Chase sat across from Justin underneath smoke-veiled rafters of a Tavern on the edge of the city.
It was a well-established place and not too busy either. Chase glanced around from their booth in the far corner of the Tavern.
Justin took a sip of ale while pushing aside his half-eaten plate of pasta.
"You gonna eat?" Justin asked, cocking an eyebrow towards Chase's untouched food. Chase's facial expressions though told a much too obvious story. Justin shrugged, leaning back in his seat and winking at the bartender before returning his gaze back to Chase, who seemed to be lost in some sort of trance.
"You remember that one time in that cold ass tent... When you and Rider got into it, and you had Leander of all people's direct backing, and all of those higher up soldiers had to listen to some kid practically give them orders?" Justin quietly said with a chuckle, his growing more and more distant with every word he uttered.
"I guess, why?" Chase's bitter voice responded, but his shoulders slightly slumped loose as his chin rested against his opened palm.
Justin looked at the table and sighed.
"What's the plan? Ya know, why are we in Seh Jenah still? Where are we going after? What's even the point of being here in the first place? That kinda stuff..." Justin frowned with a subtle shrug.
Chase glared at the burnt corner of the fancy table that was probably decades old, his emerald eyes humming with luminescence.
"We had to drop Griffin off here, he has some business concerning the royal family, then there is the funds. We need money bad, and me and Equan have been able to save up half of what we need in the Coliseum, I took this big fight against Seh Jenah's Paladins, because we need a big burst of funds in order to depart. However, something is wrong with this city, there is something really really bad going on here... I think... But you remember Rider's dungeon... You remember that horrible decaying feeling when just standing near the damn place. I felt it again..."
Justin grimaced.
"Ignorance is bliss, ya know?" Justin could only find a response as hypocritical as that. Quite honestly, Chase was right. In all accords, but it was wrong for him to dig into... Not now, not when they are all so young and still have time to train and live their lives.
Chase scoffed.
"As to where we are going next, a large mining kingdom Northwest of here. That's where me and Michael agreed to meet next, Leo also said he would try to get there before the Winter Solstice..." Chase began to think in silence for a moment, his eyes glancing between his wrist and the charred wood.
"Say, you don't normally glow purple... Do you?" Justin asked, raising an eyebrow as he watched the veins on Chase's neck hum and sing in rhythm with violet colors.
"This is the reason we are going to the kingdom of Shadows next... Onyx's birthplace. But first, we have business still regarding the Coliseum." Chase said gritting his teeth from the annoying itch of the corruption.
Justin sighed.
"You tryna go outside for a light?" Justin grinned, lifting up a pack of cigarettes while simultaneously flaunting all of the expensive rings on each of his fingers.
And so they stood in the back alley of the tavern, in the cold of night as a subtle breeze brushed against Chase's skin.
Justin plucked two cigarettes out and offered one to Chase, but he shook his head with a look of humor.
"No thanks, wai-..." Chase's eyes lit up as an idea struck his thoughts.
"Sup?" Justin tilted his head in confusion.
But Chase shook his at his own stupidity.
'Surely that's considered peer pressuring too some degree...' Chase shrugged, and began to study the stars in the sky that night, or at least from what he could see between the buildings.
"There is something I need to tell you..." Justin gazed down at the painted brick pathway below them with a serious expression on his face.
"What is it?" Chase asked, shuffling his body weight from side to side as he tried to name as many constellations as he could, which wasn't very many.
"Me and Brody apprehended two Royal Assassins in the city... It appears that the big man upstairs hasn't bought your ploy... And worse than that, it won't be long now until King Phillip gets word of your arrival..."
Chase shrugged in response, still fixated on the sky above.
"Faking my death was never my idea... And it was more so a postponement in order to buy some time, but if I'm being honest... Chase of House Phoenix did die in that castle..." His words left a bitter sensation in the air, something that made Justin feel quite uncomfortable, which was quite rare in the radius of Chase of all people.
But it was true...
Justin could feel the sense of death in the words of Chase, literal deathly energy seeping through his pores...
"Ah, don't be too grim... We still have a whole world to conquer, and twice more to explore..." Justin leaned against the wall and offered Chase his cigarette for obvious reasons, which Chase sighed and simply lit the edge of Justin's cigarette with subtle reluctance.
"How come you've been by my side all this time?" Chase asked, finally brining his sight down from the sky above.
Justin laughed, now replacing Chase's eternal nightly gaze.
"Kid, you don't understand what it was like to be an old failure of a son working for some Wackjob like Rider, with no foreseeable hope and certainly no chance of change..." He paused, exhaling deeply as his cigarette suddenly poofed out which caused a disgruntled facial expression from Justin, who simply held the cigarette out for Chase again.
"Seeing a young arrogant Stray... Challenge the Wendigo to a duel to the death... Freezing every side of the battlefield into a perpetual spectating match... Grown adults don't show that much courage... It was inspiring..." Suddenly, as Chase's flame suddenly cancelled out, Justin raised an eyebrow in slight panic.
Chase was already prepared, summoning the lunar crystals in each of his hands.
"Relax... It's best that things don't get messy..." The same man from the Coliseum Tavern emerged from the darkness, with his dark-steel bird mask peaking out from the dark under garden of his shadowy hood.
The orange crest on his chest vibrating with a visual erosion of what almost seemed like heat radiating from its center.
Chase began to panic... This man had seen him once with his mask and now once without... He was now a threat.
Suddenly a second figure emerged from the shadow... His armor a cold steel with violent purple trims and dark shadows covering the ventilations in his helm, shrouding his face just as Vex's armor had.
However... Before Chase could attack... The man lifted a hand, slowly removing the mask from his face... Revealing a sharp arrogant grin, with a pair of glowing ember eyes of orange. His hair a sharp red with orange streaks, just as messy as Chase's hair, if not more.
But the thing about the leader of The Blaze Syndicate, was that it was Jack of House Ember who led them...