28 – Revelations

Tommy and Marceline went on their own towards the guild. While Tommy knew that it would be the best to ensure a satisfying outcome with all that’s happened to his ‘brother’, Marceline instead simply didn’t want to interfere in his personal business, and honestly, she was much more concerned with her own affairs. Namely, going to the guild to register herself as head of a party of experienced adventurers who, unfortunately, could not attend the registration itself. So long as they brought back results, her father was not going to pry too deep in the matter.

The hefty bags that were resting on top of the wooden carriage were proof enough of their skill, though. Calvin had offered to make some loot out of his nanites, and while it would have been impossible for anyone to distinguish the fabricated loot from the originals, Tommy was quick to advise against it. Fortunately, close to the capital there still were territories where the roaming monsters had not fully been subjugated yet. It was only a matter of a small detour, then, going there to hunt a couple high tier kills. And so they did. In barely a day the cart was already filled to the brim with valuable parts that were more than befitting of a party of B-ranks like she was. In fact, this could even warrant a promotion to A-rank if the others were present.

While in the hunting fields, the party hunted quickly. Calvin did most of the heavy lifting, being an almost invulnerable juggernaut who could one hit kill almost every single monsters. Eventually, Marceline asked to participate in the fights, having grown bored of watching the inexperienced former hero execute everything with poor form but overwhelming strength. Midway through the hunting transformed itself into a teaching session, where the experienced adventurer showed some tricks to Calvin.

“Unbelievable. You were a hero, and yet you suck this hard.”

“Well, but he’s killing the monsters. You are not.” Tommy said from the cart. He was more than happy to just watch.

“Yes but he cheats.” She replied. Tommy stuck out his tongue, and the other two went back to their sparring.

Then, they resumed their hunt, looking for one last kill before heading to the capital. They were quite close to where they thought they could find some griffins, or so they were told at least, when they saw a pair of people walking around. As soon as the two spotted them, they tensed. The shorter man was as big as a boar, and ready to jump them at any moment. The other man, taller and with white hair, looked much more composed.

“Our turf. Our quest. Get out of here, will ya?” Said the shorter man.

“As he said, but pretend it was not said like an idiot teenager who has read too many manga.” Said the tall guy.

While Calvin wondered about what he was talking about, he noticed that his weapon looked familiar. There was a golden gauntlet in his right arm, and on it there were six shining gems of various color. The tall man followed Calvin’s gaze on his gauntlet, and smirked almost imperceptibly.

“We don’t want to fight. We’ll go.” Marceline said.

It surprised bot Tommy and Calvin, seeing her so meek. Knowing her, they expected something different. Calvin was, however, still mulling over the words and the gauntlet. His memory from earth seemed to contain references to both things, although not from the 24^th century when the nanites were from, but from before. Were these two travelers from earth? How did they get here, a tower?

He was about to ask, but then noticed that Marceline had readied a stealth attack while they weren’t watching. He tried to stop her, but was a moment too late. She disappeared, and reappeared right behind the tall man, her sword swinging down on his head.

CLING

It stopped, hitting an impassable wall of translucent energy. Calvin noticed that the blue gem on the gauntlet was shining with a light from within. Then, the gem faded and the violet one glowed. The man made a fist with his weapon, and hit Marceline, sending her flying away in an explosion of force and evergy.

Seeing this, Calvin unleashed his nanites, that had been silently seeping into the surroundings all the while. They came at the duo from every direction, boxing them in a silver death trap. But another gem lit up in the gauntlet, the green one, then the blue, and in a flash both men were gone.

Calvin sighed, and rushed to Marceline to heal her. With his improved knowledge of physiology that he obtained with his ever-increasing memories from Earth, he treated her injuries in mere moments.

“What was that?”

“The infinity gauntlet. A fearsome weapon.” Calvin said. “Very strange to see it here. I thought it was not supposed to exist on Earth nor anywhere else except for in fiction. But I was wrong.”

Thinking back, it seemed to have flickered, the gauntlet, for a moment. Almost like a hologram or an illusion. But his sensors didn’t pick up anything that pointed towards the weapon being not real.

After this fight, they didn’t feel like hunting anymore. Thus, they went for the city.

***

On the side of the road, hidden in shade among heaps of trash and wastewater, a man was looking at the passing of the crowd with empty, vacant eyes. His hands were trembling, and his heart still pounded at the memory of the terrifying shadow that came to him like a judgement from the gods. And the words of ice that it spoke, they went straight to his heart, and made it shudder. He saw, in the span of mere seconds, his whole mindscape crumble to dust.

Years of carefully maintained order and peace, years of training and sacrifice, gone. No longer was he Francis the inquisitor, now he could barely hold himself together. If he wasn’t careful enough, he could even shit himself, that’s how bad he had been hit by the wrath of an enemy he didn’t know he had. All this because he failed, because he was fooled into thinking that he was successful, because he had been careless.

No amount of preparation could have done him any good, not when it was his own hubris that brought his downfall. And now he was here, fallen, broken beyond repair. Alone and cold. So cold. He shivered.

***

The king paced slowly in his garden. There was an air of melancholy around him, a gloom that seemed to affect everything around him. The rays of the sun bathed his face yellow, but he felt that the radiance and the warmth were muted. He knew that he could no longer experience those things as he used to. No longer was the world colorful and radiant to his eyes, but a wasteland of empty and desolate.

Thus, as was usual, he ended up right where he swore he would never be again. He reached the place where his memories grew vivid once again, and that each day he promised himself he would never visit again. He lowered his head, and inspected the small flower next to the stone mound. It was white, and tiny. Just like her.

The walls of the castle surrounded this little garden like those of a prison. Statues of gargoyles and mighty dead kings stood watchful atop the black stone, and their eyes seemed to follow the weighty steps of the king. But what good were those dead great people, when their counsels amounted to nothing? What good was it to have the statues of monsters, when the real monster was man itself?

There was a sense of foreboding in the air, and a stillness that was unnatural and eerie. It spoke of bad things to come, of harsh times upon the kingdom, or perhaps the world.

But the king could not bring himself to care. He knew that he made a choice, that day, a choice he was sure he could handle. A choice that, he used to tell himself even as he acted, was inevitable for the wellbeing of the kingdom and of the crown whole. He had weighted the possibilities, and accepted the outcomes. Yet, when the time came, the price he had to pay was too great.

A shadow. Looking up, there he saw a figure, flying in the air. Its body was small, but it wore two silver wings that were those of a dragon. It seemed to freeze in place, far above, measuring his soul against a feather. Then, he knew that it found his soul heavy, for the figure plunged down. In a matter of an instant, a sword went through his chest.

In the last moments of consciousness, his mind went back to that one conversation. It was with that slimy man, the man who started it all, the sole responsible for his fate.

“My son is different. He is the only good thing that ever came from our family of Melgoths. He’s not wicked like us, you see, he is not of the same breed. I don’t know how he came to be, but he is a blessing. A fragile flower that I need to protect, but which will bloom and gift the world with so much beauty. You will make him a hero. Or else she will die.”

***

The sorcerer looked up at the sky. He could feel the dark energy gathering again, bountiful and thick. His master was about to open another wormhole, about to summon something else for his experiments. For a brief moment he could see the stars ahead, like in a bubble of glass, suspended in the blue of the sky. They moved and distorted, taking shapes and making streaks and thin lines. Their color was that of the rainbow, and even more, to the point where he felt his eyes hurt when he stared at the space above.

The tiny pinpricks of light were smoldering fires that burned hot and left a searing pain in his eyes. Then, they turned dark red and vanished. The sky closed up, and became flat again.

“Negative energy supply cut.” Said the machine-like, yet so human sounding voice of the starship.

“Closing bridge.”

The Morris-Thorne wormhole was closed, and in its place, there was another spaceship. It was small, tiny compared to the Cerberus, and in a matter of moment it vanished in a fiery explosion. The shockwave reached down to the sorcerer’s tower and shook the earth. He braced himself, and after the pressure wave was passed, and the earth was calm again, he went back inside.

***

He was close to where his house used to be when Calvin first noticed that something was amiss. There were very few people around, none of which he recognized. The further he walked, the stranger the sensation became, until he could see his house.

It was broken, half burnt, and empty. Beside its walls were spikes of wood, upon which were heads of men. And of a girl. They were barely recognizable, against the sun, and after all this time they have been hanging here to rot. But he recognized them, and a look of horror settled in his face.

These were the heads of his father, mother, and sister. They were all dead, staring at him with wide open eyes, white and milky. His vision was blurry, and the world was spinning. He could no longer tell what was going on. He felt like he was no longer in control of his body, of his mind. He stared at the heads of his family, and his mouth was wide open in shock and terror, yet he stood immobile.

On the walls, words were painted in rusted red. TREASON! They all shouted in a choir of nauseating screams. TO DEATH! The crowd of cheering peasants seemed to shout, as Calvin imagined a coliseum full to the brim with excited people who could not wait to see a public execution.

He could hear the metallic sound of the blade cutting through the air. He could smell the fear in the eyes of his family. After days and days in a dungeon, hoping that someone could come and find them, and eventually accepting the fact that they were alone. Their son was dead, and they were alone.

The blade descended, and the heads rolled. The world went black for them, and the curtain fell.

Ten minutes passed. Then, without a word, he left.

Two silver wings sprouted from his back. Computer. Locate the king.

***

Calvin looked at the dying body of the proud king of the nation.

“Not so fast.” He smirked.

His hand turned into a spike of metal. Then, he plunged it deep inside the brain of the dying man. The nanites immediately spread throughout the alien tissues, corrupting them, changing them. They dug deep into the brain of the king, and turned it into their own playground. Them, they established a connection and a flow of memories came thought it to him.