The chances of Dante meeting a well-deserved end at the hands of my Fatherly Beam should’ve been high. The attack tore through the skyscraper’s walls as if they were soft flesh and clearly made contact with his body, eviscerating every part of his essence. There was no doubt in my mind that a coward like him wouldn’t survive such a deadly force of energy. However, it was the fact that he was a coward that my doubt was immediately shattered upon thinking back on our battle. The possibility that a forcefield was used at the very last second was becoming increasingly high. Or maybe there was another reason…

Yet, through the pile of questions falling on top of me, there was one question at the peak of them all that I still needed to know. Why the hell was I still standing here!?

“Dante!” I jumped into the air at full force, fist vibrating with badly restrained rage. In an instant, I came face to face with the man who tried to ruin my life. My punch slammed into the bubble, sparks flying out of the forcefield and dancing on my glowing body. There was no other sound in the area that was able to drown out the roars tearing their way out of my mouth—not even Dante, who was speaking to someone within the field. My attention stayed glued onto the loan shark and, with a bit more effort, I launched the forcefield out of my sight.

Dante, as usual, wasn’t finished yet. Another forcefield zoomed toward my falling body—a little bigger than the last time I saw them. I slapped my hands together, aiming my knees at the incoming attack.

“Grassyland!”

Spikes of grass from my pants shot downwards and pierced through the forcefield, stopping it just in time as the grass kept my body in the air. Suddenly, the bubble transformed into a giant, green arrow, its tip ominously staring at me while the energy left my grass’ side. Then, it zoomed towards my skull. I extended some more sharp grass towards the arrow, but it swiftly maneuvered around each one and continued its path. The attack just about to stab my head before Jesus somehow leaped in front of me and blocked the attack with his sword, dispersing it.

“Two-face!”, shouted Jesus, grabbing onto my body. “Stop attacking! This is the Type Two I was talking about before—Sunshine’s papi!”

I snapped out of my anger when I realized Jesus had my injured daughter in his other arm. “Shit! Sunshine, are you okay?” I asked, my shaky hands hovering around her wound. Once again, I placed my selfish rage over the safety of my child…

Sunshine grinned, wiping the blood from her hands onto her hoodie. “You don’t have to worry so much about me anymore, Jerome. I promised you I’d get stronger, and I did.”

“Of course I’m gonna worry about you!” My tone became more stern. “God, I should’ve never let you fight that monster knowing how much he hates you…”

“Huh…?” Sunshine’s face looked genuinely confused by my obvious regret. “But weren’t you proud of me? I thought you trusted me to…”

“Sunshine… I’m not-”

“Your arm!”, she blurted out, her eyes sparkling in amazement. “How’d you heal them if you didn’t want to absorb energy?”

“Oh yeah. Guess I didn’t notice it before,” I said, flexing my arm. I was so concerned with trying to hurt Dante that I didn’t even realize my bones were completely fine now. I was sure I didn’t absorb anything as they seemed fine right when I jumped. “Maybe my willpower was so high that my body decided to give me a break for once.”

The sound of a Status Board ringing decided to butt into the conversation.

“Sorry guys, that’s me,” said Jesus, pulling out an SB from his pocket. It made me relieved he kept the pants I gave him, but I was confused to see that he had a SB after he had already given me his.

“Is that yours?” I asked. “Where’d you find one of those in Queens?”

“Yep, it’s mine,” he responded, turning on the phone. “And I bought it.”

“Where would you buy something as advanced as that?”

“Got it from a really trustworthy individual. The only problem was that it was very expensive so I came up with a great idea to buy it. I used all of your savings and I-”

“You used my savings!?” I screamed, my body boiling. “What the hell is wrong with you? I was saving that to buy something nice for my Suns-”

Jesus put his hand up, gesturing for me to stop speaking. “Hombre Muerto, I’m only gonna say this once so take it all in the best you can. We made an alliance with your former enemy.”

“You teamed up with Dante!? First, you spend all my damn savings and now this?”

“You don’t have to worry about him, Jerome,” said Sunshine. “We were with him for a couple days, and he can actually be a nice guy when he wants to be.”

“Sunshine, he kidnapped and threatened to kill you. He’s the reason I’m a zombie, and you want me to believe he can be nice?”

“That’s the thing though,” she said. Her face was rather serious, as if she was being genuine. “He doesn’t remember any of it. Your fight with him, when he first came to Savir’s Deli, anything he did to me—not a thing!”

That idiot has amnesia now!? That’s… bullshit! Do these two expect me to forgive this prick after all the things he did to me through the years? Hell, forget the years—this month alone! Then again, I can’t just look at my kid’s face and not consider the possibility of it. But when the hell would he have lost his memories?

“If you need confirmation that he did…” A blue screen popped out of Jesus’ SB, and the name in the middle read Dante. “Then have a look for yourself.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Jesus finally answered the phone, and the person I saw on the other end filled me with a surprisingly high amount of shock. Half of the guy’s face was what I expected it to be–the slicked black, black hair, the scar etched on his lip, and the clean suit. However, the other side was a completely different story.

It was a bloody crimson, a stark contrast to the creamy skin tone on his left side. Wrinkles streaked across it like deep, jagged scars, and his bulging eye–now matching the red hue of his deformed skin–was unnaturally wide.

Half of his hairline had been pushed back, revealing thick, pulsating veins on his scalp. The hair on that side had turned a blinding white, as though that half alone had aged by about fifty years. He smoothed down that side of his hair, presumably to slick it back, but it immediately sprang back up. There were no eyelids on that bulging, unblinking eye, and this grotesque mix of anger, contempt, fear, and horror seemed to be the only and permanent expression he could keep on that half.

To top it all off, there was a long shard of glass lodged right above his eyebrow. I was staring at the devil and only part of the devil stared back, as if I wasn't worth its full attention.

“Jesus, care to repeat what you just said to me?” asked Dante, his voice low and rumbling.

“C'mon, Two-face! Don't tell me that ugly scar of yours messed up your hearing too. I said-”

“Shut up!” he shouted, clawing at his devilish right side. “Don't call it ugly, and don't call me Two-face! You know how I feel about such a derogatory name…” Dante began to dig through his pockets. “Do I have to bring out the coin and-”

“Calm down dude.” A slender arm wrapped around Dante’s neck, coming from the man he was talking to earlier. Half his face was covered by a huge, puffy afro that looked like it was dipped in gold for days. “You shouldn’t waste a coin flip on something so boring. Games should be something we can all find enjoyment in, remember?” His voice was as lax as Jesus’. No, maybe even more.

“Jesus! Why the hell do you have so many weirdos around my daughter!?”

“Woooah!” exclaimed the afro man, shoving his face against the screen. “Horse man wasn’t lying. A talking zombie really does exist.” He smiled. “Hey, do zombies like games? Besides ‘who can devour a human body the fastest?’”

“Oooh yes, I like to play Red Light, Green Light!” Jesus and Sunshine shouted at the same time.

“Yeah, me too!’ the afro man responded back

“I don’t eat people!” I asserted. “And we don’t have time for any dumb games right now.” I pointed at Dante. “Why the hell did you stop me from killing Jason!?”

“Because we’re taking him back with us alive, Jerome!” Dante barked, trying to pull the afro man’s arm off his neck. “The real question is why the hell were you attacking me? You owe me hundreds of dollars or did you forget that? I should be the one attacking you!”

“Why you-”

“Jesus…” interrupted the afro man, his tone becoming angrier. “I thought we were gonna play an honest game, and yet you and that girl cheated. A race doesn’t start until the person who brought up the idea says ‘go.’”

“Neeeeigh!” Jesus blurted out, shaking his horse head. “You’re not trying if you’re not cheating. That’s common knowledge.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right!” He picked at the tips of his afro. “So no hard feelings on us already in front of Jason, right?”

The three of us turned our attention back to Jason and realized that the two men were in the middle of carrying Jason’s forcefield. Without hesitation, Jesus launched himself off my chest while I deactivated my Grassyland. I was about to land on the ground when a voice echoed across the area.

“Red Light.”

Suddenly, my body was suspended in the air, paralyzed by an unknown force. Everything around me was red—the sky, the ground, and even my body. I wasn’t the only one whose movements had stopped as I saw that Jesus, Sunshine, and Dante were all paralyzed. The only one who wasn’t was the man I presumed to be the activator of this ability. He had a hand over the left side of his forehead, lifting up the tip of his afro. Where a normal eye should’ve been, there was a bright red one instead. No discernible pupil or iris—just pure red.

“It’s so hard playing with a bunch of weaklings,” the Afro man said, smirking. “I just don't know when to hold back.”

Shit! This guy was a Radius. No wonder he was working with Dante. Why'd he have to have such a troublesome ability!?

The guy began to saunter towards Jason, casually twirling his lanky arms as if nothing in the world was capable of stopping him. That was until Jesus decided to take up that challenge.

“Green Light!” The moment Jesus shouted those words the color of the world went back to normal as I was finally able to land on the und. ground. He then threw my daughter on top of the forcefield while I darted towards the four. However, I was stopped in my tracks once again when my daughter yelled “Red Light”. Unlike last time, we weren’t paralyzed in the middle of our movements. Instead, I, Dante, and his partner were all teleported back to our original spots before the afro guy had used his ability.

My feet hit the concrete once more, and I quickly approached the two. “Hey, how’d you two do all that!?”

“You two really are a clever duo.” I looked behind me, realizing that the afro man had already closed the distance between us. I didn’t realize how tall the guy was until he was standing right behind me. He might’ve been near Jason’s height. “You two became the leaders of my game by knowingly bringing it up first. And since I said the word ‘yes’, I pretty much agreed to it.” He then started to laugh, which was instantly cut short by the ominous frown on his face as he placed his arms inside the pocket of his overly sized blue hoodie. “Don’t think that’s ever gonna happen again.”

“Care to explain why?” asked Jesus, tightening the grip on his katana.

“Because my name is Geremiah Obadiah Donovan,” he answered, his eyes unnaturally dilated. “But the people who are weaker than me refer to me as G.O.D. What I find amusing is that since everyone is weaker than me, that means everyone, including the four of you in front of me, will call me G.O.D because I am your God.”

“You’re a real egotistical prick, you know that?” I remarked, readying a battle stance.

“You can’t attack us, Geremiah. We already won your game, and you can’t go against the restrictions of your ability,” said Jesus.

Geremiah paused for a while, seemingly debating on whether he should attempt to kill us or not. An awkward silence lingered just long enough for Dante to make his way over to us. Then, Geremiah spoke. “Yeah, you did win. You cheated, but it isn’t like my ability can track that anyway. But I’m not gonna sit back and lose so pathetically. We’re gonna make a new game.”

Jesus pointed his blade at the man. “Sorry, but we’ve had enough of your games for a long time.”

“Me too,” Dante cut in, covering the normal half of his face. “Let’s hurry up and take back Jason by force. Kill ‘em all if we have to. My future position is riding on this!” He quickly removed his hand and covered the scarred side. “Don’t spit out nonsense like that! Keep the girl alive… She's cool.”

Is he… talking to himself?

“Jesus, what if I said I had info on the whereabouts of your son and the man who took him away from you. Would you agree to a game of tag then?”

I could tell Geremiah’s question struck Jesus deeply as the horse headed man didn’t say a word, clenching his sword intensely.

The silence was only broken by Sunshine asking, “You know about Diego!? Tell us where he-”

“Alright, we’ll play your damn game,” Jesus conceded, softening his grip. “Tell us the rules so we can get on with it.”

Geremiah’s frown remained on his face, as if the concession hadn’t satisfied him enough. “First, we’ll have to determine the location of our prize.” He turned to Dante. “Dante, you decide where Jason goes.”

Dante began to sweat, hesitating to go along with Geremiah’s dumb game. Then, he sighed, took out a quarter from his pocket, and walked over to Jason. “Heads, you head all the way to Hallowsville. Tails, the Slavelands.” He flipped the coin high into the air, and it came down with a soft slap into his palm, his fingers curling over it briefly before revealing the face of the coin—heads.

“Hallowsville,” said Dante, sighing in disappointment.

“Just wait a minute!” I screamed, grabbing Dante’s shoulder. “That psychopath isn't moving a damn inch! You hear me?”

Dante’s crimson eye shifted to me as he covered the normal half of his face. “Don’t catch yourself in a penalty, Jerome. The game’s already started, and we can't do anything about it.”

“Huh? I didn't agree to any-”

“Mach 50!”

We were all blown back by a tremendous gust of wind, aside from Geremiah. Not only had the forcefield vanished, but Jason had too.

“No!” I gripped onto Dante’s suit. “Why the hell would you deactivate your forcefield!? You Radius are all so stupid?”

“Radius?” Dante removed his hand on the other half and covered the red side. “Jerome, how the hell do you know about the Radius?”

Damn! I forgot this idiot doesn’t remember what happened!

“This game will be a mixture of a race and tag.” Geremiah waved around a status board with a moving red dot on a map. “I’ll explain the rules, and then we can start.”