The Roman Empire bans all religions that venerate any being other than our Legates. Prayer can be misused when not deliberately placed. We do not treat this lightly.

Punishment for believing in a false God is death within all territories.

* Congress Of Praetors, Fourth Amendment, Year 3068.

A burly humanoid with tendrils of muscle flapping around his mouth panted, using the flesh to funnel more air into his throat. His eyes darted in every direction, alert to the crackling of lingering fires and the howls of the bestial Dirge echoing through the city.

Although Anachronisms had some intelligence and Anathemas were capable of speech and higher thinking, the Anarchies and Anaphages in the city were practically monsters, searching for anything to satisfy their hunger.

And Rejo was their prey.

He clambered onto a rooftop, extending his palm for the small rat perched on his shoulder. The transfigured Harenlar scuttled into his hand, and Rejo crouched low, hiding from sight as his eyes scanned the streets below.

A moment passed while Joan’s tiny nose twitched, and her beady eyes scoured the city for directions. Then, she raised a little leg and pointed in a direction for Rejo to follow. He didn’t wait a moment before sprinting away, building up speed before leaping across to another rooftop.

He misjudged the distance. The impact was painful, sending him tumbling to the ground in a rough roll, but he pushed through the pain and scrambled back to his feet.

He spoke to his companion as if she were to care for his condition, “I’m alright. Dante is more important.”

The tiny rat on his palm remained impassive, staring into his eyes. Her silence gave him a brief moment of amusement, and he let out a soft chuckle before shaking his head and continuing onward.

Bit by bit, the two traversed several blocks without being spotted by a Dirge. The monsters had spread themselves thin with time, and Rejo took advantage of their scattered positions, slipping through the shadows with precision.

Step by restless step, they neared their destination. The Baron’s office, a place once grand and imposing, now marred by the death that soaked its marble walls in a deep, tangible crimson.

Rejo paused across the street from the office, hanging at the edge of the rooftop. Below, he saw a veritable horde of Dirge below. Hundreds of Anaphages. At least a dozen Anarchies.

His stomach sank, and his tendrils lashed out with anxiousness. The boots below him scratched backward slightly as he realized just how difficult this might be.

But a moment later, the Araki’s mind reformatted the threat, as it always did. There was danger, but there was more. Beyond them, Dante had to be there. Why else would so many gather?

The excitement coursed through his veins, and Rejo’s heart raced. His hands instinctively came together, forming a sphere with his palms.

Before he could act, Joan shifted back into her true form, cracking her neck before giving him a swift bop on the head. “Stop being stupid,” she hissed. Then, pointing to the open window across the street, she added, “Throw something across, teleport me in. Bring me back in one minute.”

Rejo’s mind shook, and he nearly agreed to the suggestion. He rarely thought for himself outside of battle, but here, in this moment, with his best friend’s life on the line, he showed a measure of brilliance.

He glared at Joan with a twist of his head and questioned her reasoning, “What comes ‘fter then? I can’t ‘leport you back.”

Joan sighed with exasperation. Then, she pointed back to the office, “Yeah, but nothing saw us the first time. It’ll be fine. Just send me over. You can come if you really want to.”

With a groan, Rejo reluctantly agreed. She was right. They’d gotten in without any trouble. The Araki had a natural talent for city warfare—climbing walls, windows, and rails as if they were built for him. He was utterly unlike his farm-stuck kinfolk, and that made him proud.

So, he reached for the empty magazine from his rifle in his belt. Then, glaring at it like the container owed him money, he forced his will upon it. Rejo’s ‘Mojo‘ settled upon the magazine to replace the pipe from the ship, and he hurled it toward the building shortly after. The metal casing clattered loudly as it arced through the air and crashed perfectly into the open window.

“Score,” he murmured under his breath, impressed by his own aim. All those years of hurling grenades had proven more than fruitful.

He concentrated on the magazine, closing his eyes and feeling energy surge through him in that strange, familiar way. Joan vanished from his side, reappearing inside the Baron’s building. The strain of teleportation weighed on him, but he ignored it. Dante needed him.

Thankfully, simply transferring one of the two marks didn’t matter at all for his endurance, but the transpositions still did.

Without missing a beat, Rejo tossed another object and pressed a hand to his chest. A moment later, he teleported himself into the same room as Joan, crouching as his breath came in ragged gasps.

Despite the mounting fatigue, Rejo forced himself to move. He had to do this, or Dante may stay gone.

Joan was already moving during his bout of fatigue, her eyes darting around the room, scanning for any clues. Metal fragments and pieces of Dante’s bombs littered the floor, centered on a desk. Rejo had no idea what any of it did, but he knew Dante’s handiwork when he saw it.

“Dante was ‘ere,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. Joan nodded in acknowledgment, not saying a word. She took another brisk step and then raised her tracker to check Dante’s status.

Joan whispered back as she read the details, her voice tense, “His last signal is close.”

The two crept out of the room into the hallway, which was eerily silent as if the building had been abandoned in haste. They anxiously peeked into every room as they moved forward. The floor traveled with dried footprints, and the two assumed it was a Dirge who had wandered in from before. Most of the rooms, their primary focus, were destroyed or stripped bare—except for two.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

One room was spartan, with nothing but a single bed and a snow globe resting on top of it. Inside the glass sphere, a tall, featureless man and a crimson-dressed woman stood in front of a cabin. The pair seemed almost... lovingly to the eyes, though the woman wasn’t facing the man, making it more bizarre.

Such a sight was strange, far out-of-place inside the lifeless city, but neither Rejo nor Joan lingered.

The second room was more disturbing. Solidified blood refitted every surface in the room—the walls, furniture, and even the lamps pulsed with a sickly red glow. It was grotesquely beautiful but unsettling, yet after everything they had seen, it didn’t register in their minds.

“Don’t get distracted,” Joan ordered Rejo, knowing his tendencies. As she did so, her fingers pointed toward the staircase that went to the next floor.

They approached the stairs, their eyes vigilant against the adjacent rooms as they prepared to head to the roof. All of a sudden, Rejo froze, his senses flaring as he felt a dull beacon of energy ripple through the air. It was faint but distinct, a sensation from the Lightsea, something that cut through the suffocating silence of the office.

“You feel ‘hat?” Rejo whispered.

Joan nodded, her hand reaching for the familiar grip of a Biotic. The Pouncer. With it in her palm, she felt secure, “It’s coming from that room. The one we skipped.”

Without hesitation, for it might be a clue, they doubled back to the ruined room they had previously ignored. The back wall had been slashed open by what seemed like a water jet, bits of it still soaked. Rejo pushed aside a splintered piece of wood and stepped through the gaping hole in the wall.

Beyond it was another room that they hadn’t noticed before. It was hidden well, likely meant to remain concealed. As they stepped inside, their eyes were drawn to the far wall. A note sat stapled to the surface with a crude knife, pulsed with the same faint energy.

Joan approached the note cautiously while Rejo stood to the side. The Araki could hardly read his own language, and the translator within his mind did little for the others. In his place, Joan yanked the note off the wall, examining the pulsing script that seemed to shift as she read it.

Her face paled as she turned to Rejo, her voice barely above a whisper, “It’s from Dante.”

Rejo frowned, stepping closer. “What’s it ‘ay?”

Joan’s eyes scanned the note again, her expression growing darker with every word. “He says he’s on the way to something called the Inferose. We shouldn’t follow and meet up with him on Chimera, the port toward the Clouds. He also said... that if we got here before a month had passed, more Anathema might spawn. Or others might have come on their own.”

Rejo’s muscles tensed at the news, yet he only cared about the former, not the latter information. He shouted in defiance, forgetting himself, “No way!” We’re following ‘im!”

Just as the words left his mouth, a low melody echoed from below, entering their bones like a sinful song. Rejo wobbled while Joan’s eyes widened. She struck the Araki across his arm, hissing, “Fucking idiot! Now we... fuck! Go! That sound... it’s a Stigmata.”

Joan pushed Rejo back toward the hole they had come from, and both hustled as swiftly as they could. While they sprinted back toward the window they came from, the sound rang out once more, this time coming from the hallway.

Both entered the hall together, discovering a woman with dew dripping from her washed-out dress. The faint color somehow resonated with the sound. With just the second note from the woman’s throat, roars resounded just outside.

The horde had sensed them. The ground shook beneath their feet, and the howls of the Anarchies grew louder, yet none of the Dirge seemed to be willing to enter the building.

Worse, somehow, for their minds, the woman’s bare feet seamlessly fit within the dry footprints from earlier. That means she had been here the whole time.

Joan’s grip tightened around her syringe while another hand crumpled the note, her eyes flicking to the stairwell. She spoke under her breath to Rejo, “To the roof.”

They fled upward, boots slamming against the marble as the wordless carol continued to build in intensity, warping their senses and leaving them disoriented. Joan burst onto the rooftop and darted to the edge, where she gazed down at the monsters below. Their eyes gleamed with more than hunger—there was something far more primal in their gaze.

She could see desire in their eyes. It was more than a mere craving for flesh. No, it wasn’t even that. They wished for strength. And the only way to do so was to devour energy from other dimensions.

Joan had done enough research to learn the motives of the Dirge. The lesser ones, at least. Before she could order Rejo, she witnessed a stone sail past her heading, flying across the street and landing on a roof.

Then, a shout was the last thing she heard before her surroundings shifted, and she found herself on a lower rooftop. Joan then looked up, staring across the deadly aisle to see only the top of Rejo’s head.

A third and final melody burst through her mind at the same time, trailing blood down her nose and causing her vision to blur. Joan’s hands reached for the Biotic that her hands had released, but she couldn’t grasp it. She was far too dizzy to pick it up.

Still, she forced her fingers to twist, sinking the Rat Biotic into her flesh. Escape was the best course of action. As her flesh wilted, she crawled away from the death sentence.

On the rooftop, Rejo fared no better. The Araki collapsed under the weight of the hymn, his hands trembling as he marked his rifle round and himself with the last remnants of his energy.

Footsteps boomed within his ears, a thousand times louder thanks to whatever had happened by the third note. Then, a timid voice asked, “So this is where she ran off to? Thanaris really thinks she’ll steal the Inferose? With this trash?”

Rejo’s eyes lifted themselves from the ground while he kneeled, finding that drenched woman standing before him. Her gaze didn’t even fall on the man’s broken figure while she lifted a hand to her chin.

She thought aloud as if he wasn’t even there, “I could meet up with Geist, but he forked out a lot for Hana to help him. Hmm... Balba’s scary. And I don’t like Suaze’s face. How about Wain? Yeah. That sounds good.”

While she spoke, Rejo shifted his hands toward his chest in a desperate attempt to channel the Lightsea as ‘Dante’ had taught him. The Dirge saw his movement and frowned, finally taking notice as she crouched face-to-face with him.

“Domain Collapse? Really?” she said, crouching down so her face was only inches from his. “You’re way too weak for that, sonny.”

Yet, despite her disdain, a moment later, something flickered in the air. A hint of the Lightsea.

Immediately, as she knew the danger a Domain Collapse could present, she retreated, possessing hardly concealed fear. To her response, Rejo simply exhaled a weighty breath before grabbing his rifle.

The woman’s amusement turned into a sharp, predatory gleam, “Nice try.”

Then, as a knife-shaped hand raced for his head, catching his bluff, Rejo pulled the trigger and ripped the Lightsea to meet him.

A dripping hand pierced into the concrete ceiling, drilling through the steel and marble beneath as the concentrated power of her strike continued downward and shattered the rooftop. Still, as the roof collapsed, the woman pirouetted backward onto the railing, finding a perch to stare outward.

Her longest finger slid inside the concave of her mouth, and the mysterious figure licked the lone drop of blood that she drew.

A long moan filled the air, “Hmm... Delicious. I like him. But... there’s no time. I really must be going. Bye-bye.”

The presence vanished as Rejo fell from the sky in the distance, utterly split from Joan. He careened toward the ground from dozens of feet in the air. Despite his exhaustion and the line of opened flesh on his face, he looked down, tapping the next bullet that was loaded.

Mid-air, he took aim, finding a distant Starport in his eyes. Rejo promptly pulled the trigger and reached for the Lightsea once more.

A moment later, the man crashed onto the sidewalk of the Starport, blood dripping from the back of his head to join the laceration on his face. The definite concussion shook his brain and rattled his thoughts, yet Rejo, as if in defiance of his nature and birth, shook off the pain.

He stood wearily, stumbling, and hardly conscious. His hand fell to the wall to his right, and using it as a guide, he waded through the warbling reality. The world, to his eyes, was worse than any drunkard had ever seen, but he didn’t care.

Rejo had a mission.

He would take the Inferose with his captain, no matter what. They were way out of their league here, and Dante needed help, whether he would admit it or not.

Despite the concussion, Rejo’s thoughts were crystal, confident enough to find the piece of the puzzle that would solve it all.

“He... needs... me...” the Araki sputtered out while stepping through a dark corridor, one foot after another. His progress was glacial and only slowing further. Rejo’s will was indomitable in its madness, more chaotic than any other of his crew.

Still, the body had a limit. When he couldn’t resist any longer, the man fell to the ground, crashing and falling motionless on the tile.

He had been born in a world without violence. A simple farm-world. The worst one could find was a cattle’s kick. But that wasn’t enough for him. Without violence available to him, he sought it out. Day after day, as a child, a teen, and even an adult, he fought, whether it was in rings, alleys, or bounties. None of them were without cost. The injuries had piled up within his body despite the era’s medicine.

Rejo had been broken before. He had been left for dead. He had been alone for so very long.

But he always got back up, even without a pillar to help him.

His hands clenched, tightening up on the tile with a screeching noise as the Lightsea coursed through him. Yet, nothing came. No ice, no nothing. Rejo couldn’t form the Tide, no matter how much he tried. The man had no clue how much time had passed, only that it would never work.

So, he gave up and propelled himself with his failing arms. He only made it a foot off the ground before he lost strength.

However, before he could hit the ground, four arms wrapped around his back. An impressed voice whispered into his ears as he lost consciousness, “You’re not who I thought you were, Rejo. As crazy as me? Yeah. But you’ve got a spine where I have nothing. Thank you.”

Joan had never experienced someone placing her life above theirs without a second thought or a moment of hesitance. All her experiences were with selfish bastards who vied for her medicine and knowledge. Rejo had simply thrown the rock and used his Mojo. He hadn’t been asked, told, or blackmailed.

He just did.

With a grunt, her four arms dragged the bleeding Araki through the hallway and eventually out into the open hangar. There, Joan brought Rejo into the ship, passing the sleeping Lucius and the tens of mashed corpses. Without glancing at the dead, she tossed her patient onto a bed and got to work reknitting her crewmate’s flesh.

Joan always repaid her debts.

She couldn’t bear to let them enter her heart.