“Your Grace… YOUR GRACE!”
With an aggressive shake, I’m awoken by an unfamiliar voice. As I am forced to open my eyes to see a tall man with braided black hair, ending right above his shoulders, looming over me. His light brown skin clashes with his glowing light blue eyes. His eyes were like jewels themselves illuminating their surroundings. He wore a black suit with a gold tassel going from his left collarbone to his left shoulder. There was a golden star, outlined in light blue, attached to the golden tassel on his left collarbone. He also had a small black cape on the left side of his body that was underneath his golden tassel. His slightly slanted eyes showed concern as he backed away from me, reassured that I was awake. Clearing his throat, this man says to me,
“Oh, thank the stars. It’s a relief to see you’re alright, Your Grace. I was worried when I discovered poison in your goblet. I shall let the rest of the council know. Do you recall anything from last night?”
Sitting up, I rub my head to recall what had transpired. I look around at all the naked women around me, asleep, when I remembered what happened. How could I forget all that transpired last night? As I open my mouth to respond to this man, a messenger barges in. He wears a white headband that says messenger on it. His attire was an all-white Hakama. Out of breath, the messenger alerts us,
“Excuse my intrusion, Your Grace, but this is urgent!”
The mystery man, with a scary look of contempt, responds on my behalf,
“What is so important that you must intrude on His Grace in his private room? Speak you imbecile!”
Now kneeling on the ground, with his head bowed, the messenger replies,
“O-Of course, Lord Lucious.”
The messenger, now more nervous than when he entered, continues,
“Your Grace, Sir Judas and half of the Centurions have rebelled and are now at the palace gates attempting to lay siege.”
“I always knew that there was something going on with Sir Judas as of late. He’d been acting strange. Rumor has it he was colluding with outsiders. I apologize for not alerting you sooner, Your Grace. I wanted to confirm this before bringing it to you. It looks like that was done for me.”
Hesitatingly, the messenger looks up to Lucious and continues,
“There’s…more, My Lord. He is accompanied by an unknown number of mutants.”
“Mutants? But they've been outlawed for centuries. It’s just one thing after another today.”
Shaking his head in disbelief, Lucious turns to me and asks,
“What are your orders, Your Grace?”
As the final words leave Lucious’ mouth, he begins to slow down and then freeze. Looking around, I noticed that everything began to turn a dark green as time, seemingly, froze. That’s when the infamous golden particles descend from the sky, as Osiris appears in front of me again. This time, he’s wearing a silky tuxedo. The tie and seams for the tux coat are dark gold, while the remainder of the tux is dark green with his cufflinks as dual snakes opposite of each other in a golden diamond. This time, he had short golden hair that was pulled back as he looked at me with his light green eyes.
“Todo! Oh good, you’re still alive. I was worried I sent you over here too early.”
Puzzled, I respond,
“Ah! If it isn’t the God of Half Explanations. What do you mean too early? And what’s up with the fancy get up?”
“Oh, remember how I said your body's previous owner was poisoned by someone he was close with? Well, I was worried I sent you in his body right before he was poisoned. I’ve had that happen before and that was difficult to explain. It would have been awkward for the both of us, especially since you can’t get reincarnated twice haha! And I just came back from The Kami Gala. It was very eventful, more entertaining than expected for sure. I’ll have to take you next time!”
“So, what can I do for you? Are you going to finally explain what’s going on now?”
“Well, I can assume that I won the bet with the way those women are sleeping.”
I look back at the women behind me. Blushing, I command,
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Answer the question!”
“Ah, yes, I’ll explain everything. We have plenty of time, as you can see.”
He pokes the face of Lucious and lets out a little chuckle. Walking closer to me, with the wave of his hand, he materializes an entire couch and changes his tux to a white tunic with golden seems. With a flick of his wrist, he makes a golden stool with a bowl of green grapes appear next to the couch. As he lays down on the couch, popping a grape into his mouth, he continues,
“Now, here’s the deal kiddo. When you died, I sent you into the body of The Supreme Emperor Octavia Naru of the Lamb Dynasty. This dynasty has been the weakest of the dynasties in this land. Being born at the start of the time of peace, this dynasty has been plagued with conspiracies, assassinations, greed, and darkness that has been brewing for a while now. Octavia has been known for his poor leadership, excessive indulgences, and lack of care for anything except for food, sex, and his paintings. Which, to be honest, are quite amazing. Due to his negligence, his hand-me-down kingdom is on the brink of collapse with the help of his corrupted advisors. I’m sure you can tell with this current uprising that’s taking place. This isn’t the first uprising, and it won’t be the last. As such, several of his closest advisors are conspiring against him with other nations and parties. Which leads us to today. Yesterday was the anniversary of the time of peace, a large festival took place for the citizens and a large feast took place for the royal family and close parties. Octavia, or rather you, was poisoned by someone very close to him, hoping to end things in a more clean fashion. That’s where you stand. More or less. To be frank, I could care less if you save this kingdom or not. Your job is to defeat that rising power in this world who’s threatening my fun- I mean, the multiverse. I’m sure they're working with another deity, but I’m not sure who. We aren’t supposed to interfere with the lives of mortals. However, exceptions are made. You, for example, are one of those exceptions.”
“If this is such a huge problem, why did you make a bet with me to get this done? Why didn’t you get someone more qualified to do this? And why aren’t you telling me everything? This is basically the Cliff Notes version.”
“Well, 1) It’s WAY more entertaining to do it this way. I could care less about if this goes through or not, it doesn’t affect my domain. But my boss is very clear on what he wants and so he assigned me this due to my… previous blunder. 2) If I told you everything, I wouldn’t be able to see the look on your face when you find out everything yourself. I’m actually glad I can tag along with this. And, don’t worry, I’ll still help you. We’re going to be an amazing duo, stopping bad guys, and saving the Multiverse! Like Vader and Palpatine.”
“Wait, but they were the bad guys. And didn’t they die?”
Osiris gets up and looks at an imaginary watch and finishes,
“Well, it looks like we’ve run out of time. I will give you a hint about how to proceed because you’ll need it. Octavia never actually developed any specific powers, so you get the pleasure of developing that into however you see fit. But he did have immense strength, you’ll see by the weapon he wields, and so you should be good to quell this disturbance with just that. But that’s it for me, I’ll see you later kiddo!”
With a wink, Osiris, his couch, and the stool with the bowl of grapes, dispersed into millions of golden particles that ascend to the ceiling and then disappear. Time begins to speed back into the present time as everything goes back to their normal colors. Lucious and the messenger are still staring at me, in anticipation of my response. As I get out of my bed, Lucious rushes over to my red robe that’s on the nearest table and hands it to me. Robing myself, I command,
“Alright then, get ready boys. We’re going to go have a talk with these insurgences.”
----------------------------------------
As the servants put on my armor, I lose myself in thought about Mom and the situation I’ve been put into. So much has happened within this short amount of time that I really haven’t had much time to process it. I wish Mom would’ve talked to me. I would’ve gladly helped. She always tried to bear everything on her shoulders like Atlas. There were other ways we could’ve gotten out of that situation. We could’ve asked help from family, I could’ve gotten a job or two, I would’ve done anything… if I still had her… if only you were still with me, comforting me, guiding me… you always calmed me down to think of the best route to go… always my rock… I’ll miss our talks when I get home from school. I’ll miss the strange candles you always seem to buy from those local shops. I’ll miss our buttery popcorn movie marathon… I’d trade all of this to have you again Mom. I just hope you’re happy now. You don’t have to work so hard anymore, it’s time to relax.
“Your Grace. It’s time.”
The servant brings me back to my new reality. I step forward with a heavy heart and a difficult task ahead of me as I stumble over myself.
“Oh no! Your Grace! Are you alright?”
“Hehe, yes, yes. I’m alright. Just… an exhausting night last night, don’t worry.”
Man, this armor is going to take some getting used to. It’s not too heavy, it’s actually pretty light and flexible. I suppose I’m just not used to having less layers on, considering my old body had plenty of extra layers. The armor is more like football pads, but thinner. Outlined in gold and catching your eye with its deep red as the main color. We’ll see how protective this is in a real fight. Two of the other servants are holding a large weapon in the corner of my eye. A giant black two-sided battle axe, engraved with various strange carvings all along the blade with the hilt being maroon. As soon as I grab the axe from the servants, the carvings glow a bright blue just as my eyes glow the same. I feel a rush of energy flow through me from the axe. It’s as if the universe itself could be destroyed with a single swing from this. Gripping it with both of my hands, I lift it into the air as the light begins to fade from the carvings. The energy stops rushing into me. However, I could still feel it in me and in the axe. Ready to be unleashed. I can see why this guy was still ruling this land, the power and fear he must’ve wielded with this weapon would intimidate any rational person. Releasing the grip with my left hand, I walked out of the room and towards the palace gates, prepared to do what I could to stop this little rebellion. This is the first time I’ve ever had this much power, so I guess we’ll have to see how this goes.