Buildings towered above the wide street the Champion was now standing on. Instead of abysmal darkness, there were light and shadows along the edges. The sky was blue. The sun was apparent. When he looked at his gauntlets, they were shiny and clear of blood. Like they were just polished.

"We hold them here," a voice declared, possessing a natural sense of leadership similar to the Champion, who turned around to identify the owner.

Soldiers surrounded him, just now acknowledged despite his earlier scan, as if they appeared out of thin air. The one who just spoke was a bulky knight in white armor. By how the man stood, and the reactions of those nearby, he was the commander. Not the Champion; nobody was looking at him with anything close to respect he used to have. Or fear at least.

"You," the knight addressed the Champion, who snapped into focus as speaker walked up to him. A path had already been made for him, and when he arrived, he seemed to have an edge on the Champion. Either by height or position, it was clear he was not in charge now.

"The traitors will attempt to stampede our lines like their tiny brains have always permitted," the commander stated, grasping the Champion's shoulder. "You are larger than the rest. Smarter, even. Such advantages as such will easily give you the opportunity to," he clenched his free gauntlet, "decimate those that wish to plunge this kingdom into oblivion."

The Champion nodded, unsure of what to say. Without leadership, a role as a foundation to stand upon, he never wished to use his tongue.

"Good." The knight withdrew his gauntlet and withdrew his sword from the sheathe on his back. It was as white as his armor with a clear sparkling effect to give it uniqueness among the rest. Even the soldiers around glanced at their dull swords and sighed. 

Seeing the commander walk away, the Champion shifted his gaze onto the sword in his left gauntlet. It had no broken edges. It was not bloody. It was not watered down in the slightest, like he had not just fought a battle. Partaken in a massacre.

"Here they come!" a voice shouted from the front of the group, bringing utter chaos to everyone.

"Maintain solid rows," the commander ordered, as he began to march over to the frontline. "Delay them as long as possible. Split their ranks. Do whatever you can to make sure they do not succeed in destroying our beloved kingdom." He passed by the Champion with a nod, then directed his gaze ahead. "They have already slain our good King, a most evil act. For that, they will pay dearly. No more Evil will dare to take our ever so righteous and faithful hearts."

When the commander disappeared from sight into the thick mess of soldiers and sunlight, the Champion blinked for everything to change. No longer was he just idling in the group. No longer was he unsure of what to do.

He slid his sword out of the victim he had just ravaged. In surprise, he glanced around him to see a battle unraveling. Not a single soldier was left without a fight. The bodies fell by the masses. He didn't even know who had to die or not. Who he could kill. Who he could allow his bloodthirst to devour.

Slaughter them all... let not a single soul remain untouched...

At the voice, the Champion uncontrollably gripped his sword harder and swung horizontally in a semicircle. An unlucky soldier was caught in the hip, which didn't stop the blade at all. Rather, it cut the entire body in two, both of them sliding off in a matter of slow seconds. The knight was already soaked with blood. Either if it belonged to friend or foe was unclear.

There weren't many standing any longer. Most were on the ground or actively pounding their opponent to death. Gruesome, merciless death.

However, the Champion's fanning gaze was stopped by a familiar sight. Like he was meant to see it unravel, like unnatural forces propelled this scene into action, he saw his commander from earlier tower above a figure on the ground. His armor shined despite all the blood. He had killed far too many than the Champion could even dare to guess. The blood pouring off his downward-pointing sword fell in heavy quantity, a rainfall on its own.

The Champion's focus shifted onto the figure on the ground. No blood; its armor was untouched except for a few splatters of blood. But there was no way it had killed anybody. No matter the armor, it appeared more as a spectator than a killer.

So small, so fragile, so... innocent.

Must this person die? But for what? There was no need to kill.

The prone knight held up a gauntlet as a means of pleading for mercy while its other remained pressed against the blood-soaked street. Though, the commander showed no signs of approving such a bargain. He chuckled and began bringing his boot up, which was large enough to smash the figure's head completely.

"It was your fault for joining these blasphemous, wretched evildoers in the first place," he declared, while the figure tried to keep his boot away.

"I... I didn't..." the figure spoke with a voice that punctured a part of the Champion he had never thought existed. A part in which painted a blossoming flower in front of a dazzling ocean under a rising sun.

"Hah!" The commander brought his boot further down, only inches away from the girl's face. Only seconds away from a brutal death. "Steer clear of such battles and killing. You are not meant to be in a place for ravenous beasts." He bent down, resting an arm over his leg. "But sadly, that doesn't mean you are going to be treated any differently than the rest."

"Please..." the girl said, almost fully succumbed to exhaustion, though she still kept her two gauntlets under the boot. "Just let me live... I didn't want any of this to happen..."

"Well! That's a shame!"

As the commander prepared to smash the girl's helmet directly in her visor, the Champion charged forward and rammed him straight to the ground. From the lack of balance, his target indeed fell. From the lack of surprise, his target had no chance to recover or bring his sword into a defensive state—he didn't even have his sword. He had dropped it on the way down.

Your position is mine!

The Champion stepped over the bulky champion, holding his sword with both gauntlets from tip to handle, then slammed it right over his foe's neck. Instead of an instant kill, the knight struggled and kicked out as blood seeped from the wound. The Champion only saw it as fuel to push his sword further in until the struggling stopped. Until the helmet detached from the body.

Decapitation. Just like the king. The irony.

"Why...?"

At the voice, the Champion spun around to see the girl on the ground. All the fighting around was ceasing steadily. He didn't know who was winning or not. He just knew if he was standing, the day was his. And it always would be.

Another! Another! ANOTHER!

"Today is the beginning of a new age," the Champion replied, and extended his free gauntlet toward her. She only lay there in silence. "Take my hand and you shall walk with me to the peaks of mountains, to the skies, to the surface of the sun itself." He glanced over at the decapitated corpse, a smile forming. "Nothing will fail to be ours. Nothing as long as I am standing—"

"That was your superior, wasn't it?" she asked, which silenced him into looking at her. He contested her gaze, about to withdraw his gauntlet and leave her there at the question.

"Yes," he answered. "But no longer."

The girl kept her stare until finally reaching for his gauntlet. His eyes widened with his right gauntlet hardening its grip over his sword. It was a free kill. That's all it was. Just another obstacle in his path.

End her! You need nobody but yourself!

The Champion flinched. His left gauntlet could hardly stop shaking.

Kill her and there will be nothing left to stop you!

He began to pull his sword back, his heart devoured in a battle between two polar opposites. His soul consumed in a fire unable to be extinguished fully.

Yet, the girl did not show fear. She continued to reach out for his gauntlet with her slow own. It was so small. So gentle. He just wanted to hold onto it and feel what touch it would bring. Perhaps a touch of the sun. Warmth he had never realized before to counteract the cold within. Peace to dispel the hate.

Love to finally tame his soul for what it could truly become.

Now, do it now!

The Champion brought his sword high above him, prepared for the fatal swing. It would be wrong to miss out on prey. To spare somebody he was meant to kill. It was against the flow of fate and time. He couldn't break it. For what path would be left for him to travel upon?

No.

He grasped the girl's gauntlet and ejected her right off the ground into him. A newfound warmth overcame him. In confusion, he looked down to see her head buried in his chest, her arms wrapped around him in a close embrace. He had only seen such sights before. Never did he ever get to feel such a thing.

He was never loved, but there was a chance now.

The seconds passed slowly as thunder roared in the distance. With that, downpour began to appear. Night settled in. He huffed a long breath, feeling a certain nothingness in his chest. He couldn't hear the heartbeats anymore. Where had they gone? Did they leave him?

Despite the scene changing, one thing was still kept: the embrace. He found Shimmer hugging him, though he was able to spot a gleaming sword shoved into his chest with one of her gauntlets shakily pushing it in. He could hear her quiet weeping over the heavy rain.

And still, he didn't know why.

The Champion gradually lost touch in all his limbs, the last being his right gauntlet. With his legs no longer functioning, he fell over like a tree that had been cut. It had no way out. It could only fall to its demise.

He didn't feel the ground when his vision finally stilled. Lying on his back, he saw the sky above. The storm had passed. Clouds dispersed. Light seeped in. Through one small crack in the once-strict blanket of darkness, he could see blue. The sun.

The tranquility put his soul at peace. There were no more voices in his head. None except his own.

As the area around became more and more illuminated, Shimmer knelt beside him. He couldn't move at all, but he was able to see her in the edge of his vision. Her armor was bloody and messy, very unlike how it usually was: pure and clean. Exactly identical to that of a sparkling lake.

"Were you ever given a name?" Shimmer asked, keeping her gauntlets in her lap.

The Champion watched as the sun poked out of the darkness it was once hidden in. He had thought it was gone, that it had left him, but it was always there.

"None except the one you had given me," he responded.

Shimmer silently sat there, her gaze transfixed upon the murderer of the only person she had left in the world.

"Oderian... has no meaning," she admitted with a quiet sigh.

"Names always have meaning, either they have one or not," the Champion decided. He could feel himself slipping away as the darkness nibbled at his very core. There he would be, deep in the void, forever forced in shackles and misery. It was a fate worse than death.

"You never told me how you came up with Shimmer," she said on a different note.

"It just came to me."

Silence engulfed the duo. No other souls were around. At least none willing to be heard.

"You also never told me why you hated Nam'ill so much," she continued, clenching her gauntlets and looking aside. "Why you were so different in his presence. Why you wanted to keep us apart." She darted her gaze right over to him. "What was it? Jealousy? Hate? How truly could such emotions spawn in an entity like yourself? Emotions only belonging to those that are forever drowned in them?"

The Champion tilted his helmet over to her. The rapidly beating chest. The hateful eyes. The quivering mouth. The clenched fists. No armor could hide any of that.

"I only wanted the best for you," he remarked. When he took a breath, the cold expanded its grip on him. He was freezing, as if ice shards were consuming him whole.

"The best for me?" Shimmer exclaimed, then shook her head madly. "You killed him! How is that going to make me happy?" In rage, she slammed her gauntlet on his flat shoulder, though he didn't budge at all. Without a reaction, she continued to smash him aimlessly. "You do all these things thinking of only yourself... even though I'm the one you do them for!"

As she pounded his shoulder again and again, he silently gazed at her helmet, unsure of what to say.

"I just don't understand," she breathed, slowing down on her slamming, "what you are. You are either emotionless or very emotional. Either kind or brutal. Either firm and commanding or a dumbfounded fool." She stopped her gauntlets midair and looked down at him. "Just pick one. You can't be both. You are either one or the other. Don't you know who you are? What you are, even?"

"I am a servant of Good," the Champion responded with words he had spoken on countless occasions. "I do what is asked of me. I do what is needed to be done." He watched Shimmer withdraw her gauntlets, unable to bear the ice overtaking his body. He just wanted to drift into an endless slumber. No more void. No more light. No more sides.

Just a nice, long sleep.

"Do you even know what Good is?" Shimmer asked quietly, dipping her head down.

The Champion pondered over the question. Not a single image came to his mind.

"Yes," he replied, which made her tilt her helmet up. "Good is a mirage of what it could truly be. A reality in which there is."

He moved his helmet back so the sun was in focus once again. The blue sky. The lack of darkened clouds.

"It is hope."

Shimmer grasped her helmet with both gauntlets to place it beside her. She inhaled a long breath of the cold air, closing her eyes as well.

"There is Good in the world," she decided, her eyes still shut and hair gently flowing with the breeze. "It's just far outmatched by the much easier temptations we all would rather have."

The Champion huffed a breath that sent searing agony all throughout him. He didn't want to stay. He wanted the pain to stop. He wanted to go to a place nobody could find him in. A place in which he could stay forever. Peacefully. Undisturbed.

"Take off my helmet."

Shimmer opened her eyes in surprise, her lips sealed in hesitation.

"Why—"

"I have done many things in the Realm," the Champion spoke, meeting her gaze. "I have killed. I have seized. I have created." He began to feel the ice pound at his right gauntlet, the last thing he had left. "I have changed... I have progressed..." His vision fell into a blurring state with his left gauntlet reaching out for something—anything. "I have made... terrible mistakes... and forgiveness is all I wish for..."

His left gauntlet remained in the air until falling down in a lifeless heap. Thoughts of all those he had killed swarmed his mind. Orcs, bandits, even the dwarf king. Even Nam'ill, who struck utter despair into him.

"Forgive..." he spoke, his voice breaking form, "forgive me... it's all I ask for..."

Shimmer gazed at him with a face he had never seen before. He couldn't see what she was feeling. It was hidden from him. Was it pity? Sadness? Anger? What was it?!

"I can never forgive you for taking," she briefly stopped and blinked away tears, "Nam'ill away, but I will grant you your final wish."

With a deep breath, she reached for his helmet with both gauntlets. She pursed her lips and braced herself, though when she began to pull it off, she blinked in surprise. It came right off, like it didn't even weigh anything. Like it wasn't even there.

All the ice consuming the Champion suddenly disappeared. His whole face began to sizzle and burn at the sun he was still staring at. Warmth seized his soul from the cold that was moments away from taking it.

Shimmer dropped his helmet and covered her mouth with both hands to suppress a scream. Her eyes were stricken in horror, but tears soon rolled down her cheeks as well.

What did I do? Don't be scared...

The Champion brought his right gauntlet above him to see the gem actively burning until his gauntlet followed. The void particles underneath dissipated immediately. No more hand. No more arm. No more body.

He let his eyes drift onto Shimmer once more, still dumbfounded at what the truth was, then back onto the sky above.

A distant shadow overcame his body as the sun was hidden by a new arrival. He could see a dark mass coming into focus, its size expanding by the second. A tail, wings, a rider... and once it was far down enough, the colors: gold. The rider wore armor unfamiliar to anything else he had ever seen. The creature was of the exact same category. He had never seen scales the color of gold or shining like they truly were.

The Champion took one final breath as everything stopped. He could feel his soul rising instead of falling. He did not have to fear the cold, for the warmth was there to save him. Finally, he smiled not out of bloodthirst but happiness, shutting his eyes for the first time since his creation. Since he had first seen the void, the Realm, and the horrors all around him.

He was free at long last.