[More Eous doodles featuring Anby]

"Unable to read Ether levels. Mutation is beyond my analysis capabilities. Issuing a recalibration test: Who is your favorite sibling?" Fairy frantically flew around Eous' head.

"Bangboo 18."

"Huh?" Belle glared at Eous through Fairy's feed.

"Your favorite food?"

"Fried chicken with spicy mayo, green onions, and fried rice." Eous crossed his arms while leering down at Fairy.

"And your favorite Agent?"

"Anby is still the most reliable." Eous shrugged his shoulders.

"I-I think we understand that he's still in there, Fairy... Thank you." Wise muttered impatiently.

"Eous, what's going on? What new shtick is this?" Belle was clearly exhausted from the stressful feeling of nearly losing her little brother for the umpteenth time.

"I'm Ionized. Don't know why I look like this, though." Eous looked at his black limbs and hummed. He brought out his claws and saw they were pure Ether, glowing every color of the spectrum. "I dig it. I feel twice as strong as before."

"Hypothesis: Life threatening circumstance forced his mutation beyond the limit. His biology has reached a ratio favoring his Ethereal DNA." Fairy commented.

"Where the hell is my mouth...?" Eous felt his face curiously.

"Well, if you're done scaring the hell out of us, can you kick their ass?" Eliza slumped into the passenger seat with a groan.

"Easy enough."

Eous took a single step forward before the Marionettes disappeared. He lazily looked around in confusion before hearing whirling behind him.

"Eous, watch o—" Wise's warning was unnecessary.

The Marionettes flew by him with their bladed skirts spinning like saws. They slowed to a stop before turning to see he was nowhere to be found.

"You know what they say—" Eous appeared behind them and slammed his tails into their backs with a sickening crack. "—Fool me once."

The Marionettes rolled against the ground before joining hands and spinning each other around. The Grey Marionette was suddenly flung his way by the Black Marionette.

Like a laser it lunged at him with a kick at blurring speeds, only to be caught with a single hand.

Eous held its thin, sharp leg with a bored leer. He glanced down at its leg and back up at the veil covering its face.

"Encore." Eous shoved it back to its counterpart and crossed his arms.

"Holy shit..." Eliza was in awe at his power. Being the first time seeing him get serious, she wasn't aware this wasn't normal.

The Marionettes were eager to take the challenge upon hearing his words. The two took hands again and began twirling on a single leg, kicking their other to build up momentum.

Seeing their figures become monotonous blurs, Eous waved them on to hurry up.

Suddenly, the faster they got, barrages of Ether pellets began to fly from their skirts. The sudden bullet hell normally would force Eous to block or leap away, but he chose to simply stand still.

Or that's what it seemed.

Eous began to side step each and every bullet, appearing as mere phantoms of himself around the plaza until he saw that the two Marionettes were slowly becoming enveloped in Ether.

"Wait, is that literal boss music?" Eous looked around after noticing the classical music that had been playing since he powered up.

Suddenly, time began to slow.

Eous tapped his foot impatiently seeing the two Marionettes flying at him in arrows of Ether. Albeit, to the naked eye, they'd yet to move.

Eous watched as Fairy gradually began to realize time was moving far slower for them.

She looked to Eous and saw him jabbing his thumb at the twins with only a bored leer.

Then suddenly, time resumed.

Eous began flipping and diving out of the way of Etheric slashes and slices produced by the Marionettes speed. Seeing a single crack in a vase nearby, Eous clicked his tongue.

"Our housekeeping friends won't be fond of such unruly guests. Let's handle that."

Eous leapt into the air, watching the twins slide across from each other before leaping above him. The two linked arms before spinning around and shooting towards him with dive-kicks aimed to slice him in two.

Eous spun above them as they passed before stretching his tails out and snatching them back towards him.

With his own blurring spin, he flung them back towards the floor one after the other.

The Grey Veil crashed but slid to its thin legs and slid back to catch the Black Veil. With a swift twirl it tossed the Black Veil back up at Eous, but it didn't make it but several feet before Eous flew down and slammed both into the ground with his tails' massive claws.

Eous tossed the two up in his grasp before glaring sharply at their falling forms.

His tails lashed out fast as lightning with a flurry of slashes that sent the two barreling towards a wall.

Eous looked at all the damage he had caused and hummed, coating the entire room in a pink and blue sheen to repair what he had done.

In a mere second, the lobby plaza was good as new, but the Twin Veil Marionettes were staggering towards him defiance of their wounds.

"Don't know when to quit, do you? Your audience is bored, so let's wrap this up." Eous lowered his stance before disappearing.

The Ballet Twins's heads creaked around with caution, trying to spot the bright monster among the darkness of the monotone world.

"Boo."

Before they could react, Eous spun and kicked both back towards the center of the lobby. Giving them no time to recover, he slid in front of them and used his tails to uppercut them back into the air.

"Astral Barrage."

He appeared above them before racing back down to ground in a moment's notice.

As the two Ethereals slowly began to reach the apex of their ascent, they spotted a sudden mass of vibrant glints from above them.

A flurry of massive meteoric fists crashed into their bodies over and over until their limbs began to crack and break.

Pixels rained down as Eous crossed his arms from the floor below.

"Show's over." He declared.

The rest of Nova was silent in shock and awe.

For Wise and Belle, there had never been a fight against foes that strong he'd been able to overpower with such ease. Every threat so far had put up an actual fight and even backed him into a corner.

Eous picked up a yellow backpack he found around the corner of the stairs and saw an MP3 player was running that same classical track on loop.

"Gotta be Rain's..."

Eous' head darted over to a soft thud he heard down the stairs. A figure dressed in a black and red Ether hazmat suit with plated armor was frozen in fear.

The creature before him was far unlike any Ethereal he'd ever seen, shaking him to his very core.

"Eliza, they get to you yet?" Eous asked seeing the outlaw run away.

"O-Oh, um, they're getting here now..." She replied.

"What are mercenaries doing here? Did they kidnap Rain?" Wise wondered.

Eous slipped on Rain's backpack after making sure all her contents were secured inside. "Only one way to find out. Eliza, have them use the updated Carrot data to go to Tower A, Fourth Floor, Balcony. There's a fissure there that will take them to a floor two above me. We'll meet up soon."

Eliza glanced over to the others, assuming they understood the plan now.

Lycaon nodded, handing over his Carrot with swiftness. "If there's indeed a third party occupying the establishment, we must get to the bottom of it and put a stop to their crimes."

Ellen slumped against the hood of the van with Corin, relieved that they didn't just leave their friend to die.

•

"Looks like these are just the henchmen. The hostage must be with their leader..." Lycaon muttered, gazing at the unconscious bodies around them.

"Found some weird device, boss." Ellen held up a black and grey suitcase with red and green LED lights.

Ellen set it on the nearest elevated surface and watched Lycaon open it with a hum.

"This is a military-issue G03 multi-frequency signal transmitter. It's quite powerful. Along with the right multimedia devices, it could aid intelligence operatives in hacking into high-level security systems."

"Is Ms. Rain a hacker of sorts...?" Corin wondered.

"Yeah." Eous answered.

The depth of the voice behind them made the entirety of Victoria Housekeeping arm their weapons at the figure.

"Wh... What the hell is that?" Ellen muttered in shock.

Eous had yet to change his appearance. The eldritch Ethereal's presence imposing, leaving all the rest speechless as it slowly held up a Manila folder.

"They've got docs on the court's airship, too. Got their routes, time tables, and security systems noted." Eous continued.

"Who are you?" Lycaon asked impatiently.

Eous just tossed him the files and crossed his arms. Before Lycaon could catch the documents, Eous' tail grabbed them with a claw. "Ring a bell?"

"E-Eous!" Corin nearly tackled him into a hug if not for him spinning her around and setting her back on her feet.

"In the flesh... I think." He shrugged off the pun.

As Lycaon and Rina went over the files, Eous heard a ring to his left. "Partner, incoming call from: Billy. Answering."

"Hey, Eous— woah! Love the new look— I-I mean, we've got trouble! Things just went down big time on the airship!" He was clearly in a panic.

"What's the haps?" Eous asked calmly.

"Okay, so like ten minutes ago, Perlman said he needed to check his suit. And the guards okay'ed it. But the moment he opened his suitcase, smoke exploded everywhere! Then everyone on the ship passed out— including the pilot!" Billy explained.

"How are you awake then...?" Belle asked.

"I was saved by my air intake malfunction earlier today!" Faulty equipment wasn't really something to brag about...

"Wait, you've got no one flying the ship right now?!" Wise circled back to the problem at hand.

"Well, it's in auto-pilot mode. It won't be crashing for now. But Managers, its scheduled route has been changed." Billy leaned over the unconscious pilots at the gps. "It's headed straight for the Hollow where the Ballet Twins are! It won't be long before we plunge straight into it!"

Eous hummed in thought as Billy rambled on.

"Based on what Mr. Billy said, the airship route was changed a while ago, but nobody on the outside has heard about it..." Lycaon noted.

"It's gotta be what they used Rain for." Eous looked at the case Ellen found.

"They must've had her change the route and then fake the signal to make everyone still think it's on course." Eliza muttered.

Billy was out of the loop. "Huh? Rain's involved?"

"Long story short, Mr. Billy: Miss Rain was abducted by a group of rebels, and they used her to control your airship." Lycaon explained.

"What?! Oh, no— if it's really Rain then PubSec can't even handle this! Is this the end?!" Billy whined.

"Not while I'm here. We find Rain in time and we can turn this around." Eous gestured to the suitcase device.

Ellen tossed it to him and watched him tie the strap of the backpack to its handle.

"Y-You're right! You're Nova, s-so I know you've got this!" Billy's mood turned around, throwing a thumbs up to him through the video feed.

"Partner, I have calculated the airship trajectory." Everyone turned to Fairy. "The airship will pass 15 meters above the Ballet Twins in 25 minutes before making contact with the Hollow less than 30 seconds thereafter."

"Then let's move." | "No time to waste." Eous and Lycaon waved everyone on.