Over time, the planet Home had been many things to many people.

Once, it had been the birthplace of humanity, the spawning ground from which they flooded over the galaxy.

Once, it had been the center of the universe, a utopia of plenty, a world made perfect.

Once, it had been a cautionary tale, a stain to be pointed at to teach discretion and humility.

Once, it had been a penal colony, a place to throw away the people nobody wanted to know about anymore.

Once, it had been nearly nothing -- a historical footnote, barely a curiosity.

To the Pugnant tribes that now resided on it, though, that now walked its surface -- it was just as the name said. Home. Even if it wasn't much to look at.

In the middle of a wasteland -- a wasteland that had once been a megacity -- was a small village, nestled between the tips of skyscrapers that protruded from the sands. It was a scrapyard settlement, all recycled metal and desperately repurposed machinery, a patchwork approximation of civilization.

Smoke rose from the chimneys of dozens of rusted huts, arranged outside the massive well that had brought them together. Water was a precious thing on Home, after all. The fact that this well was able to tap into the great hydration machines below was enough to bring people from far and wide.

On that day, a line of people stretched on before the well's operator, a burly-looking man who pushed the wheel to keep the machine operating. The people of the village, as a rule, were thin and hardy, forged for survival by the planet they were born to. Their clothes, purchased from reluctant traders and passed down through families, were eclectic and antique, looking like they'd already been outdated decades ago. From each and every person waiting for their water ration, golden Pugnant eyes glinted in the sunlight. Anyone who wasn't a Pugnant would have trouble surviving in such an unforgiving landscape, after all.

Atop the well, laid out on the metal, rested a young girl with fluffy white hair. A scarf was pulled up over her mouth, and the red hoodie and black shorts she wore seemed like they'd been stitched back together half-a-dozen times. Everything on Home was destroyed and recreated, again and again and again. That was the rule.

Nothing survived for long -- at least, not in its original form.

Not even sleep, it seemed. The girl's ear twitched as she heard footsteps quickly approaching, and her golden eyes fluttered open. She was supposed to be keeping watch for trouble here at the well, but there was always trouble somewhere else to watch for too. Such was life.

The young woman who'd come running, a redhead in a faded plaid dress, put her hands to her mouth as she called up. Yura, she was called. Recently a mother, she helped out with the repair crews in the sparse free time she got.

"Ellie!" she cried. "Ellie! You there, sweet?"

Ellie leaned over the side of the well, her gaze annoyed. "What?" she replied, stifling a yawn.

Yura pointed a stiff, wind-weathered finger in the direction of the village gates. "The Odrinson boys," she said by way of explanation, smiling apologetically. "They're causing trouble again. Could you…?"

Ellie sighed as she flipped off the top of the well, landing with the grace of a gymnast on the sand below. As she adjusted the scarf that covered her mouth, she glanced over to Yura and finished the sentence: "...beat them up?"

Yura winced. "Well, maybe just teach them a lesson."

Beat them up, then. Ellie lowered her body to the ground and -- with a crack of red Aether -- kicked off the ground. To tell the truth, she wasn't that worried about the Odrinson brothers. They were new arrivals to Hepa Village, and not particularly strong.

No… the one she was worried about was that idiot.

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Tor Odrinson grinned to himself with sharp fangs as he delivered a vicious kick to the boy lying on the ground. Offensive white Aether sparked around Tor's foot, and defensive blue Aether surrounded his victim's body, but neither was in any great amount. This was torment, not murder, after all.

"You got something stuck in your ears, idiot?" Tor sneered down at the boy. "I said let go of it!"

Tor's victim was curled into a ball, holding on with all his might to the book he clutched in his hands. Tor didn't know what the book was, exactly, but that didn't matter -- merchants paid good for shit like that. He'd hand it over the next time one swung around and make a splendid stator.

"Hey!" Lou, Tor's brother, barked as he gave the boy a kick of his own. "Didn't you hear, dumbass? He said let go!"

If nothing else, Tor had to give it to the little squirt -- he didn't give up easy.

The kid was a few years younger than the Odrinson brothers, maybe ten or eleven, yet the painful blows that rained down on him didn't seem to be lessening his willpower any. His long brown hair -- tied back into a ponytail -- was crusted red from blood, and his Pugnant eyes were squeezed shut in fright, but he showed no signs of giving up.

Ugh. Fine. Tor hadn't wanted to be an asshole about it, but… He crouched down, seizing the boy's hands and squeezing tight. For the first time in a while, the kid opened his eyes -- clearly anticipating what Tor was going to say.

"I'm bein' serious now, kid," Tor said seriously. "Let go of it, or I'm breaking your fuckin' fingers."

The boy squinted at Tor -- his glasses lay broken in the dirt -- and even then, even then, shook his head. "N-No…" he said weakly. "It's mine… I-I found it, so…"

With a sigh -- it was summer today, and he would really rather be at home -- Tor began twisting the boy's fingers. The scream of pain the kid let out probably would have caused an ordinary person to stop, or at least hesitate. Not on Home. Here, you learnt to ignore those kinds of impulses.

Tor twisted, and twisted, and there, right at the threshold, he --

"Stop!"

The cry, originating from above, echoed over the landscape. Tor looked up, and his brother Lou followed his gaze. When he saw the source, Tor did stop -- but only because he'd found something new to amuse himself with. As he rose to his feet, he let go of the boy's fingers, throwing him back down to the ground.

Scratching his head, Tor grinned up at the new arrival. "And who the hell are you supposed to be?"

The boy was around Tor's age, fourteen or so. He was standing atop a nearby hill, fists planted against his hips, legs spread wide like he was some kind of comic book hero. A yellow cape -- more like a handkerchief, really -- waved from his shoulders, matching the golden hair that stuck out in every direction. Dull blue eyes glared down righteously at the Odrinson brothers, undeterred by their obvious amusement.

Dull blue eyes -- not even a Cogitant. Tor's sly grin stretched out further: he might actually know this guy already. He'd heard rumors since arriving at this village, after all. People liked to talk about their local idiots.

This was the throwback, wasn't it? The Crownless who'd been born to Pugnant parents. The weakling.

"Let him go!" the boy pointed his finger at Tor. "Don't mess with my friends!"

Tor exchanged an amused glance with his brother Lou -- and then stamped down on the kid's hand, grinding it under his heel. Ignoring the whimpers of his victim, he called up to the throwback. "You ain't a good listener, are ya? I asked who the hell you think you are."

The throwback's nostrils flared in righteous anger for a moment, but a wide grin spread across his face all the same. He slammed his thumb into his chest as he stood proud before the three of them.

"The name's Kadmon!" he declared triumphantly. "And I'm the man who's gonna be Supreme!"

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To summarize things, they beat the shit out of him.

Kadmon was laid out on the floor, broken and bruised, when the boy he'd defended -- little Adran -- scurried over, book clutched against his chest. He'd earned himself a few bruises, too, but nothing compared to Kadmon. Adran smiled meekly as he looked down at his fallen protector.

"Thanks, um, Kad," he said gently. "They were so busy with you, I guess they forgot about me, huh?"

An ordinary person would have been humiliated by the beating he'd just endured. Kadmon just wiped the blood from his nose, grinned again, and forced himself up into a sitting position. With no trace of weariness to him, he offered the younger boy a hearty thumbs up.

"No problem!" he said cheerfully. "You can't let jerks like that get away with stuff, right?"

She'd heard enough. Ellie dropped down from a nearby heater-tower as a shadow, barely visible against the haze of the sun, and spoke up.

"If that was you stopping them," she said simply. "I'd hate to see them getting away with it."

Kadmon crossed his legs as he scooted around in the dirt to face the new arrival, scratching at his ear like a puppy. "The effort's the important part, though. You keep on trying and eventually you'll win. Now they know people will stand up to them."

Ellie sighed as she stopped in front of the two of them, tossing her white hair over her shoulder.

"I was hoping you'd have learnt your lesson from getting your butt kicked," she said. "But I guess not."

If anything, Kadmon's grin broadened. "What are you talking about? I nearly had them!"

Ellie's eyelid twitched. "You didn't. You didn't even manage to hit them. Y, you're such an idiot."

Adran took a step back, his eyes flicking between his two elders. "T-Thanks for helping me, Kad," he offered meekly. "Sorry if I, um, got you in trouble with your girlfriend."

Kadmon blinked. "She's not my --"

"He's not my boyfriend!" Ellie cut him off, her cheeks a furious red. With one hand, she pulled her scarf up higher to hide her face, the other hand balled into a tense fist at her side.

Adran looked up at her, still clinging on to his book, and for a second he looked as if he might say something else -- an apology or something. In the end, though, caution won out, and the only thing he said was:

"Oh."

With that, he was off, leaving the two of them alone in the dusty street. Ellie sighed again, looking down at the Crownless boy.

"You know you really couldn't have won, right? That there was absolutely no way? They have it, and you don't."

At that, for the first time, Kadmon's smile wavered just a bit. She'd hit home there.

It was undeniable -- Kadmon was lacking. Everyone else in this village, damn near everyone else on this planet, had something he did not. It was something that put him below all of them.

Among the people of this planet, Kadmon alone could not use Aether.

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Kadmon's parents had passed away years ago from one of the wild plagues that roamed the surface of Home, back when the village had been somewhere else entirely. That old place was uninhabitable now, just like most of the planet. Since then, Kadmon had been in the care of the community as a whole.

It wasn't so bad. Kadmon tapped in the key code for his house -- a repurposed troop carrier from one of the old pirate invasions -- and stepped inside, ducking under a loose bar of metal he'd never quite worked out the purpose of. Ellie followed after him, with much more grace.

"Aren't you hot?" Kadmon called over his shoulder as he maneuvered his way through the accumulated mess. "Wearing a scarf like that today?"

Ellie reflexively brushed her fingers against the scarf in question. "It's meant to be winter tonight," she said defensively. "I'm planning ahead."

Weather on Home was a chaotic beast. Seasons could change at the drop of a hat, heat waves followed by blizzards with only hours separating them. Nobody knew quite why this happened, but the prevailing theory was that it was some kind of ancient weather control mechanism that had gone wrong.

Some people, though, took a more pessimistic view. They said that the planet itself was trying to kill them. That humans weren't welcome here anymore.

Ellie wrinkled her nose as she followed Kadmon through his home. The floor was covered with old bits of machinery, wrappers and boxes. It was like Kadmon had set out to keep hold of every single thing he'd ever owned.

"This is such a mess," she said. "You need to clear this up, you know."

Kadmon shrugged. "It's fine. I know where everything is, anyway. Here we go…"

He reached into a hollow of miscellaneous garbage and pulled out a can of antirads, wrenching it open and popping one of the pills into his mouth. Pugnants had built-in resistance to the kinds of radiation present on places like Home, but Crownless like Kadmon had to medicate themselves.

Even if he held any kind of bitterness about stuff like that, he never showed it. That was part of what made Ellie's heart hurt when she looked at him.

As he was swallowing the pill, Kadmon must have caught Ellie looking at him, and cocked his head. "What's up?" he asked.

Ellie rolled her eyes. "Don't you get embarrassed, accepting charity like that?" He hadn't gone out and gotten those antirads himself, after all. They were given to him by the village.

Kadmon's damn smile returned. "Embarrassed? Why? It makes me really happy!"

Ellie furrowed her brow. "Huh?"

With carefree flexibility, Kadmon let himself fall back onto his bed, arms spread out like a snow angel. "People say mean stuff about me, but then they go and do stuff like this. Actions are more important than words, right? I'm gonna look out for them too when I become Supreme."

"You keep saying that," Ellie said, flopping down onto the bed next to him. "But there's no way. You're not gonna be Supreme."

"You'll see," Kadmon smirked, scratching at his nose. "Maybe I'll surprise you."

For a little while, the two of them just lay there, looking up at the ceiling -- at the flickering light panel that held pride of place there. Outside, the wind had begun to whistle and roar. The winter that Ellie had predicted was well on its way.

"Why would you want to be Supreme, anyway?" Ellie muttered. "Doesn't make any sense to me."

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"What's not to get? The Supreme's the strongest there is."

"Yeah," Ellie rolled over. "But what does being the strongest get you? Does it make you happy? Sounds like a load of trouble to me -- just assholes challenging you for the position."

"Let 'em come!" Kadmon grinned. "When you're the strongest, you decide how things work. What's good and what's bad… I bet you could change the whole shape of this world, if you wanted to."

He was quiet for a second -- and then continued, barely audible.

"I just think… people could stand to be a little less cruel."

Ellie blinked slowly. "...right."

Neither of them said it, but they both knew what he meant. The current Supreme, the one who'd slain Gael the Golden and hunted down the Heroes of Form, was a monster. They said he hosted decadent and depraved banquets aboard the Shesha -- Gael's old throne -- for weeks at a time. There were even rumors that, sometimes, human flesh was served at these feasts -- the remains of the Supreme's enemies.

And the less said about his Heir, the better.

"If your grandpa taught me," Kadmon ventured. "I know I could get strong enough. Won't you at least ask?"

Ellie shook her head. "I already know what he'll say. He won't teach people who don't have Aether."

Home was a place for people who had nowhere else to go -- and that fit Ellie's grandfather perfectly. As a martial artist in the old Supremacy, he'd worked under Gael the Golden and taught several of the Heroes of Form. With that regime gone, however, he was now nothing but inconvenient history -- and inconvenient history had the tendency to disappear these days.

So he'd come here with what remained of his family, hid out in this tiny village. He tutored some of the village's warriors to earn his keep, but for the most part he kept to himself. He wasn't the sort of man who'd give charity to Kadmon.

In reality, Ellie already knew what he'd say because she'd already asked, again and again and again, each time Kadmon insisted. He wasn't someone she could say no to. Her grandfather, on the other hand, was happy to refuse.

Kadmon sighed, long and hard, and then went silent for a long time. When Ellie glanced over to him, worried by the quiet, she saw that he had fallen asleep. Even then, he kept that grin on his face, slackened just a bit. Optimism was his default, after all.

"You idiot…"

Ellie closed her eyes, too -- and soon enough was lulled to sleep by the sound of snowfall.

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The environment of Home was a dangerous and unwelcoming one, but that wasn't where the primary danger came from. So long as you knew what you were doing and came prepared, a person could survive on Home fairly easily, save for the odd cataclysm.

No -- the true danger on Home came from the people.

The bandits hit the main gate of the village about midday, smashing through and brutalizing the young warriors who'd been posted to defend it. The Odrinson brothers lay twitching on the ground as the intrusive entourage sauntered into the settlement, harsh laughter of amusement floating up from their mouths. Their armour was patchwork and their weapons primitive, but these bandits had the advantage in both numbers and viciousness. The ones they'd fought hadn't stood a chance.

Ellie clutched her wounded arm as she lay on one knee, watching the leader of the bandits enter through the mists the day had produced. She'd never met the tall, lanky figure before, but she knew his face -- and his reputation.

The King of Nails. They said he'd attacked a village not too far away a little while ago. They said he'd crucified their warriors and taken the rest of the villagers as slaves. They said he was a demon on the battlefield.

Looking at him now, Ellie could understand that. The King of Nails stood tall, a black long coat trailing behind him as he walked, his unnaturally long fingers twitching and writhing as they tasted the air. Greasy dark hair hung limp around his head, and his scruffy beard looked like he'd attempted to chop it away with a sword at some point. A necklace of his eponymous nails hung around his neck, jingling as he walked, like some distorted decoration.

A sly, slimy smile stretched over his thin lips as he saw the defeated fighters. "I heard there were meant to be strong people around here…" the King of Nails drawled, spittle flying from his lips. "Guess I heard wrong? What d'you think, missie?"

That last part was addressed to Ellie -- and as he spoke, the nails that had struck her arm twisted inside her flesh, forcing a scream of pain from her throat.

"Go… to hell…" Ellie growled.

The King of Nails hummed a vague musical note as he turned his hand back and forth, each movement adjusting the nails further, driving Ellie down to the ground. "Weak," he mused, tapping one foot against the ground rhythmically. "But spirited, hm. To say to someone 'go to hell' when they can actually send you to hell… ooh. Would you like me to send you to hell, little girl? Is that a dream of yours, hm?"

Back and forth, back and forth, the nails turned like slow drills. Sweat poured down Ellie's forehead. The pain was excruciating, but it wasn't more than she could handle -- she wasn't weak like that.

Red Aether crackled around her, and the King of Nails just raised an eyebrow in response -- even as that Aether coalesced into a weapon in Ellie's free hand. A massive chakram, dark crimson, with a single blade running all the way around it.

"Pursuer!" Ellie yelled, hurling the weapon at the King of Nails with all her strength. "Kill him!"

Through countless hours of training with her grandfather, Ellie had created this ability. Pursuer analyzed its target, determined their movement speed, and moved just slightly faster. No matter how fast they ran, or how far, Pursuer would always keep up.

The King of Nails watched, eyebrow still raised, as Pursuer zoomed towards him --

-- and then he simply stopped it with one hand.

The whirring death-wheel ground to a halt, sparks flying from the blade where it tried to penetrate the King of Nail's skin. With that same moist smile on his face, the bandit chief tightened his grip, exerted just a tiny bit more force… and shattered the weapon. Shards of metal collapsed to the ground and dissipated into red Aether.

"Like I said, hm," the King sneered. "You've got spirit. It's not a good survival trait."

With that, he pointed his long pale hand towards Ellie -- and fired a volley of tiny red nails towards her, the projectiles screeching through the air like bullets. With her injuries, there was no way for her to dodge. All Ellie could do was sit there -- eyes closed -- muster as much Aether as she could and…

Thud. Thud thud thud thud thud.

…open those eyes once more.

No nails had struck her, and it was easy to tell why when she looked. Someone had leapt in front of her, arms spread wide, and taken the blows in her place. Nails had been driven deep into their body, into their arms and legs, into their chest. Vivid red blood oozed into the dirt below.

She didn't need to see his face to know who he was.

"You idiot!" she screamed, distraught.

Kadmon, for his part, just looked back at her, his grin painted red. He was shaking, and he was bleeding, and he was hurting -- but he showed no sign of falling to the ground. Here, now, he stood proud.

"Hm," the King of Nails mused, barely surprised. "Spirit is in high supply today. All sorts of low intelligences and discontinued species', ah. Who're you supposed to be, little boy?"

His clothes darkened by sweat and blood, Kadmon turned his head back to the King. That grin widened.

"Kadmon," he forced out through the inevitable pain. "The name's Kadmon. And I'm the man who's gonna be Supreme!"

The bandits gathered behind the King of Nails exploded into mocking laughter, but the King himself just licked his lips -- an amused twinkle in his eyes.

"That's no good, hm, Kadmon," he said, eyes half-lidded. "On this planet, you'd do well to consider me your Supreme. Ah, it's a good survival tactic. Besides…" His eyes narrowed further. "I felt it when I hit you. You don't have Aether, do you?"

Kadmon's grin didn't fade, but it seemed to become just a tad more forced as the laughter intensified around him. The villagers, hiding behind cover, looked on in terror as those two -- the throwback and the King of Nails -- faced off.

The slightest giggle escaped the King's wet lips. "Heh. You don't have the most basic qualification, do you? And you say you're going to be Supreme, hm? I dislike brats with dreams beyond their means. Do you understand me?"

Don't do it, Ellie wanted to beg. Don't take the bait.

She did not say it, because she already knew he'd never listen. With a mighty roar, Kadmon overcame the pain that gripped him and charged towards the King, bloody fist pulled back to punch --

Thud thud thud.

-- until the King, with just a lazy wave of his hand, sent another couple of nails into Kadmon's knee. With a cry of pain, Kadmon fell to the ground at the King of Nail's feet, sprawled out in the dirt. The bandit looked down at him, eyes dull and merciless.

"Eh?" he muttered. "I asked if you understood me and you went and ran over. What were you thinking? Are you stupid?"

Slowly, shaking on the ground, Kadmon looked up at his enemy. He was still smiling. It was bloody, and it was forced, but it was there.

Seeing that, the King of Nail's own smile faded from his face. He glared down at the boy.

"Hey. I'm asking you questions, hm, and you're not answering them. You realise you're worthless, right? That a weakling like you can't become Supreme? Say it."

Don't… Ellie silently shook her head.

Kadmon opened his mouth and spoke.

"I'm the man who's going to become Supreme," he declared again, his voice weak.

The King, hearing that, just closed his eyes and turned his head up towards the sky. Those long fingers writhed, clicking each time they bent the wrong way.

"I see," he said.

Thud.

Another nail drove itself into Kadmon's shoulder, driving him back down into the dirt -- and the King stomped his foot down on the back of the boy's head, grinding his face into the ground.

"Those kinds of ill-considered words irritate me," the King growled. "I'm not happy right now. I came all the way out here and I have to hear someone like you talk nonsense, oh? It's a joke. Recant your words."

Face covered in mud, with a boot pressing down on him, Kadmon shook his head.

Thud. Another nail, this time in his other leg.

"Recant your words," the King demanded, stomping down again. His subordinates had stopped laughing, and now looked to each other, concerned. Everyone could tell they were looking at something… somehow important, somehow vital, even if they couldn't quite put it into words.

"No…" Kadmon gasped, voice muffled.

Thud.

Ellie could hold herself back no longer. "Just do what he says, Kadmon!" she screamed, voice echoing through the silent village. "Don't be an idiot!"

Twitching, Kadmon raised his face once more, just enough for her to see his resolute eyes… and that same bloody grin. It hadn't changed a bit, even with all the pain. It… never would change, would it?

"I'm…" Kadmon gasped. "...the man who's gonna be Supreme, El. There's nothing I can be but an idiot."

Thud.

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"Recant your words," the King of Nails would say.

Kadmon would refuse. Through word or gesture or even just silence, he would refuse. Then the pain would come. A nail in his body, or a vicious blow, or just another stomp. And then…

"Recant your words," the King of Nails would say.

The minutes stretched on, until they became an hour, and still the cycle went unchanged. Kadmon could do nothing but refuse, and the King of Nails could not accept his refusal. They were both of them driven by an indescribable mania.

But as the pain continued, and continued, and continued, Kadmon found that it was becoming distant. It was as if he was watching this happening to his body as an outside observer, like he was watching it on a videograph. It wasn't… real anymore.

Was he dying? He found it difficult to care. He'd rather die than surrender his dreams, after all. Out here on Home, your dreams were all you had. When the blizzards cut through your bones and the sun burnt at your skin, the idea that pain was not forever was enough to make it fade -- if only for a little while.

Besides…

He could hear their quiet murmuring, picture their frightened faces. The villagers. The people he'd known all his life.

These people were his people. These were the people who had kept him alive, who had given him food and water, shelter, a life to be lived. Through their actions they had shown him kindness beyond anything he'd deserved. These were the people who'd opened up the space necessary to dream.

He couldn't let anything else happen to them. Not another drop of blood. Not ever.

Kadmon took a deep breath, filtered through dirt and blood… and for the first time, felt a deep and unconditional love for the people around him. Something within him rose to meet it, like a key and a lock.

The key turned…

…and deep within him, golden Aether roared.

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"I want you to know you forced me to this, hm," the King of Nails scowled, holding his arm out to the side. "I dislike overkill."

There was a mighty flash of grey Aether, and when it cleared the King was holding a new weapon. Another nail, but massive, stretched out and warped to such a degree that it looked more like a jousting lance. He pointed it down, pressing the tip against the back of Kadmon's neck.

"Lost Face," the King named the Aether Armament, his gaze dismissive. "Those it strikes will have their consciousness stretched, hm. The instant it takes for your life to end will feel like an eternity. I hold hell in my hand, boy. Recant your words."

Deep down in the dirt and the muck and the blood and the suffering, Kadmon shook his head once more.

The King sighed, and raised the Lost Face up high.

"As expected," he spat. "Die."

He brought the lance down --

-- but it never made contact.

Kadmon had reached out with his hands and caught the blade. Golden Aether shone like heaven around his hands as he held the weapon in place. Every single person, villager and bandit alike, watched transfixed as Kadmon slowly rose to his feet, with no sign of difficulty at all even as the King struggled against him.

"Wha…" the King spluttered. "What are you…?!"

As he rose back to his full height, Kadmon answered him, now holding back the Lost Face with just one hand. "I'm not a liar," he said. "I've not lied, not once in my life, and I don't ever plan to. When I say I'm going to be the Supreme… it's true. It's going to happen."

Kadmon squeezed his hand into a fist -- and in doing so, shattered the Lost Face. The weapon crumbled into dust and crumbs of metal in Kadmon's grip, and the King of Nails could do nothing but stagger back, spluttering.

"There's…!" he barely managed to get out. "There's no way…!"

Kadmon cast a glare at the King of Nails that could have melted stars. "No way…?" he echoed, voice low, as if the very sounds themselves were ridiculous. "Recant your words."

He pulled his fist back.

There was no time for the King of Nails to dodge, or to fight back, or to even scream. The speed of the punch would not allow that. It was an absolute power. As it struck the King in the face, it glowed with such fierce Aether that Kadmon's entire arm seemed to become a golden beam. There was a sound like an explosion as the blow smashed through every defence the King had and finally, finally… made contact.

There was not enough to call it a corpse.

The wisp of man fluttered to the floor, obliterated, and a second later Kadmon followed -- finally reaching the limits of his stamina as he fell among the crowd of bandits. Horrified by what they'd just witnessed, the comrades of the fallen King looked down at the unconscious body of the boy, until one of them was brave enough to shout:

"Kill him!"

That might have been the end of Kadmon, right there -- if the bandit's head had not suddenly fallen from his shoulders. And then the head of the bandit next to him, and the bandit next to her, and so on and so forth. Within the span of a few seconds, the entire group had fallen to their knees, heads landing in their open hands. A row of corpse sculptures.

Groaning, Kadmon exerted the most effort his body was capable of -- he opened his eyes and, just slightly, turned his head.

There, standing before him, was the sculptor himself. A man Kadmon knew, but had never met before. It was tempting to imagine this was a dream, even. This was the man he'd longed to meet for all this time.

He was old, that was undeniable -- with a hunched back and a droopy white moustache that only just retained traces of the red it had once been. Golden eyes peered down at Kadmon from behind round spectacles. As the old man cleaned his fingers with a handkerchief, Kadmon saw that they were painted red with blood -- the remnants of his work with the bandits.

This was Ellie's grandfather. The man they called Yoten.

As the villagers came out of hiding, looking at Kadmon in awe, Yoten continued to stare down at him appraisingly. Finally, though, he reached down a hand to help him up.

"You want training?" the old man asked.

Kadmon looked mutely at the hand for a moment. It was still stained with blood.

Yoten blinked. "You want training?" he repeated, more insistently.

As if snapping out of a trance, Kadmon nodded, and -- with the very last of his strength -- took the proffered hand.

"Yes!" he cried out earnestly.

Yoten grinned with yellowed teeth. "Then come with me."

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The Supreme opened his eyes, waking from his nap. His eyes were wet. With a hand large enough to hold the world, he wiped them dry, his mouth twisted into a deep scowl. He wasn’t grinning anymore.

"You came out here to have a good time, right?" the Supreme muttered to himself. "What're you doing, thinking back on stupid shit?"

It was only then that he noticed he was not alone. That didn't much concern him. If he hadn't noticed something, that was usually because it was no threat to him in the first place. Still… this was something interesting.

A corpse stood in front of him.

It was a young man from the looks of it, with silver hair and Cogitant-blue eyes, but parts of him seemed to have been recorded away. Those sections were now ringed with borders of sparking sapphire Aether, exposing the innards and bones within. Kind of a freaky thing to wake up to, but still cool.

"What do you want?" he demanded, his voice rumbling through the ground.

If the corpse was afraid, it showed no sign of it. Through the cross-section of its jaw, a grin was visible. That was the closest thing the Supreme saw to emotion there: the empty, dead smile of a skeleton.

"Come with me," the skeleton said. "Skipper's ready for you."