It took us a good bit to get to what I considered a safe distance to be. When we got there, I began thinking. These androids reminded me of something, though I wasn't sure what. Specifically, their arms. The way they cut through brick and stone without dulling themselves was quite impressive.
A thought occurred to me, but I didn't like where it was going.
"Scribbles." Silky got my attention and directed it to a figure walking down the road toward us.
I pulled out a staff from my Armory. Nothing special, just a metal rod about my height.
"You're not going to do the same thing you did with the last one?" Silky asked.
"No, if I did that, then I wouldn't have a chance to see where it goes to get repaired," I explained. Of course, that depends on the tenacity or programming of the android too. It could be programmed to hunt until it falls apart rather than go in for repairs.
The figure moved towards me, thankfully the road I was on wasn't busy at all. I hadn't seen a single car since I arrived here.
It swiped at me with its whip-like arms, and I leapt over them.
It was quick to adjust, though, as it immediately swiped upwards. I flipped in the air and blocked the attack with my staff, then sliding down the tendrils on top of the staff.
It swiped at me with its other arm, but I flipped underneath of its first, narrowly avoiding the attack.
I dropped to the ground right in front of it and began my onslaught, not missing a beat. It didn't have a chance to breathe, if they were capable of breathing.
I slammed my staff into its rib cage, then kicked the end closer to me up into its face. The end of the staff that had been in its stomach was now closer to me, so I grabbed it and slammed it into the android's neck, bending the artificial spine inside.
I continued my barrage until it was very battered, but not immobile. I had taken away its combat abilities, such as its arms. All that was left was to wait and see if it would go back somewhere.
I backed off, as soon as I did, there was a flicker of pain behind my eyes. Not a lot, I didn't go into a full flashback, but I did have a strange sense of familiarity. Almost like I had done this many times before.
I shook my head to clear it. Now wasn't the time to reminisce.
I circled the android, waiting to see what it would do. It jerked and spasmed, I worried for a moment that I had taken it too far.
"Y-you," a hollow voice echoed weakly from the android. "You. . .wi-wish to. . .follo-follow. .me?"
I nodded.
It shuddered, and its stomach creaked and squealed as it opened to reveal a set of numbers.
Coordinates.
I memorized them and nodded. I then bashed the android's head with my staff until it stopped moving entirely.
-
I warped to the coordinates to find myself in the middle of nowhere. I was surrounded by trees on every side. I looked around and saw that there, fifteen feet in front of me, was a solid steel door in the ground, half-hidden by the pine needles and other fallen debris and foliage.
"You know it's most likely a trap?" Silky reminded me.
"Of course," I agreed. "If the user had wanted to make the android speak, why did they wait until that moment? It's either a trap, or they are really stupid."
"The latter would be you," a woman's voice, altered by electronics, spoke to me through a com on the door. "And the former would be true."
And with that, the ground opened up beneath me, and I fell.
I spun through the air, not seeing the light from the air anymore, they must've closed the door already. I couldn't see anything. The air smelled foul, like. . .
Poison.
"Silky!" I shouted. "Take this!" I summoned a gas mask and threw it to where I felt her presence.
It stopped in mid-air and then vanished as she strapped it to her face. "What about you?"
"I'll be fine," I said. "I'll suffer but I'll be fine."
She made a noise that was both pathetic and cute at the same time. And I didn't really know how to describe it otherwise.
Then, I slammed into an almost plush surface. Not quite a trampoline, but more like a giant sheet of foam.
I stood up and held out my palm, a small ball of light appeared in it and illuminated the room.
What I saw was absolutely horrifying. The smell was indeed poison, but it was emitted from the corpses of countless things at the bottom of this pit. The lined the bottom of the walls, as if they had died looking for a way out. There were all different shapes and sizes of corpses. Some were human, yes, but others were something else. I saw a few different animals, but there were humanoid things here too, they had the overall features of a human: bipedal, two arms, and so forth, but the similarities ended there. They had varying limb sizes, varying head shapes, varying extra body parts and features.
The walls themselves had little tiny holes that I could only assume were to have spikes or something of the like protrude. I wasn't thrilled by this setup in the least.
"That's enough, Marika," a new, male voice ordered.
I whipped around, again and again, but I could not see him, nor could I feel his presence. As I was searching, a hole in the wall opened. Almost as if the dirt had simply moved out of his way. The man who stood there wore a lab coat, jeans, a white tee, and sneakers that had at one point had some color, though I could not tell what. His hair, on the other hand, was all sorts of colors. Falling almost to his shoulders, every color you could think of was in his hair, and they were all moving and shifting. Almost like the colors were dancing through his hair and his hair wasn't actually retaining the color itself. His eyes were the same way.
He looked me in the eye, though I couldn't get a read on him, he was somehow managing to terrify me without actually doing anything.
"Hello, Traveler," he said to me. His voice was soothing, but to a severe degree, there was no hint of malice in it, and that was exactly what set me on edge. No one should be capable of talking so calmingly to anyone but their children.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"My name is-" he stopped himself. "My name was, Doctor Silus Drake, Now I am simply known as Silus, Familiar of Forbidden Knowledge."
Simply. I thought to myself.
"Indeed," he said, almost as if he had read my thoughts.
I relaxed a little bit. He was ominous; yes, however, he didn't seem particularly interested in killing me.
"Did you design those machines?" I asked.
He looked around the room, though I wasn't entirely sure why.
"No, my subordinate did," he said, not looking at me.
"What made her decide to implement such a dangerous targeting system?"
"Ah, that," he said, seeming to be mildly annoyed. "Yes, I told her not to implement said targeting system, however, she refused to listen."
"No invaders should be allowed here," she said over an intercom. "None of any kind. Even if they mean well, they could cause more destruction than they prevent."
"I did not ask you to share your beliefs, Marika," Dr. Silus said, irritated.
"If you think you can order me around just because you're a man, you're sorely mistaken," she warned.
He cocked his head to the side. "I will speak to you about this later, Marika," he said with a chilling tone. "Pardon her rudeness, dear Traveler. Would you follow me with any questions you have for some tea, or perhaps coffee?"
I nodded, I didn't really have a choice. While I had been listening to the two of them bicker, I had tried to warp away, but there was something stopping me.
I followed Silus through the hole in the wall and into a white hallway.
"I do apologize for Marika's behavior, she's a, how shall I say?" He thought for a moment.
"Revolutionary," Marika asserted over the intercom.
"A self-proclaimed revolutionary," Silus finished. "She believes that women are the superior sex."
"And you?" I asked.
"I know that anyone who believes one sex to be greater than the other is misguided, and really, just make themselves sound like fools."
"I do not sound like a fool for stating facts," Marika rebutted. "It's simply true that at this point, men are obsolete."
"And yet you came to me to ask for advice on these creations of yours," Silus recalled.
"But they remain my inventions nonetheless," Marika stated firmly.
Silus scoffed. "By all means, keep such means of security all to yourself. I neither want nor need any association to their creation."
"Are you saying they're bad?" She asked defiantly.
They continued bickering over the intercoms for another two minutes, while I looked on, completely bewildered by this behavior. I guessed Marika was a feminist, I mean, that much was pretty clear. But I couldn't tell if this argument was annoying Silus or if he enjoyed it, or if he just didn't care and was amusing his subordinate.
"Well at least my brain power isn't weighed down by the absolute weight of-"
I interrupted Marika. "Will you two, SHUT UP?"
Silus stopped and looked back at me, a slight sliver of surprise visible in his eyes.
"I do apologize, dear Traveler-"
"No, no. Just stop with your flattery, okay?" I pleaded. "I don't need tea or coffee, I'm just here to collect information and possibly my weapon, and then I'll go and you guys can argue to your heart's content, okay? Just, wait until I'm gone."
Silus nodded slowly. "Very well, I do apologize nonetheless."
I nodded in appreciation. He now led me quietly to our destination. A set of white double doors. They slid open to reveal what I was looking for: my weapon, the End All. Just as beautiful as the day I had created it. It had a handle that resembled a sword's. A golden hilt and pommel with a diamond in the center on either side of said hilt, and black wrappings. Where the blade would've been if this was a sword, there were instead six lengths of cord. Each one about six feet long, and attached to each of them, all the way down them, was a series of small blades, each one a different material that was effective against a different species or thing.
The End All was lying on a table and next to the table was a young woman with glasses who I assumed was Marika. She had brown, curly hair that fell down to her waist and blue eyes that were quite stunning. She stood about my height.
"Your hair is not in accordance with lab rules, Marika," Silus stated as he entered the room.
"I don't need it to be, the only thing we are dealing with is this sorry weapon."
My eye twitched but I held myself back. She was trying to goad me; I could see it in her eyes.
"I could help you fix it, you know, then it might be perfect," she said, a gleam of challenge in her eyes.
I was going to kill her.
Before I had a chance to pick the so called, "sorry weapon" up, Silus rebuked her and made her apologize. That in and of itself should've been rewarded with a gold medal.
"Whatever," I brushed it off and lifted my weapon, immediately noticing that something was off. "Where's my weapon?"
"Right there," Marika said. "Or can't you tell what you're holding?"
I had had enough of this. I grabbed her by the collar of her lab coat and lifted her off the ground. "Where, is it?"
"It doesn't matter," she said. "I've already dispatched every single one of those androids to kill you."
"Why?" I asked.
"You're an invader in this reality, trash."
I threw her to the ground. "I was born here, wench!"
I heard footsteps down the hall.
"You'll die here, so it doesn't matter," she said.
"No," I refused, and grabbed her by the collar again. "The only person dying here is you. Unless you turn them off and tell me where the weapon is." I started dragging her to the hallway.
"What are you doing?" She asked.
"I don't feel the need to sully any of my weapons with your filthy blood, so, I'll filthy yours."
"What? No!" She reached out to Silus. "Help me! I'll do anything!"
Silus simply watched.
"You could make this easier if you just told me what I wanted to know and turned off the robots," I told her.
We reached the threshold and I saw one of the androids within their striking range. I held Marika by the collar in front of me. But then it occurred to me, just in the back of my mind that, "wait, this isn't who I am." But I couldn't alter my movements in time.
"Right, that's enough then."
Everything around me vanished. I was now standing in a completely white expanse; I knew where I was.
I looked at my hand and saw that there was no one in it.
I whipped around and saw Silus, only now I saw him for what he really was, and it gave me chills.
All in all, he looked the same. Same wacky hair colors and eye colors, but now I saw in his eyes these weird circles that spun and danced around his pupils, completely encircling the pupil and each other. Rings inside of rings. His clothes had changed as well. Instead of a lab coat overtop of street clothes, he was now wearing what almost looked like the very void of the Rift and Multiverses had wrapped themselves around him.
"What are you?" I asked.
"I am what is known in fantasy and fiction as an Outer God," Silus told me. "I was not always this way, but that is hardly relevant right now."
"What about Marika?" I asked. "And the End All?"
"The End All is right here." He held out his hand and it appeared in front of me.
I reached for it but he pulled it away. "You failed your test, so this gets destroyed." And just like that, it shattered into a billion little gold specks.
"I thought that according to most folklore today, that Outer Gods didn't meddle in the affairs of humans."
"We don't not usually," he said. "Outer Gods like the Blind Idiot wouldn't give you a first glance."
"Then why?"
"Because, I am not an Outer God like the Blind Idiot," he stated simply. "As a matter of fact, I am the opposite. I am the first Outer God to have such feelings of compassion toward humanity. And that is because I was once a human myself."
"What about Marika?" I asked.
"She was the test you failed," he told me. "You can't be expected to wield such a weapon without having the proper patience to go with it."
"So, was that whole world faked?" I asked.
"No, that world was real," he said. "That was your home. The only constructs of mine were the androids and the bunker lab, and Marika."
"None of that was real?" I asked, completely blown away.
"I didn't say that it wasn't real," he denied. "I created all of that specifically for the purpose of testing you, so you won't find it again. Marika was simply a puppet like the androids, to proceed and answer that inevitable question."
"A puppet?" I echoed.
"Indeed."
I had no idea that this guy would turn out to be this powerful. I mean, this was insane.
"What do I do now?" I asked.
"Do you need me to hold your hand?" Silus asked.
"No," I said indignantly. "I just had this goal in mind that I would get my weapon back, but I guess that's not happening."
"No, it's not."
"So, I guess I just hadn't thought about what I was going to do after that."
Silus said nothing.
"You said that you were human once," I recalled.
He nodded.
"How did you become an Outer God?"
His face twisted into an evil smile but then straightened out almost as quickly as it had twisted. "Men were not meant to have the knowledge of everything, dear Traveler, and yet I sought it anyway. I found it at great cost to myself and others. That is why I am an Outer God. I was taught everything there is to be taught and am able to put it to practice. However, I am not the only human being to have become an Outer God, even if they do not consider themselves to be one, there are multiple individuals in this Rift who are capable of the great deeds of one."
"There are?"
"Indeed," he said with a nod. "They are so powerful in fact that even I or the Blind Idiot would likely lose with little effort from the subject party."
"Are you referring to that guy?" I asked.
"If you are referring to the one who wields Interitus, then no," Silus denied.
I was taken aback. "What do you mean?"
"That man wields a power far greater than an Outer God, however, he himself is human. A highly enhanced human, yes, but a human nonetheless. The individuals I am referring to have ascended beyond humanity, they are monsters in a sense. A few of them possess the necessary tools to defeat that man, placing them above and beyond him on such a level that cannot be fully comprehended," he explained.
"Are they a threat?" I asked.
"That depends; are you evil?"
"No."
"Then not to you," he said.
"Why don't they deal with Lato?" I asked. "Why don't you deal with Lato?"
He waved his hand, brushing off the statement. "Those people have been dealing with Lato for a long time, since before he was this powerful. But as long as someone remembers him, he will resurrect. And it is incredibly hard to track down the only other person who might know the Rift as well as I do. But for the most part, those individuals do not interfere with the lesser skirmishes of the Rift."
"Did they partake in the past Great Riftal Wars?" I asked.
"Yes, as a matter of fact you would probably remember something if I were to tell you the nicknames they earned."
I looked him in those weird eyes of his.
"The Untouchable Suit," Silus said.
He was right, I was immediately hit with searing pain behind my eyes, memories of reports of entire Thousands of enemy soldiers being wiped out, reduced to dust or killed in terribly gruesome ways. And in the middle of it all was a young man with glasses, wearing a navy-blue suit and checking his pocket watch before warping away.
"The Burning Knight," Silus named another.
I was hit with the pain once again. Recalling a report of a soldier in knight armor the color of ashes that glowed with the light of embers from deep within, wielding a longsword with a twisted, black blade that burned through everything.
"And there are others, but they operated in a more secret manner," Silus added. "I believe I am acquainted with one of them. And am thankful he has the Rift's best interests in mind."
"Do you know who they are?" I asked.
"Of course," he said. "I am one who knows all there is to be known, their identities are no exception."
"Who are they? Where are they?" I asked.
His face twisted to that evil smirk again. It was so evil even the purity of the Rift around him seemed tainted.
"I have no reason to enlighten you on the matter," he said with that smirk still plastered on his face. "You will meet them in due time." He straightened his face. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have other preparations to make."
"What preparations?" I asked, but I was already standing back in the woods.