Having been raised an only child I had no idea how I was supposed to react to the news that I had four older siblings. I was happy, but also scared. What kind of people would they be. I could only hope they weren't as cold and distant as my parents were.
"I am sure they will reach out to you later." my mother told me. "They always get excited when they get a new sibling."
That sounded promising.
"Now back to the reason we are meeting here." my father told me.
"Other than to discuss if it was safe to let me run around with my bond ability?" I asked.
"That was something you needed to know, not the reason we are here." father told me.
"We still have to discuss my bloodline ability." my mother reminded him.
"He hasn't awakened it." father argued.
"It doesn't matter, he will and we may not have the ability to discuss it with him later." my mother responded.
"Alright but we are running low on time." my father replied.
My mother smiled at him indulgently then looked back at me. "I am an Elemental Sorceress Daryl. While not as fear inducing as a Bonder, we were once a royal family of our world." she told me.
A royal? Really? It explained her good looks and regal bearing, but what about the ability.
My mother sighed when I didn't react the way she was expecting me too. "I have yet to see any of my children inherit my ability in its entirety, probably the reason your father was willing to ignore it." she told me then gave my father a little glare, "However your Elemental Lord of Black Lightning feels like it was influenced by my bloodline." she told me.
I had been wondering about it for a while, but it seemed that my parents knew way to much about what had happened to me in the last couple of days. If they had been with me it would have been fine, but one was supposedly in Washington while the other in Hawaii. "How do you know about all of this?" I asked.
"The bonds Daryl." my father told me. "While we haven't interfered with your life, we have been keeping an eye on you."
'Interfere? Was that what they were worried about? I wouldn't have minded a bit more interference!' I thought to myself but tried to maintain my calm. While they weren't strangers they were never around, I had literally been raised by my step mothers and his girlfriends.
"Anyways." my mother said trying to get back to her topic. "My ability is Elemental Lord, I hold sway over all the elements." she told me proudly.
It didn't sound much better than the elemental abilities I had with my core.
Again my mother didn't seem satisfied with my reaction.
"It's fine Janet, we don't have the time to describe the difference between your ability and the elemental abilities he got from the crazed mana." my father told her.
My mother huffed angrily, "There is no comparison." she snorted but remained silent after that.
My father gave her a wane smile then looked at me. "As we said earlier we are moving on to the next world. We will not be able to take you with us. Your space ability conflicts with our method of travel." he told me.
So now I was about to be abandoned. Great.
My thoughts must have shown on my face. "We can send you to one of your siblings havens, but that would stunt your growth, so we won't." he told me.
"Stunt my growth?" I asked.
My father nodded. "Your mother and I are Immortal Wanderers. As the name implies we are Immortal, I am not a descendant of the family that survived the World Fall of my original world, I survived it myself. Same as your mother. We lost the desire to have children a long time ago." he told me.
I frowned, "then why are you having children?" I asked the obvious question.
My father didn't answer immediately. "Besides the Immortal Wanderers there are many other survivors that move from world to world to avoid the World Fall, the Shifters, Ancients, Elves, Dwarves, Faeries, almost all of this worlds legends were created not from the imagination of bored shepherds and drunken bards, but from coming into contact of the different survivors as they passed through this world to the next. I am positive that the Norse, Greek, and Egyptian myths were about groups of the Ancients that stayed here for a while before moving on." my father told me.
"You're getting off topic dear." my mother chided.
"Right, sorry. Anyways, one common hope amongst all the survivors is to find or create a sanctuary." father told me finally becoming excited. "My Bonds and your mother's Elemental Lord are powerful abilities. Mix them with the abilities that develop when a mortal is exposed to the crazed mana, and we suspect that a Sanctuary, a place where we no longer have to fear the dangers of the Great Realm, could be created. The havens are a step in the right direction, but as they need a direct connection to the Great Realm to provide the mana needed to maintain them, they are ultimately failures. Yet we still hope one of you children will be able to figure out what is missing to make the havens into real Sanctuaries." my father told me his eyes glowing with excitement.
Complicated feelings raced around through my mind, but I pushed them to the back of my mind. I could sort them out later, I needed information. "What dangers are you worried about? Aren't the two of you fairly powerful?" I asked.
"No Daryl we aren't. You aren't either." my mother told me seriously. "Unfortunately since you were born in this weird world you won't understand as easily as the others did." my mother told me.
"What won't I understand, and what is so weird about this world?" I asked irritatedly my patience reaching its end.
My mother held up her hand to forstal my questions. "This world is weird because unlike all those before it, and all those after it, there is no mana here. None at all. In all our years we have never seen or heard of a world like this one. Usually you should have grown up familiar to the feel of mana and how to channel it. Not enough that you would have awoken our bloodlines prematurely, but enough that you would have more control over the abilities you have now. Because your first interaction with mana was when the first energy wave appeared, you are going to have a hard time understanding how weak you are. You single handedly wiped out two hordes of twisted when rescuing Grace, and while it seemed impressive to all of you, it would have been childs play to anyone who grew up in any one of the other worlds before the energy waves hit." she told me.
"Let's think in terms of your games. All the twisted you have faced so far, no matter their color are all level one newbs. The mana in this world is still to thin for them to grow stronger. After the next wave they mana density of this world will rise above the normal level of the world chain and then those twisted will start to gain levels, with each level they will grow exponentially stronger." she told me.
I was in shock but listened attentively.
"By the time this world begins to fuse with the Great Realm the weakest of the green twisted will be strong enough to fight your father and I together, and even then it will only be considered a baby in comparison to the beasts, twisted, and monsters living in the great realm. The great realm is the source of where all the mana comes from so its mana density is thicker than water. Anything that lives there gains strength a thousand times faster than what we can accomplish out here on the world chains. Yet the weakest of animals, not the beasts, just the animals are to strong for us to fight so we have no choice but to live out her on the chains."
Well that was castrating.
"That is why we run, that is why we want a Sanctuary. The Havens as nice as they are, are always under threat of having their link to the Great Realm discovered and destroyed by a beast or monster looking for an easy snack." mother concluded.
"That is why we are leaving you here. So you can gain some experience fighting the weak twisted and mana beasts of this world before you have to face something from the Great Realm." My father added.
"Normally you would be older when the World Fall happened, but it started earlier than we expected and honestly I spent too long trying to figure out why this world had no mana." my mother told me.
"Did you?" I asked trying to distract myself.
"No. This world is like all the others and should have just as much mana as all the other chain worlds, but I couldn't never figure out where it all went." she told me obviously perturbed.
I let that sink in for a moment before looking back to my father. "So now what?" I asked him.
"Soon you will wake up. You will have to decide what you want to do, but you should know that the estimates the haven man is giving you will be off, he is thinking in terms of the previous worlds, Earth will not respond as well as the other worlds as no one has any mana resistances." my father warned me. "My best estimate is that twenty to twenty five percent of the world will become twisted with the next energy wave." he told me. "The third wave and those after will affect the whole world and not just the area around the gates."
"As your father and I have grown fairly fond of them we will be bringing Kelly and Lisa with us when we move to the next world so you won't have to worry about them." my mother told me.
My father opened his mouth to say something else then stopped. "We are out of time. Daryl, no matter what you think of us and our methods, we do care for you and want you to be happy." my father told me seriously.
"We do love you Daryl." my mother chimed in. Then the white room disappeared as I opened my eyes to see the familiar ceiling of Momma's guest room.
"You're awake." Megan sighed happily.
Before I even turn my head to look for the pretty blonde she had landed on my chest her lips seeking out my own.
While I enjoyed the kiss immensely, I was far more comforted by the fact that she wanted to kiss me despite the loss of the bond. No matter what I felt about my family at least I had her. I wrapped my arms around her thin waist and held her close as I kissed her back.
After a few moments I rolled her off to the side of me.
Megan gave a very unhappy look. "We have to go save my dad." I told her before she could complain.
"From what?" Megan asked confused.
As if on cue there was a loud girly scream from the living room.
"Momma." I replied.