Benjamin
The fog sat heavy over Little London, mixing with the smoke pouring from the factories.
In the center of town, three bodies hung from iron posts—a mother, a father, and their son. A wooden sign tapped softly against the woman's chest:
PROPERTY OF THE EMPIRE DOES NOT RESIST.
Four figures pushed through the crowd and froze. Their eyes flicked to the hanging corpses—then snapped to the man with the long dreads.
Tension tightened their faces; one shifted his stance, another swallowed hard. None of them spoke.
By the factory gates, four royal guards lounged in their dark rune-etched armor, laughing as if the execution were entertainment.
"One of them tried to swing a hammer at me," a guard said, nudging a bloodstain with his boot. "Imagine dying for a human child."
He stopped mid-smirk, glancing past his comrades—something moved in the fog, a tall shape forming where empty mist had been moments before.
A bullet cracked across the elf's temple—sharp as a slap, loud as a curse. Blood sprayed his comrades, snapping their smugness into shock.
A female elf whipped toward the sound, too slow.
Smoke curled from the arcane shotgun held by a massive, dark-skinned brute. An eyepatch covered his right eye, the other narrowed with casual boredom as he pumped the chamber.
Beside him, a girl sank low—black-and-white hair in twin messy buns, violet tips wild. Ripped fishnets, studded leather skirt, safety-pinned band tee, spiked choker.
She exhaled.
Lightning snapped across her skin and she vanished—elves dropping mid-scream, throats opened, bodies hitting dirt before her afterimage faded.
The final elf froze.
A blade was already pressed to his neck, its edge humming.
Behind him stood a man—tall, half-bare chest painted in tattoos, white hair tied back, mask curling into a feral grin. Both swords rested easily in his hands, like extensions of his pulse.
"Hey," he said softly, leaning the blade in. "Got any idea where we can find Vikril?"
The masked man sighed.
"No? Shame."
He slit the elf's throat.
Behind the collapsing body, a storm of black feathers erupted from nowhere, swirling, razor-edged.
They parted like a curtain.
A man in a blood-red coat strolled out, Viper-coil dreads swaying, pale scar running from brow to lip. The feathers dissolved into nothing behind him.
The girl with violet-streaked twin buns fell in at his side, daggers dripping.
She flicked blood off her dagger, eyes glowing faint violet.
"This is the right place, Ben. I can taste them—fifteen, maybe more. They're here."
Benjamin's eyes narrowed on the steel door.
It sighed open on its own, smooth as a confession.
Three elves stood framed in the threshold, already halfway out, faces bleaching as they saw the bodies.
Benjamin smiled, almost tender.
"Shalom."
The shotgun roared. The first elf's head simply ceased to exist in a red mist, neck stump spurting as the body toppled backward.
The girl with black-and-white buns blurred past him, lightning crackling along her arms.
Twin daggers flashed: one punched through the second elf's throat, the other through his heart, dropping him before a sound could leave his lips.
Benjamin met the third.
His fist sank into the elf's stomach with a wet crunch. The body folded around the buried arm like cloth, spine bowing inward, then Benjamin ripped free the corpse hit the floor in two halves.
Inside, every elf in the room snapped upright, blades half-drawn, eyes wide.
From the back, one rose slower, deliberate: old iron-grey hair and beard, skin the color of wet ash, a thick gold hoop glinting in his left ear.
He stepped forward, gaze sweeping the blood, the bodies, then Benjamin and the girl strolling through the doorway like they owned the place.
His voice came low, almost curious.
"…Humans?"
Benjamin stepped forward, slowly, almost lazily rubbing his hands in slow, circular motions.
His gaze was fixed not on the elf, but on something unseen, as if watching a vision dance between his fingers.
"I came to ask you a question," he said calmly. "And also ...I don't like the idea of you lot killing children."
The elf in blue bared his teeth, snarling. "This vermin kill him!"
Steel rang. The guards moved as one, blades flashing toward Benjamin.The brute cracked his neck.
"Boss, this one's yours."Benjamin swung his free hand brutal and fast. The guard flew back, hit the wall with a wet smack, and burst in a spray of blood.
The brute glared at the rest. They froze, eyes locked on what was left of their comrade—twitching red scraps on the floor.
One, teeth bared and eyes wide with rage, shouted, "No, Amir!" and lunged, both blades wreathed in flame.
Benjamin unsheathed his short swords in a whisper of steel and met the charge like an embrace.
A twist, a sidestep then he stepped back, chest soaked in blood, both blades buried deep in their stomachs.
He pulled them free in one smooth motion. The elf fell without a sound.
Another shouted, "Go to hell!" and raised his hand to cast.
There was only a blur.
Benjamin was suddenly beside him.
The elf blinked. His wrist had already been severed. The hand fell to the floor with a soft thud, fingers still twisted in the shape of a spell.
Before the scream could leave his mouth, a blade drove clean through his skull.
The leader rose, snarling. "Must I do everything myself?"
A shotgun roared. His hands vanished in a burst of blood.
The second blast hit center mass—slammed him back into his throne, where he sat gasping, bleeding, broken.
Benjamin walked up, silent and steady. He grabbed the table and flipped it—wood cracked, silverware clattered, and the elf jolted.
"So," Benjamin said, "ready to talk?"
The elf spat on his jacket, lip curling. "I don't answer to human scum."
The girl with the purple hair raised a brow.
"Oop. Shouldn't've done that."
Benjamin crouched before him, slipped off the red coat, folded it once, and laid it across the elder's lap like a ceremonial offering.
"You remember Lebanon ," he said, voice soft enough to cut. "Twenty-three years ago. Your raiders kicked in every door looking for my mother's relic. She stood in ours, hands raised, begging. One of your blades took her head anyway.
Then you torched the village so no one would tell."
The elder's ruined chest hitched; memory flickered behind dying eyes.
Benjamin leaned in until the elder could feel his breath.
"I was under the table. Nine years old. Her blood soaked through the cracks and dripped on my face."
He straightened, calm.
From the doorway the masked man gave a low laugh. "New Gang in town. We the Grey . That's our alpha."
Benjamin's gaze never left the elder.
"Vikril," he said, almost tender. "Where is he?"
The elder's ruined mouth twisted. "Vikril? You're hunting Vikril? That thing is a plague."
The brute snorted from the dark. "He says like we didn't notice."
The elf stared at Benjamin, blood dripping from his beard. "Why him? What could you possibly want?"
Benjamin's voice was winter-quiet. "He wears the amulet your raiders tore off my mother's neck the night you burned Lebanon to the ground."
The girl dropped into a crouch beside the chair, dagger tip kissing the elder's throat. "Clock's ticking, pops. I'd start talking before he loses his sense of humor."
She flicked a glance at Benjamin, grin sharp. "He's gonna sing."
Benjamin didn't blink.
"Sing or scream," he said. "I'll still know where Vikril is when you stop breathing."
Benjamin lifted his hand, slow, fingers spreading toward the elder's skull.
The elf's eyes went wide, terror cracking his voice.
"Wait, wait—"
"Sing or scream," Benjamin said quietly. "I'll still know where Vikril is when you stop breathing."
He lifted his hand slowly, fingers spreading as they hovered inches from the elder's face.
The elf's eyes went wide. Then wider.
His voice cracked mid-protest. "Wait—wait—"
Then came the gasp. A sharp, involuntary pull of air. His pupils vanished, swallowed by a blinding white. Veins pulsed at his temples. His mouth opened, but no words came—only ragged breath as if something were being pulled from inside him.
Benjamin watched without blinking.
Flashes danced behind the elf's eyes—images tearing loose from memory.
A gilded estate bathed in sunlight. Marble corridors echoing with laughter. A boy in silken robes, chasing his brother through the gardens. A father's hand resting heavy on a shoulder. Expectations. Legacy. Nobility.
And then—the shift.
Smoke. Blood on pale skin. The boy screaming. The world burning. Screams silenced under heel. Nobility turned to hunger.
Benjamin's brows tightened slightly. His hand trembled.
There was something else.
A crack—like old glass beneath pressure. A fracture inside the elf's mind. It echoed between them.
Benjamin stepped back immediately.
The brute's voice cut the silence, low and uneasy.
"What is this? What's happening?"
The elves chest burst.
A black ice rose erupted from the wound, petals sharp as razors, veins of frozen blood threading crimson through crystal.
In one breath it bloomed full, pinning the corpse upright.
The girl with the black and white hair hair stumbled back, eyes wide. "Whattttt…"
Benjamin stared, unblinking, the crystal's glow fading to a sullen pulse.
"Evocation failsafe," he said, voice flat as frost. "Tied to his secrets. The moment I touched his mind… it triggered."
The brute let out a low whistle and stepped closer.
"Whoever cast this had some serious willpower. Holding a remote evocation like this… on someone? That takes focus and control."
But Benjamin's mind had already drifted.
He had once lived in the mountains of Lebanon, where the cedar trees whispered and the sky stretched clear and high.
A land of peace, of sunlit prayer towers and old stories carved into stone. He had been a boy then barefoot, wide-eyed, loved.
Until the night the stars fell wrong.
The elves came like wind through dry grass—silent, sudden, merciless. Vikril led them himself, clad in black glass armor, his blades humming with unclean energy. They didn't come for war. They came for one thing—a relic, crafted by Benjamin's mother, a gifted arcane smith. A crystal lattice heart designed to amplify magic beyond its natural bounds.
She never gave it willingly.
By the time the fires reached their home, it was too late. Benjamin remembered smoke. Screams. His brother trying to hold the door. His mother pressing the relic to her chest, whispering words he didn't understand—protect, protect, protect—before the wall exploded inward, and Vikril stepped through.
What came next was silence.
And blood.
They found him at dawn, kneeling beside his mother's body, drenched in red, whispering the same name again and again through cracked lips.
"Sir Vikril… Sir Vikril…"
The name never left him.
When the news reached the north, his father came like a storm—The Warbringer. Cloaked in lightning and rage, he tore through the remains of the village, found his son kneeling in ash.
He didn't speak. He only lifted him up.
After that, Benjamin was moved—sent far from the front lines, deep into the land of Judah to live out the rest of his childhood under the watch of those sworn to silence and survival. But vengeance had already rooted itself in his bones.
And now, years later, standing before the shattered remains of an elf ripped apart by a buried enchantment, Benjamin's voice was steel.
"Wherever Vikril is…" he said quietly, "we're getting closer."