Chapter Text
This isn’t the first time Flux has found himself here.
White stretches on far beyond the skyline, blanketing the mountains caging him in – glittering and otherworldly in the soft moonlight. Too bright for the hours that weigh at the sky, stark against its infinite darkness.
No chill seeps into his skin, only the impression of it, the idea that Flux should be cold. He doesn’t flinch as a harsh wind races its way past him, doesn’t so much as breathe as the gentle snowfall starts burying him where he stands.
Because he’s been here before, every night, every time he closes his eyes. But he’s always been alone.
The figure before him almost disappears into the landscape, hardly more than a being of light. One with the snow, apart from the glimpses of pale skin that peek through, and dark eyes that bore into him, pinning Flux in place.
He isn’t human – can’t be human. The glow emanating from him speaks of no mortal he’s met, nor the gods he’s heard whisperings of, a perpetual afterimage left in his own wake. He’s something else, something worse.
Even still, he smiles, a little too wide as his features distort and blur around it, every face he’s ever known and all the ones he hasn’t, all at once. His eyes are the only things that remain consistent – infinite, as if staring into the void itself, yet lacking the variation even the darkest corners of the End are said to hold, an abyss leading further than Flux can comprehend.
It should be horrifying. Flux should look away. Whatever it is, it wasn’t meant for him. Yet for whatever reason, he remains transfixed.
All at once, his expression goes soft, so fast he isn’t sure he’s ever seen anything different. A gentle smile finds his lips, creasing at the corners of his eyes as he regards Flux with a fondness he hasn’t earned.
“Oh, Flux…” A voice he can’t place sighs, borderline pitying. His lips don’t move, but he knows it’s the figure speaking, regardless of how it feels less like it comes from in front of him, and more like his own brain speaking for him in an unnamed tone. A sensation in the back of his skull, his own in every way but autonomy “It’s over.”
Oh.
It’s the only reaction he can conjure. There’s blood in the snow between them, stark and red.
Oh. It’s over.
There’s no relief, no finality. It’s just over.
Flux wakes up with the sun, just as he does every morning, soft light spilling into his bedroom as it warms Luminara once more. A new dawn, the first his nation has faced without 3BelowZero as its president.
Visions of white are already fading from Flux’s memory, slipping through his fingers before he can truly grapple with them. All that remains once his eyes have adjusted to the ceiling is the impression of someone long gone.
Inconsequential, if even that. The day draws on.
–
Being president is largely no different from his stint as Vice President. Now, he just gets handed the first revisions of treaties rather than the second, and is expected to attend meetings more diligently. Not much really changes, and Flux has taken to it like a fish to water.
His citizens treat him the same as ever, his cabinet (mostly consisting of his Conspiracy) was already by his side. Luminara hasn’t changed, nor has his role in it. Flux was always in control.
Even if this is technically a temporary gig until the next election can be organised, he has enough faith in the Conspiracy to believe they’ll do what needs to be done to keep him here.
It doesn’t matter how much of the bridge was built before anyone realised the true threat it posed, nor that other nations are only growing increasingly wary of his own.
Luminara has always been a wildcard. Ever since Flux had shown his hand at the first peace meeting, the island as a whole hasn’t exactly been discreet about its distaste for him and his goals. It hadn’t mattered then, and it doesn’t matter now.
Flux knows his methods seem harsh to them, but they’re necessary. Yggdrasil hasn’t attacked yet, and if his fellow leaders cannot see the benefit in banding together to prevent that, then they are no more fit to lead than 3Below and his misguided ideas of peace and union between the islands. He’d respected him, once, when Luminara was hardly more than a concept, built on innovation and nothing less. But he’d proven himself a soft-hearted fool above all else in the end, and Flux couldn’t let him continue sabotaging them the way he had been.
A Blue Cross meeting is scheduled for tomorrow on Yggdrasil – something to do with Infernus and the late Lingulini Mafia. Flux isn’t preposterous enough to decline Luminara's attendance, not when the word ‘war’ is being thrown around so readily. It doesn’t mean he has to be excited about it, though.
Still, that’s tomorrow.
Today, he sits in his office. His presidential office, rather than his much nicer one down in the bunker. It’s respectable enough, with a polished dark oak desk and an almost regal leather chair – but it’s bland, not quite his taste. There’s no flair; it’s all 3Below and his ideas for what a presidential office should look like. Modest at best, tacky at worst.
It works for paperwork, at least, and he’s only needed here until evening, when he can finally drop the pleasantries of running a nation he’s convinced couldn’t craft a pickaxe without him telling them how to.
So, when yet another knock resounds from the heavy spruce door, he has to hold back a sigh.
“Come in,” He calls, barely keeping the exhaustion from bleeding into his tone.
He perks up a little when the door opens to Thomas, his right-hand man, one of the few people who have resolutely stood by him despite everything. This joy is short-lived, however, as the look he gives Flux is nothing short of dire. Expression set in tense lines as if he's trying really hard not to let him know that something is horribly wrong.
“Flux…” He starts as he steps inside, hesitating at the threshold with his hand braced on the doorknob.
“Thomas,” Flux nods in acknowledgement, setting a stack of papers down on his desk.
Behind him, he can just about make out Snowbird, who seems just as – if not more – on-edge as he meets Flux’s gaze, offering him a nervous half-smile before disappearing down the hall.
Right. Either the whole town is on fire or… No use jumping to conclusions. Thomas closes the door.
“I have news.”
“I can tell.” Flux raises an eyebrow.
Thomas takes a deep, steadying breath, exhaling with a weight Flux is yet to bear.
Brown eyes finally meet his own, rife with something nameless and wrong on Thomas of all people.
“Saparata is dead.”
Oh.
So that’s what this is. Right. Sure. Okay.
Flux, the image of all that is calm and rational and nothing more, never anything more, asks, “How?”
“We aren’t entirely sure,” He continues, regaining some of his usual aloof composure now his initial report is over. “A group of Westhelm diplomats got lost in the tundra. They say they found a tower, that there were… Remains at the base of it.”
It strikes a chord he doesn’t expect it to – something buried and forgotten – somehow unsurprised, despite everything.
“And they’re sure it’s him?”
“Yes… They asked the Covenant to confirm.” Thomas nods grimly, “It’s him.”
“Right,” Flux hums, feigning contemplation; he isn’t sure he’s capable of thinking about it at all right now. He’s planned for this. If he is to sell it, his nation must come first. “I take it that word will spread by evening?”
“Snowbird and Gotoga are handling it as we speak.” If Snowbird's behaviour a moment ago is anything to go by, he’s standing outside the door awaiting the storm brewing within. Still, he won’t call him out. “Yggdrasil news outlets have already started printing the story. It won’t be long before Pandora catches on.”
“Have our hitmen called off,” Flux orders, “And make sure our allies-” (no matter the ever-dwindling amount of those they may have) “-know the threat has been eliminated.”
“On it, boss.”
“Thank you, Thomas. Is that all?”
For a moment, Thomas only blinks, staring at Flux as if he’s grown a second head, uncertainty painting his features before he collects himself “Yeah. Yeah, that’s all.”
“I appreciate the update, you’re dismissed.”
Flux doesn’t watch him leave. He knows Thomas lingers for a beat too long, gaze boring into him as if moving will cause Flux to shatter into a thousand pieces, before inevitably resigning. Ever loyal despite his instincts, just as he asks for in his closest conspirators. The door clicks shut, and Flux is alone once more.
Saparata is dead.
It doesn’t set in right away. He doesn’t think it ever will. Surely, this is a mistake. It can’t be…
He was already on borrowed time; it was going to happen one way or another if Flux had any say in it. They haven’t received news on his whereabouts in weeks. It was the obvious conclusion.
This is what he wanted.
Flux picks up a report from the edge of his desk, eyes glazing over the words entirely. This is what he wanted.
Any day now, he was going to receive a message from someone with the same news – whether that was going to be Luminara elite, a fellow leader or his cabinet, the outcome would’ve been exactly the same.
Saparata is dead.
Saparata is dead.
He was supposed to die the day the trap went off anyway. If anything, it’s his own fault for fighting it for so long.
Now, Flux is free to enact his plan as he pleases. No one knows what he’s done, the blood that stains his hands (other than the Conspiracy, of course, but they’re just as liable as him. They know that if even one of them gets caught this late in the game, they’re all going down.) Flux is free.
It’s a practically giddying idea, lightheaded from the thought alone, heart frantic in his chest through an unexplainable wave of nauseous relief. His plan worked.
Of course, he isn’t surprised. Saps going rogue was an oversight. His failed execution was yet another product of the Commonwealth's incompetence – but he’s dealt with now.
Even still, he can’t get ahead of himself. There’s always the chance Saps has slipped away again, that some poor, unrelated wanderer has been mistaken for the fugitive by eyes that never cared to memorise him quite so intently. It could be a trick, a mistake – any number of things that would allow Saps to reemerge in due time like a phoenix from the ashes.
No other explanation sits quite right, though. Thomas, Luminara's sharpest negotiator, a man who needs no sword, only his words and his keen eye for even an inch of traitorous intent, would never fall for something so blatant. There’s no faking it, not when it feels so right in the air, like a universal truth implanted directly into his brain.
Fluixon is president, Thomas would never lie to him, and Saparata is dead.
Flux’s hands do not shake as he picks up his pen once more, expression carefully blank even in the silence of the room. Beyond his window, Luminara thrives, unaware of the work Flux has put in to keep not only them, but the entire island safe. To cement his power into the earth itself and hold onto it so tightly that everything else has lost all meaning.
Saparata is dead.
He will not think of dark eyes shining in the gentle sunset, a universe contained within his countenance. Nor will he think of him, alone in the snow, or what that may mean for him, for how long he suffered.
The world will keep on turning, and Flux will not be the one left behind.
–
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
A voice beside him speaks, startling Flux from his thoughts as he turns to its source.
“Huh?” He supplies eloquently.
“The sky, duh,” The figure chuckles, entertained by his inattentiveness (it feels out of character. How had Flux allowed himself to slip so far from the moment? And with that thought, Flux realises he has no agency in this, that the instance has long since played out and, if it were ever real at all, the answer was only ever his to know anyway.) “It’s so clear out here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars.”
He has a point. Flux doesn’t think he’s seen so many constellations at once in his entire life. Not even in the dead of winter, on the outskirts of Aculon, when the town had long since gone dark for the night, were they so visible.
Maybe this truly is a paradise, as many seem to be calling it.
They’ve remained entirely undisturbed in their makeshift camp at the edge of the forest, warm and comfortable even when it ought not to be, so it really isn’t that hard to believe.
Still, the stars have never been his main concern. They’re pretty, glittering in the twilight overhead, but the way the figure gazes up at them, purposeful and alight, almost reverent… Flux doesn’t think he’ll ever understand.
“I guess they’re nice.”
The figure hums, thoughtful yet absent all at once. Flux’s gaze never leaves him, never drifts from pale skin and dark eyes, cheeks slightly flushed in the washed-out silver light, hair like freshly fallen snow cradling his face. Two dark beauty marks dot his cheeks just below his eyes, wonky if looked at dead on, mesmerising in the same way an animal will fixate on a poisonous butterfly.
“No matter where you go, we’re all looking up at the same sky,” He smiles, too bright even when he isn’t facing him “Isn’t that fun?”
“It’s stupid,” Flux sighs, because it is, and because he needs to be taken down a peg or two.
An elbow is rammed haphazardly into his side, just hard enough to hurt. Flux yelps in a way he will never admit to, “Hey!”
“You’re just a hater,” He laughs, captivating and warm. “Have you ever tried having a little joy and whimsy in your life?”
“If it turns me into you, I think I’ll pass…”
He dodges his elbow this time, preening at the indignant huff it earns him.
The figure shoots him a glare, but there’s no bite to it, no venom to his gaze. If anything, it’s fond, temperate, something only ever meant for him.
(Flux isn't sure if his eyes were always so dark, if the left or right beauty mark hung lower, but it all blurs together now, eternally out of reach. He looks right, now, with the moonlight haloing his head and no lanterns in sight. That has to count for something.)
“Flux! Saps!” A familiar voice calls in the distance (and Flux knows it's over), he meets his eyes one last time in the hopes of etching them into his brain. Mapping out the constellations in their depths as if they will slip away if he doesn't memorise them all in this instant.
Saps grins, and there's nothing he can do.
–
A shadowed figure will be spotted fleeing greater Luminara for the forest beyond long past nightfall, disappearing into the treeline without so much as glancing back.
Once the settlement is nothing more than a far-off memory, he will stare up at the moon through the sparse canopy to the sky above, bathed in silver moonlight.
It stares back, unblinking from its home amongst the stars.
Saps loved the night sky, didn’t he? That was something he said, in the dead of night when it was only them-
Flux screams.
–
The Conspiracy have definitely taken notice of his shift in demeanour if their wayward glances are anything to go by – but the continent at large seems entirely unaware, and that’s all he needs for now.
The bags under his eyes are barely concealed, and he may have zoned out one too many times on the journey here, but they know better than to ask. They’ve always known that the mere mention of a certain name could result in an immediate outburst, and have shifted accordingly. Flux doesn’t acknowledge it, so neither will they.
All he has to do is sit through this meeting, pay just enough attention that a neighbouring nation doesn’t come for his head and leave.
Except, it isn’t that simple. Of course, it isn’t that simple.
Tensions between the islands come up once more, as they often do. Today it feels comparatively lighter, though.
Someone – a representative of a nation that slips his mind entirely – chimes in, claiming that the propaganda was only pushed by one solitary nation, and even then, they never had the heart to back up their empty threats.
It feels too lighthearted for what Flux has poured so much of his efforts into, but they laugh, unrestrained in the open-air meeting space, joined by the representative of the Cass Coalition who brought up the topic.
His fellow leaders seem to agree, parroting similar sentiments with just as impassive tones. Tricolour stays quiet, as does Aperion, but Yggdrasil seems pretty unanimous on their conclusion.
This has to be a trap, even if Flux can’t quite see how yet. They’re trying to lull him and Pandora into a false sense of security, get them to lower their guard so they surrender without even realising it.
The rest of the meeting is mostly about Infernus, but Flux hardly pays it mind, too caught up in the doubt that’s dared to rear its head.
It’s far too late to back down over something so unpredictable – one lone representative cannot speak for every citizen across every settlement, surely.
But Flux has committed his life to this, his whole being; he can’t just concede, not this late in the game. So he has to double down.
Flux proposes the trial of Infernus and the Covenant, not because he pities them or truly believes they’re innocent, but as a contingency plan. As much as he despises the idea of siding with the other island, Flux is well aware that his list of allies is dwindling, and if nothing more, drawing out the conflict will give him a week or two to set Luminara on track once more, and maybe even get them into Infernus’ more merciful graces (if he isn’t already, but he can’t go betting his life on something as fickle as blood.)
He will not fail. Not because of something so flippant, over such juvenile tricks.
So he pays no mind to their claims, nor the petty squabbles Yggdrasil seems to have conjured from nothing more than netherite, or the way he has to bite his tongue at the mention of a certain fugitive's demise.
(“Now Saparata is dead,” A Westhelm diplomat had declared, steady and assured, a victor standing tall after a well-fought battle. Flux wondered if he’d still speak of him with such distaste if he’d been one of the people who found him. He would hope so. Flux put a great amount of effort into painting him in his own image, of crafting him into the conniving beast he wanted the world to think of him as “Our governments are a little safer, but we should probably stay on the lookout for copycats.”
“You can never be too careful…” A representative of the Cass Coalition had nodded with more certainty than the rest, and Flux knew his plan was working in some way or another. Her gaze had met his own across the glass table for a moment too long, narrowing slightly in what he dared not call suspicion.
The fallout of the trap still festers among them, the distrust and the anger. Even if Yggdrasil claims it was all for naught, Flux knows the truth. He did this, he shaped Pandora with his own two hands into the state it’s in today, just as he’d been trying to do from the start.
They can hate him, love him, want him dead all they want; they’re falling right into his hands either way. Saps was simply collateral, nothing more.)
By the time the meeting is over, Flux has nothing left to say to those who have stuck around for idle chatter. Silently, he beckons for Gotoga and Rotation to follow him, only to be stopped a few feet away from the meeting table.
“Fluixon,” Tricolour’s lead representative – Jamminhead, their second Lady of Colour and executioner of Seraphim, if he’s remembering correctly – greets him with a curt nod as she steps in front of him, a stern, unreadable look on her face “I believe there’s something we need to discuss.”
“And that would be…?” Flux asks, unable to care for how rude it sounds.
“Alright, look.” She levels his gaze, intense despite every ounce of intimidation Flux is pouring into his own, royal blood nothing in the face of the venom on her tongue “We know about the assassinations, alright?”
Oh.
“You’re under arrest. You’re coming to Tricolour, you’re gonna have a fair trial. Just come with us.”
The words wash over him like the tide to the shore – inevitable, foretold in the eroded edges of the rocks lining the cliffs, smoothing out the sands of all the sun-dried shells and seaweed until there’s nothing of the last flooding to be seen. Flux feels nothing of it. This is fine.
“What?” He says through gritted teeth, glancing around to make sure Rotation and Gotoga are sticking as close as he’d instructed them to, keenly aware of how Tricolour are fencing them in.
“We are arresting you for possibly being responsible for the death of Jophiel, in any capacity,” Boreal, their Sergeant Quartermaster, clarifies. Although it does nothing to enlighten Flux to the real issue – how and where they got this information, and who he needs to have dealt with before it reaches the public consciousness, if it hasn’t already.
In truth, Flux hadn’t known this day would come, let alone so quickly – but that doesn’t mean he’s drowning yet. All he needs is time.
“What are you talking about?” He huffs indignantly, “We know Seraphim was guilty.”
“There are concerns that you may have been involved in other ways. If you believe yourself innocent, I believe that you are, I trust that you’re innocent, because you told me you were.” He stands tall, back straight as he stares at Flux with all the confidence of a man who doesn’t believe a word he’s saying but assumes Flux will trust him anyway “But right now the most important thing we can do is simply go to trial and prove that you’re correct, which I believe-”
“This is an outrage against Luminara,” Flux asserts, because it is, and because the honour of his nation is all he has left to stand on if his own is being slandered like this “I cannot believe that you would accuse me like this. Why did you not bring this up beforehand?”
“So if you were guilty, you wouldn’t run away,” Jamminhead states matter-of-factly despite her fellow board members' words. So much for proving his innocence. They know. If he sets foot in Tricolour ever again, he isn’t leaving.
Flux scoffs, training his voice into something steady enough to rectify the adrenaline tearing a hole in his heart “You’re seriously scared that I’m going to run away from a trial?”
“You agree that after what happened with the Commonwealth, we can never be too careful about stuff like that?”
The visceral shudder that wracks his form is far too real for his liking. If there’s anything Flux doesn’t want to think about ever again, it’s the Commonwealth, and he certainly doesn’t want to think about-
“Fine. Fine, I will go, but this is- This is an outrage.”
As they lead him through Elysium, Flux doesn’t dare to entertain the possibility that his plan won’t work, that he must face Tricolour in any meaningful way. They may have learnt from the Commonwealth's shortcomings, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t just as susceptible to the unknown.
He may be surrounded, but one of their lead representatives is in a full set of iron armour, and Flux isn’t sure how that bodes for the rest of them beyond the flashy sets of diamond they wear.
There’s still a chance, there’s still something.
While they’re distracted making their way through the unfamiliar city, Flux discreetly reaches for his communicator, careful to keep it from view. Whether the message he types is coherent or not is yet to be seen, but he has faith that the signal will be understood regardless.
As they reach the docks at the edge of the city, he spots a figure in his peripheral vision, removed from the cluster of increasingly wary Tricolour officials. If he were a little less aware, he might have flinched, assuming the worst of their intentions with this so-called trial.
But Flux, as always, knows what he’s doing. The situation is under control.
Newkids lands a hit on him before any of the guards can alert him to his presence, aimed at the pauldron of his armour, just hard enough to hurt. He plays his role, as Flux does his own, ducking away from another swing with a cry.
“What is this?” Flux asks for no reply as Newkids only charges on after him.
Tricolour seems just as confused as he wants them to be, vague shouts echoing from behind him as he takes to the water, reappearing further along Elysium's coast. It’s for the best that Newkids (probably) has no real intent on killing him, considering how much his armour slows him down. Unable to shake off the water weighing down his clothes, he breaks into a sprint once more.
Even unaware of the landscape, it's easy enough to stick close to the coast, taking every alley and side street he can until the shouts grow further and further away. Fighting against the growing ache in his legs, his worsening shortness of breath, in hopes of a greater reward.
If he wanted to, Newkids could kill him. It’s never been a matter of whether he can with him, only whether he wants to – which had become increasingly apparent with all the bribes they had to pull for him to finish off 3Below. He’s loyal enough, and Flux respects him for that, but he’ll never know if that loyalty lies with Flux himself or the thrill of the chase.
He’s the sharpest blade Luminara has – hell, maybe even the most skilled fighter on all of Pandora – and he’s his to call upon. Even still, the distance is a necessary precaution.
If Flux can get away now, Tricolour will have no reason to think he ran away from the trial, and he can buy himself some time before they come back for him. He will lose Newkids, though. He’s certain he will escape either way, but he’s already wanted for the last assassination, and a second attempt will only provide fewer use cases Flux can get away with unchecked.
He must know this, yet he follows the script without complaint.
By the time he finds a boat and sets out on the water for good, he seems to have lost Newkids and Tricolour, many of whom took to pursuing the more imminent threat once he separated from Flux.
Only Rotation has been able to keep up with him, appearing around a building with his bright red armour trims and immediately taking to another discarded boat.
Together, they disappear past the skyline, long gone by the time Tricolour even notices their mistake.