

Welcome to Omega Volume 1: Nightmare

Copyright © Jack Delgado, 2012

Smashwords Edition

Cover Illustration by Tazio Bettin

http://sunamori.deviantart.com/

Dedicated to my family, blood and otherwise, for all their support and hard work.

Author's Note:

This story was originally intended to be sold episodically, but due to some constraints in Amazon's otherwise very generous self-publishing system, I'm required to publish them in volumes. These stories were meant to be read one at a time; take it slow and you'll really feel what I was trying to do. Don't rush through, not only because this is the shortest volume but because you'll miss out on the real effect I strove for when writing this. That being said, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you, reader, for helping to make my dream possible. Thank you for reading my story. Let's dive right in, then...

Welcome to Omega, ladies and gentlemen.

Episode 1: Welcome to Omega

December 21, 2192

The dull stars glared down on Omega City from their perches in the night sky, watching everything and nothing. Their light barely illuminated the polluted and twisting streets, their cold radiance filling the recesses of gutter and slum.

Eternal witnesses without hope of testimony, the stars stared down at the spectacle of human life.

Here a corpse, his killer standing over him with blood dripping from his fists, his tears and his curses filling the night around him like a fog.

There a man, broken and delirious, a marionette of the flesh, living out his last moments in a black haze of alcohol and legalized narcotics.

There a woman, journalistic folder in hand, dragged silently from her home by guns for hire, gagged for life.

Here deals for the death of another, whispered in vile tones of fear and secrecy, made openly under the night sky for any of the gods to see.

On and on they continued, the dramas no one would dare play out in the sunlight.

But not all is done in malice and anger... look there, nestled between the monolithic houses of the old city, blocks of black ice in the shadows.

Two lovers, united in desperation and fear, their young and fatal connection overcoming the terror of discovery with sweet words, false reassurances, promises easily broken.

Two deserter soldiers, brothers in arms by necessity and by choice, standing by one another as their own platoon of former comrades bear down on them, their guns making one last retort to an old tyranny.

On and on the stories wrote and finished themselves, tortured songs and dances written and performed between the shadows of the megaliths in blood and tears, stories of loss, corruption, death, regret, defiance, and the desire for freedom in a shattered and black world.

And here on the roof of a towering helioscraper, lit by the light of the desolate and eternal stars, two of the actors stood above it all and watched through a sniper rifle's scope.

A woman and a boy, strange and unharmed and dangerous in this bleak midnight, watched the world around them through the glass of the scope. His hair swirled around his head in a cloud of shadow, his eyes onyx in the night, his face bearing a look of innocence lost.

The woman kept her vigil over the youth as he watched the world, her cropped auburn locks swirling in time with the boy's, her eyes of a color with his. Her face was far away from where she stood, beautiful, sad, pained.

She could feel the agony emanating from him, the anger, the grief. She wanted it to stop, wanted to hold the boy close, whisper and lie that he was alright, to save him from the bloody screams the city's nights brought with it. She yearned to shield the child, to keep him unknowing just a moment longer.

But the moment came; the boy had seen enough at last. He got to his feet slowly, stiff from the long hours of watching, and looked at the woman. He stared at her a moment, then opened his mouth to speak. She raised her hand to silence him, slender and grey in the twilight.

"You want to know why it's our way to bring young ones like you up here and have you sit here for a night, watching the city," she said, her melodious voice carrying even at a whisper.

He nodded vigorously, never breaking eye contact with her. She sighed and shook her head.

"We have to know the world we exist in," she told him grimly, "We have to know the city. You've never seen it as it truly is until tonight. You may have had some idea about the danger, but no one really understands anything until they take a long look around them."

"You wanted me to know what their life is like," he murmured, soft as silk, "You wanted me to see the world as it is when the sun and the rules are gone."

It was a statement, not a question. The woman shivered and looked away, avoiding the child's eyes.

"I wish you wouldn't do that, kid," she murmured.

"Do what?"

"Nothing. Nevermind," she replied quickly. She beckoned him to follow her, walking towards the opposite end of the mighty helioscraper. They strode in silence, avoiding each other's eyes, the only sound the crunch of gravel under their feet.

As he joined her at the edge of the roof, she turned her gaze to the horizon. The first tinges of dawn's light were beginning to color the polluted sky, dyeing it with rich hues of amethyst and orange. The child stood impassively, arms crossed as he watched the city below.

"You didn't like what you saw, did you?" she asked quietly, keeping her eyes fixed on the distant skyline.

His jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed as he stared into the twisting black metropolis below them. Anger, hatred and confusion drifted off him like a scent. To her they were as palpable as gun smoke, the smell of steel, the silent air before a summer storm.

"That was murder being committed down there," he growled, his fists clenching by his sides, "I saw men and women alike being gunned down in the streets, saw people being persecuted based on nothing but dislike, saw people's lives being ripped apart with a knock on their doors.

He turned to her, fury set in his face like the carvings of a statue.

"You know me," he snarled, "Do you think I liked what I saw?"

"Never. I know you better than that."

He looked away, blinking rapidly. She felt her heart wrench a little in her chest, her throat constricting as she watched him.

"But no matter how hopeless the world may seem to you, we're working to change it," she said earnestly, fighting the overwhelming urge to go to him, to comfort him, "Keep that in mind. You can't stop every murder, abduction or enslavement in the world. I know I would love to be able to. The best we can do, and what we're fighting for, is to stop the source."

"Jahansson," he whispered. Hatred darkened his voice like the eclipse of a storm shadow, a cold rain ready in the distance. She nodded and looked back at the dawn.

"If we stop that son of a bitch, we can change this city forever. We can end the crimes that you saw, we can clean up the river of shit history's become. Always remember that, kid. That's what we're working for."

He said nothing, turning away from her and looking back at the lightening sky. She followed his gaze, staring with him into the pre-dawn tableau laid out before them.

It won't do any harm to let him watch one more. It'll be a long time before he gets to see another. Let him keep the memory as long as he can.

A moment's hesitation.

And then... it happened.

The first rays of the sun broke over the distant black plain, flooding it with a torrent of light and warmth and life, its glory spilling into the city and illuminating it in a way neon never could. For a short time the light of dawn seemed to scatter the gloom of the city, routing the shadows and lifting the sadness that hung over Omega like a veil, light flowing through the city like cleansing water.

She looked down at the boy and saw a tear rolling down his face. The light of daybreak turned the tear into a rainbow, a crystal that travelled down his face as if it had all the time in the world.

She gripped his shoulder gently and squeezed, a smile rising over her face. He looked at her and smiled back, eyes full of unshed tears.

"It's so beautiful," he whispered. She nodded fervently.

Then she realized with a jolt that they were late. She had been so caught up in the dawn...

"Dante," she said, giving the boy a little shake.

"I know," he whispered, still smiling that untroubled smile.

They both took one last look at the rising sun, their feet perfectly balanced on the smooth granite, the wind whipping their faces. The sun was beginning to fade behind the low clouds of Omega industry, the light disappearing from the city's avenues and alleyways.

The pair stepped out into the open air, three thousand feet above the black floor so far below. They felt themselves hurtle downward, almost in slow motion, staring down at the near-empty streets below.

An orb of verdant green like a splash of emeralds spat into existence, glittering out into the void. Then it was gone, flickering out of existence, taking the pair with it.

***

Run. Run as fast as you can. Sprint for your life. Don't stop.

It's closing in on both you. You can feel it. It's getting so close, ready to reach out and touch you and the young one in your arms.

Run. Keep running. Don't stop.

Duck through low passages, leap and slide, don't lose your grip on the child. Fly through the labyrinth, flee the beast closing in behind you. Ignore the shouts of the others, just keep running, don't stop...

A turn and a turn and a staircase, then a turn and a turn and a long hall, up and down and all directions in a kaleidoscope of grey, don't stop, keep running, you're getting closer!

The child in your arms is bleeding and burnt and barely breathing, skin ashen, eyes fluttering slowly. His life seems to be slipping from your arms like sand, and you can't stop, don't stop, don't let him go.

Fear, fear, it tries to cloud your mind, make you slow, tries to make you let it catch up with you and the child. You push the fear away and run faster, you're used to it, you've been running for the longest time...

Oh, the labyrinth, the great gray labyrinth, it taunts you and beckons you this way and that, liar's doors popping into existence to lure you off the path, but it can't stop you, you know the way and you're almost there.

Oh, the child, the child, the bewailed child! Why, you scream silently, why did he have to do this? Why? Why did he inflict so much pain on both of you? Why, why? Your questions go unanswered as you draw nearer to the light, your fears and wonderings meaningless for the moment.

Your breath is beginning to catch in your throat, your eyes burning with a strange pain, you're choking and water's running down your face, focus, keep running. Close, close, close!

The door jumps out at you around another turn, blazing white in your eyes, and you feel yourself surge forward without really meaning to, soaring forward through the portal into the haven.

Just as you feel the child's heart slow and stop, ceasing to breathe as you pound forward to the bed, the healers, the metal angels promising false deliverance.

Episode 2: Aaliyah

The barracks hallway stretched east to west in a short line of pale gray walls and white steel doors, lit by the harsh glare of fluorescent bars set into the overcast ceiling. The doors were uniform and symmetrical, devoid of any decoration or individuality, the walls scarred here and there with stains of what could be blood.

The grey of her skin-armor seemed to blend in and out of the walls, becoming one and separate with the color over and over. Her eyes drooped, heavy-lidded with fatigue, blue irises barely visible through their curtain.

His pale, feverish face gazes up at her with vacant eyes like patches of summer sky. The medics can't even get a word in before she has him in her arms, pounding her feet towards the medical units as fast as she can go.

The fear in their eyes is nothing compared to the terror in her heart; Dante is dying and she knows it.

The intensive care pod looms up to her right, swollen to enormous proportions in the rush of adrenaline. Aaliyah immediately dumps her son into the cushioned interior, slamming the glass lid shut with one hand as the other shoots into an arm-shaped socket.

The medics work all around her, lobbing vials of chemicals and fragile beakers full of dangerous material back and forth between one another. It's a wonder the floor isn't dissolving underneath them from a wash of nanacids and catalytic solutions.

She twists her other arm into the second socket, the mechanical arms inside the pod whirring to life. She makes a hasty grab for the healing syringes, almost smashing the rack. She recovers and quickly grabs hold of one of the delicate glass needles, whipping it to Dante's neck and stabbing the cruel-looking tip into his left jugular.

Dante jerks up, drawing his first breath in nearly four minutes and screaming in agony. Aaliyah looks away as her apprentice thrashes about the padded interior, the pain of forced cellular regeneration wracking his body in fiery waves.

All that matters is that he's safe. That he'll live.

Aaliyah jerked up from the dream and staggered forward, breathing hard, covered in a cold sweat. She shook her head, rubbed her eyes and stood back up cursing softly. The memories of the night before were raw in her head, like open wounds, scabbed over and throbbing. The terror of seeing her son like that, unbreathing, burnt, slashed, the manic energy that had possessed her at the sight of his body...

She shivered and leaned back up against the wall, bringing her wrist-monitor back to her eyes.

At least he's alive. And he passed! Damn kid, always needs to be at the top.

She smiled to herself. She could not deny she was proud of him, as she was for any new member of the runner hierarchy.

Is he ready?

The thought troubled her. Dante was young and strong and fierce, there was no way to deny it.

But the young are almost never ready for the junk the old pile up on them.

She lapsed into brooding thought, fighting to stay awake and planning for the future, absentmindedly typing at the touchscreen of the wrist-monitor. After a short while she looked up, hearing the quiet sound of armored footsteps on the steel stairs.

A door to her right opened and a tall, thin man stepped through, eyes fixed on a holoboard flashing figures and charts up at him in a whirl of orange. She smiled tiredly and rapped her knuckles against the wall, jerking the man up to look at her.

"'That for me, Stephen?" she asked, flipping her monitor closed and walking over to the medic. Stephen nodded silently and handed her the holoboard, standing back with his hands clasped behind him.

Aaliyah looked down at the holoboard and began to read, tapping here and there to blow up the injury figures and internal readings. She winced more than once, grimacing at the sheer level of damage Dante had inflicted on himself. When she finished reading a passage about a "particularly fascinating plasma bullet lodged in the base of the patient's spine", she tossed Stephen the clipboard and leaned back against the wall.

"One day that kid's going to kill me," Aaliyah muttered darkly, "And I've still got a good long while with him as my partner."

Steven nodded. "With that adventurous streak he has, I think he'll need your help for a long time," he said seriously, his soft brown eyes fixed on hers, "But at least he's alive and healed, Aali."

"How in the hell did he get shot in the spine by a plasma slug and live, much less move?" she demanded, gesturing incredulously, "How was he still moving after fifteen second-degree burns, a fractured jaw, a ligament inflammation from Lera poison, how was he running with a broken hip? Is that even possible?"

Stephen grinned and clapped her on the shoulder. "Maybe he learned from the best," he said, "And maybe he learned well."

Aaliyah rolled her eyes and let her head bump back into the wall, rubbing her eyes and shaking her head. Stephen stepped forward, ready to remind her that her son was alive and almost completely healed, but stopped as he saw a smile growing underneath the hand.

"Ohhh...," she sighed, turning to look at Stephen as the grin spread fully over her lovely face, "I know I sound ungrateful, Steve. Thanks for all your help with keeping the damn kid alive."

Stephen shrugged and smiled, spreading his hands as if to say it was nothing.

"That was much more than nothing to me and Dante, Steve," she said warmly, her right hand flipping open her wrist-monitor and tapping the screen with a frightening speed. "Here..."

Stephen's own wristpiece snapped open and began to bleep loudly, making him jump and jerk his left hand to the hidden holsters in his lab coat. Aaliyah laughed aloud and gestured him to calm down.

"I've given you a little gift. Compensation. 'Cause my damn brother doesn't pay you anything," she said, flipping her monitor shut. Stephen raised the monitor to his eyes and squinted to read the amount written there.

His gaze jerked sharply to Aaliyah, who grinned and punched him lightly on the shoulder. He looked back and forth between the monitor and her face, goggling slightly, his jaw working but making no sounds.

"Aaliyah-" he choked out at last, "I can't accept this!"

"You medics need all the money you can get!" she exclaimed, "If he won't pay you, I'll try and make your life a little easier."

Stephen started to protest, gesturing wildly between the monitor and Aaliyah, but silenced as she threw her hands into the air and shouted, "Just take it, Steve! If you desperately don't want to call it pay, consider it a gift!"

Stephen shook his head and grumbled something about "more money than I can spend," then straightened and looked her in the eye, stern and unsmiling.

"You are," he said tersely, "the most annoyingly and endearingly indomitable woman I've ever met."

Aaliyah laughed and punched him on the shoulder again, putting a tiny bit of force behind the blow. Stephen staggered back into the doorframe of the exit, dinging his head against the rigid plasteel. He grunted in pain, rubbing the spot tenderly and then speaking with the same deadpan disapproval.

"And it doesn't help that you're stronger than a bloody power lifter."

She winked and cocked her fist back dramatically. "You know you love me," she said sardonically, "Now, don't you have some work to do?"

"Yeah," he said wearily, stretching and rubbing his eyes, "Work never stops. Take care of yourself, Aali."

"Don't worry about me," Aaliyah reassured him, "I'm not the one who needs the care right now."

Stephen nodded and turned back to the stairwell, vanishing from sight with the sound of something like stone tapping on steel. Then a second pair of footsteps joined the sound of his, much louder and much quicker. Aaliyah stood up straight and narrowed her eyes, unconsciously beginning to sink into a combat crouch. She heard Stephen ask something, his voice inaudible but his tone shocked.

Aaliyah's eyes widened in shock as she heard something begin to roll down the stairs, Stephen's shouts and curses ringing up to her where his words hadn't, the running footsteps getting louder every second.

The doors shot open, a grey boot emerging from the gap, then a body followed quickly and stopped as it caught sight of Aaliyah. The man, nearly six feet tall, brown-haired like her, with the same deep blue eyes and dancer-lean body, looked around quickly and caught sight of Aaliyah. He made a disgusted noise and walked forward, his fists balled at his sides, his mouth curved into a sneering frown.

Aaliyah stared as he advanced on her, unsure how to react; her brother had just smashed through the doors.

He looked like he had sat on a porcupine.

"What do you need, Jac?" Aaliyah asked pleasantly, adjusting a lock of her brown hair and keeping her stance slightly crouched, ready to move.

Jac's eyes flashed with anger, his voice knife-sharp as he stopped two steps away from her.

"What did you tell him, up on the helioscraper?" he asked quietly, his tone deadly serious. She feigned innocence, lifting her eyebrows and shrugging her shoulders defensively.

"Tell me, dammit!" he shouted, thrusting his face forward into hers, "I order you to tell me!"

Aaliyah's eyes narrowed in anger and she stepped forward, shoving her brother away from her with both hands. He stumbled backwards and hit the opposite wall with a loud curse, a dull boom resonating through the hallway.

"I told him exactly what you and I were told before we had our initiations, Jac," she told him coldly, folding her arms across her chest and fixing Jac with a glare that burned like napalm.

"You what?" he hissed, his eyes widening in incredulous anger. In an instant he jerked forward, taking Aaliyah by surprise, his hands slamming her shoulders against the wall.

"You fucking what?!" he roared.

Three loud smacking sounds rang out around the hallway as his hand flicked back and forth across her face, two slaps and a backhand with all his considerable strength behind them.

Aaliyah stood like she had been frozen in place, her angry glare subsiding into something cold, something dark, something dead. Jac stepped back, the flush of his anger draining from his face as he watched his sister slowly raise her hand to her burning red cheek.

Then she was on him, a blur of speeding muscle that darted forward and lifted him by the throat, squeezing hard before slamming him backwards face-first into the floor. A fist lanced into his stomach before he had time to fall to the ground, a vicious kick crashing into his ribcage and flipping him onto his back.

Then she was atop him before he had time to scream, her hand clenching his throat and squeezing just hard enough to let him breathe. Her eyes shone like lamplight reflected by frost, her teeth clenched and bared like fangs, one fist poised above her head like a hammer waiting to fall. Jac choked and grabbed at her hand, squirming and writhing underneath her. She tsked, tightening her grip just a hair around his throat.

"Jac, Jac, Jac," she said severely, like a teacher chiding an uppity student, "Don't you know not to mess with a girl who hasn't had her sleep?"

He growled and twisted underneath her, trying and failing to throw her off. She breathed out a disgusted sigh and gave him a parting shot on the jaw, the bone crunching under her fist. She stood and stepped back against the wall, watching her brother struggle to his feet, blood dripping from his split lip and internal injuries.

Jac heaved himself up against the opposite wall, leaning on his left arm as he fixed Aaliyah with the same death glare as before. But now the stare was cautious and restrained, the anger tempered by her little reminder.

"You... told him... that we were out... to liberate Omega?!" he gasped, wincing in pain as his jaw slid back into place. "You know damn well that the Forerunner told all of us not to spew any propaganda in the initiate's ears!"

She raised an eyebrow, her eyes still sparking with the same cold fury.

"Some of us actually hold to our laws, Jac," she retorted, her words cool and sharp. He sighed in exasperation, making a disgusted gesture in her direction.

"Or do I have to remind you about the Virtues too? I thought those had bored through even that thick head of yours a long time ago." Her tone held a mocking edge, but the brutal honesty of her belief was far more prevalent.

"'It's our job to preserve freedom wherever we find it and bring it to those who can't help themselves'," she said, her gaze locked with his, "I told him what I was told, and what he needed to hear. I taught him what I was taught, and what you were taught, and what every runner should be taught. I followed the law. The first law."

"Old laws can be set aside by any Forerunner and you know it!" he spat at her, "That wasn't a recommendation or a discouragement, that was a goddamn order!"

Aaliyah closed her mouth, just on the verge of reminding him about her disinclination to follow rules, and stared at Jac with an expression of mixed horror, disbelief and horror.

"He can't... he didn't... did he? You're- you're joking." Her voice was like a broken record, jarred and disjointed.

"No, I'm not," he said grimly, a small and bitter smile breaking over his face, "He did it for our survival. If we continue with the laws the first Forerunner gave us, we'll attract too much flak from J.U.!"

"Jac, that's exactly what we want!" she exclaimed, incredulous and angry, "We want them to waste soldiers on us! You know we're superior fighters. We can handle anything that they throw our way!"

"We've lost too many good runners on attack and defense. Nearly two hundred have died just this year, Aali!" Jac shot back angrily, "We need to adopt a new angle, a new approach if we want to survive! People like you are endangering the order!"

"Is that you talking, or is that the Forerunner?" she asked venomously. He went bright red, the insult of toadying too much even for him. She did not wait for him to reply, bulldozing over whatever excuse he would give her.

"And I'm guessing that's not all," she continued icily, bunching up her fists and taking a step forward. "I bet he wants us in a new angle too! So what's it going to be, Jac? Couriers? Spies? Soldiers for that new movement, the Demokratos Party?"

"All three, Aaliyah," he said quietly, a triumphant look spreading over his face.

She fell silent in a heartbeat. Her sapphire blue eyes were wide and furious, and when she was able to bring words back to her mouth, she spoke like someone holding back a murderous rage.

"Mercenaries," she said in that deadly calm voice. Jac instinctively took a step backwards, paling, his hand unconsciously traveling to a light scar on the his armor's surface.

"He wants us sell our ideals for money," she stated, taking another slow step forward.

"He wants us to become prostitutes, using our skills for any bastard who can pay enough cash to hire us. He wants us to throw away everything for cash."

Another step, inexorable and terrifying as the stone that starts an avalanche. Fear raced across Jac's features, replacing triumph and spite.

"Aaliyah, it wasn't my decision, but it's the runner law now!" he jabbered, backing up against the wall, "He's made his decision, I can't change that, so just, just back off-"

Her eyes blazed as she drew a breath to answer, hard and lean muscles tensing for another fight. Her armor hardened into plates around her fists, her stomach, her neck, solidifying into battle form as she took the last step forward.

A groan emanated from Dante's room, faint and tired and pained, and stopped Aaliyah dead in her tracks. Her eyes widened in fear as she turned her head back to the door she had been guarding, listening with all her might.

Another moan, louder and more insistent, and she whirled around, barreling forward and bursting through the door.

The room had no windows and was spartan in decoration with a steel-and-mesh cot set in one corner, a sink and mirror next to it and a bank of computer monitors set across from the sink. Dante was stirring on the bed beneath the threadbare cotton blanket, his eyes flickering open and closed as he flexed his wounded arms and legs.

Aaliyah rushed over and checked his pulse, feeling for irregularities or spikes that could indicate a heart attack. He shook his head and muttered a curse, swatting weakly at her armored hand and tossing back and forth.

Aaliyah sighed and sat back against the wall by the bed, relief washing over her in a cool, tempering tide of gratitude. Dante rolled onto his side and groaned, his eyes forcing themselves open to look at her. He smiled tiredly at Aaliyah's wan grin and cracked his neck.

"Have I died and gone to heaven?" he muttered groggily, pushing himself up and swinging his legs slowly over the side of the cot.

Aaliyah raised an eyebrow, a small smile turning up the corners of her lips. "Is that any way to talk about your teacher?" she asked.

He chuckled and let himself fall back against the cot with a creaking squeak.

"I notice I'm not in the Initiate's Quarters," he breathed, putting his arms behind his head, "Did I pass?"

His voice held a tint of excitement, but also a little fear. Aaliyah smiled a little and pulled him back upright, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

"You aren't an initiate anymore, Dante," she said. Dante's eyes widened in surprise.

"Nearly killing yourself doesn't stop you from being the winner. You're a Nightwalker now, an official adult. So I'd like to be the first one to welcome you to hell, kid."

He sat there for a second, staring at her shocked, digesting the news. Then a wide grin broke out on his face, and he pumped his arms into the air with a loud shout.

Aaliyah grinned with him, grabbed a grey cylinder from under the bed and dumped it in his lap. The soupy contents of the canister swirled slowly in the light, glossy and thick and not unlike slime. Dante wasted no time, popping the lid of the tube and dropping the thick fluid onto his skin.

It seemed to come alive as it touched him, a great grey amoeba crawling slowly up his arm and over his torso, down his abdomen and over his face in a living flood.

"Not exactly painless," Dante complained, grimacing and squirming a little, "Coulda warned me."

"Where's the fun in that?" she asked, grinning slyly, "If you don't feel a little agony, you aren't doing it right."

She stood up and walked to the computer monitors across the room, alive with diagrams and charts and status updates as the grey stuff slithered over Dante's body. Dante growled in mock anger and closed his eyes, fighting back the pain as he became sheathed in a grey carapace of armor-matter.

"Activating. Get ready," Aaliyah called from across the room, pressing the enter key on the computer's keyboard. In a heartbeat the grey substance submerged under his skin, leaving no trace of its existence across his bare skin. Dante turned his arm this way and that, his skin crawling a little as the armor settled back under his flesh.

"Genetically Integrated Advanced Combat Armor systems online without error. Marrying program complete," Aaliyah called to him, reading from the diagnostics on the monitor of the computer.

Dante stretched and leaned back, flexing his powerful muscles against the many bandages. As his eyes fell on each burn or scabbed cut or bruise the armor ran out across his wounds and they began to reknit, melding back together and healing without scars or blemishes. It began to cut away the bandages, grey and razor-sharp ridges of bone and cartilage slicing through the mesh and submerging back beneath his skin.

Dante stood and turned to the wall behind his bed, curling his hand experimentally and watching the grey rush to the surface and coat his fist. His hand shot out and smashed into the solid concrete-and-steel wall, sending a spiderweb of cracks racing out in a foot-long radius around his fist. He laughed out loud, drawing his hand back slowly and feeling his knuckles; hardened, skin protected by a grey shell of bone and metal.

"When do I get my first mission, ma'am?" he called over his shoulder, sardonic and brash. He chuckled to himself and turned back to his new skin, calling up the GIACA again and again all over his body.

Aaliyah frowned and rapped the desk for his attention. He turned and leaned against the fractured wall, a cocky and easy grin plastered all over his young face.

"You're still my charge, Dante," she told him sternly, "And I'm still responsible for you in a few big ways. From here until you beat me in the Trials you're an adult runner, with autonomy and ability to roam, but also my son. Once you're a Master you can treat me with a little disrespect, at long damn last."

Dante's smile faltered, momentary surprise then disappointment flickering across his face. He opened his mouth and closed it, as if on the verge of saying something. Then the grin was back before she had time to blink, and he gave her a deep, melodramatic bow.

"As if I'd ever challenge you," he scoffed irreverently, "Lead me on then, mom. I look forward to dying under your command."

"Hopefully that won't be necessary today," came Jac's calm, steady voice from the doorframe, where he had leaned up against the wall and watched the whole proceeding. He smiled at Dante, his newly-repaired jaw and teeth giving no indication of the fight.

"Go down to the mess hall, Dante," he said, not looking at Aaliyah. "Breakfast was stalled for you, and we're all hungry."

Dante nodded and rushed out the door, propelled with a child's excitement, his footsteps echoing down the long hall and fading into the distance. Jac watched him go, his smile fond, almost fatherly. But when he looked back to his sister, it was replaced with the same old icy glare. He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand and spoke instead.

"There's nothing more to discuss," she told him coolly. "I'll teach him the new laws, but I'll also teach him the old ways. My ways. He is mine to instruct, and you have no say in it."

She stood up. "But let's forget about that now and celebrate," she said, keeping eye contact with her brother as she walked out the door, "It's a big day for Dante, and we shouldn't let anything get in the way."

He was impassive for a second more, then smiled stonily and nodded. Aaliyah walked down the hall to the mess hall and did not notice the expression of dark worry that flashed across his face.

Dante's special. Not a doubt about it. He could make or break the order. He's a scion. He could mean anything, good or bad.

He stood in that doorway for a long time, thinking and planning for the future.

Episode 3: Eight Years Later

3:30 am, December 29, 2199.

"I hope you picked the right man this time, Mikhail. For your sake."

"Relax. Wolf's a professional. He knows what he's doing."

"I won't relax until I see Aleksandr's fat body on a spike! Every damn fool you've sent after the man failed, why shouldn't this free-range bastard? He goes in there with two pistols, no backup and no plan, and you expect me to relax?!"

"Have a little faith in him, boss. Isn't one of the big things in this goddamn nation that you're innocent until proven guilty?"

"Yeah. At least it was, two hundred years ago! Until the job's done, you're a dead man, Mikhail. For fuck's sake, man! You had to hire a freelancer, didn't you! Drive my blood pressure up again and again..."

"The kid is a Daywalker, boss. He made rank in less than a year. He's already got a hundred jobs under his belt. You know what they say about a young Daywalker?"

"Everyone does, but that don't make it true! Do you believe in half the stuff they tell you?!"

"This kid was born and raised on these Godforsaken streets, boss. His mother is the goddamn Ice Queen, the Demon of the Sahara, the queen bitch herself, and the fact that he's survived this long under her wing is a pretty fuckin' big testament to his skill."

"Wait. Fuck me, Mikhail... you hired the son of the goddamn Reaper?!"

"That's what the underground says. And the underground is pretty reliable."

"Mikhail, if that was supposed to make me feel better-!"

"He'll be fine, Yakov. He knows the risk. And I don't think she'll blame us if he does fail."

"How can you be sure, dammit?! You know what she can do with one flick of a wrist? I've seen it. It's not pretty!"

"Yeah, but the kid's an adult in their eyes. Adults are responsible for their own actions."

"...Are you damn sure that he can do it? Abso-fucking-lutely sure?"

"He's a runner. He can do anything."

"And it's a runner, no less!" exclaimed the short, fat man at the head of the caravan. The light of the streets above the huge lower chamber lit his face with an unhealthy, yellowish pallor, shadows dancing over his sickeningly filthy grin as walkers passed overhead. His thumbs, shining with scar tissue and missing a chunk of skin off both knuckles, stroked the brown plasteel butt of his pistol and the wooden hilt of a long knife as he surveyed the shadows in front of him.

At the overweight man's side stood a tall, skeletally thin woman, dressed head-to-toe in black armor-leather, the hilts of a dozen types of knives protruding from all over her basic, cheap getup. In the light behind her stood a line of fifteen men, masked with blank porcelain-white plastic, every inch of skin wrapped in bulletproof fiber armor, and a short line of huddled metallic figures, each bent over and bearing a massive pack on their backs.

Above them the man called Wolf stood stock-still, poised at the edge of a high tunnel leading into the chamber. His hands were frozen over the worn butts of his own pistols, just on the point of a draw. His eyes, invisible in the near-darkness, stared deep into the fat man's muddy brown orbs.

"Why don't you come down and settle this like a man?" the fat man shouted, false confidence layered over fear and a deep, irrational loathing.

"I could do with a fight, and if you're good as you say you are then it should be a fun match! Whoever wins gets control over Omega's drug trade!"

Wolf said nothing, letting his gaze wander over the more interesting aspects of the crowd. The mercs were crouched down low, their long, slender guns unwaveringly trained on Dante's forehead. Trained professionals, long-career mercs. The woman was eyeing Wolf with an appraising expression, fiddling with the long, slender boning knife in her hands. He turned his head slowly over every detail, meticulously gathering and filing the various facets of the scene. The leader continued to rant gleefully at him, but the fat man's voice was far away from the runner's unconcerned mind.

Wolf's eyes flicked to the mercenaries.

Fifteen standard-range Laser Rifles. Flashbangs and explosive clusters, several spare power packs in various pockets across armor. Armor is tigthweave shock-absorbent mesh, helmets are plasteel treated with an ablative coating.

Wolf's eyes flicked to the woman.

Leather exterior, likely with tigthweave concealed between two layers. Knives are in top condition, primarily used for cutting meat and flaying. Possible fractal edge on each of them. Priority targets: leader, woman, mercs.

The woman leaned in close to the leader, bending her knees a little to whisper in his ear. Wolf jerked out of his planner's reverie and homed in on their conversation, picking up each near-inaudible word.

"Can I keep him, Aleks?" she purred, hands sliding down her waist to a pair of kunai at her side, "He's such a delicious specimen, and you know what they say about runner... endurance. I want to see the color of his blood."

Likewise.

"We'll see, my dear. For now, we'll have to make him pay for making me late," Aleksandr whispered back, smiling that disgusting smile. "You can do the honors."

She purred and moved away from him, pulling the kunai knives out of their ankle and spinning them idly around her fingers.

Maybe I'll kill you first. Always a possibility.

"Runner!" shouted the leader, "Come down here and we promise not to kill you!"

Dead silence, that unseen glare like a massive weight settling on the scene.

The leader shifted his weight, unsure of the runner's intentions, then shouted again.

"If you don't come down, these fine mercenaries you see before you will blast your body into small chunks of sizzling meat, fit only to be fed to carrion and sewer worms!" he yelled up at Wolf.

"We will scourge and burn you, then clone your remains and repeat it again and again until you can bear it no longer! We will destroy every piece, grind it into the dust, and make sure your name becomes the joke of Omega! We will talk of the failed runner for years to come, and laugh at how your pathetic life was cut too short for further merriment!"

His voice, high and whining, rose to a shrill scream as he spoke, showing Wolf the true fear behind his words.

This has gone far enough. Time to show them what I'm made of.

"-AND I WILL PERSONALLY RIP YOUR HEART OUT OF YOUR CHEST AND MAKE YOU FUCKING EAT IT!" the fat man screeched, spittle flying from his mouth as his hands flailed spastically in the air.

Wolf stepped forward and fell straight down to the ground, his feet denting plasteel as he collided with the strong, solid floor. The fat man and the thin woman jumped back with a shout, her hand twisting back to throw the kunai. The mercs' guns remained trained on the runner, never moving from the dead center of his head.

Wolf straightened slowly and walked forward, his steps ringing out across the silent space with the sound of straining metal. His trim, dancer-lean figure, tall but not large, left indentations with every step, the floor deforming under his weight.

The leader recovered first, his face purpling with rage as he strode forward to meet the runner head-on. The skinling girl hissed at the fat man and grabbed at his arm with a thin bony hand reminiscent of a claw, but he shook her off and stomped straight up to the runner. The leader jabbed a fat, soft finger in Wolf's face, his voice a roar.

"DO YOU HEAR ME?" the fat man screamed, spit flying from his mouth, "DO YOU UNDERSTAND, YOU FREE-RANGE SEWER RAT? I WILL HAVE YOU ERASED FROM THE WORLD! YOUR NAME WILL BE GONE, FORGOTTEN!"

He drew his fist back for a punch and let it fly at the runner's face, the augmented muscles under all the fat making it move with more force and greater speed than any mere human could hope to manage.

Wolf caught the man's hand in his with a terrifyingly calm nonchalance, locking it in a viselike grip. He leaned in close to the drug dealer, a darkly handsome smile spreading across his face as he squeezed in tight. Bone splintered and snapped between Wolf's fingers and Aleksandr screeched in pain, his gaze locked with those unbelievably blue eyes.

"My name is Dante," the runner whispered, his other hand tightening around the butt of a pistol.

"When you get to Hell, look me up."

The pistol shot up and jammed underneath Aleksandr's chin, whiplashing his head back with a sickening crack.

A shot rang out around the chamber, a shell clattered to the floor, and the fat man's head dissolved into fine red mist. His body fell backwards, jetting blood all across the floor in a thick red stream.

The rest of the convoy seemed frozen, the woman and the mercs alike staring in shocked disbelief at Dante. The runner lifted his head and looked around slowly, still smiling that dark, amused smile. He drew the second pistol out of its holster and held both of his hands out, as if surrendering.

"Well, come on," he said easily, "Who wants to die first?"

The woman and the mercenaries seemed to snap back to reality, an enraged snarl crossing the woman's face as she hurled the kunai knife straight at Dante's face. The mercenaries opened fire, bright blue beams of laser fire blazing out across the chamber straight at Dante's face.

The runner blurred into action, dancing to the side and letting off a volley of shots. The knife sailed past him, clattering harmlessly to the floor in the distance as the lasers burned into the opposite wall of the chamber. One shot, then two, then three blasted out of his guns, fifty-caliber armor-penetrating bullets streaking through armor and flesh and bursting out the other side. Dante ran forward, jumping, rolling and sliding to avoid the blue rays, the world slowing to a crawl around him.

The skinling screamed in anger and sprinted to meet the runner, drawing a balisong and a Bowie knife and dropping down into a knife fighter's crouch. They met a few feet before the line of mercenaries, the skinner girl sweeping the knives in a vicious downward arc meant to open the runner's throat. Dante pivoted to the left and kept running, completely ignoring the woman as he fired again and again.

The mercs dropped one by one, somehow unable to put even the slightest burn on this inhuman, this superman. They didn't have time to scream, dying before they even knew where to fire, the runner's ruthlessly accurate bullets sending them hurling into the void.

And as Dante reached the spot where the line had once stood, only one stood where fifteen had been. The last mercenary threw down his gun, his hands flying to a survival knife, but the runner was already on him, pressing his gun under the mercenary's unarmored chin and pulling the trigger.

Without missing a beat in the dance, Dante whirled to look at the woman and let one more bullet fly through the air, aiming backwards towards the massive packs on the android's shoulders. The bullet grazed each one, neatly lined up in old caravan fashion, splitting the bags and spilling their precious contents on the floor. The androids staggered forward and fell all about the sewer floor, overbalancing as they were relieved of their loads, screeching in electronic surprise.

The woman stared at Dante as he straightened from the combat crouch and holstered his guns, the sandlike hiss the drug powder made as it tricked through the metal grill of the walkway the only sound in the chamber. The knives in her hands clattered to the floor, her grip slackening as she stared at the runner with a deep, numb shock.

Dante walked forward, treading lightly to minimize dents in the metal, his eyes locking with hers. She fell to her knees next to the slowly cooling body of her boss, her hands trailing on the floor as she kept her eyes glued on Dante.

"You son of a bitch," she whispered.

Dante's hands clenched into fists and his smile inverted into an angry scowl.

"I'm going to give you a free pass on that one," he said tersely, "because you don't know anything about my family."

She laughed, the sound hollow and cold.

"Like I could give less of a damn about you, you free-range shit," she snarled.

"It would be appreciated. Then I won't have to fight you," he retorted coolly.

"Do you realize what you've done to me, you bastard?" she screamed, jumping up and thrusting her face forward into Dante's.

"Yes," he said, the smile rising back on his face as he shot a fist into the woman's chest. The woman flew backwards and smashed into the far wall of the chamber, falling to the floor in a crumpled heap as Dante sauntered forward.

"I've taken everything from you," he said calmly as he stopped in front of her, bending down and sliding one of the guns out of its holster. He leaned in close as he slid a fresh clip into the pistol, murmuring into the skinner's ear.

"I've killed your commander, neutralized your supply caravan and eliminated the supplies that would have made you a queen in the underworld," he whispered, smiling that wicked, hard smile, "I've destroyed any chance of you taking complete power from your weak, callow boss. I've ruined everything that you've been working to achieve, things you've been working at for a long time."

His words seemed to pick up speed, his smile curling back into a deep, angry scowl, his eyes lighting up like coals as she watched, stricken with fear.

"I've turned you into a wreck and a failure and an outcast and something to be forgotten or laughed at," he snarled, grabbing her by the chin and bringing her close enough to kiss, close enough to be swallowed up by those deep blue eyes.

"I've deprived you of a chance to ever be safe and secure and happy, and I've murdered even the ghost of a possibility of recovery. I didn't come here to kill a man, you cruel and heartless bitch, I came here to ruin a gang and destroy their name forever. You poured everything into that lovely pink powder, and you were a damn fool to put all your eggs in one basket. Now it's all gone, and you have nothing to start from scratch with. All your crews are dead. All your contracts have been terminated. All your middlemen have slipped back into their holes and switched their loyalties."

His eyes blazed, his voice burning with contempt and anger and hate as his hand hardened into a claw, squeezing her jaw with an excruciating intensity.

"And you know what the best part about it was?" he spat, his eyes boring deep into hers, never stopping, never slowing their relentless, fiery advance.

"The best part was how goddamn easy it was to destroy you."

He released her jaw and stood back up, turning around and walking back to where the androids clustered together, staring at the runner with a mix of gratitude and fear.

"And now, I'm going to prove myself to really be a big damn bastard, because I'm gonna give you the worst insult I can offer an enemy," he called over his shoulder, his voice ringing off the walls of the chamber a dozen times.

The woman propped herself up against the wall and pushed herself slowly to her feet. H er face contorted into a horrible, twisted grin, her eyes wide and staring and enraged. Blood bubbled out of the corner of her mouth and she wiped it away, never breaking that mad, furious smile.

"Oh, you're not walking away from me, you little maggot! I'm going to fucking kill you!" she screamed at the runner's diminishing back, jumping to her feet and whipping a knife straight at Dante's throat.

The knife flew straight and true, the point digging into the back of Dante's neck. He stopped in his tracks halfway across the chamber, the knife hanging motionless in the air. The fractal point, sharp down at a molecular level, was surrounded by a small, hardened coating of grey latexlike material, suspended in midair by the barest grip.

It fell to the floor with a ringing clatter, and Dante walked on. He didn't spare the woman a second glance as he walked past the androids into the darkness, becoming a silhouette and then a shadow, one of many in the underground of Omega.

***

"It's done, Prophet."

"Good boy. No loose ends?"

"The only things left alive were the woman and the androids. Neither will make it out of there alive, and even if they do who'll know who they are?"

"Sounds good, Dante. I'll inform the contractors."

"You do that. I'm gonna catch a few winks."

"Wait, Dante..."

"Yeah?"

"You left the woman alive? Why, exactly, did you leave the most deadly and intelligent member of the gang alive?"

"Because it would have been too simple to kill her. Too easy."

"Dante, what did you do? Tell me."

"That's none of your business, bro."

"Fine, man. Meet me in Molly's later tonight, about one o'clock. I've got another job for you."

"Roger. Dante out."

Episode 4: Underground

December 30th, 2199

The everpresent clouds over Omega were lent a mauve glow by the lights of the city below, a rich and royal color turned horribly wrong, polluted by the body it was forced upon. Acid rain threatened the city, long since rendered immune to its wiles but intolerant and hateful of it nonetheless. Shards of lightning blazed off across the great plain, perhaps striking the skeletal frame of a Wraith tree somewhere in the wasteland. Thunder rumbled and a razor wind blew, dirty and ragged and cold, the wind of nightmares.

Dante jerked up from a pile of packagefoam boxes in the back alley of an old bar, the neuroalarm on his wrist sending a quick burst of pain driving up his arm like a cold metal spike. He shook his head blearily and looked down at the watch, fumbling with the deactivator and grabbing his pistols and a ring of razor-sharp steel.

"Goddamnit, Dante" he groaned, springing to his feet as the pain slowly faded from his arm, "Late again."

He slammed through the screen door into the back of the bar, his weapon dinging off the steel door handle and leaving a deep nick in the metal. The entrance was clear across the long cook room, masked by the steam of the great grey nutria-processing vats. The room stank like a cesspit, the bare-essentials sludge rife with benevolent bacteria feeding on organic waste.

Dante strode forward between the rows of vats, making his way towards another screen door across the room and trying to decide which excuse would work best for Prophet.

I don't know, the hat trick? Maybe the mercenary-captainess would work. He's a smart one, though. Better use the all-purpose Aaliyah excuse.

A door to his left banged open, a pair of huge, hulking shapes jostling through the door and blocking Dante's way. The duo of security androids gleamed in the low light, clad in old-timey dress suits and poorly-hidden bulletproof vests.

"Where do you think you're going, monkey?" the android on the left called to Dante, slipping an enormous metal hand into its suit and drawing a submachine gun out of its holster.

Androids. Goddamn idiots, all of them.

Dante kept right on walking, his hand tightening around the wrapped-leather grip of the wind-and-fire wheel, his face curling into a derisive smirk.

"Stop right there or I will end you!" the other android blared, drawing his own weapon and aiming it in the runner's general direction.

Dante slowly came to a stop, with fifteen feet of distance between himself and the two security 'droids. The two advanced slowly, crouched down, keeping their weapons fixed on the runner. As they reached him they pressed their weapons into his jaw and his heart, keeping unwavering eye contact.

"What're you down here for, boy?" asked the android on the left, grabbing Dante's razor ring and throwing it out behind him. Dante said nothing, crossing his arms and keeping that insolent grin on his face.

"Don't you know you could get hurt down here?" the android on the right said, its voice motherly and mocking.

"Well, nobody's gonna miss you, that's for damn sure," growled the left-hand 'droid, "See that armor, BK? This one's a runner."

BK whistled and pressed his weapon a little harder into Dante's chest.

"Well, now," it tinned out, "Can't have one of you running about. It's bad enough there are so many of you anyway. Don't you know it's against the law to be you, boy?"

"I also know it's against the law to contract android bodyguards or security," Dante replied sweetly, still smiling, "So don't talk to me about being illegal."

BK snarled and shot a massive metal fist out into Dante's gut with all the strength it could muster. Immediately the android staggered back, howling in programmed pain as his mangled, smashed fist sparked and hissed. Dante sighed and rolled his eyes, feeling the hardened plate of GIACA matter subsume back under his skin.

The other android reacted quickly, cocking its gun and pushing Dante into the nearest cooking vat with an enraged shout. BK gasped and shuddered, then seemed to remember where and what it was. It staggered forward and jabbed the gun back in Dante's face, wheezing and furious.

"I'm gonna make you regret climbing out of your momma, you free-range piece of shit!" BK screamed, its synthetic voice gratingly metallic in Dante's ear.

Dante's smile grew just a bit, his hands unfolding from his chest and pressing up against his thighs.

"That's gonna be pretty hard to do," he yawned, covering his mouth, "if your guns aren't loaded."

The androids froze, staring at the runner. Then their eyes traveled slowly to the bottoms of their guns, checking for the black chrome bullet clips.

Still there.

Their eyes shot back up to Dante, even angrier than before.

"What are you trying to pull, you little freak?" bellowed BK, wide-eyed with fury, "I'll show you fucking unloaded!"

The androids' fingers tightened, pulling back the triggers of their weapons.

Click.

Click click click click click.

"What the fuck?" whispered BK. He looked down at the submachine gun; the clip was gone from its slot. He looked back up, and the runner had vanished with them.

Then the android began to scream, intense agony bursting up and down its back as a pair of hands punched through layers of steel and plastic, burrowing in and bursting out the other side. Dante pushed sideways, pulling out with all his strength, and tore BK clean in half with a snap and a final, gurgling scream.

The other android stared at Dante in dumb terror, lowering its gun until it trailed at his side. The runner yawned and cracked his neck loudly, wiping fluid from burst fuel cells onto the android's ripped, destroyed suit. He looked up at the android while he cleaned himself, giving the robot an unsmiling look.

"Don't get me started on what I can do with a weapon, my friend," he said flatly, "I think you should get out of here."

The android nodded and sprinted for the demolished screen door, throwing the gun away with horrified abandon. Dante straightened quietly and walked to the second door, gathering up his weapon and walking down the ramshackle wooden stairs without a sound.

At the base of the stairs the passageway ended in a bright brick wall, completely filling the tunnel. No gaps or cracks. Dante strode forward and tapped on a brick with a small white notch in it, drumming out a human heartbeat for exactly ten seconds.

The brick slid away and two yellow, diseased eyes gazed at him through the hole. A wheezy, Cockney voice greeted Dante, loud and sickly and unpleasant.

"Does your mother know you're down here, boy?" the doorkeep asked loudly.

Dante's lips twitched in irritation, but he kept his voice level. "Let me through. I need to talk with Prophet."

"I ain't never heard of no Prophet," wheezed the doorkeep, "and we've got a full house tonight anyway. There's no room for yeh, boy."

Dante rolled his eyes and sighed disgustedly.

"First of all," he said, his tone sharp and annoyed, "Mal never lets in more than 10 people, and even then just for the occasional old-comrades party."

The eyes widened in surprise and Dante kept on talking.

"Second, you're a terrible liar. You're shifty-eyed and don't breathe evenly. I know there's nobody in here. Third, do you know what I am, and what I can do?"

The doorkeep's eyebrows rose.

"And why should I let some fool kid like yourself in, even if ye are sharper than the average bloke? What the hell do you think you are?"

Dante fell silent, considering the yellowed eyes with a strange expression. Then he took a step back, a smile growing on his handsome face. His GIACA, having ordered itself into a jacket, shirt and jeans when he walked down the stairs, began to shift and ripple. The jacket and shirt dissolved beneath Dante's skin as the eyes watched, leaving his chest bare in the pale light of the overhead lamp.

"You want proof?" he asked. A grey coloring seemed to be spreading from his fingertips, covering his hand and then his forearm with a strangely leisurely flow of dark color. The doorkeeper gulped; he knew the penalty for stopping a runner.

Dante drew his lips back across his gums, baring his teeth as the GIACA ran out across them and turned them into fangs.

"There," he roared, "You've got it! Now let me through!"

The door flew open with unnatural speed, the doorkeep scampering down a side tunnel, wailing softly. Dante suppressed a chuckle and walked off down the hallway, whistling a pop tune to himself as he went.

At the end of the second hallway stood another door, red and painted with a white, baroque hexagon. Dante pushed through and stepped into the bar, swinging the door shut behind him with a loud bang.

Molly's Saloon had a hundred different kinds of booze and a limited clientele, mercenaries and crime lords among them. The velvet and wood were stained, and lion's heads and the padded backs of armchairs broken and torn, decay present everywhere. But the thing that had always stood out to Dante was the stench; like sour wine and spilt blood and regret. He wrinkled his nose and looked around. The bar was deserted except for one drunk, passed out on the counter, drool slowly pooling around his head on the stained oak wood.

And the bartender, Malachi Sweeney, pulling a pistol out from behind the bar as he stared at Dante in fear and loathing. Dante moved forward slowly, spreading his hands and fastening his weapon onto a pair of GIACA hooks on his back.

"Hey, Mal," he called to the bartender, "What's with the piece?"

"I was told I shoulda been expecting free-range meat tonight," Malachi said curtly, glowering at Dante over the bar, "What the fuck do you want, Soldari?"

Dante tsked, still advancing. "I'm here to talk to Prophet, but that gun's making me jumpy. Why don't you put that down and tell me where he is?"

Malachi advanced a step, hatred running across his face in a visible tide.

"Give me two good reasons I shouldn't kill you for what you did to her," he growled, cocking the hammer and taking careful aim.

Dante's face hardened, his fists clenching at his sides.

"I'm not going to justify my actions to you, Malachi. What's done is done," he replied, fighting hard to keep his voice stable, "I can't take back what I did. I would if I could."

"But here are two reasons anyway," he continued, not waiting for Malachi to respond, "You won't hurt me with that and you know it. And it's not worth the effort it would take to kill you if you did shoot me. So why don't you just put the damn gun down, let me go about my business, and go back to cleaning your faux-Victorian bullshit?"

A deafeningly loud shot rang out across the bar, jerking the drunk up an inch.

Dante stood absolutely still, hand coiled around the handle of the wind-and-fire wheel. A small drop of blood was trickling from a hole near his collarbone, the surface of the grey armor hardened into a thick shell around it.

The runner looked down at the bullet, looking surprised to see it there. As both men watched, the grey mass constricted in around the bullet, forcing it up and out. Within the space of a few breaths the bullet slid out and clattered to the floor, the tip covered in a slick of blood. Dante returned his gaze to Malachi, who drew his greasy bulk up against the liquor shelf, his eyes wide and his mouth working silently.

In a flash Dante was at the bar, reaching over and pulling the bartender effortlessly onto the counter. The ring swept up to Malachi's throat, biting into skin and stopping just before the cut could threaten the man's life. Malachi quivered in terror, prying vainly against the runner's inhumanly strong hands, alchohol clattering to the floor as he kicked and struggled

"An added benefit to being me is that my armor, loving bitch that it is, can protect me from everything short of a goddamn artillery shell if I see it coming," Dante whispered in his ear.

Dante's eyes blazed with anger, his teeth bared in a bestial mask, and he seemed snarl rather than talk. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply for a second. Molly's struggles slowed to a feeble pull, strength evaporating in mortal dread.

"Malachi," the runner resumed quietly, "you've been fucking with me since the day I met you, all those years ago. But you've never tried to kill me before."

Dante drew the ring back behind him, keeping it at a 90 degree angle to Malachi's throat.

"So, think quickly now," he growled, "Give me one good reason I shouldn't spare myself a particularly frustrating pain in my ass."

Malachi gulped like a fish out of water, grasping for words that weren't there now that his control had been taken away. Dante grinned and spoke in a ferocious undertone.

"That's what I thought. Pray to whatever devil you want, whichever one you sold your balls to. He's gonna be roasting your soul shortly."

He drew back the ring back to make the final cut, and felt the cold steel of a gun barrel press against his temple.

Episode 5a: Duel

Dante stood very still, holding the ring perpendicular to the bartender's chin. He could feel the weight of the gun; big, probably powerful enough to pierce through the GIACA armor at this range. He listened closely, but couldn't hear any noises that would give away other weapons.

He weighed his options; obviously, the gunman wanted Malachi alive. The only other option was to fight. And considering that this person had cocked a gun and put it up against his head in complete silence, that idea didn't appeal to Dante much.

But this was also unacceptable. I hate having guns pointed at me.

He felt the gun press down on his head, forcing him to put the barkeeper down and back away from the bar. Dante kept his eyes fixed squarely on Malachi, who scrambled to his feet and went back behind his bar's fortress walls.

"You can put away the gun now," he said to the gunman, "I let him go, like you wanted. There's no need for violence."

An instant before it exploded the cap, he felt the gun's trigger pull back. Dante ducked, barely dodging the shot, and swept his weapon upwards, cleanly slicing the gun in two with the fractal blade. He whirled the ring around, slashing at the assailant's (It's the drunk. Remember this, it caught you by surprise) exposed left hip. An unclean, unpleasant cut, but a certain kill.

A wakizashi blade materialized between the ring and the drunk's hip, deflecting the ring off and turning the edge up towards the ceiling. Dante looked at it in surprise; the blade had come from the drunk's opposite hand, and had managed to intercept his attack about an inch away from the hip.

His surprise turned to incredulity and he opened his mouth to congratulate, to insult, to say something. But he cursed instead, bending backwards to avoid a slash from a European-style short sword. He rolled backwards and jumped up, slamming the ring's edge down on the drunk's back with a wild shout.

This time both of the blades were there to intercept it, the drunk crouching down and making sure the ring hit where the two swords crossed.

Dante pulled the ring off and attacked with wild abandon, slashing and slicing the air as quick as he could, roaring and laughing at the top of his lungs as he pressed his attack. Up, down, around, sideways, it didn't matter. Not a single blow connected with flesh, air or folded steel meeting each of his strikes.

Dante's smile was amused and excited. Finally! Someone who can stand up to me! It feels good.

Oh, but Prophet... damn it. He's always spoiling the fun somehow.

Dante parried a thrust to his gut and danced backwards, leaping up onto a table. The drunk didn't follow, keeping his distance from the runner.

"This was fun, I gotta say," Dante called to him, bowing dramatically, "But playtime's over. You're in my way, and I need to go see someone."

Quick as lightning, Dante drew his twin pistols and blasted out a torrent of bullets, a stream of fifty caliber lead hurtling towards the drunk.

Dante emptied the clip, reloaded, and fired again and again. The pistols began to grow hot in his hand as the heat of all the shots carried through their structure. But as the chamber clicked empty on his last magazine, he was standing there with his jaw hanging and eyes buggy.

Every single one of his bullets had not only failed to hit; they had been cut or shot clean out of the air. Dante straightened up, pistols burning slightly in his hand.

"You're something else, buddy!" he said, admiration clear in his voice, "Where were you trained? I could learn a lot from them."

The figure was in a crouching position, short sword sheathed, gun extended and wakizashi held close to his body. He said nothing, seemingly staring at Dante out of the deep shadows beneath his hood. Dante cocked his head, regarding the fighter curiously.

"You fight like a runner," he commented quietly, then shook his head, "But that's not possible, 'cause I haven't done anything that would get me executed. So, you a Corporation agent? Nah, they're too stuck-up to disguise themselves as drunks. A merc, maybe?"

Silence. Dante smiled again, wry and amused. A man after my own heart.

"Fine," he sighed, hopping down from the table, "If you won't talk, I won't ask. But I have to kill you now."

The world slowed around Dante as he kicked out hard with his right foot, launching a tattered velvet-and-mahogany armchair up into the air at the drunk. The slowed sound of shots being fired filled the air around the runner as he sprinted forward, sliding underneath the armchair as it burst and fragmented with bullets. And as he slid to the attacker's feet, he drew his fist back behind him and jumped up, launching a devastating uppercut straight up at the drunk's jaw.

The drunk flew back and crashed into a table, silent as the grave. Dante grinned and stretched, feeling the GIACA begin to rearrange his broken knuckles. He paid no attention; pain always takes the backseat to triumph, at least for a little while.

"That was a good little fight," he called over his shoulder to the still figure lying motionless in a pile of splintered wood, smiling and sounding genuinely pleased. "Shame it had to end so quickly."

He stretched one last time and turned around, grinning.

"Still, not bad for a drunk passed out on the counter-"

Dante scrambled back and tripped over a broken chair, breathing hard, his eyes wide and terrified. The punch had thrown the drunk's hood back and torn off the cloth she had been wearing across her face.

Aaliyah was lying there, unconscious on the cold wooden floor.

Episode 5b: Master and Apprentice

Aaliyah came to awakeness slowly, slowly feeling her way out of the warm darkness of sleep. She kept her eyes closed as she floated to the surface of the sea, giving no outward sign that she had regained consciousness. Almost immediately she began to register a deep, grating pain in her lower jaw, the curious sensation of the GIACA reassembling the bones back into place doing nothing but compound the horrible feeling of her broken chin.

She sat up slowly, massaging the broken bone, and immediately felt herself being lifted into the air in a crushing embrace. Adrenaline rushed through her like ice water and she began to struggle, her thoughts still woozy and unfocused. Then she heard his voice, her son's voice, whispering apologies over and over, a constant refrain of "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't know, I'm sorry..."

"It's ok, Dante," she gasped, fighting for breath, "I'm alright!"

Dante didn't reply, his apologies trailing off into indistinct whispers as he squeezing her closer. Aaliyah felt her jaw with her free hand; nearly healed, the last spot of tenderness fading away under her touch.

"Dante," she whispered, "I can't breathe."

He mumbled again and set her down, dropping heavily into a nearby chair and burying his face in his hands.

Aaliyah took a quick moment to breathe and rub her aching ribs, compressed tight by Dante's hold. Then she turned to Dante, a spasm of pain racing through her as she looked at him.

She stooped down in front of her son and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to coax him to look her in the eye.

"Dante, I'm fine," she said soothingly, stroking his hair with her other hand, "I healed without a scratch, you haven't done anything permanent."

"I hurt you," he whispered through his hands, keeping his face firmly covered.

"Yeah, you did," she chuckled, a rueful little grin materializing on her face, "But I wanted you to attack me. It was your martial test. You've finally beaten me in a fight."

Dante raised his head and met her eyes, the tears just at the border of his own .

"I never pictured it like this," he replied quietly, "I always thought it would be a formal thing, y'know? In one of the training rooms or out on the roofs somewhere. But this..."

"I was about to kill you, Aaliyah!" he moaned, fear breaking through his voice, "I came so close to putting a bullet between your eyes!"

She smiled gently. "I knew the risks of disguising myself," she told him, "You were one of the best fighters out there long before now, but do you know why you lost all those times we dueled?"

He furrowed his brow, looking confused. She laughed out loud and affectionately cuffed him across the ear.

"Because you were holding back, kid!" she exclaimed, "Because you didn't want to hurt me, so you restrained yourself from really going all out. Hell, I don't even think you showed me everything you had in that little fight."

"I'm glad I didn't," he said softly, still keeping his eyes fixed on the floor. She laughed again, silvery and powerful.

"If you had killed me back there, the rest of the runners would probably have thanked you," she said easily, cracking her neck and grinning at him.

"No they wouldn't have!" Dante yelped, eyes widening in alarm, "They'd string me up by my toes for a year if they found out I so much as scratched you, much less broke your jaw and much less killed you!"

"Nah, they wouldn't do that," she said, pretending to think about it, "Probably more around a month."

Dante's wretched expression cracked momentarily, a wide, Dante-characteristic grin breaking through for just a second. Aaliyah grinned with him and pulled her son to his feet, clapping her son on the shoulder.

"Look at you, Dante!" she crowed, "Twenty years old and you've already kicked the Ice Queen's ass!"

"Yeah," he said, smiling wanly, "She nearly beat me into the ground, though. And she wasn't even attacking."

She waved her hand dismissively. "She was a pushover. Now you just have to worry about being faster than a bullet, 'cause the Endrace won't be nearly as easy."

Dante's eyebrows shot up in the air, his new-found smile falling back into a dismayed frown.

"So soon?" he asked, shocked, "I mean, we just did the fight, we have to do the race now?"

"Well, not strictly speaking now," she said, shrugging, "Tomorrow evening. You need a little rest after trying to cut my head off."

"Ok," he said, sounding a little relieved, "Where are we headed? No hope it'll be something standard, I take it?"

Aaliyah scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Since when did I do anything traditionally?" she demanded, "We're going into the Core, kid."

"Prophet is in the High Castle?" Dante asked, surprised again, "How the hell did he get up there?"

"He's a hacker. They get everywhere, as long as it's germ-free."

Dante chuckled and shook his head. "Where's he hiding out this time? The Rosewater? The Diamond Club? Limbo?"

"Vinny's Inn," she said. "Our race goes from here to there."

"Great," he muttered, "Because that isn't deep in the pile at all." He sighed and sat back down.

"Where the hell have you been all these weeks?" he questioned her, his tone a little accusatory, "You didn't even leave a note!"

"It was a job," she said lightly, "I didn't tell you where I was going because you would've followed me."

He raised an eyebrow. "Would it have anything to do with the riots in Tau City?" he asked darkly.

She smiled crookedly and he groaned, rubbing his temples.

"Aaliyah, why do you accept Demokratos jobs?" he asked despairingly.

"Why do you accept mercenary jobs?" she returned, still grinning.

"'Cause they don't put the rest of us in danger!" he said, exasperated.

"Oh, and making enemies out of powerful mercs and gangs don't attract any attention to the runners," she retorted cheerfully.

Dante rolled his eyes. "Yes, of course it does!" he said irritatedly, "But not nearly as much as provoking J.U.! We can get a whole lot more flak from Jahansson than any worthless mercenary!"

"Like we haven't attracted any attention to ourselves in the past," she said, smirking and raising an eyebrow, "We were only every Corporate troop's worst nightmare for over two hundred years."

"The key word being 'were', Aaliyah," he pointed out.

"Yeah. Were."

She shook her head. "That's not the point, Dante. The point is that I gave Jahansson hell and there were thousands of others that did the same things I did."

She leaned forward and rapped a knuckle against his forehead.

"Think, son," she said, still smiling, "If they could have killed us, they would have."

"Fine, you've got a point-" he conceded grudgingly, leaning back in the chair and folding his arms.

"And if they could've killed me they would've done it a long time ago," she continued over him.

"What has that got to do with it?" he asked, looking bemused. She laughed, leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

"Oh, Dante," Aaliyah sighed, settling back into her chair, "If I believed for a moment you cared more about the runners than you cared about me, I'd probably kill myself."

Dante said nothing for a long moment, staring at her with a dumbstruck look on his face. His hand slowly rose to the spot where she had kissed him.

"I don't think you've ever kissed me before," he said slowly.

"Savor it," she replied, "It's probably never gonna happen again."

"Don't say that," he muttered, looking away from her.

"It's only the truth, Dante." The smile had faded from her face completely, her eyes turning somber.

"You know what the Endrace means," she said quietly, "You know what has to happen. Failure is not an option. So, only success is left over."

"No," he protested, shaking his head fiercely, "I won't do it. I'll figure out another way!"

"There's no way around this. This is what has to happen."

"I won't leave you, mom!"

She chuckled and shook her head. "That's what they all said, Dante. Every last one of them said 'I'll never leave you'."

She stood up and walked over to the bullet-ridden bar, leaning forward against the perforated wood with her back to Dante. He stood and followed her, feet crunching over shattered glass and clinking off bullet cases.

He stepped up next to her and put his arm around her shoulder, about to say something comforting, some reassurance. She held up a hand to silence him, not looking in his direction.

"This is our last run and our last job together, kid," she stated, with an awful finality that kept Dante's mouth shut, "After this, you'll be a Master, the youngest since, well, me. You're already well-known, but your name's gonna rocket up there with the big dogs once you go Master."

"You're the son of the Demon of the Sahara, Dante. You're already famous, just for that. And after tomorrow, you'll be off on your own, having your own adventures, doing what you want. I can't be with you anymore. It wouldn't be right to hold you back."

"You've never held me back!" he exclaimed, fighting to speak around the lump in his throat. "You made me what I am!"

"Yeah, I did," she said, smiling wanly, "The youngest runner to achieve Dawnwalker status. The best marksman, the greatest endurance, the fastest reflexes, the strongest, the smartest, the most powerful runner the world has seen for one hundred and eighty years. I made you what you are..."

She turned to look at Dante. He could see the tears, nearly out of her eyes. Her voice shook, ready to crack. Her hands were clenched at the edge of the bar, wood splintering under her grip as it tightened like a vice.

But there was that smile again. That beautiful smile, so full of life and joy and pride and love. The smile that could light up a pit with its radiance.

"But I can't take any responsibility for what you've done. Look at yourself, Dante. Look at how far you've come."

Dante felt his eyes begin to burn as he met her gaze, his throat too constricted to make a sound. Her hands released their grip on the bar and rose to his face, gently resting against his cheeks, her GIACA cool and smooth on his bare skin.

"My son," she whispered, "Look how far you've come."

There was a long, silent moment between the two, uninterrupted by the outside world. Then Aaliyah's hands lowered and she embraced her son, squeezing him tightly to her.

"I'm going to bed," she said quietly in his ear, "You should too. You'll need all of your strength for the race."

She released Dante slowly and walked around him to a door near the back of the bar, colored a sickly green, the paint flaking off and faded. Dante turned to follow, silent, his eyes downcast.

He followed her through and turned left, his hand tightening around the doorknob of one of the rooms Malachi kept for rent. He stopped before entering it, frozen at the doorstep, then turned back around.

"Mom," he called down the short hall. There was a brief silence, then Aaliyah poked her head back around the frame of the third door down from his.

"Yes, Dante?" she asked, her smile small and weary.

"I love you," he told her, "Don't ever forget that. Ever."

"I love you too, son. And I'll never forget it."

Then she was gone, the door clicking shut behind her.

Dante closed his door and flopped down on the bare mattress bed. Sleep was on him in an instant, pushing him down into the warm, friendly dark. Dreams of a good life flowed past him, keeping him comforted and rested throughout the night.

Episode 6: Endrace

December 31st, 2199

An eyeblink later and dusk arrived, the Omega day winding down around the Underground with the same old hubbub of tired voices and grinding car wheels. Dante rose into the dusk slowly, flexing and yawning. The GIACA began to subsume under his skin as he moved, taking the bulky armor plating of sleep mode back to his skeleton from whence it came.

He walked into the hallway and pushed through the door, wincing a little as the bone plates merged back into him. The bar was as dark as ever, several of the fluorescent bars and dim yellow light bulbs broken out after the duel the night before.

Aaliyah was sitting at the bar, wolfing down a bowl of green sludge and a pile of black energy bars. A stack of bowls next to her tottered slightly to the left, evidence of a long feast. Malachi was cleaning the bar, keeping a wary eye on the pile of dishes while pretending to go about his business.

Dante shook his head and silently descended the stairs, cracking his neck and rubbing his eyes. Aaliyah caught sight of him as he walked toward the bar and waved merrily. He grinned and sat next to her, stretching one last time.

"How the hell do you eat all that?" he asked amazedly, gesturing to the pile of bowls, "Sooner or later that'll catch up with you!"

She snorted, gesturing derisively at the bowls. "As if this stuff actually fills you up. All the essential ingredients for life, none of the flavor of life. You're welcome to some of it, if you want."

He shook his head. "Nah. I'm not hungry. I had a brick on the way in last night."

"Suit yourself."

Silence fell back over the bar, the tension slowly stretching taut between the pair of runners. Malachi said nothing to either of them, keeping his back painstakingly turned to the his attacker and his savior. The evening wore on, turning from dusk to night to midnight in what felt like no time at all.

An alarm beeped out from Aaliyah's wrist-monitor, warning her of the time. She sighed and stood up from where she had been sitting the last hour, stretching and loosening up her joints. Dante pursed his lips and stood with her, following the same routine of stretches and exercises. Neither of them said a word, the edgy silence between them almost palpable.

When they were done, the runners walked to the door and exited silently, Aaliyah patching the price of their meal through to Malachi on the way out. They strode past the spot where Dante killed the android, now just a slight black stain on the floor from spilt fuel cell fluid, and pushed through the screen door into the alley.

Aaliyah stood guard as Dante bent down among the trash heap and rummaged about. After a few seconds he stood back up, holding what he had been looking for; a thin pane of glass-like material, suction cups and tiny needles lining the inside edge. He looked back at Aaliyah, who nodded and pulled her own visor out of its slot on her leg with a slight sucking sound.

They raised the visors to their eyes and pressed them in, the suction cups grabbing at skin and holding on tenaciously. The needles inserted in slowly, digging mere millimeters into waiting hardware jacks and connecting with the central processing unit at the base of each runner's spine.

The glassy substance stiffened and hardened around the two runner's faces, forming a V of stretching from temple to temple. Dante opened his wrist-monitor and tapped a few keys, linking the computer to his and Aaliyah's armor. First came night vision, illuminating the dark Omega nighttime with a green burst of light. Then the heads-up display, information racing across the visor in a rush of dull yellow lettering; ammo counts, system diagnostics, a GPS system, a damage monitor.

Then the final phase; each runner's GIACA thickened around their bodies and carried long, thin, aerodynamic plates of woven metal-and-bone armor to the surface of their skin, forming the basis of the Battle Mode. A rush of grey flowed out over the uncovered flesh of their faces, turning anything not covered by the visor into a featureless, armor-ribbed mask. Fingernails elongated into serrated claws, elbows grew talons and knees hardened into rounded, studded caps.

Within a minute, the two had become unrecognizable as human; tall and faceless and armored, they had become nightmares out of some old soldier's troubled dream.

Dante cracked his neck and walked up to Aaliyah, who had turned to face the alley wall and was looking sideways at Dante. He turned on his heel and faced the wall with her, gazing straight ahead.

"Born from the darkness, we battle for the light," he intoned, turning his eyes up to look into Omega's polluted sky.

"Born from war, we strive for peace," Aaliyah replied, following his gaze.

"Born from evil, we are the guardians of all things noble."

"Born from death, we fight for life."

"We are the runners. From our lips come the screams of the oppressed, the curses of the damned, the cries of the innocents lost to tyranny. From one hand we offer mercy and from the other we offer death. We are the wind that tears through the city. We are the storm on the horizon. We are killers and madmen and terrorists, the scum of society banded together against the hell the world has become."

"And we. Will. Never. Back. Down."

Dante felt a hand slip slowly around his, squeezing tight. He squeezed back and turned to face her. He could just see her eyes through the visor; they were set, resolute, burning with a fierce pride as they looked at him.

"If I fail tonight, it's been an honor," he said softly, speakers at the corners of his visors amplifying his voice just loud enough to be heard.

"Not."

She let go of his hand, bending down into a start position. Now she was smiling deviously, the light of competition blazing in her eyes.

"An."

He copied her movement, a grin rising up on his face before he could contain it. His heart began to quicken, the world becoming sharper and more detailed around him as the adrenalin began to pump through him.

"Option."

And they disappeared in a rush of grey.

The twin blurs blasted up the wall of the monolith, running up as far as they could before catching a handhold. They scrambled and clawed their way up with frightening speed, spiders on a black wall, leaping and fighting their way to the top with all their strength.

They burst over the edge of the roof, flying fifteen feet in the air, rolling off their shoulders and coming up running. They soared across the black rooftop, their feet pounding the concrete with inhuman speed, clearing jumps that should have been impossible without a second glance, barreling through the chaos of the Omega slums without once breaking stride.

People jerked up in bed as the duo raced past, denting the steel roofs of the slumhouses with every step, shaking the slums with their long steps, leaving a trail of astonished and fearful souls in their wake. In the distance lay the prize; the shining Core, the heart of the city, its white, harsh light barely peeking through the ring of gigantic helioscrapers that formed the concentric Economic District.

Dante looked to his left at his teacher; she was keeping a silent, dogged pace with him, neck-and-neck in the dark. He grinned and shook his head, marveling at this two-hundred-year-old wonder. Then focus reasserted itself and his only thought was to complete the mission.

Soon enough the slums, with its brothels and cheap establishments and factories, gave way to apartment housing and a more concerted population of monoliths, with the helioscrapers looming in the background. The outskirts of the Dead End; the Economic District.

The pair worked their way up to the newly-elevated skyline, scaling the flats and government offices like shadows, blending in and out of the night as they moved. Police passed beneath them, never looking up long enough to feel their blood run cold at the sight of the twin phantoms.

Their legs were beginning to burn, their breath coming harder out of their lungs, the plates of sonium and bone chafing against their skin. The visor's data jacks sent little daggers of pain through their foreheads, sweat beginning to shine on the surface of the armor.

And still they ran neck-and-neck. Still they remained equal.

Quicker than they had expected the outskirts gave way to the true district, the beginning of the massive helioscrapers and the many military checkpoints. Low buildings were scarcer, the massive glass sides of the sunscrapers dominating the scenery.

"Now how the hell are we going to do this?!" Dante shouted, pressing a finger to the corner of the visor to activate the commlink.

"Improvise," Aaliyah replied, sailing up gracefully over the edge of a nearby roof, "You're usually good at that."

Dante growled in exasperation and terminated the link, wiping a bead of sweat from his armored forehead. He looked up just in time to see the edge of the roof come hurtling towards him, a huge gap stretched out between the apartment and the first helioscraper of the block.

Time slowed to a crawl as Dante's eyes widened and his legs bent, then sprang outwards almost of their own accord. He flew through the air in slow motion, windmilling his arms through the air to push himself as far as he could.

The jump had been too quick. It would carry him just out of reach of the helioscraper's glass, straight down to street level. Had he jumped a little more to the side he could've smashed through the glass and kept running, but that twenty degrees was all it took.

Shitshitshitshitshit

The ground advanced leisurely on him, like it had all the time in the world.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck

Dante's mind raced, trying and throwing away a dozen strategies as the street waited to receive and reject him. The last and only plan possible formed in his head and he grimaced.

"Command," he shouted, "Activate Gecko Pattern!"

The armor plates vanished beneath his skin near-instantaneously, altering its molecular structure a dozen times over to fit the program. Some rode back to the surface, forming a much thinner set of armor covering all the vital areas of Dante's body. The rest, refined into beta-keratin and coated in phospholipid fluid, sprouted out of his hands and feet in a short, bristling forest. Dante twisted through the air, extending his hand out to catch the front of the glass, reaching as far as he could, stretching with all his strength...

His palm scraped against the side of the glass, sticking where it landed and whiplashing his body out with a bone-breaking pain. Dante ignored it and slapped his other hand to the glass, then his feet. He looked behind him, the world slowing once more as he did; Aaliyah was curling into a ball and hurtling sluggishly straight for the glass side of her own helioscraper.

Dante grinned and took off running, leaning out sideways to keep his balance as he pounded across the vertical face of the building.

He tapped the commlink as he ran, a smirk rising on his face despite his best efforts to contain it.

"You might want to look out the window," he said casually, halfway across the massive glass face.

"Ohhh..."

Aaliyah's voice was woozy and unfocused, and Dante heard the sound of crunching glass as she staggered to her feet.

"Sorry, had a run-in with thick glass," she mumbled, staggering forward, "What'd you say?"

"Look out the window. Look, ma! No hands!" Dante said, glee infecting his voice as he cut off the link and kept on running.

Aaliyah groaned and shook her head to clear the pain, bracing against the wall of an office cubicle and pulling herself up. She blinked groggily and stumbled towards the window, nearly tripping over several ill-placed chairs in the dark.

"Alright, now what the hell do you mean-" she started to say, shaking her head again and looking up to where Dante was running across the glass. The words died in her mouth, her jaw dropping as she saw the effects of the Gecko form.

She touched the commlink slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on her son.

"What have I told you about altering your GIACA, Dante?" she asked coolly.

"That it's probably the only reason both of us are still alive?" he answered glibly, a mischievous grin plastered all over his face.

"Damn right," she said softly, "Damn right, son."

She took a few deep breaths to steady herself, resting her head against the glass as she fought against the lump in her throat.

"You haven't won yet, Dante," she continued after a moment, "You haven't beat me until you reach Vinny's."

"Ain't no way you're catching me now, mom," he responded flippantly, "That's just the simple fact."

"Drop the accent, kid," she told him, smiling wryly, "It doesn't suit you."

Guess I'd better get a move on.

She sighed and turned left on her heel, breaking into a sprint as she raced for the other side of the helioscraper. The long office floor was deserted, bereft of the tired, droning life that filled it by day, the lights of the city filtering in through clear, strong glass.

Aaliyah kept her eyes on Dante as he ran across the side of the helioscraper, absentmindedly vaulting over cubicles and punching through office space.

"What did you do, anyway?" she asked him, pressing the commlink again, "I've tried a dozen different ways to run on walls, all of them ended up being bone-breakingly hard."

"Like this isn't painful at all," he retorted blithely, jumping over a protruding spine of concrete along the side of the helioscraper.

"At least it isn't giving you a compound fracture, kid," she responded, a hint of irritation creeping into her voice. "Now how did you do it?"

"It's pretty simple," he said, shrugging, "I change some of my bone structure into beta-keratin, add a few phospholipids I've been saving in a jar, and now I'm basically a gecko. I've had to practice a lot to get the motion right so I don't just stick to the surface."

"Makes sense, but don't gecko hands bend the opposite way from human hands?" she asked.

"Remember the part where you described it as bone-breakingly hard?"

Aaliyah sniggered a little, trying to fight down her smile.

"So, a gecko, huh?" she asked, slowing to a halt as she came up on the glass corner of the massive building. "I tried a wolf one time. Didn't work out too well for my spinal cord."

She drew her hand back, her armor hardening into a spike on her palm.

"Still," she mused, shrugging, "I suppose I could give it another go. It was definitely an experience I won't-"

She fell silent, furrowing her brow in confusion. Her HUD had flickered off for a few seconds, and when it returned the words and the diagnostics were all bright red, flashing and wailing a warning into her brain. Three shapes were descending through the sky, droplet-shaped and outlined in the threat detector's cerise indicator.

Aaliyah's eyes widened, every muscle in her body freezing up as she saw the machines descend, maddeningly slow. Her eyes slowly turned to the right, to the dot on the behemoth that was her son.

They were making a slow, steady beeline for him, moving in to intercept.

"Dante! Incoming R.I.O.T Pods!" Aaliyah shouted into the comm, smashing her wrist against the glass. Cracks ran out in a yellowed spiderweb all around it, but the glass held against her strength.

"Get the fuck out of there!" she bellowed, panic infecting her voice as she struck the glass again and again.

"DANTE! CAN YOU HEAR ME?! WE'VE GOT INBOUND HUNTERS!"

***

The wind rushed over his face like cool water, the exhilaration of speed and the adrenalin of danger roaring through him without end. Omega lay spread out around him like a map, a black jungle whose secret ways and hidden contours had only seen fit to reveal themselves to a select few.

An apex predator. A king. A grey reaper. Judge, jury and executioner of the damned souls around him, flitting through the city's darkest veins to try and escape his gaze.

A god. Yes, that's it! A grey god. Ruling silently in the haven for the lost, paid tribute by the queens and kings in the underworld, begged for favor and services rendered, an army of dark angels at his back willing to dispense his justice.

Invisible. Invincible. Immortal. So Dante Soldari saw himself as he rushed into the darkness, triumphing over his mother divinity, securing his place in the heavens. Ecstasy, determination and, most of all, pride filled him to the top as he leaped for the next great megalith, blinding him to the deeper darkness rushing down towards him.

Dante roared a challenge to the world as he flew forward on invisible wings, daring anything to contest his rule, tempting Fate itself to make the final cut, to end his godhood.

And suddenly, with the whistling sound of a dart flying through the night and the thunk of an arrowhead burying in flesh, it was all gone.

Dante shuddered as he flew through the air, the agony of his wings ripping from his body overwhelming him, overcoming him in a rush of silent black. Hooks jabbed into his unprotected back and pumped poison deep into his veins, the warm, liquid feeling of heavy narcotics flooding through his brain.

In an instant, he became human again, fading slowly, feeling death surpass his strength as he went limp and fell down to Hell.

***

Aaliyah's hand fell limply to her side, her knees buckling underneath her. She stared at the spot where Dante's body lay, silhouetted by the warm glow of a street lamp. A crowd was gathering around him, keeping a good distance away from the unmoving runner, heads turning this way and that, a few brave souls tentatively stepping forward to get a closer look.

Police cars were already pulling up to the crowd, the figures of black-clad OCPD officers shunting their way through the mass to get a look at the what had caught the crowd's eye. The figures froze as they caught sight of Dante, their guns suddenly in their hands and pointed unwaveringly at his body.

Aaliyah simply watched, watched as one bold officer walked up to her son and bent down at his side. She held her breath, giving a mental order to the visor to zoom in on the scene.

Please. Please. Please. If there's justice in this world, let him live.

The officer remained crouched at Dante's side for ten seconds, keeping his hand on her son's neck. Then he stood and waved the crowd away, his gesture dismissive and unconcerned.

Aaliyah's heart seemed to fall out of its place, plummeting out of her like her son had plummeted out of the air. She gaped at Dante's body, unthinking, unfeeling, just staring with a shocked, empty gaze at the piece of meat that had once been her son. The officer that had pronounced him dead turned around slowly and looked down at Dante for another lengthy moment.

Then he raised his boot in the air and stomped on Dante's gut, jerking the body into the air and splattering blood across the ground.

Three-pane laminated glass shattered and a shadow flew out into the night, howling like a banshee as it arced through the air. The officers jumped around, their hands flying back to their weapons as the shade smashed through the terrified crowd and keened its anger, raising a shining sword.

Blood slashed out into the night in flags of crimson, painting the ground and splashing onto the horrified onlookers. One officer sagged and fell forward, his throat sliced open, mutely choking on his own life. The second whipped out his gun and screamed as his hand flew off into the night, silencing suddenly as the tip of the blade pierced his heart. The last fired a wild shot at the shadow Aaliyah had become, the bullet flying off into the night to strike a helioscraper's window. He didn't scream as the blade cleaved across his neck and then his gut with ungodly speed, sending his head spinning off into the night as gore jetted from his severed legs.

Aaliyah whirled around as the last officer fell and crouched over the body of her son, splashed with blood, dripping with it, a look of pure, unreasoning rage contorting her beautiful face. She gradually fell silent as she crouched there, her screams of rage fading into nothing as she looked around at the terrified faces of the crowd. She waited for a space, staring each citizen in the face as she guarded her son. Then,

"My name is Aaliyah Soldari."

Her voice was steady, even, cold as ice. It rang through the street, echoing between the massive sunscrapers. A few faces in the crowd started as they heard her name, blanching white and running off into the dark. The rest kept their eyes fixed on Aaliyah, motionless in their dread of the old legends.

She could hear the three teardrops descending through the night sky, arming their cruel hooks with narcotic venom and training them on her neck, her legs, her wrists. She ignored them, keeping her eyes fixed on the crowd.

"My name is Aaliyah Soldari," she repeated, "And I know there are eyecams out there, hidden in the crowd. I want you to watch me now, and remember what I tell you."

She pointed her sword down at the ground, blood running off it in a slow drip. The darkness above her was beginning to thicken, to solidify into demons of the night.

"I want you to watch me now," Aaliyah continued, "because you've brought a storm down on your heads. I know you know who I am, and I know you know what I can do."

She pointed behind her, at Dante's body.

"I haven't got long for a speech, but here's my piece and you're going to listen to it. You owe me so this much, and so much more."

"You're all about to see the beginning of a new age," she shouted angrily, looking around at the crowd, "What kind of age it'll be, I don't know. That decision's not mine to make."

She gestured broadly around, at the Core, at the helioscrapers, at the city.

"Everything is going to change. One way or another, you're going to see change. Not little changes; the world is going to be shaken down to its core."

"And I take comfort knowing that my death, and the death of my son, was not in vain. I take comfort in knowing that you've signed your own death warrant. Your arrogance, your greed, your envy, all those things that got you ahead in the first place? I take a whole lot of comfort knowing that, at long goddamn last, you're gonna be dragged down by them."

"I'm old," she said resignedly, "Old and tired and hurt. The world's too young for me now. But I used to be so much more. And if you thought I was a nightmare, a killer, an unstoppable force of nature... Well, Jahansson..."

She smiled coolly. "Well, take a look at the next generation. Because they are all better than me. Stronger. Smarter. Faster. And much, much more vengeful."

"I want you to remember, now," she roared abruptly at the crowd, whipping her sword up over her head, "Remember every day I ever made you feel that sting, that horrible little wound I call defeat. Remember Black Sky, remember the Battle of Three Gorges Dam, remember the hell I gave you day in and day out for nearly two centuries!"

"Remember the people you've killed, you son of a bitch, the friends you've taken from me, the soldiers that died under my command, strong men and women fighting for freedom and good in this world!"

"Remember them," she bellowed, even as she felt the rush of air from the pod's suspensors, "and shake in those lovely leather boots, Elric. Because your own personal hell is coming back to Earth."

"And this time, the Devil isn't taking offers!"

***

Dante woke sluggishly, painfully, against his will, his eyes grudgingly flicking open. He was stretched out on a white rectangle of hard, cold material, his arms at his side, his weapons gone. The sleepy tranquilizer warmth that had surrounded him faded as he came to consciousness, leaving the cold of the room behind to saturate him.

"Where am I?" he groaned hoarsely, twisting his head this way and that to try and see his surroundings. The room pressed in around him, hardly more than eight by eight feet, oppressively dark and close. Metal cabinets and countertops lined the walls, dull red crosses scattered here and there among the blank steel.

"A hospital?" Dante muttered, sitting up and rubbing his aching head, "I'm in a hospital?"

Of a sort.

Dante launched himself back, rolling backwards off the table and pressing himself up against the wall. He shook where he crouched, his hands crooked into claws, terror and a warrior's instinct blending together at the sound of that unnatural voice.

Cool, languorous, sharp as a knife. A woman's voice. But there was a non-substance about it, a sense of emptiness, an echo of something dark and endless.

Hmmm... A good choice, I think, it whispered lazily in the dark, There is strength in this one. Young, fiery, convicted. A warrior, through and through.

"Who are you?" Dante shouted, looking around wildly, "What have you done to me? If you want information you can bite my shiny armored-"

I do not require information from you, Dante Soldari.

Dante froze, his mouth hanging open as his eyes widened in fear. A black door had appeared at the opposite end of the small room and swung open, slamming shut as the voice finished its sentence.

"How do you know my name? Why am I here?" Dante asked the air around him, paralyzed, his eyes darting nervously around the room. The air seemed to be thickening, becoming colder and colder as it pressed in on him.

I know much more than just your name, runner. And I'm here to make you a deal, if you wish.

"Deal?" Dante repeated incredulously, "I'm not making a deal with someo- something I can't see!"

Better that you don't see me, little human. The voice sounded coldly amused, like an adult humoring a child.

Let me tell you something, Dante, let me get it out of the way. You're dead, child. Your body was smashed to meat and bits when you fell from the sky.

"What?" Dante asked, confused.

But I can give you your life back, if you promise me one thing.

"I'm not dead!" Dante shouted disbelievingly, "It's too damn cold for me to be dead."

Indeed? What, exactly, did you expect death to feel like?

Dante opened his mouth to retort, then closed it slowly, without a sound.

"I'm dead," he said dully, his voice hollow. "Fucking great."

I offer you a second life, Dante, in return for one service.

"What do you want?" Dante asked flatly.

I want you to take down Elric Jahansson.

"Great," Dante responded without hesitation, lying down on the table and crossing his arms, "Yes. Sign me up and do what you will. If that's your price, I'll fucking take it."

If it saves Aaliyah, he thought, I don't care what this thing does to me.

The voice sighed, like wind tearing through autumn leaves.

Poor child. Your mother is beyond saving. You will be the only one to walk away tonight.

"What?" Dante roared, bolting up, his face livid, "Bullshit! The pods weren't after her! She- she wouldn't have-!"

Right? he finished in his head.

The laughter that rang through the chamber chilled the runner to the bone, the eerie and unnatural sound of it creeping over him like hoarfrost.

Think, Dante. Use that big brain of yours. Do you truly believe, for an instant, that your mother would ever have abandoned you to save herself?

"No..."

Dante's vision blurred as his eyes began to burn, his fists clenching as his face contorted in misery.

"No."

He threw his head back and screamed, slamming his fists into the countertop with all his strength.

"NO!"

The voice chuckled again, cold and a touch ironic.

Excellent. Like a proper soldier, a proper son. Don't you just burn for vengeance now?

"No. Revenge is a dish best served cold," Dante whispered.

He stood slowly and leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms and staring straight ahead.

"So, what are you going to do?" he asked emotionlessly.

I'm going to modify you, Dante. I'm going to change you in a thousand ways. Don't worry; you get to keep that cute young face and that fit little body. I wouldn't touch those, too well-done for a human.

"Believe me, from how you sound I wouldn't want you touching me," Dante replied tersely.

Laughter breezed through the room again on an icy gust, genuine amusement filling its sound.

"Anyway," Dante continued coldly, "I've already got as many cyberenhancements as my body can take, I'm in peak physical condition, I have complete control of my GIACA... what are you going to do to all that?"

Oh, something very special, my gorgeous little ashen champion. You thought that was power? No. Let me show you true power.

Dante rose into the air and slammed back against the table, an invisible force pinning him down and completely freezing him in place. Pain flashed up his legs and his arms as a thousand tiny needles, conjured from thin air, buried themselves deep into his flesh and bones.

I'm going to make you a god, Dante Soldari.

A knife buried itself in Dante's gut and slowly rose up, splitting him in two, searing agony fogging his mind and making the room spin out of control. Scalpels speared into Dante's back, slicing through to his heart and his lungs. Dante tried to writhe, tried to yell for help, tried to do something, anything to save himself.

I know you have a question, child. All who come here ask it.

I am old, Dante. Old as the universe and tired beyond belief. I have many names: Ankou. Yama. Azrael. Osiris. But there's one name all beings know me best by. One name all things call me, and fear to call me.

Dante fought to scream, to breathe, his eyes bulging out of his head, black and red creeping in at the edges as the agony raged through him.

And then the pain vanished, the knives and needles vanishing as quickly as they had appeared. A long, curved blade descended out of the darkness and buried itself between Dante's eyes, splitting his skull and burying itself in his brain. Dante twitched and writhed, free to move at last, but he did not scream. There was no pain.

His eyes traveled up, up the dull, rust-flecked length of the metal. The blade was fixed on the end of a long, straight rod of wood, gripped by ten ghastly white fingers. Where those repulsive hands began were the thing's arms, thin and pale, sickly-looking. The arms ended where a cloak of pure darkness began, flowing down onto the floor in a pool of liquid shadow. The vague outline of shoulders lead up to a hood, swirling in an unnatural wind, filled by the neverending void of the outer dark.

As Dante watched, the cloak and the hands and the arms began to melt, to flow down the haft, over the blade, into his brain and his body, filling him up to the brim.

We shall go forth and wreak our vengeance upon Elric Jahansson. We shall find the other of our kind, the one who sleeps in the darkness, and bring the tyrant's world crashing down around him.

Dante's mouth stretched open in one last silent scream, his eyes narrowed in fury and his fists clenched at his side.

And now, my little runner... Now you have become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

***

Dante's eyes shot open and he took a deep breath of air. He jerked forward and snapped back hard into the thin padding of a transport seat. The straps of black recoil fiber tightened maliciously around his arms and his legs, binding Dante closely.

Dante looked around wildly, his eyes wide and frantic, his head pulsing with pain in a straight line down the middle of his forehead. He was in the belly of a metal beast, lit from above by bare white bulbs and below by the neon of the city.

People in combat armor were scattered all about the inside of the transport, holding guns at the ready and patrolling this way and that about the metal belly.

"Now this is a night's catch!" yelled a gratingly harsh voice from Dante's left, "Boys, we caught runners! These pesky bastards have been houndin' us since the early days, and now we finally catch one!"

A soldier sauntered up in front of Dante, his back turned to the runner and his arms spread wide as he finished his exclamation. An assault rifle dangled off his arm by its strap, a pistol unsecured at his side.

"Well, caught one anyway," responded one of the soldiers, jerking a thumb to a bin near the ramp of the transport, "Shame about the girl."

"Aye," the soldier in front of Dante sighed, hooking his thumbs in his fatigues, "It's a pity, really. She was quite good looking."

Dante's eyes fell on the bin slowly, his hearts beginning to pound with a manic intensity. He wanted to turn away, wanted to keep his hope alive, not wanting to know.

His eyes landed on a slender, grey thing slung over the side of the bin. An arm. A woman's arm, sheathed in GIACA matter.

They killed her. Aaliyah is dead.

Dante stared at the arm, lost, numb, his eyes burning and his vision blurring. The soldier in front of him sighed and turned around, bending down to inspect his catch.

The soldier let out a satisfied grunt, cracking his neck. "Good," he muttered to himself. "Very good."

He looked over his shoulder and shouted to one of his squad, jerking a thumb at Dante.

"He's conscious, Mason!" he bellowed, "What'd you say you were gonna do again?"

"I'm gonna cut him up and tear that armor out of his bones," replied a cross, slightly Welsh voice, "Don't make me say it again, Carter."

Carter laughed and turned back to Dante, a sickeningly ugly grin spread across his unshaven, scarred face.

"Tough times in store for you, boyo," he guffawed, "Had best say your prayers now, sonny-boy, 'cause-"

Carter silenced suddenly, his eyes widening in incredulity as he stared at Dante. A tear had fallen loose from the runner's eyes, dripping to the recoil fiber and absorbing into the black fabric.

The soldier looked at it disbelievingly, then broke into throaty laughter.

"A runner? Crying?" he exclaimed incredulously, "I thought ya'll were nothing but piss 'n vinegar, tougher 'n leather and twice as thick, and I see a runner crying?! This day just keeps getting better!"

Dante glanced at the runner's arm, unable to stop himself, a second tear dropping out of his eyes. The soldier followed his quick glance with perfect accuracy, and again he laughed that sickening laugh.

"Oh, li'l baby!" Carter crooned, slugging Dante across the face. Blood spattered across the wall of the transport and Dante felt his jaw pop slightly.

"Li'l crybaby runner!" Carter laughed, giving Dante another shot to the stomach.

"Was that cunt a friend of yours, free-range?" Carter asked viciously, grabbing Dante's chin and forcing it up, "Was she your girlfriend?"

"Was she your bitch, your little-?"

There was a sound like steel cables snapping and whipping back as the recoil fiber snapped, and then the sharp crack of snapping bone as Carter flew across the transport. He smashed into the wall with metal-denting force, thudding down to the floor silently. The other soldiers jumped in shock, and once they caught sight of his face, twisted completely around, they began to shout in fear and ready their weapons.

Dante stood immobile, his eyes downcast, his fists clenched at his sides. A cloud like black smoke and water combined swirled around his body, emanating from him in a constant stream. His face had turned deathly pale, drawn and gaunt, skull-like. His body seemed to have shrunk, becoming skeletally thin while keeping his imposing height. His fists were like clubs of grey bone.

All he could see was her face, fixed in his mind's eye, that beautiful grin on her face, giving him the last smile he would ever get from her. It burned in his mind, scalding him, torturing him.

The first shot banged out around the transport, the rifle bullet flying straight and true to the center of Dante's forehead. It bounced off his flesh with a slight pinging sound, ricocheting off the walls of the transport.

Dante opened his eyes slowly, staring at the frozen figures of the retrieval squad. His eyes, once a deep sapphire blue, had become unfathomably and completely black. He stepped forward, eerily silent, and the soldiers drew back, their guns falling to their sides, terror overruling their training.

Dante stared for a suspended moment in time at the murderers, regarding them, weighing them. All except one froze as his gaze fell on them, blanching white, their guns falling from their hands.

All except the squad leader, the Welshman, who drew a knife and hurled it at Dante's head with a scream of furious terror.

The runner caught it almost without thinking, his arm reaching lazily up and plucking the knife from the air. He snapped the blade clean in two, then took one last look around the transport. His eyes fell on the box with his mother's body in it, her arm hanging limply over the side.

And anger exploded in a wrath that could cow Satan himself.

Epilogue: Days to Come

January 15, 2200

Dawn rose above the distant black plain, illuminating the bedewed mountain pines with a piercingly bright light. Snow atop the peaks glistened in the rising sun, the radiance reflected a thousand times in its crystal skin. Animals walked here and there, ghostly and silent among the trees, keeping their distance from the gathering.

In a clearing at the edge of a wooded cliff, a multitude stood waiting, standing in rank and file facing a casket of whitest wood. Hundreds of them stood there, silent as a graveyard, shivering in the cold of morning as they waited for the memorial to begin. Some were scarred, hardened veterans of a hundred battles, their armor scored and their weapons notched. Some were young, there on the sufferance of their masters or their teachers, uncomfortable and unsure. Some were friends and some were dearest enemies, some exchanged quick, shifty glances and some held long, angry stares.

But no conflict would be allowed that day; only unity would be proper for the funeral of the woman named Aaliyah Soldari.

Soon after the light of dawn filled the clearing, a man stepped out from among the throng, striding through the lines to the side of the casket. A runner, tall and wiry and forbidding, the brother of the fallen. He spoke to the crowd, recounting his life with her to the multitude, but his voice was weak and words were lost to the grief of the many.

As the man faded back into line, another stood forward. An old soldier, white-haired and shrunken with age, a survivor of the Battle of Black Sky. He held his head high and his voice was strong, ringing through the space with a veteran's authority, telling the crowd of the woman who saved his life as he fell through the heavens.

And so it went, one after another, rising from the ranks to recount a story, a moment, a war shared with an exemplar. One by one they told each other of the fallen heroine, each from their own side of her life, friend or foe, ally or enemy. They told stories through the day and into the evening, when the crickets began to chirp and the cold began to settle back on the mountain. They wept with each other, laughed with each other, comforted each other as the stories touched their souls.

Only one stood alone.

Dante watched silently, crouched over the edge of a cliff high above the gathering, watching through the whole funeral and all the riotous wake. Some thought he was a guardian, sent by the runners or some other power to protect the congregation. Others speculated that he was an old adversary, come to revel in the death of such a powerful enemy.

Dante's thoughts were far away from the funeral and the antlike people below him. They roiled and seethed in his own head, the grief, the despair and the cold, cold fury threatening to split his head open with their power. The world around him hurt with every glance, the trees and the rocks and the crowd reminding him of his loss. Every look that strayed towards his GIACA, gone from grey to black in the space of a night, sent a shiver of anger and pain through him.

Everywhere I look, I see death.

Day faded into evening and evening into night, signaling the beginning of the wake. The crowd grew unruly, rowdy, switching from joyful to miserable and back again at the drop of a hat, revelry and regret mixing together, but Dante sat there motionless, fighting back the sorrow threatening to overtake him as his mind raced with half-formed notions and plans for his next course of action.

He pondered suicide, here on the rocks where the cloned body of his mother had been interred. Hermitage, living out the centuries here by her side, alone with his grief.

And most of all, he contemplated war.

We shall go forth and wreak our vengeance upon Elric Jahansson, the woman's voice said over and over and over, We shall find the other of our kind, the one who sleeps in darkness, and bring the tyrant's world crashing down around him.

"Fuck you," he murmured to the night around him, "I'm not your puppet. I'll do what I want."

"Dante?"

Dante's jaw clenched and he closed his eyes, not turning around to face the speaker.

"What do you want, Jac?" he asked softly, gazing into the crowd below.

Jac walked over to Dante and stooped down beside him, laying a hand on Dante's shoulder.

"Listen, Dante, I know this is probably not the best thing to be asking you right now-" Jac began gently.

"You're right," Dante interrupted, "Leave me the fuck alone."

"-But you should join the wake," Jac continued, "A little fun would do you good. I know you're upset, but sitting up here on a cliff isn't going to change anything."

"I know," Dante said impatiently, "Now leave me alone."

Jac's jaw clenched in exasperation. "Dante, what are you gonna do?" he asked, irritation creeping into his voice, "Stay here and grieve for the rest of your life? You have to move on. Believe it or not, you're a big deal now."

Jac's voice hushed a little.

"They're saying you came back from the dead, Dante. What happened that night? Please, tell me the truth."

"I haven't decided what I'm going to do, Jac," Dante replied tersely, "If I could hear myself think I might be able to."

"Dante, son, answer the question-"

"No," Dante growled, "I'm not going down, and you don't have the clout to drag me down anymore. I won't tell you what happened, so you can have the luxury of believing what you want to."

"And Jac... I'm not your fucking son."

There was a short silence as Jac crouched motionless at Dante's side. Then the elder runner straightened and walked off silently. Dante didn't turn his head, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the wake below him.

"I know you're here," he whispered, "Talk to me. Answer my questions if you want me to do what you're asking."

An indescribable chill settled over him, creeping over his body until it covered every last inch of his skin.

Do not make demands of me, child, the cold breeze seemed to whisper.

"I have every right to have a mission briefing, lady," Dante replied brusquely.

You know what to do, Soldari, the wind hissed crossly, Acquire allies. Build an army. Find the other one of your kind.

"Where am I supposed to start?" Dante shot back, "The Demokratos won't help me, they've got too much on their plate already. The runners will never agree to something like what you want me to do. Mercenaries are untrustworthy, criminals stab you in the back, people are too scared to form new resistances, so all in all I'm in a pretty shitty position! And if you think that you're going to just send me off into the world and let me die again, then you can go stick a scythe blade down your infernal craw and wriggle it around just for me!"

The breeze became a frigid gale in a heartbeat, rushing over Dante with enough force to bend the pines around him.

I will not be insulted by a child, scant weeks old! the wind railed at Dante, Who do you think you are, fledgling? Are you laboring under the delusion that your powers make you invincible? Maybe you think you can disrespect your creator and get away with it-

"Tell me where to start or act pompous somewhere else," Dante sighed exasperatedly, not budging an inch in the sudden typhoon wind.

"I really don't have the patience to deal with your kind right now."

Arrogant child!

"You're damn right I'm arrogant. And I'm also not listening to your fucking blustering, so take it to someone who cares."

The wind stilled slowly around Dante, the being's discontented mutterings fading into nothingness as the runner turned his gaze back to the crowd below. His brethren runners were leading a dance, the music wild and thumping through the ground at Dante's feet, the mourners screaming and jumping and swaying like they had so long ago.

Dante stood up slowly and stretched his stiff limbs, cracking his knuckles and neck. He clenched his jaw, giving the crowd one last look, and turned around to walk away.

His way was blocked by an old man, white-haired and bent over with age, emerald-green eyes peering out of his wrinkled face with a knifelike intensity and intelligence. His black leather jacket, scarred and pocked in a dozen places, hung loosely around his skeletal frame over a white t-shirt, his rawhide pants baggy around thin legs.

Dante stood motionless, eyes wide and staring at the man.

"How did you-" he began to ask, but the old man put a finger to his lips and stepped towards Dante, consummately silent in the shin-deep grass.

"Are you the runner they call Dante?" the man asked in a scratchy, grim voice, "You were her protégé?"

Dante nodded, looking perplexed.

"I noticed you sitting up here, watching the funeral," the man said, "Jogged my memory. I have something for you."

"Look, I appreciate it, but now isn't the best time-"

"Something of hers, boy."

Dante fell silent again, his stomach seeming to fall out of its proper place. The old man smiled humorlessly and began to root around his jacket pockets, inside and outside the coat. As he searched, Dante could hear him muttering near-silently, his voice sad and a little bitter.

"Dante, eh? I can't say it's a bad choice. 'Resolute'. Hopefully you'll live up to it..."

His hand stopped near his chest, buried in a pocket in the interior of the jacket. The old man's smile brightened a little, and he looked back up at Dante.

"So, you're her son, eh?" he asked. Dante nodded wordlessly.

"I can see a bit of her in everything about you, boy," the old man sighed, "Your eyes, your hair, your armor... Her son. No doubt."

He drew his hand out of the pocket and handed Dante an electronic tablet, sleek and white in the early morning dark.

"She told me to give this to you if she never had the chance to do it herself," the man told Dante, "She told me it's an audio and visual log and a bunch of data that only you'd be able to use. I have no idea what any of them are about, but if Aaliyah wanted you to have it the data must be important somehow."

The man turned his back to Dante and began to walk off, padding away on bare feet. But after a few steps, the man slowed and turned around, staring Dante straight in the eye.

"I loved her with all my heart, Dante Soldari, like so many others," the old man said softly, his words easily carrying to Dante's ears.

"Aaliyah would've have outlived me by a century with that armor you runners wear, but I knew her for most of my life. I'm sorry for your loss, but don't you dare dishonor her."

The old man turned back to the forest and continued to walk, his words floating over his shoulder to Dante.

"Because if you do, you're better off dead than alive."

Dante watched the old man vanish into the dark pine trees, holding the tablet loosely in his hand as he stood there. When the man had faded into the forest, Dante looked back at the tablet, sat down, and tapped the screen.

An aqua-blue color slowly blossomed into being across the display, becoming a pool of purest water in Dante's hand. Dante flexed his knuckles and began to tap at the watery color, sending slow ripples through the surface as the water began to splash from side to side.

He began to tap faster all around the screen, the water swirling and coalescing slowly in the cage of Dante's fingers. Faster and faster, tapping madly, until the water had become a blue ball between his fingers. He opened his fist and let the blue marble rest where it was, glassy and immobile, the space around it pitch-black.

Dante sighed and placed it between two of his fingers, cocking his arm behind his head and pitching forward with all his strength. The tablet hurtled forward into a tree, burying corner-first in the bark with a resonating thunk. Dante got up and pulled it out with a hard tug, wiping pulp off the screen and leaning up against the tree.

The marble had fractured into twelve piles of glittering dust sitting on a white plain, labeled with several different names; 2000-2020, 2021-2040 and so on until 2180-2199. The last two piles drew Dante's eye; one said Friends, the other For Dante.

He hesitated a moment, foreboding rising in his throat as he stared between the two. His finger moved back and forth between each for a few long seconds, then he sighed defeatedly and tapped For Dante.

The glass floated up to the screen and pressed flat to the surface, forming a spiderweb of glittering cracks across a dark void. The cracks slowly sealed and an image faded onto the screen.

It slowly resolved into Aaliyah's face, eyes downcast and expression somber. A plain grey room stretched behind her, her quarters in the Omega HQ Spartan by runner standards. She was sitting down in a metal frame chair, her face caught by a computer camera, low-resolution and quick.

She raised her eyes to the screen and cracked a halfhearted grin. It faded from her face as quickly as it had come and she sighed tiredly, leaning her head on her hand and shaking it resignedly.

"Oh, Dante..."

The sound of her voice sent a shiver up Dante's spine in a trickle of frost and he shook a little, fighting off the urge to choke, to sob.

"Dante, Dante, Dante," she murmured, "Look at you. Just look at you. My boy, all grown up."

She leaned up and settled back in her chair, chewing on her lip and looking from side to side for a few moments. Then she leaned forward, that same wan smile turning up the corners of her face.

"Twenty years," she breathed, "Twenty years I've watched you grow, watched you learn. Twenty years of my life I've spent with you at my side. My little wolf. Look at you now."

She grinned a little wider. "Twenty years seems like a long time, doesn't it?" she whistled softly, "When you're putting up with me every day of your life, I know it's gotta be a slow deal. But twenty years went by fast for me. I guess that's the problem with being as old as I am... Time just slips away..."

She shook her head and chuckled. "Listen to me. I sound like an old woman with nothing left. Only half-true. I've still got you, Dante."

The smile faded from her face and she shook her head again.

"But you won't still have me," she said with an awful finality.

"By the time Chairos gives you this tablet, I'll be dead and buried. I hope they're having fun down there. They deserve it. But you, Dante... I have one last thing to say to you."

She leaned in a little closer. So did Dante.

"I know what you're thinking right now. Oh, I know. I've felt the pain you're feeling a hundred times. I've felt the pain and I was crippled by the pain, but you know what?"

"I kept going. No matter what, I kept going."

"I want you to keep going, Dante. I never want you to be like I was then, broken and useless and stagnant. I want you to live your life the way you want to, whatever you want to do. I want you to be better than me, and I'm asking you with all my heart not to let yourself fade."

She reached out past the camera and put her hand on the top of the monitor. Dante could almost feel it on his shoulder, the same slender fingers that had taught him a hundred things, squeezing just a little to comfort him in times of trouble.

"You're special, Dante," she whispered fiercely, "Marked by fate, destined for greatness, I don't care what you call it. But the moment I first saw you, twenty years ago, I knew you were meant to do great things. I knew you had the strength in you to fight through the pain and the doubt and the temptation, to do the things that most people call impossible and to beat me at everything I do."

"I can't stop you from doing what you choose. I can't guide you anymore. This is your life, so you can do what you want with it. But I'm begging you; don't fade away. Do things I could never have done, see things I could never have seen, learn from everything around you and learn from my mistakes."

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, her hand tightening around the computer monitor's screen. Dante's eyes burned with hers, his own sob wracking his body with a wave of pain.

A pause. Then Aaliyah opened her eyes, a pair of fresh tears running down her cheeks. She smiled and drew a deep breath, releasing it slowly and looking back into his eyes.

"Damn it, kid," she laughed gently, "It's been a while since I cried. It feels good."

"Dante... I love you. I love you so much, so damn much that it's tearing me the fuck apart to see you go off into the world. It's ripping me apart inside, and you know what?"

"I'm proud of you. I'm proud of everything about you. Whatever you do, remember that. I am so proud of you."

Another tear streaked down her cheek, slow, sparkling a little in the light of the monitor. Aaliyah took another deep breath and smiled just a little wider. Her last word was a whisper.

"Goodbye."

After a long, long time, Dante stood, gripping the tablet very tightly in his hand as he turned his eyes to the east. The sun was nearly up in the valley below, coloring the clouds a blazing orange, like a titanic fire being lit in the east, like that day so many years ago.

"I love you too, Mom."

Dante walked down the steep path to the gathering of mourners, treading delicately among the crowd, fast asleep after long hours of celebration. The air around Dante flowed over him like warm water, the promise of a beautiful day whispering gaily in his ear.

I'll do it. For her, I'll do it. You'll get your wish, but I'm doing it for her. Never forget that.

"Is that clear?" he asked the forest around him, feeling the warm breeze play through his hair and dance across his face.

'Crystal.'

