“C’mon conqueror, one-two! One-two!”

Alexander clumsily hacked at the air. The edge twittered hesitantly, overcorrecting itself mid-swing. It wouldn’t hack through a twig right. Or what about something alive? Like an orc—or worse: a human—it’d easily be deflected, and God knew what’d happen afterwards. That was the most frustrating part: he could do so much better. Yet dark fantasies assailed him: the shadows of a savage bastard, the hiss of murder, the scream of steel.

The fear brought him back when he was nine or ten, when Dad spontaneously decided, on one Saturday, that it’d be the Saturday where Alexander would start his boxing journey. Once upon a time, Dad’s life was the ring, and he wanted to share that with his son. At first, Alexander was apprehensive. Hitting someone, hurting someone was unimaginable. Especially Dad. That’d be the first lesson then: punching the fear away. They pounded glove against glove until the boy had smashed through his uncertainties, and with it gave rise to a newfound confidence in himself and his own body.

Here Alexander was, sent back to a child’s mind, swinging an unfaithful sword at the crack of dawn, having slept through a long screaming night, and wished he’d returned to Massachusetts, to the States, where all he had to worry about were high school things. As a measly F-Rank Pseudo, there was no hope for him.

“Alex,” Dad said with a hint of concern in his voice. What a joke. Him, sounding concerned. After he had suicidally fought an entire band of orcs and won. After he had returned trembling, blood-soaked, and Mom washed him wondering which of the blood was his. After he had brought his son outside to train with a dull edge, while he used one as a cane.

Alexander was simultaneously revolted and guilty, both mostly at himself. “It’s not like punching,” he admitted while staring at the taunting edge. It spoke to him in a language all humans knew: mortality. “I thought it’d be easier after watching you, but I don’t get it.”

“What don’t you get?” Dad asked. He inched closer and so did his sword. Swords were meant to kill. Hands, they could do that but people feared a blade more than fingers, in most circumstances. Swords spoke more than fists because its edge danced in sunlight. Oftentimes, if you listened closely, you heard whispers. Of death, of tragedy, all things Alexander thought of. His family dead and broken, and he’d never know the taste of freedom again.

Alexander sputtered uselessly, trying to get a word out but spit had instead. His sword-arm dangled, flopped, the tip scraping grass, not cutting a single one of course. “I don’t know,” he managed. A scream rang coldly in the distance, in the east, and he stared at its general direction. A life had been taken.

Dad stepped forward. “Alex, what don’t you get?”

Alexander shrugged and lazily gestured with his shoulders. Everything was the problem and he wanted to scream, but that’d be weak. Dad never screamed once, not out of fear. “I dunno,” he answered, the best he got.

“Alex, what don’t you get?” Dad asked again, insisting. He had the kindest eyes and the most comforting voice, genuinely concerned as a good father should.

“I don’t know.” Alexander hated that. How could he act like that after what he put Mom through? She was terrified seeing her husband fight. She wanted him to stop but knew he couldn’t. He was a heartless bastard but Alexander couldn’t bring himself to hate him.

“Look at me.” Dad motioned but he refused. Alexander stared at the grass, wishing he swayed as dead as them. “C’mon conqueror, look at me—“

“Don’t call me that.” Alexander hated that nickname. He hated it and hated it because everything! everything in the world seemed to beat him over the head with his own inadequacies: the screaming and the blood and the murder, he was sick of it all and wished the world would end and no one would have to feel any pain!

“What don’t you know?” Dad said. Alexander’s lips tightened, curled in, and he shook his head until his neck felt sore. “Alex, what don’t you know—?”

“I don’t know—I don’t know—I don’t know, goddammit!” suddenly the words were ripped from him. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on! I don’t know! I thought we were celebrating my birthday but then this happened and we were chased by orcs and people died and I keep hearing helicopters and—and!” He choked up, stuck once more.

Dad leaned forward, letting his shadow surround Alexander in a protecting dark. He clasped his son’s head and pressed his own against it. He whispered something. Something comforting as though to deny reality. No, in spite of reality. “Listen to me, Alex,” Dad’s words came through. “Listen to me, I know—”

Alexander shook his head again, and again, resisting no matter what. He had to win this time. He had to. “What do you know? What do you know, Dad?”

He chuckled. He didn’t mock. “I know that it’s scary, Alex. It’s terrifying. Not just for you. For all of us. For me—“

“No,” Alexander muttered. He gulped in disbelief. “No, you’re not. You’re not scared—“

“Don’t kid yourself. I’m so scared that it’s humiliating, it’s paralyzing. Do you know how paralyzed I am?”

He didn’t answer.

“It’s the same feeling when I first met your mother and she struck me. Once with her eyes, twice with her smile, thrice with her laugh. It was the first time someone had made me feel truly vulnerable.”

“Dad…”

“It’s the same feeling when we stayed in the hospital for a week, and I held her hand while she was in bed and in pain, and we watched crappy TV with all the canned laughter and the dry acting. It’s the same feeling when the week ended, and I held your hand and listened to you cry for the first time.

“It’s the same feeling when I come back home after a normal day, and little Althea ran to me and I lifted her up and we hugged at the doorway, and I didn’t need to ask why. They’re two sides of the same coin, Alex. Love and fear.

“There’s a thin line separating the two. Our legs shiver, our hearts race, our minds fire off a million thoughts, and the only difference is the ‘how’. Do you understand why we named you ‘Alexander’?”

Alexander sniffled, nodding. “Alexander the Great.”

Dad smiled. It was no ordinary smile. It was the smile of a prideful father, who was so proud of his son. “That’s right. We wanted a western name for you, and what’s better than the greatest conqueror in known history? By giving you that name, you will have Alexander the Great’s power! You can have his strength!

“It’s okay to panic, because you’ll know you’re breathing. It’s okay to cry, because you’ll know you’re hurt. It’s okay to fall, because you’ll know you’re tired. It’s okay to be afraid, Alexander, because you’ll know you have love. And at the end, it’ll be okay to smile because you’ll know that nothing had left, and everything is right.

“Do you know why I say this? We’re completely obsessed with seeking validation from others. Everyday, we carve pieces of ourselves to others. They’re small initially, like first impressions. Then they get bigger: hobbies and inspirations and ambitions, and we continue to cut away at what we know. Then suddenly, the knife hits a vein. It strikes something that we didn’t know existed. It’s a terrifying feeling, Alex, that you don’t know yourself as much as you should and there’s more of you than you want.

“The average man, he gets terrified realizing this and shuts down. His world was shattered, and unless he finds the strength to gather the pieces, he’ll remain that way.

“But the conqueror? He pushes on. What the knife had discovered was a small branch in a growing tree, and no matter how difficult it might be, he’s determined to find every last inch of himself. That’s

what conquerors are, Alexander: people of themselves. They rule because they themselves are.”

“I’m…” Alexander couldn’t get the words out. Inside was a swirl of incompetence and insecurity brought by the notions of mortality: a failure, useless, a sack of flesh, he was nothing. But he didn’t want to die. What did he do to deserve death?

Cowardice? For simply not knowing how to stand like Dad?

Or be as kind as Mom?

He loved, but he didn’t love enough. He was afraid, and he was too afraid.

“You’re strong,” Dad said.

I don’t want to die. “I’m not…”

“You are strong, Alex.”

I don’t want anyone to die. “I’m not.”

“Look at me.” Alexander did: looking at his strong, strong father. “You are the strongest man I know.”

Alexander didn’t say a word, but if he did, then he would’ve said, How?

And Dad knew. “Because you are a conqueror, and a man who loves so much.”

***

“…”

Alexander wiped his eyes clean, then stared at the canvas ceiling above him. He traced the sewn lines from thread mark to thread mark, counting them like sheep. One lash, two lashes, three. But no matter how many lines were counted, no number could drift him asleep once again.

He sat up. The others slept. Not soundly, but they slept on thin cots. Restlessly, twisting, turning, equally disturbed in their own nightmares and other configurations of memory. Damien and Vernon slept like exiled princes. Althea was mumbling to herself, an arm dangling off the edge. Leona was uneasy too; the quietest of them all. Precisely for that, he knew she was having an awful dream.

“I’m sorry you’re in this mess…” whispered Alexander but no one heard. Their contortions were their response. Seeing as there was nothing else to do, he went outside, lurking to the side of the door. Everything was exactly where he left it. All the military vehicles and equipment and the roaming civilians and Pseudos, people he knew and didn’t, things he recognized and couldn’t. Everyone shared the same pale expression: tonight was shitty.

He hovered there for a while, never bothering to check the time. If he had to guess, maybe ten minutes, maybe more. Though he dreamed it was ten days; by then, Kosmos would’ve defeated the Cosmic Beast and Ordo contained the crisis until it was quenched altogether. But that hope was too good for anyone, even for saints.

Alexander was content staying out here, in the circus of endless victims, until he heard something shuffling in the tent. There was a whisper then footsteps, and he froze, thinking about ducking away. Couldn’t though. Breaking into the night was a face as tired as he was: one Leona Ahn, who rubbed her eyes.

They shared a single look that said many things, although Alexander could only name two off the top of his head: Why are you awake? What are you doing? To answer that, Alexander shrugged and turned to the false night cackling above them. Eyes turned over every counterfeit star, every forged constellation, counting them as the new sheep. Leona did as well, standing beside him, touching shoulder-to-shoulder as if to make sure of him.

How long did they stay like that? Doing nothing but counting the stars who imprisoned them here, casted them down like ants, and sent their henchmen to slaughter every last one of them? God knew, but His existence was uncertain. There was only one God, and for Pereyra and the other Comets, that was Sirius Aethfell, the Lord of Many. The name perturbed Alexander, and Leona seemed to notice. The name melted away, and there came a new one once he felt fingers intertwining with his.

But Sirius Aethfell refused to be forgotten. Alexander painted him inside his mind: incest ugly, fat as cows, had no front teeth and the others were shit-colored, and he couldn’t walk because all that fat ate his bones, so instead he needed to be transported around in a wheelbarrow several times smaller. But Sirius Aethfell refused to be insulted.

His mind painted a picture for Alexander: there, Leona, lying in a pool of her own blood, tormented by the creeping shadows of Sirius Aethfell. What the hell was that name?

“Hey,” suddenly a voice spoke to him, breaking through the daydream with a soft bell-chime. “Talk to me, Alex. What did you dream about?”

Alexander’s neck went lax, and he allowed it to hang low like a hangman’s. But he realized Leona was there, so he picked it up as much as his strength would allow. “I don’t know. Nothing really. Wasn’t thinking about anything either.”

“I didn’t ask what you were thinking about,” she clevered, still in her soft, soft voice. He wished he heard it in better circumstances.

“Doesn’t really matter. Like I said, nothing. It’s nothing important.” His eyes drifted to the tent. “Is Thea doing okay?”

“As best as she could be. After all, she has her big brother now. She has the power of Alexander the Great,” she mused with a small, teasing smile.

“Ha, funny funny. You’re hilarious,” Alexander replied in a dull tone. “What about you? You doing alright?”

Leona didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she pressed her shoulder further into Alexander, her fingers tightening around his, maintaining that smile which progressively grew melancholy. “No. No, I’m not. I had a terrible dream, Alex. My parents were there, Althea was there, you were there. We were somewhere, I don’t know. Some abstract place, or places. I was at home, then at the park, then in class, then with you. My mother was teaching me swordsmanship, my father took me around Angels’, I went shopping with Althea, and I was in your living room, and we were…” She laughed and shook her head. “Well, it doesn’t matter what we were doing, but we were together, and I always love your company.

“Then my mom was gone. Then Dad was gone. I blinked once and that was it; they were gone and I never had a chance to say goodbye. And Althea, I lost her. I was talking about something, I don’t know, but I turned around and she wasn’t there anymore. And you disappeared, Alex. Right in your own home. I kept calling for you, kept shouting for you, and you left me. After that, I woke up and saw an empty cot.

“Do you remember what you said to me before Carn saved us from the Wolva?”

He didn’t answer.

“I thought that nightmare was real. I thought…” Leona laughed, trying her best to push through. “I thought I lost you. It took me some time to realize it was all a horrible nightmare. Seeing you right now, it means everything. It genuinely means everything to me.”

“Leo—”

Leona pulled him closer, and they shared a space that they had created in the world. And she had a look that deeply sorrowed him. “Thank you, Alex, for staying.”

The image of her laying in blood haunted him still, but despite his trepediations, he casted them temporarily for this moment and stayed there. After all, she needed it, and he wouldn’t do something so callous. He made that promise long ago, when Leona was illuminated by sundust, and swore to keep her laughing. Remembering that moment, Alexander promised, “I’m not planning on leaving. How can I when you look so pathetic?”

“Ha.” Leona rested her head against his chest. “Don’t bully me so much…”

Alexander held her. “Hey Leo.”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you. For being patient with me.”

Leona buried her head deeper, smiling.

~~~

If you break that promise, Alex, then we’ll never forgive you. Althea was long awake listening to their gentle conversation; somehow, their voices were emphasized through the late night rustle-bustle of Ordo University. She empathized with them. She felt for them. The thought of being alone, the fear, she felt them all and each to their own extents.

It was there Althea wondered about the world stage and the all too commonplace incompetence that plagued the common people. Hangzhou was no different. They never established an Outbreak Barrier, the police were useless against the monsters, the Slayers were pulled from every direction with orders so conflicting that they might as well do nothing and things miraculously got better, and relief came too little too late.

She thought about the Otherguards, the other half of the Slayers, and imagined warriors like Gadabout who refused to remain idle. Yet they had the Cosmic Beasts and were most likely leashed by their superiors, the bureaucrats, awfully enough. They had a job to do and protocols stopped them. That was frustrating.

Althea sighed, raising a hand. Once, this hand was covered in blood. It was an awful sensation, having another human’s blood coating your skin. She remembered throwing up. She remembered screaming. Traumatizing things, where it didn’t nearly plague her as it did back then, with Uncle Ali and High Home.

Do I wanna fight with you, Alex? she asked herself, then clenched her hand. I need to. This is my revenge for Hangzhou.