend on-"
She wheeled around, her ice-shard eyes glowing in the night. As the quailing scientist looked into them for the last time, he couldn't help but notice how beautiful they were. The icy blueness pulled him into a lake of frozen emotions. It was like all the myriad shades of blue had swirled together to form a whirlpool of sheer frosty condescension, contempt and disdain, a blizzard contained in the eyes of one of the most powerful magicians on the planet.
Albrecht was thankful that they were the last things he ever saw.
Seconds after Bianca and Ilise had vanished into her waiting limousine and pulled out of the ravaged parking lot, the giant golden arm reappeared. It swung down on the remains of Cerasus with all of its heavenly glory, lighting up the sky as Ilise had when she set foot in the realm of the living once again.
Bianca watched as the sparks slowly drifted down onto the crumpled bodies of the men and women. Her last gift to them. She turned around to face Ilise, who had yet to stir. When she woke up, Cerasus would be nothing but a flattened patch of land, and her memories of the place gone.
She said softly to herself, "That's how, Albrecht. That's how."
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