A young man with dark blue hair that began with purple roots sat on a rooftop overlooking the capital city. He was wearing rust colored armor with the image of a hairy monster sewed onto his sleeve. He was holding a dagger in his lap with a whetstone resting at his feet. The dagger glimmered sharply in the fading light, the silver metal illuminated by a bright gold. The young man stared towards the sunset, trying to see the last dredges of light disappear behind the horizon. All he could see were towers of smoke that gracefully spun in the wind.

A noise sounded behind him. A heavy thud like a musician pulling the string of a bass reverberated in the air around them followed by the chime of quickly moving steel. A swish of cold air fanned his neck as the sharpened head of a dark purple-black spear. The man lifted his head, seeing his calm expression in the mirror-like surface of the spear. He didn't smile as he met the angry, icy blue eyes of the woman carrying the weapon.

"I will give you one opportunity to explain what the fuck you think you're doing," She threatened, and they both knew she wasn't kidding. She was a woman of many infamous rumors and terrifying titles. She was called Hellhound by the masses. A dog that guarded the gates of hell, tearing demons and wandering souls apart without any mercy. She was the last face people saw when they perished, their bodies being mutilated until they were a mess of bloodied flesh and broken bone. That name came from the fact that she was exactly like the mutt from the depths of purgatory.

Another name she went by, however, was one that only her closest comrades and dead men knew. Covielle was the name that was given to her by the Bard of Avon, Shakespeare. He explained that in the Commedia dell'arte, Coviello (the masculine version of the name) was an adroit and supple character belonging to the zanni category. She had been proud of the name when it was first bestowed upon her. Now, all she knew is that it was the chain that held her to her sins. It was the name of a sly and conceited servant who obeyed the whims of its master. Perhaps the clever bard had been predicting her future when he called her that and put her in the care of the Chamberlain Troupe.

"You are awfully kind to allow me a moment to explain my decisions. If I were any other soul, I would have already been stabbed through the stomach and impaled with dozens of cursed thorns," The man said, pushing the spear away with his finger. The weapon twisted out of his grasp, coming to a stop when it hit Covielle's back.  The man in front of her was known as Magnifico. The man before her shared many qualities with the actor from the Commedia dell'arte. They were thinkers who used their intelligence to remain in control of the situation. They carried themselves with grace and superiority. They looked down on people metaphorically and literally. They were determined and egotistical. The only difference is that the character made it clear he was in charge; the man in front of her was fond of playing the puppeteer. He was the first person Shakespeare had recruited, and no one knew where he came from before that. His secondary sponsor provided him with significant strength, but he rarely used it. He preferred to send his subordinates, comrades, and the little shadow monsters he conjured to do his bidding.

"You can't weasel your way out of this one, Cyrus," Coviello spat out the name. It was Magnifico's real name. It wasn't a title Shakespeare gave him or a name the masses called him. It was a name Magnifico gave himself, and that made it all the more powerful. When his true name was called, something important or horribly wrong had happened. In this case, both had happened.

"Before you start demanding something as valuable as information, you need to take a good look at yourself. Can you handle the truth? Will you be able to put your emotions aside to critically think about what I have to say? The answer is no. You are an excellent and brutal fighter, Coviello, but you are not as clever as you would like to be. You are meant to follow orders and trust that I have your and the world's best interest at heart," Magnifico said with a bitter laugh rising in his words. Each sentence was as sharp as a knife and heavy as thunder. Magnifico wasn't just trying to hurt her feelings. No, that would be too elementary for him. He was trying to make her feel small and weak, like her value only came from being his puppet. She had been on the receiving end of this manipulation enough times to identify it at a glance.

"The seconds are ticking away, and my patience is growing thin," Covielle responded with a hint of emotion on her tongue. She couldn't hide the fact that she felt things, especially not around someone she had once- and still partially does- consider a friend.

"It seems you will not listen to reason. Fine, I shall tell you the truth. If you believe yourself strong enough to stand without my protection, you should be strong to face the truth," Magnifico said with a hard glint rising in his eyes. "We were sent to the Roman Temple for one specific purpose: to guarantee that the Novus Roman Empire remained strong. The Bard of Avon is repaying his past muse, Julius Caesar, among other Roman characters Shakespeare aspired to be like in his lifetime. Shakespeare has given me the orders to do whatever it takes. Now, you see that this is a golden opportunity. Shakespeare has given me full reigns to do as a wish. We will preserve the Novus Roman Empire. This world will soon fall into line with everyone's allegiance to us. That buffoon who calls himself the Imperator is nothing more than a shell of memories that aren't his and crazed intentions. He's little more than a figurehead for the people to rally around. You and I, and the others, will create a utopia in this world."

"A utopia is just a dystopia with an amazing disguise, and that is exactly what you are creating. What the hell were you thinking when you sent me to Aestas? Those weren't soldiers; they were families. They were simple farmers with their children, barely floating. You told me to slaughter them all," Covielle said, trying hard to keep herself from crying. In her head, she could remember walking into the southern tip of the Roman Temple. It was a small village situated near the coast with small fields filled with crops that were barely surviving. The people didn't recognize her as their enemy. They thought she was a wandering mercenary. They paid her with a meal and a flower crown to kill a monster that had been stalking their fields. Despite her orders, Covielle killed the monster (an angered earth elemental known as a gnome) and returned to find Magnifico watching the sunset with his dagger.

If that wasn't enough, the mission before this one was to attack a group of travelers who had not proven themselves any sort of threat. They were people who wanted to see the world that had a little bit of power to their name. Magnifico had no proof that they would attack the empire, but he had sent Covielle out as his assassin in the night. Covielle had gone against his orders. She didn't murder them. She did hurt them a little and gave them a stern warning.

Dozens of missions rose up in her head of targets she had been given that were innocent.

"It is a shame that you weren't able to kill them. The Aestas province may be small, but it will be a thorn in our side if we allow the rebels to persist. It only takes one spark to start a wildfire, after all. The senator of the area has refused to pledge his allegiance to the empire. Aestes is a rebelling state. The village you went to is responsible for most of Aestes' food. If we could have destroyed it, the senator would have been forced to accept our terms in order to supply for his state," Magnifico explained. His voice was detached from the meaning of the words.

Covielle felt something snap inside of her. She took a step forward. The air began to hum with magical power as she charged her weapon and her armor, a series of interlocked scales that used to belong to a sea monster, with a shadowy energy. The ribbon holding her hair back in a ponytail came undone, the ribbon dancing in the wind as her long brown hair fell down her back like a dirty river. "You wanted me to kill defenseless people who barely knew that a war was happening. You wanted me to watch parents beg for me not to touch their children, for me to see the crying eyes of freshly orphaned children who don't want to die. You told me that we would be helping people!"

"I told you that you would grow emotional. Have you not realized that we are in the middle of a war? The people are rebelling against us when they have no reason to. We provide them with homes, food, protection, and education. We may take certain freedoms away, but do the people really need them? If we left them to their own devices, they would go insane. Chaos would reign supreme. Humans would squabble over the stupidest things as hungry monsters picked them off one by one. If the states would simply submit, everything would be in perfect order. No one would die unnecessarily. No one would go hungry. No child would lose their parents to pointless violence. No parent would lose their child to unsavory vices. Everyone could dress as they like, to learn whatever interests them, and to be whoever they wanted to be. Everything would be in order. Don't you want a world absent of prejudice and hate crimes?" Magnifico explained his vision. This wasn't the first time he talked about it. Magnifico's ideals were always centered around creating the 'perfect' world for people. Covielle never knew why. It could have stemmed from childhood trauma or a show that fascinated him as a child. Whatever the reason was, Covielle didn't care. Magnifico had described the world he wanted to make to her so many times that she believed it would come true. She didn't mind killing people for Magnifico, hoping her bloodied hands could place one more stone brick to the foundation of his utopia.

But this killing she couldn't do. She could kill random men in the night that she had been assured were criminals. She couldn't kill a child in broad daylight for no other reason than the fact that the child could one day be a farmer for a small state that hardly posed a threat to the empire.

This wasn't the first order of his she would refuse or reluctantly do. Magnifico had sent her to poison water sources and hold people hostage. She's tortured as many people as she's outright killed. She bore the ugly looks people gave her as she passed them, all of them knowing and whispering that she was nothing more than a bloodthirsty animal waiting to kill again or be put out of its misery. She's never let them get to her because she was sure that everything would be alright. She wasn't so sure anymore. A lot of things were starting to add up. Magnifico's dark, apathetic looks. The way he precariously used people like pawns, keeping them for their strength and discarding them for their weakness. His willingness to perform public executions and treat war prisoners like they were less than slaves. She had hoped he would be better once the war was over, but would it be too late?

"You're a tyrant. How can you think any of this is okay? I swore I would fight for you and the world you wanted, but you can't make me take innocent lives. We don't have to perpetuate this war. We can end it here. I will do everything I can to crush the resistance, but you have to leave Aestas alone. They may not have sworn allegiance to the empire, but they aren't a threat. They never will be with how undeveloped their world is," Covielle said with an uplifting tone. "I don't like using Imperator August like this, and I don't want to limit people's freedoms. We can think of a way around this, can't we? Everyone can be happy and peaceful, but we can't take away who they are."

"How stupid can you be? The minute we allow the people to do whatever they want is the same minute we give this world up to chaos and violence. The minute I let rebels go free is the minute I start preparing for another massacre. Everything I've done is in the best interests of the people I swore to protect," Magnifico said. He berated her with no emotion in his voice, and that was starting to piss Covielle off.

"Everything you've done? You haven't done anything. You sit in the comfort of your fortress while ordering people around. You tell us who to kill. You tell us who to ally ourselves with. I have slaughtered hundreds for you. The only thing you've ever done is ruin people's lives. With a single word, you create hell for innocent people by using the collection of puppets that have sworn allegiance to the falsified version of yourself that you show them," Covielle finally admitted what she had buried deep because she wanted to believe in Magnifico. He was her friend as well as her commander. They were both Shakespeare's chosen few, and that made a bond between them. It seemed the bond wasn't as unbreakable as she wished it was. "Even now, do you think it was all worth it? The nightmare we've condemned the rebels to live through? The people who swore to follow you out of fear and not loyalty?"

"As I expected, you will never understand the complexities of politics and leadership. I am prepared to make the difficult decisions. You say I am little more than a puppet-master, but you should not say this as if it is a bad thing. I will lead our people to freedom and prosperity. I hope that you will join me on this journey," Magnifico said, lifting his hand with a bright smile alighting his face. It wasn't the first time he had smiled. It wasn't a rare sight. No, the rare sight was seeing a real smile on his face, not a fake one.

Covielle took another step forward. All her charged magic faded away as she did. She didn't need her armor or powers to pierce Magnifico's chest with her spear. She closed the distance between them in less than a second. Covielle couldn't bear to look him in the eyes. She could hear the sharp, soft intake of breath as Magnifico registered the pain.

"The dog finally bites the hand of the hand that feeds it," Magnifico said, his voice barely quivering even though he was well on his way to dying. If not from the spear wound, then by the curse that pulsated in Gae Bolg. "I knew you would retaliate one day. Out of all of us, you were the kindest. You were willing to give up your innocence and purity for the chance to create a world where people could laugh and smile together without a hint of hatred. Why must you reject that ideal?"

"Your ideal is beautiful. The world you want to create is something I wish to see. But you are a tyrant who abuses his power in order to keep people in line. You've already shown that you're paranoid. You've attacked people for the sole fact that they are strong. You've hurt people and manipulated them in order to get what you want," Covielle said. She tried to keep her emotions in check, but a tear fell to the ground as she stared towards the roof of a Novus Roman house.

"Even now, you are weak. I know the ability of this spear. I know what misery you are saving me from even though you believe I am the worst type of person that can exist. You know that this simple act will not kill me. For all your brutality, you are nothing but a tamed dog that craves orders and validation," Magnifico said with a glare. When his words had finished, his figure was enveloped in a blaze of purple and blue flames. The fire consumed his entire body until gray ashes were resting against the spear. Covielle jumped into the air, narrowly avoiding the shadowy fist of a giant puppet that Magnifico must have summoned. Covielle twisted her spear, pressing the head into the puppet's chest to make it dissolve back into shadows.

Magnifico stood on the other side of the roof. There were no wounds on his chest. A ball of inky abyss surrounded by black mist so heavy it fell to the ground rested in his hands. Magnifico stared at Covielle with an emptiness returning to his eyes. "If you insist on standing in my way, you are a threat of the Novus Roman Empire. You remember the law about traitors, do you not?"

"It's the same law concerning anyone you think is a threat, even when they aren't," Covielle responded, attempting to strike Magnifico with her spear. He dodged the attempt while summoning another puppet. His puppets were vaguely humanoid in shape with a texture like rough fur and glassy eyes and claws. The puppets came in varying sizes, and Magnifico could manipulate the shape to an extent. Covielle had sparred against these creatures for a long time, so she knew their weaknesses.

"You know the law better than anyone since you're the executioner," Magnifico relented. Covielle's grip on her spear tightened. Besides taking on the strongest opponents for Magnifico, she was the one that performed public executions. In the beginning, she believed it to be a necessary evil. After researching the various people she was ordered to execute, Covielle realized that she had been played. Most of the people were criminals who had done awful things, but there were a few people who were nothing more than people whispering of rebellion or providing services to Magnifico's political enemies. They were innocent people fed up with how their rights were being revoked, or they were just doing their jobs for people Magnifico didn't like. Covielle shuddered to think how many times Magnifico had convinced her to complete her mission despite knowing that she would consider it immoral and wrong.

Covielle brought her foot into the air to slam it into the head-like structure at the top of the puppets frame. Her foot went right through the shadows, and the puppet dissolved into mist once more. Covielle's foot continued with its momentum. She landed on the ground, her spear twisting around her back to snap into the body of Magnifico. He glared once more at her as fire consumed him. He appeared back where he started, brandishing his dagger along with another, larger puppet.

Magnifico was powerful. He was intelligent, deadly, and he knew how to use people to his advantage. His power came from knowing how to move the pieces around a chessboard. Covielle, on the other hand, was powerful physically, and that's how they were fighting. Unless he could outwit her, she was going to win. He would eventually run out of mana, nullifying his ability to summon puppets and resurrect himself.

Covielle barely had to look at the puppet before it was dissolving. She threw her spear down, and Magnifico raised his dagger up to block the weapon. While she was able to parry her spear, he didn't even see her foot come up to kick him in the side. Magnifico made a pained sound as he shot across the rooftop. He slammed against the small wall that bordered the rooftop. Covielle glared down at him with glowing blue eyes that contrasted her black mask.

"Even now, you are holding back," Magnifico said as he stood onto his feet, pressing a hand to the small wall to help support his weight. Even though he was in a lot of pain, they both knew that Covielle had used a limited amount of her strength. If she wanted to, he would have broken the small wall to fly towards the neighboring roof, probably rolling off to hit the ground.

"Maybe I don't really want to kill you. Maybe I just want to beat some sense into you," Covielle responded as she walked towards Magnifico with slow steps. Most people would have cowered away, but Magnifico charged forward with his dagger. Covielle twisted her spear to knock him away like a baseball hitting a bat. Magnifico rolled to another side of the rooftop. Like last time, Covielle had not used her full strength. She was either toying with him, or she was sincere when she said she was trying to reform him through violence. Perhaps even she didn't know why she was allowing Magnifico to live when it would be so easy to take his life however many times it was necessary.

"Every choice I've made is for the good of the Novus Roman Empire," Magnifico protested as if that made all the difference.

"Every choice you've made has been for your own good. You senselessly slaughter anyone who could ever potentially be a threat, no matter how slim the odds. You play people like puppets on string, telling them what you want them to know so they'll do whatever you want. I'm done being your slave, Magnifico," Covielle responded as she approached once more to batter and bruise this rendition of his body.

"You are keeping me alive. Is that not what I want?" Magnifico retorted with a snort. This was probably the most emotion Covielle had ever seen from him, and all it took was throwing him around like a ragdoll to see it.

"I'm doing this for you. I'm doing this for the people of the Novus Roman Empire. Imperator August is a fool. He's mad with power and drunk with luxury. He's even worse than you. I can't kill both of you without making myself a lot of enemies and creating a power vacuum. I can't kill one of you because you two keep each other in balance. You keep Imperator August from completely giving in to his whims, and he keeps the title of Imperator from your hands. I didn't come here today to tell you that I'm quitting. I didn't come here today to kill you. I came to tell you that I won't blindly follow orders. Shakespeare chose both of us, not just you. We're a team," Covielle said, grabbing Magnifico by the lapels, dragging him onto his feet. She continued lifting until he was off the ground. Magnifico didn't struggle or fight. He looked down at her with those bitterly empty eyes like she was a child throwing a tantrum. Covielle snarled, throwing Magnifico to the ground. He fumbled, crashing face first into the rooftop. "When you think of hurting another innocent, remember this moment. Remember this pain and remember my mercy."

Covielle turned around to jump off the roof. She bent her knee muscles slightly, and... a sharp pain blossomed in her back and chest. A breath flew out of her mouth like a ragged, deflated sigh. She brought a hand up to her skin to see that she had been stabbed through the heart with Magnifico's dagger. She dropped her spear as she fell onto the ground. It felt like she had been stabbed with a flash of lightning, brilliantly hot and painful. She turned her head slightly to see Magnifico glaring down at her with only one hand on the dagger's hilt. How in the world did this measly blade pierce her armor?

"This is Medea's Dagger. It allows the user to commit an act of betrayal with no interference. I do not know why this is considered an act of betrayal, however, since you attacked me first," Magnifico lamented this fact as he pulled the dagger out. The surface was a shimmering crystal instead of a reflective metal. Covielle looked down at her bloody hands. The reason this was a betrayal was because even though Covielle attacked first, it was a punishment for his sins. He wouldn't have died. Magnifico had received a healing factor from his other investor that no one could defeat. Covielle, on the other hand, didn't have any way to heal herself. She was a goner.

"I did not want it to come to this. I don't like killing people, especially not directly. I quite hate it, actually. But you cannot stand in my way. Everything I do is for the safety and happiness of my people. You are nothing but a snake that has snuck into my garden. You are a dog that must be put down for its own good," Magnifico stated. For a moment, Covielle wondered if this was for the greater good. She was just as responsible for those innocent killings as the master who ordered her to perform them were.

But dammit, she didn't want to die. She wanted to live. She was so unbearably angry at Magnifico, and this rage expanded until she started to hate everything else in the world. The rest of the Chamberlain Troupe were just as to blame for her death. The Novus Roman Empire could perish for all she cared. The people of the empire's happiness came at the cost of innocent people. They scorned her when she did everything she could to preserve their safety. She hated them, she hated Shakespeare and his troupe, and she abhorred Magnifico. Her hatred built in her like a fast-moving plague, a parasite that ate away at every other emotion. She wanted them to pay. She wanted them to suffer.

As her soul left her body and her eyes slid shut, a mysterious skill of hers activated in response to her dying anger. Magnifico began to walk away, but his body was slammed forward as Covielle's body exploded with energy. She opened her eyes to reveal black sclera with glowing red eyes. Her body lifted above the ground as a red mist charged with scarlet lightning surrounded her. The armor she wore broke apart underneath the intense energy, falling to the ground in black chunks. She was left wearing a padded cloth that seemed to be desperately holding together at the seams as the light brown leather was dyed with the color of blood. Her spear shot towards her hand, burning with a smokeless fire. As soon as her fingers wrapped around the spear, a vine of sharp black thorns shot out to wrap around her wrist. Covielle didn't show any reaction as the blood started to slide down her arm onto the spear. In fact, she didn't seem concerned about any of the ebony cracks that were appearing across her skin. Covielle's mouth slid open to release a loud, booming scream that sounded like the roar of a thousand thunders.

Covielle landed on the ground with enough force that the entire building shattered like glass. Magnifico was barely able to cling to anything as he rolled across the falling debris. When his body hit the ground, it was consumed with lavender blue flames. He stood back up in a freshly healed body, looking around for the monster he had accidentally released.

Covielle was no more. Her soul had departed from this world. It was hatred that filled the husk of that body using the reality-altering powers of Ríastrad. It was a skill bestowed by the Hound of Ireland, Cu Chuliann. It was in reference to his own warp spasms. It didn't take on the same form, but it was the same battle frenzy that couldn't distinguish between friend or foe. It was a hulk with the strength of a thousand warriors and the speed of a majestic falcon. Anyone inflicted with that skill would trade their intelligence for raw power, and without anyone strong enough to stop her, Covielle was going to destroy this Temple. She would kill anything that moved, animal or human. She was especially dangerous with that spear of hers, the cursed Gae Bolg.

"Oh, shit," Magnifico muttered as he noticed that Covielle wasn't among the rumble. She was gone, and he didn't know where her bloodthirsty mind would take her.