Sebastian Everett-Bryce built himself an empire.

That's what the sign said anyway.


Somebody slapped that shit across this big stone archway in gold. Even had little flags hanging off the top and Sebastian's stupid face carved into both sides.

They'd chiseled his jaw stronger than in real life.

That big stupid arch sat there mocking Gravy.

"Huh..."

He reached up and dug his thumbnail into one of the gold letters.

The paint chipped right off.

"Cheap fucker."

He wiped the shiny shit onto his chest, already itching to break more.

From a distance, the city looked nice. White buildings. Shiny roofs. Big towers sticking up everywhere. Statues. Fountains. People wandering around in clean clothes, smiling like the whole damn place wasn't one hard sneeze away from falling over.

But up close?

It looked like shit.

One wall had a crack running from the foundation all the way to the top. Somebody had hung a banner down the side to try and hide it.

There were workers on damn near every roof. Hammering. Painting. Carrying chunks of rock around. One guy was holding up a gold piece of trim trying to nail it back on.

Gravy stopped to watch.

The hammer missed its mark and smashed his thumb.

"DAMNIT!"

Gravy laughed and kept walking.

In the middle of the street stood a statue of Sebastian holding the Universal Championship over his head. He had one boot planted on some generic enemy. Whoever it was didn't have a face.

Probably saved money on royalties that way.

Gravy circled it a few times in awe.

He leaned in and read the little gold plaque.



Gravy looked up at the statue.

"Really? Conqueror my ass."

He slapped the side of it.

It echoed like an empty barrel.

"Well, that ain't good."

"Please do not touch the monument."

Gravy turned to find a skinny little fella standing behind him in purple robes. He had a stack of papers tucked under one arm and a gold necklace with Sebastian's face stamped on it.

He looked like the kinda guy who got real upset whenever somebody folded the corner of a book page.

Gravy locked eyes with him and slapped the statue again.

The skinny man flinched.

"I said, please do not touch it!"

"Yeah, I heard ya."

"Then why did you do it again?"

Gravy shrugged.

"Cause I can."

The man sucked air through his nose.

"That monument was commissioned personally by His Majesty to commemorate the beginning of a new age."

Gravy looked at the statue and then back at him.

"Who's the fella under his boot supposed to be?"

The man glanced down at the faceless body.

"It is meant to represent the past."

"Past got tits?"

Alistair glanced at the suspiciously rounded chest.

"It is symbolic."

"Of Sebastian steppin' on some bitch?"

"I didn't sculpt it!"

"Well, don't yell at me!"

The man closed his eyes for a second.

"My name is Alistair. I am the official historian and Royal Curator of the SEB Empire."

Gravy nodded slowly.

"Okay..."

Gravy just kept staring at him.

"That means I am responsible for preserving the history of this kingdom."

"Oh."

Gravy looked him up and down.

"So you know where all the good shit is?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"The important places. Throne room. Treasure room. Secret tunnels. Where Sebastian keeps his little crown when he's sleepin'."

Alistair took a step back.

"I will not assist you in robbing His Majesty!"

"Wasn't askin'."

Gravy grabbed a fistful of robe and started walking.

Alistair did his best to keep up.

"Wh... what are you doing!?"

"You're givin' me a tour."

"I absolutely am not!"

Gravy stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"You wanna do it walkin', or you wanna do it with two broken legs and me draggin' you by that stupid necklace?"

"...walking would be preferable."

"Smart man."

Gravy let him go.

Alistair straightened his robes while muttering something under his breath.

"What was that?"

"I merely said His Majesty built this empire from nothing... while men like you only know how to destroy."

Gravy looked around.

A worker was spreading fresh white paint over a burnt patch on the side of a building.

The paint was thin and the black kept bleeding through.

Gravy poked the wall. It was brittle and crumbled when he touched it.

Alistair hurried over.

"Please stop damaging the construction!"

Gravy glanced at him.

"Thought you said he built it from nothin'."

"He did..."

"This wall don't look like nothin'."

"Well... Some parts were restored."

Gravy grinned.

"Restored."

"The city suffered considerable damage before His Majesty's rise."

"Yeah, I know."

"He built this grand empire over the conquered land that lay here before."

He looked around at all the rushed paintin’. The shitty carpentry. The workers slavin’ away, probably doin’ it for free.

"Oh, I get it."

"I'm not sure that you do!"

"No, no. I seen this shit before."

Gravy wiped the paint onto Alistair's robe.

"Sebastian's doin' a landlord special."

Alistair looked down at the white smear.

"A what?"

"Don't worry about it."

Gravy rested his axe across his shoulder.

"C'mon, history boy."

Gravy started walking deeper into the city.

"Don't make me turn around..."

After a few seconds, Alistair followed.

The street led into a courtyard surrounded by tall white columns.

At the top of a long set of stairs sat another big building with Sebastian's face carved above the doors.

Of course it fucking was.


Gravy stopped at the bottom of the steps.

"What's this shit?"

Alistair cleared his throat.

"The Hall of New Beginnings records His Majesty's many triumphs over adversity."

"Got a gift shop?"

"No."

"Bathroom?"

"It is a museum!"

Gravy looked up at the building again.

"BORING!"

He started up the stairs.

Alistair hurried after him.

"You should understand that the exhibits within are considered sacred."

"Should I?"

"Yes."

"I don't."

Gravy shoved the doors hard. It sounded like a cannon as they slammed against the inner walls.

Paintings covered both sides of the room. Each had a light shining on it like somebody was scared you might miss how important it was.

The first one Gravy approached showed Sebastian on his knees, a dark shadow looming over him while another man held the Universal Championship over his head.

The plaque beneath it read:


Gravy squinted.

"Who'd he lose to?"

"Prince Adeyemi. A loss that occurred because His Majesty allowed personal conflict to cloud his focus."

"Don't got his name anywhere on that plaque?"

"The identity of the opponent is not the important part."

"Heh, yeah. I bet Isaiah thinks different."

He kept walking.


Gravy stood in front of that one longer than the last.

He looked at Sebastian sitting against the barricade in the painting. The artist had made him look thoughtful and deep. Gravy thought he looked like somebody had just kicked the piss out of him.

"What happened here?"

"His Majesty was eliminated from the March Madness tournament."

"First round, right? Pffft, loser..."

Alistair shifted uncomfortably.

"That detail is not especially relevant."

Gravy smiled.

"Yeah, I bet it ain't."

"His Majesty suffered a temporary setback and used it to rediscover his path."

"Sounds like His Majesty shit the bed."

"He learned."

"He lost."

"He grew."

"Still lost."

Alistair tightened his jaw.

"You seem determined to misunderstand the point of this place!"

"No, I understand it just fine. Every time Sebastian is defeated, somebody writes a fancy little sentence underneath it and presents it as somethin' other than what it is. Lots of losers do that."

"His Majesty has never hidden from his failures!"

"Never said he hid from 'em."

At the far end of the hall stood the biggest exhibit yet.

A massive painting showed Sebastian climbing out of darkness with the briefcase in one hand and the other reaching for the Universal Championship floating in the heavens.


Something about the gold lettering didn't sit right. Wrong color. Wrong texture.

Gravy didn't ask permission this time. He just walked up and dug his fingers in.

"Don't!"

It peeled away from the stone.

It wasn't painted onto the wall. Just a thin sheet of gold leaf stuck over something grey.

"Please!"

Gravy hooked his fingers underneath it and yanked.

The sheet tore away as Alistair gasped like he'd just seen a baby's head ripped off right in front of him.

Carved deep into old stone underneath were five words.


Gravy read it and looked at Alistair.

"Well, that's mean."

"That is a dated inscription that has since been revised."

"The old one looks pretty permanent to me."

"His Majesty confronted and overcame that moment of weakness."

Gravy rubbed his hand over the carved letters.

They were deep.

Deeper than the fresh shit Sebastian had stuck over them.

"Nah. He said it out loud, felt real smart about knowin’ it, even took the time to inscribe it into stone.

But somebody should have told Sebastian that paintin’ over the truth don’t make it less fuckin’ true."

Alistair opened his mouth to say something, but Gravy drove the axe into the wall before he could.

The stone split straight through the word irrelevant.

Alistair jumped.

"C'mon."

"What are you doing!?"

Gravy looked past a set of tall windows to the tallest tower in the empire.

"I wanna see what else the son of a bitch is hiding."

He headed for the doors.

Alistair hurried after him.

The tower sat in the center of the city like a giant middle finger.


Gravy stared at it for a moment.

"Permanence?"

"The tower represents everything His Majesty has built. A legacy that will stand long after all of us are gone."

Gravy pointed halfway up.

"It's leanin'."

"It is not."

"Yeah it is."

Alistair looked.

It was.

"A trick of the light!"

Gravy walked toward it.

Stones were all jumbled like a bad puzzle.

Gravy scratched at the mortar holding them together.

It came loose like dried out cake icing.

"What's this one?"

He tapped a polished white stone with the head of his axe.

Alistair hesitated.

"That came from the original Everett-Bryce estate."

"So his daddy's house."

"His family's estate."

"Daddy's house."

Gravy moved his axe toward a rough grey stone.

"That belonged to Ralf."

"Who's Ralf?"

"His Majesty's mentor."

Gravy nodded.

"So that ain't his neither."

"That is not the point."

Gravy tapped another.

This one had a faded crown carved into it.

"That came from the tower His Majesty built with Isaiah King."

"Didn't that one fall?"

Alistair's face soured.

"They rebuilt."

"Seems they're missing a piece."

Near the center sat a bright gold block.

It was newer than everything around it.

"Let me guess. Scoops?"

Alistair lifted his chin proudly.

"The final piece. His Majesty defeated the one man he believed he could not beat and completed the tower."

Gravy nodded.

"Yeah. He beat Scoops."

Alistair seemed surprised.

"You admit that?"

"Course I do. I ain't blind."

Gravy stepped around the side of the tower.

Back here, the foundation was old and charred.

His smile disappeared.

He knew those stones.

He remembered the fire.

He remembered what stood here before Sebastian slapped his name all over it.

Alistair hurried around the corner.

"You are not permitted back here."

Gravy placed his hand against the blackened foundation.

"These are mine."

"No, they're part of the kingdom that came before."

Gravy looked at him.

"Mine."

"His Majesty took what was left and made it greater."

Gravy turned back toward the tower.

All those stones stacked on top of Graves' ruins and held together with cheap mortar.

"Funny. You once promised to use the stones from somebody else's fallen tower to strengthen your own.

Guess you never thought the bastard you stole ’em from would come take one back."

Gravy wedged the blade of his axe into the foundation.

"Do not remove that stone!"

Dust poured from the cracks as he pulled.

"That is part of the foundation!"

"I know!"

He planted his boot against the wall and pulled harder.

Finally, the stone tore free causing the tower to groan and lean a little more.

He dropped the stone in the street and took a seat, resting his axe on his knees as he looked toward the palace.

"Now let's talk about that belt."

High above the palace, a banner of Sebastian snapped in the wind. His chin was lifted and one hand raised like he was blessing the poor bastards beneath him.

Around his waist, the Universal Championship shined brighter than everything else in the empire.

Gravy stared at it for a second as Alistair looked up at the leaning tower.

"You have no idea what you've done!"

"Sure I do.

I pulled one stone.

That's all it took."

He looked back to the palace.

"You hearin' this, Sebastian?"

Alistair glanced toward the palace.

"His Majesty cannot hear you from here."

Gravy picked up a piece of broken stone and threw it at him.

It bounced off Alistair's forehead.

"Wasn't talkin' to you."

Alistair rubbed the fresh red spot between his eyes.

"You got a real cute hustle, Sebastian.

Every time somebody gets close to the truth, you beat 'em there and hang a fuckin' plaque on it. Every failure becomes another brave little chapter."

He shrugged.

"And people eat that shit up.

Ain't Sebastian brave? Standin' there in his expensive fuckin' suit, admitting everything to the world.

Pfft, that's just you pleading guilty to the lesser charge so nobody goes lookin' for the body.

You don't fix your failures, you just hide them under gold."

Workers scrambled to brace the leaning tower.

"Then call the whole fuckin' thing architecture.

You learned how to make failure sound almost intentional, and described the damage so beautifully that nobody noticed you were still fuckin' broken.

I seen you walk through those doors with Betsy too.

Arms around each other. Big smiles plastered across your faces for the fans and cameras.

Then the door shut...

And Betsy starts preachin’ about corporate puppets and rich assholes pullin’ everybody’s strings while standin’ beside a billionaire with an empire on his back.

But Sebastian’s different, right?

Course you are.

You don’t hate empires.

You hate any empire that don't have your initials carved over the fuckin’ door.

You asked Korvayne who she was buildin’ for.

I know who you're building for.

You.

This whole place is Sebastian Everett-Bryce reminding Sebastian Everett-Bryce that he still matters."

The tower groaned behind him.

Gravy didn't bother looking.

"You beat Scoops fair and square. You stood across from the one man you kept tellin' yourself you couldn't beat, and you fuckin' did it.

And won the Universal Championship to boot.

Good for you.

But I cleared the fuckin' field before you ever got there."

Gravy stood from the stone.

"March Madness?

You got tossed out in round one and found yourself wonderin' if you still mattered."

He pointed toward himself.

"I made it all the way to the fuckin' final.

And yeah... I lost.

Scoops beat me that night because I looked across the ring and saw an old fool running on borrowed time.

So I underestimated him.

Mistook desperation for weakness.

And he made me pay for it.

Then I got back up and kept mowing through the roster like it never happened.

You?

Your ass ain't fought since May.

Funny thing is, this ain't even the first time you disappeared in the middle of a fight.

Remember the Director?

Spent half that match pullin' your strings, reactin' to whatever bullshit he dropped.

Then you finally figured him out.

He needed Sebastian Everett-Bryce dancin' like a puppet.

So you sat your ass down and did absolutely nothin' until he couldn't stand it anymore.

Smart.

You beat a man obsessed with control by refusing to give him any."

He scratched his beard and looked toward the palace.

"Then after winnin' the Universal Championship you apparently decided that oughta be your whole fuckin' career strategy.

You called it recovery.

I call it what it is. You got what you wanted, then let everybody else fight while waitin' for the story to come find you."

He laughed.

"Well, I found you, Sebastian!

But I ain't comin' outta some hidden panel.

I'm walkin' straight through your fuckin' city!"

Gravy looked toward the palace.

"That belt tells you people still gotta look at you.

Say your name like it matters.

Pretend like you sit at the center of the fuckin’ universe.

That belt ain’t your crown.

It’s fuckin’ life support.

And the funniest part?

Soon as they hooked you up to it, you stopped showin’ everybody you were still alive.

See, you knew what to do when you were chasin’ that belt.

Whenever you fell on your ass, you could stand back up, straighten that expensive suit and tell everybody what Sebastian Everett-Bryce learned about himself this week before taking those lessons into the next.

Then you finally won the gold, and the story stopped.

Because now fallin' on your ass means losing it all.

You know how to need that championship, Sebastian, but you've forgotten how to be the fuckin’ champion.

A champion takes that belt back into the ring and makes everybody come take their shot.

But you? You took it home and created a fuckin’ hostage situation."

He lifted the axe onto his shoulder.

"I don’t need that gold to convince myself I matter.

All I need it for is proof.

Proof that I can take the most important thing in your whole fuckin’ life...

And wear it like it ain’t nothin’ special.

They threw the number two ranked Game Girl at me.

I beat her.

And the number one ranked Dickie Watson.

Beat him too!

All while you were hidin’ behind those palace walls, polishin’ your new belt and waitin’ for somebody to notice you’d disappeared.

I kept turnin’ bodies into a road leading straight to your front fuckin’ door.

You didn’t conquer an empire, Sebastian.

You stumbled into the ruins after I killed the king...

Found Scoops sittin’ on a throne I’d already ripped loose from the fuckin’ floor, and convinced yourself it had been waitin’ for you all along."

Alistair stepped forward, offended.

"His Majesty earned that championship!"

Gravy spun and drove the axe blade into the ground inches from Alistair’s foot, knocking him backward.

"I fuckin’ said he did, didn’t I?"

He ripped the axe free.

"That’s what makes this worth doin’."

He turned back toward the palace.

"You earned it, Sebastian.

You fought for it. You bled for it.

And winning it was supposed to prove you were fixed.

Relevant again.

But what's more relevant, the king hiding with his gold, or the warrior tearing through the battlefield?"

Gravy slapped his chest.

"Yeah! And now I’m gonna rip the greatest accomplishment of your life outta your hands and leave you with nobody to blame but yourself.

You fucked up.

You blabbed to Thad about that bad neck of yours like it was another pretty confession, but all you did was hand me the map.

Now I know exactly where to keep pressin'.

When that title starts slippin' and your body can't protect the one thing your whole identity depends on...

You're gonna have to look me in the eye and admit the man who needed that championship more than anything couldn’t keep it from this savage."

Gravy started walking toward the palace.

"You told Isaiah he needed somebody to be pissed at before his dick worked.

You ain't no different.

You just need gold.

With that championship, you're content.

And without it, you're right back against that barricade, watchin' the world prove it don't need ya.

Like I said at Warfare...

You didn't choose me, Sebastian.

You got chosen for me."

Another chunk of stone broke loose from the tower and crashed into the street.

"You pasted gold over the sad truth...

And I'm gonna rip it off your waist.

Then we'll see the broken man hidin' underneath."

Gravy kept walking.

Behind him, the tower groaned again.

A crack shot up through the stone, splitting Sebastian's giant golden initials right down the middle.

Workers scattered.

One just stood there holding a hammer, watching everything he'd built fall apart around him.

"Run, dummy!"

The worker dropped the hammer and ran.

Alistair chased after Gravy, holding one hand against his forehead.

"You have to stop!"

"No, I don't."

"The entire city could collapse!"

"Good."

The palace gates came into view.

They were massive.

Gold bars stretched twenty feet into the air, sharpened at the top, with another sculpted Sebastian standing on each side.

One Sebastian had a sword.

The other one held a book.

He pointed at the book.

"Nerd."

A line of guards rushed out from behind the gate, spears ready.

"HALT!"

He didn't.

"DROP THE WEAPON!"

Gravy looked at his axe, then at them.

"No holds barred?"

The first guard lunged. Gravy whipped the axe through the air and into his face, sending him crashing into the others.

As he tore his axe free, blood sprayed across their faces.

With a snarl, he raised his blood soaked axe and beckoned them forward.

Within seconds, the line broke.

One guard even dropped his spear and played dead.

"Smart man."

Alistair stopped behind him, out of breath.

"Please... stop."

As he reached the palace gates, a heavy gold chain held them shut.

He lifted the axe.

Alistair grabbed his arm.

"His Majesty built something that matters!"

Gravy slowly looked down at Alistair's hand.

Alistair quickly let go.

"Maybe...

But it ain't his land."

He brought the axe down.

The chain snapped and the gates swung open.

He walked through.

The throne room doors waited just ahead.

They were covered in gold, with Sebastian’s crest front and center. So polished, he could see his own reflection staring back at him.

Blood smeared face.

Axe in hand.

Big fuckin' smile.

Behind him, the Tower of Permanence finally tapped out and crashed with a roar that shook all the way to the palace steps.

"You preached about Babel.

Said God tears towers down over arrogance.

Then you built one with your name on every fuckin’ brick.

Guess that's why he sent me."

Alistair stared back at the wreckage.

Gravy tightened his grip on the axe.

With only a few swings, the crest split apart!

Then, with a roar, he drove his shoulder through the doors.

They exploded inward as splintered wood scattered across the palace floor!

Resting his axe across his shoulder, he looked toward the terrified servants and guards waiting inside.

"Tell Sebastian the thing he built over just kicked in his fuckin' door."