"Don't you think…" he began, eyes locked onto the killers like a vulture studying carcasses, "…you talk too much for ants?"
His tone didn't shout, didn't plead. It simply was. A quiet threat, wrapped in arrogance that only royalty or madness could wear.
[DING! Forget the dragon, The Phoenix has awakened!]
"BROTHER!"
The girl's voice cracked, rough with panic, as she grabbed at his sleeve. Her hands trembled. Her breathing was uneven, like she couldn't get enough air in. Her silver hair stuck to her face, damp from sweat and fear.
Her throat tightened.
She didn't understand what was happening, only that Ser Willem Darry lay crumpled on the ground behind them, his head twisted at an unnatural angle, blood soaking into the dirt beneath him.
One of the assassins had split his throat open like a pig at the butcher's table. He hadn't even screamed. and now her brother was walking straight toward the mans who killed him and worse.... He was mocking them.
He was all she had left. Even if he treated her like garbage, snapping at her, using her, blaming her for things that weren't her fault, he was still her brother. And if he died now, she'd be alone. That thought alone made her eyes sting, her chest tighten.
It wasn't love. It was survival. Nothing more.
At least for now....
But Viserys didn't look back in fear or anger. He didn't even flinch. His eyes stayed fixed on the assassin, and when he did glance over his shoulder, he raised one finger to his lips.
"Shhhhh," he said like he was scolding a child who asked too many questions.
Then he smiled.
Not a happy smile. Not a comforting one. Just a cold, unnatural curl of the lips. It didn't make her feel better, it made her take a step back.
Viserys said, "Everything will be okay, Dan," with that same fake calmness people use when they lie through their teeth.
Daenerys felt her skin crawl.
That wasn't how her brother smiled. Not even close. His real smiles were rare and usually smug, mean, or fake. This one? It didn't look like him at all. It looked like something else was wearing his face.
She didn't say it out loud, but the words screamed in her head:
'My brother doesn't smile like that.'
As Viserys spoke to Daenerys, the assassin behind him shifted his weight and raised his sword.
His grip was tight, knuckles white, blood still fresh on the blade from Ser Willem. He took a step forward, boots quiet on the damp cobblestone, blade lifted for a downward strike.
He was ready to make Viserys the Gojo of Planetos.
Daenerys saw the movement behind her brother and froze. Her throat tightened. Everything that was happening was reflected in her purple eyes.
"Bro—" she tried to warn him, but that was all she managed.
CRACK.
Viserys shifted his weight and drove his knee straight up into the assassin's balls. Not a warning hit, full force. Hip behind it.
The kind of blow that turned men into eunuchs. The assassin lifted clean off the ground, just an inch, but it was enough.
His mouth opened like he wanted to scream, but nothing came out. The sword slipped from his grip. Both hands flew between his legs like he was trying to keep his manhood from falling out.
He didn't scream. Didn't even breathe. Just collapsed. First to his knees, then sideways, smacking into the wall like a sack of meat.
Viserys didn't spare him a look. His eyes stayed on Daenerys. He let out something halfway between a laugh and a scoff.
"Were you truly afraid We would die to that?" he said. "That's cute."
Daenerys didn't respond. Her face had gone pale. She looked between the twitching man on the ground and her brother like she wasn't sure who scared her more.
Viserys crouched without breaking eye contact and picked up the fallen blade. Tested the grip. Light. Balanced enough for what he needed.
Then he looked past her.
The second assassin was at the alley's mouth. He hadn't moved. Just stood there, feet apart, staring like an idiot at the scene in front of him. Sword in hand. Not raised. Just confused and pissed off.
Viserys didn't wait.
He was trained in this stuff. Proper stance. Smooth draw like a knight at court. A quick, Rough Looking two-handed throw, arm locked, chest twisting, all weight behind it.
The blade turned once in the air.
And punched through the man's throat.
No scream. No stagger. He dropped like a butchered pig, the blade still stuck in his neck.
Viserys let out a breath and turned back.
The first assassin was still alive. Barely. Knees on the cobblestone, swaying. Hands trembling. Blood and spit leaking from his mouth. One of his hands reached for something under his tunic.
A knife.
Viserys saw it. Didn't flinch. Just brought his boot down hard on the man's wrist.
CRUNCH
The sound was sharp. Clean. The man let out a raw, wet scream—high-pitched, almost inhuman.
"Ah—AAAHHH—!"
He buckled over, gasping, trying not to puke or pass out.
Viserys didn't look impressed.
"AAAAAAGHHHHHHH—! MY FUCKING HAND—AGHHHH!"
The scream tore down the alley like a dying animal's cry—raw, panicked, and too loud for a man trying to survive.
Viserys didn't flinch. He just looked at his own hand, turning it slightly in the air like a blacksmith eyeing a blade. Calm. Detached.
"We've got pretty long nails, Haven't We?" he said flatly, like he'd just noticed a scratch on a goblet. His voice didn't match the gore around him. His boot was still painted with blood.
The other assassin lay dead a few feet away, the sword still stuck in his throat like a flag marking failure.
The bastard under his foot tried to fight. Tried to shove Viserys off with one good arm, grunting like a dying dog.
Viserys leaned in and drove his boot into the man's jaw, not enough to break it, just enough to make his teeth grind and his mouth snap shut.
"Let's put them to use."
He dropped to a crouch. Calm. Surgical. His fingers hovered above the man's neck like a butcher sizing up a cut.
Then.... he stabbed them in.
Dirty nails, uneven and jagged, shoved straight into the soft skin between the collarbone and jawline. The assassin let out a hoarse, wet cry, more noise than words.
"Ahhg—gkh—!"
Blood spilled fast. Thick. Sticky. Warm.
The man's legs kicked weakly. Reflex. Nothing useful. His good hand clawed at the ground. He couldn't scream anymore, only let out pitiful gasps like a pig choking on its own blood.
Viserys didn't blink. He kept pushing his fingers in until they sank past the knuckle. When they hit resistance, he didn't stop. He just adjusted his angle and leaned down harder.
"Stop making that noise," he muttered, voice low. His boot ground down on the man's face until his skull smacked the stone with a dull thud.
One yank.
CRUNCH.
Something snapped. Then came the wet, sticky schlkkk of flesh tearing. Viserys rose, his hand clenched tight around a chunk of something pink and fibrous.
Throat cartilage.
The man twitched like a fish out of water, then went still.
Viserys wiped his hand on the corpse's tunic like it was just grease. He looked down with the same expression a man might have after finding a spoiled piece of meat.
Viserys turned, cartilage still glistening in his grip like some grotesque ornament plucked from a dying beast. It dangled, limp and red, a sliver of slaughter clinging to him like a badge.
His smile barely touched his lips, crooked, almost childish, if one could ignore the gore caked beneath his nails.
"Look at this, Dany," he said, voice thin, almost airy, as if discussing weather or stones. "Ugly little thing, isn't it?"
But Daenerys wasn't looking.
She wasn't even upright.
He blinked, once. Then again.
Her small form had folded in on itself near the wall, limbs askew, head lolling sideways like a broken doll. Her eyes had rolled, whites glinting beneath fluttering lashes, and a single shoe lay discarded beside her, as if she'd been dropped mid-flight.
A sound came from her throat—faint, wet, and shapeless. Not quite a word. Not quite alive.
Viserys crouched beside her, gore still clutched in one hand, gaze steady.
"She fainted," he muttered, as if saying it aloud made it less pathetic.
He sniffed, then glanced again at the chunk of flesh, the blood now drying in ragged streaks across his palm. "From this?" he asked, more to the alley shadows than her.
A sigh slithered out from his chest. He wiped his hand lazily on the inside of his coat, then let the cartilage drop with a dull, wet thud into the dirt.
"Targaryens used to ride dragons," he said. "Now they faint at the sight of meat torn from a dog's neck."
He lingered in the silence for a moment, then let a thin smirk tug at the corner of his mouth.
"We'll have to fix that, little sister. Sooner or even sooner."
"Maybe We should give you some puppies," he said, voice low, like he was thinking out loud. "Tiny things. Soft. Barely old enough to walk."
He took a slow step forward. His boots scraped against the stone floor. She didn't move.
"Let them follow you around. Sleep curled against your side. Whine when you leave. Make you love them."
Another step. Close now. Close enough that she could smell the iron on his breath.
"Then throw you in a dungeon with them. No food. No light. Just four walls and those little pups looking up at you, starving too."
He tilted his head slightly, watching her like someone watching a fire catch.
"See how long it takes before you stop crying and start chewing. Piece by piece. Raw. Bones cracking between your teeth."
He smiled. A small, crooked thing that looked more like habit than emotion.
"Just joking."
A beat passed.
'Or maybe not' ,he thought.
He bent down and grabbed Daenerys by the wrist. Her skin was cold, pale. She didn't resist, limp as wet cloth.
With a grunt, he pulled her upright and slung her onto his back. She weighed nothing. Like a sack of feathers. Her legs dangled loosely as he adjusted his grip.
"Let's see what it's like to have an innocent sister," he muttered, the words laced with dry amusement as he adjusted her weight. "In this life, at least."
Her thighs were soft. Too soft. His fingers sank into them as he held her in place, her body light, fragile, like she might break just from the hold.
In his last life, innocence had been just another tool. A mask his sisters wore in public before drawing blades in the dark. One accused him of rape after he refused her bed.
Another smiled at him over wine she'd laced with poison. One wanted to kill his carpenter friend.
And the last…
The last had gone too far. She opened the gates to the Persians after Augustus died. Invited them in like honored guests. All for a crown of her own.
They paid for it. Every one of them.
The punishments were so brutal the Senate tried to bury the records in the depts of underworld, They tried to preserve the reputation of their beloved Son of Mars, the Restorer of the World.
But Rome remembered. The people always remembered. And they gave him a new name:
The Demon Imperator.
They still loved him. Romans always loved monsters, So long as they conquered in Rome's name.
When his memories came back in this world, he wasn't shocked. Elysium was a fool's dream. Rebirth made more sense. A second chance. A new empire to raise.
There was work to be done.
Rome would rise again. Not the weak husk that bowed to barbarians. Not the corrupt mess that whored out the Senate to keep the peace.
He would rebuild it. From blood and fire, from the bones of this world if needed.
ROMA INVICTA!
Damn. Force of habit.
He took a step, Daenerys still draped over his back like a sleeping doll....
Then a voice echoed through his skull.
{Ding! Caesar has avoided Canon Events}
{The Roman Empire Template Has Awakened!}
{Three Eggs of ????????? Have Been Tributed to the Caesar!}
He froze.
A glowing screen flickered into existence before his eyes, translucent and humming softly with unnatural light. It hovered in the air, pulsing like a heartbeat.
His brow twitched.
{Author's Note: How's the tale so far, my good Senators? 🤔 Perhaps you'd be so kind as to leave a comment… or, dare I say it, offer a few power stones to your loyal Author.
Consider it... a contribution to the Republic.
None of those peasants will ever know. I pinky swear 🤙}