Garreth stood in the middle of his chamber, seething, the fact that the paladins had attempted his life had seriously annoyed him.
His door opened and in came a vampire, not as large, but you could tell you couldn't mess with him. He was clad in a leather jacket, thick, black straight legged jeans and wore a pair of dark shades. His dark skin glistened in the dimly lit room.
"You called for me sire?" He said
Garreth whipped around, looking at him with an irritated look, "That SIRE word is very distasteful." Air quoting the 'SIRE'.
"I know, irritating you, gives me a different sort of pleasure." The man said, contently smiling.
Garreth hissed before continuing, "I want to talk with the humans, they keep fucking up my day, and it's STARTINGTOSERIOSLYPISSMEOFF!"
He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger before approaching the other guy and putting his right hand on his right shoulder, "Besides, Grisha there's something coming, something that would shake everything, and we might really need their help."
Dust hung in the air like ash that refused to fall.
The Dome swallowed sound the way it swallowed light, a cavern carved deeper than memory, its walls ringed with old sigils that pulsed faint blue whenever enough force met the ground. Tonight, three shadows stood at its center, and one man stood apart from them, rolling his neck like this was a mild inconvenience.
Richard hadn't even drawn his katana.
"Are we starting," Bo said, chains dragging sparks off the stone, "or are you gonna keep looking bored?"
"I am bored." Richard's voice was almost gentle. "Convince me otherwise."
That was all Bo needed.
He came in low, chains snapping out in twin arcs, cleavers screaming through the air with a heat-shimmer trailing behind each blade, fire magic licking along the steel like it was excited to be let out. Theo moved a half-second later, longsword drawn in one clean motion, cutting the angle Bo left open. And Matt, Matt didn't move yet. Matt watched.
That was the terrifying part about Matt. He didn't need to be fast. He only needed to be 'right', a half-second before anyone else, foresight painting the next three moves across the inside of his skull like a fight that already happened.
Richard still hadn't drawn his blade.
Bo's cleaver came down where Richard's collarbone had been a heartbeat ago, except Richard wasn't there anymore, he was three feet to the left, hand tucked lazily behind his back, and the air where the strike landed *cracked* like something invisible had caught it instead of flesh.
"Cute," Richard said.
Theo didn't waste breath on cute. His sword found the gap Bo's overextension left a real opening, the kind Theo had spent a decade learning to manufacture out of other people's mistakes, and it should have opened Richard's ribs to bone.
It hit something instead. Something that wasn't skin.
The blade skated off at an angle no blade should skate at, and for one half-second the runes tattooed across Richard's bare chest flared gold beneath the point of contact, like the ink itself had flinched and decided the strike didn't count.
Theo's eyes narrowed. 'That's new.'
Matt moved.
No warning, no wind-up, one instant he was six feet back, the next his short blades were already retracting from where Richard's throat 'should' have been, foresight having clocked the exact half-step Richard would take before Richard had fully decided to take it. It was, by every metric, Matt had ever tracked in a fight, a killing blow.
Richard tilted his head two inches. The blade passed through the space his throat used to occupy.
"There it is," Richard murmured, almost fond. "That's the one I was waiting for."
And then, for exactly one heartbeat, the Dome went silent in a way that had nothing to do with acoustics.
Bo's chain, mid-swing, simply 'paused' not blocked, not caught, just frozen in the air like a photograph of itself. A droplet of sweat hung off Theo's jaw, suspended, refusing to fall. Matt's blade sat lodged an inch into empty air exactly where it had been a moment before, trembling with stored momentum that had nowhere to go.
None of them would remember, later, that anything had happened at all.
Because when the world unstuck itself, and it did, all at once, like a held breath finally released, Bo's chain was already looping back for another strike, Theo's sweat had already fallen, and Matt's blade was already sliding harmlessly past where Richard's shoulder had been a beat ago. Richard was simply 'elsewhere' now. Behind Bo. Katana still sheathed.
"You're fast," Bo growled, spinning to track him, fire crawling brighter up his cleavers in something that looked almost like frustration made visible.
"I'm not," Richard said. "You're just fighting like you have all the time in the world."
He said it like a joke. None of the three fighting him laughed. Something about the phrasing sat wrong in Theo's chest, a needle he couldn't place, a feeling like the floor had tilted a half-degree and settled back before he could name why.
Matt's eyes flicked toward Theo. He whistled, getting his attention and signed a question, wordless: 'did you feel that?'
Theo gave the smallest nod. 'Yeah.'
Bo hadn't felt it at all, Bo was already moving again, headstrong as ever, chain-length shortening in his fists as he closed distance, cleaver dragging a trail of fire-bright afterimage through the dark. "One more time," he said. "I want one clean hit. Just one."
Richard's hand finally drifted to the hilt of his katana. Didn't draw it. Just rested there, thumb along the guard, the tattooed serpent coiling up his forearm seeming to shift with the motion.
"All right," he said, and for the first time all night, something in his voice sharpened. "Let's see what happens when you actually earn it."
The Dome's sigils pulsed brighter along the walls, like the room itself was leaning in to watch.
Bo didn't wait for permission. He never did. The chain in his left hand snapped taut, cleaver in his right dragging a comet-tail of fire as he closed the distance in three strides that shouldn't have been possible for someone his size. Theo moved with him this time, not behind him, not covering him, 'with' him, longsword angled to catch whatever Richard tried to slip into next.
Matt hung back. Watching. Waiting for the version of this fight his foresight had already shown him.
Richard finally drew the katana.
It came out slow, almost lazy, the scrape of steel against sheath the loudest sound in the Dome. He didn't raise it into any stance Theo recognized. He just held it low, point trailing near the ground, like it was an afterthought.
"There," Richard said. "Happy now?"
Bo's answer was the cleaver, a full downward arc meant to split him collar to hip. Richard caught it on the flat of the katana, actually caught it, no sidestep this time, no vanishing, and the impact sent a shockwave rippling visibly through the air, dust kicking off the floor in a perfect ring around them both.
Bo grinned. "Finally."
He didn't get a second swing.
Richard's wrist turned, barely, and the katana redirected Bo's own momentum sideways, sending him stumbling past Richard's shoulder, right into the space Theo's longsword was already cutting through.
Theo's blade stopped an inch from Bo's ribs. His own teammate's ribs.
"Oi," Bo said, breathless, staring down at the sword. "Watch it."
"I WAS watching it," Theo snapped. "You weren't supposed to be there."
Richard laughed, actually laughed, low and delighted. "That's the thing about fighting three people who all think they're the main character. Eventually you all show up in the same scene."
Matt moved on that line, not before it, not reacting to the words, but to something further ahead, something only he could see coming. His short blades flashed in, aimed not at Richard's chest or throat this time but at the wrist holding the katana, the one opening Richard hadn't needed to defend all night because nobody had gone for it.
For the first time, Richard actually stepped back.
Not far. Six inches, maybe less. But it was the first ground he'd given up all night, and all four of them felt the shift in the air like a change in weather.
"Oh," Richard said, quieter now, the smile thinner. "*There's* the foresight everyone warned me about."
Matt didn't answer. Matt never answered. He just pressed the advantage he'd bought, blade angling for the wrist again, faster this time, foresight already three moves past what his body was currently doing.
Richard's tattoos flared gold along his forearm, the same flinch-light Theo had seen on his chest earlier, and the second blade skated off exactly like the first one had.
The force field. Still there. Still absolute.
But Richard had stepped back to trigger it. That was new too.
Bo caught it before Theo did. "Wait." He was still catching his breath, chain looping lazily at his side, eyes narrowing at Richard like he was doing math he didn't like the answer to. "You moved. You actually moved that time."
"Did I?" Richard said, and the smile came back, but slower now, more deliberate, like a door easing shut.
"You did," Theo said. He hadn't lowered his sword. "Which means it's not just skill. Something's making you have to work for it."
Silence settled over the Dome, the real kind this time, not the wrong kind from before.
Richard rolled the katana once in his hand, considering the three of them like he was reconsidering the whole night from scratch.
"Well," he said. "Guess this got interesting after all."