Enchanter’s Guild Compound

Her teeth clenched as the small step caused her brain to bounce around in her skull. Or so it felt. One step. Now she had to figure out the second. Ash shuffled down the hall on sleep-deprived legs. It was nothing she didn’t experience everyday, of course, but if she concentrated, she could just make herself believe today’s headache was worse than yesterday’s and that she should stay in bed. She stopped her shaky gait to look at a painting on the wall. It had to have been made with a Skill, she thought. Probably multiple. The blues were too blue, and the giant tower really did seem to pierce the sky. The Enchanter’s Guild had exquisite taste.

She moved on, leaning on the marble wall for support. She almost wished they’d called her to fight. In her hungover state, there was no way she’d live. The dark thought made her stop and laugh. The sound must have alerted one of the servants, and a balding man in glasses peeked his head around the corner of the hallway.

“Ms. Malan! Are you okay?” he said, pumping spindly legs to reach her side. She looked at his proper little uniform, hoping her smile conveyed the mockery she felt.

“Yes, just hungover,” she said, slurring her words a bit more than necessary. “Can you tell your boss to get me more Dust? I’m almost out.”

The thin man bit off whatever he was about to say. “Absolutely, ma’am, anything you need. Are you certain you don’t need help?”

“Leave me,” she said. The servant bowed and walked off, and she stared at his back. Let him report what he’d seen. Let him tell his bosses their prized beast was enjoying her gilded cage. She was not for this place much longer, anyways.

After a few more minutes worth of brain-rattling steps, Ash found the set of double doors she’d been looking for. The courtyard. Despite the all too bright sun, she found herself enjoying the smells of the freshly clipped grass and flowers. It was a far cry from the smells of booze and smoke that clung to the walls of her apartment in the Guild’s quarters.

The clatter of the doors behind her opening broke Ash’s reverie. “I told you to leave me,” she growled.

“I’m sorry for intruding. Ms. Malan, is it?” a rich voice asked. It sounded nothing at all like the weasel of a servant from earlier.

“Yes,” she said, turning to look at… Her breath caught in her throat. This man looked like him. She almost found herself running to hug him, the memories from her Dust high rushing back with full force. Her knees shook. No, it couldn’t be. He’d died long ago, dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. She composed herself, the familiar mask slipping back onto her face once more.

If the man noticed her slip, he ignored it. His hair fell around his face like strands of gold, and his blue eyes crinkled from his white smile. She barely even noticed the handsome suit he wore, having eyes only for the muscular frame beneath. “My name is Lucius. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

A noise like a loud wail interrupted Ash’s response, and she turned to look towards the north wall. Something was amiss.

---

Ryu took the first man with a hatchet through the neck. The next fell in a blur of black smoke, his body bent crooked. After that, the warriors along the compound’s wall began to take real notice of his presence, and the glow of defensive Skills casted the stone battlements in a rainbow of colors. Not that it would help them. Ender was at the helm now.

In the same way a hand can intercept the path of a thrown ball without thought, Ryu’s body knew it could destroy these lesser Classers. And he did. The wall’s battlements ran red with the blood of its defenders, the compound’s alarm blaring in a fevered wail. Adrenaline, rage, and that strange, sickening heat that came in battle smashed through his body like rampant waves, and his consciousness only returned when he stood over the last guard on that section of the wall.

“P-please don’t kill me,” the bearded man begged, his hand lifted up as if to ward Ryu away. Ryu’s fist clenched and unclenched. The smell of blood made him want to vomit. He was here for Lucius alone. These innocents needn’t have suffered. He dropped off the wall without looking back.

Another force was gathering in the courtyard, ready to ward off whatever army was attacking their compound. A single woman stood away from the group, and she seemed surprised to realize it was just one man she’d been summoned to defend against.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” the woman said. She seemed to bite off the words, the pale skin of her jaw bunched over a clenched muscle. She was tall, and her brown eyes seemed to be trying to burst his heart through will alone.

“Where is Lucius Augear?” Ryu asked, not halting his stride.

“Why are you he-”

“Where is Lucius?” he shouted.

The woman raised her spear at him. “You have no business being here.”

“I will not ask again!” Ryu said. The distance between them had shrunk now, the two no more than a hundred steps apart. He did not stop. The whites of the Classers’ eyes behind the woman glimmered in the sunlight. A commotion split their ranks, and a different woman burst through, her raven black hair trailing through the air behind her. Her features were beautiful, if tinged by a hint of melancholy he could not put his finger on. Behind her came a blonde man.

“All this commotion for me?” Lucius said, waving a hand at Ryu like an old pal might.

Ryu did not talk. He moved in a puff of black smoke. His first blow- a leaping knee- bent Lucius over, and as he moved to finish the blonde man, a hand caught his arm. So he used his leg instead. His shin caught the bent over man in the jaw, sending him to land on an armored guard behind him. With a twinge of annoyance, he felt a burning pain from the arm that was being held.

“Who are you?” the raven-haired woman said, her hand clutched onto his arm. Her brown eyes seemed dead, and she smelled of booze and Dust to his keen senses.

“Nobody,” he said, wrenching his arm free from her grasp. “Back away, please. I have a murderer to punish.”

A spark of fire burned in his vision. “I can’t let you do that,” the woman said, stepping in front of him. Gold fire danced around her fingers.

“Okay.” Dark smoke coiled around his own fingers, and he blurred to her side. She met his strike, skidding back but not losing balance. She was a Ranker then, one clearly beholden to the Enchanter’s Guild. Ash, he recalled after a moment.

“Why do you pursue this man?” she said, pointing an arm at him. Ryu could see Lucius rising to his feet behind her, a smug grin painted on his features.

Ryu exploded past the woman, trying to ignore the scorching heat that raised blisters through his armor. His fist snapped Lucius’s smirking face back. Or it was supposed to. Lucius was a few strides away now, still smiling.

“Not the only quick one, eh? I thought we’d get to talk first, at least,” the blonde man said.

“I told you I’d kill you, and now you mock me?” Ryu said, his voice hoarse even to his own ears. “You think I’ll just let you live after all the people you’ve killed?” The guards had backed away now at Ash’s signal.

Lucius laughed. “You’re one to talk, huh?”

Cold ran through Ryu’s body like ice. Murderer, he thought to himself. Even Ender could not escape the guilt that flooded his body. “So fight me then. The world wins no matter who dies,” he barked.

“I will not,” Marshal said. “All I wanted to do was tell you about the notes. To help.”

Rage coiled in Ryu’s gut again, and before he could move, Ash, lead Ranker of the Enchanter’s Guild, stepped between them. She looked at Ryu with those sad, dead eyes.

“I don’t know you. Neither do I know him, if I’m honest. What I do know is you’ve killed men. Innocent ones. They might’ve had a family to go tonight, or a wife… And now they never will again,” she said. “And yet I don’t think I can stop you from escaping. So go. Leave. If you come back, I-I’ll have to kill you.”

Her body sagged, the weariness present in her gaze spreading to her body. Ryu looked past her to Lucius. “You know where to find me,” he growled. He looked around at the crowd of guards, meeting the stare of a few who seemed willing to challenge him.

“Wait! Wait,” a voice called. A group of men in rich suits ran from the compound. He knew them. They were the executives of the Guild, men and women of business. With a disgusted sneer, he ignored them and jumped on top of the wall he’d started on. If he didn’t leave now, he'd have an army chasing after him. With one last regretful look, he gazed at the dead men on the battlements around him. Their souls had already joined him, waiting to be burned to support their murderer’s power. And he called his life cruel.

He shook his head, jumping back among the crowded spires and stone buildings of the Enchanter’s District. A weary sigh was all he had to give the dead men.

---

Lucius found him staring at the bottom of a bottle. To cope with stronger constitutions, stronger alcohol had been brewed, and Ryu had never been much of a drinker to begin with. At this point, he was well and truly numb.

“I let myself in. I hope you don’t mind,” the blonde man said, wrinkling his nose at the smell of liquor. In truth, Ryu had heard the man walking down the street long before he’d ever reached his door.

“Cup?” Ryu asked, holding up the bottle of spirits.

“No, I’ll pass,” Lucius said. Funny. Ryu’d met him in a tavern, yet now the man refused a drink? So be it. He poured another for himself.

“Why didn’t you come here in the first place?”

“I did,” Lucius said with a smile. “But I know… personal difficulties when I see them. I thought it best not to prod the bull, you see.” He pointed at his blackened eye.

“Suppose I can see that.”

Lucius pulled a note from a pocket inside his jacket. “My boss told me of an organization that was well, how do I put this… Meddling. The organization was meddling in the affairs of the Sixth, I was told. And-”

“Your bunch wanted to be the only ones doing that,” Ryu finished.

Lucius inclined his head. “Just so,” he said. “So I intercepted one of these notes, and I found some interesting things. Does the name Keira Santos mean anything to you?”

Ryu drained his shot, sitting back in his chair. Keira. “Aye, I remember her.” He’d tried to kill her, after all. The Trial was when his particular flavor of madness had started to leak. He remembered it well.

“I figured you might. I do have to compliment you, however. You have made quite some interesting foes.”

“Judge a man by his enemies and all that,” Ryu said with a lazy shake of his hand. Ender was- thankfully- silent, the fight having drained him for the time being.

“Yes, rightly so. This Keira woman seems to have a particular distaste for corruption. And murderers. Seems to think it's her goal to ‘cleanse’ this newfound Ring. You just happen to be one of the many tools at her disposal.”

He ignored the slight. “Ignoring the fact she somehow knows of me and my abilities, does she not want me dead?”

“She does,” Lucius agreed. “In due time, of course.”

“Ah.”

“Ah, indeed.”

“So… I suppose you want me to kill her then? Seems fitting, considering this whole mad loop,” he said with a laugh. Murder after murder after murder…

“I’m afraid you wouldn’t find that as easy as you believe. She is, after all, Tenet, the High Priestess of the Lord’s Faithful. In fact, I was at the Enchanter’s Guild to secure their support in ousting the Faithful. A plan you ruined,” he said, his smile now not reaching his blue eyes.

Ryu looked around his bare kitchen. “Why should we stop her? Sounds like a noble goal to me.”

“In theory. Turns out murdering humanity’s powerful is a bit detrimental to the war we’re fighting against an alien species for supremacy of the Rings. Even if they are corrupt, murderous bastards.”

“So you’re trying to save humanity, is it?” Ryu mocked.

“I profess no such noble goals. I’m afraid my wants are quite selfish, indeed. My boss, however…” He shrugged.

“I see. So what’s next?”

“Well, I imagine I’ll end up back at the Enchanter’s Guild compound, though it will take time to make a new identity… Yes, I can see it now. I’ll have to make myself a force, someone who the Guild would listen to,” the man said, thinking out loud. He looked at Ryu with a smirk. “And you’ll help me.”

“I will?” Ryu growled.

“Yes, Ishida Ryu,” Lucius said, standing to his feet. “You will help me. Our fates are intertwined, you see. And if that’s not enough, well… Our goals do align. Unless you want to keep being the puppet of a murderous cult.”

Ryu grabbed the bottle of liquor, pouring the rest of it down in his throat in one pull. It burned down his throat like fire. “And the people you’ve killed?”

“And the people you’ve killed?” Lucius said, leaning over the table.

Ryu sighed. He didn’t know what else to do, didn’t know why the world contrived to kick a man before he could stand back up. “Call it even.” His fist clenched under the table.

“Good,” Lucius said, and he pulled on the skin of his cheek, energy swirling around him. For the first time, Ryu saw the real Lucius. He was a tall man, skinny to the point of being emaciated. His hair was stringy and pale as if it’d been dyed and redyed too many times. His face had all the lines of a handsome man, but it was marred by a splotched paleness that looked like paint. His lips were red- too red- like a clown’s. He smiled at Ryu, a haunting thing framed on his unsettling visage.

Ryu laughed. And laughed. Madness. It was all madness. The threads of reality seemed to be coming loose around him, and it seemed each one wanted to hurt him in the chaos that ensued. Worst of all, Ender was silent. The madness he felt was his alone.

“What’s your real name, then?” Ryu said, turning serious.

“Who knows? I was born an unnamed orphan, abandoned in a gutter. My name is whatever I want it to be, I suppose. You may continue to call me Lucius, however,” he said.

“I’ll work with you. For now,” Ryu said as if he’d had a choice in the matter. The truth was, he was more interested in watching Lucius than helping him. When he found his opportunity, well... Nobody had accused Ryu of being a good man.

Lucius clapped. His skin seemed to writhe on his body for a few sickening moments before settling into a new form. He now had dark hair, darker skin, and a face that looked as if he chewed gravel for a living.

“Fantastic.”