He moves forward as he always had. He is inevitable. His name, ugh, is N-nightwing…. Blood..rain Everdark. Ugh, even now it made him cringe. He used the name back when he came to this world when he was fourteen years old. He’s been fourteen for thirty years now and staying in the same body was never easy. Other people wished to be young forever, but it was practically hell to him.
His real name is Willy Waller, born in Chesterfield, Missouri. He had a simple life, one that he still missed even now. He misses the family he left behind. Even now he mourns the future he lost. One day he was walking a little later than usual when a van showed up. He could still smell the trunk and the tang of iron. He escaped in the middle of the night when the one who captured him took a piss in a gas station.
He ran, bloody and bruised, hoping to find help. He heard people and saw flashlights. He yelled for help, still having fingers zip-tied. He shouldn’t have yelled. He shouldn’t have. He died then and there, in Monroe, a sundown town.
Night slapped his cheeks trying to shake his mood off. It’s okay, it’s okay now. “The only way out is through.The only way out is through.” He whispered to himself, as he has done so for decades. He never knew or cared to cut his hair, permanent puberty hormones be damned. So he just let it grow and tied it with a cute little band. It’s okay though. “Let it pass, let it be. The only way out is through.” He repeated it all as he calmed down.
He walked to one of the sanctums in the Cat lord’s abode. Besides a bunch of cats, him, and alicia, there were three other arcana there with them. One was out exploring the place, one was asleep, and the last one was cooking in the pantry. He was searching for the said pantry for half an hour now, if only the castle wasn’t so maze-like, he’d be there by now.
They were using the castle as a meet up point, and they’ll start the meet-up as soon as enough of them are there. The news about tower failing was shocking, one of the people he couldn’t fathom just losing. Hopefully everyone else would be there, then they could think of what to do with Alicia’s prophecies.
He heard the distinct clanging of cups on a corner he just passed by. He grinned.
“Aha!”
He saw a light peeking through the doorway with stone arches and intricate filigree. He turned to the opening and slowly crept through.
He witnessed a person who could only be described as beautiful. As if sunlight was dropped from the sky and birthed a tiny star that touched the earth. Skin loved by sunlight and flowing hair that caught it’s rays. Eyes that knew of wonder, despite being gray. The ethereal being was like an angel draped in pelt, emanating an aura of stillness. If he were to put a word to the being itself, it would be ‘Sufficient’. He could fulfill any task, Master any skill, and do anything at all. All he needed was for someone to sincerely ask it, and he would willingly do it most of the time.
It was his friend, Jupiter Ixionidae the third, or better known as ‘Temperance’. He found him eating bread from the floor squatting and drinking water from a bowl. It was as if he was satisfied with the simple splendors of life.
The androgynous man before him was a virtue. One of the celestial beings attached to the world and it’s rules. He was old, really old, so old that he used to be here before the arcana was established. One of the founding members really. He’s been a good mentor and an even greater friend.
Good ol’ Jupiter
“Dude it’s been so long!”
Jupiter chewed and swallowed before sipping his water. “Night? Night!”
Will took out a paper bag with soft shell tacos wrapped in wax paper. He gave it to Jupiter who took it licking his lips.
“For you my guy”
Will squatted the same way in front of the man, resting himself on the floor. “Hey dude how’ve you been?”
The angel like man smiled a toothy grin. “Gosh I don’t know where to start. So I was traveling the to Blightwyrd to rest for a bit, when I saw the message. Moon has some news for all of us, apparently concerning news that was too great that she had to collect us all to prevent it from leaking.” He took out a soft shell taco and bit it, savoring the cheese, meat, tomatoes, and more.
“Sho, Ish ith Wewated tchu dha owakhuls? (so, is it related to the oracles?)” Jupiter said, mouth still filled with the taco.
Will winced at the mention of the oracles. “Kinda. She got a lot more silent since it happened. Apparently, the more she tries to pry details into the future, the more it leaks into the physical and visibly harms her.” Willy looked at his hands crossed and tugging his ill-fitting suit. “Burns and scars appeared in her skin Jupiter. It doesn’t even heal. Actually nothing does. She has to wear the hood to restrict her abilities, or else she combusts on the spot.”
Willy looked at Jupiter tearing up, almost looking like the body he now inhabits. “Things are looking bad Jupiter.”
Jupiter wiped his lips and rested a hand in Willy’s shoulder.
“It’s fine night, it’s gonna be fine. We got through worse things.” He gave his friend a weary smile. “Remember when the we went to war with those false angels. Or, or that time that really big dungeon spewed out waves of bosses out of it. C’mon turn that frown upside down alright!” Jupiter gave his award winning smile and starry eyed expression.
“Say, wanna spar a bit? Maybe it’ll get ya out of the mood”
Willy smiled. “I’d like that” He bumped his fists together and he was covered head to toe in gladiator gear. The suit, monochrome and angular, was now replaced with chains and leather armor. Steel pauldrons and gear meant to deflect strikes hugged his form. He became the weapon that led to the cataclysm of the fourth plane, ‘Chariot, the inevitable’.
In a split second the pantry stilled. All movement, from the dust particles in the air to the dance of flames inside the lamps, everything stopped. Everything except for ‘The Chariot’.
He walked, unimpeded by rules of the domain, a false facsimile of the location they were previously at. The bricks, the tables, even light itself bent around him until even the air snapped at the forceful passage of the man. That which used to be a pantry exploded with force, as the mere act of walking broke the very rules of the maker of said domain. Here he was free, here he was violent, here he was inevitable.
Jupiter disappeared and suddenly appeared behind the hulking armored beast. He was suspended with his heels directed at night.
“Always so violent haha” Jupiter collected qi in his foot and pointed both his legs as it pulsed behind night creating a pressurized wall of heat, vibration, and rules. ‘The Temperance’ had a strange ability, he held control over the movements of anything, so long as it has moved once, it would be within his domain, be it matter, mana, soul, energy, you name it. He stored all the energy from the movement of matter in his heels and simply kicked it off to night. A fireball of chaos comparable to a large comet simply appeared behind the armored beast.
A pity it wouldn’t work on night, he couldn’t freeze his thought process by stopping the motion of synapses or still the movement of mana. So instead, Jupiter chose the violent route instead.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Night knew that would happen so he simply charged his head through the flaming ball of death and came through the other side. The flaming ball was now frozen in space poked in it’s center like a popped balloon. So night simply took the warped plasma ball and swung it in an arc, the force multiplying by reacting to the frozen molecules around him before sputtering and ending in violent sparks.
Night was the Chariot and he was inevitable, all his choices, be it breathing, walking, moving a chair, was all permanent until he allowed it to come to be. He was unstoppable and immovable. No spells could disable him, nor chains to immobilize him. Surprisingly he knew a lot of ways that could kill him, and he used to see his ability as one of the weakest ones around. Nevertheless he managed to find ways around that too.
Jupiter was now hiding inside the maze of walls, the very matter of the brick walls and cement. Everything was getting colder, everything but the ground. Light was now moving through everything around him, preventing anything from bouncing light, effectively making objects invisible.
Suddenly a small shard of glass pierced a finger of it, barely a sensation was felt. Then it spread to his blood vessels, threatening to make him sleep. He stopped it as soon as pried his vein’s wall. The first weakness of his ability showed itself, he needed to know what was coming.
He looked around the strange room with invisible walls and the landmine that is the ground and smirked.
Clever, but two can play at that game.
He bit down his mouth and dislodged a few teeth and collected it in his tongue. One would think he was mad for doing such a senseless thing, but he was inevitable, unstoppable, immovable. Chronology is merely a suggestion to him. Then he smiled showing his teeth, pristine and spotless like the moment before he took it out.
He saw a section that had more invisible sections to it than others. So he blew his teeth in that direction, becoming a frag grenade piercing the warped world and temporarily making it reality once again. The buckshot of teeth moved through the walls and slight yelp was heard followed by several bloody holes seeping through invisible brick.
“Gotcha!” Night said, giggling merrily. Night made his fingers into the shape of guns, charging it with energy making it shorten distance between it and Jupiter. His nails spun furiously, then it fired with a bang. His fingers quickly recovering, making a new set of nails ready to be fired.
Two nails ricochet grazing the invisible man, tracking his general direction. Then he fired five, then twelve, then twenty. He peppered the area with wall piercing finger nails, each spinning and ripping away the substance around him.
The nails flew and tracked the invisible man behind the walls, collapsing things unto the finger nail.
He had this in the bag
The blood that dripped through the walls suddenly changed course, shifting to different separate areas.
“That was a lucky shot!” Jupiter's giggling voice was heard in different splotches of space, each one meant to misdirect. Now that he was found out, it’s only going to get harder.
Suddenly light returned to the moment before the spar began. He could see himself, or what he was before, conversing with Jupiter. The illusion slowed down, his illusory copy slowly twisting. It spiraled slowly, until it simply shot as a blade in his chest.
It bissected him, but how?! He was cut in half. He was glad he protected his head, figuring out Jupiter’s potential attack pattern. He was terribly wrong.
“I can see your confusion, but the light that bounced off of you before you came here, the air you breathed, the skin cells that rubbed off your suit. Did you really think those wouldn’t be used against you? Tsk tsk tsk, you’ve grown lax my boy.”
His abilities’ second weakness, things made from him are harder to influence once it’s put in motion
Night shrugged off the future where he was bisected, instead opting to choose the one where he was whole. Okay, now that he knew his friend’s tactic, he retroactively touched on the things he mentioned. Damn it how could he forget such an obvious thing.
He warped the air around him, making the area a part of him. He spread his cells around the air next to him and created a fast moving wall that ate through any attack Jupiter could throw at him. He turtled up and made Jupiter’s body as the target for his next move.
The only way out is through
He took all the energy he could muster and spoke. “Jupiter” The name took hold around and reverberated. It was bouncing off a spot and followed it no matter where it went. The unstoppable sound wave bounced, then another wave twice the last, then four, then eight. The sound doubled and got louder and louder.
It was at this moment that Jupiter was starting to get worried. The wave would bounce towards night and him till it became strong enough shake his bones and make him pass out. It would have been easy to stop it had it been made by anyone else but night, but the Chariot shall move regardless. It is inevitable.
Well if Jupiter would lose, then would it not be better to take the problem out with him? He’ll make night choose, the boy’s good at that.
The ground around night bent out of shape and the dimensions of the room started to warp. The sides of objects started to darken, then disappear, not like a blackness of color slowly turning invisible, but the angles and perimeters of the objects simply became nonexistent. Night had a bad feeling about this.
A voice transmitted itself toward him, moving through the increasingly escalating sound of a name.
“Night I’ll give you a choice, yield or I’ll simply make everything else move away from you and you can come back from the void years from now without any time in here passing through.”
The old monster was crazy! He wouldn’t seriously try something like this, right?! RIGHT?!
The matter that made up the ground disappeared. It would have been fine if it suddenly turned to air, he could still walk on it, but it became nothing. His rules had nothing to latch on to. The world shifted around him, fading from shape, fading from creation. Mathematical parameters were ceasing to be and logic was slipping away.
The world was slipping away and he saw Jupiter with calm, gentle eyes and bleeding eyes and ears. A face filled with a smile that was still filled with love, despite the grim situation.
The old coot was serious! Damn it!
His third weakness, he could be countered if things simply let him through
The space around them simply let him through it, simply letting him pass till he slips past everything. It takes time to reach his desired future or outcome, time he didn’t want to lose.
“YIELD! I YIELD!!” He became willy again, no longer was he night, the inevitable, but willy, the kid who got his ass kicked by his former mentor. Willy canceled his ability on the bouncing sound. Willy fell to the ground panting and sweaty.
Slowly the space shifted to normalcy. The bricked walls returned to it’s original shape. The mathematical parameters making up reality slowly faded in, as if it never moved away. Jupiter was bloody and vibrating one moment, then completely normal the next.
Jupiter held his hand out and reached for willy. “There there” Willy canceled his control over himself. Jupiter pulled him up and removed the traces of strain, fatigue, fear and damage and pushed it far, far away from here.
“God damn you’re still an ass to deal with”
“Language!”
“Oop sorry”
“Hehe it’s fine. You feeling all better?”
“Yeah, thanks I really needed that. I really feel better after letting it all out. Adrenaline and stuff, y’know”
“Hey it’s gonna be okay. Whatever news moon has in store for us, we’ll manage it. We always do. I mean I’ve been here for so long that I saw so many cataclysms and reality warping events that things pretty much seen it all. The world is always ending, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look forward and fear the future. It’s gonna be okay.” Jupiter smiled patting Willy’s back.
The only way out is through
“Hehe, I guess your right. I cant believe the lich was in her prophecies. I mean I heard stories, but I hope we can deal with it.”
“A lich huh? Well if it was one, we really need to get to it’s phylacteries quick. Been years since I fought one. I remember a few that created spires and armies of undead, abominations that simply multiplied the more of them you killed. Honestly if they didn’t do the mass death and world domination part we would’ve been happy to just leave them alone.” Jupiter mused looking at the distance.
“The lich, not a lich” Willy corrected his friend.
“Hmm?” Jupiter arched his brow.
“The lich of the creeping wastes was in the prophecy, the one who made the wall”
Willy never saw Jupiter’s expression crack before. He was called temperance for a reason after all, always in control. This however was different. A slight twitch was made in the pristine smile Jupiter had. Even if his face stayed the same, his friends eyes told a different story. It suddenly lost the shine it had a second ago. Now it was filled with an icy, detached look that brought a chill down his spine.
Space cracked around Jupiter. A symbol could be seen faintly warping everything behind him. A circle, surrounded by a square, then a triangle, then a circle, the symbol of ‘the great work’. His symbol.
Jupiter tapped his fingers slowly, each one measured by the millisecond in a constant slow rhythm. He had nothing to say, merely a soft sound that scared Willy more than any threat to his life.
“Hmm, tell me more”