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<span style="font-size:200%; font-weight:bold; color:#ff8888; text-shadow: 0 0 10px #ff9999, 0 0 15px #ff6666;">T</span>he backstage was too large, too empty, and too silent. It stirred in him, almost as if he was in a cavernous stretch of space swallowed in darkness |
<span style="font-size:200%; font-weight:bold; color:#ff8888; text-shadow: 0 0 10px #ff9999, 0 0 15px #ff6666;">T</span>he backstage was too large, too empty, and too silent. It stirred in him, almost as if he was in a cavernous stretch of space swallowed in darkness; broken only by the looming crimson curtains that framed the stage. |
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It shouldn't have bothered him — honestly nothing should by now — but Mace felt them closing in |
It shouldn't have bothered him — honestly ''nothing'' should by now — but Mace felt them closing in. |
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''Suffocating... '' |
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His breath hitched, his skin itched. |
His breath hitched, his skin itched. |
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WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS EXTREME LANGUAGE AND THEMES: READER DISCRETION IS HIGHLY ADVISED (For real I mean it). ALSO: YOU'LL WANT TO TURN ON DARK MODE TO READ IT.
Syx and Seven In: The Immortal Red Dragon
Written by LordSkorne7
THIS ARTICLE IS AN EXTREME WORK IN PROGRESS AND WILL BE ADDED ON ONCE IT IS FINISHED COMPLETELY.
CHAPTER 10 IS MEANT TO SERVE AS A TEASER TO THE FINALIZED TALE: PLEASE READ IT USING THE TAB ABOVE.
Dated: 61st Year proceeding End's Emergence
The backstage was too large, too empty, and too silent. It stirred in him, almost as if he was in a cavernous stretch of space swallowed in darkness; broken only by the looming crimson curtains that framed the stage.
It shouldn't have bothered him — honestly nothing should by now — 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 wooden floor as he paced, faster, heavier, as 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 and hollow, from 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 self-appointed rules.
He’d taken what he wanted, left people in the dust; he wasn't a stranger to fucking broads and not giving em fare 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 familiar strike of the ever-present 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 the very glassed ruins where there ashes now lay.
"I see it every time."
His breath quickened to a near-panic.
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 latest 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 agonizingly slow drops.
His lungs screamed. His heart hammered against his ribs, as if trying to break free.
He knew the signs:
It was happening again...
...the panic.
Not here! Not now!
The panic clawed at his throat, his mind spiraling into the embers of dead worlds—
—then a voice.
Soft, somewhat hesitant, yet real.
“...Mister Sappho?”
He didn’t acknowledge it at first. He couldn’t, really.
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; the one held faith that would save them all.
And then, less than a week later, she was nothing but two severed halves on the ground; her blood burned black, 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 to kill.
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 its usual 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, barely even registering his words.
Her voice small and fragile voice wavered; 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 in force.
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 of all things make him feel worse than anything else?
Worse than the war. Worse than betraying his wife. Worse than—
His throat tightened before the thought could finish.
—no...not that.
Nothing would ever feel as painful as what happened to his son.
What HE let happen.
...
...
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!"
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 rendered now as a dull hum, the hollow crowd laughter nothing but static.
...
...
Minutes passed. Or maybe just seconds.
Then, he felt 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.
Like every man he'd meet, Mace would tier him against his own strength.
Of course 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.
His pure, undiluted hatred.
Not just anger. Not just disgust. Hatred.
It was fixed on him like a targeting lock.
"Your. Water."
The words came out clipped, spat through his clenched teeth.
A glass was then 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 against him like a tidal wave annoyingly loud, hollow, and 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...
To catch a passing glimpse of the-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 waist-belt, rolled it between his fingers, then dipped back in for a lighter.
Then came the voice — louder than the crowd, louder than anything else.
"Alright! Alright! I wanna thank all you fine folks for coming to our show tonight!"
Fake. Every word. Mace could see it now, even behind the curtains it flashed in his mind clear as daylight: The exaggerated enthusiasm, the over-rehearsed gestures, his gaudy crimson suit, and 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; fake to the level of total absurdity.
"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, and 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, and the crowd laughed on cue.
Mace exhaled smoke through his nose.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
His internal voice was tired and 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 disgusting freaks annual."
Another eruption of laughter — big, overblown; the kind that sounded more like an obligation than any 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, letting 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 Mace 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 with it; all was consumed by a flash in his mind.
Too bright. Too loud. Too destructive. Too familiar.
It wasn’t a crowd anymore; It was fire.
The cheers became screams.
The floor became the surface of too many worlds, all blending into one.
The booms weren’t studio music, 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 and 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 continued to loom 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 even greater 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 committed to memory every night.
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; but each inhale was too fast, each exhale 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.
...afraid.
...
...
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.
What followed was a blinding light.
A flood of artificial white seared his vision, reducing the world to amorphous blurs, formless masses, and shifting shadows.
For a moment, he couldn’t see — just a washed-out void of pure white. His breath froze, 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, all from the ambience of the lights.
Richie stood ahead of him, blinking and 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 and no panic as the conditioning kicked on.
His muscles moved before his subconscious 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 continued in a burning roar; as 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 normally felt disgusting.
But Mace didn’t care.
He didn’t blink — didn’t even react.
His gaze stayed locked forward, as if they were fixed on some poetic 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 cheers finally faded into the dull ambient 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 certainly 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'd never dare to 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 all the same.
Because they told him to.
Because he always did what he was told.
Always the good little soldier.
Always the good little icon.
Always the good little fake fuck-doll to be used however they saw fit.
...
...
Richie watched him sit form his own chair, wearing an expression so transparent it was laughable. A smug little twitch of the lips; enjoying the fact that his chair was bigger in a 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 played along and nodded.
"Oh yeah! Big day; BIG day!"
"’Course, you've had bigger days,"
Richie said, grandly gesturing.
"but when we're talking about saving worlds, killing monsters—"
Before Richie finished, the world slowed in Mace's mind.
...
...
That 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 reserved for the most comically evil storybook creatures.
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.
...
...
Mace's mind snapped back.
Richie was mid-sentence, grinning like the smug asshole he always was.
"Getting girls—"
A long, deliberate pause followed.
The audience swooned like it was some sitcom romance bullshit; the kind of 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 as it had, continuing again.
"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.
All for 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!
I HATE YOU!!
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.
