“Livia!” I called back out through the curtain containing the viewer’s box that she had backed out of due the strength of whatever smoke or drug particles were in the air. “I need you in here!”

I continued the chest compressions.

“I can’t come in! I’m going to faint!” Livia said back to me.

“Hold your breath!” I said.

She came in, holding her mouth shut and she was using her left hand to pinch her nostrils shut.

How was the miasma so strong that even a Silver couldn’t stand it? What were the Imperator and his Hetaira taking that was so overpowering?

“Grab the Hetaira and get her out of here.” I commanded.

The Hetaira was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, as expected for a Gold on the Path of the Whore. She had pink eyes set within gold sclera, blond hair, a cat’s tail curling around her waist, and revealing clothes. Even with the drugs and drinking making her look like hell and I didn’t think she was wearing makeup, she was still the prettiest girl in the theater.

Livia picked her up with her Silver strength and walked her quickly out of the room.

I looked down on the other Imperator that I was working to save. He was Copper like me, and handsome, though that was seemingly universally true of all Imperators. The Path of the Emperor perfected the human body and erased its flaws as much as the Foundation of the cultivator allowed. The problem with him wasn’t whatever was in the air but what he had actually ingested. He had overdosed on something. I blew air into his lungs through his mouth and continued to press on his chest.

It felt wrong seeing an Imperator like this. It felt pathetic, where the natural emotion in the presence of an Imperator should be awe or fear. I thought about what Gaias had said about most Imperators not advancing in favor of parties and hedonism. Here was the perfect example. Physiological perfection and nobility and privilege by birth and he had chosen to throw away his potential on alcohol and substances.

“You idiot.” I told the lifeless man.

If I got him back from the Underworld and if he kept going like this, he was going to deviate his Foundation with the toxins he was consuming in excess, making it harder to advance properly and stunting his growth. Yes, I could clearly see what Gaias had meant. The ancestors of today’s Imperators had immense martial and intellectual capabilities and had risen to preeminence and dominance over the other Paths. Those ancestral predecessors had gathered wealth and favorable business and political arrangements until they all lived as kings, even if Augustas was the Dominium’s sole regent. Then it had continued for generation after generation, gathering riches in hoards like dragons, until the modern generation found themselves born into perfect luxury. They had whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted it, no matter the time or place or the price of the service or object.

This weakened them, I saw now. They had everything and thus ordinary pleasures were worthless to them. Clean water is heaven’s ambrosia to a dying man in the desert but bath water to a man in the cities. It wasn’t enough to eat, they had to stuff themselves. It wasn’t enough to drink wine, they had to drown themselves in it. It wasn’t enough to smoke, they had to choke their lungs with substances so strong it could knock out a Silver Servus like Livia. It wasn’t enough to get high, they had to ingest so much that an Imperator like this man, this boy, really, would be on the brink of death when normally he would be able to drink bleach or grain alcohol like water. He was ruining himself and his advancement because nothing was enough for him anymore.

It was a sad existence that I was glad I was free of, having been born a Servus who had advanced quickly up the ladder of advancement on my former Path by diligence and care. I didn’t smoke or drink or consume opiates or amphetamines or any other of the many vices of the Servi around me in Lavinius. I recognized what they were doing and I ignore that path. They were searching for an outlet for wandering minds and fruitless frustrations over their lots in life, I chose not to be weak enough to need such diversions to maintain control over my mental state. I never needed to lose myself to find myself, as it were.

The Imperator coughed and opened his eyes. He looked at me hazily, my hands on his chest. His eyes widened and his teeth clenched. I realized immediately that he was hallucinating that I was an attacker.

He swung his hand at me, but he had no coordination, the poisons he had willingly taken still swimming in his bloodstream. I caught his hand and he panicked and flailed, wrenching his arm out of my hand.

Blue fires kindled in his palm.

“What?” I said, bewildered. What was this. How was he creating fire from his hand?

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He again swung at me, this time with the blaze in his fingers, but I lashed out and knocked it away. The fire shot off in a spray onto the wall. I wrestled with the other Imperator, overpowering him with my lucid, toxin free vigor though he fought with the force of a berserk animal struggling in a hunter’s nets.

“I’m trying to save your life, idiot.” I snarled.

“Who are you?” The Imperator asked me, his violet eyes focusing on my face intently. He breathed heavily and sharply.

“Adrias Lucion.” I said, calmly and slowly. “I’m here to help you.”

“I don’t know you.” He muttered and then his eyes rolled up in the back of his head, leaving only Copper orbs. He had passed.

I swore.

At least he wouldn’t fight me anymore, I supposed. The fire was spreading, eating through a metal wall somehow. It was a strange, blue flame that had come out of someone’s hand so I guessed I shouldn’t be too surprised that it was behaving weirdly. What kind of ability allowed for such a thing, I wondered.

Something in the flickering azure fire caught my eye and my grip on the Imperator’s body slackened, my hands releasing from his shoulders.

I could see… something. Flickers of images.

An Imperator with lightning flickering in his violet eyes.

A face, draconic and cold. Snarling, spitting flame.

The ring I had put on that had changed me from a Servus to an Imperator.

The image of a Black Lycanthrope, death in its eyes.

I blinked and they were gone, no matter how I looked at the fire which was spreading down the pillars holding up the upper level with the private boxes. The flames were building and building, I heard screams and shouts as the general audience became aware of the fire that had been expanding.

I dragged the Imperator out the viewing box, escaping the twin hazards of flame and toxic miasma. I picked him up and found Livia. The Hetaira was standing but I could tell she wasn’t all there yet. She must have taken far less than the Imperator I was carrying.

“We need to get out. There’s a fire.” I said.

We ran, the Imperator in my arms and Livia dragging the stumbling Hetaira by the arm.

The flames were spreading faster and faster behind us and I leapt out of the theater and ran a little ways and set the unconscious Imperator on the ground. Servi were streaming out of the theater, with panicked looks on their faces.

The theater was spitting blue fire from the windows and the entrance. Most of the audience seemed to be out or coming out as I watched.

Six Imperators gathered around myself and the fallen Imperator who had started the fire and Livia and the Hetaira. I presumed they were in the other boxes that I hadn’t looked in.

“Whatever happened to Antonias?” A female Imperator asked me.

“Overdosed on something.” I said.

“Unfortunate.” She said, not really seeming to care.

“Who are you? I’ve never seen you before.” Another Imperator said, a man.

“I am Adrias Lucion. I’m new to Sunburst Station.” I said in explanation.

“Lucion?” The woman wrinkled her nose. “I’ve never heard of a Lucion family.”

I smiled. “The Dominium is a big place. You are?”

“Caesia.” She replied.

“And you?” I looked to the man who had asked who I was.

“Julias.” He said.

“Did you light the building on fire?” Caesia asked. “I must admit, it was an improvement on the atmosphere. Dreadfully boring play, Oedipas Rex, that is.”

Julias laughed.

“No. That was Antonias. He thought I was some kind of attacker and tried to hit me with fire in his hand and it hit the wall.”

“Poor aim.” Julias said with mirth. “Toni always had poor aim."

Something tripped my heightened senses. Screaming and coughing. I turned my head in horror back to the burning down theater. There were still people in there.

“There’s still Servi caught in the flames.” I said.

Caesia tilted her head. “Oh. So, there is. Unfortunate.”

Another female Imperator smirked. “I think I can smell them getting crispier by the minute.”

“We should do something.” I said.

“Why?” Caesia asked. “They’re only Servi. They breed like rabbits and there’s tens of millions of them on this stupid ring station.”

I felt disgust with them. They had superhuman capabilities that could be used to save people of lesser ranks and Paths. And they didn’t even care. They were too smug in their superiority and too convinced of the miniscule worth of the dying to even lend a hand.

I ran into the sapphire blaze, leaping over incinerating objects and dancing at blurring speeds through lines and patches of fire. I found a woman under a collapsed pillar. I pulled it off her and grabbed her.

“Who-“ She got out.

I ran with her, holding her head so she wouldn’t get whiplash. I pierced out of the heat of the building and set the woman down.

I turned and plunged back in. With my hearing, I found a man having some kind of asthmatic fit. He had an inhaler, but it wasn’t helping. I snatched him up and brought him out into fresh air.

“Are you really going to get each and everyone of the cattle, Adrias? This is-“ Caesia said and I immediately ignored her.

I went back and heard screams in the bathrooms. I found women and children in the restrooms.

“Stay calm.” I said. “You’re going to be fine.”

I collected them into a big ball of bodies within my arms and leapt over the fires blocking the entrances to the toilets. I ran them out and then turned again.

This time I sighted the actress playing Jokasta, queen of Tebi, wife and mother of Oedipas, and I got her out quickly.

I went in one more time, coughing at the heat reached incredible temperatures. Anyone I didn’t get out now was dead. I discovered a teenage boy who had been crushed in the trampling rush of play watchers who had rushed out. I pulled him out and gave him to paramedics who had arrived.

I came back to Livia, the Imperators, and the Hetaira. I was going to get Livia and get out of here.

“Was that all really necessary?” Julias asked.

“Yes.” I said. “It is the duty of the strong to save the weak. Strength and honor must be earned.”

Something about my answer seemed to disturb him.

I noticed Antonias awake on the ground, staring at me. I looked away from him, I didn’t really have time to deal with another arrogant Imperator.

“Livia. Let’s go.” I said to her.

“Wait, Adrias-“ Julias said.

I walked away, dragging Livia with me. I looked up and saw there were Servi taking pictures of me. Great. I didn’t need anyone looking into me and discovering I was fighting as a gladiator.