Ronnie and the older Ace were eating leftover takeout food for breakfast.
Ronnie had accepted his strange new normal, and because of this he wasn’t going to poke and prod this new Ace anymore with questions. He had already suffered enough in the past day, and he wanted him to feel comfortable in his own home that technically wasn’t his home.
While sitting on the teal couch in the living room and eating fried wontons, Ronnie and Ace were watching the morning news. The older Ace was obsessed with the news channel. Everything was so different yet similar.
“Can you do me a favor,” Ronnie asked.
“What?”
“I can’t call you by his name. It’s weird. And if you two ever meet, it’s gonna be freaky and confusing.”
“Why can’t I be called Ace? I was here first, I’m older,” he objected.
“Yes, somewhere else,” Ronnie argued. “You can choose the nickname yourself if that helps.”
It did a little and they both went back to watching the national news channel, VNN.
“Call me by my last name, Tirinius.”
“Nice to meet you Tirinius,” Ronnie replied.
He grinned and he traded some of his fried wontons for an eggroll while the newscaster spoke of another non-threat to the nation while trying to make it sound like a threat.
“And that’s the end of our morning segment, from Vespucia News Network. I’ll see you tomorrow morning ladies and gentlemen,” the beautiful news anchor said.
Tirinius furrowed his brow, licked his fingers, and was now puzzled even more.
“Is this country called Vespucia,” he asked.
“Yeah,” Ronnie grunted.
“Not America? The Holy Empire of North America?”
“What the fuck is that,” Ronnie laughed. “Some kind of weird sci-fi name?”
“No, it’s the name of here,” Tirinius insisted.
“Probably just a few differences that don’t matter. What is a rose by any other blah-blah-blah,” Ronnie said with a laugh. “I just find our name better.”
“At least it’s shorter.”
The doorbell rang, and Ronnie went to answer the door.
At the door was a mail-bot, there to deliver the package that Ken promised him, within a day. A little slot opened with a digital pad and pen, Ronnie signed his name, and the little mail-bot completed its job.
It soared off into the sky for its next journey and Ronnie tore open the package before he even made it back to the living room.
“I have a dictionary for ancient Ionadian,” Ronnie said.
“What for? Get a modern one. I can read Ionadian if you want.”
“You are the best person in the world right now. Do you know that? I could kiss you.”
“Take me on a date first,” Tirinius laughed. “What do you want to translate anyway?”
“A book, an old one. It’s probably alive like the other stuff in this house. I’ll get it.”
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Ronnie ran upstairs to the guest room and inside he saw The Leech standing in the corner lonely and upset. He had not left the room in a while and was paranoid that he was going to be trapped again.
“Let me out. I don’t wanna be in here forever again,” The Leech said.
“I came for the book, but don’t worry, I’ll help you too.”
Ronnie took pity on The Leech after Tirinius’ story but ignored Infiniti’s pleas from the bedside table when he left back downstairs. At the round kitchen table, Ronnie put down the book, the blanket, and dictionary, and they were ready to get to work.
Except there was one problem.
“Dude, I promised this guy we would lock them up, but I can’t, I just can’t,” Ronnie said. “What about some exceptions?”
“There’s a pair of glasses that can turn you into a giant, warping your mind, and eating everything in its path,” Tirinius replied.
“Okay, he gets locked up, how about the others?”
“I know about the sword, book, blanket, glasses, belt, key, several rocks, and cape,” Tirinius confirmed. “There’s a mirror too, at Levi’s place. He has the earrings…there’s a few more.”
“This is a lot. Wait a minute.”
Ronnie was gone for a few minutes, leaving Tirinius alone with them and he felt awkward until he returned with a holo-screen projector. He laid the box on the floor, pushed a button, and got out a digi-pen.
“His dad’s a teacher, so I thought he had one in his room,” Ronnie explained. “Let’s make a chart.”
----------------------------------------
After about thirty minutes, a final chart was decided on. The first few were ugly, confusing, or repeated. Small names underneath the object was what they thought the god’s name was, and the other name underneath that one was the person who they believed to own it. Tirinius had explained many things to Ronnie, and suddenly the obsession for the sentient objects made sense, and now Ronnie was leaning more to the side of destroying them and keeping a few.
“I know Levi’s dad has the key. Gabriel lost the glasses years ago, but some people think he’s keeping them for himself,” Tirinius said. “The rocks are mostly congregated on Paradis, for whatever damn reason.”
“What about the cape that the blanket was torn from,” Ronnie asked.
“It’s most likely still on Ionadis, along with the belt. I also heard rumors that not all of them were put into items, or that some went willingly.”
Ronnie jotted down this information down on the board, and now it was starting to look more like a conspiracy theory map.
“Oh yeah, that reminds me. Where’s Harmonia,” Tirinius asked.
“I don’t know everyone you know, I’m sorry. Maybe some people in your world exist that don’t here,” Ronnie suggested.
“She has an object that can change its form. It’s the only way she’s kept it for years.”
“How about we just…save that for last. Like endgame DLC. Let’s try to focus on the book next.”
Tirinius opened the old book gently and tried to read some of the words. He could only read most of the words near the end of the book, and all of them were strange words he had never heard in Ionadian.
A lot of them mentioned something associated with blood.
“Do you know where Oz is,” Tirinius asked. “He knows about this weird blood stuff.”
“Don’t know him…”
Tirinius groaned in frustration because now it had been almost an hour.
They used the dictionary that Ken had sent in the mail to translate the first few pages, and when they finished the first five, it was no longer a fun curiosity.
“This needs to be destroyed or locked up,” Tirinius decided.
“It’s the only thing that has information that can keep the dangerous ones away forever,” Ronnie argued.
“They’re all dangerous!”
“Only if you use them that way! Your dad never used it for bad things!”
“No, he didn’t. Just the house, apparently.”
“So we’re keeping the blanket too,” Ronnie asked hopefully.
Tirinius looked at the kitchen tile that desperately needed to be mopped and sighed.
“I’ll watch his behavior for now and-“
“YES! I knew you missed me,” The Leech shouted.
Tirinius moved away from the table when a giant knight appeared, sitting on it. He ran over and hugged Tirinius, surprising Ronnie who had only seen him angry.
“So, you really were pretending to be tough this entire time,” Ronnie chuckled.
“I am tough,” the Leech insisted.
“Yes, you are,” Tirinius told him. “You were in there for so long. You must be lonely. I...I am so sorry.”
It was all he wanted to hear.
That someone was sorry for what they had done to him. Leaving him in the attic as a teenager, tearing him off, keeping the pieces they liked to make new children.
And when those children misbehaved, they were replaced, again and again until the perfect child was found.
When in reality it was only the most fearful child.
The Leech shrunk, and shrunk, and shrunk, and now he was a child, with a foam sword, and a small blanket as a cape with little stars on it. He was now harmless and happy because his best friend returned. It didn’t matter if he looked different, people change, and sometimes change is good.
“He looks like those little knights you see in fairytale storybooks,” Ronnie said affectionately.
“Because he protects the weak and innocent, kids,” Tirinius said. “Isn’t that right?
“YES! I AM THE STRONGEST GOD EVER!! I AM INVINCIBLE!”
He ran out to the backyard, went up into the treehouse, and spent some time inside. He missed it quite so.
It was one of his favorite places to be with friends.