John entered the hall with long strides. It was a faithful and enlarged reconstruction of the big chamber that he had met William in when he had returned to Springfield. In every way that mattered, it was a cathedral, although a sparsely decorated one. All of the funds that John had poured into the Order as part of the annexation agreement allowed for the rapid erection of structures. Art was a matter that took time. The one fresco of a radiant, green-haired lady had been ruined by the remnants of scorched Lorylim matter, leaving behind a pattern of splattered fluids and crawling tendrils.
The leader of the Order of the Golden Rose was visibly more exhausted than his daughter. The level difference between them was vast. Despite the deep bags under his eyes, he was alert and talking.
“We will gladly cooperate with your warriors, although I must insist that you stay away from the inquisitors. Our most fervent believers might have difficulty stomaching your presence.”
“I understand,” Romulus declared, then turned toward the group that approached.
John beheld the three arrivals individually. Romulus was as tall and regal a figure as always. Rodaclam, his chancellor, stood by his side. The old man was, as per usual, covered by an ornate robe that failed to hide the fact that more than half of his body was covered in crystal growths. It was most apparent at his head, where the facetted spires covered a full side of his face and most of his dark-haired scalp. The other half was that of a very, very old man. As John understood the man’s Innate Ability, he used those crystals to absorb and copy magic.
The last figure was the Horned Rat. The god of future calamity chose a tall form today. His four horns were shaped in such a way that the silhouette of his skull, with the elongated maw, appeared like a pentagram. Sharp teeth slotted together flawlessly, despite the wild fusion of goat, rat and wolf that made up the shape of them. The empty black of his eyes was filled with orbs of glowing red. His humanoid, grey-furred body was hugged by Lyndell.
“Huh?” John spoke his surprise.
“This is unusual, unusual indeed,” the Horned Rat picked Lyndell up by the back of her dress. The material was part of her and stretched to accommodate her weight, making her dangle like a cat grabbed by the scruff of the neck. “I am not used to being greeted so nicely. I am even less used to not knowing who greets me.”
“I’m Lyndell,” she introduced herself.
“That does not help me at all… that is concerning.” The Horned Rat stared into the eyes of the primordial entity, then snapped back. He dropped her and took three steps back. The overlapping layers of the god’s voice, from squeaky to droning deep, all echoed in disharmony, “You are the ancient!”
Sol and Luna manifested from elemental incorporeality, standing by their summoner’s side. They were battle-ready, as was Rodaclam. William was confused by what transpired, as was Moira. The women with John had a degree of confusion – as had John, until his erudite mind dragged forwards a conversation that Tilgun and the Horned Rat had had over a year ago.
Mother Chaos hated the Horned Rat
The ancient did not and so his schemes were safe.
And a moment later, John remembered a prophecy that the Horned Rat had spoken so long ago.
‘One brother knows it all, but cannot see the species wall.
One brother knows nothing, but the tainted all.
I know more than either, but less than both.
And that makes me the mediator of this world.
One brother has always been alone,
He will rise as ivy and spring and bone.
One brother has always been a leader,
Thus, he can always, always fall deeper.
And the great Lady, resting on the pebble of gold,
Giving powers to virgins and souls,
Of which none of us know the true goals,
Might just be more than ten millennia old.
I have plans and schemes and plots,
And know stars that will grow with rot,
Will you accept what they will have wrought?
Certain are the things I know,
And the sands of time that flow,
And the powers that grow,
All fit into a new era’s mould.’
‘All fit into a new era’s mould! That never was about a cast!’ “You traitor!” John shouted, the pieces slotting together in his head. “You didn’t just know about Enki, you knew about everything! You were scheming against Tiamat all this time!”
“Why would you be angry at me for that?” the Horned Rat asked amusedly. “What part of that is out of character for me? What about it is out of your intere-“
“MY PARENTS ARE DEAD!” John interrupted the god. The words opened the gate of the rage within him, sending the first flood of it through him. Paradoxically, the raw amount of anger that finally was given the promise of an outlet calmed his nerves. His mind narrowed down to a pinprick, within which only the Horned Rat and Lu Zhi’s groans of pain existed. “You will tell me exactly what that plan was. If I find out that-“
John’s phone rang.
A nearby glass pane shattered. The aura that manifested John’s emotion reached a level at which even physical reality began to feel the effects. Fluidly, he reached into his breast pocket to check whose head he would rip off later. It was an unknown number. More interesting was which number that this phone could receive was getting called.
The recruiter number that he had given those that were part of the Small Lake Tournament – a tournament whose participants, save for the Splatterknight and Hypercrush, had all been seen as part of the Lorylim so far.
The Gamer took the call and simply asked, “What?”
“Uhm… H-hi, uhm, it’s-“
“State your business. I do not have time nor patience. Is this one of your jokes, Izha?”
“No! Listen! Inferna – I saved Inferna and she told me to tell you that…” Paper rustled, John’s eye twitched. “When the time comes, do not kill Izha. She’s not certain why, but she’s pretty sure that Izha will screw over Tiamat something fierce at the end.”
“…I see.” John threw the phone to Momo, who caught it and continued the call in his stead. He breathed slowly. “So let me guess,” he growled at the Horned Rat, “you were scheming to trick both Izha and Tiamat to kill the Lorylim entirely?”
The Horned Rat redirected his attention to Lyndell for a moment. John could read the gesture plainly. For once, it was exactly clear what the god was contemplating. ‘How much did she tell him?’ that was that question the Horned Rat must have been pondering. That the answer was nothing was every bit as ludicrous as Lyndell standing there in the first place.
“The truth is that I was the one that seeded the Deathzone,” the Horned Rat stated.
“…Why?”
“For me.” Lyndell’s interruption caught both John and the Horned Rat off-guard. “I do not remember why, but I do remember it was for me.”
“The ancient was getting eroded, eroded by the goddess of chaos.” The Horned Rat put his hands on the round table staring at John across it. “I needed to direct her attention elsewhere. Give her an outlet that let her scheme to return to this world. Sacrificing a corner of an unimportant continent to retain a corner of the Lorylim that could kill the rest of the hivemind most effectively was paramount.” He gestured at Lyndell. “This outcome I did not plan for.”
“Then what did you plan for?”
“Despair,” the Horned Rat growled back, no mirth in his layered voice whatsoever. “I began this scheme over a hundred years before you were born, John. When I learned the truth about the Lorylim, I ran the numbers. An entire civilization of souls, the goddess of chaos, one of the strongest if not the strongest gods in the world, and then Izha! All I did was maximize our chances!”
John inhaled sharply through clenched teeth and tilted his head back. He clenched his eyes shut and forced closed the torrent of rage that threatened to consume his reason. “I will need a minute,” he muttered and stepped off to the side. Because that was as good as anything else, he began to collect the pieces of the glass he had shattered. As he passed her, Momo handed him his phone back.
“Whoever it was hung up immediately,” she told him, then stepped towards the table, Nightingale by her side. “Anything more about this chance maximizing scheme you wish to tell us?” she asked the Horned Rat. “Anything about having a deal with Izha?”
“No. I have done as much as I could, that’s all I want you to know and that is all you will get from me,” the Horned Rat declared.
Luna sighed. “…And, as always, you know you can get away with that answer.”
John had a handful of glass and now realized he had no bin or anything to put it. ‘Pretty useless to just stack it…’ he thought and then did it anyway.
“You did not know about Lyndell,” Nightingale addressed the room. “Am I correct in assuming that our messages from the last 5 days did not reach you?”
Romulus must have nodded before responding. “We were getting our initial briefing from this knight here. He told us about the local military situation, but had not yet gotten to the broader details. What state is the Federation in?”
“It’s no longer a Federation,” John threw his voice into the conversation for that announcement. “I am now the king of Fusion.”
Solemn, short silence, then the heavy falls of two enormous hands on his shoulders. One was the large hand of a man, tanned and muscular from many years of creating. The other was the dull-clawed, inhuman hand of a god, its pronounced segments stretching the grey-furred skin over them.
Romulus and the Horned Rat glanced at each other with obvious contempt. “You are the greater orator,” the god then relinquished.
“Heavy is the head that bears the crown,” Romulus spoke, his bass voice reverberating in John’s ears. “Your loss and your grief are all too understandable. Yet you know that men like us must stand, lest all else falls.”
John was starting to get sick of compassion. ‘Why can humans even feel that way?’ he wondered and forced himself to not respond to their kindness with bad temper. “To get cheered up by you two – that must be a first in all of history,” he joked. He brushed off their hands as he got up. “I appreciate the gesture. My solace will be found in knowing Izha is dead – forever.”
The three men – or two men and one vaguely male god – returned to the table. Once there, John cleared his throat. “Sorry about that, it has been… tumultuous.”
“I will not blame you for seeking blame with me. A schemer knows that every secret kept is a risk.”
‘Like Remus,’ John caught that quiet part. His rage towards the Horned Rat was somewhat hypocritical, considering he was going to do everything in his might to keep his twin out of Romulus’ eye. “Momo, can you try calling that person back?”
“I already did that – the caller could not be reached.”
“…Almost certainly some prank by Izha then…” he muttered and shook his head. “On that note, you must be asking yourself how he managed to kill my mundane parents and is still active.”
“He must have prepared them slowly and then done it in a manner that did not invoke enough Ire to warrant outright elimination.”
“Indeed – from what I can gather, he infiltrated them through healthcare products and then… manipulated them to overdose…”
Nightingale took over when the memory slowed his speech, “Izha appears to be deliberately skirting the line of what Gaia finds acceptable. He has demonstrated the ability to uplift mundanes to Abyssals as well. He is using this after long preparation to allow the Lorylim to spawn infection vectors anywhere. In doing so, he is assuring Tiamat’s loss.”
“He is cursing his entire faction with bad fate?” Romulus asked. “To what end?”
“To the end and the death,” the Horned Rat responded. “Tiamat’s goal is to win. Izha’s goal is to hurt the world. That is what I understand. Mother Chaos may be malignant, but she loves life. Izha hates, hates everything.”
“It is my understanding that Izha is keeping his plan from Tiamat – whatever it is. He called it the Great Opening of the Maw of the Abyss. Although that could have been another one of his mad babblings.”
“Theories about the internal workings of the mad will not win us this war.” Rodaclam’s old voice carried wisdom in it. Ironically, the chancellor was the youngest of the non-Fusion people at the table. “Tell us everything we ought to know. What is the overall situation?”
“Good,” Lydia declared. The queen of Rex Germaniae had finally managed to join them. “I apologize for my delay. The supply situation required sorting through.”
“Supply wins wars,” Rodaclam stated agreeingly. “What does good mean?”
“It means that our lines are stable and pushing. Our intel situation is getting clearer with every hour. Fusion weathered the storm without our aid and, for now, we are reclaiming what the wind has thrown into discord.” Lydia stopped between Romulus and John, opposite of the Horned Rat. “It is unfortunate that you landed here, but the westwards push will work all the same.”
It was at that moment that John got another matter to share. “Lu Zhi is now recovering from her injury. She will be ordering the empire to join us within hours.”
“The empress got attacked? Successfully?” the Horned Rat asked, flabbergasted.
“…They really did have your communications blocked to the extreme,” John remarked. “Very well, I will give you the full chronological breakdown of events since the initial call for aid.”