David Lockwood shrugged his shoulders, then cracked his neck from side to side.

There was a small crater where he stood while his men above continued their slow descent to the surface of the ship carried down by their parachutes.

He checked them once more, accounting for every one of the six men under his command, dressed in military attire complete with vests and guns and grenades and flash bangs. Certain that there were no problems, he walked over to the door in front of him.

David would’ve loved to get back home to his kids, preferably the woman he’d married, too, but he knew the chances of that were very low. For the last few weeks there was always an S-rank or SS-rank portal coming alive each time one was about to be closed.

Right now, there were too many alive in the country. From what he knew, all the Oaths were booked and there was no ranker of powerful repute that was not helping with their closure.

At this point, the government was already looking to borrow a few more Gifted from countries they had friendly relationships with.

The real issue, however, was that the portals seemed like localized issues. They were only happening this rampantly in America.

It was like someone was trying to effect a Chaos Run.

It left those in power with two questions: Who and why?

David turned the handle of the door and stood waiting as the last of his team the dock and unclipped their parachute. The dock was massive and clear. No living thing waited for them, only turrets lining both sides with enough firepower to bring down a ship of the same size quickly.

David looked down at the door handle.

“Everyone accounted for?” he asked without looking away from it.

“Yes, boss,” Deoti answered, her voice as calm as it always was no matter the situation they were in.

David nodded. “And Saxi. How’s the leg?”

There was a quiet thud on the ground before Saxi replied.

“Almost a hundred, boss,” he said.

David nodded. They would need to be a hundred once he opened this door. Every fiber of his being told him Enowor was waiting to give them their new mission.

David turned the handle and pushed the door open.

When he stepped in, his team flocking in from behind him, he was surprised by the sight he was met with.

Enowor stood behind her desk, her trademark notepad resting casually on top of it. She looked equal parts calm and terrified.

It was as composed as he expected of their team’s [Sage].

The second presence caught his attention more. The Oath of Shield was one of the few non-combat Oaths in existence anyone knew of. Her skills were strictly on the defensive side. If you were in a dire situation, flanked on both sides, she was among a handful of people you could pray to be by your side.

Her presence didn’t sit right with David. He had a healer on his team and a tank, both of which he could trust with his life.

He didn’t need the Oath of Shield.

Shield gave him a friendly smile.

“Madness,” she said in way of greeting.

David’s ears twitched at the dissonance. To be an Oath was to embody a concept. It was, to him, as much a blessing as it was a curse. On most days he needed to focus so that he didn’t lose himself to his own dissonance.

The benefit that came with it was that he knew dissonance when he was in it’s presence. When words and actions didn’t match, he was aware of it. It gave him a high level of immunity to mental attacks as well as illusions.

He recognized it the way you recognized the feel of the air against your skin.

And Shield’s smile and words could not scream dissonance any louder, even if they tried.

That was not a good sign.

“Enowor,” he said, ignoring everything else.

“Yes, sir,” she answered with complete respect and nervousness.

“Tell me what is important.”

“There is a new portal,” Shield interrupted before Enowor opened her mouth. “It’s in Alaska. There are no free Oaths and you are needed there urgently.”

Enowor paused, silent, unsure of what to do.

Axe stepped forward. He was a large man, brutish. Almost as large as David. He was the tank of the team and did very little in the way of talking.

He walked up to Enowor’s desk, sparing Shield a quick respectful nod.

Axe looked Enowor in the eye as he placed his hand on the book. “All here?”

“Yes,” Shield answered for her.

David continued to hear the dissonance. It was intentional. Shield was doing her best to lie through her teeth.

It left David worried. At least more worried than he usually was. Still, he ignored her, waited for Enowor to respond.

Enowor shook her head. “There’s also a message on the Oath line for you, sir.”

Everyone paused, surprised.

David never got a message on the Oath line. He knew Melmarc, Ark, and Ninra had the line. He and their mother had made sure they’d memorized it so well that they could narrate it in their sleep.

Dorthna had once joked about how he’d once caught Ninra narrating the numbers in her sleep. It was probably a lie, but that was the thing with Dorthna, David couldn’t catch him in a lie since the very existence of the man was a dissonance.

It was as if his existence believed he was supposed to be dead and alive yet neither. Dorthna was David’s only confusion.

Dorthna also had the number.

Worry bubbled inside David. They’d taught the children he had made with the woman he had married to never call the line unless it was a life and death situation. So if he had a message, it had to be a life and death situation.

“Play it,” he commanded.

“Don’t,” Shield opposed.

She sounded calm, yet David’s sense of dissonance continued to ring loud. Shield wanted to be in command but she was antsy, anxious.

She was waiting for something, praying it would happen yet uncertain of the consequence.

David pondered on it for a moment. The message was clearly more important than the portal. Shield’s presence here and her reactions said it all.

But what could be more important than the portals? No. That was not the right question. What could’ve happened that would be more important to deal with than the portals?

David frowned as he considered the possibilities.

My wife?

It was unlikely but not impossible.

“Where is the Oath of War?” he asked.

“There is no Oath of War,” Shield pointed out.

David ignored her.

“The Boss asked you a question,” Deoti said to Enowor. “Regardless of the current situation, none here will take kindly to you refusing to answer his questions.”

Enowor paled.

“The Oath of War is still in a portal in Ohio,” she said.

She was too timid for a [Sage]. Either that or the [Sage] David had grown accustomed to long before her arrival was the outlier.

If his wife was still within her portal, then it couldn’t be about her. That left his kids. Was it a kidnapping?

Had some religious group learned of Ark’s class and taken it upon themselves to rid the world of him?

It was another concept that seemed… unlikely. Dorthna was still around so it was almost an impossibility. He had his issues but…

David shook his head. It would be impossible to kidnap his children. Not even Ninra. It wasn’t supposed to be impossible, at least not anymore. But Dorthna had chosen to leave it that way and so it remained.

David looked at Shield for the first time. In his senses she was dissonant. She cocked a brow at him. He ignored it.

What did he know of Shield. Her Oath was not combat designed, neither was her class. She knew enough combat techniques to be passable, but her strength laid in her defense. There were Oaths that had worked with her that called her an immovable existence.

Personally, David hadn’t experienced her enough to know.

You only sent immovable existences when you wished to stop an unstoppable force. Once they met, one was doomed to supersede the other.

It was a no brainer. Someone had sent Shield to stop him in the event that he needed stopping.

Knowing how much the government struggled to communicate with him, it seemed they’d come to the conclusion that he would not listen to reason. In their defense, he had never been one to listen to reason. War had always been the reasonable one of the both of them. The rest of the world communicated with him through her when they wanted him to see reason.

But War wasn’t here.

Something had happened to one of their children.

It was a thought that was not dissonant with the world. He only needed to find out what it was.

“The last Chaos Run,” he said.

“On the outskirts of the country,” Shield said before Enowor could answer. “SS-rank. We had no Oath on hand and the team we sent in failed to pass the Quest. It broke out at the heart of a mountain. Three companies along with Dragon-Knight were sent to deal with the Run.”

David didn’t look at her. He was more interested in a way to shut her up so that his [Sage] could speak.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Deoti spared him a quick glance.

“With all due respect, ma’am,” she said to Shield, “could you be kind enough to speak to him only when spoken to.”

Shield scowled. “You forget your place, S-rank.”

Axe was still at the table, hand on Enowor’s jotter.

“No, ma’am. You forget your place.” Axe looked at her, met her eyes. “It is rumored that S-ranks cannot beat an Oath. But you’re just one Oath, brimming with disrespect. The [Sage] here is the only A-rank. In case you’ve forgotten, the rest of us are S-ranks, and we’ve also got an Oath. Decorum would be advised.”

“I am government sanctioned.” Shield reached into her pocket casually and pulled out a badge, it was a diamond shape with a burning eagle at the center. “I speak for the head of the Oath division in this moment. To go against my words is to go against the words of all the Oaths. To attack me is to attack all the Oaths.”

“Dissonant.”

It was one word, uttered from David. It was a word every member of his team knew.

There were incomplete truths or blatant lies in Shield’s statement.

David knew the Oaths. Some of them, like himself, worked for the government. But most of them worked with the government.

They were not a unified force regardless of the existence of an Oath division within the country.

Shield was stretching the truth as far as she could take it.

“What happened at the Chaos Run?” David asked.

Enowor knew what he was asking of.

“It appeared again,” she answered.

A small grumble went through David’s team.

“You think it’s what’s opening the portals?” Deoti asked.

David grunted.

“Picture?” he asked Enowor.

“Yes, sir.”

She bent and flipped through the pages of her jotter. Axe gave her the space she needed. After a while she stopped on a single page and moved the jotter back to Axe.

Axe took a moment to look at the picture before handing the jotter over to David.

David took it, noting how silent Shield had fallen now that he was focused on work and nothing else. That answered everything. His family was in danger and people with power had deemed the closure of the portals still springing up to be more important than the safety of his family.

David looked at the drawing. It was a drawing of a large creature. It looked eerily like a dragon but its head wasn’t as squared at the jaw. It was more rounded, young or effeminate. It possessed no obvious muscles but neither was it fat.

“How large?” he asked.

“Three storeys,” Enowor answered. “Maybe four.”

“The same one?”

“Yes, sir.”

David didn’t like it.

The creature looked like a western dragon without the terrifying jaw line. And it had horns that protruded from the sides of its head, curving down to point forward in the direction of its snout. Since the sketch was done with a pen, the entire thing was blue, which was clearly not it’s color.

It was very familiar. Too familiar.

“And what was the report on it?” he asked.

“The same, sir,” Enowor answered. “It came out of the Chaos portal, sniffed the air, turned its head from one side to the other…”

“…Then went back in,” Deoti finished for her.

“Yes, ma’am,” Enowor confirmed.

Saxi frowned. “It’s searching.”

“And the other monsters’ reaction to it’s presence?” David asked.

“The same,” Enowor confirmed. “They remained silent and stationary until it was gone.”

In the last month, the same creature had been present at all Chaos Runs. It would step out, do the exact same thing, then leave.

Saxi was right, and they had deduced it long ago. The creature was searching and no one knew what it was searching for.

David had an idea, though. He had a very strong idea of what it was searching for. As far as he was concerned, it was now official. They might not know it, but the entire country was faced with a creature strong enough to manipulate portals.

It could force enough S-rank and SS-rank portals to open but could not go through them. However, it seemed it’s intention—what was within its power—was the hijacking of Chaos Runs. It could come through them and it was coming through them.

The country had a powerful demon on their hand.

David nodded once, then looked up from the jotter. “I will give the Sage a single command. If she hesitates or declines, I will not be held responsible for my actions. Is this understood?”

“Yes, sir!” his entire team chorused.

“Don’t fear,” Shield told Enowor. “Nothing will happen to you. If they try, I will protect you.”

There was no dissonance in Shield’s promise to protect the Sage. That, at least, was good. But the first part of the statement dripped with dissonance.

David couldn’t say he cared. There were a lot of things he stopped caring for when he’d been burdened with the mantle of Oath so many years ago.

“Play the messages,” he said simply.

Enowor reached trembling hands to the side of the desk and a familiar voice erupted around the room.

Shield sighed in exhaustion.

David recognized Dorthna’s voice the moment he heard it.

“Hey, Madness, it’s me,” he said. “We’ve got a bit of a problem and I need you to not lose your shit.”

There was a paused, as if he was unsure of how to say the next words. In the end, he just ripped the band-aid off.

“It’s Melmarc,” he said, standing at the edge of the roof of a skyscraper and staring at the dying sun. "I can't find him."

David froze.

Melmarc was missing. Why? When? Where?

He frowned.

“Enowor. I need—”

“We already have people working on it, Madness.”

Everyone paused, looked at Shield.

She shrugged. “What? We like to look after our own.”

That’s not what they heard, though. David had always known, but for Shield to say something that pointed out that the calls received on the Oath lines were constantly being monitored with zero secrecy was… stupid.

An unreasonable point of action, David corrected. A mistake.

Could also be stupid, he added.

“Boss?”

David turned to Saxi.

“Melmarc,” Saxi said. “As in Mel?”

David nodded.

He turned back to Enowor. The first voice message as short and concise, straight to the point. Dorthna only tended to bicker and talk a lot on subjects that weren’t important. If it wasn’t, he was always to the point.

“Play the next one,” David instructed.

It came alive almost immediately.

“Me, again.” Dorthna sounded too serious. “I know you’ve got a problem on your hands so I’ll get to the next phase, figured it should be important. Your oldest is the only normal one. Mel’s a [Faker]. Who would’ve thunk it. Both of them have begun their government mentee program… What else? He’s in Brooklyn right now—Mel, I mean—serving under Alfa’s mentorship. That’s his last location.”

“Information on Firdausi Alfa, her precinct and the mentorship program running there,” David said, voice still calm. Always calm.

“Yes, Boss.” Deoti pulled out a small tab from one of her vest pockets and started tapping away. It was attached to her vest by a small cord.

“I would advise against that,” Shield commanded.

Deoti gave her an odd look. “You’re being quite disrespectful to a fellow Oath, don’t you think?”

“And you’re being quite impudent for an S-rank.” Shield looked at all of them. “In fact, your entire team is quite impudent.”

Deoti was silent for a moment. Then she shrugged. “I guess. Blame it on Madness. He spoils us. Got it, Boss. Your kid’s there. Annnnnd… there’s an active portal opened in a residential area from the news around that area.”

“A portal in a residential area?” Saxi asked.

Deoti nodded. “Yea.”

“That’s rare,” Lisa, their communications specialist, said. “Very.”

“Given the recent issues,” Axe shrugged massive shoulders, “I wouldn’t rule it out as impossible.”

“Still rare,” Lisa said.

“It’s also already happened so let’s move on,” Deoti said.

“Did we miss the part where I said it’s already being worked on?” Shield said.

She took a step forward and everyone moved into action.

Deoti’s pad fell, hanging loose from a tag that kept it attached to her vest.

Six guns pointed at Shield and she froze.

She looked at all six of them before settling her attention on David.

“What is the meaning of this, Madness?”

David looked at his team. The woman he married always said he needed a stronger hold over them. In his bid not to prove too controlling, he’d made them his friends and had let the hierarchy get strained and very loose.

The outcome was this. His team drawing weapons on an Oath that they saw as a threat.

“With all due respect, ma’am,” Axe said, voice steady, “why exactly are you here?”

Stupid question, David thought.

He doubted there was anyone present in the room who didn’t know why she was here now. He was debatably the most violent Oath. Once upon a time he had been second only to the woman he married. Now he was the only one.

It did not make him the most powerful, just the most violent.

And they were on a battle ship dedicated to Oaths. This one was dedicated to him but it didn’t change the fact that it belonged to the government and it cost in the hundred of millions of dollars.

And there were other people on board.

So they’d sent Shield because her skills guaranteed the lowest casualty rate and damage in the event that things devolved into violence.

David was at least grateful to them for that.

Shield sighed. “Control your team, Madness. This is unbecoming.”

It was.

“Play the final message,” David said.

Enowor nodded, too afraid of the looming chaos to speak, and Dorthna’s voice echoed once more.

“Found him,” Dorthna said. “Now I cannot stress how much I need you to not panic, Madness. Your boy’s in a portal. Now—I said don’t panic!”

David paused. His hands were balled into fists and all eyes were on him. Even his team members had begun glancing at him.

David took a deep breath and relaxed his fists.

Dorthna’s voice came in a moment after. “Now, as I was saying…”

Shield looked at Enowor with a frown.

“How did he do that?” Deoti asked, surprised.

Axe shook his head. “Only person I ever seen do that was War.”

“…I’ve confirmed that he’s in the portal,” Dorthna went on. “You’ve got nothing to worry about, though. He’s a B-rank and the portal’s a C-rank. He should be fine until you get here. At least that’s if I’m right about him.”

David took a moment to think as the message shut off.

“Who the hell is that guy?” Shield asked.

“Friend.” David turned away and started towards the door. “Fendor, I need a way out of here. How far can you get us?”

“All of us, Boss?” Fendor asked, confused.

“Yes.”

David’s hand bounced off the air before it touched the door handle.

He’d felt it on activation, but the activation had been fast. Quick enough to act the moment it was cast.

Oath empowered.

The question was if it was an Oath skill or a regular skill.

David turned back to the others. “Stand down, everyone.”

The guns lowered quickly. Enowor remained frantic.

“Thank you,” Shield said. “I’ll be sure to be gentle when I report this and assure everyone that there will be no repeat.”

“Put down the barrier, Shield.” David could see it. It shimmered lightly along the air. It was a perfect dome, surrounding him and his men.

“Look at the bigger picture, Madness,” she said. “There are bigger things at stake.”

“Fendor,” David said.

“Yes, Boss.”

“Can you get us out of this space?”

Fendor shook his head. “No way, Boss.”

David thought as much. Which meant he would have to handle this himself.

He returned his attention to Shield. “Stand down, Shield.”

“There are portals opening up by the minute, Madness. You cannot abscond when the world needs you the most.”

“That’s a bit of a stretch,” Deoti said. “It’s just the country. And his just one Oath.”

Shield sighed. “Why do you always want to keep talking when your betters are talking?”

“Betters isn’t the word you’re looking for.”

“I understand that your son is lost in a portal, Madness,” Shield said, ignoring Deoti, “but there are people there for that. You can’t abandon this for him. What of the rest of your family? What of their safety.”

David walked past his men until he stopped at the edge of the domed barrier. He stood there for a moment, staring at the thin mana membrane between him and Shield.

Shield stepped up to it so that only the membrane stood between them. She probably thought he was thinking about it right now. Weighing the lives of one family member over the others.

War had told him once upon a time, when she had ceased to be an Oath, that on the night she had fought against the Player, she had been faced with the decision of being a mother and being an Oath. She had chosen her role as an Oath.

Things had turned out well, but till this day, she didn’t believe she would’ve made the same choice if faced with it once more. Making it then had taken everything out of her.

But the real thing was that there was no thinking to be done. Their children were not in the same boat of most other children.

“My family is fine, all except one.” David intended the words to be as casual and calm as they could be. “One is outside the protection I have secured.”

“It’s the world against one soul, Madness,” Shield said in exasperation. “I understand that he is your child but there are other people that can sort this out. Your son will be safe. You can’t risk this.”

David didn’t have much to say because the Oath would not understand it. She could not. So he could at least tell her something she would.

“I am an Oath,” he said, placing a gauging palm flat against the dome. “I do not protect the world and my family from portals. I protect my family from portals. Protecting the world is merely the side effect of that.”

Shield sighed. “I told them there was no conversation to be had on this. Restrict the message and keep it from him. But they wouldn’t listen. Wanted me to talk some sense into you, like I could. Do you know why none of the Oaths ever want to face you, Madness?”

David didn’t care. The barrier was strong. He could feel it from just touching it.

“It’s because of your wife. She had good will.”

David’s ear pricked at the dissonance but he showed nothing in the way of his expression. Instead, he spoke to his team without taking his eyes of Shield.

“Enowor, please take the door behind you and leave. This is no place for an A-rank right now.”

Enowor was quick to hurry out of the door on her side of the room.

“I would argue that it’s no place for S-ranks either,” Shield said, looking at the others.

David wouldn’t go that far. But judging by the absence of dissonance in her voice, she probably believed her own words.

“Fendor, prepare to transport us.” David pressed gently against the shield. “Everyone, prepare for impact and movement.”

His team aligned themselves, gathered to Fendor.

David looked Shield in the eye.

[Oath skill Effect of Insanity is in effect]

[Effect of Insanity]

Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. The Oath is granted 35% damage increase for every consecutive repeated action.

David drew his fist back and Shield sighed.

When he threw it forward, his fist struck the shield in a punch vicious enough to send an elephant flying.

The shield shook but nothing else happened.

He cocked his fist back once more, calmly.

“You waste your time, Madness,” Shield told him. “Reinforcement is already on its way.”

David struck again.

…

Ruth had cast [Gathering of Nature] the moment Madness had turned around.

It was her strongest barrier, the skill that had given her the title of Immovable Object. It wasn’t really a title, though. It was more of a nickname, but it was apt. Nothing penetrated it. It was the ultimate shield, and the reason she had been sent to stop Madness.

When Madness struck it, she didn’t even flinch.

He was the most violent Oath alive, kept sane only by his wife. Whenever the government needed information passed to him or wanted him to comply, they explained it to her so that she explained it to him.

The other Oaths stayed away from altercations with him because of his state of violence as well as his Oath. He was literally unreasonable and irrational in a fight. Difficult to predict.

It seemed he mistook that to mean he was powerful.

It was unfortunate that at some point in time, the shield would start dispersing the force of his punches and the ship would slowly begin to be affected. It could cause some losses.

As Madness threw his third futile punch at her shield that was powered by the very fabric of reality around them, she was more certain of the effect madness had on him. He lost his reasoning when he fought.

It was a sad thing to witness...

…Until she saw a crack.