A person's duty is to their nation. A nation's duty is to the advancement of said nation, and the glory thereupon. To attain glory is to fulfill duties and responsibilities. Being given responsibility is the proof of being human. Someone who disregards their duty is not human. Someone who is not human will never achieve glory.

To achieve glory is to be supreme.

Pledge of the Supreme Guard

Dragan opened eyes that did not exist.

If he didn't know that this was a virtual world, he truly wouldn't have been able to tell. As he waved his face in front of his hand, he couldn't detect any trace of input lag or unruly motion blur. When he breathed, he could feel the air filling his lungs. Did that mean he was breathing in the real world, too, or was this just a simulacrum of the process?

“You look like you’re enjoying yourself,” Hamashtiel chuckled.

Dragan turned to look back at him. They were in some kind of foggy swamp, trees forming indistinct monoliths in the mist, and Hamashtiel was perched on a jagged stone protruding from the bog. For some reason, he’d taken on the form of a black dog, white eyes glowing dimly, floppy ears hanging over the sides of his head.

“Where is this?” Dragan asked. “This should be a place in the real world, too, right?”

Hamashtiel shook his head as well as a dog could. “I’m not the person who can answer that question. As you say, this instance of the Garden is sourced from human memory -- the memory of your associate, specifically.” He turned his head. “What say you, then, Skipper? Where is this?”

Skipper himself was leaning against a tree, his arms folded, a grim expression on his face. It was hard to tell in these environs, but it seemed to Dragan that his face was deathly pale. He shrugged. “Don’t remember.”

“The fact that we are here actively suggests that you do remember, though.”

Skipper’s frown didn’t so much as twitch. “Guess we’ll see for ourselves, then.” His eyes flicked off into the empty fog. “Here he comes.”

Dragan turned to look into the swirling fog. A silhouette around his own size was trudging through the muck in their direction, arms slowly pumping as it did its best to force its way through the bog. The sound of heavy, frantic breathing invaded the space.

He furrowed his brow. “That’s…”

His statement was finished by circumstance, as the silhouette coalesced into the form of a young man with shoulder-length black hair, clad in some kind of advanced black bodysuit. His face was stained with dried blood, his eyes were frantically open, but even through the veil of years it was easy to recognize the underlying features.

This was Skipper, only a few years older than Dragan.

“When I think back to the idea of ‘the past’,” Skipper muttered. “This is the first place that comes to mind.”

The young Skipper paused for breath, hanging onto the branches of a nearby tree to stop his trembling knees from sending him down to the ground. With shaking hands, he tried to scratch the blood off his face, but to no avail. If anything, he only managed to inflict further cuts and scratches.

He opened his mouth and spoke to himself in a quiet voice: “T-To attain glory is… fulfill duties and responsibilities … responsibility is the proof of being human. S-Someone who… argh…”

Hamashtiel cocked his head in the manner of a dog. “The pledge of the Supreme Guard?”

“The Supreme Guard?” Dragan asked, looking between the two Skippers. The name rang familiar, but he’d never been too interested in the minutia of Supremacy history.

“The precursor to the Contenders,” Hamashtiel explained. “They guarded the Supreme before the current one -- they were replaced a short time into the present reign. If I’m not mistaken, though, Skipper, they would have been far before your time. Why were you reciting their pledge here?”

Skipper cast him a glare. “Spoilers. Shut up and watch.”

It was undeniable that Skipper was agitated. He was shifting against the surface of the digital tree, the scowl on his face twitching every few seconds, his glare focused more on his younger self than anyone else here. As he crossed his arms, he was squeezing them with such intensity that his organic fingers had turned white.

The soft sound of rainfall echoed through the muddy bog, passing right through the observers but drenching the young Skipper’s hair. With a grunt of effort, the memory pushed himself away from the tree, and resumed his trek through the marsh --

Another place, another time, shifted in an instant. Before Dragan could even realize he was moving, he’d found himself in a warmly lit training room, wooden weapons set in racks along the wall. One wall was open to a garden, where rows upon rows of plants were meticulously laid out in rectangular pots.

Children in training uniforms -- aged maybe ten or eleven -- sat cross-legged upon the wooden floor, watching in mild interest at the scene before them. Click. Clack. Training weapons struck against each other relentlessly.

At first, Dragan thought he was witnessing some glitch in the program -- the blur in front of him was incomprehensible, after all -- but a moment later he realized it was simply the result of godlike movement. Two figures, one tiny and one huge, dancing around each other with wooden swords in hand. Each strike sent out air pressure sufficient to blow back the hair of the spectators -- including Dragan, who was forced to put a hand to his forehead to get a steady view.

The larger figure was colossal, nearly seven feet tall, and the training weapon he was swinging was nearly just as big -- even if it was wooden, the speed and strength he was using would have been sufficient to kill. It was hard to tell from the speed exactly how old the massive man was, but the blur of white hair that moved with him suggested he was at least in advanced years. The smaller figure, on the other hand, was probably a child judging by the size -- and from the shock of black hair on his head, Dragan had a good idea who it probably was.

Even with the size difference, the child was doing well, all things considered. For a moment, Dragan saw the small figure run along the surface of his enemy’s sword to reach his neck -- only for a lightning-fast strike to send him sprawling down to the ground.

The youthful face of the child Skipper looked up from the floor, wincing in discomfort -- only to stiffen when the point of the wooden greatsword was pressed against his throat.

“Sloppy, Zachariah,” rumbled the older man, looking down at the boy. "You already know my speed is superior -- you shouldn't rely on a swift attack on your end."

Dragan turned to look at the present Skipper, who was lingering on the boundary between the training room and the garden. His eyes were narrowed, his face downcast -- like he'd just been punched in the stomach.

"Zachariah?" Dragan asked, stepping forward. "What, is that your real name?"

"Skipper's my name," Skipper snapped back with surprising ferocity.

"Oh, uh," Dragan muttered. "Sorry."

"It's what I call myself in my head."

Surprised by the aggression, Dragan quickly nodded. "I'm sorry. Didn't mean to be rude."

Back on the floor, the young Skipper was picking himself up off the floor. He rubbed the back of his head where he’d fallen onto the hard floor as he looked up at the teacher. His wooden sword clattered as he let go of it.

“We’ve been doing this for three hours now, Pa,” he muttered. “I was getting tired.”

“Bored, more like,” called out one of the other watching children. “Zack’s a slacker, Achilles.”

A raven, perched atop one of the training weapons, opened its beak -- and Hamashtiel's bemused voice poured out. "'Achilles', eh? That face, and that stature… could he be…?"

The present Skipper nodded. "Achilles Esmeralda. The executioner of the Supremacy. Legendary, back in the day.” His face fell a bit further. “He was my old man. Adoptive.”

“You should not have been this young back then…” Hamashtiel mused. “Considering Achilles’ active period, and the age you are in this scenario, there’s a significant timeline discrepancy…”

“Like I said,” muttered Skipper. “Spoilers."

Before their eyes, the world melted away once again -- and when it coalesced once more, the light that shone into that same room was that of the moon. The young Skipper and Achilles Esmeralda were sitting side-by-side on the training mat, looking out at the darkness of the garden.

"Laziness is not something that you are, Zachariah," Achilles said, fist on his chin. "It is something that you allow. Something that you succumb to. The shadow of impatience."

"I don't know what that means," the young Skipper mumbled, staring out at the night. "Basically, I'm lazy, yeah?"

"We had been fighting for some time, and you grew tired of the struggle, and so attempted to end it quickly. That was your downfall. The long fight, the persistent struggle, it exhausts you."

The young Skipper pouted. "So you brought me out here just to scold me?"

"No," Achilles shook his head. "That impatience is your strength as well, Zachariah. You understand the merits of decisiveness."

The kid rolled his eyes. “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

Achilles slapped the boy across the back of his head so quickly that Dragan couldn’t even see it. The young Skipper slouched forwards, rubbing the back of his skull, as Achilles crossed his arms brusquely. “False modesty is disgusting,” he said harshly. “Don’t let me see it again.”

Dragan clicked his tongue. “Legend or not, the guy seems like an asshole.”

Skipper shrugged. “Hey, he’s not so bad.”

“Not so good, either.”

“Who is?”

Dragan shrugged, turning back to the memorial diorama before him. Achilles had now put a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder -- well, more like on his back, given the size difference between the two of them.

"You alone must never underestimate yourself," he said softly. "The world can think you tiny by all means, but you must never think that of yourself."

"I guess," the kid sullenly shrugged.

"You act as though you don't understand, but you do," Achilles smirked wryly. "That is good. You're already putting it into practice. That's why I'm going to recommend you."

The little Skipper looked up, the faux-defiance melting off his face. He cocked his head. "Recommend me? For what?"

"I love my other children, Zachariah," Achilles grunted, standing up. "But they are not worthy of my respect. You, I love and respect. The Supreme Guard have asked me to recommend a young soldier that can be molded into one of the Supreme's hundred hands. I think you would perform well there."

The young Skipper scrambled to his feet too -- slipping on the slick floor once, but quickly regained his balance. He looked up at his adoptive father.

"Seriously?" he said, grinning. "You're not joking?"

Achilles frowned. "You know I don't speak without meaning, boy. If this recommendation is something you wish to accept, tell me now. A ship can arrive within the week to take you for standardized training. Do you accept?"

Dragan was so focused on the scene before him that, at first, he didn't hear it. It was only when he looked from the silent young Skipper to the silent older one that he noticed. The older man was silently mouthing words, his pupils dilated, glaring directly at his younger self.

Say no, the man was whispering. Goddamnit. Say no.

"Yes!" the boy cried in excitement, grinning from ear to ear. "Yes, of course!"

And then, like a curtain falling, the entire world went black.

Dragan heard Skipper's sigh in the darkness, and then, delivered with all the hoarse dread of foresight:

"Fair warning: here's where things get rough."