Friends In High Places

A large cruiser had entered the planets upper atmosphere, hovering like a second fourth moon in the sky, it was the Titan, this massive party ship was originally a colony ship designed for mass migration, after being remodeled it had become a mobile hotel.

The act of flying in space was already dangerous due to the abyss beasts so most ships where highly focused on speed and equipped with artillery to deter the space menaces, the Titan however, had no fear of the abyss beasts, its sheer mass when attempting to jump space would kill them, not to talk of the weapons it carried.

It was one of the most successful if not only cruise line in most quadrant, most people would count themselves lucky just to encounter one of the branches but the mothership was so large it could dock the other cruise liners within itself.

"How's the ship?" The doll-like little girl stood with a change of clothes in her hand and a smile on her face. The boy calmly took the clothes and went behind started changing out of his combat suit after freshening up.

"The ship is fine; I just didn't think you'd pick us up with the mother cruise ship," he stepped out from behind the blinds and started to adjust his sleeves and cufflinks

"We were closer, plus this will boost business" She giggled, and zed shook his head, the appearance of the mother ship would make it much easier for the government to cover up the erasure of an entire facility in the unpopulated regions. If they made the effort at all.

"Thank you for answering the call," he replied, and the girl rolled her eyes before crossing her arms in mock annoyance.

"Oh, look at me, I'm so cool and edgy now all I say are one-liners." She had made a poor attempt at imitating his voice, either on purpose or due to a lack of ability to do so. No, perhaps this was how she perceived his behavior from her perspective.

"Fine, fine" He stretched out his hand for a handshake, a hand that the doll-like girl looked at and focused her eyes back on the boy in question, who only sighed. Arms wide and gestured for the doll-like little girl laughed as she gave him a small squeeze before hurrying off.

"I hear that they've found more contaminated Zones recently, I hear the activity there is insane" she waved for him to follow, he slowly approached the door while his brain rapidly organized his thoughts.

'Contamination huh? I wonder what the principle behind it is'. The concept of contamination had been borne during the war, when the abyss beasts had brought forth the filth like a plague, it distorted and bent the rules of everything around it and could outright cause death in most cases.

Everything could be contaminated most especially humans, so the fighting abyss beasts was by no means safe, neither was investigating contaminated Zones, in its own was those places where more dangerous, the largest contamination Zone was on earth, old earth to be specific, it was also said to be stable enough to be lived in by those with high resistances. 'Psionic resistance'

He looked at his hands and squinted, the innate psionic energy in living beings granted them resistance to contamination, but it varied greatly from individual to individual, the general rule of thumb was that stronger abilities had greater resistance and in some case those with high psionic energy could even just ignore the effects of others abilities, although that didn't cover the cases of abilities that didn't care about resistance.

He stepped into the main hall whilst following in her footsteps and couldn't help but be amazed at the sheer scale of the facility, the titan was a mobile planet rather than a ship, he laughed to himself remembering he used to read magazines about the cruiser.

The rest of the team had gotten rather comfortable; Demi-urge had gotten himself into a mix of rather interesting people; well, leaving his strange personality aside, he was a pretty handsome guy so he was guaranteed some attention; Sona, on the other hand, was a lot shyer about her encounters.

"It still amazes me that you guys own all this."

"If you were to live for a few hundred years and still be broke, that would be quite concerning." A voice sounded from beneath him causing his gaze to be turned downward, The shadows beneath his feet bubbled and stretched as a man climbed out of it, the shadow sticking to his skin and morphing as he stood to his full height.

The last bits of the shadows seemed to be absorbed into his pitch-black hair like wisps of black haze; the shadows had turned into a suit and tie, which he adjusted most likely out of habit and started to make his way to his hair, taking a deep breath while he did so.

This man was always so strange to him he would often times forget where he was and completely blank out from time to time or end up babbling nonsense and then suddenly turning serious, but there were all kinds in the universe, so no one thought much of it, rich people are always crazy after-all.

"You must be Mercury's little monster."

The boy raised an eyebrow as he wondered what sort of nickname that was supposed to be; more importantly, he didn't quite remember becoming someone's property, and her father looked at the boy's confusion and scratched his head as he tried to explain, "Are you not? I remember seeing some pictures of you in my daughters—"

He suddenly had his mouth clamped shut by some unknown force, one could see him visibly straining in an attempt to keep speaking but remained physically incapable of doing so, a mischievous expression on his face, his lips starting to move.

"Why don't I show you around the ship some more?" Mercury quickly grabbed Zed by the arm pulling him away from her father who just fell back into the shadows and disappeared from everyone's field of view.

Their movement through the ship had turned a few heads, as many of them where well aware of what the great heiress looked like and wondered about the boy she seemed to be dragging along murmuring amongst themselves.

"You think we'll be invited to the engagement?".

"Think we'll live long enough to see it?"

"I don't know about you but I will".

"Must be some sponsors kid"

"I'm surprised she is actually interacting with someone that looks her age"

Demiurge just calmly listened to this while drinking some wine, whilst sitting at a side bar where the barkeeps and servers eyed curiously, their serpentine eyes taking note of his similar features and wondered if perhaps he was one of their kin, although he was far more handsome than anyone they had seen on their planet.

She showed him around the ship, and he could say he was fairly impressed. It had these strange little rooms that could adjust the environment as needed, and they had several bars both similar to where demiurge was and different that served all sorts of interesting things to suit various pellets

"Heard you had a rather interesting target today," she said, forcing the bartender's limbs to move and pour her a drink. The bartender's face remained calm, however, as he only offered minimal resistance, likely already used to such behavior.

Zed watched the barkeep's minute struggles with interest; this doll-like girl's ability to control people made him wonder what her life must have been like. The organization, Zero taught them that advancing non destructive type abilities was a lot more difficult since just accumulation wasn't as major a step.

Constant use and imagination were the perquisite's, as for the rest, which would depend heavily on some other factors, with a major one being the length one had their powers, or perhaps how enlightened one was to their own upper limits along with their personal affinity; thus, talent ultimately came into play.

"The man is supposedly a researcher that had access to the documents pertaining to ability augmentation." The doll-like girl nodded her petite little head and waited for him to continue, taking a sip from her glass as she did. "He is likely under some form of subliminal suggestion from someone with mental based abilities."

"Is he suicidal?" The boy shook his head at the question before tapping his fingers on the counter, Mercury thought for a bit and asked "How come they're almost all the same race though, like what's with that?"

"I did hear they are an extremely inquisitive race with little care for anything that didn't look like them" the talking doll made a hmm sound, setting down her drink and crossing her arms as she set her eyes on him in silence.

The boy's solemn expression made him look like an angel in the dim lighting of the bar; he almost seemed to glow, his red eyes almost like crystals as the lights refracted off them. 'And people say I look like a doll,' she thought, wondering how he would look when he grew up—if he ever grew up, that is.

"Is there something on my face?" She had been staring a little longer than she should have but had remained silent and just kept staring at him, her expression unflinching as he shrugged and turned away, grabbing a glass of the drink he had yet to start with the half-melted ice.

"You're such a creepy woman