9: 52 PM

Ace broke into the teacher's lounge to get an escape from it all. He broke the viewing pane open with his baseball bat, carefully stuck his hand through the other side, and opened the door.

Invictus cheered him on as he finished his misdemeanor and Infiniti continued to complain about things Ace didn't understand. He shone his flashlight around the dark room and knew he had found something worth more than gold.

A vending machine.

In it were various meaty snacks and iron-filled foods, tailored for an astral to keep their levels up so they could use their abilities all day. With another hard swing from his bat, the glass shattered to the ground, and Ace took as many Slim-Kims as he wanted.

He sat on the old worn couch in the corner, with terrible dark green upholstery, and moaned as he finally had meat.

Ace wished Fenton were there with him. He missed his father, he missed everyone, but so far he hadn’t met anyone he knew that was alive.

He had seen a few people he knew as acquaintances, and they were all dead. He didn’t have the heart in him to kill them, so he left, off to find someone he still loved that was alive.

As he was eating his fourth Slim-Kim, Infiniti decided, for the 30th time that night, to make his hatred of Ace known.

"It is fitting that all you born liars and halflings eat meat. You deny our existence, but like us, you require flesh to live."

“Shut up,” Ace screamed. “ Can’t I eat in peace!?”

“No. You will never have peace until you have returned what you have stolen from my family.”

Ace laid down on the couch and his head started buzzing. Infiniti again started to harass him, and he felt something breathing directly into his face. It was intense and grotesque, and Ace shuddered as he felt his hot breath on his face.

“Stop. I’ve never stolen anything from you,” he whispered.

"Yes, you have. Your entire family has. You are all born liars!”

Ace sat up and he was now tired of being harassed. He slammed the watch on the table and glared down at it. He was a police officer interrogating a suspect. He would get to the bottom of this mystery and clear his name.

“I only have my father. You said you like my father. There’s no one else!”

“He never told you about them,” Infiniti laughed. “What a good man! He wanted to protect you. How admirable!”

Ace now was curious. The watch knew things he didn't, and now his tactics changed from bad cop to good cop. He sat down at the table and tried his hardest to be nice to the cruel god that had toyed with his life.

“I’m sorry for hitting you,” Ace lied.

“Apology not accepted.”

“I mean it,” he lied again.

“I don’t care if you do.”

“What do you want from me,” Ace screamed. “Why are you punishing me for something I don’t even know about!?”

The thought never occurred to Infiniti that punishing Ace made no sense. He would never remember every time he went back. Ace’s family was the one who had hurt him, not Ace himself.

Infiniti decided to tell him the truth.

Tell him everything.

“Your family, the children of Prima, are all born liars,” he explained. “On Ionadis, in the days of old, when the Sons of Stars still controlled the gift we had left them, they took it from them.”

“What was the gift,” Ace asked.

"Power. The pure power of the gods. You are a child of Prima. Your ancestor, the vile thing, stole our gift, never meant for her kind. She took what we had made for our children. Filthy thing.”

Ace had heard some of this story before, but it made no sense. He grinned as he now believed he knew something the god of Time, Space, and Eternity did not know.

“You’ve got it wrong. Those are just fairy tales! You’re not even telling the story right,” Ace laughed.

“Somehow you have become even stupider as time goes on. Just like time, your stupidity is eternal.”

“I’m not stupid,” Ace screamed. “You’re the one that believes in the Empire’s stupid fairy tales told to children!”

Infiniti was silent. He had told him the truth, but Ace refused to believe it.

“My dad read me the story when I was younger,” Ace insisted. “Prima is the hero. Then the bad guys, they took-”

Infiniti interrupted him, as he didn't want to hear any more lies.

“You are truly an idiot,” Infiniti grumbled. “You believe the lies of an Empire that killed your brother and mother? That colonized your new home and enslaved them for profit?”

"I.. no... I.."

“You are a pitiful and weak child. You lie not only to others but yourself.”

“I’m not a liar,” Ace whispered. “If this is true, don’t punish me for something I never did.”

“Your punishment will end once you return what you stole to my children,” Infiniti screamed.

He was now angry, and Ace cried as the voices inside his head screamed over and over.

Liar, Liar, Liar.

“I will get my revenge once I find my father and friends,” Ace screamed.

He grit through the pain of the voices getting louder in his ear, his eyes feeling like they would fall out from the force inside his head.

“You are weak. You will pay for what you have done to my children, and I will kill each and every one of yours.”

The noises stopped and Ace sat in the chair, sweaty and red.

"Did you do all this to me, just so I could have a son and rip him away from me?"

"Just as you have taken my children from me, I will never let you have yours," Infiniti replied.

He again considered getting rid of him, but he was afraid that someway, somehow, the angry god would find another way to punish him for the sins of his forefathers.

"My father would never lie to me. You're the only liar here. I'll figure out how to go back one day, eventually. I don't need you."

Ace mumbled to himself, reassurring himself that it was all a lie, but things started to line up that didn't before. Why his father kept a living, breathing, watch, inside his apartment. Why he had a sentient blanket and possibly wasn't imagining many things from his childhood he chalked up to fantastical adventures or trauma from a war he had lived through.

Infiniti giggled, taking pleasure in Ace’s pain. He never lied to Ace, and he knew there was no need to. He would torture him until he would get retribution for what was taken from him and his children.

The gods of old were not kind like Invictus.