Co-written with
@Thuro 116 Pendragon
Dying was the last thing on the clone of Matthew Harris's mind. Dying in an alleyway after finding out that the world didn't want or need you was also not how he expected to go.
Yeah, he knew that alleyways were super sketchy and that he would have better luck not getting hurt at the wedding of his own self, but he hadn't expected to be stabbed by another kid who was lurking there. He didn't expect to die on the cold floor, just three blocks from where he was created.
Something was poetic about that- too bad it was lost on him.
Meanwhile, not too far off, Adam was taking his evening stroll when he spotted the regenerating clone. " Seriously, could you make my life any more difficult, Starlight?" Hopefully the city didn't answer in that way he hated most, by answering his rhetorical question. No seriously, he didn't need a portal from the sky or something.
Adam, despite being a technical god, still had a lot to learn about the way the universe works. For instance, when a situation applies that has even the barest possibility for an unfortunate ironic situation, complaining about how bad things were or, even worse, stating that it couldn't possibly get any worse, would spark said ironic situation into being, unless intentionally invoked of course.
Adam should have known better than asking that question. He was a god of knowledge and had told the heroes he mentored to never ask questions like that. It was kind of ironic in of itself that he had to address it himself to realize what was wrong with what he said. He looked for a portal or something to go horribly wrong. He expected it, like a kid getting a Christmas present they always wanted, but never needed.
Said irony came in the form of a young man clad in jeans and a leather jacket suddenly appearing and slamming into the concrete with bone crushing force, then lying there unmoving. At least there was no portal involved.
Oh, look, a young man slamming into a wall in front of him. So, now he had two injured teens. Seriously? " I asketh it and I shall receive it. So, would either of you like to wake up? Nope, great. I guess we are going to the hospital or something."
The unnamed young man, perhaps surprisingly, perhaps unsurprisingly, didn't offer an intelligent comeback or discourse. He might have groaned in pain slightly though.
Adam sighed and walked over to the man. He waved his hand and summoned some healing magic. He rarely healed people, but he felt that this man was worth the saving to do.
The boy groaned and shook his head, sitting up as some strange force pulled his body back from the brink. He could feel it tingling across the nerves of his body, active magic reacting to dormant magic. The young man let out a low groan, the feel of organs shifting and bones knitting themselves incredibly uncomfortable and painful, the magic targeting the smallest damage first and then dealing with the bigger problems. That meant every nerve ending was awake and sensing the incredible wrongness that was happening to the body in the presence of fixing it.
Meanwhile, completely unnoticed in the background the clone was regenerating. It was as painful as possible for the clone since he only had one regeneration under his belt. He could speed heal like a pro, but Nicholas had only programmed one second time for the man. It was a fail safe. A way to make sure that if his son ever did return ( spoilers: he did) , the clone would be able to live its own life once it died. It wouldn't be tied to its past. Of course, the only problem was that it was meant to be in a controlled setting and it hurt like all hell. God, damn it all for once.
And then it was done. Pain leads to anger, anger leads to suffering, suffering to agony, and then agony gives way to clarity. And beyond clarity, for those who choose it, is rebirth.
And then it was done. The healing at least, the physical appearance melted away to reveal something different. A new younger man, but one who could survive in this city for once. A nameless man,alas.
The boy was reborn, slowly finding his footing, a hand against the wall to keep himself steady. The passive magic-sense he possessed pointed the origin of that flush of mana from the man in front of him. Bowing his head, he simply said, "Thank you."
The clone also struggled to stand up. Regenerating like healing was painful, it was messy. But it was worth it. " You are most welcome. Do you have a name?" a asked,addressing it to both the bmen. . If not, well, Adam would be pulling a name of thin air.
"William." The young man said without a moment's hesitation. Then he hesitated. "...My Mom and Dad... where am I?"
" This here is Starlight City. It's a far way from you home," he said, looking over at him. He looked at the clone who responded.
" Me too, I'm a William too." Yup, the clone still had the knack of copying things.
" How... interesting. Guess, I will call you Liam," he said, addressing the one who seemed confused. " And you Will."
How creative Adam had been made very obvious by those nicknames... he wasn't.
"I'd ask how I got here, but I seem to at least remember the end of the trip." He said wryly. "You. You're a Mage, aren't you?" His brow crinkled, confusion taking residence on his face. "And how do I know what a Mage is?"
" Yeah, that was one of the most painful landings I seen in awhile... and I saw Iron Man get impaled by the top of a building. Not pleasant. I wouldn't call myself a Mage. More of a Hero of Time. It's messy. If I were to bet money, it's probably past knowledge or the city itself."
Will was confused.
"No. No No No. I've seen maps of so many realms. Starlight isn't in any of them. No one has *been here* before. I'm completely off the reservation." He held his hands in his hands. "Mom and Dad won't be able to find me."
" You won't find us on maps. We kind of exist in a world that straddles between two worlds. Also, it is kind of hard to map a place no one can leave. Well, unless you're Iron Man. Still haven't figured out how he did that. But yeah, your parents won't find you."
Will was listening, tapping his foot as he waited for someone to talk to him.
The newly christened Liam held his hands out, palms down. Deep breath in, deep breath out. A woman stood in his mind's eye, blonde hair and cherry red lips, speaking to him in the gentle voice of a guardian. "Breathe in, breathe out. Panic only makes things worse for you and better for the asshole messing with you. Breathe in, breathe out. Take all of the panic, all of the worry, all of the fear, and flush it through your hands."
Will took a deep breath and he looked at the ground. He didn't remember much about his past- he was a blank slate. However, in the recess of his mind, he remembered there had been a nice woman who had talked to him. " Once you are reborn, everything will be better. I know that your father wanted a failsafe to let you die easily, but I think you need a second chance- even if it will destroyed my life and my marriage. Sometimes men are wrong."
"Is it magic?" He had asked.
Will hadn't thought much of it recently.
"Kinda." She had replied. "Anything is magic if you wish hard enough."
It had seemed that it had come back just when he needed it to be though.
Liam opened his eyes, calmer, but still troubled. "Then I'll have to find them. I *will* find my way home, Mr. Adam."
Adam looked over at him. " I am sure that you will, but do you need a place to stay for the time being," he replied to him.
A bit hesitantly, because he didn't get what the man was implying, he asked. "Can I stay with you?"
Adam was sure he had been clear, but he looked over at him. " Sure, you can stay with me," he replied.
William chewed his lip, thinking it over. On one hand, he didn't know the person in front of him, and advanced paranoia demanded he suspect the person closest to the scene as the culprit. On the other hand, he lacked the elder generation's advanced sense of caution. Deciding to take a risk, he asked a very important question as neutrally as he could. "Do you know what an assassin is?"
Will looked around and wondered if the strange man was going to take him in too. He didn't ask, but he hoped that was the truth. He looked over at him and wasn't sure what he could say to make things better. " I do know of assassins. We don't have many in the city itself, but we have a few. My son is one of them. It's a long and complicated story." It seemed that he wasn't going to go into much details.
That was the exact reason Liam had chosen such a generic term. It wouldn't give too much away too fast, but it was something to build on. "What kind of assassins?"
Adam looked over at him. He was certain he knew how to phrase it. " He's more of a vigilante assassin. I don't see him much, so I can't elaborate much more about this thing."
Vigilante assassins. It had to be them. It had to be. "What is the assassin's creed?" Hope creeping into his voice from how close to them.
Adam looked over at him. " I don't know much about it , I have never asked him. He tells me he only kills the guilty, but I don't talk much to him."
And just like that, his hopes were... not quite dashed, but severely delayed. Bowing his head respectfully, he asked. "Mr. Adam. I realize you've already done a lot for me, but... is there any way that I could meet your son? He could be very important to me getting home."
Adam paused, as if he was debating something, before he spoke again. " Well, that would be simple enough to do- except, recently, my sons have been disappearing- not sure how or why, but besides Legendary, I haven't seen any of them in a long time," he replied to Liam.
"I can wait," He promised. Then, he stood to the side, getting out of the clones way. He was content to follow at this point, and learn more about this strange city.
Will looked over at him and waited for Liam to move forward. Ahh...how sweet and creepy, Will was planning on shadowing Liam. Adam led the way, walking past the square and towards his house.
Liam followed like a shadow to Adam, achingly aware of the young man shadowing him in turn. He fidgeted slightly under the close attention, before stilling his hands. Clarity begins in the mind and flows outward. Don't be nervous. Don't be nervous.
Adam, ever oblivious to everything around him walked through the school grounds and finally to his house. He turned the keys and waited for the other two to follow him inside. He hadn't really been paying attention to either of them. Hopefully, neither had been hit by traffic the two times they crossed streets.
Thankfully not being hit by the traffic under the carefully watchful eye of their self appointed guardian, Liam stopped for a moment and took in the house he'dd apparently be staying. It wasn't a fancy affair, something he was thankful for. The home he'd grown up in had been a little large and drafty, full of figurative and literal ghosts. This looked better.
It wasn't as if their watchful self-appointed guardian was bad at his job. He just didn't know that they were mentally seven and five, respectively. He took a deep breath and turned to the boys. " Do you two want anything to eat? I think I have some sandwiches in the fridge," he said. Will looked over at Liam. If he ate, he would eat too, if not, they would starve together.
"Would you mind if I cook?" He asked. The request was twofold, first he wanted to earn his keep. The second, he was used to the cooking. Dad was bad in the kitchen, mom usually lit the meal on fire, and grandpa. He suppressed a shudder.
Adam looked over at him and debated what to say next. " I wouldn't mind at all. I have had so many people cook here," he said, as he looked over at him. He wondered if Will would want to help Liam cook, but he decided not to ask that for the time being.
Liam began the preparations to make a trio of grilled cheese sandwiches. It was simple to make, quick, and easy enough since he didn't know his way around the kitchen. While he was working he observed Adam and Will from the corner of his eye, trying to figure out their particular brand of weird. Growing up where he did, he was familiar with many different types of strangeness.
Will watched as Liam mad the grilled cheese sandwiches and looked around the room and noticed a plant and he sneezed. A mighty sneeze, which wouldn't have been so bad... except he had kind of froze the whole room with a ton of ice. Well, that was going to be a pain in the neck to clean up.. He looked around and wondered what he could say to apologize for freezing the whole kitchen.
Well, he suddenly got a lot closer to understanding the weirdness involved with Will as he blocked an . Metahuman, uncontrolled abilities. Powerful too if the amount of the room frozen was any indication. "Gesundheit." He said dryly.
Will seemed a little embarrassed that he had frozen the whole room. He looked over at him. " Did I ruin dinner?" He asked in the most innocent tone. Adam took a deep breath and waited to see how Liam would address the whole situation.
"Well." Liam took a look around the kitchen. Thankfully, the stove and the ingredients had been spared, though the room was going to become a rainforest when the snow eventually defrosted. "I think we're goo-...," His voice trailed away as he looked closer at the piece of ice. Something was wrong with his reflection.
Will looked over at him and he hoped he hadn't ruined diner. It would be really bad if he ruined it. Somehow, no object had been frozen, only walls and floors. Kind of like Van gogh throwing colors on a canvas and not hitting the floor. He paused and wondered if Liam was okay and if anything had happened. Will looked at his reflection and was confused. Who was that?
His eyes shot open wide enough to show his whites, and he stumbled back, the ice slipping from his fingers.
Adam took a deep breath and muttered a spell to melt the ice under his breath. " Are you two okay?" He asked, looking over at dinner too.
"I am not okay." Liam said, distress evident in his voice. "I'm old!"
Adam decided to approach this as cautiously as possible. " How old do you appear to be compared to how old you remember being?"
"I'm seven." He cried indignantly. "This guy in the mirror has to be at least twenty."
" Hmmm...." Adam put his hand on his chin and thought for a moment. " Give me a second," he said, quickly going upstairs to grab something. After a few moments, he came back with a device. " This is an age modulator, measures mental and physical age for precision." Adam scanned Will and Liam.
The scanner came back as Liam had promised it would, at least mentally. He was seven in his mind, or at least his memories. His skills and a little bit of his personality were older. Physically, he was close, but off by a year. He was still nineteen.
Adam looked over at him and checked Will's read. Mentally, five. Physically, 17. He looked over at the two of them. " Nineteen and seventeen for precision sake, but seven and five mentally. I imagine that has to do with how I found you," Will gave puppy dog eyes to Liam.
Liam tried to ignore the pleading look that Liam was giving him. He was currently trying to wrap his own mind around it. Okay. Calm. Think. "Either I'm nineteen and I have amnesia, or I'm seven and my body has been aged." He cradled his head in his hands. Either way, this was going to suck. Did this mean he was going to have to start dating, ick, girls?
Adam took a deep breath and wondered how the duo was going to take this. Will seem unfazed by it. " Both of which are possibilities, with this city, one bad food or some rogue experiment has done that. However, you are thankfully not the weirdest thing in this city. I have to have a whole class in similar situations to you too," he said, being quite honest.
"Mr. Adam, I can promise you, I'm not from this city." A note of uncertainty entered his voice. "Unless, that's part of my amnesia. Can you fix this? If it is amnesia?"
" Amnesia is something that I can't cure. It is out of magic's ... actually, there is one person who could help you. How would you feel about a trip to a graveyard?"
Something deep inside Liam shuddered at the idea, manifesting as a momentary unease. Slowly, he said. "Alright... If you think that is best."
Adam nodded, and led the way heading for the graveyard. Hopefully, the seven and five year old were paying attention and didn't get hit by cars because Adam wasn't again. Once they arrived at the graveyard, Adam looked around and paused, looking for something.
Thankfully, Liam once again managed to avoid the traffic, though this time there was a slight look of annoyance on his face. However, he tried not to let himself become too annoyed, this man had taken him in out of the goodness out of his heart, or so it appeared.
As if the creepy scale wasn't up in the graveyard, a man appeared behind Liam and Will. " Well, then, two mental broken cases. Goodness, that is going to cost extra hard kids," he said, as he looked at him. Adam was still looking for the man who was literally behind them. " Name's Peter. God of second chances, so are you here for a) a memory fix or b) a revival?"
Liam immediately took a dislike to this man. Immediately took a dislike to this man. Something about him seemed, familiar, and unsettling. Still, he struggled to remain polite to him. Being rude to physical gods..... His father had never been fully the same afterwards.
"I'm not fully certain. I may have amnesia, or I may have been aged by about a decade."
Peter didn't care if the man standing in front of him loved him or hated him to pieces. He just cared about the deal that he was about to make with him. He took a deep breath and waited for him to say something. He had every intention to at least half-listen to his deal.
" I can help if it is a memory problem. I would just need to know two bits of information. What do you remember and what don't you remember?"
Riddles? Great. Liam loved riddles like he loved a hidden blade to the back of the throat. "I remember seven years of my life. I'd rather not talk about what was in them, if you don't mind. I *may* not remember the other twelve."
Peter looked over at him. " Good, now, second and stupider question, have you have had any blunt force trauma that could have cause-"
" He slammed his whole body into a wall." Will was sure willing to talk to the strange man standing there,
" That would do it. Now, I can restore your memories, but it is going to cost you."
"Are you a fey by chance?" Liam asked idly.
" Not today. I do like deals though, I personally have no memories, so my price is simple. I restore your memories. You hand over one of them, just one."
"I've had this story read to me before, and it never ends well. Which particular memory?"
" That is up to you. I am not cruel and unjust... however, if you want me to fix the other boy too, that will be a total of four memories."
"And I get to choose the four memories?"
" But of course. Just give me a second to find... hmmm... we may have a slight problem. Will here has no memories. It is going to cost a lot more, perhaps one hundred or so. Got to start from scratch."
"What makes up a memory? If you define it a certain way, my entire life could be made of a hundred memories." More and more bad memories were coming to mind of when his father had made deals, deals, and more deals in an attempt to win a forever war. Exact terms were essential when dealing with magically bound creatures.
" A memory is made up of forty or so moments strung together. One memory can last for years or a day. It depends on the significance of the memories to you," he replied, looking over at him. It seemed that Peter was being vague. It seems that he wasn't going to get a straight answer from the god. He had a decision to make now.
Liam stopped and thought. This dragged out for quite some time. On one hand, being stuck as a seven year old when over half his life had gone by was disconcerting, on the other, the witch his father had complained about growing up had shown just how capricious and malevolent creatures bound by their magical natures could be.
Peter watched the boy/man and wondered what his decision would be. There were things he could tell from a person, how they acted about their memories. He had dealt with other gods and others who were vile. He had cursed a brother he had revived of a man who didn't pay him. There were things he could tell from the amount of things people said.
It wasn't a good bet.
He knew it wasn't a good bet.
"No thank you, Mr. Peter. I think, some things aren't worth the cost of others." Without waiting to see if Adam or Will were behind him, he turned to leave.
" I admire you. Have a nice day," he said. Peter looked at Will who followed Liam. Sometimes he knew what was right. He let Will have some memories and personality, despite no payment. It would come in handy later.
When they were out of earshot of the god, Liam turned to Will. "That could have ended badly. I'm... sorry... that I couldn't give you your memories back, but, nothing good comes of faustian deals."
Will was in pain all of a sudden, as he was washed over with a flood of memories. " It's okay."
Liam looked at Adam. "Do you want to head home, Mr. Adam? That was a bust."
Adam looked over at Will. " I have the strangest feeling that it wasn't as bad as you thought," he replied, as the other man had fainted. It was such a rare occasion the god had done something like that. Hmmm... this could be good or problematic.
Liam looked over at Will as he decided it was nap time. Thinking quick, he reached out and snagged him out of the air before he could fall. Ah yes, one moment of character interaction, let the slash fics commence.
Adam looked over at him and took a deep breath, hoping that somebody else could support the other man. Thankfully, it seemed that Liam had gone out of his way to make sure he could support his friend thankfully.
Privately, Liam marveled at how easy it was to support his weight. To his perspective, he'd suddenly become superhumanly strong, even though Liam was no stronger than a well exercised athlete at his age.
Will snuggled up against the stronger Liam. Well, here was some more fuel for the slash fictioners out there. He was being overflowed with memories and he wasn't going to wake up any time soon. Well give or take a scene.
"Any help Mr. Adam? Any at all?"
"Oh, you need help? It looks like you were handling it well."
"Is our whole relationship going to be like this?"
" No, I help when you need it most. My eyes and vast knowledge show that you are fine."
"You're just like Ridley." He started to drag his friend and apparent brother with him, then frowned. Since when had he started calling his mother by her first name. Whatever. "You know, I wonder if it'd be possible to use my soul to restore my memories. A Magus might be able to do it, if we could find one that I'd trust to not use me as a science experiment."
Adam arched an eyebrow and decided not to inquire who Ridley was. He took a deep breath and looked over at Liam." Well, we would have to find a sane mage. Most of our magic users in town are slightly insane. That may have everything to do with my son having a high control of magic. I am sure we can find one. Hopefully Will will awake soon... before midnight."
"Midnight?" He inquired. That sounded, foreboding.
" It's nothing bad. It's complicated." Adam didn't sound too reassuring in that statement,
"I've got time." He promised. "Is it a complication with being a god? Oh please don't tell me you've got a superpowered evil side."
" No, I manage to get rid of my vampirism a while back. That was not a fun time. I am a time traveler, so my timeline is a tad, slightly messy."
Liam's next words didn't seem to come from him, coming out in a quick but steady monotone, like from a machine. "Time travel in localized reality creates branching realities based on the point of divergence. Overuse of time travel destabilizes one's own timelines and unmoores them from the anchor in the Ego."
Adam listened for a second when Liam spoke. That was definitely not his voice and he looked over at him. He wasn't about to argue with any of the points that the voice offered. He was very established from the timeline- it also didn't help that he controlled the time of here. It was probably why portals were appearing more frequently.
Liam put a hand to his head, slightly dizzy. "Well. Uh. That, made no sense, especially since I understood it."
Adam looked at him. " I understood it. It's complicated and messy. It's my life." Adam simply replied to him. He could only ever live here.
"I wonder if that applied to me. Maybe... ego. Huh. I'm only vaguely familiar with psychology, and I know I never learned it." He gently lowered Will to the ground, then sat beside him. "Ego. I'm pretty sure that's the shape of the mind. If the Ego contains an anchor of some kind, or mine is warped, could that be the reason for the amnesia?"
Will stirred a little bit, but still didn't wake up when he was placed on the ground. Adam meanwhile seemed to be deep in thought. As he looked over at him. " Yes, it is entirely possible that is the reason you can't remember anything. It also could be why the god was asking for such a steep price. Sometimes these things happen to us."
"So..." The boy seemed to deflate onto himself. "So... I get to live with it." He said nothing for a few moments, then resigned himself to it. "Some people live without limbs, or hooked up to machines. I can live without a few memories."
Adam looked over at him for a brief moment. " Yes, it seems like something you will have to live with. It is far from the worst thing to happen to someone, but a decade without memories is certainly one of the more bizarre things to happen."
"As long as I don't get possessed by that weird voice again." He shuddered.
" I honestly don't know if that might happen again.I mean, unless it is activated anytime someone says time-..."
"Time Displacement Equipment."
Adam had a feeling that was going to happen.
"Traveler-..."
"Mounting dimensional pressure on foreign object."
It was exactly what he expected with each word that passed.
"Timeline-..."
"Fourth Dimensional Space/Time Alteration."
Sometimes he hated it when he was right though.
"...probably."
Taking after his father in a situation like this, Liam let loose something he'd been taught not to. "Fuck."
Adam looked over at him. " I was right in my theory. Anyone says anything related to that word, the robot activates."
"Great. I've got a Terminator living in my brain."
"Hey, it could be worse. You could have gotten a Yeerk in your brain."
"Hey, I like that book series." The conversation was rapidly devolving, but hey, sue him, it'd been a long day.
" If I remember the name of the series correctly, animorphs. 55- urm- I mean 54 books in the series, excluding specials." He paused, catching himself. Nobody knew that she was going to write a book twenty years after the last one was published to resolve the story archs she left hanging.
"Man, I'm glad I never ran into a Yeerk. Recursive reality means that they're out, somewhere, waiting to break the dimensional barrier." He paused for a minute, then realized what he'd just said. "You know what? I'm not even going to question how I know these things at this point."
" It's fine. I imagine they are. They may be hard pressed to get here though. The world itself has barriers against most alien evils. Human and supernatural, not so much. Alien on the other hand, hugely. It's why Supergirl and Superman can't arrive here." he admitted, looking over at Liam.
"Any guesses how I got here then? I may not remember much, but I know that I could travel between universes, and even multiverses, though I don't actually remember doing that."
" Well, judging by your lack of memory and lack of remembering, I would imagine a temporal time dragging in which one of the city's net caught you before you went to a much worse place."
"Not that I actually remember much of anything." He said bitterly.
" It's fine, I am sure that you will eventually get those memories back."
"Yeah. Maybe. But, what worse place?"
"There are places worse than here. I rather not talk about them." Will stirred a little more.
"Fair enough. I think I understand." He waited, then hesitantly said. "Well... now what? Does life go on? Where do I?" Will's stirring reminded him of the other boy's presence. "We. Where do we go from here?"
" I am sure that you do," he said, looking over at him and then back at Will. Oh, he had also forgotten about about him. " I have a school here that you both can attend. Seeing as even with false memories, my special ED class will be required. No offense."
"None taken. I know things that I shouldn't be able to, but I don't know how far that education extends." He looked hesitant at this next part, but he had to ask. "On field trips, we're going to have an actual crosswalk monitor, right?"
Adam looked over at him. " Yeah, it may be your safest bet to not stretch your limitations on how well everything goes." He gave pause and then looked at him. " Well, yes. Something about me being reckless with people while crossing a street. Father recommended it... sadly."
"Well. I guess I just have one question left."
" Shoot me the question," Adam simply replied. Will wrapped his arms around Liam's chest or attempted to at least.
Liam flushed, maybe not for the same reason a girl might have, but growing up in the castle had left him very isolated around people his age. Attempting to focus through the awkward feeling of someone hugging him, he said. "Do I have to share a room with huggles? I don't want to freeze to death in my sleep."
Adam wasn't sure why he had flushed- but he wasn't about to argue with the young man with the mind of a seven year old. " Well, yes, you are going to have to share a room with him. I kind of only have one room besides my own in the house that isn't cluttered with things that can't be moved in the slight," he replied.
"Any... any chance of a heater in the room?" He smiled wanly.
" Well, yeah, I have a heater in the room. It's broken though."
"I can fix it. I think."
" Well, okay." Adam replied.
....Monday Morning had finally arrived. The dreaded morning that nobody wanted to be awake for. So, of course, Will was already awake and stretching a bit. He wondered if Liam was awake now.
"I'm not dead. Thank God."
" Oh come on. Yesterday wasn't that bad," Will said.
"I was more worried about the night brother."
" What do you mean by that, Li?" He asked him.
"You're six, mentally, right? Liam's tone wasn't snide, merely curious. He could hardly judge considering his own handicap.
Will crossed his arms. " Five and a half. Six is really old, like almost as old as you," he said, sticking out his tongue at him.
Liam snickered. Wherever his mental age had settled at between now and then, his apparent brother's attitude was pretty funny. "You know what hypothermia is?"
Will didn't understand why he was snickering, but he looked over at him and paused. " Hippo oh what e uh?" He asked, not even bothering to pronounce the word right.
"I'll take that as a no." He paused, then ran his hands over his face. "Forget about it. I'm heading downstairs."
He looked over at him and bit on his lower lip. " I am right behind you," he said, following his brother downstairs.
Liam took the stairs two at a time, jumping the last five to the bottom easily. He'd had a weekend to adjust to this new body, and he had, and hadn't. Moving around felt natural, easy. And that was what was so discomforting. He was used to tripping over his own limbs. His agility now was almost inhuman.
Will followed closely behind him and hopped down the last three steps. He wasn't that good at jumping and knowing that he wasn't he wasn't going to make it. He bit on his lower lip and wondered what was going to happen when he got downstairs. Liam was usually the one to make him and Adam some breakfast.
Breakfast was going to be pretty hit or miss if he let his cloudcuckoolander guardian take care of it, so he resolved to make breakfast like he'd done the past two days. Hopefully Mr. Sniffles didn't ruin his culinary masterpiece this time.
Surprisingly, when Liam got downstairs, there were pancakes made... and they weren't burned. Adam was reading yesterday's paper and scratching his face as he looked at the paper. God, why had he grown the beard? It was itchy.
Liam's eye twitched. This... this was heresy. This was madness. He picked one up and bit into it. This was... not terrible, surprisingly. "I didn't know you could cook old man."
Adam looked up at his paper. " I probably won't again for another five days or years... give or take timelines, Liam," Adam simply replied, his beard now showing. Meanwhile, Will was still trying to comprehend the time travel thing.
"I have a question, if you don't mind." He hopped up onto the stool for the kitchen island.
"I am not going to be able to stop you from asking," Adam simply replied to him honestly.
That doesn't mean you're going to answer. Liam thought, but kept that thought to himself. "I know a bit about time travel, for some reason. I'd like to see if what you're saying and what I know matchup."
Will looked over at Liam and Adam and went over to his pancakes and he silently ate it, not certain what the two were talking about. He chewed and hoped that this wouldn't go on for a long time there.
"So, you've mentioned multiple timelines. Do you jump between them? And if so, why have I never seen you leave? Or is it mental time travel?"
"I am not certain about the answer to that. It happens at midnight and I can't say how the time travel works. I simply phase in where the old one is.. plus I lock my door before midnight."
"Alright. Now for the hard question." He put his head between his hands, not in pain but frustration. Where was all of this information coming from? "Time and space are the same thing, simply different locations and moving between them. So how... How do you move between timelines if no one can leave Starlight?"
Adam looked over at him and bit on his lower lip. He wasn't sure how to answer the next question that Liam posed for a simple reason. In all of his time throughout the city's history, he had never been able to find the answer himself. " I don't know- it just sort of happens me. I can't explain it. I don't remember much about the actual process- just an ocean full of pain."
That got his attention. Something about that seemed familiar, pain ripping through every cell in his body, like he was burning up and being drained at the same time. "I'm sorry Adam. But, this could be the way out. You said Tony Stark did it? Then so can I. I won't rest until I get home. There's a war on, after all."
Adam looked over at him. " Yes, I said that Tony Stark did it, but I don't know how. It is almost like..." Adam turned his head to the door and cursed. " Fuck, I have to go and address something," he said, looking over at him and teleporting him. What the hell was on the TV? If Liam turned to the TV, it would mention that the giant portal opened in the middle of the city.
"The timing of that..." He mused to himself. He turned to look at the screen, curious about what could have alarmed his almost irritatingly placid guardian.
Will looked at him." What do you mean by that?" He asked, looking at his bigger and older brother to figure out what he meant by this. He was indeed curious.
"Oh, just how convenient that-..." He waved at the giant portal on screen, oddly nonchalant about the whole thing, "-happened right now. That, plus he always seems squirrely about the nature of the city. I'm getting the feeling if I want answers, I'm going to have to find them on my own."
" I mean- portals are opening all the time throughout the city, it's just so rare that the main city one opens or at least, that what I remember from before. You know... Adam lied. There is one other who escaped this city who resides here right now. He is the man who I was cloned from- Matthew Harris."
"Why would..." Liam bit his lip. "You don't know how he did it, do you?"
Will tapped through his old memories. " I don't... it had something to do with.... a teleporter."
"Was it, by chance, anything related to something called a Time Displacement Equipment?"
" Time Displacement Equipment was what it was called. How did you know?" Will asked.
"Because my father has one in his basement."
" Oh, okay. I don't know what you mean by that."
"It doesn't matter. Home is pretty far away at the moment. But now I know what I'm looking for."
"What was home like for you?" He asked,curious to what the older teen had experienced in his life.
"Dad was busy a lot, but tried to make time for me. He was busy fighting a war for the fate of the universe, so I didn't blame him. But, I was closer to my mother. She didn't give a damn about the war, except the one time they attacked our home. Then... Dad never gave me the specifics. He just said something about a one winged angel. Mom was a pretty powerful witch." He held up a hand. "Something that I apparently never inherited."
" What do you mean by dad being busy most of the time? What did he do that was more important than raising his son?' He asked, very confused to the older teen living situation and what had caused it. He frowned and wondered what he meant by a one winged angel, but he choose to not ask the man about it. He looked at him. " I can't remember much, but I know that my dad wasn't there for me either. Mom took care of me though," he admitted.
"Oh... that's a long story. You don't want to hear that." He said airily. "You mean, she took care of the person you were cloned from? That's... kinda confusing."
Will looked at him. " I mean, I like long stories." Will paused when he looked at him. " No, I mean me. Not him. Me. He was gone, but I was still around. It's messy."
"Ah, maybe later Will." He laughed nervously. "Right now, I just want to investigate that portal." He pointedly left the matter of Will's cloning blues aside. Cloning could be a confusing business, only second to time travel. Better to focus on the here and now.
Will looked over at him and then back at his pocket. " It's in the place where I was made. I mean- at least the one I remember. We could probably get a tour to see it-.... but we need to find a way to sneak off. I remember where it is and for that you will need me."
"I wasn't planning on ditching you." He promised. "It's not like I can freeze ray anyone that gets in my way." He looked at the TV, Adam was already onsite and dealing with the issue. "Right now would be good. We don't have to worry about Adam trying to stop us."
Will smiled. " I prefer to call it freezing them," he said, looking over at the TV and then back at Liam. " I think now would be the best time to go," he said. Once the two arrived, it seemed that a tour was going to be starting in ten minutes. They could wait-.. or follow an employee in.
Liam smiled evilly, it seemed like he was enjoying this entirely too much. Must be part of his bloodline. "Up for some breaking and entering oh brother of mine?"
Will didn't realize the smile was evil. " I mean, it wouldn't be so if there was a window or door open, they are just asking to be entered," he said, replying with a smile.
Liam took a deep breath and stilled his mind, then looked again. Perception seemed to sharpen, small details coming to the forefront. There, on the second story, an open window leading to the grounds inside. Quietly, more quietly than he should have professed his illegal intentions, he asked; "Can you parkour?"
Will wasn't sure what the older teen meant by parkour. Why would they be going to a park anytime soon and what did it have to do with what he wanted? He bit his lip and was careful when he replied to him. " No, I don't think so. I can jump, run, jump and climb really good though," he replied. One could not tell if Will was being serious or not by his answer.
"That's... good to know." Liam said carefully. He didn't want to bruise his ego, but where had the boy picked up his vocabulary? "Well, I'm going through that window. If you think you can make, come in with me."
Will beamed proudly, happy that the other teen was proud of him. He looked over at him and did something simple. He froze a path from the ground to the window and slide it to his window. " Hey, come on slow poke."
"Mother, wherever you are, thanks a lot for marrying a magical wet blanket." He grumbled. No no, instead of getting lots of magical power, he could climb buildings! Awesome1!1!. Silently, he followed after the younger William brother.
Will leaned out the window and back punched one of the guards before Liam could arrive. He also froze his legs. He waited for his brother and played a phone game while he waited. God, he still couldn't beat this level of Candy Crush. It was so hard.
After sliding down the ice bridge for the third time, Liam began beating his head against the wall in frustration.
Will made an ice ladder by the window for Liam so that he didn't beat his brain out. It should be easy to climb,
Slightly dizzy, Liam began to climb. This all could have been avoided if Will could just park the damn core.
Will looked over at him and waited for him to finish climbing up there. " How come that took you so long?" He asked.
Though he didn't realize it, Liam was giving off what the Japanese would call killing intent.
He'd spent years in a former life learning to control the signals he could give off, and could mask true killing intent or project flase killing intent. For a relative stranger like Will, Liam would look mysteriously look monstrous when in actuality, he was only frustrated.
Will simply ignored the killing intent that he was glaring at him. He had dealt with psychopaths, a boy with an evil side and so many other crazy things that his brother looking monstrous was as common as anything else. Sometimes having memories of his past made him feel confused and different. He looked at the ground and wondered where the guards were.
"Let's go." He growled in a huff. Their luck wouldn't last. Guards frequently changed patrol, they must have just gotten very lucky and hit in between the guard shift.
Will smiled as they walked down the hallway. After about three minutes in the building, the new guards spotted Will because he waved into the pretty camera. Oh, Will, what have you done?
In the control room, the guards suddenly heard a large crack. That was the sound of Liam's palm hitting his face at the speed of sound.
Will didn't understand what he had done wrong. He was happy to meet new friends. The guards waited a few moments, clearly confused at first.
"Will, I know you didn't know buddy, but cameras are bad when you are breaking and entering. Also, run!" He grabbed Will's hand, exciting fangirls all over the world, and started dragging his adopted brother down the hall.
Will looked at him and was confused. Cameras were always a good thing, but he was going to believe his older brother for now. He let him take his hands and drag him down the hall. It seemed that everything was going wrong, very wrong.
"In his best calm, 'I'm not agitated' voice, Liam asked. "Where are we going Will?"
" Well, I am going to guess four or five flights down the stairs," he said, looking over at him.
After seven minutes, they arrived at their location. The room was filled with high-tech machinery and a computer. Liam walked over and turned on the computer, trying to figure out what the banks of machinery did.
The computer opened up to a Windows 95 screen. Liam sighed. Why did they have something from the forties in here? Shouldn't this be in a museum?
The PC booted up as slowly as you expected it would be being a Windows 95. After three minutes, it opened to a password screen. On one hand, he hoped this worked, but on the other, he'd roll his eyes if it did. Quickly, he typed in, '1, 2, 3, 4'...
The computer denied the request. It dropped a password hint.. " Name of your first born son"
Liam stopped and looked at it for a moment, heedless of the guards that were coming down. Hmm. If Will had been here, then logically speaking the best chance getting through was entering his name. Carefully, he typed out, 'William'.
The password was all denied. The computer dropped a second hint. " Name of your first born son. Hint, it starts with a M and ends in hew. It seemed that Liam had forgotten that Will was a clone of another man, a man who indeed had a different name.
Liam looked at his stepbrother and asked him, "Will, what is the name of your 'father'?"
Will looked over at him. " Do you mean the man who I was cloned from or the man who did the cloning?"
"Your source material."
" Matthew was his name."
Liam typed the name into the computer.
The computer opened up finally. There were three files on it. One was labeled ' Clone. One was labeled ' Dimensional portal' and the final one was labeled in Gaelic.
Gesturing for his companion to come and see, he clicked on the file labeled Clone.
When the file opened, there was a ton of information. First was a picture of Will.... as he currently looked. It seemed that there was more to this clone business. Also on the page was the information that he was an orphan and was made to die once Matthew returned.
A life stolen to be a scapegoat for one man's immortality. The thought made Liam sick. What had been done, could it be undone? And should it? Was Will's current life any less valid than the person he'd been cannibalized from?
It seemed that the man who ran this company was less than good. It was only through his wife's meddling that the boy had lived. It was a sad thought that the current man in front of him may have been different if he had lived his life.
The thought was... troubling. He pushed it to the side for later. They needed to get out of here, and fast. He clicked on the folder labeled Dimensional Portal.
When the computer open to Dimensional portal, the file was blank. There was no information, almost as if it was erased by someone. It was certainly suspicious to say the least.
Nothing to do about it now. The clock was ticking. Hurriedly, he clicked on the last folder, Gaelic.
When the file was opened, it was exactly what it said it was. It was written in Gaelic. Roughly translated, it read: You won't find the truth here. 123456.... 7th floor is where you need to go.
The sound of footsteps gaining entry to the room drew the two boys attention to the doorway. Whatever they laced into the food here, they needed to stop for the health and safety of their security force. The two men were massive, Arny in his prime types. The had guns and steel batons clipped onto their belts, but hadn't drawn them, clearly feeling it'd be overkill on what appeared to be delinquent youths. The one on the right spoke, his voice a deep rumbling bass, "Kids, I'd rather not have to drag you anywhere. Just come in easily and wait for the police."
Will turned to the doorway to see who the loud footsteps were coming from. Maybe it was a friend and then he noticed the two security guards walk into the room and his very first thought was how massive the two men were. Like they went to the gym every second they weren't working. He also saw the guns and tried not to panic. Panicking would be a very bad thing to do. He looked over at his brother and then back at the guards and his allergies kicked in and it happened to be the perfect time. He sneezed and the entire room became frozen.
An awkward silence fell over the room. That what happens when you freeze the other three occupants of a room.
Will taped on Liam's ice to break it. He hoped that it worked to defrost him. He was happy that the guards were frozen.
Liam fell to his knees, gasping for air. "You maniac! I'm never sleeping in our room again." He staggered out of the room, alternatively coughing and swearing under his breath.
Will frowned at his brother. " Sorry, but hey, the guards are taken care of," he said looking over at him. He was surprised he had frozen people... that hadn't happened before. Perhaps his powers were getting more powerful.
Liam stopped and stared at the guards. If they were to leave, their lives would be in danger. But, he didn't want to fight them. A figurative light bulb came on over his head as he looked at the human ice cooler beside him. "Can you selectively unfreeze them?"
Will looked over at Liam. " I mean, I guess I could. I can't touch them to move them since I think it will unfreeze them, but if you move them, I don't think it will unfreeze them until I touch them," he said, being honest about the entire situation that was happening.
"Just unfreeze their mouths. The other guards will get to them before hypothermia sets in, but they're going to suffocate.They're going to die."'
Will nodded and touched their mouths and moved back. The only problem was that when he stepped back, he grazed against the guard's arms.
The guard's hand shot out, clutching around Will's throat. "You're him." He gasped, his voice hoarse from the exertions that had been forced upon him. "They knew you were going to come home. You're not going to leave this building, ever."
Will couldn't exactly move fast enough to stop the guard from grabbing his throat. He didn't recognize him, but that didn't mean he wasn't scared of him. He didn't want to be trapped here. He looked over for Liam for some help. Any help would do just fine.
Fine then. It was time to use that. Throwing his fist down to his side, a small blade shot out of his sleeve. Drawing his hand back, he pierced it through the arm of the offending guard's arm, the blade cleanly entering one side and going out the other.
Will hoped that the grip was loosened and he could escape. Something rang scarily across him. Home, the guard had called this home. Had he a relationship to someone who worked here or was the guard referring to his creation as the clone here? " What do you mean?" He asked the bleeding guard.
Exhaling in a hiss, he answered in pain laced tones. "You belong to Superior Industries. Your DNA is copyrighted and patented. I would not want to be you."
Will didn't understand what he meant that he was owned. How could a person be owned if they were also a person? This confused the young man greatly.
With great relish, Liam removed the now bloodied blade from the guard's arm, twisting it on the way out for good measure. "Right. Copyright and patented. Except for the raw materials stolen from some random kid."
Will smiled when he point out that he was made from some random kid. He was right. He was still himself, even if they inserted DNA that did not belong to him originally. " Who was I before? Did you even know me?"
"Me? I'm just a hired gun that hears things. But I do know that these eggheads are looking for you. Consider it fair warning. You're going to want to sleep with one eye open from now on."
Will didn't understand any of this. " But why do they want me back? I don't understand. I really don't remember anything about my time here... to be entirely honest, I don't remember much at all," he said.
Liam gently pushed him out of the way, standing in his position in front of the guard. "Don't bother. He doesn't know anything." Liam flicked his blade in front of the man's face, purposely turning on the killing intent. "I'm going to let you live this time. Next time... come after me and I'll go after your family."
Will wished he could remember, but it seemed that it didn't matter. He looked at Liam who was protecting him from the man. He didn't care about his past, now that he thought about it. It was the present that mattered and he looked over at the man. He was silent when Liam threatened a person.
"I live alone kid. Cute posture though."
Instinctively, Will looked him at him. " I can still freeze you again."
Liam turned around and stood shoulder to shoulder with Will, facing away from the guard. In a hushed tone, he said. "Freeze his arm. Despite the talk I'm not planning on killing him. I don't want him to bleed out."
Will nodded and closed his eyes to concentrate on where he was targeting. He had never tried this before, but he hoped it worked. He aimed for the man's arm at first... and then his groin since he had annoyed him a lot.
Liam resolved to never get on his stepbrother's nerves. He wasn't necessarily opposed to having children someday if he could ever meet back up with... he blushed suddenly, completely out of context for the guard and Liam. "Will. The mission is scrubbed. We need to get out now. Think. This is where you were made. They'll have containment protocols, and I'm just a kid with a knife."
Will looked over at his stepbrother and decided not to guess why he was blushing. There were a ton of reasons why he might be, but none of them were evident to a five year old. He looked over at him and nodded. It seemed that there would be more than these two and they did want him too. He sighed and nodded in agreement. He wished he had learned more or helped Liam, but alas, he didn't.
The door started to close behind them.
"Catch it." Liam yelled, and put his newfound strength to the test trying to keep it from shutting.
Will froze the door, above Liam's hands. He hoped that it would be enough. He paused, wondering where guard 2 was.
The answer to that question would be tasering Liam in the gut. He body convulsed as forty thousand watts flowed through him, then collapsed backwards. The door sealed shut, blocking the guard from entering. Past the pain wracking his body, Liam whispered, "Freeze the gears..."
Will was happy that his brother was okay even though he had taken some voltage and he looked over at the gears and froze them. He hoped that it would keep the two guards out., but both of them looked like they could break doors with their bare hands, so he doubted it. He looked over at Liam. " I'll carry you."
"No." He whispered defiantly.
" Can you walk?" He asked him.
Liam ignored him, and shut his eyes. Inside his mind, something was taking shape. It couldn't quite be described in any words except... familiar perhaps. Instinctively, he knew it was something a seven year old should never see. In that moment, he was more sure than ever that he had several years of his life missing, and if the world taking shape around him was anything, they hadn't been good years.
He stood alone at the top of a skyscraper, the customary beaked hood of his kind pulled over his head. He could see far beyond the normal site of any ordinary human, and yet as far as he looked he could not see a single living soul. It was a city devoid of life. The place showed signs of life, graffiti marked the walls, litter lined the streets, but they souls that should make a place home were gone.
A chill ran down his spine. What abomination was this? His kind remained hidden by moving with the ground, becoming one with the people. So why was his mental landscape barren?
And then, with a knowledge he could not explain, he realized. This entire world was his blade. Empty, but untouchable. Alone with all of what he had to do. Who was he forced become that would necessitate stripping himself of the bonds that would make him human? What was this blade aimed at?
The answer would come in time, he was certain of it. But now, now he would take strength from this desolate place. This place was a representation of his will, and his body was nothing but an instrument of that will. He was not the figure on the high tower, he was the empty city itself.
Liam's eyes opened, and he flipped himself onto his stomach. He pushed himself up, and collapsed. Then he tried again, and collapsed. The nerve endings were just scattered, any way you look at it. But he had to. He was alone, and the only person that he could depend on to keep himself alive was himself.
Meanwhile Will offered a hand up to his brother. He hoped that he would take his hand from him, It seemed that the stairway they had used to answer was blocked. It seemed the only way out was a glowing door. Nothing suspicious or evil about it.
Liam continued struggling, ignoring the hand for a moment. When it was clear he couldn't continue, he grudgingly took it and stood up, leaning on Will's shoulder for support. Inside of the empty, hidden away from the sight of the boy on the tower, a young man named Will appeared.
"Do you know where that portal will take us?"
Will noticed that he didn't immediately take his hand. He however didn't give up and was happy when he took it from him. He was happy and when Liam asked him that question, memories started to trigger. Cold, his pet hamster, missing, caught there. Lucky, god. He took a breath and focused.
" It's a room where they turn man into animals or animals into men."
Liam's next question was very pointed, and very important. "Is it worse than here?"
Will looked over at him. " I don't know, I remember screams, but either way, it is our only choice."
"Let's go then, brother."
Will nodded as they entered the portal.
A good amount of time later....
Will hang up the phone and looked over at Liam. " So Adam wants us to stay inside as he believes it is too dangerous. What do you want to do Liam?" He asked.
"How long have I been living here?"
" Hmm... we came in August, it is currently about November... of next year," he replied.
"And how long have you been living here?"
" About the same amount of time quite honestly."
"And how long did it take you to figure out I never listen to Adam?"
" Well, let's see. You did it the first, second, third time.. It took me about a week."
"I might have gotten older mentally, but I still have the same bad habits. Let's go break into an evil mad scientist lab."
" Yeah, I have to agree with you there. Now would be the best time to break into there. Apparently, the guards are off today." Will was looking at their facebook pages. Stupid guards didn't set them to private.
Liam looked over the top of his brother's head. "That is a serious breach in security." His eyes squinted as the obvious thought occurred to him. "I dunno. Think it's a trap?"
Will ran a hand through his hair for a moment. " Knowing our luck, it probably is. But on the other hand, we have never had a better opportunity to do it then today," he replied. " That and I can practice my new power of teleportation."
"Oh why the fuck not?" Liam complained. "Another power? I get a little knife, and you're practically a demigod." He pinched his brow and took a deep breath. "Alright. It's fine. Just, let's focus on the mission."
"We know it's a trap, and knowing that, we can spring it around the people trying to trap us."
Will tapped his chin. " Yeah, I have no clue why I am getting more powers. Maybe I am a demigod, but I don't know since I don't know who my real father is or for that matter mother. Knowing my luck, I had a ditcher parent."
" The only problem I can forsee is that they know we know it's a trap and will try to spring it on them, so there will be a trap to the trap, if you get what I mean."
"Brother, that mentality never ends well. There's no saying we can't spring the trap that was meant to trap us within the obvious trap. And in turn, that could be a trap. I can't see the future, just go with Occam's Razor. There is only one trap."
" Well, if we keep talking, then we aren't going to get there." He grabbed Liam's hand before he could argue with him and teleported them. Sadly, Will's power was new and well. " Liam, a bit of bad news, I teleported us into a sensor trap door that is going-," Will didn't get to finish that sentence because gravity.
In a deadpan voice totally devoid of the mass frustration that he had to be feeling right now, he said. "You're going to kill me."
When the duo finally landed on the ground, it was soft. The room had no doors, just two sets of food that said eat me. " Well, fuck."
The boy landed softly, he blow of not having any special abilities softened by the mysterious training he'd received in his other life. "William. Don't touch the food. It's laced with poison."
Will looked over at him. " You know, I thought, it was laced with candy apple. There has to be a way..." A sign appeared. It read: The door will appear if you eat the food. " As I said before, fuck."
"Just teleport us out of here already. I don't like it here. I don't sense any killing intent, but that wouldn't pop up if they just wanted to capture us alive."
Will nodded. " One teleport coming up," he said. As he attempted to teleport, nothing happened. " The room must have a power blocker in it."
"Fine. I'm... in the sense of this mission" He grimaced. "Expendable. I'll eat the food, then when the door opens, maybe it'll break the circuit of whatever is keeping us trapped here."
"Yeah, it's a terrible plan. But it's the best I've got."
It seemed that the sign had appeared again with some new wording. Two plates. Two eats of different people, or door doesn't open. It seemed that this was a magical sign of some sort.
" I don't think the sign likes your plan, Liam," Will said, not shocked by the sign having a magical origin."
Walking over to the sign, he pulled a pen out of his pocket and drew a phallic symbol on it. When he was done, he stepped back and admired his work. "Not helping, but it made me feel better."
Will looked around the room and saw that there was no other option. Hmm.. he just noticed something. The food he had seen happened to be his and Liam's favorite. Well, that was certainly creepy.
"Fine. Fine. I get it. But thou must." He walked over to the food, considering it, then turned to Will. "What do you think would happen if I threw this away? A, they could leave us to starve to death in here, or we could jump them when they come to retrieve us."
Will wasn't sure of the answer, but turned to the food and noticed it floating when the word thrown away was said. " Huh? Oh, it's magical food, well, that is not a good thing. Magical food likes to- force it way if it hears the words thrown away, Well, fuck our life." The food hovered close to Liam and Will.
"I'm starting to get why dad hated magic so much. With a look of great consternation, he took a bite of the food.
Will sighed and took a bite of the food. He hoped that there were no magical side effects.
It seemed that for a good five seconds after it was bitten that there were no side effects. However, there was a lingering feeling he had at the sixth second. Like some sort of magic was ebbing and forcing a small change in his body. He couldn't tell what it was, but if Liam looked, he would notice that Will's hair had turned slightly spiky and he had a light aftershadow... after just a single bite.
That certainly wasn't good. The little detail Will had forgotten about magic food is that it had the same effects of being starved. One bite made you crave more and more until it was finished. That was the problem with magic.
Though he couldn't explain how he knew what to do, as soon as he felt the foreign mana enter his body, he began to circulate his own. The effect left him feeling, queasy. Circulation of the body's mana was designed to stop attacks from the outside, not within.
Will took a deep breath, resisting the urge to eat some more food. He felt that there was something different from the bite and he didn't like it. He growled, as the food started to fly around him, trying to force its way into his body. " Have I ever told you I hate magic food? Because I do," he said, giving some food room to slide down his body and activate more effects. If you guess more muscles and beard growth were the effects, you would be right.
A single glance at his heteosexual life partner, he began to laugh. It was not a good laugh. It was filled with the mirth of madness. He hunched forward, stepping forward like a marionette that has had it's strings cut.
Will wasn't sure how to react to Liam at the moment or for that matter, what the heck he was laughing at. He bit his tongue and held back a word. Sadly, he had to breath and well, magic food took advantage of things. Some more beard growth away.
"It's finished. I can't do it anymore." His hidden blade flicked out as he grabbed Will by his collar. "Don't struggle. I have to do this. You'll just make it worse for both of us." His hidden blade drew near to Will's throat, and then he cut.
Five minutes later, Liam was still struggling to cut the damn beard hair off faster than its growth rate. "WHY WON'T YOU DIE!"
Will wasn't sure where this as going, but he knew that his brother was a little different and a little eccentric, so it didn't bother him when he got a hidden blade to the throat. He knew he didn't regenerate, but hey, he trusted Liam a whole lot.
" Magical food, magical beard, I could have saved you five minutes of your life if you asked," Will said, as the magical food hovered. He batted it away before it could reach his mouth.
"Well do you have a better idea? If you haven't noticed, the door is still shut." He gestured irritably at the aforementioned door.
" Well, fuck, forgot about the door," he said, looking over at the magical food and sighed. He took another goddamn bite. More beard growth, but hey, it wasn't... never mind, there was still one bite left.
"Stop!" Liam cried out. "Anymore and... and... and you'll look like a reject from the Hangover. Let me take the last bite." He looked into Will's eyes, "For you."
Will nodded and let him do that. Besides the fact he didn't what was happening to him, he felt a burning feeling. He knew that one more bite was going to do something.
With a forlorn sigh, he ate the last bite of the accursed food, the mana laced within it tasting like poison, and swallowed. That... might have been a mistake. The magic circuits laced throughout his body burned like fire, sending shooting pain through every extremity. The magic was building some kind bridge between him and his brother, his own hijacked circuits doing the work for it.
Meanwhile, Will was not doing with the magic in his body. To say his body was rejecting it was an understatement in the grandest of scales to be honest. He was burning and freezing at the same time. Dark magic did not go through well through the child of luck and light. After a moment and a bowl appearing, the magical food was thrown up ( well most of it except one small piece) into a bowl. After this, the bowl disappeared as did most of the effects.
"Will." Liam began in that too calm voice that spoke more to how worried he was than when he was bellowing in frustration, "What kind of magic was that? Where I'm from, that would be called a contract. And those are very, very dangerous."
Will took a deep breath. " I know that magic. It was coursing through my veins when I was him, Matthew. That is pure chaos magic, not controlled and it shouldn't be here. Nothing's making sense to me. What magic do contracts use?" He asked.
Liam took a seat as he waited for his magic circuits to 'cool down' so to speak. Explaining this to his brother would help take his mind off the lingering pain anyways. "Where I'm from is not like Starling. We have different universes, or whatever the hell you want to call them. A lot of them have their own type of magics. Where my mother is from, where my power originated, is from an earth that houses a human variant called Casters. Now, I've only visited that place once. I learned magic in a city called Fuyuki, from an irritable mage called Tohsaka. The 'magic' within my body was compatible, in fact more or less the same, as that world's version. Mine, comparatively, was from something equivalent called the Age of the Gods. It's stronger than modern magic, but because I wasn't on my mother's earth on my sixteenth birthday, it's true potential never awakened within me."
"Now, Fuyukian 'magic', for lack of a better term, isn't wild or uncontrolled. It's almost like science, though science is its antithesis. Humans have mana, supernatural creatures have prana. Because I'm from the Age of the Gods, I have a -lot- of mana, but because of my unique circumstances, I have no way to express it."
"A magical contract is when one being submits itself, or is forced to submit, to the will of another, becoming a Familiar. But, one shouldn't form between mages, and even if it could... I sense no mana from you. You have something weird, but it's not magic as I know it."
"So altogether, i don't have a fucking clue what is going on. What is this chaos stuff?"
Will looked over at Liam. " I am not entirely myself. But from what I remember and understand, certain beings here can tap into chaos magic. It's magic but it is more darker in origin and it is difficult to control."
"Sounds like my mom's cooking." Liam mused to himself.
" Sometimes it can take you over and you can't reply. The problem is chaos magic isn't good or evil... it's just chaotic." Will stopped talking. The door clicked open.
"Can you teleport us out of here now?" Liam asked urgently, storytelling time over.
Will tried to teleport, but it failed. " Nope, it looks like we are going to have to walk through the door."
At the mention of this words, the door swung up and ... a
song was playing. " How ominous," Will muttered.
"No, no. Not ominous at all." A sigh and a pinched brow later he said, "William, in case we die here, there's something I want to tell you."
"Never. Ever. Teleport me without my permission. I could have busted you out from the outside by now, but nooooo. Mister no impulse control has to go and teleport into the obvious trap." He took a deep breath, rant over.
The music continued to play, getting slightly louder, but suddenly dying down. He had only been half listening to Liam, so most of his advice was going over his head.
Due to missing most of the rant, he stepped into the room and it lit up. It was empty… save for a woman smoking a cigar in the corner and a puppy in some sort of strange device. " It certainly took you long enough to get out of that room," she said.
His rant finished and apparently unheard, he followed in behind the blockhead just soon enough to hear the tail end of the woman's taunt. "Fuck you." Uncouth though it may be, sometimes it was best to take a phrase or two out of his father's vocabulary.
" Sorry sweetie, I already got a boyfriend to cover that front," the woman replied, as a man appeared out of the corner, holding a gun. " As I said, a boyfriend. Now, where was I? Oh yes, making sure that you didn't get out of here alive," she replied.
Will silently looked over at the pair and felt like he knew them or had at least read about them. He tapped on his foot and paused. " You wouldn't happen to be Bonnie and Clyde?" He asked. Detective of the year award goes to Will, not really.
"Do they look like the undead WIll? You're not the living dead, are you?" Said the joker to the thief.
" Yes, we are. It seems infamy does have its perk… especially after being let out of hell by that son of the Devil."
" Well, fuck," Will stated bluntly.
"Isn't this the part where you tell us your plan, and then we make a daring escape?"
" Usually yes, however, I have never been one for the old cliches," she replied, as Clyde cocked his gun towards Will. He didn't notice Bonnie pull out her gun and aim it straight for Liam's head and pull the trigger.
They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. Funny thing is, most people have memories. It's an event to remind them of either a life well lived, or a life full of regrets.
The thing they don't tell you about darkness is that it doesn't come from one simple moment, it comes from a collection of them, a collection of pain and suffering that you gather over a lifetime.
In a blank, innocent mind like Liam's, his life flashing before his eyes was a revelation. As neurons fired frantically for the last time before being erased out of existence by a crude piece of metal with no other purpose or function than to erase life, his final thought as he passed into oblivion was simple, and bitter.
The second the shot rang off, something started to wake up in William Knight. Something that had been there since the moment he was born. Pure chaos. It wasn't the controlled kind like Nicholas's Harris, it wasn't the kind that was passive like Matthew where you have some control, it was pure and unfiltered and vengeful. It shook the whole building.
Nothing changed.
Everything changes.
And then William Miles, Connor Duchannes, Liam Knight, died as he lived, alone.
There was something poetic about that-, too bad it was lost on him.
Not too far away, Adam Knight felt something was very wrong… but he didn't know what.
As things exploded and Bonnie and Clyde escaped, all the chaos was let out. Pure, unfiltered and overwhelming. In less than one minute, William Knight collapsed on the floor.
