Flashback: Niveum

A thin girl crawls her way through the air ducts. There is barely any muscle mass on her - she was unused to physical movement of any kind. Her laboured breathing can be heard even through her Fortunata helmet. It was not the first time she had done this, though. If she was not so dedicated to Arachnos, she might have dispensed with the cumbersome helmet altogether. Dr. Alexander Hetzig needed to know that his death was the will of her great patron.

This is why she is crawling through the air ducts into his lab. Time and time again she had passed his name from one Fortunata to the next. She was a hub in Arachnos' great web. Her psionic abilities far outstripped other Fortunata in range, at the expense of power. She routed thousands of reports every day. Most of them were acted upon. Dr. Hetzig was not, and had not, for weeks. She could tolerate this oversight no longer.

Voices up ahead. She was close, now.

Judge Caesum looked through his interfaced mask down his nose at Dr. Hetzig. He was flanked by three other Judges, their black and white uniforms casting shadows on the kneeling Doctor - no harm had come to him...yet.

"Your cooperation in this matter would be greatly appreciated, ALexander," Caesum's voice was, despite modulation form his mask, firm and authoritative while still sounding detached as was the Judex way.

The doctor spat, the spittle landing on the shining boot of the overbearing Judge, "Arachnos offered me more incentive than you jokes and I still didn't agree to help them..."

"We are not Arachnos. Our network of resources rivals that of Arachnos."

Their captive laughed in a sick manner, a cackle mixed with disgust, "I've never even seen you guy--" but his snide remark was cut off as one of the Judge's standing behind him pulled on his ashy brown hair, matted down from sweat the chase they had, much to his chagrin, came to a quick and anti-climactic conclusion. His neck arched painfully as the masked Judge yanked on his hair harder, the statement seeping from his mask like a slow poison only to infiltrate the very air the doctor was breathing, "We are Judex."

Another Judge to his right chimed in, "Your skills are needed."

And another, "A temporary contract."

Another, "A plea bargain."

The voices were coming from all around him, "We will spare your life if you assist."

Judex knew that the doctor had come under the watchful eye of Arachnos, and in an effort to strengthen their own agenda, they had made a full effort of getting to him immediately after he had rebuffed the Web's offer. Caesum himself knew that it was only a matter of time before this subject would have been put on the chopping block by a spurned Arachnos. But the man's insistent refusal of their offer of protection in trade of his assistance with their own technological advances were becoming tiresome.

Little did he know just how much little time they really had...

Michelle Trinh sees five figures through the ventilation slits - four more than should have been present. Their identities echo through her mind. Judex. Caesum. Words that she did not know. Latin, Professor Mount knows. A colour? His voice is quickly drowned by the rest of the chorus. The public numbered many. Few among them were intelligent. That is not why she used their voices, though. It was because when you've been living as long as you have in fear, your reaction to injustice is almost always violence. They were the jury, and she was their judge.

For Judex, however, the chorus remained silent.

No matter. Judex knew of her patron's stake in Dr. Hetzig's work. They would carry word of Arachnos' vengeance to the people. She focuses on the Doctor's voice.

"I don't even know who you fools are! What makes you -"

Few people had defences against her type of psionics. First, Dr. Hetzig hears voices. They're indistinct. He might mistake some of them for the uniformed Judex members glaring down at him.

"I ... I don't know what you're talking about! Who is -"

Then, as more voices join the chorus, Dr. Hetzig begins to realize something is happening, that he is the focal point of something bigger and angrier than himself.

He clutches his head, he plugs his ears in a vain attempt to stem the shouting.

So convinced his brain becomes of the hundreds, thousands of voices it thinks it hears, that it, too, begins to shake, desperate to break free of its shackles, to silence the voices. Cerebral hemorrhaging occurs.

Hetzig bangs his head against the wall, desperate to shake loose the voices.

Then, as the entire city joins their voices together in judgement, Hetzig's head can contain the voices no longer.

His head explodes.

Guilty.

The four Judges stood in shock as their subject's skull fractured into pieces, globs of brain matter, viscus cerebral cortex flung itself in all directions, spattering onto the pristine Judge's 'robes' and sullying Caesum's boots more than the now-dead Doctor's spit.

While most of the current rank of the Judges were not powerful Metas, they compensated by over-preparing for any task, gathering a surplus of intel and projecting a nearly endless string of possibilities before engaging anyone outside of their ranks.

This was not one in any of their projected possibilities.

Doctor Hetzig's body slumped over, his gooey thud onto the floor a sad and pathetic ending to a once remarkable genius in the Rogue Isles.

Taking but a second to regain their composure, the Judges defensively turned their backs to one another, immediately engaging their mask-interfaces to survey their surroundings in the room. After a brief silence, one of the female judges spoke up, "Air duct."

At once, the four Judges looked up at the ceiling, their eyes analyzing the heat trails left by the frail and determined interloper.

"Judex engage."

Not super, but simply with nimble skill, one of the Judges flipped backwards, her extended leg hitting the thin metal casing of the air duct with some effort, the shoddy workmanship of whoever constructed the building advantageous as the bolts to the ceilings wrestled away from their faux-security, tipping the contents of the crawl space in front of the now shook up Judges.

What they saw before them was the thin and frail body of a woman, her black hair matted to her small frame, as if she had just come out of a body of water, her ghost-like skin practically glowing in the dim light of the room. Her eyes were shut, her mouth agape as she breathed in and out slowly, as if concentrating on that simple action.

"Who are you?" One of the other Judges asked, not really expecting an answer, all but nonplussed when none was given.

Caesum saw another Judge rub their masked head, he could tell his comrades were fearing the worst in their own mortality by the hand of this girl. In an attempt to assert some authority, he spoke casually, "You have severely interfered with our proceedings, young one, perhaps you would like to take Dr. Hetzig's place in trial?

Michelle retrieves the widow helmet that had been shaken loose in the fall and tosses it at the feet of the judges.

"A...arachnos - " she wheezes. She didn't reply to their first query not because she didn't want to. Her psionic powers had such long range that she had been noticed and taken from her parents before she even learned to walk. Her muscles had atrophied - she could hardly crawl through an air duct without strenuous effort, much less fall from one.

The Judges exchange glances, an unspoken thought shared between all four of them. Should we kill her before she recovers?

"This is the court of Arachnos. He - " She points at Dr. Hetzig's now headless body, "-has been found guilty by our jury, and we are the judge who has carried out his sentence."

The Judges watch as she stands to her feet, gait still unsteady. A Judge steps to her side, ready to trip her.

"Judex. We ... the chorus has no quarrel with you. If the people find that you are collaborators with the late Dr. Alexander Hetzig, then perhaps that will change. Until then, we have no further business with you."

Caesum couldn't help but initially feel sorry for the frail girl at his feet, a proverbial bag of bones. Though, he did become acutely more aware of his surroundings once she confirmed their suspicions that she was from Arachnos.

"Not collaborators, little one," he continued using the slightly condescending term towards her, perhaps in a laughable attempt at showing no fear.

The pale widow looked up at the four Judges now surrounding her.

"Your employer may not have a quarrel with us, but we have a quarrel with them..."

The Judges begin to close in on her, walking very slowly till they were towering over her fallen form.

"And we're surprised you don't share in our issue with them."

This one was clearly passionate. It didn't make any sense for a widow of her obvious skill and feeble physicality to have personally sought after one of the Arachnos targets. There was clearly trouble at home and the Doctor's migraine-laden death at her hand could potentially be a boon to Judex.

Caesum continued, "Or is it completely normal protocol for someone such as yourself to handle a nuisance such as our poor, late Doctor?"

Another Judge joined in, "Seems odd that for someone so dedicated, you'd be forced to venture from your safe haven all alone, no less..."

And yet another, "We don't think you're being given a fair shake, widow..."

The stopped, a mere foot or so from completely encircling the girl, her silence at their words disconcerting. They could either be making an impact, or they could be talking themselves into their own splattering ends. It didn't matter - as they stalked her and got closer, trying to poison her mind - they were all in. It was time for her to show her cards.

The widow reaches out with a hand, steadying herself against the chest of a nearby judge. Personal boundaries meant little to her, one that could touch the minds of an entire city block at once. She turns to Caesum, her gaze focused disquietingly on a point somewhere beyond his head.

"Pity. This one feels pity."

She paws her way along the wall of judges, turning to face each one as she does so.

"They're afraid of us. They think themselves so safe in their frail coccoon skulls. Our power is humbling."

She reaches up abruptly, grabbing at a nearby Judge's ear. The circle of uniformed figures exchange nervous glances. She brings her face closer, pressing her hand down on the Judge's shoulder to raise herself higher.

"So strange that ones who fancy themselves judges would fear the voice of their jury."

She turns back to Caesum. "They speak of fairness? We are not interested. Tell us about justice."