First Rule: Judges answer only to the Congress and its Praetors. Your superiors can only delegate, not decide on matters of politick.
Second Rule: Judges slay all Lightsea-spawn they see. Maybe not the first time, but you will, eventually. Or you shall die. The Second is the only rule that can precede the first.
Third Rule: All Judges must be capable of neutralizing a Vector-2 without a weapon.
Fourth Rule: All Judges must be capable of neutralizing a Vector-3 on their own.
Fifth Rule: All Judges give their lives for peace.
Sixth Rule: If a Judge believes themselves to die, then they must invoke their Praetor’s name and stand once more.
Seventh Rule: A Judge is never dead. They are only working on an incomplete case.
<ul>
<li>
The Seven Oaths, written by the Congress Of Praetors.
</li>
</ul>
A broad figure strode through an empty office, his skin a hardened, ashen hue while his eyes flashed around the scene. Humanoid in stature but gray in skin, the Tianshe gave a low, disgusted scoff at the surrounding devastation.
A severed head lay in the room’s center. Someone had detached it from its body, leaving the two pieces lying a dozen paces apart, with the spine strained to cover the distance. Blood and gore littered the space between them.
His hands tightened in their gloves in disbelief. The Baron was already dead. The Tianshe couldn’t fathom how this could have happened.
Dead? Already? That means...
From his holster, Claudius Vermillion, son of a whore and a Praetorian, flicked a cigarette into his fingers. With practiced ease, he rolled it to his lips, igniting it with a spark from his thumb. He inhaled to the depths, seeking to calm the nerves that had been building since he took his badge.
“Damn it. This planet wasn’t even on my route to the Silenced Star Cluster. Here I am, nonetheless. Fucker got you too, huh, Baron? Who am I supposed to go to for help now?” Claudius finished his long drag, exhaling a plume of smoke that drifted lazily through the air.
It had been a rough few weeks. Ever since he deployed from Suture’s Advance, things had spiraled. He was here to deal with the ‘ripple effects’, as they said, of an awakened Anacrux on Garia—Vector-2s and 3s at most.
His Praetor had asked him to do whatever the standing Praetor there told him to. Everything reeked of bureaucracy, and it made him scowl in contemplation.
Yeah right. Now I have to deal with this. I would anyway, but... There are no Centurions here. No other Judges. No more seniors. Just me. And if I fail... This whole planet dies. It’s not just Astraeus. He has someone behind him.
Claudius was young for a Judge, terribly so. Most were in their mid-thirties to forties. This one? Hardly twenty-five. That didn’t mean he was without foresight.
Congress didn’t hand out the Designation of Seer lightly. Claudius was a Tide-Seer, but dual Designations were unusual, almost akin to that of an Anomaly in rarity. They recognized his uniqueness, a Seer capable of mastering his Tide for combat. The scarcity of such struck deeply into his heart, for if his family hadn’t fallen, he’d never have come out here.
Most Seers were never meant to leave Congress. Nevertheless, fate found Claudius useful outside his comfort.
By turning around to face his rear, Claudius confronted the Harenlar he had found desperately rummaging for droplets. The Judge saved him on the condition that the four-armed man would aid in the Anathema’s eradication.
Not that Claudius told the Harenlar about the Vector-4 threat. Claudius hardly cared to learn the man’s name, seeing how he left so many behind to die. The Judge loathed him, but he could not charge him for a crime. All the man did was try to survive.
“Isn’t there a prison for Vectored on this planet?” Claudius asked, his tone more command than question. “If we’re going to kill this Dirge, we’ll need every bit of help we can get.”
The Harenlar bobbed his head, hesitation unmistakable in his voice, “Yes, Judge. But I fear they won’t be much help. I think they only put away low-level criminals there.”
Claudius cursed under his breath, careful not to utter the words he had trained to resonate with his soul. He hated being so far from support, so deep into the boonies.
Damn Wings. How am I to deal with an Anathema with so few resources!? A Vector-4? I... I’ve only killed Anachronisms before. Plus, that was recent. A lucky break. Fuck... I should have declined the position. No. I can do this. Because... if I don’t... then who will?
The human he had seen before flashed through the Tianshe’s mind, but he shook his head in derision. If that human truly wanted to save anyone, he would have already called him back. Claudius knew, just as all other Romans did, that humans were a scourge upon galaxies. He half-hoped to find that ape splattered across the sidewalk.
Claudius turned his back on the remains of the Baron, the other Vector-3 on this planet, dead. Promotion or not, even he had his limits. He hadn’t formed a Jury yet, or assigned one, which meant this was a lone mission.
No backup. No support.
Other Judges may leave these fools to die in such circumstances. After all, a Judge was a Roman Citizen, and they only had to protect Rome’s interests and Citizens. This planet didn’t even belong to the Roman Empire. Well, it did, technically, but it was so far out that it was in contest with the Ostaceans. Both thought it belonged to them.
But...
His fists tightened as he led Qain out of the room, not sparing a glance at the Harenlar’s vomit on the carpet. The Judge had endured far worse in training.
“We will save this planet. You hear me, Qain? I don’t care what you have going on inside your head, but we will. Maybe I’ll even recommend you to be my Jury when we’re done.” Claudius spoke, leaving no room for argument, and Qain could only wobble his underarms in agreement while riddled with fear over his companion’s position.
Still, Qain straightened up, his fear clear as he saluted, “Sir, yes, sir!”
<hr>
After a half-hour’s travel, Claudius landed on the concrete roof of a prison. His heart ached from the cries he’d ignored along the way. There was only so much he could do. While he could stop, draw his Executioner, and get to work, that would only end in more pain.
They taught and beat him until he learned the correct path.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Kill the Dirge first.
His soul wept at the fact his first case would involve an Anathema, capable of drawing more and more of its fellow creatures from the Lightsea. He could do both save and kill if it were not for this situation.
While glancing down, the Tianshe opened his fingers and created a gun with the five tendons in his hand. Then, his voice resonated with his soul, the proper way to materialize one’s Tide, not like how these backyard Seafarers did it.
“Aqua Calefacta.”
Such words worked to heighten the mind’s focus. The language didn’t matter, but one had to use the words only for their tasks. Otherwise, they would lose effect. Claudius’ connection with the otherworldly plane trembled as he was so deep within enemy territory, but he converged onward until he felt something give. And in return, the Lightsea distorted reality as he needed.
Water, surging extreme pressure, hissed from his fingertips, drilling a hole through the concrete roof within seconds. It took little out of him, but every straw weighed heavily now.
He exchanged a glance with Qain before dropping through the hole, gliding to the ground below. The Judge landed softly, with lowered knees and supporting rivers atop the bent ligaments.
Then, the man’s eyes swirled and oscillated as all Tianshe’s do, taking in the darkness carefully. The pupils counted the bodies, calculated the blood, and surmised the way forward. As he closed his eyes, a wave of consciousness bled outward, using the ripples in the Lightsea’s presence to sense for prey.
Such was Claudius’ specialty. He could see through the madness like no one else. A Seer, he was often called. He didn’t dislike the name, but he much preferred the other titles. Without the backing of a House, he wished to be a simple Tidewalker. With the rare Designation, Congress damned him to a life of strife for his family’s past.
The man, possessing only hairs grayed by stress, told Qain, his tone low and tense, “There were Dirge here. Several. But I don’t sense them now. There’s something faint near the entrance. Stay close.”
Qain followed, cautious and apprehensive of every step. Inside his mind, many questions swirled, but his fear of Judges kept all within the silent realm of thought. Still, Qain held his quartet of daggers aloft, shivering yet ready.
The duo strode forward, starting from deep within the prison already, passing by innumerable corpses and lingering fires. Not a single life remained in here. That observation gave Claudius some comfort as he was sure there were not any Dirge remaining here. Still, he didn’t find the idea of delving so deep pleasant.
He had to go down here. To him, there was no possibility wherein the Anathema divined he would come here. It was... impossible.
But as he delved deeper into the prison, finding more bodies, all the way to Neg-Three, his worries intensified. There were no monsters here. Just corpses.
At the elevator that was ruined from the malfunction of technology that hadn’t acclimated to the ruinous tides, Claudius found a string of abnormal carcasses.
He considered using his Stigmata, but hesitated. It would cost him of his remaining battery. Just doing it once would leave him woozy for minutes. He couldn’t afford that at this juncture.
The information it would provide wasn’t worth it here. Plus, activating it would set it on its week-long cooldown.
Claudius knew what he had to do. He turned back to the elevator, prying open its doors with his gloved hands and opening his lips, “Wait for me here. I’ll be back shortly.” With the few words, a single digit pointed downward in a slight arc as Claudius’ lungs hummed, “Aqua Calefacta.”
Water formed in the gap between Claudius’ focus and his hand, condensing to severe friction. A jet of super-heated water cut through the steel beneath him, and he dropped into the darkness, leaving Qain behind.
Wind broke at his skin, attempting to slow his fall, but the man didn’t find the prospect of gravity too much of an issue.
He had spent nearly two decades preparing for such things. Claudius’ brows furrowed before focusing more profoundly, his connection to the Lightsea solidifying as he pulled more than he had since his fight with Astraeus.
As he fell, he whispered again, “Irruente Momento.”
A coursing river of momentum emerged beneath Claudius, one that he could control for as long as he held that pathway into the Lightsea. With his talents, he could keep three such paths open at once, a rarity for such a youngster. And with the route to the distant beyond, the coursing rivers that would destroy a mind being viewed in their partiality, the Judge fluttered to the bottom of the shaft safely.
His waves cushioned his fall with the grace of a rough slide, practiced but not perfect. Disapprovingly, he reminded himself to train more.
At the bottom of the shaft, he harbored the flow further within his soul, compelling the moisture to rise to his arms and hide beneath his clothes as he set it to the back of his mind. It would be a waste of mental effort not to do so.
His steps brought him to the secretive floor of the central prison on Crislend, smack dab in the center of its largest megacity. Despite where he was, it was still the boonies to him. This floor held only a half-dozen cells and was pitifully small.
On Claudius’ home planet, Romulus, a prison such as this would have many more floors and more than one cell. There, it was not uncommon to see former Judges and their enemies sealed together. Rarely, a fallen Centurion might be spotted.
Despite the power vacuum on the side of the galaxy, the end of the hallway held an echoing voice.
“Ah? Who goes there? I’ve been dying for a drink. Would you mind some Woodford Bourbon? Oh, no! Lagavulin Scotch! That’d make an old man like me cry!” The voice rang out with a jarring cheerfulness, dissonant through the prison’s silence. Claudius didn’t respond, for his eyes found the cell’s label.
The name on the cell door chilled him: Anomaly 888.
Anomaly. Of course. With the week I’ve had, it’s almost expected. But that number…
The Judge advanced, his heavy footsteps breaking the silence, and peered into the cell, anticipating finding some aged madman. Instead, a young man, no older than sixteen, sat on a steel chair with three legs. He looked too young, too perfect, as if time had forgotten him.
Claudius’ suspicions were in the air, well and clear. The number, to him, just didn’t add up with his memory as he spoke, “Anomaly Eight-Eight-Eight. Why did you receive your designation? Where? If I recall, Anomalies only went up to Six-Six-Five.”
The young man mechanically smiled, his lips pulling apart far too perfect to be natural as he spoke, his words chilling to Claudius’ spine, “Legate Vicar, the Second Moon. DOD: August 12th, 4043. Reason: Classified.”
Claudius tensed. It wasn’t just the classification that bothered him, nor was it Legate Vicar’s name, despite the legend being among the top three strongest to hold such a title. It was the date.
The date simply made little sense. It didn’t add up.
The Judge checked his communicator for his own sanity, just to read a date that sent chills down his spine.
August 12th.
3993.
Fifty years in the future, Vicar bestowed upon this child such a curse and an honor. Claudius wanted to reach out and use his Stigmata, but he didn’t. He was clever enough to scope out the risks. Such a mystery was far too exalted for such an inferior man to touch in full.
“What would it take to bypass the classification?” he asked, hoping for a loophole. The man crossed his fingers that he could see what this Anomaly was all about, but he swiftly learned not to play with fire.
“No. Praetorian,” the boy replied flatly.
Claudius’ eyes widened the instant Eight-Eight-Eight said ‘Praetorian’ into the cramped cell. The man’s thoughts spiraled a second later.
Fuck. Praetor-level clearance!? There are only a few thousand in the entire galaxy!? Do I release him? He’s obviously a risk. But that means he’s also strong. Anomalies are a coin-flip in that. Still... he’s a ticking bomb. Do I take the gamble? How much worse can things really get?
Claudius’ eyes shivered as the boy’s pupils remained on him for the entire time, closer to a synthetic life form than a living one. But that couldn’t be the case as the Judge sensed an open resonance between 888 and the Lightsea. It was tiny, subtle, and likely only a minor use of his powers, but it was still there.
Machines cannot access the Lightsea. They can breach it, yes, with high levels of technology and help from the living, but they cannot wield it. The humans learned that with their own folly.
A robot can only grow so far, but one who has tapped into reality itself...
It was impossible.
Claudius squinted tightly, creeping toward what he knew he would likely regret in the future.
“What is your name, 888?” Claudius placed a hand against the bars of the cell to extend a gesture of peace while grinding his teeth, torn between distrust and need.
The answer was short and succinct, and it tugged at the Judge’s heart, “I have only ever been called by my Designation. Either Eight. Or 888. Both are fine.”
Teeth barred further into the Tianshe’s lips, drawing blood. This was a risk. A massive one. How many would he take? What sort of standard was he setting?
This was his first mission, after all.
The boy spoke again while resting his head on his knuckles, his voice calm but with a touch of irony, “I assume there is a problem out there, huh? One you and the Baron can’t handle? Well, you could leave me in here. But that’d be stupid. Get me out. I’m bored anyway. I mean, what’s the sense in locking up all Anomalies? We are the strongest Designations.”
Claudius shook his head at the boy, who was slowly proving to be egotistical. He had heard Anomalies were like this.
“No. You are the most unpredictable and highest risk, not the strongest. Sure, some of you are absurdly strong, but why should I believe you can handle yourself and not crash this planet into its sun?” Judge Vermillion demanded as he glared through the bars, gradually forgetting just why he came down here with all this lunacy. The stress was already getting to him, and it had only been a day.
Who knew how many it would take to kill this Anathema?
The boy dragged his chair forward, scraping metal against concrete, the sound echoing in the hollow space. His laugh was soft, almost taunting, “You don’t have a choice. I bet you’re in for a reaming if a Judge is out here in the Wings. What is it? Anachronism? Multiple, maybe? You’ve got authority here with an invasion. What will it be?”
The Judge’s mind struggled and fought within itself. Would he? Could he? He did, as Eight said, have full authority upon a planet when Dirge took root, so he knew that no legal action could befall him. Nevertheless, his mind could not find an answer.
In the end, he could only ask this boy, far older than he appeared, for help, “It’s an Anathema. Middle of the pack, if I were to guess. What should I do?”
Eight towed his chair a few inches even closer to the bars, the sound screeching in the silent abyss. It was like an echo of the damned, something that stuck with Claudius far beyond the moment.
An awkward fit of laughter came from the boy, dissonant to the sliding legs. He cursed their lives with a shake of his head, “Sheesh, Judge-boy. You’re fucked. Me too. But... I’m in. Always down to prove Father Time wrong. You let me out. And then we handle this bastard together.”
Claudius sighed profoundly, his shoulders sagging as he was forced to make a brutal choice. Either he left the Anomaly in here and fought without a powerful ally, or he took the chance and released them.
There was always a reason they were locked up, despite what Eight said. Anomalies aren’t just placed into purgatory for nothing. Watched every second of their lives? Yes.
Imprisoned immediately? No.
He needed the answer to this dilemma, and he demanded it from the boy, “Why are you in this shithole? Answer me, and I’ll let you out.”
A broad smile met Claudius’ skepticism arrogantly with a surprising answer, “They threw me in for something I haven’t done yet. No clue what, but it’s the truth.”
Fucking Anomalies. Make no damn sense. How did Rasa handle all this bullshit when he was a Judge? What I’d pay to have him on this mission. My first call out of here will be that tough bastard.
Claudius lowered his chin, pondering one last time. The answer given struck him as honest. After exhaling roughly, he extended his hand towards the cell’s release mechanism, only to realize it had long corroded away. It hadn’t been there in a long, long while, with rust grown where it was supposed to be.
Eight pushed the cell door open with ease, stepping out into the hall as if never imprisoned at all. He stretched his arms, joints cracking with a pleasurable sigh, “Ah, freedom. Thanks for the chat, Judge. So, how are we getting out of this place?”
Claudius gave a short, humorless laugh, shaking his head as he began leading the way back up. As they retraced his steps through the abandoned corridors, he hoped he hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of his life.