I was immediately struck by just how huge Dr. DeVille's office was the moment I cracked the doors open. The amount of open space in the trapezoidal, glass walled room was downright gratuitous.

The overall shape of the room was clearly designed such that the inwards funnel of the side walls or windows would focus attention solely on the sprawling desk at the very far end. The desk itself was immense—the damned thing's footprint had to be at least the size of a vehicle parking space.

Unlike the plain and sensible carpet I'd seen in the rest of the rooms on the floor, the floor of this 'office' was set with smoothly polished tiles of some strange stone that looked like bluish black marble. Running down the very middle, however, was a wide walkway of violet carpet.

But it wasn't a full return to the aesthetics of the club below, because instead of a pink and violet haze of neon tubing, the principle illumination was a fiery yellow-orange produced by heaps of almost molten rock piled up in brass bowls resting atop the rows of square tapered, white marble plinths lining either side of the violet walkway.

I soon confirmed that they were genuine fucking crucibles when I passed by the first pair and felt the sheer heat projecting from the half melted lumps of superheated slag. Frankly, I was amazed that you could make interior design like this at all, let alone at the top of a big city highrise.

Aside from the raised crucibles and some hanging banners, though, the rest of the literal throne room was markedly empty. The remaining features were all constrained to occupy the space to either side of the slightly raised desk area or the glass wall behind it.

As for the desk—well, aside from its sheer size, the furniture piece was also notable for sitting on a wide, sprawling rectangular platform raised by just two shallow steps off the same level as the rest of the floor.

And, on either side of the desk itself—and in front of the glowing, alien, crystalline potted plants–there were two guards who looked straight out of a saturday morning cartoon. They had nailed every single part of the look, from being fucking massive hunks of muscle well over six feet, to the suits and black tie, the indoor sunglasses, the buzz cut, and most importantly, looking completely identical to each other.

It was so perfectly cliche as to be nothing other than an ironic and deliberate form of self-indulgence.

But as for the figure seated behind the desk—well, I couldn't fucking see him, because he had turned this high-backed, swiveling throne 180 degrees to face away from the entrance. Watch, he's totally going to slowly spin around with a white cat in his lap.

I came to a stop just a few feet after climbing the two steps up to the same level as the desk itself. There was still a good, like, twenty feet between me and the start of the desk, and I was absolutely not going to take another step further.

There was already a small, non-swiveling chair placed in front of the desk—for me, obviously. Does he really expect me to sit in it? 'Cause that's absolutely not going to happen. To properly assert my own power level in such a situation, it was absolutely imperative not to come any closer than this exact point.

I tried to plant my lacquered cane down in front of my feet in a sharp, aggressive way such that it would clack against the floor and echo out ominously. Unfortunately, that didn't really work because the violet carpet way continued up past the steps, completely muffling any potential loud tap.

Damn it! He probably designed it that way on purpose, the sick bastard. I wasn't going to be the one to speak first, though—not after already attempting something like that. Even if he didn't know what I specifically had intended, I myself knew it.

And I was not going to be the one to speak first.

Seconds ticked by. The silence dragged on, and not even the stoic bodyguards said anything or so much as twitched. Is he also going to try waiting this out? If that was the case—and the more seconds passed, the more certain it became that it was—then I really couldn't be the one to speak first. I am going to outlast this motherfucker no matter how much time it takes.

I was, generally speaking, an impatient and more often than not bored person. However, that impatience and constant desire for entertainment was a bit of a secret weapon. Basically, because I was constantly feeling so impatient and bored, I was actually super well-trained at pushing through and tolerating it.

The more impatient you were, the more you were forced to deal with feeling bored and impatient—and so the more of a tolerance you built towards the feeling. That accumulated resistance to impatience was a major part of how I became so good at persevering longer than the opposition.

It didn't matter how long it took. I was going to win.

Katherine "Nekomata" Legato

It had only been a little over ten minutes since Alex was supposed to have her meeting, and Katherine was starting to get nervous. 'Starting' to get—truthfully, she'd been feeling anxious before they'd even arrived. As time continued to stretch on, though, she grew increasingly nervous.

The slightly newer Star Guardian, Luna, didn't seem nearly as affected. The other girl seemed like she was having a good time hanging out with different strangers, and by this point, had even succeeded in getting the two of them deeper into the club, into the areas where they otherwise couldn't have gotten without Luna securing them an invite.

For the most part, Katherine just sat quietly, only doing the bare minimum of interaction with the other club goers flocking around them. Her anxiety wasn't helped by the knowledge that they were being watched—and that wasn't just the effect of her own paranoia talking.

Katherine's power made it easy to pick out a number of more than just human personalities mingling among them—for the most part, it was just an unusually high concentration of regular Guardians, but there was also a mix of something else.

In some ways, that 'something else' reminded Katherine more of her fellow Star Guardians than of the more common ordinary type. Interestingly, Katherine had enough time to quietly observe Luna's spirit to reach the conclusion that the newer Star Guardian was more similar to Alex than to herself.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Much like Alex, her spirit felt like two radically different images that had been conceptually merged and reinterpreted by a new artist, in contrast to the utterly separate, even opaque division between the two major layers in Katherine's own spirit.

That being said, any insecurities about 'not being fully formed' or anything similar were mostly wiped away by observing the same overall pattern in the other Star Guardians she'd met—specifically, Eigenmacht, Lotus, and—she'd forgotten the third representative's name. And, while she hadn't had a chance to properly observe the latter twos' spirits, the former's closely mirrored her own structure, as opposed to that of Alex and Luna.

Regardless, she was well aware that these 'other' spirits she was feeling in the club weren't other Star Guardians or anything like that. Not only were they too weak, but it was just—well, it was pretty obvious to Katherine that they were people who had various kinds of esoteric augmentations.

She wondered how many of those had been legal, and how many had some connection to the criminal syndicate with whose representative Alex was supposed to be meeting at this very moment.

Alexis "Valkyrie" Huntingfield

I had no idea how long it had been, other than that it was definitely longer than it ever had any right to be. It was ridiculous, but I'd come this far already, so it was now all the more important to see myself through to victory.

Honestly, I'm kind of impressed by the guards. They've been doing the exact same shit as we have. I supposed it was part of their job, but the utter stiffness was still something I found quite remarkable. I knew they were alive because I could sense it—they weren't completely motionless, as for instance they still had to blink. I would also swear that I could just barely make out the sound of their breathing, something that was only possible in the utterly still and silent 'throne room,' as I'd taken to thinking of it.

I could, of course, simply taste them as well. That was how I knew they were both absolutely stuffed with a bewildering assortment of potent esoteric augmentations, enhancements, modifications, or whatever else you wanted to call it. Frankly, I would be surprised if the two of them weren't strong enough to contend with a Tier 2 or hell, maybe even Tier 3 Guardian.

My incredibly sensitive and discerning sense of taste was how I knew that Dr. DeVille was actually present. He was, in fact, sitting in the chair, and I took the opportunity to refine my analysis of his particular flavor palette.

I did a second review of the documents before the meeting, and there was a small section on known and suspected capabilities. Much of the doctor's potential capabilities as an augmented human were either suspect or entirely unknown—there were, however, some 'probably certainties,' which was a rather strange phrase that I found inherently amusing.

Regardless, a particular notable 'probable certainty' was something the document writers called 'aura resistance.' From what I gathered, while Dr. Jason was probably no match for even a middle tier Guardian in direct combat, it was confirmed that some of his augments conveyed a degree of resistance to the auras possessed by all higher tier Guardians and Anathema both.

As an interesting side note, someone had quite obviously redacted further information pertaining to the ways such a thing might be possible and which specific technique was most probably used by the miraculous Dr. DeVile.

But I digress. Based on the feedback I was getting from my own senses, I would concur with the Red Faction's assessment that the doctor wasn't particularly threatening as a potential combatant. The more I chewed over his unique flavor, the more convinced I became that many of his augments were defensive or even evasive in nature. Even the taste itself had a slippery, elusive mouthfeel that made further analysis difficult.

Frankly, there wasn't much else to do while I was stuck standing there. I was kind of pissed off by the fact that my magnanimous host could be and probably was cheating. I couldn't actually see him, so it was quite possible he was doing something like screwing around on his phone.

Also, he was the one with the chair. I was forced to just stand there.

There was also a fifth major presence in the room. I didn't notice it for a long time because the different modifications Dr. Jason had made to himself kind of confused my senses, and this fifth creature was occupying roughly the same space. For quite some time, I thought it was just another, particular strange addition to his underlying human form.

By this point, though, I'd realized it was actually a small and perfectly ordinary animal—a pet of some kind. I wasn't very confident in what kind of animal it was just by taste alone. However, I was almost certain it was a cat. Because, you know, if he's sitting in a chair like that, in a room like this, holding a small animal—it has to be a white cat, right?

I felt like it was a pretty solid guess. I wouldn't find out until he turned the fucking chair around and actually talked to me, though. God, he's really just screwing with me now, isn't he. I knew that, at some point, I could outlast him. He'll have to eventually get up to use the bathroom or something, right?

And finally, something did change—but rather than spin the chair around, it was to get up out of it. It also wasn't the actual doctor, but rather a small, white, domestic shorthaired cat. Padding around the edge of the desk, the Goddamn cat licked its paw, surveyed the room, and then flopped down on the ground beside the desk.

A minute or two passed.

It was a bit more tolerable now that I could look at the cat, at the very least. After milling around and resettling a few times, the cat eventually came up to me and started rubbing against my legs. And that? Now that gave me a totally new idea.

The cat seemed friendly enough—maybe it was one of the ones that was fine if you picked it up? I decided to just go ahead and find out. Bending down—the most movement I'd done in well over an hour—I grabbed the kitty and scooped them up to my chest.

And lo! The cat tolerated it.

So, now that I had the evil scientist's cat, there was only one rational objective. It would cost me my expensive new dress shirt, but that was a small price to pay for the glory that was about to come next. After setting the cat back down, I quickly removed my suit jacket. Then, draping it firmly over one arm, I picked the cat back up.

I realized one of the guards was now staring intently at me. Meanwhile, the other one had finally moved position—it looked like he was going to say something to the evil scientist still ensconced in his chair and facing away from me. That meant I didn't have much longer to act—and so I made my decision.

I charged.

Someone shouted, tempered glass shattered into a million crumbling pieces, and then I was in freefall. So was the cat, and boy was the little fucker not happy about it. Holy shit! Nobody told me cats can scream! But the kitten needeth not to worry, for the Valkyrie was here to save the day!

Razor filled, metal wings erupted from my back, utterly shredding the satin fabric of my dress shirt. The suit jacket itself was fortunately spared due to my wisdom and foresight.

Immediately, I began to plummet even faster, which was rather ironic—but before I could start moving too quickly, I grabbed the flailing feline and did my damndest not to crush or otherwise injure the poor thing.

That bit was easier said than done, though, because the little shit was doing its damndest to turn my arms into shredded mozzarella cheese. Never before had I been quite this thankful for Anathema regeneration.

I had now successfully completed every phase of the objective, from infiltration to extraction with the target. Now, all I had to do was hope Katherine and Luna could make it out of the shitshow that was no doubt about to follow.

And if they didn't? I glanced at my new payload.

Well, I wasn't going to pretend like a prisoner exchange deal wouldn't be on the table.

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