“Toni, darling! And the big hero along as well.” Caesia said.

Antonias brought her into a hug. I reached out to shake her hand but was pulled into a hug as well. She squeezed my butt.

“Hm, has someone been working out on the sly?” Caesia said, teasing.

I went red at her touch and stammered something about a training program. Gladiatorial fights were certainly a full body workout for my Foundation.

“So, who’s choosing the music?” I said, trying not to let a negative expression show on my face. It was godsawful.

Caesia brightened, “I did! Isn’t it great! It’s the newest from an Artisan group on Iulia. It’s not even supposed to be released yet, but I got an early copy from some friends.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I really like it.” I lied.

Caesia took me by the arm and led me to a group of people.

“These are Aemilia, Cornelias, Artoria, Fabias and Florias. Good friends of mine.” Caesia said.

Aemilia had long white hair that had been braided. She smiled nervously at me. Cornelias had shaved the sides of his head while Florias had buzzed his to the scalp. Artoria had blue hair and seemed the most confident of the group, neutrally meeting my gaze and Fabias was a bit shorter than the others, even the girls.

Artoria held out a plastic stick to me. Some kind of electric cigarette, I supposed.

I put up a hand. “No thanks. I’m not a nicotine person.”

She smiled and laughed. “It’s not nic. It’s Moonshadow.”

“I don’t know what that is.” I said. “But I’m okay without it. Thank you for offering.”

“Moonshadow is good, gives you a good head rush. Trust me, it’ll be fun.” Artoria promised.

“I’m good. Again, thank you.” I said.

Antonias groaned and took the device and took a long drag. He held for a time and then exhaled silver smoke out of his lungs that sparkled and gleamed.

“Do you do anything at all?” Fabias asked me, looking both fascinated and horrified at the thought of being perpetually sober.

“I’m dedicated to advancing.” I said in way of answer.

Fabias shook his head in wonder. “A genuine ascetic. I didn’t know they made you boring bastards anymore. The gods or the genelabs, that is.”

“Don’t you want to advance?” I asked him. “You know you’re hurting your Foundation with hedonism, right?”

Fabias rolled his eyes. “And what will you do when you reach Bronze?”

“Work on reaching Silver.” I replied.

“And when you reach such heights, what will you do with your time?” He said.

I said the most obvious answer. “Aim for Gold.”

The rest of them looked like I had said I was going to challenge the Skyfather for his throne.

“That’s… a lofty goal.” Caesia said.

“Hubris isn’t a virtue.” Artoria said, her worried eyes never leaving mine.

Antonias looked like he had just had something finally fall into place and he studied me with intensity, searching my face for answers.

Fabias laughed shakily. “Okay… let’s say you actually reach the absolute pinnacle of the human form and spirit as an Imperator, a feat that so few Imperators have reached over fourteen thousand years that I can count them on my fingers, what will you do then? What will you do with all that power and fame and authority?”

That caught me. What would I do when my Path had ended. “Keep training,” I decided. “Never let my Foundation fall into disrepair.”

Fabias sighed. “But besides that. That’s retaining your power, how will you use your power? What do you want?”

Mercy isn’t a virtue. I heard those words in my head again, the words that when I spoke them at the right time heralded thunder in the skies.

“Justice. I will bring justice to the nine systems.” I said.

Fabias began to look frustrated. “What will you do with your free time, the parts of your life that do not have to do with duty or honor or advancement?” He looked ready to shake me.

“I don’t know.” I said, a little hollowly. Should I have something more human left inside me? More depth? Was I just an empty husk that knew only to progress?

“Well, I’ll tell you what most men who gain high positions of power do with said authority. They sleep with beautiful Hetairas, and drink fine wines, and do strong drugs, and buy nice things. When they reach the limits of their advancement, they decide to experience the world.” Fabias said.

He spread open his arms and looked around. “What the hell do you think we’re doing?”

“Okay. I see what you’re saying.” I said. “Why does that mean you can’t advance and then engage in pleasure?”

“Because most people like you spend most of their lives being empty, boring people crushing miniscule rebel uprisings against the Dominium with minor gains in progression and they die without reaching a superior rank. Why waste your life in pursuit of being at slightly higher Rank when you can do what a Gold does when they realize power lust and training isn’t enough to sate or interest them anymore?” Fabias said.

I was at a loss for words.

Antonias cut in for me, placing an arm around my shoulder. “My savior has strict parents. Don’t worry, he’ll adapt.”

“I’m just… uncertain of things. I’m sorry if I brought the mood down.” I said, I took the smoker and took a long drag and then passed it back.

“Hey, you! Hetaira!” Cornelias called to a topless Courtesan server. She came over.

“Fix us all drinks,” He eyed me and gripped my shoulder. “Give my good friend Adrias a shining good one.”

She nodded and walked away and returned a short time later. She thrust my drink out to me first and allowed the others to pick as they chose from the platter.

“What’s different about mine?” I asked.

“Oh, yours just has a slightly different flavor profile.” Cornelias said.

I took a sip. To my enhance senses, it tasted slightly bitter. It would be unnoticeable to someone of lesser Rank and Path.

Antonias began to look uncomfortable, he opened his mouth as if to say something, but Artoria kicked him in the leg.

“I don’t know if I like the taste.” I said. I didn’t want to feel left out though. “I’ll order another one when one of the Hetairas comes near us.”

Cornelias began to look embarrassed. “Adrias… I have a confession to make.”

“Yeah?” I said. I didn’t really know what he had to confess to me, I had only known him a short while.

“A shining good one is codeword for a drink with extra alcohol.” Cornelias said sheepishly.

“Oh? I can’t really taste a strong amount, I’m just getting a weird bitter taste.” I said.

“That’s meant to cover up the extra alcohol. I wanted to let you drink it and then tell you about it afterwards to make you feel more like one of us, but you don’t have to now…” Cornelias said.

“No, I’ll drink it.” I said, throwing the drink back and ignoring the off taste.

“Attaboy!” Cornelias said.

“How much?” Antonias said suddenly. “Cor, how much?”

“Enough.” He muttered in return.

I was confused but let the others talk on for a while when something hit me like a sledgehammer.

My head swam and I leaned against a wall. I ground my teeth together compulsively and felt a shiver run through my body. I closed my eyes but I saw tracers of light raking across my vision. There was something wrong with me. My heart beat strangely, skipping beats and then racing and pounding. The inside of my skin itched. It started almost painful and then grew to an almost orgasmic full body pleasure.

The drink. A bitter taste in the drink.

“What did you do to me? What did you have her put in my drink?” I laughed, my emotions a storm, a complete mixture of ecstatic hilarity from the drug and burning, furious rage at having been drugged from my more rational parts of my brain.

“It’s called Shine. And you’re welcome.” Cornelias said.

I stared at him in awe of his arrogance and hubristic stupidity. Then I stepped forward and punched him, whipping his head to the side and then put my left hand’s open palm into his chest and sent him through a wall.

I looked down at my hands. They were buzzing, vibrating at high speeds. I couldn’t tell if the shaking tremors were from a physical interaction of the drug with my superhuman nerves and muscles in my hands and arms, or if my vision and visual processing was being interfered with causing me to hallucinate. I was certainly hallucinating some things though. For one, the Imperator teenagers around me didn’t have violet purple skin and Copper hair nor did the Hetaira servers have pink skin.

I started laughing uncontrollably in a fit of pleasure and unrestrained nervousness. It felt like there were fingers tapping on my body, playing it like a piano, and each note arrested my heart for an instant. A manic smile was on my lips and my fingers twitched and spasmed. I bounced from side to side, to an unheard rhythm only I could sense. Sweat poured from me, the heat coming from my body kept increasing and increasing. I couldn’t tell whether the sweat evaporating in the Heliosian burn of my body was an illusion or not.

“Does it matter?” I asked myself.

Then Cornelias was flying at me and I kicked him back. He came at me again, his face awash with a bruised pride.

“I’ll kill you!” Cornelias cried out. His words warped into the sounds of Muses singing. The light sources in the house turned rainbow colors and seemed to sweep around the room like searching spotlights.

I blinked and I saw dancing, warping splashes of color like when you press your palms into your eyes too hard. I opened my eyelids just in time to see him coming again. His face seemed strangely childlike to me, even though we were likely the same age or within a year or so, plus or minus that year. I grabbed him by the throat with my right hand and he thrashed in my grip. He swung his right at my face, and I caught it with my left hand and I broke his wrist. He howled and thrashed some more, and I whipped my head back and then forward into his face, crunching his nose and splashing blood on my face.

Unfortunately, breaking the boy’s nose did the opposite of what I had intended, which was to shut him up. He started screaming like a banshee. The sound was discordant and uncomfortable, the opposite of the kind of sensation the drug swimming in my blood and brain demanded. I covered his squealing mouth but he struggled and bit my hand. I swore and brought him up and then down on my knee, breaking his back. I then let him slide to the floor.

We had drawn quite a crowd huddled around us, drawn by the crash and noise. The music still played obnoxiously loud but on this Shine stuff… well, I must admit the garbage young Imperators thought was music seemed now inspired by the Muses themselves to my perceptions.

“I’ve fought Servi who are better fighters than you.” I told Cornelias’s broken body. It was the truth. My… brother, my sworn brother in battle, Velias, would destroy this boy. Would conquer him even though one had been born a Slave and the other an Emperor. Cornelias was still alive, his Imperator body would keep his vitals level and heal his wounds, even if he had weakened and damaged his Foundation with excess gluttony, drug use, and sloth and lack of training.

I could feel the silence of the Imperators around me that my words had caused like a cloud sliding between the sun and a world’s surface. A cold, almost painful feeling to my Shine-addled senses. I laughed, more to cover up the emptiness and the sensation of their attention upon me like needles in my skin.

“I thought Shine was supposed to make you friendlier…” A girl I didn’t know said. Clearly she knew what substance I was on somehow. Perhaps someone had told her or perhaps it had been planned ahead of time as a prank or some kind of welcoming present from a disturbed mind. Or perhaps Shining was just an easily recognizable high to witness.

“Gods…” I said with a dry throat. Yes, gods, I was damn thirsty.

I found a cup of wine and downed it. I felt like lightning had struck me and I destroyed the glass cup in my hands in an instant. Music was good with Shine, but food, food was downright heavenly. I tore a glass out of one of the onlookers and siphoned it down. It tasted like Ambrosia, the honey of the gods on Heaven’s Peak.

I had lost control. And I didn’t care at all.

I grabbed a worried Caesia.

“Food.” I said, grabbing her face and bringing her close.

“Food,” she repeated.

She called for Hetairas. “Bring food! Lots of it. Bring a table in here.”

I laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Caesia said.

“I know why they call it Shine.” I said in a singsong, drunken voice.

“Why?” Caesia asked.

“Because it makes you feel like sunshine!” I leaned in and kissed her. She stumbled back, holding her fingers to her lips. My own lips buzzed like bees. I kind of liked the feeling.