Renegade Rupture (44 page)

“I’ve never even met Nina, you know, never held her in my arms. She’s all I thought about in Glaknabrade. How is she?” Vice asked.

Gisbo said nothing.

“Fine, you don’t need to talk, but at least listen. The Sybils, they see what might be, where I have seen what WILL be. You know why?” Vice asked. “Because I’ve been to the future.”

“How?” Gisbo asked.

“Not important,” Vice said. “I know exactly what happens to you, your friends, this world . . . everything. You think this reality that you, we, reside in now to be the present, don’t you? Well, you’re wrong. Time is relative, and your time, your real time, it has already passed. You’ve failed, and Drakearon owns everyone and everything. In a phrase, he owns the future. The reality you belong to right now is the past to that future, and soon, very soon, events will happen to you that will change everything, all in an attempt to . . . well, perhaps I’ve said too much. Just know that I have already set things in motion, and unfortunately, your friend Shaved had to die,” Vice said.

“That, that makes no sense at all! Blow it out your ass,” Gisbo said.

“I said you didn’t need to speak, only listen, not that it matters. Soon, everything will change because of what I’ve done. Everything, but I am only the first step. Remember, this is the past. The present is already beyond you, where an alternate you does or doesn’t exist. I need you to trust me. Everything is riding on you, Gisbo. Everything,” Vice said.

“I don’t believe this, any of it,” Gisbo said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Vice said.

“You’ve already lied to me, spewing that crap about you being my dad!” Gisbo yelled. Vice laughed.

“It hurt you because, for a moment, you believed it, didn’t you?” Vice asked.

Gisbo said nothing.

“Believe me, kid, you are your father’s son. Both of us read predictable fantasy growing up, and we always joked like that and planned how to screw with those we came across once we became strong, formidable warriors. Kids are so easy to tease; don’t take it personally,” Vice said.

“You knew my dad?” Gisbo asked.

“I did,” Vice said.

“And Drakearon, he’s your father?” Gisbo asked.

“Yes, but not in a traditional sense, as you may imagine,” Vice said. “But to answer both of your questions requires a story. Would you hear my story?”

“Do I have a choice?” Gisbo asked.

“Of course not,” Vice said.

“Then, yes,” Gisbo said.

“Can I release your holdings? Will you sit there and be good?” Vice asked.

Gisbo thought for a moment, and finally nodded. Vice let go, and Gisbo eased back against the headboard.

“That’s better. Now, listen and listen well. I want to tell this tale once and be done with it. My time is running out,” Vice said.

“Your time?” Gisbo asked, but Vice ignored him and continued.

“Way before either of us were born, way before the great Veil war, there was Drakearon. Before he became a tyrant, he was nothing more than a young, wandering swordsman with only one desire.

“To prove himself, and to do that, he would need power.

“Duels to the death were commonplace back then. Sometimes swordsmen would set up signs in the middle of towns to be challenged and Drakearon would challenge every one of them. As you can guess, he won every single match, slaying his opponents with ease, and usually without a scrape. No one, not even me, knows where he came from or his lineage. He was not there, then he was. His reputation grew like wildfire with every opponent he vanquished. Most swordsmen didn’t need a reason to fight, it was in their nature, unexplainable, so it was accepted. My father, however, had a different motive. In such days, warrior cultures were present everywhere. They set up the rulings, they dished out the learning materials, and so those with the sword were also those with access to knowledge. Drakearon dueled with everyone, at any chance, of all races, but he sought Flarians because of his gift, curse, whatever you want to call it. As you know, Drakearon had an ability beyond the elements, much like myself, given to him by the Dragon, a parasitic organism. With every Flarian he vanquished, Drakearon would not only absorb their essence, but their knowledge. Everything but his victim’s soul he would take, unbeknownst to everyone but himself,” Vice said.

Gisbo said nothing, but looked on with a newfound curiosity.

“By his late twenties, Drakearon was known as the man of sixty-six kills. Sixty-six men fell to his blade and no doubt a good 80% of them were Flarians. Their personalities craved battle to begin with, and Drakearon gladly obliged.

“But around the same time, a man with a similar record achieved as much fame as Drakearon. Naturally, the two were destined to clash. This man was different. He did not hold a record of sixty-six kills, but sixty-six victories, most of which had limited casualties. Only when he needed to did this man slay. What thrilled Drakearon most was the fact this man was also a Flarian. A Flarian of noble birth, so the rumors said, descended by the Flarian Warlord of the current time, a man known as Vadid the Valiant. Their styles, their personalities, the way they carried themselves couldn’t have been more different.

“Where Drakearon had fair features, Vadid was scruffy. Where Drakearon dressed neatly, in the most expensive clothing, Vadid was scrubby and wore shabby clothes. Where Drakearon’s power was stolen, Vadid’s was earned. The list could go on and on, but the most interesting difference was their fighting styles, or lack thereof in terms of Vadid. Drakearon was disciplined from book knowledge and his victims’ stolen muscle memories, no doubt mastered and passed down from generations. He was quick, clean, and to the point. Vadid learned from no man but himself, through experience alone, adapting and creating his own style that had no style. He only adapted. Their duel was organized and decided to start at moonrise, at the edge of the Flarian desert, where the ocean met the sand.”

Gisbo knew the place. It was where he went every night during his training with Falcon. He couldn’t help but marvel that he had walked upon the same place, in the same footsteps of Vadid the Valiant, and now understood why he was drawn to that spot among countless others.

“There, in their natural states, if you could call Drakearon’s abilities natural, they fought. This was before the Dragon and the Phoenix descended upon these men fully and changed them forever. Now, here is where it gets interesting. Vadid never read books on combat, but he was an avid reader, and there are places, Gisbo, throughout this world, doorways, that lead into other universes, other worlds, other timelines than this one. In some places, such areas overlap, parts of their culture mix into our own, and vice versa.

“There are other worlds, other than Thera, out there, Gisbo. I’ve seen them, witnessed them with my own eyes, realities on different planes of space and time. They may be infinite in number. The saying ‘history repeats itself’ is no lie, but not in the way you think. It is in other worlds, other timelines, where one different decision can alter everything; even the smallest choice can produce great change through a chain of events.

“It is wondrous to behold. This fight between Drakearon and Vadid, believe it or not, had happened elsewhere, performed by two different, yet similar men, on a different world, in a different time. You see, Vadid had a power too, much like Drakearon’s. Rather than absorb knowledge through someone’s death, Vadid learned through someone’s life.

“Vadid, before given the power to cut through and travel to other worlds, knew where such entrances existed. His heart urged him to such places, sometimes by accident. It was during one of these instances that he met a man from another world, a man with a foreign tongue, who, much like Vadid, had earned quite a reputation from his own duels. Because of his renown, he was hunted down by thrill seekers constantly and forced to retire. This man was now in the old age of his life and lived alone in caves for a life of peace and to write his manifesto. One such cave however, he found, crossed into Thera itself, and there he met Vadid the Valiant.

“This man’s name was Miyomoto Musashi, a warrior called a samurai from a distant world known as Earth, with a warrior culture very similar to Thera’s at that time . . .”

Gisbo’s mouth dropped a little bit at this, wanting so much to doubt him, but he found he couldn’t.

“You see, Vadid’s power to learn from life instead of death was IAM’s very belief that knowledge should be shared. IAM had blessed Vadid with the gift of tongues, the ability to understand and speak any language. Vadid could converse with any one of any religion, language, time, place and could draw similarities and form tight bonds of peace and friendship. Vadid learned from Musashi, who may or may not have been himself or a part of himself in another reality. Who knows? Either way, Miyomoto Musashi and Vadid the Valiant spent many days leading up to Vadid’s duel with Drakearon training and talking with one another, discussing their lives, sharing each other’s worlds, places, experiences, and both inspired the other’s life.

“Vadid inspired Musashi to write his life’s work in a book known as the book of Five Rings based on the way Thera’s energy system worked, whereas Vadid revolutionized the Renegades, which he would later join, under Musashi’s influence and philosophies. Doorways are constantly moving, much like time itself. Their time was short, but what came out of that meeting would affect each of their worlds forever.

“Vadid told Musashi of his upcoming duel, most likely to the death, of a man of incredible skill, skill that mayhap outranked him. Musashi smiled and asked of the man’s characteristics, rather than skill, which puzzled Vadid. Musashi shared of his own experience. He had also dueled many men to the death and once faced an opponent unlike himself, as Vadid was about to.

“He told Vadid the secret he used to defeat his opponent. Vadid listened, said goodbye to his friend as their doorway moved on, and each was wiser for their experience. Vadid was finally prepared to face Drakearon upon the sands of Flaria at full moonlight.

“My father is a glutton for control, especially the world around him. Much like your friend, Ranto, cleanliness and organization to the point of utter compulsion is a necessity before he can strategize, unlike Vadid who adapts to what’s already there, without a desire to change a thing. My father showed up right on time and paced up and down the shoreline, waiting for his opponent.

“Musashi predicted that Drakearon’s strength was precision and patience. So, he sought to break it by instructing Vadid to arrive three hours late, leaving Drakearon to soak in his own juices of disarray, anger, and impatience, breaking his focus. Vadid arrived at Drakearon’s patience’s breaking point. They fought, and Vadid defeated him, but did not land the finishing blow.

“Vadid loved to fight, but only to learn the limits of his own body, as well as learn from others, allowing them both to become stronger and wiser for it. Death made it one sided. It was selfish to Vadid. However, he had never faced a man like my father. He had no idea what he could have prevented should he have made that final, killing blow.

“Embarrassed beyond reason, especially by Vadid’s mercy, Drakearon was a changed man. Thought to be the most powerful, he realized, with horror, that he wasn’t. Even with all the power he had stolen from his victims, all of his work, he had come across a man who was more gifted than him. Why did he get special treatment from his creator? Why not him? Was there a creator? Why did he show mercy? What was behind it all? This defeat drove my father away from fighting for a while as he used the knowledge of the men he had defeated and devoted his life to science to answer the questions that plagued his mind. With it, he lost what little heart remained in favor of his mind.

“In his first experiment, Drakearon theorized that he could not defeat Vadid because he lacked the physical requirement. Somehow, Vadid was blessed with better genes. That must have been it. Drakearon knew that he had the elemental power, but must have lacked the physical qualities. That’s where I come into this story. My father never wanted a son. No. What he wanted was a perfect body he could control and possess, and thus, I was created, grown, like a plant, in augmented reality and time, as the perfect, flawless human by Drakearon’s own scientific standards.

“That is why I have such powers, why I can control matter and create it with my mind. Most humans use only 10% of their brain. If you could use more, you could do what I can do, see what I see. Trust me, nobody wants such a burden. Needless to say, once I was created, Drakearon realized that as far as science could take him, he could not implement his own soul within my body. He realized human beings were limited, and more so, we were created that way. There was a wall even he could never cross. So if he couldn’t cross the line, if he couldn’t go above it and reach godhood, he would twist what was already here and force all others below that line. And out of that came the quest for the God Quotient, a scientific way to put himself above all other humans not just in power, no, but to the point where he was needed, and wanted, for all other species to survive. All that was required was eternal worship and sacrifice to his own ideals and moralities, but such moralities couldn’t be forced. They needed to be accepted. I was the perfect guinea pig for the universal morality theory, a theory that stated that within all of us was a universal morality, a code in place to cause guilt. Everyone’s guilt was the same, and those whose guilt wasn’t meant only they had learned to ignore it, or had mental illness. Drakearon wanted to know if such a code existed, and if it did, where did it come from? Did nature versus nurture dictate morality?