User:LordSkorne7/sandbox/Syx and Seven In: Immortal Red Dragon

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Syx and Seven In: The Immortal Red Dragon
Written by LordSkorne7

Introduction

“What makes someone good?”

In the universe of Imagindarium’s Creation, that question seems to have a foregone conclusion.
Those who carry the Light are, by the universe’s own design, inherently “Good.”
But I want you to set aside the cosmic absolutes for a moment.
Step away from what is objective, inherited, and the meta-
and instead, ask it again—closer.
Personal.
Human.

“What makes someone good?”

Is it what they do?
How they act?
What they say?
What they wish for, or what they strive toward?
It's certainly not an easy answer; if there even is one at all.
But that is the question I hope to explore in the following pages.
In this Tale, we follow the latter life of Mace Sappho, known across the stars as The Immortal Red Dragon;
A "legend."
A savior.
A weapon...
A man.
Someone of status so grandiose, it's somewhat hard to really grasp or relate to.
The Havriel revere him as a hero who gave his life to bring about the galaxy’s salvation.
He saved countless thousands.
He stood as a beacon of hope in a time of absolute darkness.
And yet;
If we peel away the veneer of the icon...
If we strip off the titles, the propaganda, the legends...
What do we find underneath?
What kind of man truly bore the title?
Is Mace Sappho a "good" person?
As ironic as it might sound, given the nature of things... it is honestly a matter of perspective.
Every act one might judge to be "good" is drenched with bad intentions; and vice versa.
Whilst every act that could be deemed "evil" has its reasons beyond his natural control, and vice versa.

“What makes someone good?”

Really... it is up to you to decide that for yourself.

Prologue

Dated: 64th Year proceeding End's Emergence

Shockaves slammed into Mace’s body, pulses of explosive pressure, each hammering through his bones as he stood at the threshold. The reinforced titanium blast doors loomed before him... sealed, impassive, and cutting him off. Beyond them, salvation—or at least a delay to the inevitable. But he wouldn’t reach it. Not in time.

Behind the door, the groaning shockwave of desolation raced toward him, a force so immense it seemed to warp the air itself.

Mace’s gaze flicked toward the approaching wall of flame, then back to the door. He could tear through it—easily. His strength would make quick work of the metal. But he knew, in that small, infinitesimal slice of awareness, that the blaze would consume him the moment the seal was broken. He could see it, feel it, with the clarity of instinct sharpened by fear.

Yet standing there, pressed to the door, waiting—that kind of death felt more certain. More inevitable.

And yet…

The idea of dying while clawing for life, of dying trying in vain to live—that felt wrong. Weak. Desperate. To scramble against the tide, to die as a creature reaching toward salvation rather than facing the storm head-on—it felt pathetic. Unworthy.

So he turned.

Facing the fire. Facing death.

To face it.

To meet the storm head-on.

The flames surged across the shattered metallic halls, clawing toward him with impossible speed. Time dilated, unraveled. The world slowed. Every lick of fire, every dancing spark, each contortion of heat and smoke stretched out like moments in glass.

It was beautiful in its own strange way—this final catastrophe.

But no less terrifying.

There was no escape. No way through, under, or around. No tricks. No salvation.

No last-minute heroes.

Just him.

The fire had come for him at last.

And for the first time in what felt like centuries—he wasn’t ready.

There was no escape. No way through, over, or under. No clever solution. No hero’s last-minute salvation.

This was it. His end.

Death had finally caught him. After everything—after surviving so much, it had come for him at last.

"Not yet."

"NOT YET!!!!!!"

The flicker of confidence faded as his mind spiraled in an immense swirling vortex of blind panic and desperation.

A growing haze emerged across the space around him—the world blurred, and time began to slow to an agonizing crawl in his mind.

A race of thoughts began to rush across his mind's threshold.

There was still too much left undone... Too much hanging in the balance.

This couldn't be the end.

"IT CAN'T!! I CAN'T GO!! NOT YET!!"

His internal screams vibrating his skull, as his panicked thoughts continued.

The Havriel stood no chance against the Concordant without him. The Sanlagosa would wipe them out, root and stem, without him there to stand in the gap.

He'd be leaving them to die.

All of them...

If he was to die here; only one world saved amongst hundreds more all burned to dust... it would mean that all his work, his life, all of it, nothing but a failure

All the pain, all the suffering, it was all for nothing...

FUCKING NOTHING!!!

Panic grew to rage in his heart, time slowing now to a more methodical crawl.

Everything he's tried for—" A FAILURE!!" EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. THING.

Nothing but failure...

It could't be...

Please...

please, don't let this be it...

Please... let there be hope

...but that was just it.

There was no hope.

there never was...

Just crushing sorrow, as tears began to flow from his emerald eyes, his perception keeping him affixed to this miserable moment.

And somehow, even more unbearable than that—there were so many faces left behind...

Faces he would never make peace with.

His wife.

His son.

Domina.

Lavender...

The ones who had every reason to hate him, and every reason to never forgive him.

His death wouldn’t even be clean. It would be a death filled with debts unpaid, and words unsaid.

A heart full of regret.

The thought hollowed him out. His chest tightened, breath hitching as the flames edged closer. His pulse quickened to the point of chaos—a thundering, frenzied panic that roared louder than the fire itself.

He could feel it now—the shape of his death. Not heroic. Not dignified. Just a man, hollow and broken, terrified to die.

He laughed.

Not out loud—no, rather the sound curdled in his mind, a bitter, charred thing echoing through the hollow spaces of his thoughts. The dark humor of it all clawed at him beneath the panic.

Here he stood—Mace Sappho, the Immortal Red Dragon—reduced to this. Trembling. Cowering. Afraid to die. Clinging to a life of pain, to a life that had never been worth living in the first place.

A pathetic joke.

Flashes erupted in his mind. Bright, white, burning. Searing through his thoughts like acid. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the light burned from the inside. Shapes stirred beneath the brightness—shadows forming from the glare.

Figures. Faces. Stirring fragments of memory. Pieces of a past he had long buried. Fragments of remembering—the kind that cut deeper than any wound. The kind he would have rather kept forgotten.

He saw them. Saw her... fire edged closer. His breath sharpened. His pulse slammed against the walls of his chest.

The first to appear from the blaze was her.

Anaxandries.

His wife. His enemy. His mirror.

Normally, her name alone would stir a sneer on his lips—would summon bitter venom in the back of his throat. He’d scoff at the memory, spit curses at the image of her in his mind.

But not this time.

Not at the end of it all.

For years, Mace had told himself a lie. A beautiful, insulating lie. That he had been the victim. The noble one. The self-sacrificing soldier who gave everything, only to be dragged down by her relentless, ungrateful scorn. He had written himself as the hero of their fractured tale, the righteous man misunderstood by the cold-hearted queen.

Every judgment she passed, every cutting word—he’d framed it as cruelty. As her refusal to understand the burden he carried.

But buried in the flame, in this moment between life and death, the truth returned.

And it hurt.

Things hadn’t soured over time. No.

The fracture came when he gave away their son.

Lloyd.

Their pride. Her joy.

The Crown Prince of the Evermorian race—her people. Her legacy.

He had handed their child over to the Havriel Alliance, allowed an alien regime to reshape him, to twist and mangle him into something unrecognizable.

He had stripped Anaxandries of her bloodline’s future... and called it strategy.

What was she supposed to do? Smile and applaud? Pretend it was fine? Accept that betrayal with royal grace while her son bled beneath a surgeon's knife and was reborn a pawn in a war he never chose?

No.

She had every right to hate him.

To curse him.

To cast him from her memory like the shame he had become.

And still—the worst part hadn’t even come from what he’d done.

It was what he said.

The last words she would ever remember from him.

Not shouted in battle.

Not whispered in sorrow.

Not offered in apology.

But weaponized.

The vilest thing he had ever spoken—cut from the raw edge of his hate and hurled at her like a blade.

And it would echo in her mind forever.

He would be remembered not as a lover. Not as a father. Not even as a monster.

But as a curse.

A spectral rot that clung to the edges of her mind, hissing words too vile to be repeated.

And there was no redemption for that.

No balm.

No undoing.

Just the suffocating weight of regret—crushing, endless, inescapable.

It dragged its claws across his soul.

But still, his mind moved forward.

The fire shifted.

And another ghost took shape in the inferno.

The second figure emerged from the inferno, rising through the flames now slowing to a near-frozen crawl. The fire no longer raged—it lingered, hung in the air like a cruel painting, suspended in judgment.

The specter that stepped forth followed the theme of the first.

His son — his boy.

Lloyd...

Mace’s stomach twisted at the sight. Gods, how he wished this wasn’t the image burned into his mind as the end approached. But it was. Just like it had been every night since it happened.

Project Gladiator.

"Why?"

The question stabbed at his mind like a dagger through paper.

Why had he let them go through with it?

His boy—his precious boy.

They took him. They carved him up.

Mangled his body, twisted his mind.

All in the name of progress.

Of "hope."

Hope for the species.

Hope to outlast the onslaught of the Concordant.

Hope to see a tomorrow, no matter how blood-soaked the road became.

But where was his hope?

What did Lloyd have left to believe in when the world bled around him?

His hope was supposed to be his father.

Strong. Stalwart. Unyielding.

But Mace had just stood there.

Watching.

Letting them shove needles in his arms, open him up like machinery, like flesh was data, like the screaming didn’t matter.

He’d let it happen. All of it.

And when Lloyd grew older, when they finally let him walk again on his trembling legs, they dressed him up—green and red, like a storybook soldier, a little Havriel poster boy with dead nerves and glassy eyes.

And he played along.

He smiled. He saluted. He said the right words. Told the right stories. Pretended he wanted to fight. Pretended he believed in the mission.

But Mace knew.

He knew.

Lloyd was never built for war.

He was too sweet.

Too kind.

Too filled with light.

And all he ever wanted—

All he ever FUCKING wanted—

Was to spend time with his dad.

To be near his hero.

His icon.

And in return, he was handed a war doomed to his death, a body broken beyond repair, and a march into hell, marching through a veil of tears.

Tears welled through pain his own beloved-father had allowed.

And now, here he was.

Standing again. In the flames.

The second ghost.

Unblinking. Silent.

Staring back at the man who had once been his entire world—

Now just a shadow burning alive in his own regret.

Instinct took hold.

Mace looked away, unable to face the burning apparition of his son any longer. He couldn’t bear the eyes—those eyes—not when they held such quiet disappointment.

Such grief.

Cowardice gripped him as tightly as the heat.

And when he finally summoned the strength to turn back, to face it again—

Lloyd was gone.

Vanished into the smoke.

In his place stood another figure.

A woman.

Framed by flame, her silhouette seemed untouched by the chaos. Composed. Commanding.

Domina Morningstar.

"Of course."

He thought, the feelings of regret beginning to wane in his mind to general sense of growing frustration at the frozen state of the world he was in.

But regardless of his annoyance, there she stood,

The woman he never stopped loving.

Even when he told himself otherwise. Even when he tried to bury her name beneath war reports and classified missions and bloody regrets—

She remained. Just like this.

Silent, still, and ever eternally confident.

“And what could you possibly want from me, Domina?”

The thought curled in his mind, soaked in bitter sarcasm—dripping with morose, hollow, and defensive bitterness.

He already knew the answer.

Of course he did.

She would want what she always did.

The truth.

For him to admit it—finally, after all these years.

That he was wrong.

Wrong to shut her out.

Wrong to punish her with silence when the flame of romance dimmed in her heart.

As if love fading was a crime.

As if it hadn’t been his own fucking fault in the first place.

His distance. His selfishness. His inability to be vulnerable.

She hadn’t betrayed him.

She had simply grown tired of trying to love a man made of steel and stone and sorrow.

And he had hated her for it.

Because deep down, he knew—

She was right to leave.

It stung — more than he’d ever expected; to finally admit it. Not because he’d ever truly denied it, not deep down. But because acknowledging it meant facing the pathetic truth: something as simple, as mundane, as feelings fading had been enough to trigger the worst in him

The way he’d lashed out... God... it was vile. Not desperate. Not wounded. Just cruel. Just ugly. Just what she’d always said he was becoming. And she was right.

She’d never reached out after that. Not once: No letters. No messages. No sideways attempts through old friends. Not even a public callout, which he honestly would’ve preferred — at least then he could’ve told himself she still gave a damn. But no. She'd cut him out with surgical precision. A clean break. Final.

She had known what he didn’t—that he wasn’t worth salvaging.

And now, here he was. Suspended in a moment that had stretched out in death’s shadow. No escape. No miracle. No rewinds.

Only truth.

“I’m sorry, Domina...”

he said aloud, though barely above a whisper. The words tasted hollow. Burnt out. Like the old metal and smoke that bellowed and crumbled in ever freezing increments all around him.

“...I really am.”

It didn’t matter, of course. No one was left to hear it. Not her. Not anyone.

Still... it was something.

A splinter of comfort. A jagged edge of honesty in a lifetime built from lies and buried regrets.

At least until her image—the phantom that had stood beside him in the fire, silent and still—began to fade.

Domina’s form faded in slow motion, her figure methodically melting into something smaller... shorter, though still unmistakably feminine.

Mace stopped breathing, as the air was choked in pounds of stagnate smoke with the encroaching blaze mere feet from his person.

"No..."

The fire bent around her, but it didn’t touch her; like it knew what she was — what she meant.

And once formed, there she stood.

Lavender...

Of course it was Lavender. Her face still soft, still young — too young. And worse; she was still smiling. That same gentle, naïve smile that once melted his resolve, now split him open, core to skin.

“No... God, please don’t do this...don’t show me this...”

But time didn’t listen.

Instead, it slowed even further — if that was even possible. It tightened around his mind like a noose, freezing every second so precisely he couldn’t even move his fucking eyes.

Panic crept up his heart and out his whole body was felt a fear comparable only to the throws of terror in his experincing the death of a world. His breath began to quicken pace, until he was hyperventilating.

He was trapped. Forced to look. To stare.

At her. At that face. That smile.

“FUCK YOU!!”

he shouted into the heat, into the void; at nothing, at EVERYTHING. At God, if such a thing had ever dared to exist in this universe.

So he watched her.

Watched that sweet, stupid smile never break.

Even as he himself broke.

“FUCKING STOP IT—!”

He howled, not at her. Never her. But at everything.

At the veil, at the fire, at life itself. The scream rose like bile, spitting itself against the fabric of reality.

"She was a fucking kid..."

A twenty-one year-old girl. Only one year older than his son.

And Mace?

Old enough to be her grandfather...

But that didn’t stop him.

Nothing ever did.

So he took her, and took her again... and again.

Pulled her into the wreckage that was his world — like he hadn’t already burned through enough lives. Let her curl up in his bed, and feel the heat of her naked body pressed against his.

All that...

Because she looked a bit like Domina.

That was it...

That was the reason...

What a fucking disgusting prick he must’ve been.

The thought hit like rot blooming in his gut—slow, vile, deserved.

He knew better... He always knew better whenever he used little girlies like her.

Yet he used her all the same; as a personal little fuck doll to use and put on the shelf when he was bored of her.

At least—that was his initial plan.

Keep it simple. Keep her distant. Use her. Leave.

But then… something happened.

A part of him—one he’d mocked, spat on, called the stupidest fucking part of himself—started to feel.

Not lust.

Not guilt.

Love.

And now, looking back?

He’d call it the only part of him that wasn’t a monster.

And that’s what made it worse.

She was soft. She was good. Too fucking good for the world, too fucking good for him.

He’d filled her with his child and called it love.

But what kind of love was that?

Another son, born into fire. Another lamb for the slaughter. Born from his own selfishness. His own unhealed bullshit.

Another chance to fuck it all up the same way again, except maybe worse this time.

And now she was here.

Well... not really, but it was close enough.

Close enough to gut him.

Close enough to make him feel every inch of what he was — what he still couldn’t admit out loud.

Because even now, with the world burning around him, with nothing left but the smoke and the silence, Mace still couldn’t face the last truth.

He wouldn’t let himself go back there.

He wouldn’t.

Because he knew—

If he did…

If he let that one memory in...

It’d kill whatever was left of him. Even now, at the very end of it all. He still fought to defend himself.

But the thought broke loose. Didn’t crawl. Didn’t slip. It ripped from the depths of his mind like a rusted spike tearing up through old flesh—jagged, unrelenting, final.

He took him...Her baby. Not his. Not truly; as if a man like him could ever dare to call himself a father.

Just hers. Just Lavender’s.

And why?

Because his broken—retarded fucking mind twisted some ancient, primordial defense mechanism around itself like a shield made of cowardice. Because somewhere, in that mess of panic and spiraling ego, he convinced himself it was danger. Convinced himself he was saving the boy from a threat that didn’t exist.

But she wasn’t a monster; of COURSE she wasn't.

She was his mother for God's sake...

And still; he tore the child from her arms while she was still reeling in the blood-wet haze of post-labor pain.

No conversation.

No plan.

Just... taken.

He had no right. No reason.

Just a primal, inexplicable... almost willed-to-be and crushing fear.

A fear so consuming it rewired his instincts and told him this—this unthinkable violation—was protection. It had haunted him every second since. Over and over. The question like a blade cutting into his chest on loop:

“Why the fuck did I do it!?”

He had screamed it a thousand times in his mind, ceaselessly since it had happened. Screamed it until the echo became part of his bones. But there had never been an answer.

Only the memory of her voice—her screams.

The shrill, broken wail of a woman who had just given life—and in the same instant, lost said life she worked so hard to birth.

And what did he do?

He flew off.

Tore the sky open and vanished like a coward too ashamed to even see it through. And above the clouds, holding a baby boy screaming in terror; having been ripped from the only warmth he had known

And what did he do, after?

He stayed in the sky.

Hovered just out of reach.

Just high enough she couldn’t see him.

Just high enough she couldn’t scream loud enough for it to matter.

Just high enough that he could pretend he was weighing options. When really; he was just stalling, hiding like the fucking worthless bastard he always was.

Acting as he always did; cowardice dressed up as calculation.

Up in the clouds, dressed like an armored superhero; a sick joke after doing something as vile as stealing from a new mother her baby. In a moment of near comical villainy; dressed as if he was saving this boy from his own mother, he had the balls to think maybe—maybe, he could fix it. Could land somewhere safe and give him—A BABY back like this was some fucking clerical error.

Like the lives of those around him were simply things he could reset on a moment which was convenient for him.

His mind returning to frozen-reality for a moment; an immense pain stabbed at his chest, and he screamed.

Louder than the ship’s groaning hull, louder than the imploding engines or the raging fireball in front of him.

“LAVENDER, I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY—!”

His voice cracked into pieces, his body shuddered, collapsing in on itself like the world of lies and bile he built.

“FUCKING KILL ME ALREADY!! JUST FUCKING END IT!!”

He begged the fire to come down on him, to render judgment, to grind him into ash, to forgotten and silent dust scattered across the cosmic winds.

But it didn’t, remaining still, its amber glow illuminating the still smiling Lavender

And instead; the universe gave him something worse:

Memory; as one last flash exploded across his now spiraling mind.

Her shuttle...

Wrecked.

Crushed against a jagged cliffside, barely five miles from where he’d left her.

No signs of impact fire. No blast pattern. No chase.

Just steel smashed into stone. A smear of wreckage etched into the rock like a tombstone made from fire.

She came after him.

Through the pain. Through the bleeding...

She still tried.

To follow. To find her son.

To reach him.

All while he hid above the clouds; him... the "Immortal Red Dragon." Capable of shattering continents; yet too much of a coward to face a young girl he wronged.

Even at the end, he still didn’t know if she died trying to reach him—or if she ended it herself by steering into the rocks.

And ultimately; he didn’t know which possibility gutted him more.

He screamed again, now rendered a complete madman.

Like a child, he screamed like apology could fill the hole he left behind.

But nothing answered.

No absolution came.

Only silence, and the utter crushing weight of it all.

And somewhere—somewhere in the middle of that spiraling, sick black collapse—the universe finally flinched. And as it did, time cracked, and it let him move again, though everything still stood affixed.

His body slackened immediately. Legs useless. He dropped, knees hitting scorched steel, head falling forward, eyes locked to the floor now warped and cracked from the heat. His tears fell heavy, and he sobbed.

Again; more frantic apologies came, though this time it was whispered, cracked and shaken through his defeated lips

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

His voice, thin and breaking, like a child being folded back into the shape of a man who never learned how to be one.

And through the blur, through the agony, something surfaced.

Her voice sounded.

Faint.

So faint it might’ve just been guilt echoing in his further fracturing synapses.

“It’s alright, baby boy.”

She always called him that.

Always...

Strange, he used to think, given the years between them. Something about it felt too soft for a man like him. Too warm.

But god… in that moment… it felt like everything. And then—

A thought. A sharp, sudden, unwelcome thought—rising in his mind like bile, uninvited and unstoppable.

His second son...

The thought of it struck like a blade to the chest.

Pain bloomed, sudden and absolute.

Mace hadn’t even let the thought touch him until now, as if denying its existence could somehow shield him from the truth.

Until now, Mace had seen the boy only as a symbol—an avatar of guilt, a vessel through which to further punish himself for how he had treated Lavender.

But he had never truly thought about the child himself.

But it was too late.

He now had to accept that he was leaving behind a boy... a child.

Just born.

Alone in a galaxy where, as result of the Sanlagosa, the odds of surviving to see even a single birthday were close to zero.

And this was the thought that truly hurt.

Hurt beyond comprehension.

He clung to the thought of the boy, spiraling deeper into it. Forgetting even the destruction approaching him in this frozen swath of time.

Newborn. Soft. Fragile. Not even named.

He had only held him once. Mere moments.

But he remembered.

He remembered how impossibly small the boy felt against his armor-plated chest. The way his tiny breath fluttered against him, warm and pure. The soft weight of his body, like something holy, pressed against the cold sting of Mace’s gauntlet.

He should’ve stayed.

Should’ve held him longer.

Should’ve whispered something—anything—into that small, unspoiled world.

But all he could think, even then, was how fast he needed to leave.

How fast he needed to run.

Run and try to save the last ember of her, her little sisters.

But did that make it any better?

He hadn’t asked Lloyd. Hadn’t explained. Hadn’t pleaded.

All he did was what he always did: Action without regard.

He came down to Lloyd, placed the child into his arms, clamped a hand on his shoulder like a soldier passing off a mission file, and said:

'"Teach him to be good, Lloyd... Make him a better man than me... Like you."

Even now, at the very end, the words made him feel sick.

There’d been no please.

No "if you can."

Just orders.

Like always.

"What a perfect cherry on top of the cocktail of bile I’ve brewed."

Mace thought bitterly.

He had somehow managed to eternally disappoint two sons at once—a feat so cruel, so complete, it was almost morbidly impressive.

"Well… I guess that’s that then."

Defeated, the words slipped from Mace’s mouth, hollow and faint, like the final echo of a man already resigning himself to death.

Around him, the world burned.

The searing heat of the encroaching blast warped the air into liquid. Structures screamed as they collapsed into molten ruin, and the ship's metallic celling had become a canvas of churning fire.

But inside him—something colder stirred.

It started as a pit. Deep in his gut. An abyssal void that pulsed, spreading like ice through his veins, metaphoric glaciers of self-hatred creeping upward, devouring him from within.

Until even his thoughts felt frozen.

He chuckled once, low and bitter.

"Why are you surprised, Mace?" he muttered to himself, lips barely moving. "You wanted this... punishment. For what you’ve done… you deserve worse."

He wasn’t wrong.

He stood motionless, the inferno swelling around and towards him, flames dancing like spirits hungry for judgment.

"I just... I don't know..."

The words cracked.

Time collapsed in his mind—a single stretched moment, endless and suffocating.

"I understand why this is my end... I just wish it wasn’t."

His voice fractured again, barely more than breath.

"I wish I could do something—anything—to make it right."

Tears welled in his eyes, the burning light of the advancing firestorm refracted in each one.

Orange.

Red.

Crimson...

It got brighter. Closer.

The heat kissed his skin, promising to peel it away.

"I guess it’s finally time I stop trying to run… stop trying to bargain my way out of it."

One final image flared in Mace’s mind before the light took him—

A teenage girl.

The younger of Lavender’s twin sisters..

The one with violet eyes, just like Lav's.

She burned into his memory with a clarity that refused to fade. She had attitude, that girl. The kind that made people stop mid-sentence, mid-step, mid-breath—just to listen. She had a presence that demanded the world acknowledge her.

And somehow, in that firestorm of failure that was his life, she gave him something he hadn’t felt in a very, very long time—

Hope.

It' why he was even doing all of this in the first place.

Neo-Eden. The suicide mission. The final stand. All of it.

Not for redemption. Not even for peace.

But for her.

So he could—just once—do something right for Lavender by saving her sisters the same fate.

The pain, the crushing weight of all the things he had done, all the people he had let down… it began to dull beneath that familiar glow she carried with her.

That impossible thing that clung to her like a second skin.

Hope.

A last thought.

A last word.

A last... hope:

"...Good luck, Violet..."

And with that—

The world disappeared.

Swallowed in blinding crimson.

Fake and hollow laughs and cheers droned like broken teeth in a grinder as Mace shoved the wood door shut, sealing himself inside the haze which filled the room. Smoke clawed at his lungs. Thick. Choking. A vapor of gray smoke thick enough to drink hung heavy across the oversized room. Four times the size needed for a Dominion Hold match, the blue-table standing not even a quarter of the room's length.

The room had no windows, the only light coming from rot-piss-yellow lamps bleeding through the fog, painting streaks across stained white carpet and sickly wallpaper, milky tan in color, stained in pounds of nicotine liquid which drenched the air, the paint flaking at the corners.

Along the walls posh leather couches lined across the circumference of the room. Each of them gleamed in the haze like calcified filth, bloated and sagging — each one whispering stories of unwashed suits and nights soaked in pretension. The kind of couch that would blind you in white if you dared to shine a blacklight in them, painted with cumstains older than some of the guests.

The scent of the smoke clawed at Mace’s mind: tobacco, sure—but something else. Burnt herbs. Acidic citrus. And deep beneath it all, the metallic bite of smack, a smell he remembered all too well.

Fucking yuppies.

"Fucking yuppie TRASH!"

Every last one of them. Fucking worthless bastards.

The thoughts repeated as he stood at the shut door, imagining himself pissing on a mass grave of them, bodies rendered blood and pulp.

Each one of them were wrapped in skin-tight designer suits pressed to artificial perfection, ties straight and pulled in an unneeded vice as tight as a virgin. Glossed skulls under layers of product so stiff he could’ve shot them point-blank and the gel might’ve caught the bullet. None younger than forty-five—except Mace and his company.

Some leaned against the faux-marble bar, smirking through insider market wins, and flaunting stock values like kids showing each other trading cards.

Others sat on the couches, swapping grotesque stories of conquests, not actual conquest forged in the flame of war.

Not like HIS conquests. No, their "conquests" were their pride in having vacant-eyed sluts bent over back seats and taking dick from groups of four or more men, each old enough to be her grandfather, as they laughed through cigar fog and liquored breath.

The players themselves sat at the blue-table.

Sitting in neat, coiled arrogance. Cards flicked. Phones tapped. Cigar tips flaring in silent synchronization like some kind of ritual.

"Andrew’s Select: Prime-Cut Lyarth Tobacco." He caught the label mid-puff on the lips of some scumfuck, its gold foil gleam catching his eye through the smoke. Luxury sticks. High-tier. Dad used to hock half a month’s dignity for a box, the other half on that putrid bottle—

Roots of the Wild: Scotch.

There it was, that shiny green label bright in the haze.

Dead center of the table, that frosted gray glass he always hated was sitting beside the chips and the arrogance. The cork popped, wooden and wet. His eyes lasered on the bottle, the rest of the world fading into a gray miasma around him, tracking the bottle upward—to the mouth. To the man sipping.

Lance? No fucking way it was him.

Of course it was him, his question one made in his mind as a flacid condemning of what he was doing.

He was the only real person there. No suit. No pretense. Black hoodie, baggy pants, long unkempt black hair pulled back in a lazy pony tail tie, posture like a blade half-sheathed. Cards danced between his fingers—keys and crown suits thrown into neat, symmetrical stacks. All of the quick hand movements he did mid the taking in of his cup.

Drinking that piece of shit bottle.

He was supposed to be here. Mace saw him as he came in the room. Impossible not to. Seven-foot-seven freak with a face carved from war and even harder years of peace.

But this?

Drinking that disgusting vomit!?

Alcohol!

And not just drinking; drinking THAT!? Dad's old gray mistress he used to beat like a dog against his mouth.

And in the other hand; that same stick dad funneled the month's earnings into, instead of feeding his own goddamn kids!

This FUCKING prick!

He thought as he stepped forward, jaw clenched, ready to knock that bottle out his brother’s smug fucking mouth—

But then:

SLAP

A pat. Too hard. Staggering and vibrating the whole of his back.

“Good you're here, Mace,” came the rasp, thick with burnt-coffee breath. “These faggots aren't ever a challenge. Always just some jerkoff and gossip; like they're a bunch of schoolgirls.”

William.

His black leather deck-holder already in hand, designer cut and custom weaved suit hugging a frame that'd rather be getting stabbed then wearing it. A little sparkly pink Corsage on the prefolded breast pocket

It was so unlike him.

A mass of fake laughs erupted across the room at William's comment. Mace didn’t respond, he just watched him practically skip to the table, leaning over to Lance for a brotherly hug.

He was there for the same reason he was—same suit, same stench of wealth-soaked falseness clinging to every handshake, every manufactured smile. The fabric itched, like it knew it didn’t belong on him, like the threads were trying to crawl off his skin just to escape the lie.

All for money. Always fucking money.

“Like it or not, Mace—we need money. This is the best way to get it. Be a big boy and just fucking suck it up!”

Her voice echoed in his skull, acid-slick and patronizing. Lakarda. Always had the right answers. Always so ready to shove him into the lions’ den while she played the saint outside it.

Maybe she should have to be the one to debase herself!

Maybe she should’ve worn some short red cocktail dress. The one that practically shouted “fuck me for sponsorship.” Heels that pumped out that big ass of her's, let those fat tits loose, flutter those pretty little lashes, give the room a little show. Hell, go the extra mile—get on her knees under the table, gag on executive cock, swallow some industry favor cum down with a smile.

See how she fucking feels after getting passed around the room like a rag for a couple hours! being berated for her own womanhood, and sulking away still dressed in the white of their satisfaction let loose on her, gripping favors in her hands like gold!

The thought made him feel good for a moment. To see her make herself LESSER!

Just a moment...

It then twisted his gut. And his face hung low, his eyes falling to the stained floor.

"No... no I wouldn't want that."

"I'm sorry, Lakarda..."

He said in his mind; guilt rising across the whole of his body for words unsaid to someone not even here.

It's just...

Why was it always him?

Why did he have to smile and grovel and bleed his pride in himself dry just to make these smirking suitfuckers feel safe enough to open their wallets?

Project Zero was already a success.

He was the success.

There was no better weapon than him—no cleaner kill, no tighter edge, no finer line between god and man!

But none of that mattered.

Not here.

Not in this polished hellscape of crystal glasses and fake laughter, where legends were sold in increments of charisma and charm.

He didn’t need to prove a goddamn thing.

And still—they made him dance.

Moreover—he never understood it.

Why everyone still pretended that money was still... worth something.

Why they still bowed to the old gods of paper and credit, of trade and value and markets, when the Concordant loomed like a noose around every Havriel neck in the galaxy. What the fuck did a bank account matter when entire worlds were being wiped clean like chalk dust from the slate of existence?

Why did they pretend?

Why did they act like the system still meant something?

Money?

MONEY!?

He clenched his jaw, the thought curdling into bile.

The whole room stank of it. Wealth. Influence. The smug stench of people who thought decimal points on a check could shield them from oblivion.

It made him sick.

Why were they still bowing to these bloated, spineless, fucking parasites—these gilded sacks of shit who’d trade their own blood for another stock bump?

"Disgusting..."

The rage took root, fast and ugly. It coiled behind his eyes, pressed against his temples like a splitting thunderhead of hate.

"FUCKING—worthless—"

He nearly spat it aloud, nearly bounded to every one of these pretty yuppie fucks and turn the room red in their guts, barely swallowing the snarl as it surged up from his throat.

And then—

"You gonna stand there all fucking night, or can we get this game going?"

Lance’s voice.

Sharp. Abrasive. Anchoring.

It carved through the spiral of fury like a blade etched in metals of calm, pulling him back into himself, back into the now.

No words. No reply.

He moved in response, silent and stiff, dragging himself through the suffocating gray air, ignoring all of the obligated —

"Heys!"

"What's up!"

"How you doing!"

Each of the nameless fatcats made, and sinking into the open seat beside his brother.

Once seated; the programming kicked in. right on cue.

A wide, bright... fake smile animated across his face.

"Alright, ladies. Let's see what you got!"

The laughter echoed down the hall—tinny, warped, too bright against the corridor’s dead air. Mace didn’t need to listen close to know it was William again, guffawing over some limp-dicked joke about wives. Real riot. He leaned against the wall near the bathroom, arms crossed, pulse loud in his ears. The door opened.

Lance stepped out, drying his hands on the hem of his black hoodie, expression blank. But the second he passed Mace’s corner, a hand shot out—gripped his forearm in a snap-tight latch.

No words.

Not until Lance was staring down at him.

"WHAT THE FUCK!?"

Mace’s voice hit like a punch. The kind of opening line that didn’t want an answer.

Lance blinked. Then, flat as ever:

"What the fuck yourself?"

"Are you fucking kidding me!? Drinking—Scotch!?"

He watched his brother open his mouth, breath already full of exasperation—but Mace didn’t let him speak.

"I outta break your fucking neck, you piece of shit!!"

That hung there.

Then:

"Did all those meetings not mean shit to you, Lloyd!?"

And that did it.

Lance tore his arm free, fast and sharp.

"Don’t you ever fucking dare talk to me about what they meant! They meant everything to me, cocksucker."

"Then what the hell are you doing in there? Smiling, laughing—acting like yuppie trash with dad’s bottle in your fucking hand!?"

Lance’s breath fractured. He scanned the hallway, eyes twitching, trying to steady his hands.

"Do you know what’s happening, Mace?"

"...The fuck you talking about?"

"I hate to be the one to break this to you, but in case you haven’t heard, you piece of shit—there’s this little thing called the Concordant—"

"Lloyd—"

"—who have started burning planets—"

"Lloyd!"

"—AND WE ARE ON THE BRINK OF OUR SPECIES’ ENTIRE FUCKING DEATH!!"

"LLOYD!!"

Their twin shouts broke the room next door. Laughter halted. Quiet. Like a herd of prey animals waiting for the predator to pick a direction.

"I get it—"

"NO! YOU! DON’T!"

Lance’s hand shot forward—gripped the collar of Mace’s tailored suit and shoved him against the wall, his eyes wild, mouth panting.

"Let go of me, Lloyd..."

Lance blinked. Realizing the grip. His chest heaving. He let go.

Then—reflex, that same mental-tick he did since they were kids.

The left index finger. Tracing the crimson triangle birthmark over his left eye like it could anchor him, ground him to something real.

The door creaked open.

William’s bloated voice waddled into the air.

"Hey fellas, this is a low-stakes game, let’s keep it friendly, yeah?"

"Bill, shut the fuck up!" from Mace.

"None of your fuckin’ business," Lance added, simultaneous.

Will scoffed.

"Alright, ya pricks, do whatever the fuck you want."

He vanished back through the door, like a bad smell curling out of a vent.

"So that’s it, huh?" Mace’s voice low now, simmering with disdain. "You’re just too much of a pussy to face it clean, so you numb yourself on the same fucking poison—"

He stopped. Corrected.

"That drink. The one dad used to swig before he’d turn us into punching bags. The one he bled into our childhoods."

For a second, it looked like Lance might swing. His jaw clenched tight enough to crack bone.

Instead:

"...You are the worst kind of brother, Mace. You’d rather preach from your fucking little soapbox than even try to understand-"

"Because I don’t understand! You huff the same swill that almost killed you, the same swill he tried to murder you out of his fucking mind on, and you call it a liquid little safety blanket for your limp-dick!?"

Silence stretched long and ugly. Both men panting, fists tight, jaws locked.

Behind them, the room resumed. The suits laughed again. The scum had tuned out the noise—easy for them. It wasn’t their skin in the fire.

"I’m not having this talk again—"

"Oh, you bet your ass you’re not."

Lance’s voice cracked, stepped closer:

"Come back when they make your party-clown ass turn a room full of kids into paste."

Mace froze. Something cold crawled down his spine.

"...The fuck you talking about?"

"Oh yeah! In case you forgot—what with your nose deep inside, snorting glory off your latest whore’s ass—some of us don’t get to be comic book heroes. Some of us do the real work."

Mace’s mask faltered. His face shifted—rage flickering into confusion.

"Lot of shit you don’t know, bastard..."

Lance’s voice trembled now. Eyes fixed to the hallway’s stained carpet.

"Why couldn’t they just... fucking die..."

His voice fractured.

"Just had to keep shooting... God fucking damn it..."

Mace stared. Unblinking. The flame of disgust still glowing hot—but something else began to rise. Doubt. Guilt. Disbelief.

Lance sniffed. Eyes wet now. Shoulders slumped.

And without a word more, he turned—hands buried in pockets—and stormed off. Footsteps like hammers against the metal stairs, until he vanished.

"A guy can’t even have a drink after all that... preachy bastard" he mumbled, bitter and quiet, too far down the hall to hear the answer he never waited for.

Mace stayed. Leaned against the wall. Fuming.

"What the fuck was that..." he muttered.

Then from the game room:

"ARE YOU FUCKIN’ GIRLS DONE ALREADY!? I NEED A CHALLENGE IN HERE!"

William's voice again, yelling through the walls

"PUT IT BACK IN YOUR PANTS, BABY—I AIN’T IN THE MOOD!"

He clapped back with as he walked towards the door, his voice showing no break in the statue he crafted, but a flame burned in his mind.

"Oh real cute, you piece of shit, real cute!"

Rebuked at Mace through the door.

Why the fuck should he care?

So Lance had to shoot a few Sanlagosa kids. So what?

Mace wished that had been his job. Clean. Honest. Bloody, sure—but dignified. Not this—this parade of lies and suits and synthetic laughter echoing off marble floors while the galaxy bled out in silence.

He’d trade places in a heartbeat. Better to be the executioner than the court jester.

The thought twisted in his skull as the door creaked open.

Let him drown in that bottle, then.

Fucking pussy.

The door swung and he walked inside

Stone-faced.

"It’s Lloyd’s time of the month, ladies. Had to go lay down. She’s sensitive, you understand."

The room exploded into laughter. All of it fake. Empty. Theater.

"Well then you’ll just have to play twice as good!" William crowed, slurring now.

Mace didn’t flinch.

Didn’t snarl.

Didn’t fight it.

He sat down at the blue-lit table.

"What? So I can be twenty times better than you?"

Another round of pre-recorded chuckles from the walking mannequins.

He didn’t even bother to smile.

"Alright... deal me in."

Chapter 7: Old Flame Burns Again

Dated: 40th Year proceeding End's Emergence

Mace reached the location the note asked him to meet at, and he found himself at the peak of a mountain, one that was nameless and unrecorded; a speck of rock Neo-Eden’s cartographers never cared to catalog.

He hated the entire planet. Always had.

A planet which housed traitors, COWARDS of the Havriel Race.

Notably among them were the Corsage family; fucking foppish and posh bunch of cunts who sell... what? MAKEUP!?

All of them flowered perfume-whores were annoying fucking sows, each of them pretending they have a standing in the great uncaring Ambrosia Alliance.

He scoffed at the name's utterance. What a fucking joke! An Alliance claiming to be for the whole of the galaxy, and yet they all stood by and let his people be slaughtered to the very last; simply because they feared the Concordant.

He took off his helmet, putting it underneath his left-arm, as the wind bit at his face, dry and sterile. His boots crunched against obsidian-black gravel as the sun collapsed behind clouds of dusk.

This was it.

She would be here.

Domina.

He would see her again...

A firestorm of infatuation surged through him, forming an unrelenting storm of longing desire. It turned him into what he was when he first saw her; just a kid again. — eyes wide, heart racing, a lovesick puppy chasing the scent of her.

He hadn’t felt this good in ages. Not since his powers first bled into him — when it still felt like freedom, not the noose around his neck it had become.

But none of that mattered now.

None of it.

He was going to see her again.

Domina...

Finally...

His pulse spiked — shallow breath, tremor in his fingers.

The storm of longing quickened as his thoughts continued

She had never left his mind.

Not once.

Not through the dozens of girls he stuck his cock into; the nameless models, starlets, and fangirls he left as nothing but notches on his belt. Mere living trinkets of pleasure; bought, traded, taken —

none of it meant shit.

He had tried to fuck away the pain, trying to kill the absence he felt.

But every orgasm not shot out in or on her felt empty to him.

She haunted every one, her face flashing in his mind with each release.

And, though he'd never admit it aloud; a part of him always resented that Lloyd hadn’t been born from his and Domina's union.

More wishes for his life continuing on with her beside him began to flash in his mind.

Beyond just missing the ability to fuck her, every second without her felt like agony.

Every sunrise without her pressed against him felt like another round of anguish loaded into the metaphoric chamber that was his revolving skull.

But now?

He had a chance at getting her back.

He would have her back!

...no you won't

the thought crept to him from a dark recess, unknown to even himself.

His hand clenched in quiet response.

The fire of anticipation curdled, and a mental rot set in. A twist of bile thought began to bloom, forming a choir of resentment.

Not toward himself. Toward her...

The bitch who DARED to leave me!

His eyes narrowed as the thought echoed. Heat welled in his throat, in his face as a silent scream behind the skull.

NOT. THIS. TIME.

No... he wouldn't let her!

If she tries to leave again… I’ll break her FUCKING legs. Let’s see her try and run away then—

The sudden thought tore through him like glass through nerve.

Too fast.

Too raw.

Too real.

And then, as suddenly as it came, it was gone. Quelled not by reason, not by reflection — but by the sheer violence of its arrival. A shockwave, internal and silent, he felt a tremor in his mind and body. The echo. The sick sense of justification, that bitter flare of false righteousness, like he was owed something, owed HER.

It passed. And what replaced it was worse.

Self-loathing.

Nausea climbed up his throat. A soft mutter under his breath.

“I didn’t mean that…”

Another voice responded in his head, one softer than the last.

“But you did.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want that…”

But another whisper followed, the quietest of them all—

“But you need her.”

He stood there as this mental argument battled, boots buried in the volcanic soil of some forgotten spine of the planet, heart screaming silent confessions to a woman not even here yet. Neo-Eden's sun dipped lower, until its glow was seen only through fractured cloud structures, and for one brief moment, the sky shimmered blood red.

It looked like the world was watching him... JUDGING him for his thoughts.

Mocking him..

Before he had the chance to sit with the thought, an orange glow broke across the sky—hot, fiery, impossible to ignore. The light hit his eyes and he squinted into it, trying to see through the shine. And then—he saw her. Domina.

Clad in her Ragnalith armor, same tech as his, but black trimmed in that translucent metallic blue she always favored. Pulse pack fixed between her shoulder blades, streams of blue flame hissing from her palms and heels as she dropped toward him, slow and steady. Like some angel made just for him.

His chest went light.

Eyes started to sting, just a little. Joy threatening tears, right there behind the lash.

The sky wept tears of flame and ash as Sanlagosan bodies thundered against the canyon floor, like meat and bone offered up to the shadow of death. They fell in waves, rupturing on the jagged stone like overripe fruit, torn open by impact, their blood pooling and flowing into the cracked veins of the earth. Mace hung motionless above it all, suspended midair, a silhouette cut from vengeance itself. No thoughts. No fear. Only a singularity of rage, pure and absolute, pulling his every atom into alignment with the concept of their total annihilation.

Dozens dropped. Then hundreds. Each met the ground with a sound that portrayed the wet and terminal truth of mortality—slam, slam, slam—until the very echo became a rhythm of extinction. When the ground could no longer scream, Mace vaulted through the air.

His acceleration ruptured the sky. The shockwave fractured the canyon wall in concentric rings, cracks spidering like ancient scars across the terrain. He moved faster than gravity could object—chasing a beacon of artificial light in the distance, his body, now a projectile of hate, aimed with eyes designed only to bear witness to their deaths.

He hit the structure before his mind could register the impact. Glass shattered in a scream. Steel warped, crumpled and collapsed. The edifice folded around him like paper offered to a fire, until he burst through the far side, still airborne, hovering among the debris like a god surveying the ruin of those which he damned low. He turned. and saw a tower, formed into a spire three miles high, clearly the centerpiece of a city once alive—now slouching into death. Its structure, folded and broken, *screamed* as support beams sheared apart and its weight betrayed it. It fell.

And in its descent came the voices. Sanlagosan screams and blind panic, as the sound of mass extinction compressed into a single breath of time.

Those still falling were shredded midair, as Mace shot through them in rupturing lines of crimson vapor. Sanlagosa capable of flight who dared stabilize their descent were met with sudden and total deletion. Flesh erupted in trails behind him as he traced arcs of unrelenting blood through the sky, until the air itself smelled like gore, and a rain of viscera began to fall.

Below; the tower’s collapse birthed a cataclysm. The impact unfurled a storm of steel, smoke, corpses, and fire fanning outward from the blast center in a spreading pulse. It consumed vehicles. Inhaled pedestrians. Shattered buildings, peeled open the crust of the city like an autopsy. What remained wasn’t a city. It was *aftermath.* The storm was... alive. Breathing ruin.

Mace descended.

To walk among the pieces.

To bitterly take in his "great" work of ruination.

The impact of his boots cracked what little of the whole earth remained. Around him was nothing but corpses. Sanlagosa littered the ruin in every direction, their alien biology broken in twisted displays of agony and biological failure.

Those still twitching were silenced beneath his heel, their skulls liquefied under his boot like ruptured sacs of red water

His stride amongst his proud offering to death paused when he saw... it.

Small. Shaking.

A Sanlagosa "child," if such a thing was even possible. It looked female, though he'd never grant these beasts anything remotely close to personhood.

IT was crawling, dragging ITS ruined body across the debris. ITS skin split in ways no biology was meant to endure. IT clung to the corpse of what might’ve been ITS "father." ITS face — a twisted mimicry of grief and innocence — was smeared in blood, ITS tears cutting through the viscera which painted ITS face.

Mace tilted his head.

To anyone else, this may have stirred something:

Pity.

Mercy.

A flicker of restraint.

He felt NONE of it... sheer and absolute uncaring indifference.

Instead, all he felt was pure disgust.

The child was a mockery. A parasite. A lesser thing pretending at life.

It looked up, eyes flooded, mouth quivering.

He raised his hand. And with a motion as simple as bringing it down with equal force as to its ascent;

Where once was a girl, there remained only blood and pulp smeared across fractured stone. The red soaked into the cracks, joining the rest, indistinct and meaningless.

Chapter 8: Project Gladiator

Dated: 44th Year proceeding End's Emergence

The sterile hiss of hydraulics faded behind him as Lakarda sealed the door. Mace stepped inside. The operation chamber reeked of antiseptic and too many memories of the screams. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead — cold, synthetic, humming a frequency that scraped at the back of his skull.

His boots echoed as he stepped towards Lloyd.

He was curled up small at the edge of the surgical slab. Knees hugged to chest. Spine arched inward like something trying to fold into nonexistence.

Mace forced his body to move forward, every step deliberate—shoulders squared, jaw locked, no weakness shown. He had to be the strong one. That was the deal. That had always been the fucking deal.

“Hey, brave boy!” he said, voice feather-light, too bright, too fake. “How are you feeling—”

Then he stopped.

The words rotted in his throat, decaying midair, all speech frozen as he saw the eyes.

Not green. Not his green. Not the vibrant, wild, full-of-questions emerald he remembered waking up to every morning for seven years.

No...

They were grey.

Not pale. Not stormy.

Just… absent.

Like someone had smeared ash across the lens of a soul. Pupils bled into iris—no edge, no separation—just a void pretending to be a child’s gaze. He wasn’t blinking. He wasn’t seeing. He was elsewhere.

“…Lloyd?”

The boy didn’t answer. Just stirred, like a windblown doll. His chin rose, but not enough to meet his father’s face. His gaze stretched over Mace’s shoulder, fixed on something far behind him—something not in the room. Mace followed it. Turned.

Nothing. Just tools. Scalpels. Machines meant for slicing and stitching, gleaming beneath that godawful light.

He turned back.

Lloyd hadn’t moved. Still staring into something beyond, still locked into the eyes of something invisible and unknowable.

A pinprick of dread pressed into Mace’s spine. He cleared his throat, voice cracking under the weight of its own false certainty.

“I’m proud of you, Lloyd… I really am.”

Nothing.

No response:

No flicker. No twitch. No flinch.

“I—I know it hurts. But once you feel better—you’ll be different! Stronger. Better! Stronger than me, even. Isn’t that something to be excited about?”

Too strong. Too rehearsed.

The line wasn’t for his son. It was for himself. The desperate monologue of a man trying to rewrite the script mid-performance, after the audience had already started to leave.

Then Lloyd spoke.

Barely a breath.

“Hurt’s... my new friend.”

The voice didn’t belong to a child. It belonged to something scraped hollow and left to echo.

Mace froze.

“...what?”

“Hurt,” Lloyd said again. “We became friends. He’s nice.”

It landed like a gut punch laced with ice. Mace’s lips parted, but no words came.

“I—”

He tried to speak.

But Lloyd interrupted him.

“Cold’s not my friend yet, though.”

His dead eyes shifted, now locking fully onto his father’s.

A mirror of grief and accusation and nothingness all at once.

“She won’t listen to me.”

Mace flinched.

The eyes were worse than the words. They were a cathedral of silence. A mausoleum dressed up like a child’s face.

Then—

“Hurt was there for me,” Lloyd said.

Then, a pause.

“Because you didn’t help me, dad.”

That one broke something.

Not a snap.

Not a scream.

Just… a fracture.

A quiet, hairline break deep inside the man who had survived hells, wars, betrayals, and death itself. And none of it had ever hurt this much.

Mace said nothing.

His mouth hung open, slack—lips trembling, breath shallow, jagged. No words. Just a sound. A soft, stuttering exhale, like a man learning how to breathe for the first time in years, and failing.

“Dad,” He replayed Lloyd's voice in his head.

Not Daddy. Not the warm, childish cry that used to echo through corridors when little feet padded toward him after war briefings and training drills.

No... Just Dad.

Sharp. Bare. Clinical.

It landed like a blade.

A scalpel — not one meant to kill, but to open. To reveal. To dissect.

And in its wake, Mace felt something alien grip his soul.

Fear.

Not the battlefield kind. Not the fear of dying, or failure, or defeat.

No... This was true fear.

The kind that hollowed out the marrow of your bones. The kind that rewrote who you were.

“I—Lloyd, please—”

he choked, arm moving, slow, uncertain. He reached toward him, fingers open, aching to touch his son’s shoulder. To connect. To explain. Maybe—maybe—if he could just get through, Lloyd would see the necessity. The purpose. The reason.

Why it had to be done.

Why he needed to be strong.

Why he couldn’t be weak.

Why he had to just fucking forgive him.

But—

Lloyd shifted.

Not with anger.

Not with drama.

Just a quiet scoot to the edge of the bed.

A silent retreat.

“I’m cold,” he said. “I need to go to bed. I’m sleepy.”

Mace’s hand remained suspended in the air, caught mid-motion, grasping at the absence where his child had once been.

Then, slowly, his fingers curled inward.

A fist.

Mechanical. Empty.

It fell to his side like the arm of a dying machine.

“Lloyd, I need to talk to you. Please. Just—just real quick—”

“No,” Lloyd said.

Not loud.

But final.

A whisper with the weight of God.

“I need to sleep.”

And before Mace could respond, before he could find another plea, another way to salvage, Lloyd moved his small hand to the panel beside the table.

Beep.

The door hissed open, and Lakarda entered with two nurses trailing behind, their footsteps efficient, unaware of the emotional corpse standing in the center of the room.

She went to Lloyd, kneeling at his side. Her hand met his back, slow and gentle. Reassuring.

“Hey buddy,”

She said, her words deliberately made as soft as she could.

“Feeling sleepy? Cold? Want me to tuck you in? Some warm milk? A story?”

Lloyd didn’t speak. He just gave a small, quick nod.

No words.

Just permission.

Mace watched — frozen.

Two young female nurses flanked him, one on either side, teenaged and silent. And Mace remained standing; the towering Immortal Red Dragon, dressed in ornate and ancient armor. His crimson cloak draped dramatically behind him like some forgotten battle flag, regal and meaningless. His armor gleamed under the light, polished, perfect—designed for war. Not for this. Never for this.

He stood, powerless, with his son choosing comfort from a woman he’d known for less than a day. The woman who had actively carved him open; inflicted such unimaginable hurt.

And not him.

Not his father.

Not the man who bled for worlds.

Not the man who burned cities to give him a future.

Not the man who let him... break.

He opened his mouth.

Nothing came.

No roar. No protest. No plea.

Just silence.

Then, quietly, Lloyd leaned in toward Lakarda and motioned for her to come closer.

She did.

He whispered something into her ear.

Mace couldn’t hear it.

But Lakarda stood and approached him, her voice gentle, careful

She walked to Mace with a look that wasn’t unkind—just sad.

“Lloyd asked me to…” she hesitated. “To ask you to leave. And… not come back tonight.”

She waited.

He didn’t move... didn’t even breathe.

The request landed like a commandment. Like a sentence. He — the Immortal Red Dragon—breaker of armies, ruiner of lands — had been asked by a seven-year-old child to disappear.

Don’t come back.

Don’t let him see you again tonight.

Out of sight, out of reach.

To vanish.

To become nothing.

"Mace...?”

Her voice cut through the air. But he didn’t answer, he was already turning.

Already walking.

Not storming. Not striding.

Just… leaving.

At the pace of a man too afraid to run. Because if he ran, he’d fall apart.

He stormed through the halls, every stride a crack in the foundation of his manufactured confidence. Past the door. Past the guards. Past the walls and thresholds and sterile light of the complex. None of it registered—just static smeared across his vision. Blur. Pulse. Whirr. The world churned into noise and speed. He didn’t walk. He escaped.

Voices erupted. The fucking voices. Unwelcome. Inside the sanctity of his mind.

"I can't believe you..."

"Are you fucking serious, MACE?!"

"REALLY!?!?"

He snarled aloud, lips peeled back like an animal caught in a wire. “I DIDN’T—! I HAD NO CHOICE!”

His feet pounded harder. Faster. He could hear them. The thoughts, the ghosts, the verdicts.

“THE WAR — WE NEED TO WIN!”

His justifications shattered against the inside of his skull, echoing like ricochets.

Faster.

He didn’t remember crossing the atrium. Didn’t remember the stairs. Didn’t remember the people that stared. Only came back to reality when the blast doors were in front of him—closed, sterile, unassuming.

He didn’t stop. He smashed through them.

Glass erupted in a storm of shards. Metal screamed and folded inward. The doors ceased to be doors—now just twisted wreckage peeled around his frame.

He staggered onto the concrete landing outside, the air sharp and wet and wrong. His breath came in arrhythmic bursts. Short, panicked. White mist bled from his lips like his lungs were exhaling ghosts. His eyes snapped in every direction, wild, unmoored.

People stared. From behind counters. Through high windows. Whispers became murmurs of hushed horror. A woman at the front desk covered her mouth. Security leaned into their comms, voices clipped and urgent.

Rain slammed into the pavement. Cold. Unrelenting. The kind of rain that meant something was dying. Thunder split the sky, and lightning painted cracks across the heavens like the gods were pulling the planet apart by its seams.

Everything was grey.

Grey like his son’s eyes.

The world blurred at the edges—light bleeding into shadow, rain bleeding into skin, time bleeding into nothing. A security officer approached from the left, cautious, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Mr. Sappho, are you oka—”

The man never finished as Mace snapped.

A breath—sharp, gasping, almost choking—and he tore his shoulder away, striking the guard with such force that the man flew. Bone met metal. Glass shattered. The guard’s scream knifed through the air as he collided with the edge of a kiosk, slumping to the ground like meat without will.

Screams erupted behind him.

His hands clawed up to his face—digging into the corners of his eyes. Crimson tears burst from the sockets, slicking down his cheeks like war paint carved from within. His fingers trembled, twitching, gouging, as if he could rip the truth out of his own skull.

The voices howled now.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”

“YOUR SON?!?”

“YOUR FUCKING SON?!?!?!”

Each word a blade.

Each syllable a hammer.

His heart slammed against his ribs—sledgehammer rhythm, a thud so loud it echoed in his bones. Too fast. Too loud. Too much. His scream erupted without form.

Not a cry.

Not a shout.

A rupture.

A thing torn from some pit beneath language and sanity.

Guards rushed. Feet pounded pavement. But before they breached his space—before their hands could think to grab—

He launched.

The ground exploded beneath him, a shockwave rupturing the concrete in a wide halo. Air collapsed in on itself, then detonated, blasting outward in a deafening roar. Glass shattered in every direction. Steel cracked. Men and women were hurled through the air like paper in a cyclone.

And he soared.

Into the storm. Into the teeth of Lyarth’s sky, rendered grey and furious in the raging storm.

Lightning danced around him. Rain tore at his face. Wind overtook everything in immense noise, the sound made it so deafening he couldn't hear anything else.

The heavens wailed like grieving mothers.

And Mace — the Immortal Red Dragon — disappeared into the storm like a god screaming and begging for death.

He tore through the maelstrom like a soul loosed from flesh—no grace, no control, just speed, just escape. The sky swallowed him whole, the world reduced to shades of slate and sorrow. Storm clouds towered on all sides, monstrous and churning, a cathedral of wrath and nature's fury. Everything grey. Everything him.

The same grey as those eyes.

Lloyd’s eyes.

Dead. Ashen. Empty.

Mace flew deeper, rain slicing his skin, stabbing his lids, mixing with blood and tears until he couldn’t tell where one wound ended and another began. Vision blurred, smeared with pain, his surroundings pulsing with each flash of sky-borne fury.

And with the lightning came the voices.

Familiar. Accusatory. Brutal.

“Oh please… PLEASE, tell me exactly why it was worth it!”

Another flash. Another lash.

“If THIS is what survival costs—if ruining your perfect, sweet boy is the price—OH FUCKING PLEEEAAASE, TELL ME WHY IT MATTERS!!!”

He screamed back, voice raw, throat flaying itself open with every breath:

“I HAD TO!!! I HAD TO!!! I HAD TO!!!”

Over and over. A litany of defense. A dirge of failure.

The voices didn’t relent. And so neither did he:

“I HAD TO!!! I HAD TO!!! I HAD TO!!!”

Each repetition weaker than the last. Each more hollow. A dying drumbeat echoing through his collapsing psyche. He broke into the heart of a massive storm cell—an azure giant, swollen with fury. Lightning brewed above, a singularity of judgment building in the belly of the sky.

And then—

“Good.”

Regret's voice again. Quieter. Deadlier.

“Just fucking kill yourself. Let the thunder take your piece of shit life. You deserve it. Death...”

Mace’s lungs shredded with each breath, breath that barely mattered anymore. He soared deeper into the churning dome, the clouds tightening, spiraling, forming a celestial prison around him.

At the dome’s apex, a crack of cerulean rage began to gather.

He looked up and welcomed it with open and waiting arms.

“YES!!! DIE, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!!! C’MON!!! KILL ME!!!” The bolt answered, descending like vengeance incarnate.

An electrical maelstrom of sound and shock.

The world exploded as air fractured and lightning tore through the firmament.

A wall of blue surged through him, devouring his body in white-hot agony. Every nerve ignited, razors dancing beneath his skin, through his blood, in his fucking bones.

It should have ended him.

But it didn’t... With the hammering of lighting, the dome cracked.

Then scattered into the fade of gray.

Pieces of aether architecture crumbling into mist, disappearing into the ever-hungry grey around him—grey like eyes, like judgment, like truth.

The storm no longer screamed.

It stared...

Every direction he turned, it was there. The color of failure. The color of Lloyd’s eyes.

Watching.

Condemning.

Silent.

Mace hovered in the nothing, smoke trailing from his scorched form, breath still heaving, chest raw. No glory. No rebirth. Just more grey.

Then—

“Fucking pathetic.”

The voice returned, quieter now, almost amused.

“You can’t even die right.”

And that was it. That was the final breach.

Mace screamed:

Louder than any war cry. Louder than any command he'd ever given, any death he'd ever delivered. It was suffering, weaponized into sound. It cracked through the sky, tore across the heavens. A single, undiluted howl of grief, guilt, and absolute, incurable loss.

The lightning, his lament's sole audience, listened.

It flashed in silent witness.

No applause.

No redemption.

Just... watched...

Chapter 10: Dance Dragon! Dance!!

Dated: 61st Year proceeding End's Emergence

The world was a screaming blur of sound and pressure.

A high-pitched ringing drilled into Mace’s skull, a dull, ceaseless whine that had taken root in his ears since Lest-Away burned.

How long had it been?

Two hours? Three?

Did it even matter?

The planet was gone.

And yet, here he was, crammed into the back of a shuttlecraft, descending from the Lyarh skyline toward the capital like it was just another day.

His head throbbed in sync with his heartbeat, pounding against his skull, every pulse a reminder of the first orbital blast.

The moment the sky split open—white-hot lances from above, carving through the fleeing masses—he had been showered in blood and viscera.

Drenched in it.

He had felt the wet slap of severed flesh against his armor. Smelled the burnt, raw stink of a million lives extinguished.

And the ringing had started.

Hadn't stopped since.

Now, the world existed in a haze of noise and irritation, muffled voices, blurred motion, pressure pushing against his temples.

Somewhere in the fog, his handler was talking.

He barely heard her.

Never really listened to the bitch anyway.

"Leslie."

That was her name.

Some redheaded corporate mouthpiece they stuck on him, one of the many leashes they wrapped around his throat.

She was busty, with a tight blouse that did a piss-poor job keeping her tits from spilling out, and—fuck it, that was something to focus on.

Better than the panic creeping up his throat.

The backstage was too large, too empty, too silent. A cavernous stretch of space swallowed in darkness, broken only by the looming crimson curtains that framed the stage like the maw of some great beast. They shouldn't have bothered him—nothing should—but Mace felt them closing in, suffocating. His breath hitched, his skin itched. The walls, the curtains, the air itself—it all felt like it was pressing against him, boxing him in.

His boots struck heavy against the floor as he paced, faster, heavier, each step shaking the stage beneath him. Too much strength, not enough control. The pressure in his chest climbed.

From beyond the curtain, laughter rolled through the studio—fake, hollow, a pre-recorded cheer track for an audience too dead inside to care. And then there was his voice.

"Richie" they call him, not that he cared what the scum-fuck's name was.

He was just some self-absorbed prick in a designer suit, a Lyarth-born media darling who never had to fight for a single thing in his entire silver-spoon life. The bastard probably still thought the war was just some thrilling action feed to scroll through while he got his cock polished by some desperate wannabe starlet.

Instantly he remembered how he spoke off air:

"Ey bro! Look at the ass on that bitch there. Should see if she's willing to bounce it on my cock for a couple nickels."

Mace could hear it in his head, the smug inflection, that grating yuppie accent. It made him sick.

But then again—his stomach twisted—was he really any better? Sure, he didn’t act like some family-friendly media personality before getting his hands dirty, but he’d played the same game, just under different rules. He’d taken what he wanted, left people in the dust; he wasn't a stranger to fucking broads and not giving em fair for the shuttles after. But he was better than him, he HAD to be. He didn't play pretend, he didn't act like he was some fucking hero-

A lie.

The hypocrisy interrupted him. What was he doing there? Playing as if everything was fine. Like he was the big fucking hero, like he saved the day!

Then, a thought.

Lest-Away...

His pace faltered.

The images crashed into him like a railcar at full speed. A planet on fire. The sky turned molten. Billions screaming as their world became a cinder, their faces frozen in his mind, burned there like the shadows left on glassed ruins.

"I see it every time."

His breath hitched. Now other worlds lost to the slaughter flashed in his mind, Lest-Away moved to the background of dozens of planets now made glass and dust.

"Every. Fucking. Time."

Faster. His boots thundered against the floor. The walls closed in again. The past and present blurred—Wildroot, the first world he watched burn. Lest-Away, the last one he let die.

A shaking hand caught the brick wall. He braced himself against it, sweat rolling down his face, dripping off his chin in slow, deliberate drops. His lungs screamed. His heart hammered against his ribs, trying to break free. He knew the signs. It was happening again.

Not here. Not now.

The panic clawed at his throat, his mind spiraling into the embers of dead planets—

Then a voice.

Soft... Hesitant. Real.

“...Mister Sappho?”

He didn’t acknowledge it. He couldn’t. His body was locked in fight-or-flight, but there was nowhere to run.

A tug on his cape. That stupid fucking cape they made him wear, like he was some two-bit superhero.

“Mister Sappho!”

His body reacted before his mind did.

He spun, fists clenched, body coiled like a predator about to strike—to kill—to turn whatever that was pulling him back into reality into nothing but a pile of blood and bone.

And then he saw her.

Small. Young. An intern, maybe no older than seventeen, barely five feet tall.

And just like that, the world snapped back.

Lest-Away...

The memory hit like a rail spike through his skull.

A girl—her—not even sixteen, laughing, smiling, telling him she believed in him. That he was her hero.

And then, less than a week later, she was nothing but two severed halves on the ground, her blood pooling across the scorched metallic floor. Her eyes locked in terror, pleading, as if asking why he hadn’t saved her.

Mace exhaled through clenched teeth. His hands, still trembling, loosened.

She stepped back like a cornered animal, her breath sharp and shallow, eyes wide with the kind of fear that only came from something primal. Her lips parted, stammering, trying to form words that wouldn’t come.

"I-I-I—"

Mace hadn’t realized how much rage had twisted his face when he turned. He must’ve moved too fast—faster than she could process. Her tiny frame shrank into itself, pressing her clipboard up like a makeshift shield, as if the flimsy thing could protect her from what she thought he was.

Her voice barely made it through the paper. "I... just wanted to know if you were okay."

She was trembling, both in her body and in her voice.

Mace wanted to reach out. To ease her nerves. To tell her it was a mistake, that he wasn’t going to hurt her.

But he couldn’t.

She had seen something in his eyes—real intent. That unshakable, gut-wrenching instinct that told a person when death was close. She had felt it, even if only for a split second. There was no undoing that.

If he moved toward her now, she’d scream. She’d run. And he wouldn’t even blame her.

Still, she had been brave enough to ask. Brave enough to care. He had to respect her for that.

His anger drained into something heavier, something that settled deep in his bones like a sickness. His face fell back into weary melancholy.

"Yeah… I’m fine, doll."

A lie.

"I just... can I have some water?"

She didn’t look up. Just nodded, stiff, still using the clipboard as a shield.

"Uh-huh...." she muttered

Her voice wavered, small and fragile, and then the tears fell—quiet at first, then quicker. She turned and sprinted away, and he could hear the break in her breath as the crying started for real.

And just like that, all the panic that had gripped him vanished, leaving only regret.

That poor girl—she would remember this for the rest of her life. And how long would that even be? A few years? A few months?

The species was doomed.

The Concordant would see to that.

She was already dead. Just like the girl before her. Just like everyone.

So why did this make him feel worse than anything else?

Worse than the war. Worse than cheating on his wife. Worse than—

His throat tightened.

No... Not that.

Nothing would ever feel as bad as what happened to his son.

The self-loathing curled inward, turned sharp. A bitter, ugly voice in his mind spat at the girl, the thought bounded before he could stop it:

"FUCKING STUPID BITCH!"

And then—no.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean it, please, I'll do anything, I'M SORRY!"

His knees threatened to buckle. His hands dug into his face, trying to claw the thoughts out, crush them down into nothing. He slumped against the wall as the world blurred into meaningless sound—the host’s voice a dull hum, the artificial crowd laughter nothing but static.

Minutes passed. Or maybe just seconds.

A tap on his shoulder.

Mace snapped his head up, eyes darting, vision still unfocused.

A man stood over him.

Mid-to-late twenties. Big. Tall, broad, solid muscle.

Mace could’ve torn him apart if he wanted to, despite the man's muscle. It would have been easy, easy as ripping up paper. But something in the man’s stare froze him.

Pure, undiluted hatred.

Not just anger. Not just disgust. Hatred.

It was fixed on him like a targeting lock.

"Your. Water."

The words were clipped, spat through clenched teeth.

A glass, shoved into Mace’s chest. Ice clinked against the sides as water sloshed over, spilling onto his armor and onto the floor.

Mace fumbled, almost dropping it.

The man didn’t wait. Just turned in a sharp, stiff motion, storming off, his whole body wound tight with fury.

Clear he knew the girl.

Clear she had come back crying.

Clear he had volunteered to deliver this message, likely pissed at him for what he did.

Mace nearly spiraled again, nearly fell headfirst back into the pit of self-hatred.

And then—

The crowd outside erupted into cheers.

The show was still going.

As if none of this had ever happened.

The cheers hit like a tidal wave—loud, hollow, artificial.

Mace didn’t have to see it to know what was happening. That prick Richie had just strutted onto the stage, flashing that bleached-white grin of his, basking in the attention like he was the star of the show. But they weren’t here for him.

They never were.

The whole damn crowd was here for only one thing... Mace Sappho himself.

He exhaled sharply, taking a slow sip of water. His hands were still shaking, but not as bad as before. With a flick of his wrist, he fished a cigarette from his pocket, rolled it between his fingers, then dipped back in for a lighter.

Then came the voice—louder than the crowd, louder than everything else.

"Alright! Alright! I wanna thank all you fine folks for coming to our show tonight!"

Fake. Every word. Mace could see it now, clear as daylight. The exaggerated enthusiasm, the over-rehearsed gestures, the way his voice hit every manufactured cadence to sell the illusion. That same toothy grin, perfect and plastic.

It was all so goddamn fake.

"And for those of you at home, we got a hell of a show for you tonight!"

Mace struck his lighter, brought the flame to his cigarette, inhaled.

The voice dripped with sarcasm.

"As we all already know, those alien freaks—"

A mock interruption.

"Oh, I'm sorry, that's not ‘PC’ anymore."

An exaggerated pause.

The crowd laughed on cue.

Mace exhaled smoke through his nose. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

His internal voice was tired, drained.

"How did ANYONE find this funny?"

Richie continued

"The Sanlagosa… whatever those bastards call themselves, I dunno, I didn’t get my invitation to this year’s pathetic fucks annual."

Another eruption of laughter—big, overblown, the kind that sounded more like an obligation than a real reaction.

Mace let out a quiet, breathy chuckle. Not at the joke itself—it wasn’t funny—but at the sheer absurdity of it all.

Richie was laughing along with the crowd, eating it up, playing his part.

"Yeah... well, who cares what they call themselves, because do we have some good news to tell y’all! Though I’m sure you’ve already heard it—I’m not as fast as the major networks, but we don’t care, right?!"

Another explosion of cheers. So predictable. So orchestrated.

Mace took another drag, let the smoke roll off his tongue.

"Okay, okay. Thank you."

The voice paused, milking the energy, waiting for the noise to die down.

Then came the setup—the one he knew was coming.

"But since I’m sure you want to hear it again, we have a very special guest tonight."

The air tensed.

"Please join me in welcoming a long-time friend of the show; the man, the myth, the alien killer extraordinaire, hero of worlds too long to list—but among them, the recently liberated Lest-Away."

Mace’s breath hitched.

"Please welcome, the Immortal Red Dragon himself—MACE SAPPHO!!!"

The crowd ERUPTED.

It wasn’t just noise. It was a detonation. The kind that made the entire building shake, maybe even the whole block.

And then—the flash.

Too bright. Too loud. Too familiar.

It wasn’t a crowd anymore.

It was fire.

It was screams.

It was the surface of too many worlds, all blending into one.

The booms weren’t cheers, they were orbital strikes.

The lights weren’t cameras, they were laser barrages from above, incinerating everything in their path, turning people—entire cities—to dust.

It was Lest-Away.

It was Wildroot.

It was every single world he had fought on, every single battle he had survived while everyone else didn’t.

His body tensed.

His fingers twitched.

He was there again.

The glass slipped from his fingers.

A sharp crack—shattering against the wooden floor. Water spread in erratic rivulets, glistening under the stage lights.

His cigarette fell from his lips. A dying ember, snuffed out the moment it kissed the wet ground.

Voices—muffled, distant, warped beyond recognition. Crew members shouting, moving, trying to get through to him. He barely registered them.

He was already gone.

The crimson curtains loomed in front of him.

Only—they weren’t curtains anymore.

They pulsed. Shifted. Turned into flesh—dripping, oozing, heaving...blood, everywhere, all over the polished floor.

The cheers twisted, bent, morphed into screams.

Screams of the dying.

Screams of the burned, the crushed, the ones left to rot in glassed wastelands.

Screams he had heard before.

Screams he had memorized.

Faces emerged from the mass of gore. So many faces.

Their eyes fixed on him.

Their mouths gaped, lips barely moving, but he understood.

“Help us.”

“Save us.”

“Why didn’t you save us?”

His breath quickened.

Too fast. Too shallow.

Hands grabbed him—gripping his shoulders, pushing against his chest. Crew members trying to move him, guide him, snap him out of whatever trance had swallowed him whole.

But they couldn’t.

No one could move him.

No one could fix him.

His lungs burned, his body spiraling into hyperventilation—

And then.

A voice.

Small. Pained. Familiar.

His son.

"DADDY, IT HURTS!!!"

"DADDY, HELP!!!!!!"

Mace moved.

Faster than anyone could see.

The assistants pushing against him fell backward like dominos, thrown off balance by the sheer force of his sudden eruption forward.

He tore through the curtain like it wasn’t even there.

Blinding light.

A flood of artificial white seared his vision, reducing the world to amorphous blurs, formless masses, shifting shadows.

For a moment, he couldn’t see—just a washed-out void of pure white. His breath hitched, and for that half-second, he wasn’t sure if he had truly left the nightmare behind, or if he was about to wake up to something worse.

Then, shapes formed from the void.

Colors. Blurs. Sound—deafening sound.

Richie stood before him, blinking, confused. His perfectly sculpted face creased for a fraction of a second as he processed what had just happened. Mace had not entered on cue. He had not stepped out in time with the music, with the lights, with the scripted performance.

The moment of silence stretched.

Then—the crowd erupted.

It was louder than before. So much louder.

Confetti cannons exploded from the sides of the stage, a burst of red, white, and gold showering down. The sound system blasted triumphant music, horns, drums—orchestral grandeur drowning the world in noise.

It was all so loud. Louder than a nuclear blast.

And yet—Mace felt nothing.

No fear. No panic. No past.

His conditioning kicked in.

His muscles moved before his mind could process. His posture straightened, his shoulders squared. His face smoothed out, losing every trace of anguish, every crack of panic.

He stood tall.

Like a statue.

Like a painting.

A true hero.

The hero they thought he was.

The hero they needed him to be.

The crowd roared. The cheers went on for five full minutes.

Then, finally, they began to die down.

Richie recovered, regained his mask, and stepped forward with his usual smug grin.

His manicured hand clapped down on Mace’s shoulder.

It felt disgusting.

But Mace didn’t care.

He didn’t blink.

He didn’t react.

His gaze stayed locked forward, as if they were fixed on a hopeful sunset that never was.

"Alright, alright! Give the man a chance to breathe, good people, please!"

Richie’s voice cut through the roar of the crowd, casual and smooth, dipped in that ever-present fake charisma. The kind of voice that oozed manufactured warmth, the kind that convinced people he gave a single shit.

Mace barely noticed.

Still staring ahead, still watching nothing.

The world had faded to static.

"Alright... well, CLEARLY they're happy to see you!"

A fresh round of laughter rolled through the studio, loud and eager, like they were watching the greatest comedy act in history. Mace didn’t react. Didn’t blink. Didn’t care.

Richie kept talking, because of course he did.

"I'm happy to see you too! You and I been friends for a while now, and anytime I see ya... a surge of hope rings out in my heart."

He even tapped his chest for emphasis. A gesture rehearsed to look genuine.

None of it was true.

Mace hated him.

Richie didn’t care about anything except money, pussy, and keeping his ratings high enough to keep his bloated salary intact. If Mace weren’t a war hero—weren’t a brand—the man wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire.

Mace didn’t care.

He switched on, speaking with machine-like efficiency.

"Yeah, well… whenever I see YOU, a surge of pity comes through my balls."

His voice was upbeat, exaggerated, playing the part.

But the words? The words were real.

Richie’s fake laugh came a second too late—because that’s all it ever was. Fake. Staged. A calculated delay to make it seem natural. The crowd ate it up, laughing like Mace had just cracked the funniest joke in history.

"FUCKING SHEEP."

Mace thought aloud in his mind, though he dare not utter it.

"Aaahhh ouch!" Richie clutched his chest in mock pain. "Well, not all of us can lift a starship, buddy! Why don't ya take a seat with me?"

The audience tittered as he gestured toward the seating arrangement—a carefully planned piece of set design meant to establish dominance.

Two red leather chairs.

One was large, imposing, positioned behind a sleek black desk made of reinforced glass and steel.

The other? Smaller. Off to the side.

A guest’s chair.

Mace didn’t hesitate. He walked over and sat. His cape spilled onto the floor behind him, his armored frame sinking into the cushions, making a deep indentation. It wasn’t comfortable. It never was. The metal plates dug into his back, his shoulders.

But he wore it.

Because they told him to.

Because he always did what he was told.

A good little soldier.

A good little icon.

A good little fake fuck-doll to be used however they saw fit.

Richie watched him sit, wearing an expression so transparent it was laughable. A smug little twitch of the lips, enjoying the fact that his chair was bigger. Pathetic power move.

Mace smiled, because that was what he was supposed to do.

"Well, glad to see you like I said! Big day, huh?"

Mace nodded, played along.

"Oh yeah! Big day, big day!"

"’Course, you've had bigger days,"

Richie said, gesturing grandly,

"but when we're talking about saving worlds, killing monsters—"

Mace froze.

The word... "monster," it hung in the air, feeling heavier than it should have been.

His brain barely registered Richie’s voice anymore.

He thought of the Sanlagosa.

Yes, they were monstrous. Yes, they had committed atrocities.

But they weren’t monsters.

They were something else.

They thought. They loved. They had feelings, lives, hopes, dreams.

And he had killed them.

By the millions.

With his own bare hands.

He had seen their eyes in their final moments—wide, darting, panicked, desperate. He had heard them cry out for mercy in a language he would never understand.

And yet…

He had felt nothing.

Because they weren’t monsters.

They were evil.

Pure darkness given form.

His mind snapped back.

Richie was mid-sentence, grinning like the smug asshole he was.

"Getting girls—"

A long, deliberate pause.

The audience swooned like it was some sitcom romance bullshit, the kinda garbage his little sister used to watch back home.

Mace laughed along, though it was fake, like all his laughter.

The noise settled.

Richie smirked.

"Every day is a big day... but today, you made a real splash, didn't ya?"

Another eruption of laughter.

The kind that went on for way too long.

A fucking pun.

A joke about a world that no longer existed.

Because Lest-Away—or rather, what HAD been Lest-Away—was an ocean world.

A planet of vast, endless waters, of beautiful waves and bioluminescent reefs.

A planet that had been burned down to the seabed, boiled into an unrecognizable wasteland of steam and blackened rock.

Not that he knew that. No one but Mace knew that.

He laughed.

A deep, rich, fake laugh.

It sounded like crying...

Not that anyone cared.

Because no one cared about the man.

Only the symbol.

Mace's voice rolled out smooth, polished, practiced.

"Oh yeah, big splash is a word to use—"

He finished the sentence in his mind.

A FUCKING MASSACRE IS ANOTHER.

He wanted to say it.

He wanted to tell them what really happened.

But instead, his mouth moved on its own.

"Or a big boom is another! Because we blew the bastards back into whatever hole they crawled out of!"

The crowd erupted.

Applause. Cheers. Stomping feet. Howls of approval.

Like good little dogs.

They ate it up because that’s what they were trained to do. Just like him.

Richie let the moment ride for a few seconds, then lifted his hands in a well-rehearsed motion—calm down now, bring it back, reset.

The crowd obeyed.

Like him.

"But I gotta ask ya,"

Richie continued, leaning forward like he was about to get real with him.

"After killing so many alien freaks, saving so many people—I just have to know… how are you? The man himself. How are you feeling right now?"

The question hit like an electric jolt to his skull.

A flood of words screamed into his mind all at once.

BAD.

AWFUL.

FUCKING HORRIBLE YOU RETARDED FAGGOT!!

His muscles twitched. His fingers dug into the armrests of his chair, threatening to snap the metal.

He wanted to stand up.

Wanted to rip Richie's head off.

Wanted to bound into the crowd, turn them all into a pulped red mass of blood and meat and silence.

His mind began looping, spinning out of control.

KILL! KILL! KILL!

HATE! HATE! HATE!

I HATE YOU!

He clenched his teeth. The fake smile on his face didn't waver.

He began to speak.

"Well, Richie..."

His mind still roared.

HATE! HATE! HATE!

His jaw locked. He had to push the words out before the truth clawed its way through his throat.

"I feel..."

His thoughts began again

I hate myself!

I HATE myself!!

I HATE MYSELF!!!

I want to die!

I NEED to die!!

I DESERVE TO DIE!!!

His hands felt like iron clamps around the armrests. His body was locked in place.

"I feel..."

His mind spiraled.

I'll tear out my eyes and throat right here on stage. Let them watch. Let them see their last hope drown in his worthless fucking blood.

It's what I am.

~~'Worthless.~~'

I need to die!

I HAVE TO DIE!!

And then—

His voice. Loud. Sure. Alive.

"I feel pretty good!"

And the crowd... cheered...

Chapter: Till Hate Does Us Part

Mace cut through the sky like a specter, his cape flaring behind him in Forevermore’s air.

Below him, the Royal Palace sprawled like an overfed beast—big, imposing, and utterly fucking stupid. He never had patience for vanity masquerading as power. Real power wasn’t carved from stone or sealed behind gilded doors; it was something you carried in your fists, in your bones. It was something you were. And this? This was just a monument to a delusion.

The palace itself was an obscene collision of marble and reinforced steel, its tall statues of long dead Nevermorian "heroes" lined up like silent sentries, stretching down the procession walkway. The ground beneath them gleamed, polished white marble reflecting the crimson streak of an engraved carpet—each woven thread spinning some grandiose tale of Evermorian "excellence," a history they force-fed their people.

The path led up a set of gaudy marble steps, an extension of the same overwrought aesthetic, culminating in massive gold-plated doors that led into the throne room.

It was all so pathetic. A temple built to their own ego, one long, self-indulgent jerk-off session about their supposed greatness. And they expected him to live here? To bend the knee? To play the part?

Not in this lifetime. And especially not for her.

Mace exhaled sharply through his teeth. His flight path wavered as that familiar bile rose in his throat.

"Her..."

The thought slithered in like a parasite, coiling tight around his mind.

His loving wife; Anaxandries.

He rolled his eyes beneath his helmet.

"My devoted, compassionate, wonderful fucking wife."

His descent slowed, posture slackening, eyes boring into the marble below him. The thought of landing made his stomach churn.

"Why am I even here?"

He thought

"I should just turn around, fly somewhere... ANYWHERE! fucking else but here."

His body hovered, inches from the ground.

"I hate this fucking planet."

A last thought he gave before descending to the floor.

Mace’s boots touched the ground with a dull thud, but before he could even process the cold marble beneath him, she was there—stumbling toward him, tripping over her own feet like a malfunctioning drone.

One of her assistants. One of her favorites.

He vaguely recalled Anaxandries holding this woman in some ridiculous level of regard, but he’d never cared enough to remember why.

And her name? Didn’t matter. Never had.

But the hair—THAT he remembered.

That obnoxious, gaudy pink, an artificial shade so bright it burned into memory whether he wanted it or not.

That, and her round, ghastly, almost sickly pale white overeager face.

She had the shape of someone constantly on the verge of breathlessness, forever flitting between desperation and forced refinement.

Annoying.

Always clamoring, always doting.

Anaxandries’ best friend—if a royal could even have friends.

To him, she was just another sycophant. A yapping, meddling bitch that didn’t know when to shut the fuck up.

She was draped in some elaborate attempt at regality, fabric stitched together like an apology for her lack of natural grace. All of it—her, the dress, the court—just another desperate ploy to fit in with the scumfucks who thought appearances meant power.

She scurried toward him as fast as her legs would allow, words spilling out before she could even draw breath.

“Oh, happy day! My king is back! It’s so good to see you, Lord Sappho—”

That last name. That disgusting, foreign name. Not his name.

But of course, it wasn’t.

It was the price of alliance, the bitter cost of Forevermore’s union with the Havriel Alliance—the sacrifice he had to make for the war against the Sanlagosa.

Mace Celeste was buried in that deal. Killed. Erased.

Now he was "Mace Sappho," an ugly, pompous Evermorian title forced onto him, burned into official records, slapped onto his son.

He fucking hated it.

Sure the Evermorian race looked strikingly similar to the Havriel; but it wasn't like that was an achievement or anything. The Havriel themselves are a breakaway of a species that looks near identical to their own - the Jaslith; yet they held zero connection to his people. So why should Evermorians be any different?

He didn't respond, but still, the woman kept talking, oblivious.

“We certainly weren’t expecting you… but we are so glad you’re here, and we do hope you’ll stay with us longer this time and—”

That was enough.

Mace shot back into the air, his body lifting just inches off the ground before he propelled forward, vaulting past her in a blur of movement. The force sent the nearby guards staggering, one of them outright toppling as he surged past the palace doors without a backward glance.

Somewhere behind him, he heard the woman’s voice soften into a quiet, wounded

“…Okay...”

It made him feel nothing.

Now inside the throne room, he remained airborne, suspended in the vast emptiness of the chamber. The weight of the place pressed down on him.

And here he was again.

The throne room.

Massive. Empty. Stupid.

Everything about it screamed excess:

The towering white marble walls, hollowed out for crowds that never came.

The sky-high walkways with intricate metallic railings, built so sycophants could watch from above like gods staring down at ants.

And that color—blinding white, a relentless, clinical brightness that burned his retinas every damn time he stepped inside.

Every inch of this place was drenched in Evermorian ego.

The tapestries, deep crimson and heavy with gold embroidery, stretched across the walls like arteries feeding the palace’s bloated self-importance.

And the knights—the so-called Nevermorian Knights.

Did they even exist?

He doubted it. Just another fabrication, another legend to keep the people drunk on nostalgia.

Above him, chandeliers dangled from the marble ceiling, their artificial flames mimicking the flickering light of some bygone age. A desperate attempt to hold onto the dying embers of a once-great empire.

He fucking hated it. Every last detail.

And then—there it was.

The throne.

The epicenter of Anaxandries’ delusions, the pinnacle of her self-worship, like she was sitting there, legs spread above her head, fingering herself at her own so called grace.

Gold and silver, grotesquely oversized, draped in the same overindulgent red cloth that coated the entire goddamn palace. The backrest, adorned with elaborate depictions of Evermorian mythology, towered over the room, as if demanding everyone look up in reverence. A throne so large it dwarfed the woman who sat on it.

And beside it once sat the second throne.

His throne.

Now pushed away like an after thought, locked in some room deep in the palace.

Mace never sat in it. Never would.

It had been wheeled away years ago, some pitiful display of anger she made against him.

As if he would ever play the part and give her the satisfaction in having her believe he gave a shit. B

But the message was obvious. Blatant. Petty.

A constant reminder of who held the real power here.

And yet, it didn’t bother him. Never bothered him.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

But something was off. The grand hall was empty. Silent. No sycophants. No stewards. No audience waiting on their queen’s every word.

Why the hell was it empty?

Then it hit him.

No one here meant one thing—she was in their chambers.

That bedroom. The one he hadn’t stayed in for almost twenty years.

She was drinking again.

No one—not even what’s-her-name at the doors—would dare disturb her in her cups.

That meant she knew he was coming.

He always underestimated her ability to get intel on his movements.

How else would she have known he was fucking other women?

Mace exhaled sharply, the sound carrying through the empty hall like a whisper from a ghost.

Then—BOOM.

The massive doors slammed shut behind him, their echo thundering through the hollow chamber. Now everyone knew he was here.

His boots touched the ground. He removed his helmet. And he walked.

He had to get to his son’s room. That meant passing her chambers. That meant slipping past her.

He had to be quick.

He had to be silent.

Because the last thing in the universe he wanted—was to speak to her.

Ever. Again.

His footsteps cracked like gunfire in the silence, each echo ricocheting off the cold, hollow walls.

He moved past the throne without a glance, turning left, his gait shifting into something mechanical, something detached. The stairs loomed ahead, leading up to the walkways that stretched overhead like the veins of some rotting beast.

He should’ve taken to the air. Kept himself above it all. Kept himself above this place. Walking meant acknowledging it, giving it even the slightest ounce of respect it didn’t fucking deserve.

But the weight of her presence, even unseen, dragged him down. The thought of facing her—he didn’t have the strength for it. Didn’t have the will. So he walked.

Not out of choice.

Not out of duty.

Just movement.

Empty. Directionless. Movement.

Like he was nothing more than a passenger inside his own body, carried forward by the inevitability of it all.

He reached the summit of the marbled stairwell, boots stomping as if they were faint thunderbolts across the gaudy-white stone beneath him. The hall stretched—vast, imposing; acting as a corridor of silence built to intimidate.

He was met with an empty hall, stretching dozens of feet and taking up the whole of his vision.

Not a soul stirred. No maids. No sentinels. No vault-keepers scurrying like vermin across the floor as they had in years prior.

The doors — ornate crimsonwood slabs carved from a fame type of Forevermorian tree — stood shut in austere defiance, each guarding its own treasury of artifacts and heirlooms Anaxandries had entombed there. A mausoleum of Evermorian and Nevermorian culture, of legacy, of obsession. But he never cared. Never once peered in.

His eyes were affixed on a single door, dead center at the far end of the hall.

Lloyd's room; left far in the back and away from it all.

It pissed him off beyond words. Lloyd’s room used to be first on the right and easily accessible.

Now? Far end. Right beside hers.

As if she’d gone out of her way to make seeing his own son more difficult. He couldn’t prove that’s why she did it. But knowing her—the evil bitch she was to him; how venomous, how deliberately cruel she could be—it wouldn’t surprise him in the slightest.

Even the months since he saw him, the room's door hadn't changed.

Still adorned with the same crude drawings he made as a kid, now curled at the edges, the color faded with age, but untouched.

Mace never understood why he left them up. If anything, he wished he'd tear them down himself. They were annoying — an unwelcome reminder that Lloyd had once been small. And Mace hated that. Hated the weight of that memory. Not for any reason he cared to unpack, and instead only choosing to pick the thought that it made things harder.

More to focus on the inconvenience of it then anything else.

But in truth; they made him sick with burring guilt.

A blinking reminder that Lloyd had once been a soft and sweet little boy; had once been delicate — once been something he could have saved.

Instead, he let the Alliance mold him. Break him. Remake him into a thing.

Like him....

And now; those drawings stood there, mocking him. Daring him to look.

Pangs of pain etched in self-loathing nearly roused in his chest, but he suppressed the feeling. Instead; he focused his eyes toward the door's left.

An amber glow shined through the door; deliberately left Slightly ajar, and the only one left open.

Not from the center door—but just beside it.

The one on the left.

Her door.

. The only one open.

He stared. The light within spilled onto the hallway floor like blood seeping from a wound.

He knew what that meant.

She was inside.

Of course she was.

He angled an ear. Listened.

Clink.

Glass against glass.

Wine.

His jaw set. Eyes narrowed.

“Of course she’s drunk,” the thought spat through him, acid-etched and raw. “Fucking called it.”

He inhaled through his nose, slow and sharp. Annoyance blossomed behind his eyes like a migraine. Not fear. Not guilt.

Just fury. Quiet and coiled.

She always picked the worst nights to wallow.

And now—now he had to deal with her, too.

Of course he did.