[Can’t Opt Out]

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stop for a moment?” Levi asked, blinking up at Gëon, who was looking more than a little ill.

Poor guy. Microsparking could work on people who didn’t have Censors, but it was so, so, soooo not great for their bodies or minds. Wouldn’t kill them. Wouldn’t leave them feeling fresh as rain, either. Gëon, however, seemed to be taking it worse than most. Levi had already sent a message off to Halen and Emilia—they had their own, super-special group relay, where Levi let them know when he wanted a super-special skill and gave feedback on all their skills—about it. Obviously, only Halen had responded so far, suggesting that it might be due to the older man’s Dyadism—supposed Dyadism. Technically, the beautiful man had never actually confirmed that he had a form of Dyadism, so who really knew—he could have a super-special irregular deviation that wasn’t Dyadism, for all any of them knew!

Regardless, Halen had proceeded to add testing microsparking on a few people with irregular deviations and no Censors—or disabled Censors—to his to-do list. It was apparently a very long list—not that this surprised Levi. He had seen Halen’s to-do list once. There was a list for him alone, actually? Apparently, Halen took what he was doing—training himself, keeping his abilities and agenda from being known by too many people—quite seriously? Knowing that the guy was totally, head-over-heels in love with Emilia… yeah, that tracked.

Halen, Levi had realized a long time ago, would do pretty much anything for Emilia. Since the other boy knew that the older clon_e_s didn’t like Emilia and were very much a threat to her and a whole bunch of people she loved, Halen took making sure to find ways to counter the older clones so seriously that all Levi had to do was ask for something, and BOOM! Halen would make it for him—Emilia would as well, of course, but that was because she really didn’t like the older clones. That was fair; they really were quite terrible.

“I’m sure,” Gëon replied, popping Levi out of his contemplations about how cute Emilia and Halen would be together, always bickering and snuggling and snipping at one another before going off to love-hate fuck in another room. They’d burn down the world, which wouldn’t be cute, but fuck would it be fun!

Planting a hand on his hip and cocking it—it was a move he loved, always attracting the attention of every gay and bisexual man in the area—Levi raised an eyebrow at the lying man.

“Yes, I’m lying,” Gëon admitted—while he might not have clearly explained what abilities he had going on, he wasn’t bothering to hide them either. In this sort of situation, such a thing would be insane! Was Levi hiding a bit from both of his companions? Sure, but it wasn’t like them knowing a bunch of that stuff would actually be useful, unless he popped another dose of the Censor Interference Drug. Not something he was gonna do at the moment—too much risk that Olivier’s Censor would glitch out, and while they had Gëon’s xphern to communicate with the others in an emergency…

Yeah, no. While he’d taken the drug earlier, that was because he’d been pulled to do so and it had made sense. Currently, the aether was quiet and it didn’t make sense.

Speaking of his wandering through the cave system…

“Have you gotten any more information about what might have happened to our friend?” Levi asked, thinking about the still missing and kidnapped Lux… plus his sister. Samina would be fine, though. Levi would know if something too terrible had happened to her. Had there been a moment, a little bit ago, when he’d felt as though she wasn’t in a great place? Sure, but she was still alive, at the very least.

“Not yet,” Gëon said as they ran—this section of the city had turned into a million winding staircases, so the man wouldn’t need to tolerate microsparking again for a bit, just run as fast as he could—tugging out his xphern to check for any new messages.

It had been brought up a while ago that, in theory, Gëon might be able to find out what had happened to Lux and Levi’s sister. So far, all they knew was that, once the few people their group had killed were added in as well, all the people who had returned to the area where Levi had met Gëon accounted for all the people who were supposed to be in the cave system, working for him.

In other words? The person who had taken Lux was not part of Gëon’s group—or, if they were, they weren’t supposed to be working. Unfortunately, figuring out who they were and whether they were one of Gëon’s people, working at a weird time—rare, but apparently not unheard of—wasn’t going well. All of his employees who had been in the cave system were behaving so strangely, and now that his little shadow wasn’t up there, ferrying people to and from the cave system entrance they used to manage their operation, it was taking a while to get someone who was better suited for questioning them up there.

Mostly, they were running on the assumption that whoever had taken Lux wasn’t connected to Gëon’s operation; instead, they’d likely happened across one of their groups, then taken the opportunity to grab Lux for… reasons. Considering Gëon’s people had been acting weird, no one was ruling out the possibility that whoever took Lux hadn't also been acting weird.

Regardless, they were still waiting to hear if Gëon’s people had learned anything else, a few of the people who operated on the other side of the smuggling operation—people from other nations or members of diaspora groups settled into Lüshan that could more easily smuggle goods into neighbouring nations, mostly—coming back into Lüshan, if they were nearby, to check on the entrances to the cave system they used, in case Lux or Samina popped out.

It was unclear what they would do from there; go in or just wait seemed the most likely options. Levi wanted to know what the man was planning, but he didn’t think asking would earn him any answers. While he, Mikhail, and Olivier had agreed that the man was earnest in his desire to keep the children of their group safe—and the fact that he had both told his little shadow to take Porsq and get out of the city if things got bad and was refusing to let their little group stop, so his stomach and mind could rest a moment, definitely confirmed that he was genuine—they also knew he was a criminal.

A very beautiful criminal who had fucked his throat so very well, but a criminal all the same.

Olivier was also beautiful, running ahead of them. The non-dev had taken wonderfully to microsparking, only running into a few walls—thankfully, he’d taken to the defensive skill Halen had sent him, intended to keep him from seriously hurting himself when he inevitably rammed into a solid object, just as well.

Ah~ to be a non-dev and so immediately get any skill offered up—not that Levi was a slouch, or anything! He was extremely skilled at mastering skills! It was one of the things he sort of played up being less competent at—something that took significant skill to fake, thank you very much. The amount of time he’d spent watching other people fail to master a skill over and over again, all so he could pretend to be just as incompetent, was insane! Literally, he’d had to train his body to pretend to not get the use and flow of skills within a few goes of it, lest someone with the ability to poke their awareness at human bodies notice something was off with him.

It was just one of those things, however, where he knew he was better off pretending. Every little bit of incompetence he could give himself would make things easier, down the line.

Now, he just had to keep out of situations where pretending became impossible! Fortunately, with most people, he’d cultivated a very specific sort of personality: one that flickered between him having no interest in training to having so much that he came out perfectly capable of being a monster of competence with most things.

Fuck did he look forward to the day the older clones finally broke and tried to kill them off—or just attempted to expel those of them they didn’t like from The Black Knot, or Baalphoria as a whole. It was why there had been a moment, back when a few of the clones with Coral’s group had proven to be part of the older clones’ faction, where Levi had been excited! It was a little early for a war between their factions to break out—at least, it was for their side; most of them thought the older clones idiots for not trying to take them out now, before they became even more powerful.

Regardless of when the brewing conflict finally broke, they’d make it work! One day, they’d hunt down all of the clones who had bad thoughts about them, slit some throats. Porsq was a little young, but he could probably use his abilities to make people tell the truth? Kid had seemed so powerful that he might just be able to stand outside of the main Black Knot offices and use his abilities to make every agent who wanted Emilia and Baylor and Finn and Cyan dead come out and play!

Then, they’d kill them all. Great! Awesome! No more hiding who he was!

Unfortunately, the clone who had tried to kill them had been something of a rogue agent, acting too soon for the older clones’ faction’s taste! Now, they were dead, and every reading Coral was getting from the other clone who seemed to be part of that faction was indicating that the faction had no intention of doing anything more to them—wasn’t even happy that they’d been attacked at all, apparently.

That sucked, but was more in line with what all of them expected. Mostly, it seemed like the older clones knew that they had the moniker the older clones for a reason. Sure, the few with Coral’s group were younger, but that was rare. In reality, most of the clones they knew to hate their group were over two-hundred-years-old, while the majority of clones under one-hundred aligned with their own faction. The result? In an all-out conflict, the older clones would be more experienced, but outnumbered. They needed to recruit more young clones, and that took time.

There were outliers already, of course, as the hostile younger clones with Coral’s group proved. Varo—who was technically an older clones—didn’t really like their group much, but he was clearly aligned with them. A handful more clones popped into Levi’s mind as well—clones who had met Emilia as a child and been charmed by her, mostly. There was something about her little smile, her immediate love, and her ability to recognize every clone that seemed to scrape a hole within most clones’ hearts—not all of them, but most.

Most black knots’ hearts in general, actually, Levi’s own heart filled full with love for the little girl who had so happily dragged him and Samina into her friend group, despite how wary a few of her then-new friends had been of them—of the triplets and the Laprise twins as well.

“You love her a lot,” Gëon noted when they paused, Olivier taking the chance to practice running the recon-like skill sequence Emilia had given all of them while Gëon mapped out what people he could feel, testing to see if anyone would obviously be dangerous or hostile towards them.

A pair of green and light-blue eyes shifted back to look at them, a question written in Olivier’s eyes as he concentrated on the recon skills but also wanted to know who they were talking about—possibly was also super curious about Gëon’s abilities. While Levi and Mikhail were used to Coral being able to read them—overly accepting of it, according to some people, due to both of them struggling to figure out their emotions most of the time—Olivier had only just experienced anything like the power of an EEC Dyad. It took a little acclimating, and mostly he was quiet—although, maybe that was more his worry for the little boy?

“Yes,” Gëon agreed, his lips twitching as he glanced over at Olivier, still watching them, a small frown marring his beauty… or making him more attractive. It was difficult to decide if serious-Olivier was more attractive than not-serious-Olivier. What was clear? The man would be devastating if he dared smile, full and bright—just the small smiles he’d given Porsq had been enough to make Levi’s heart skip a beat!

A small laugh slipped out of Gëon as he added, “He’s also worried about the silverstrain girl. He doesn’t love her like you do, but… No, if Olivier learned to love that girl, it wouldn’t be the sort of love you have for your friend.”

Olivier’s eyes widened, his mouth opening as though to say something—brush off claims that he could ever love Emilia, maybe?—before being cut off by Gëon.

“Speaking of that girl… I believe she had just passed under us.”

All of their eyes shot downwards, to the unseen subterranean river, far below them—Levi had also needed to be told about her plan, not that he hadn’t already figured she must be doing something to get to the kid. His friend was the sort of person who couldn’t leave a little kid to be hurt like that—the sort of person who couldn’t forgive adults who hurt kids in less terrible ways, let alone something like what was happening to the kid.

Levi rather hoped Emilia got to rip those women apart—the man they were handing him over to as well. Then again… there was something to be said for letting Olivier have his way with the women, especially if he held the ability to love Emilia within him.

Emilia, Levi had always thought, needed a bit of crazy in her partners.