Thunder

Chapter Fifteen - 6

Z9 hit the Halo-Core to open the door and it parted for her request. She saw Evangra in the centre of the Great Chamber Room, nothing more than a silhouette against the screen of windows where outside in the night torches and searchlights swept, people slept and ate and died, and the great city planet went on.

'Remarkable, isn't it, Z9? Absolutely remarkable.' She didn't turn towards Z9, but simply stood staring out at the world passing below her. A Magna-Train shuttled past far in the distance, headlights glinting in the dark.

'I find lots of things remarkable,' Z9 said, walking into the room. The door closed behind her silently, though rumbling through the floor. 'But if you're on about Celestria, then no.'

Evangra turned to her and Z9 saw that she was in flawless condition. Not a speck of dust in her face, not a hair out of place or a drop of sweat beginning to drip down her forehead. She was the queen, the empress on high, and she would always be pristine, utterly pristine.

Z9 on the other hand was bloodied like a newborn, scarred and ripped to shreds. Her flesh was lacerated as if she had been mauled to within an inch of her life; her hair was knotted and draped in front of her eyes, her dress no more than the remains of scraps of cloth. Her shoes were about to fall apart as well, the walls beginning to peel away having been ripped on something during the ascent to her majesty's throne room.

'Rather boring, aren't you?' Evangra walked into the centre of the room, the middle of four quarter circles of seating rising up from a space in the middle for a speaker. 'And don't worry. There's nobody else now. Just us.'

'Now why don't I trust you?' Z9 asked. Evangra shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly.

'No clue. Maybe you've just got trust issues. A damaged girl like you, there's got to be some trust issues in there somewhere. Always is.' Evangra ran her hand over a banister that ringed a small podium in the centre of the circular speaker's space. She stepped up into it, the neon coming on underneath and lighting her with under lighting so white that it made her look more like a ghoul or ghost than a woman.

Z9 walked towards her. She forgot the pain in her arm, her tattered clothes, and her buckled frame of a body. She held her head up and her breasts out, proud and defiant. She reached the podium and stepped up into it. She had to resist the urge to claw out the woman's throat right then and there.

'You are a complete bitch, aren't you?' Z9 asked.

'Says you, who slept with Dogra's chick just to catch him off guard. You do know she was only of age of consent five days ago?'

'I knew I was her first.' Z9 looked straight into Evangra's eyes. They were hollow, just like her own. 'Why don't you say it in terms you would understand, given your background? Slept with is too nice for someone like you.'

'Fine then,' Evangra replied, her breath the strong taste of vanilla. 'You fucked her, robbed her of her virginity, just to get to Dogra.' Z9 smiled.

'There's the bitch I've come to know. Full of anger inside from ending up in the legal sex trade and can't wait to throw it all up in someone's face. For the record, you could have fucked me as well,' Z9 said to Evangra. 'I might even still let you.'

'How enchanting an offer,' Evangra said. 'And how beautifully put, Miss Lyre. I didn't know you had it in you to be vulgar.'

'I kill people. I'm a goddess of vulgarity. I have no soul and I'm going to whatever incarnation of hell exists for people like me who take the plunge for others to ascend. I don't give a damn.'