Darius lived in the Goldilocks in the Policing Block in a grand house. That's how best Sirius could describe it. A grand black house overlooking the whole block in its majesty.
That's what being head of the Royal Guard got you in Acropolis.
As the elevator went up, he watched the city rise admiring what his race had built for themselves. Technically they'd enslaved the Earliers who'd built the city but only because the Remnants had had such plans. Higher up he could see the outline of the Bridge, the little town that stood between Acropolis and Citadel. Again the thought of what the Councilor had said came to him.
Just beyond that little town was the person who'd fucked him over and what he wouldn't do to kill that piece of shit biome.
A ding interrupted his thoughts and as he walked out of the elevator, he realised his fists were curled up. Deep breaths, a quick prayer to the Four Lords and he updated the head of the Royal Guard's house's system about his arrival.
Little Dodie's head popped up on his own system, she was smiling and had a cone hat on her head. Sirius' heart skipped a beat. How could he have not known it was her birthday!?
"Hello Captain Vin David," she said.
"Hello little Dodie," he said.
"Not so little no more sir," she said pointing at her hat.
"I see. What then shall I call you now?"
"Dorothy's just fine now. Can't have you calling me Dodie with the big girl that I've become," she said.
Her smile crushed his soul. She'd grown up so fast.
"She'd have been only two years younger than wouldn't she?"
Sirius blinked both the voice and tears away walking through the door. He heard voices in the adjacent rooms but didn't join them. He stood in the hallway for a while letting all his pain soak through him and out. This was an important day for Dodie, he could not have spirals at all.
"Sirius?"
He looked up at Chae who held a large serving bowl in her gloved hands. She had a look of concern on her face and he saw why. He'd dropped to the floor clutching his knees together.
"Hello Chae," he said.
He didn't get up. She set her bowl down next to her as she sat with him. They didn't look at each other for a while till she laid her hand on his knee.
"Sendi would have loved to see Dorothy celebrate her birthday." She said.
"She'd have loved to eat cake is what," Sirius said.
As he pictured her little cute face, the pain came rushing through his whole body a cry escaping his soul.
"Mom,"
Little Dodie was in the hallway close to the door looking at Chae holding a crying Sirius best as she could. He shook in her arms. The child joined her mother in holding the broken man till he stopped crying.
She kissed his forehead before he stood helping Chae with the bowl into the dining room.
****
Darius arrived just as Chae had finished serving Dorothy who hadn't left Sirius' side. Sirius didn't like how much she kept looking at him during the whole dinner. It made him feel too exposed to a child like her.
Her father however didn't seem to acknowledge anything out of the ordinary. This was good for Sirius since Dodie had taken her empathetic side from Darius.
Darius despite being five years younger than Sirius, had grown almost as tall as his elder brother. He was stockier too and had a lot of beards. He looked like the perfect Enforcer he'd grown up to be.
As he ate, he beamed at his family interjecting in the little conversations Chae instigated. Sirius tried much as he could to concentrate on them but his mind drifted back to the Councilor's offer endlessly.
Maybe what he needed was a job to keep himself busy. A mission into the Wretched city would keep his mind on a jog always.
He might rest there if it came to it and he wouldn't mind.
"Sirius?"
It was Darius. His smile had faded a bit and he looked at Dodie. Chae watched him too, that look of concern back on her face.
"Are you going to come live with us Uncle Sirius?" Little Dodie asked.
She smiled at him patiently.
"I don't know. Should I return to the Goldilocks?" He said.
"The what?" Chae said.
"The Goldilocks. It's what the folks in the Lower Zones call the Uppers."
Dodie laughed. She went on for a while stopping to ask Sirius for the name again and he gladly said it each time laughing too.
As the whole family at the table shared in that moment, Sirius felt sudden unease come over him.
He couldn't shake it off as he sipped his wine looking at the wall.
"Death is coming!"
Instantly the wall he was staring at exploded as he stood from his chair. The force of the explosion threw Darius and Chae across the table. The pieces of the wall flying across the room narrowly missing Sirius.
Before he could get up from the floor a second explosion followed, blue light showering the room. Sirius heard Dodie yell in pain.
Unmistakably something had flown into the room though he couldn't see clearly because of the light blinding him. Footsteps as someone walked over to him.
"Hello Captain."
Sirius would have known that voice even in his death. He gasped as his past grabbed him by the neck dragging him. His vision returning to him only slightly allowed him to glimpse at Dodie's lifeless corpse half covered by a chunk of the wall.
He screamed for her as his back ached from being torn at by the fragments on the floor. Finally the dragging stopped as he was jerked upwards.
The hideous face came to view burning Sirius's mind with memories. It was him. It was him!
How? As he gazed into thosw green ghoulish eyes that had earned him his name, he struggled to make sense of what had happened and how.
No one had ever broken into the Upper Zones and not especially the Policing Unit. No, no one was that dumb as to even think of it. Yet here he was, a terrorist and a murderer in the House of the Royal Guard's head staring into his eyes.
"It's good to see you remember me. Thought I'd have to beat the memory of what you did to me back into you, but the fear. I see it in your eyes," he said.
"H-how?" Sirius managed.
The thing smiled its ugly smile.
"See the thing is Sirius, all of you Remnants have been caged up too long in your little city while the whole world evolved. When that happens as you best know, the world swallows you whole."
Sirius felt life drain out of him as the thing strangled him. It threw him down to the floor and started punching him.
"I'd told you I'd come for you. I'd told you you wouldn't be able to stop me. I'd told you, I'd take your whole family as well,"
It stopped waving at the destruction in the house. Sirius saw Dodie on the floor again lifeless.
"There's nothing and no one that can stop me now. Not even your Royal Guards!"
Sirius heard another voice in the room and saw Darius standing in the distance. He was badly injured, bleeding from his head but holding a blast pistol. Sirius knew it was useless against the biome, he couldn't do anything.
"This is all because of you, remember that." It said.
With that it aimed at Darius with its hand and blasted a sizeable hole through his chest. Sirius had no strength to scream as he watched his brother fall to the floor dead.
Then the thing turned to him aiming its canon.
"Do you remember how you disposed of me when we last met?" It asked him.
He remembered it of course. One of his greatest failures as a soldier. Here it was reminding him that he'd turned out as shit his whole life. It had returned to bite his ass and some more.
The thing lifted him from the floor, showing him the ground below them through the hole in the wall. This was it, his life had ended finally and as always he'd taken his whole family with it.
Sirius felt the cold air on his skin as he dropped from the building. He closed his eyes, the faces of his brother and his niece burned into his mind. He'd killed them.
He'd killed them all.
He didn't feel the ground breaking his bones. He didn't feel his blood seeping out of him to coat the ground. All he felt were metallic arms around his body as he faded.