The sky was red. Like the apples he enjoyed as a child. Like bad blood. Like many things. Clouds, wispy and scattered, crawled above, a silent, distant audience. How many conquerors, famed generals, and leaders had clawed their way to history under their gaze? How many more had died before they were able to burn their genius into the world?

Impossible to count. The odds of another ascending to such heights were unfathomable, impossible. Genius died the same as all things.

Genghis. Alexander. Caesar. A select few of fate’s chosen shattered the odds with their hammers of indomitable pursuit. Long had history and humanity alike looked for a common thread that weaved between these figures, and undoubtedly, they had found a few. Intellect, determination, luck.

Only one similarity mattered, however. These figures who history has lavished upon myth and legend all won. That was the thing about history. It had to be written, and it was written by the victors, no less. There was no genius, no warlord, no emperor whose name magically embedded itself upon the world’s records. They wrote it themselves with quills of ink and gunpowder, steel and fire, propaganda and manipulation.

Grey supposed it was time to introduce a few quills of his own. Today was a start. Today was a message. Today was a coronation. History was indeed written, and with a surprisingly light heart, Grey Shor endeavoured to write.

He stood at the center of a raging army. It had neither swallowing numbers nor well-oiled uniformity, but what it lacked in lock-step efficiency was made up for by brutal enthusiasm. Towering stacks of melded rock crashed along the flanks, their expressionless visages of stone sat upon primate-like bodies that hunched over and scraped the pavement beneath them. Men shattered and flattened like limp toys beneath their weight.

Above him, dark silhouettes spun and blurred in the space between skyscrapers of metal and glass. Grey saw their forms well in the space behind his eyes. They, too, were humanoid, though where the golems held an unmovable, lumbering quality, the daemons were creatures of whim and shadow. They danced on silk and melded with shadow, blade arms of dark chitin clawing their way free from the lifeless gray of their skin. Puppets dropped with their passing shadows, strings severed.

Their control of the air was far from uncontested, however. Swooping and diving above him like birds were golden-scaled drakes. They had leathery wings in place of forelimbs, and heavy, curving claws rested at the end of curved hindlegs. Lightning crackled at the edges of their beak-like snouts, stabbing to the earth in flashes of blinding white.

Among the monstrous figures of his army marched incarnations of steel. Of war. Their armor, gracefully curved and sleek, bent and moved unnaturally. Their shields hung from their backs, and their weapons stood at attention, daring. They stepped forward in sync, a buzzsaw of steel and sharp edges that shattered all.

At their center, he imagined he must have looked unspectacular. He was not tall among his own kind. Among the monsters, he was downright diminutive. He had no claws or blade arms, only armor, and even that paled in comparison to the Steel Legion. A cloak hung about his frame and covered his features. He was unremarkable- by design.

Their battlefield was apocalyptic. Shattered buildings wept all around them, and men and monsters bled and died on the rubble-strewn, corpse-choked street. The shells of cars, rusted and half-crumpled, volunteered as chokepoints and obstacles. Grey breathed in the heavy ash and metallic blood on the air.

There was a man, short of hair and heavy of foot, and he walked among beasts of all manner and bent them to his will.

His nose twitched. A sword interrupted his description, flashing quicksilver in the press of bodies. His crown summoned a Tribune, who blocked the sword and rammed its pike into the chest of the attacker.

Knight takes Pawn.

On the right flank, a Returnee with a flying Evolution had slaughtered several of his drakes. A thought sent javelins into the air, their edges coated with white-blue energy that lanced the false angel’s body with tears and holes. His body fell, spinning and lifeless.

Pawns take Bishop.

A puff of smoke rose at his right, a steel-masked man stepping out. Grey ignored the obvious bait and stepped into the first form of the Steel Legion’s scale. Pivot, feint, chop. The body fell a moment later, its throat little more than a crimson smile.

Her strategy was to identify and then kill him. His was to break her until she had no choice but to become desperate. It was the most precarious of games, the equivalent of a sword fight on a tightrope, but he felt… alive. There was never a man alive that was more suited to play.

The forces crashed together like lapping waves, and a diving thunder of drakes swooped by, the beat of their wings threatening to rip his cloak away and show the helmet beneath. A flash and a bang roared to his left. Gunfire crashed and snapped towards the front of his line.

Grey let out a shaky breath and looked to the sky. A smile grew on his face. With a mental command, he moved a few of his decoys forward and followed a moment later. It was reckless, he knew, but there was always another plan.

The front line shouted. Grey slid into it. His glaive slipped out, claimed an arm. Then a head. He wove Metallurgy into his blows. A wave of cutting energy scored his armor and his flesh beneath. A Battle Script launched him into the attacking woman.

Her sword rose. He called the second form. Deflect, step in, trip. She stumbled, fell, caught herself. His glaive took her in the face, ripped a wet chunk free that claimed her eye, and swung about to silence the wail that rose.

King takes Pawn.

He was in their midst then, raging fire one moment and gliding smoke the next. His movements were amateur, a mockery of mastery, and that made them better than most. His glaive reaped a life and tangled itself in an armor strap. A question. The sword at his waist stood in answer.

Time disappeared and returned in flashes of steel, echoes of pain, tears of blood. The right flank started to buckle. He sent his Rook, the Legate, to reinforce it. She killed a decoy, then two. He moved strong pieces to protect the others. Lightning and steel and shadow chipped away at her ranks, engulfed them until she was backed against the remains of a row of shops.

Amidst it all, he fought. And won. Won because there was nothing else Grey did. There was a purpose among the whir of steel, however, and when he had received enough blows that his shaking arms could hardly raise no more, he stepped forward into the frey and lifted his arms.

Attacks sprinted towards him, some carrying blades and hammers, others bolts of raw destruction. Shields leapt to meet them. All were too late.

There was a single moment of stillness, of anticipation, and then a loud crash as the front line of surprised, human faces met an invisible wave of roaring force. A unit of golems held back for this purpose stabbed into the gap, and his forces followed, massacring recovering fighters.

Her line buckled once, spasmed like a dying beast, and fell upon itself in escape. That was when he saw her, a flash of chestnut hair and amber eyes meeting his own. Then she was gone with a pop. Teleportation.

His cloak fell to the ground as his forces raged past him to pursue their enemy. He called for a drake and grabbed onto its hindleg when it swooped by, crafting a cuff of steel to link him to the monster. She had only one place to flee, and he knew what awaited him there.

The queen’s sacrifice.

On a rooftop, it started, and on a rooftop, it would end. She stood in dark clothes behind a row of kneeling prisoners. On her left was a woman unremarkable save for her deep shadow. A man stood to her left, one Grey knew had a teleportation Evolution.

He landed with the roar of the drake swooping above. With his cloak and helmet shed, he stood proudly in armor of swirling silver and blue, a striking figure for perhaps the first time in his life. They exchanged no words. None were needed. They simply acted.

Screams rose and died with the prisoners, dark miasma rising from their corpses and funneling towards Jessica. Grey raised a hand and caught a spear falling from his Inventory. He looked at Jessica and winked.

From the shadow of the man, a daemon materialized. It stabbed forward, cloak and dagger both, and died, severed in half by a purple portal. It fell in two halves, both falling to the ground with wet sounds.

Grey’s spear ripped through the distraction and took the man in the chest. He fell. Died. Then energy locked Grey down, erupting from the woman at Jessica’s side.

“The spear was a good trick, but I’m afraid I noticed the daemon as soon as it latched onto us.” Jessica’s voice swept through the empty rooftop, the sounds of battle still booming blocks away.

Grey nodded. “That’s why I brought a second.”

From the woman’s shadow, Grey’s Queen bled into the light, a sliver of darkness caving in her host’s shadow. Then Jessica was alone, surrounded by corpses. Shade was the most intelligent and cunning of the demons, and he had sent her to search for Jessica’s hideout prior to the battle with the data he had gathered from his capture. Planting the second on the teleporter was simple trickery to disguise the true surprise.

Queen takes Bishop.

Her blade-arms speared into Jessica without ceremony. The dark energy around her head dispersed. Grey laughed. Victory.

He covered the distance between them quickly and wiped a trail of dark blood from her mouth. Fading amber eyes observed him. Her lips moved, a whisper escaping. Grey furrowed his brows and leaned closer.

“I win.” Her lips met his own before he could move, and then the pain reached him, terrible and wracking.

Fire roasted his skin. Needles, sharp and plentiful, ran through him, and blades of all types butchered him. He felt dead. Wished for it. It enveloped him, embraced him, and when he begged for it, it released him.

The sky greeted him when he returned to his senses. Storm clouds had begun to gather, flashing wrath reaching down from their grasp. The first drops hit his face. Wet. Cold.

Shade reached for him. He barked at her to leave. Then he was alone, alone with her. She had died while he was unconscious. Died like anyone else. There was no wailing, no anguish from Earth at the death of one of its geniuses. She was just dead, lifeless, stained with blood. Most of it wasn’t her own.

He left her striking eyes open. Let her see his victory. Let her see his triumph. Let her see he could continue without her games.

Raindrops continued to fall on his cheeks, and if there was a tear or two mixed in, none would be the wiser.

To the dull roar of thunder, Grey tossed his head back and screamed. In victory, in pain. It made no difference. He roared because he could. He roared because Grey Shor had won again.

Battle plan completed.

---

Jessica fell into blackness. Death. Her eyes closed. She waited for peace. For the dissolution of her thoughts, her being. Nothing came.

“Am I truly so hideous?”

Her eyes flicked open. He stood there. Grey. She leapt to her feet, arms reaching, and stopped. Something held her in place.

“Where am I?”

“You’re a clever girl,” he said, his voice richer than she remembered. “Think. This is what you wanted, after all.”

“This is your mind?”

“It is Grey’s,” he said. His form rippled, flickered into something her mind could not comprehend, then became a white cat. “You may call me Arbiter.”

“What are you?” Her mind ran for a way out, searched for anything to grasp ahold of. Nothing.

“The beings you know as the Archons evolved from parasites that fed on Chi. They were not the only ones, however. With them came three other races, and though they did not realize it, Chi had shaped them all into minders and protectors. The four were all given roles.

“The Archons guided the Chi to new worlds with Chi Mastery and shaped the game that followed. The Collectors took those who lost as prisoners and recycled them into the next game. The third group, the Hierarchs, served as a network that connected and coordinated the others. And finally, there were the Arbiters, who regulated the other three and kept them in check.”

The cat’s crystal eyes pierced her own, and she saw faint images of eldritch beings. “The first felt its goal inhibited by the latter two and struck. The Hierarchs were killed. The second fell into line. The Arbiters, too, fell, though with their ability to alter and suppress Evolutions, they managed to create echoes of themselves and store them in Chi.

“I am one such echo.”

Jessica closed her eyes as more and more information flooded in. “Why… Why am I here?”

“Besides the fact you brought yourself here? I find you interesting. Grey has such a marvelous intellect, and you went head to head with him. That’s quite the accomplishment. You are not his equal, but you are close. So very close. In fact, you might have won and assumed control of his body as you intended, if not for me. The fate curse as a fail-safe was also nasty work. Bad luck? Quite the Evolution. The target you’ve painted on him will forge him into quite the weapon. You have my thanks.”

She leaned forward. “So you will let me take control?”

A force pressed her to her knees, and she cried out at the pain. “No,” the being said. “Grey is important to my plans, and I prefer my variables known. But you will have use. Eventually.”

All she heard next was laughter, and then the void closed in, wrapping her tightly in its velvet warmth.