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Perhaps it had been an expectation before.
Caelus doesn’t know when that had stopped being the case.
The expectation that came with the position of being the Express’ guard, of always being there to protect others before yourself. No passenger on the Express would be faulted if they were to save themselves first. Dan Heng himself wishes for that, and had instructed them all to do so in the event of an emergency.
It would make his job easier, in fact, emptying the battlefield in order to better meet his mark with less distractions in his periphery.
It’s not a virtuous way to live by any means, but it’s the most logical, and Dan Heng is nothing if not rational at the worst of times, and placidly calculating at the best. In the event of devastation, it’d be better to minimize the amount of possible casualties, and if Dan Heng has to be that casualty, well, then the Express can always find a new guard. Dan Heng is no one special.
But don’t worry, he’s not suicidal. He’ll do his best to see himself through to each battle’s victory.
‘You don’t have to concern yourself over these matters, Caelus,’ Dan Heng had said with a slight dip to his head, face as impassive as ever. ‘Come what may, it’s what I believe to be best for everyone aboard. It’s the path I choose to walk.’
Well.
Caelus hates that.
Caelus slams his foot onto the low railing of the catwalk, and the metal creaks and yields under him, before he uses the leverage to vault himself over the edge with a hard grunt.
“Caelus what—!”
Caelus doesn’t think that he’s ever accepted that notion in the first place, but maybe he’d grown complacent with how much Dan Heng unconditionally protects them.
In ways that go unnoticed in the heat of the moment, only addressed with a quick thanks before they move onto the next battle. Despite it not actively being acknowledged, and how much Caelus had vehemently disagreed with it, it had inevitably become an expectation in the end because Dan Heng had never acted otherwise, had never acted against his principles.
Caelus wonders when he’d become aware of it though, because he’s been angry for a while.
March’s urgent shouts will have to fall on deaf ears, because leaving Dan Heng behind to deal with the Swarm by himself is no way to live. It might be what Dan Heng prefers, shouldering the rest of their burdens on top of his own, but Caelus will never accept that.
This spacecraft hangar is all but abandoned, a giant atrium with three story-level deck accesses wrapping around the perimeter. It’s dilapidated and half buried underground too, which is why they’d had to escape through the third-level deck after having retrieved their supplies from the ground floor. Himeko had needed to repair some damaged areas of the Express before they docked back on the Xianzhou Luofu, and a quick overhead scan had revealed that this area still had some functioning parts that were salvageable.
Fortunately, they got the parts.
Unfortunately, the hangar was another nest for the Swarm, and they’d ambushed them just before they could make it home scot-free.
Double unfortunately, Dan Heng had fallen behind on the ground floor and had said nothing to them save for a clipped, ‘keep going’.
He’s going to hold them off while Caelus and March escape.
He’s going to get overwhelmed.
Hardly anyone survives the Swarm if their fighting force is less than half of the enemies present, much less a lone man. Caelus had even counted multiple True Stings among the masses. Even with Dan Heng’s sharp mind, he won’t be able to shake off the hallucinations for long.
They’re going to lose him.
He’s angry.
Right, he’s…angry.
Caelus lands on the metal-plated concrete with a thud, only to have a plume of Juvenile Stings descend upon him in an attempt to immobilize him. He only breaks through with his Halftime to Make it Rain, casting Ever-burning Amber on himself right before the heavy bombardment had started from above.
Once the assault stops and his hat returns to his hand, he surges forward, right for where he can see Dan Heng fighting, slowly but surely getting pushed further and further back into the compound, towards where they’d seen the nest.
“Caelus!” March shouts from his terminal.
“Dan Heng’s stuck at the extraction gate,” Caelus grits out. He elbows a Lesser Sting out of the way before summoning his bat and swinging with enough strength to rocket another Juvenile Sting halfway across the hangar. “I’m getting him back.”
“I didn’t even—,” March chokes out, “I’m coming too!”
“You get the supplies back!” Caelus barks, and the frustration that powers his next swing surprises even himself. That cresting wave of annoyance doesn’t abate though, not until it can crash onto the shore—or when Caelus can grab onto Dan Heng’s bicep and forcibly drag him back with him. “I’m not saving anyone else from these houseflies!”
“I can save myself and you need the back-up!”
“What I need is for you to leave!” Guilt immediately eats away at him once the words leave his mouth. March doesn’t deserve this. This isn’t her fault.
“You’re acting exactly like him!” March snaps back in response.
Caelus skids underneath a Sting and springs back to his feet. “Go get Himeko! We’ll blast through its whole nest with the cannon!”
“And you can—?!”
“—hold them off until then, yes!” Caelus bats another insect away. “Please March.” He remembers Penacony and how the Swarm had taken so many of its remaining Trailblazers. They can’t take Dan Heng, and if March comes to him then he’s scared they’ll take her too.
March shouts in frustration. An arrow pierces through a Sting off to his side, one that he had almost missed, before it explodes into a shower of crystalline particles. “Give me twenty minutes.”
Caelus grunts in affirmation, opening his field to every single path he’s tread so far.
He twirls on his heel while snatching his hat off his head, before twisting his torso and flinging it forward. He chases after it with his bat in his hand, flicking his eyes towards each target that the hat pinballs off of so he can smack down the remaining ones.
He needs to hurry.
He needs to get to Dan Heng.
Raw anger is a new emotion for him, and he’s not prepared for how impulsive it makes him.
It feels different from the type of impulsivity that many of the people he’s met attribute to ‘altruism’, though he doesn’t know if that’s the right word for it. He cares for other people, yes, but he doesn’t value himself any less. He wouldn’t be able to continuously move forward otherwise. That type of impulsiveness is like the vertigo he feels whenever he jumps from a great height, but he knows that he can savor the rush of air that’s stolen from him because he knows that he’ll indubitably spread his wings before hitting the ground, diving into a take-off.
But the impulsivity he feels right now is ugly, constricting his chest from within and clouding his better judgment. It makes him desperate, anxious, clumsy. It has him tunnel-visioning on Dan Heng’s too small silhouette in the distance, slowly being consumed by the Swarm despite his obvious attempts to fight them off.
It makes him feel as if every joyous moment he’s ever experienced was fleeting, in comparison to the bleak ‘what-if's' that are all-consuming, eating away at him if he doesn’t reach Dan Heng in time. It makes him feel nauseous, mind running a light-year a minute about how if he loses Dan Heng—he’ll lose everything.
It feels selfish.
He’s angry, and that anger bleeds so easily into desperation.
Caelus slams his bat down with his left hand, squashing another insect into the ground before snatching his bat out of the air with his right and hurling it at another bug that gets a little too close to spitting on him. He doesn’t even make sure that his weapon has met its target before ducking beneath another and summoning his lance to charge, razing an unforgiving path through the horde and leaping forward with each leftover ember that ignites and explodes behind him.
How could Dan Heng be so selfish? Why doesn’t he think about what the rest of them want—what Caelus wants?
Caelus doesn’t think that Dan Heng protects them—puts himself in harm's way—because the rest of their lives outweigh his own. It’s just what he wants. Even if it jeopardizes himself, he wants them all back on the Express safe and sound, even if he won’t be able to return with them.
Dan Heng’s actions speak louder than his words, despite his extensive vocabulary.
Dan Heng cares.
Aeons, he cares so much.
Caelus hates this.
Each bug that he cuts down is a pain, keeping them from multiplying through brute force alone.
But brute force or not, he’ll never reach Dan Heng at this rate.
He can see Dan Heng swing his spear through the air in the distance—still too far—cleaving a perfect arc and slamming the water dragon he summons down onto another group of Stings.
Caelus would call out to him, but he doesn’t want to disrupt Dan Heng’s concentration. Dan Heng’s barely managed to finally stand his ground, pushing back against the platoon that was now failing to subdue him.
Caelus grits his teeth, quickly scanning his eyes around the hangar before spotting an abandoned spacecraft off to his right, tilted on its side with its wingspan functioning as a ramp up from ground level to the second-story deck. He immediately beelines for it, sidestepping himself between the gaps of another flock of Lesser Stings before sweeping his fingers across the brim of his hat, flinging it behind him to cast another Halftime to Make it Rain.
The barrage creates enough of a stagger for the swarm chasing him, giving him time to run up the spacecraft and leap over the railing onto the metal-grated deck. Those mindless insects don’t expect it, their numbers mostly concentrated on the ground, so it allows him to bypass a majority of them as he runs in Dan Heng’s direction.
The gnawing in his chest doesn’t stop.
Why is that wherever Caelus goes, Dan Heng is the one who chooses not to follow, but whenever it’s Dan Heng who’s the one walking away, following after him is never an option. Aeons Caelus doesn’t—he doesn’t have to know everything Dan Heng does.
They’re all bound to walk different paths eventually, so Dan Heng doesn’t need to lay everything bare and offer up every single secret. But while they’re still together, while they’re still treading the same path, please, please Caelus is begging—
Don’t leave him behind.
Maybe Caelus is wrong.
Maybe Caelus is misguided, but while Dan Heng is still with them, while Dan Heng still takes up his residence in the Archives, then no matter what—
Dan Heng doesn’t even see him coming, too busy trying to keep himself afloat in the hive that threatens to envelop him.
No matter what…
Caelus slaps his hand down on the railing when he deems himself close enough, the rusted metal scratching against his fingertips, before he hauls himself over, using the railing as a stepping stone to jump over another Sting that darts at him, the trajectory making it so that it’s just shy of brushing his toe mid-flight.
…I will make sure you come back to us…
“Don’t touch—!” He summons his lance and flies down with a snarling yell, viscously dragged from the depths of his chest as he drives the pointed tip through a True Sting that had almost sunk its mandibles into Dan Heng’s neck, spearing it through the ground. “My guard!”
…come back to me…
Dan Heng whips his head around.
Caelus knees buckle from the heavy landing.
He reaches for Dan Heng’s tassel as he falls and loops it around his wrist before casting Ever-burning Amber on them both, activating his War-Flaming Lance simultaneously.
…and make it home.
They explode into a sea of flames.
There’s nothing more Caelus wants.
Heat sears his skin, smoke pervades his nostrils, and shrapnel slices across his face. He tries to hold his breath only to choke on the tendrils of fire that snap against his skin. He’s too tired. The shield he’s cast is unbalanced. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be able to last at this rate.
He coughs when the flames finally die down, letting go of Dan Heng’s tassel so he can shakily push himself back up onto his feet. There’s a giant ring of torn up metal and scorched concrete surrounding them, soot sprinkled across the area and thickened near the perimeter, with the two of them as the epicenter.
“Caelus,” Dan Heng breathes, immediately snatching at his elbow to help steady him. His touch is gentle at first, before it tightens, stepping closer with something indecipherable twisting his features. Maybe he feels wronged that Caelus had disobeyed him. “Caelus.”
The buzzing starts up again.
“They're coming,” Caelus rasps in lieu of an answer, eyeing the swarm—now down to half its original size—that comes flying at them again, flanking them on all sides.
Dan Heng clenches his jaw, turning around to push their backs together, Cloudpiercer at the ready. “I thought I told you to run.”
Caelus is physically heaving, his chest painfully expanding with the amount of air he’s trying to inhale. “I wonder how you ever thought I could.” He wipes some blood off the nick on his cheek.
And then without any warning he whips around and spears his lance straight through Dan Heng’s back, running him through.
But what should’ve been a physical weapon piercing through skin and breaking through bone, is instead the dissolving of flickering red particles the deeper his lance sinks, until Caelus gets down to the handle and his weapon disappears altogether.
Dan Heng gasps, staggering forward as he clutches at his chest, where the tip of Caelus’ lance should’ve pierced through. “What—,” Dan Heng snaps his head around, wheezing, “—what did you do to me?”
“My insurance,” Caelus says tightly.
Call of the Guardian, a skill that grants him a shield for a set duration as long as his weapon is active, but if he can use Dan Heng as a vessel, then that shield will continue to last, protecting him just as it had Belobog. The shield will stay up until Caelus takes his weapon back, which he won’t do until they’re back on the Express.
He slides his eyes over Dan Heng’s shoulder, only witnessing Dan Heng hardening his expression and raising his spear in his periphery, before he’s ducking under Dan Heng’s swing and pushing himself forward with his bat in hand, swinging upwards at the True Sting that had been aiming its stinger at Dan Heng’s back. There’s a hiss from behind that tells Caelus Dan Heng had hit his mark too.
“There’s no end to them!” And Caelus doesn’t think he has the strength to overwhelm them either. With his current state, the Swarm’s growth rate will surpass the rate at which they can kill them.
He stumbles back until his back hits Dan Heng’s.
“We don’t need the end of them,” Dan Heng seethes. “Your attack from earlier diminished their numbers by at least a third. We’ll force our way out.”
Without any preamble, Dan Heng grabs Caelus’ hand and starts hauling them towards the exit. Caelus manages to only stumble the first few steps before righting himself to keep up with Dan Heng’s pace. Dan Heng can’t fight with his spear like this, but he doesn’t let go of Caelus’ hand either. Caelus only holds on tighter in response.
Dan Heng dissolves the body of his spear, and Caelus stares enraptured at the way Dan Heng’s transformation washes over him, taking a step forward as Dan Heng one moment, before passing over the threshold into Imbibitor Lunae the next. His water dragon bursts forth from the floor, flying and diving through the masses that attempt to swarm them again, and Dan Heng guides Caelus into weaving through the wreckage.
Some Stings manage to break through his dragon’s assault, and while their attacks bounce off Dan Heng’s flesh due to Caelus’ Guardian skill, Caelus isn’t so lucky.
The first stinger that pierces through Caelus’ shoulder with a muffled cry has Dan Heng whirling around and hurling the yawning maw of his dragon into the Sting, torrential waters eroding through the husk until nothing is left.
The ground rumbles.
“We’re so close!” Caelus shouts.
Only to gasp and tackle Dan Heng to the floor with an arm looped around Dan Heng’s neck. Dan Heng rolls them over at the last second and covers Caelus’ body with his own, cradling his head—before a giant quantum beam is tearing through the air overhead, cutting through the spot where Dan Heng had just been standing.
The beam takes four total seconds to die down, detonating the ground where it had struck and raining more dust and shrapnel over them.
Caelus had counted them up in his head, staring wide-eyed up at the luminescent death-ray with his breath caught in his throat, clutching onto Dan Heng’s back like a child. It had been blinding. Caelus couldn’t look away, did not dare to squint.
Is this fear that he feels…? No, no that can’t be it. He’s not scared. This isn’t a ghost. This is something real, something tangible. It feels like the anger from before, but not as prickling. The same heaviness maybe. It’s suffocating in comparison.
It takes Dan Heng yanking him back to his feet that he finally jolts back to his senses, looking up at the enormous Sting that blocks their only exit route, flanked by various other lesser stings.
Another swarm king? No, it can’t be.
It’s too small.
Two levels below the King, maybe, a Jack.
No, it doesn’t matter what it is. As long as Caelus can get Dan Heng out of here, then it doesn’t matter who he has to beat.
Caelus lets go of Dan Heng’s hand, stepping back with his eyes pinned to that looming Jack. “You go forward and get out. I’ll keep the rear distracted to give you that chance, and then you hit that thing from the back so I can escape.”
“We’ll do it the other way,” Dan Heng bristles.
Caelus drops his glare to meet Dan Heng’s. “I won’t give you the choice.”
“I won’t give you the chance,” Dan Heng snarls, shooting forward with Cloudpiercer only to have Caelus parry the strike with his bat. It surprises Dan Heng, his face falling open with palpable shock, but it surprises Caelus himself more than anything. “Go! I’m not fighting you!”
It’s not fear that he feels. It’s—
Why?
“If I lose you,” Caelus’ eyes blow wide, pushing against Dan Heng’s spear with more strength than he ever thought himself capable of.
Why are they fighting?
Dan Heng’s face shutters.
He doesn’t want to fight Dan Heng.
The Stellaron thuds in his ears in its twisted attempt to mimic a beating heart. It’s laughable, because he’s anything but human. “I’ll lose everything.”
All he wants to do is keep Dan Heng safe.
—mania.
Dan Heng tightens his jaw, but Caelus doesn’t give him any more chances to respond before breaking off their standstill and bolting forward to shove Dan Heng backwards, towards the exit where there’s undoubtedly a bigger Sting charging up another beam, but significantly less smaller Stings. It’s nothing compared to the army advancing on them from behind. He gives Dan Heng one second to steady himself, before turning around.
They’re running out of time.
“Caelus!”
But the Swarm will have to kill him first before they touch Dan Heng.
Caelus clenches his teeth, his face twisting into something unsavory as he flings his hat up into the air, batting away another Sting.
He’s not letting Dan Heng go.
His punctured shoulder seizes.
They’ll have to take Caelus first, over Caelus' dead body.
There’s a True Sting that pierces its stinger into his side, and even if it burns, even if the fibrous particles from the frantic flapping of its wings gets inevitably inhaled up his nose—he still uses it to his advantage and swings his bat upwards. The stinger that had been wedged into his abdomen slices up through his chest before dislodging, and he screams with the effort of pulling his swing all the way through.
“Don’t touch him!” Dan Heng shouts, muffled background noise to the buzzing.
Ah.
Caelus falls to his knees, tears burning his eyes as he grasps at the long gorge splitting his abdomen and chest open, clawing at it in a desperate attempt to hold his flaying skin together. What’s underneath his skin, what kind of organs does he have? Skin, bone, blood, lungs, a beating heart—basic human anatomy, none of which he has. What is he? He can almost see past the blood that gushes out of him, more than he’s ever seen.
He can’t breathe.
There’s a high pitched whine coming from somewhere.
The noise is him.
He’s going to fail.
Dan Heng’s going to die.
One more, one more stinger—Caelus chokes as he snaps his head up and lunges forward, aiming to headbutt the Juvenile Sting headed straight for him—one less for Dan Heng to worry about before Caelus goes.
“I said don’t touch him!” A deafening command, a piercing yell that stretches into a rising and drawn out roar, bleeding from human anguish into something indistinguishable. A deep tremor that rattles the very ground they stand on, bellowing strong enough that even the Swarm suddenly ceases, jerking back.
A monster.
There’s no other way to describe it.
Caelus can’t move, rooted in place as the ground shakes and rolls beneath his feet. A large, distorted claw slams onto the ground in front of him, extending above him from behind, sharpened talons curling and shredding through the metal and concrete. It looks wrong.
There’s human skin and pieces of torn fabric wedged between the teal scales, peeling and flaking onto the ground as if it was being shed. Where there should’ve been five reptilian fingers, none of them are the same size, all of them snapping and elongating as if they were still in the process of growing to their full size. Bones undulate beneath the skin, rippling across the plated scales.
Another roar crests over them, swallowing the atmosphere in its wake. There’s no room for any other sound to travel, commanding in its presence.
The concrete splits violently beneath him, darkened waters spilling in through the cracks and puddling up despite the fact that it logically shouldn’t be able to. Caelus falls to his knees, wide-eyed and paralyzed, before he flops face first into the concrete, cushioned only by a splash. The dark water immediately slithers over him, gliding over his skin as it trickles into his nose and ears, moistening his eyes, mixing with his blood before licking into his wounds and filling his veins.
It's ominous, when he’s only ever known water to be clear at surface level.
There’s not a single ray of light penetrating through it. It won’t let it.
A long and sinuous frame that curls itself around Caelus’ infinitesimal form in comparison, coiling its serpentine body twice around him before violently sweeping its tail out, batting away a mass of Stings.
A draconic scion from the deepest seas, with gnashing fangs and sharp, luminescent eyes.
A perpetuity that cannot be fathomed. An Aeon that has long since passed.
Dan Heng—no.
The Permanence.
An infestation to match the Swarm through sheer volume rather than numbers. Dan Heng’s going to drown them all.
Oh Dan Heng.
Caelus feels tears leaking out of his eyes, only for the sea to sweep its tongue over his cheeks in a gentle caress, swallowing his droplets of forlorn sorrow before it submerges him whole. Caelus’ eyelids tremble, drifting shut against his will.
Dan Heng’s leaving him behind again.
What have you become.
Caelus,
In all honesty, I do not know the extent, or how much of myself as the person I currently am—who I’m now deciding to be, what I want to atone for, my humanity—I am willing to shed if it means that I can bring you home.
If I find myself…or rather, if there is no longer anything left of myself to find…I’m sorry.
This is something I hope to never burden you with. But it is my wish that if that time ever comes, you can find me, and bring me back.
I beg you.