Xavier did not know if what he wanted to do was possible, and there wasn’t time enough to think about whether or not it was. There were only two options.

Either he succeeded, or he fell into the clutches of someone more powerful than himself. And if that were to happen, he couldn’t see any other outcome other than death, because the last thing he ever wanted to do was put himself under someone else’s control.

So Xavier fought against the tug of the teleportation. He’d stopped a teleportation from taking him before. At one point, he’d even practised it. Siobhan had the ability to use her Summon spell on all of the members of her party. She could even teleport allies.

But he was able to fight those teleportations if he wished.

If he’d known something like this was going to happen, he would have practised it even more. He would have asked Adranial if this was something that could be fought. He would have figured out a way to block teleportations on a whim.

But he hadn’t done any of that, and now all he had was his will.

Gritting his teeth and bearing it wasn’t enough. Xavier’s mouth opened wide in a shout. More, a primal, bestial scream. He couldn’t see a damned thing, the light as strong as it was. But he could still feel the tug. All of this must have been happening in the span of a second. Maybe less.

The scream pulled on all the parts of him that were other. All that parts of him that he’d altered when he’d been assimilating different parts of beasts into him, making him stronger, but also altering him in some unknown yet fundamental way he’d yet to face.

He needed to exert his will upon the universe. Teleporting took energy. Vast amounts of energy. The farther one wished to go, the more energy it took. It was a lot of effort to displace that much matter, not to mention keep that matter intact during the journey.

A part of Xavier panicked as he realised that second part. What if he was able to disrupt the teleportation, but not enough to keep all of him here? What if he accidentally stopped it in a way that teleported half of him, or even just his head?

No.

This was simple. Yanking him from his world and putting him on another took more power than keeping him here. The universe wanted to conserve energy. That was something he knew in his bones—knew in his soul. Everything that went against that took an exertion of power.

No!

He broke through a barrier; one he hadn’t even known was there. The bright light that had been surrounding him a fraction of a second before dissipated, leaving nothing behind. He was breathing hard. His chest rising and falling. His shoulders moving forward, backward. Sweat dotted his brow. He felt exhausted. More exhausted than he had perhaps… ever. As though every ounce of his energy had just been drained from him.

Xavier snapped his gaze around him, taking in his surroundings.

He was kneeling outside of the wall. Outside of his base. He looked down at his hands. His arms. His legs. He was still there. All five fingers and toes. Nothing had been taken from him.

Alistair Reed, on the other hand, had disappeared from his arms, teleported away to some far-off world. Had Alistair known he would die from this? The man was a psychopath. A murderer. But would he really willingly sacrifice his life just to take out Xavier? Or had someone put him up to this, not telling him the consequences of the plan?

Xavier didn’t know the man well enough, and now he didn’t need to give Alistair Reed a second thought.

~

Alistair Reed woke up coughing blood. No one had told him that the resurrection would be painful. He felt like he was going to cough of a lung. The blood that came from his mouth was dark and smelled like death. He would be having a word with Commander Flinders, that was for sure.

I’ve just come back to life.

He tried to recall if he’d seen anything in death. If there had been some sort of afterlife waiting for him, one he’d just been yanked back from. Pearly gates or fire and brimstone. He knew which one he’d likely get.

But his memory was blank. Black. The last thing he remembered before this moment was dying in Xavier Collins’s arms.

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Once he’d stopped coughing, he wiped the blood off his mouth with his sleeve and grinned. His plan had worked. Or, well, Commander Flinders’s plan. Alistair liked to think it was his.

He was lying in a cell, propped up by his elbows on the cold stone. The Death Trap had teleported him to another world, and he knew that Xavier Collins had been touching him when it had.

Alistair made it to his feet, rolling his head around his shoulders, cracking his neck. His body felt oddly cold. His skin was pale. He supposed dying would do that. Not that he had any prior experience dying himself, but he’d put plenty of other people in that position.

Though those people never got the opportunity to return from it.

Alistair had always been so fascinated by death. It was almost a disappointment experiencing it for himself. There didn’t appear to be all that much to it, other than an ending to one’s story.

He supposed coming back to life would be his sequel.

Alistair Reed looked around his cell and frowned at the cold stone and the heavy metal bars. He was alone in here. Shouldn’t Xavier be here as well? Perhaps Commander Flinders’s people already taken the man away. He supposed that was a good thing. It wouldn’t have been all that great for his health to come back to life sharing a cell with that monster. He’d probably send him straight back to the land of the dead, and with the Resurrection Stone already being spent, there wouldn’t be any coming back from dying a second time.

Though there wasn’t anyone inside his cell, there was someone standing outside of it.

Two someones. Commander Flinders and a stern looking man wearing grey robes. The way they were looking at him it was as though he’d done something wrong, or perhaps as though he were something incredibly foul.

“Why are you two looking at me like that?” Alistair said, putting his hands on his hips. Whoever this other man was, he was probably a hell of a lot more powerful than Alistair. But Alistair had signed a contract with Commander Flinders. One that said if he were to bring Xavier Collins here, he would get to leave this world with his life.

Alistair wasn’t stupid, after all. There was no way he’d put himself into this position without getting some guarantees, and there were no surer guarantees than a System contract. At least, so far as he’d learned.

“Where is he?” Commander Flinders asked. His voice shook a little as he spoke. Alistair couldn’t tell if that was from anger or fear. Perhaps it was a little bit of both.

Alistair blinked. “What do you mean?” Cold fear spilled down his spine. “I was holding him when I died.” He looked around the cell again, as though doing so a second time would make the man materialise. As though it would change the outcome. “You must have taken him away.”

“He never appeared. Only you did.” Commander Flinders gripped one of the bars. His knuckles whitened, and there was the grinding of bones. “You know what I risked for this plan?”

Alistair’s mouth fell open. Then he shut it. Swallowed. Took a step back from the bars. How could Xavier not be here? “This isn’t my fault. Your Death Trap items mustn’t have worked properly! It was faulty!” He shook his head. He couldn’t remember ever feeling fear like this before.

“Faulty? Faulty? You know how many favours I had to call in to get that? And the Resurrection Stone to bring back your useless ass? Do you know the consequences if this plan failed?” Commander Flinders’s voice was still shaking, but Alistair was sure it wasn’t anger now, only fear.

Anger would have been better.

If Commander Flinders was afraid, that meant there was nothing he could do. Alistair couldn’t make another deal with him. Couldn’t try and convince him to let him go. Because he wasn’t the one with the power here.

“Your plan did fail.” It was the man in the grey robes who’d spoken this time. His voice was flat. “Tell me, in detail, what happened.”

Alistair Reed did as he’d been told. He explained exactly what had happened. The plan had gone perfectly. Every step had worked. Xavier had even caught him as he’d fallen to the ground.

It had been wonderful. He couldn’t have thought of a better way to die, knowing that Xavier Collins would soon get what was coming to him, and Alistair Reed would return to Earth as the strongest among them, his adversary defeated, the world ripe for the taking. A big fish in a small pond. A shark amongst goldfish.

So why hadn’t it worked? What in the world had gone wrong? Certainly nothing that he’d done.

He even signed a contract with the grey robed man. A truth contract. So the man knew that what he said wasn’t lies.

“Interesting,” the grey robed man said after Alistair had explained everything.

“Now you see this wasn’t my fault. Your item didn’t work. I did everything that was expected of me.”

“No, you didn’t,” the grey robed man said. “You executed the plan perfectly, but what was expected of you was putting Xavier Collins in this cell.” The man looked left and right. “I do not see him.” He leant forward, looking Alistair in the eye. “Do you?”

The grey robed man straightened. He adjusted his robes slightly, though they hadn’t been rumpled. It seemed like a habit of his. He looked over to Commander Flinders. The man was shaking. Practically vibrating with fear. He was still gripping the bar. The sound of his bones grinding as he tightened his grip as hard as he likely could. “Commander Flinders.”

Flinders almost jumped out of his skin. He turned his head to face the man. “Yes, Your Highness?”

“Kill Alistair Reed, then yourself.”

Commander Flinders lowered his head. “Yes, Your Highness.”

The grey robed man turned and walked away. Then white light flashed, and he disappeared.

Alistair’s eyes widened. He felt his heartbeat in his throat. Felt fingers constrict around it. He couldn’t breathe. Beads of sweat dripped down his forehead. The room suddenly went cold, as though a ghost had walked through him. The shiver made him shake. Alistair had often wondered about his death. How could he not? With the type of life he led, he knew it would be inevitable that he would get caught, and he didn’t want to get caught alive. Prison didn’t sound like a place he would thrive.

Then the System had come, and he knew he wouldn’t have to worry about his death for a very, very long time.

Now, it was here, staring him right in the face. “You don’t have to do this.”

Commander Flinders stared at the ground. “I don’t have a choice.”