The office was a mausoleum of order.
Elijah Neri stood before the polished oak desk, his shadow stretching long and thin across the marble floor, swallowed by the cavernous silence of Alfred's space. The Pillar of Law sat framed by the floor-to-ceiling window behind him, the twilight skyline of Branneth bleeding into the glass like ink in water.
His fingers steepled under his chin, the dim light catching the silver signet ring on his right hand, a scale balanced atop a sword.
Elijah's report had been clinical, detached. Exactly as Alfred preferred.
"Corbin Monet," he recited, voice smooth as varnished wood, "top marks in every class. Physical conditioning is high too." A pause. "Aggressive, though. Prone to outbursts."
Alfred's exhale was a dry rasp, like pages turning in an old ledger. "And the other one?"
Elijah's lips twitched.
"Ruben Rayo," he said, letting the name hang in the air like a bad smell. "Average scores. Slightly above in history, slightly below in applied Ego studies. His attendance is more consistent than it was last year, but his focus isn't. He spaces out in class, finds excuses to leave early. Disappears to the bathroom for long stretches." A deliberate beat. "He's still using like he was last year. Just a lot more so."
Alfred's fingers twitched. "Still? A delinquent who on his first day scoured the school halls to search for a vice. Such a weak mind."
"He's careful though." Elijah tilted his head. He didn't know the backgrounds everyone else in the class came from to not be able to spot it the way he did. But his was a lot closer to home. "His dealer switches every few months because of the rarity of the drug and him being paranoid about being caught."
A scoff. Alfred leaned back, his chair creaking like a gallows rope. "Pathetic. Dario Kosta, our nation's great Warlord, fosters a gutter rat with no discipline." His gray eyes flickered to Elijah. "Imagine if the public found out."
"From what else I managed to gather, he has been lacking on whatever training he and Corbin have been doing. But Corbin complains about Ruben's lack of effort." Elijah added.
Alfred's lips curled. "That's why the Paladin trials weed out the weak. Talent means nothing without will." He tapped the desk once, a judge's gavel falling. "Still, you're certain there's nothing else? No meetings? No suspicious contacts?"
Elijah shook his head. "Nothing. They go to school, they attend lessons and then they go home, with very few stops." Elijah shrugged. "Honestly, it's boring."
A flicker of irritation crossed Alfred's face. "Your boredom is irrelevant. Your task is to watch. To report. Not to entertain yourself."
Elijah dipped his chin in mock deference. "Of course."
Silence settled between them, thick as the dust on the law tomes lining the wall. Then Alfred sighed, waving a hand. "Focus on Ruben. If he's the weak link, he's the pressure point. If he cracks, Corbin might follow. Dario's reputation here will falter with two failed wards."
Elijah smirked, not even trying to hide it. "Understood."
Elijah walked away, with his hands in his pockets, the neon glow of storefronts painting his skin in garish hues. Alfred's dismissal prickled under his skin like a splinter. Boring. That's all this assignment was. Two years of watching, waiting, even learning to file reports as he said he'd have to as a Paladin, something he never thought of doing until meeting the older individual.
Ruben did interest him a bit.
The way people were attracted to his presence, were they attracted to him or the character he is playing? What would they think when they figure out he is just some junkie that will end up like every other junkie, burnt out. Elijah had seen it before.
He had seen it in his father. The same man who had turned to the drink as soon as his mother died, the same man that would keep him chained up in his office when he did something wrong, the same man that would shove him in wardrobes and boxes wide enough to hide bodies.
It was in one of those same boxes where Elijah was left while his father was on a bender. He was forgotten and in that haze… he died.
Only to be reborn as a child of the shadows. As soon as the box was opened his father tried playing the sympathy card, but Elijah saw through it. And so with his newfound power he did the same to him, trapped him in darkness until he heard a quiet snap.
But anyway. This was about Ruben Rayo and the people he kept around him. Corbin would be hard to use. Even with his volatile personality, he can't be used the way Elijah would like to, Corbin is no idiot.
But Ana Grigori.
Elijah smirked.
He had been there when the two had their conversation in the school's gym, melted deep within the shadows of the students playing on the court so as to not get found out by Ana.
He nearly slipped up one time which led him to figuring out such a loophole.
Ana was in a tense and vulnerable position after that. And Elijah wanted to take advantage of that.
Alfred was too simple, he loved clinging to obscurity and the shadows more than Elijah. Elijah wanted to try something new for a change. His power was too good to be wasted in the cracks of other people's lives.
Elijah would give them all a spectacle.
***
The training room hummed with the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of Corbin's fists against the reinforced dummy, each impact sending shockwaves through the artificial gravity field. Ruben leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching as sweat glistened on Corbin's back, his muscles coiled like steel springs under the strain of 2.5G.
The dummy, a sleek, humanoid machine designed to match speed and retaliate, whirred as it dodged, countered, and absorbed blow after blow. Corbin's breath came in sharp bursts, his teeth bared in a feral grin, his dark eyes alight with the kind of singular focus Ruben hadn't felt in months.
"If you're gonna stand there watching, Fuck Off." Corbin snapped between his strikes, not even turning his head.
Ruben exhaled through his nose, pushing off the wall. Fine. He didn't bother with a retort. There was no heat in Corbin's words, just impatience, the same energy that he had woken up with when they were dumped in this world.
Ruben had once matched that energy.
Now he just retreated without a word. He was tired.
The main house was quiet, bathed in the haze of the afternoon sun. Ruben collapsed onto the couch, his limbs heavy, though not from physical exertion. Ana's words from the gymnasium echoed in his skull, a relentless loop. He gritted his teeth, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes until stars burst behind his lids.
Garbage.
She didn't know it.
The creak of the door snapped him back to the present.
Dario stepped inside, his white hair catching the light like fresh snowfall, his suit jacket slung over one shoulder. He paused when he saw Ruben sprawled across the couch, an eyebrow arching.
"No work today?" Ruben asked, forcing his voice into something casual.
"Clear schedule." Dario replied, tossing his jacket onto a chair. He moved with the ease of a man half his age, though Ruben had long since learned that Dario's true strength wasn't just in his explosions, it was in the way he carried himself, like the weight of his responsibilities was nothing more than a light coat.
Silence settled between them, thick and awkward. Ruben hated it. Two years under Dario's roof, and he still didn't know how to bridge the gap between gratitude and guilt.
Dario sank into the armchair opposite him, studying Ruben with those sharp, knowing eyes. "How's school?"
"Fine."
"Your grades are worse than Corbin's."
Ruben rolled his eyes. "Corbin's got the number one grades in everything for our year. Everyone's grades are worse than his."
Corbin was hard working at everything. Even when he broke his arm in training, instead of taking a break like a normal person would. He spent his time learning to write and do everything his right hand could do with his left.
A chuckle. "Fair enough." Dario leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Still. He's excelling. I'm happy for him."
There was no accusation in his tone, but Ruben felt it anyway. He looked away, his fingers tapping an uneven rhythm against his thigh.
Then Dario reached under the coffee table and pulled out a chessboard, its polished surface gleaming. "Sit up. Play."
Ruben groaned but obeyed, dragging himself upright. Chess had been Dario's idea, something to 'sharpen your mind', he'd said. Ruben had taken to it out of boredom at first, then curiosity, and slowly even enjoyment. But no matter how hard he tried, he'd never beaten Dario. Not once.
He moved his pawn forward, the first move of a familiar play.
Dario countered without hesitation. Then, softly: "What do you want, Ruben?"
The question caught him off guard. His fingers hovered over his knight. "What?"
"What do you want?" Dario repeated, his gaze steady. "Not what you think you should want. Not what Corbin wants. You."
Ruben's jaw tightened. "I'm gonna become a Paladin."
Dario moved his bishop, his voice quiet. "Even when your heart isn't in it anymore?"
"So what?" Ruben snapped, his knight slung across the board without retaliation. "Doesn't mean I won't do it."
Dario didn't flinch. He never did. He took Ruben's knight with a pawn, a move so effortless it could be seen as insulting. "You're talented," he said. "More so than Corbin. But talent doesn't mean shit if you don't care."
Ruben stared at the board, his throat tight.
"The death rate for Paladins," Dario continued with a lower voice. "Only started dropping five years ago. Know why? Because we stopped taking people that only felt like it was an obligation. Who thought it was the right thing even if their hearts weren't in it." He met Ruben's eyes. "They died first."
Ruben's fingers curled into fists. "My heart's in it."
Dario said nothing. Just moved his queen, cornering Ruben's king in three precise strokes.
The silence stretched.
Then Dario leaned back and sighed. "Whatever phase you're going through, anger, confusion, whatever, you don't have to be on your own. You've got me. You've got Corbin."
Guilt twisted in Ruben's gut, sharp and sudden. He thought of the vials hidden in his room, the way his hands shook when the high wore off.
Dario smirked, breaking the tension. "Or dye your hair white and claim to be me. Might work."
Ruben snorted, despite himself.
Then he looked down at the board and realized, with a sinking feeling, that he had lost again.
Dario stood, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "Think about what I said."
And just like that, Ruben was alone again.
He stared at the chessboard, the pieces were aligned and looked like they were arranged to stare at him.
Checkmate.
***
The school corridors during break were a symphony of chaos, laughter ricochetting off the walls, papers falling out of lockers and the occasional shriek of someone dodging something thrown at them.
Elijah Neri moved through it all like a ghost, his hands tucked into his pockets, his dark eyes scanning the crowd with the lazy precision of a predator circling its prey.
He didn't need to search for long.
Ana Grigori sat alone on a bench near the courtyard windows, her violet eyes fixed on some distant point beyond the glass. Her fingers curled around the edge of her skirt, knuckles white. Even from here, Elijah could tell she was suffering some type of discomfort.
Even though she hadn't told him directly he had already known that her Ego was a double-edged sword.
Perfect.
He approached with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
Ana's head snapped up as soon as he was within five feet, her face twisting into something between disgust and exhaustion. "What do you want?"
Elijah's smile must have come off as weird, it was supposed to be that way, to give off the feeling he had some crush on her and wanted to come out with it. If only she knew.
The giddy squirming in his chest. The way his pulse jumped at the thought of what was coming.
"Looking for Ruben," he said, a lie obviously, he had only had a few interactions with the dragon boy. "You seen him?"
Ana's shoulders tensed. For a second, Elijah thought she'd snap at him again. But then, hesitation. A flicker of something soft. Concern.
Oh, this is too easy.
"No," she muttered, looking away. "Haven't."
Elijah took some steps closer. Then another. Until the toe of his shoe brushed the edge of her shadow, stretched long and thin across the tiled floor in the afternoon light.
Ana didn't notice, there was nothing for her to notice. He was natural.
His Ego, Shadow Imitation, unfurled like ink. The aspect of the ability he was using pressed down with his foot as he stepped in her shadow. Once he did this he was able to control people once he stood in their shadows.
The feeling of taking control was like twisting an ethereal lock in the back of her mind. A whisper of resistance, brittle and frayed, Ana's mental state was already worn thin from years of emotional bombardment, from whatever guilt or grief or guilt Ruben had stirred up within her. The door was already cracked, all Elijah had to do was push.
And then, a whooshing sound he could 'feel' in his mind.
Ana's breath hitched. Her pupils dilated, just for a friction of a second, before smoothing back into something eerily calm.
Elijah leaned in, his voice a velvet murmur. "Go to the storage room on the second floor. Ruben's there."
Ana blinked. Slow and mechanical.
"Pester him," Elijah continued, his fingers twitching at his sides. "Try to console him. Then…" he paused, "Confess to him."
Then, the final order was one he really couldn't say out loud. ***
It would be the moment Elijah made this spying game more fun.
Ana stood. And walked away.
To anyone else, it would've looked normal. Ana Grigori, quiet and sharp-eyed, moving with purpose through the crowded hall. No one glanced twice. No one noticed, no one would notice.
Elijah followed, slipping into the spaces between light and dark, his presence dissolving into the edges of perception.
This is going to be fun.
***
The storage room was full of random garbage. Shelves sagging under the weight of outdated textbooks and broken equipment, the air thick with the scent of mildew and industrial cleaner. Ruben perched on a splintered wooden crate, his body thrumming with the toxic electricity of four vials of Sunmilk burning through his veins.
The high should have transcended by now, should have wrapped him in that familiar golden haze where the world softened at the edges and the noise in his skull finally quieted. But he wasn't feeling it. His skin felt too tight, his pulse hammering like a trapped bird against his ribs.
The dealer had tried to tell him something this morning, his yellowed fingers clutching Ruben's wrist a second too long, his cracked lips forming words Ruben hadn't stayed to hear. Corbin had been coming, and the risk of being caught had been worse than any consequence this new batch could bring.
His body was tough, his resistance to them was higher so he didn't think much of it.
Now, he wasn't too sure.
His breath came in shallow gasps, his lungs refusing to expand fully, as if his ribs had turned to iron bars. The storage room tilted drunkenly around him, the shelves warping like reflections in a funhouse mirror. He pressed his palms over his eyes.
The knock at the door was like a gunshot in the silence.
Ruben's head snapped up, his pupils contracting to knife-thin slits in the dim light. The door creaked open, and Ana stood there, backlit by the fluorescent glare of the hallway, her violet eyes glassy and red-rimmed, her lips parted around unspoken words. She looked like she'd been running. She looked around him, and for a suspended moment, neither of them moved, neither of them breathed.
"It's hard to find you," she finally said, her voice scraped raw, as if the words had been dragged over gravel.
Ruben exhaled through his nose, a sharp, humourless sound. "Probably easy for you," he muttered, his tongue heavy in his mouth. "With your Ego."
Ana flinched as if struck, her fingers curling into the fabric of her skirt.
He should have felt guilty. He didn't. The Sunmilk had eroded his capacity for guilt months ago, sanding down his edges until all that remained was a hollowed out husk of frustration and exhaustion. His body was a live wire, his nerves frayed and sparking, his thoughts ricocheting too fast to catch.
"How can I help you Ana?" he asked, forcing the words through clenched teeth, each syllable a labor.
She stepped inside, the door clicking shut behind her with a finality that made his stomach twist. The storage room shrank around them, the walls pressing in, the air thickening with the weight of unsaid things. Ana's hands trembled at her sides, her knuckles white where they gripped her skirt.
"You've ruined me." She whispered.
The words landed like a knife between his ribs. Ruben blinked, his sluggish mind struggling to parse them, to fit them into the jagged puzzle of this conversation. "What?"
Ana's laugh was a broken chime, brittle and sharp in his mind. "Your emotions, they're still a mess. A fluctuating mess. But they're… comforting." She dragged a hand through her hair, the black strands slipping through her fingers like ink. "Even some of the Paladins I've met, they feel muted. Numb. And everyone else…" Her voice cracked, a fissure running through her composure. "...looks at me the way you said in the gym. Like I'm something to consume. I didn't know so many people thought that about one another."
Ruben's stomach lurched. The room tilted on its axis, the shelves swaying like trees in a storm. He gripped the edge of the crate, his nails biting into the soft wood, anchoring himself against the vertigo. The Sunmilk was a wildfire in his veins, his blood boiling, his skin slick with sweat.
Ana kept talking, her words spilling out now, a dam breached beyond repair. "My power is useless. Some people expect me to be a therapist, but I can't, I can't breathe in a room full of people. I'm leaving after this year. I'm supposed to go into specialized treatment. Again."
Ruben swallowed against the desert in his throat. "That's… good."
"It's not." Ana's voice was a whisper, a confession. "This is the fourth time. Nothing works."
The air between them was a living thing, thick and suffocating Ruben's pulse pounded in his ears, a drumbeat of impending doom. He opened his mouth, to say what, he didn't know, but Ana cut him off, her voice gaining strength, gaining desperation.
"Being around you is the best I have ever felt since awakening."
The words meant nothing. He wasn't feeling right.
"I know you're high again." She continued, stepping closer, her shadow falling over him like a shroud. "I can feel it radiating off of you. It's stronger today. And I don't, I don't want to forget how it feels."
Ruben's breath was lost, his lungs seizing.
Ana's next words shattered the silence like glass.
"I love you."
The world stopped.
Ruben's heart lurched, his vision tunneling to a single point, Ana's face, her violet eyes wide and wet, her lips trembling. No. This wasn't… she wasn't.
"Shut up," he snarled, pushing off the crate. His legs buckled beneath him, his muscles turning to water. He caught himself against the wall, his palms slick with sweat. "This… you being around me like this… it's just your own fucking addiction."
Ana didn't back down. "I don't care."
She grabbed his wrist before he could pull away, her grip bruising, her fingers digging into his pulse. Ruben tried to yank free, but his body wasn't his own anymore, the Sunmilk had stolen it from him, leaving behind a trembling, feverish wreck. His veins were molten lead, his bones hollow, his skin too tight, too hot, like he might burst open at any second.
"I don't care if I fall into addiction," Ana whispered, pressing his hand against her chair. Her heart raced beneath his palm, a wild, frantic thing. "I just don't want to forget."
Ruben's throat closed. The room spun, the walls breathing in and out, the floor undulating beneath his feet. He was drowning. He was burning alive.
Ana leaned in, her breath warm against his lips.
He shoved her away, his hand clamping over her mouth before she could kiss him. "No."
The word was a growl, feral and final.
Ana stumbled back, her eyes wide, her chest heaving.
Ruben's knees gave out.
The fire in his veins had turned to acid, eating him alive from the inside out. His vision blurred, the world fracturing into jagged shards of light and shadow. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. His heart stuttered in his chest, a frantic, irregular thumping that sent waves of nausea crashing through him.
"You don't get to pick and choose," he gasped, clutching his chest, his fingers clawing at his shirt as if he could tear open his ribs and rip out the poison himself. "When it's comforting to see me like this…"
The floor rushed up to meet him.
Ruben stepped out of the room and immediately collapsed face-first, his body seizing, his limbs locking in grotesque, jerking spasms. Blood gushed from his nose, hot and metallic, pooling on the cold floor beneath him.
His muscles twisted, his back arching unnaturally, his fingers curling into claws. Distantly, he could hear Ana scream his name, her voice muffled, as if underwater.
Then… Darkness.