Epilogue: Dad

Proxis 3: Now

Myron Kotes’s fingers flexed on the sweat-slick hilt of his sword as he set himself for another attack. A chill wind whipped past his face carrying stinging particles of silica, airborne seeds, and tiny stars of ice from the upper atmosphere that hadn’t had the chance to melt yet. Meanwhile, overhead, the sun was shining brilliantly past Proxis 2 to give his part of this rock he called home a taste of early spring. His clothes were filthy, stained, and torn in places from a combination of the elements and repeated ‘training accidents.’

Even so, he still insisted on using real steel.

Mr. White, the Colonial Exotic that he’d been living with for the better part of winter, watched him carefully, calmly, with unblinking eyes. His posture was relaxed, almost comically so just like his swordsmanship, choosing to let his point droop lazily down, nearly dragging the tip of the blade in the gravel as if he’d almost forgotten he was holding it. His training garb fit him loosely, like Myron’s, but White’s was pristine as if it had never been worn.

That didn’t fool Myron, though. He had yet to land a hit on White, despite their months training together. The man was fast and strong. What’s more, he was an intelligent fighter. He never countered Myron’s attacks the same way twice, and he always took the match in less than ten moves. He was a live wire in the ring and just as dangerous.

Myron came on with a thrust, two-handed, his leading foot nearly hooking White’s ankle, but the Exotic’s body whipped to the side like a snake, and his sword was between them and knocking Myron’s offline just enough for the point to brush by White’s left sleeve. Instead of retreating and trying to catch White on the return slash, however, Myron stepped further into his charge, his elbow rising in a strike meant for the bridge of the Exotic’s nose.

But White wasn’t there. He’d dropped low, letting his knees buckle until he was well under the elbow as well as bringing his sword across Myron’s body in a slash that would have disemboweled him if White hadn’t been holding back. Then, quick as a flash, White was back on his feet and set for another round.

Two moves. The Colony man wasn’t feeling generous today.

It was a short exchange, but Myron was already breathing hard. They’d been at this for an hour already, and his opponent never tired. In fact, he seemed to almost be enjoying himself, if Myron had a good grasp on the man’s facial tics after so long together.

He thought about going for another round, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Maybe he’d get his opportunity tomorrow. Myron let his body relax and gave White a tired salute to signal the end of the training.

“You might have had me with that last gambit, Mr. Kotes, if not for our little disparity,” White droned, sheathing his own sword.

Myron made a rude sound and reached for the squeeze bottle he kept just outside their little makeshift ‘ring.’ The ‘disparity’ White was talking about came from supernaturally enhanced muscles and centuries of training that Myron didn’t have. Understating it didn’t make it less daunting.

“I am not being patronizing. It is an interesting style your people have developed, a completely separate branch of swordsmanship from the mainstream due to your self-imposed isolation, and it has been a pleasure to experience it,” White offered.

Myron grunted, reaching up to wipe at his goggles to get the worst of the streaks off. Maybe he was being a sore loser. The man was paying him and the clan a compliment, and he couldn’t even bring himself to acknowledge it.

It would come off a lot more genuine if he didn’t beat me like a rug every damned time.

White’s face was still set in neutral, but in his hand he held Myron’s camp chair. The Exotic knew Myron would be back on watch after this, and this was his way of being supportive.

Sighing, Myron tossed White the squeeze bottle, which he deftly caught. He didn’t take a drink, though. He never did.

“I think the pleasure has been all yours,” Myron said, gesturing to the cuts and sweat stains on his fencing attire. “I haven’t even gotten a good look at your ‘mainstream’ techniques. Been too busy landing on my ass.”

“Funny. I thought you’d been adjusting to them the entire time,” White countered.

Myron took the camp chair from the Exotic and flipped it open, setting it down at the edge of the ring where he could keep a good line of sight on Ryan’s… spot, the place where he’d been taken. According to White, he’d turn up here once he was done with his tutorial. Myron still held out hope that he would.

White handed him back the squeeze bottle and turned to head to his portable hab. “I am due to check in with CRF. I will come join you as soon as-”

It happened suddenly. There was a change in the wind, a slight deviation in the current that could be felt on your skin, the way your hair folded in just such a way. When you’re walking into the wind without your goggles, tears in your eyes, sand blasting you in the face, no idea which way is home except forward. Then you feel it, something solid, somewhere up ahead, the way the wind whips over it and curls as it tries to go the way it should. Outers folk called it a stone sense, like when you sense something big out there without having to see it.

Myron felt that stone sense right before-

*BOOM*

An explosion knocked him flat, sent him tumbling. He felt his sword clatter out of his numb fingers. His breath left him, and his eyes rolled back into his head briefly before he wrenched himself back to full consciousness.

When he came to, the campsite was flattened. The fighting ring of stones was gone, the habs were torn open and in the process of tumbling off the edge of the ridge, the portalights bent and smashed, and Mr. White was facing off against something dark and terrible. Myron’s body was doing its best to just breathe, his diaphragm kick starting his respiratory process again after the explosion, but that thing… It triggered something deep within him, a primal sense that he was in the presence of something that shouldn’t be.

A dark figure, some combination of black, segmented metal and sickly flesh turned its head from side to side slowly, its many eyes working independently, devouring its surroundings with a hundred malevolent glares. Its bulging muscles rippled and distorted, dark veins squirming under nearly translucent skin that changed shape constantly, seemingly not able to decide on which form to take. In its hand, it held a miniature sun, an incandescent ball of pale fire that stretched the shadow of the monster for miles and miles behind it.

White was standing before it, clutching his arm which was bent at a strange angle. His fencing tunic was ripped to expose his chest, which was already black with deep bruises. The two figures blurred, came together in an exchange of blows Myron caught the vaguest of impressions of, so fast, his eyes literally could not follow them. When they parted once more, White stood oddly, unable to support his weight on one of his ankles.

The monster flexed its metal arm in front of its face, the only part of it that seemed to be of proper proportion. It seemed curious at it, perplexed.

“Run, Mr. Kotes!” White shouted, taking the time to meet his eyes. There was fear there and something else. Sadness. Pity. “Go for help! It’s a demon!”

Myron’s heart thundered in his chest.

What-

A demon? What did that even mean? Where had it come from? How was this real?

The two came together again. The ground quaked under their feet, and thunderous impacts of flesh on flesh sent shockwaves through Myron’s body. When they parted again, White was encircled by a spinning ring of glowing green runes, his good hand out to the side and inscribing more in mid air to have them drift down to join the others as the ring widened and widened.

Myron felt like his blood had frozen and his nerves had gone dead.

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The glowing symbols flared as the monster smashed into an invisible barrier that had formed around it, a mirror of White’s runic circle. Then, it slowly, almost casually, reached out with its metal hand and plucked the energy from the air. White’s spell collapsed on itself, shrunk down until its structure imploded under the pressure and the dark figure had the entirety of it in its hand.

*CRACK*

It… crushed White’s spell. No. It consumed it.

There was a rush of power that streamed into the thing’s palm, and the monster itself closed its eyes in some sick form of pleasure. White himself staggered, having been dealt a terrible blow, apparently, and went down to his knees.

“Myron! Myron!” White yelled, cutting through the fear that had rooted him in place. “Go! Warn them!”

It was only then that the monster faltered. It seemed to trip, catch itself on something invisible before standing up straight and looking directly at Myron with all of its eyes. Myron felt the pressure of that gaze more acutely than he’d ever felt anything in his entire life. He was seen, flayed, dissected, and known in a flash, an invasive presence locking onto his very soul and exposing it in all its imperfections and vulnerabilities.

There was something else too. Familiarity. They both felt it. Myron didn’t know how, but they did.

Then, the monster turned its attention down, at itself, its arms, its chest, and legs like it was seeing them for the first time. Then its attention settled, finally on its hands, the black metal and the glowing sun.

No. That wasn’t a star in its hand. It was a blade, a glowing blade of white fire. The creature stared into the flames intently, blinking asynchronously with confusion. Then it wound back as if to throw the star as far from itself as possible, but, at the last instant, froze.

There was a battle going on within the monster, Myron saw. It shook its head, trembled, its entire body shivering like a man with a fever or an addict staring at his next high through a pane of glass.

That battle raged for long seconds as Myron and White looked on helplessly, before, suddenly, a side was crowned the victor. Slowly, the monster reached over and took the shining sword in its metal hand and… consumed it too.

The world went supernova. The black figure was consumed in incandescent fire, starting from within and expanding until it was the heart of its own star. Myron had to close his eyes for fear of going blind.

Its scream was composed of a multitude of voices, horrific, alien yet familiar. The fire burned them all, weakening them, silencing them one by one, yet the thing kept screaming. It screamed and screamed as it burned from the inside…

Until it was only one voice that was screaming, one Myron knew intimately. A memory surfaced in his mind, one from years ago, an overturned rover, half submerged in an icy lake.

Ryan?

Then all was silent.

Myron opened his eyes to find the dark figure gone. In its place, the limp body of his only son. Even from this distance he could tell.

He was up on his feet in a flash, his adrenaline giving his limbs strength they’d been robbed of in the presence of the monster. He’s lost his goggles. The wind whipped at his face carrying his fresh tears with it as he slid to stop, on his knees next to Ryan’s still smoking form. His trembling hands found their way under his boy’s head, and he cradled it on his lap, just as he’d done when Ryan was small.

Ryan was larger now, muscular, athletic… and whole. Yes, he was whole again. What few scraps of clothing he wore didn’t hide a large part of his chest that had been replaced with metal unlike anything Myron had seen in his life, but this was most certainly his son. He was different, but this was him. Ryan had come home.

“Mr. Kotes, get away from it,” White panted. There was a chord of fear in his voice, something Myron didn’t realize the Colony man was capable of before today.

Myron shook his head, afraid to look away from his boy lest the System take him from his home again. “It’s Ryan. This is Ryan. He’s come back.”

White’s breathing was ragged, his body broken in many different places, no doubt causing him a lot of pain, but he looked ready as ever to use the sword he was carrying. “It is a demon. It may look like your son, but it is a demon. Trust me, Myron, please. This is my profession. Get away from it, or I will be forced to-”

*BLAP*

White flopped to the ground, mid-dodge, a look of utter shock on his face as he clutched at the hole in his chest.

“You dodge to your left only about a fifth of the time,” Myron said, the smoking las-pistol still aimed at the point where he’d just shot. “No one of your caliber has that kind of flaw in their game. Figured you were playing me. Guess I figured right.”

Myron took aim at the Exotic’s face this time, finger tightening on the trigger. “No one’s taking my son from me.”

*BLAP*

It was Myron’s turn to be shocked. Pale, steely fingers gripped his wrist, forcing his still smoking pistol off target. White, too, stared down at Ryan in surprise.

“Dad?” Ryan breathed. His voice sounded hoarse like he’d just been screaming loud enough to rupture eardrums, which actually he had. His eyes were barely open, unfocused, but Myron could see a change in them from when they’d last been together. His son’s eyes were the palest of blue, almost white. What had happened to him?

“Dad?” he asked again.

Myron tried and failed to answer twice before he could get a word out. “Y-Yes, son?”

“No, dad,” Ryan rasped.

Myron wiped another tear from his eye. “What?”

Ryan’s words were pained whispers, almost inaudible over the wind. “Not on my account.”

Realization hit Myron hard. He’d come a hair’s breadth from murder, and his son didn’t want to see him become a killer. Slowly, he relaxed his grip on the pistol and let it fall to the ground. As he did so, he caught White’s gaze oscillating between him and Ryan, wheels turning.

“This isn’t a demon,” Myron stated on no uncertain terms.

“Was,” Ryan corrected him hoarsly. “At some point. Tricked them. Brought them inside. Gave the assholes a brightsteel enema.” Ryan chuckled darkly, wincing in pain as he did so.

White, hesitated, caught mid breath. Whatever thoughts were going on behind his eyes, they were contentious ones. The conflict was plain on his face.

“I believe-” White began, pausing to cough up a bit of blood and spit it into the dirt. “I believe that this might not be a demon. Not anymore at least. May I approach?”

Myron looked down at Ryan who gave a weak nod of agreement.

White leaned over the two of them, still clutching the hole in his chest and having to clear his throat constantly as blood bubbled up from his insides.

“You going to be okay?” Ryan asked.

White allowed a little smile to pull at the corner of his mouth. “Oh, I’ll be fine, young man. Lots of HP still. We can take a lot of punishment as long as our HP remains, but I assume you know that.”

Ryan seemed far away for a moment, the ghost of a smile on his face. “If only you knew.”

White’s smile blossomed into a grin. Then he took out what looked like an old coin from his pocket. “I do know, actually. Ryan, I am going to give you this, then I want you to issue me a challenge. The coin will be the stakes. Do you understand how this works?”

Ryan nodded.

“Good. I won’t accept. Neither of us are in a condition to fight anyway, but the coin is part of the tradition. A challenge displays your level. There is no way to hide it, aside from being far higher in power than your target.”

“Okay,” Ryan replied. “You’re making sure I’m not- You know.”

“A demon would be of an abnormally high level, yes.”

Something passed between the two of them, and Mr. White frowned, shaking his head in disbelief. “I don’t understand. This isn’t possible, not after your tutorial.”

Ryan grimaced. “I’d like to file a complaint. My tutorial sucked.”

White sat back on his haunches, an almost indignant look on his face, mouthing little arguments to himself that Myron only caught snippets of.

“What is it?” Myron asked. “Is his level too high?” He looked down at the gun, wondering if he’d be able to grab it in time.

The Exotic blinked and seemed to finally remember Myron was there still despite bleeding from the bullet wound Myron himself had given him.

“No. Not high, Mr. Kotes. Ryan is Level zero.”

—--------------------------------------

Ryan Kotes - Level 0 Automator (Unique)

Type: Artificer (Common)

Core: Engine (Unique)

HP: 44/309

MP: 277/277

Attributes:

Body: 58

Mind: 51

Spirit: 116

Free attribute points: 0

Abilities

Shape 9 (Transmute)

Consume 7 (Reservoir)

Iron Grip 4

Devouring Grasp (Magivore) 6

Volatility 3+++++

Imbue 4

Trigger 4

Automate 4+

Crystalized Channels 1

Knife in the Dark 24 (Mark, Curse of Obfuscation)

Hardened Defense 2

Compartmentalize 3

Tension Step 1

Expanded Channels 2

State Change 4

Skills:

Climbing 10(Anchor)

Unarmed Combat 6

Running 7

Stealth 17 (Gray Man, Alert)

Conduit 9

Split Mind 11

Spear 4

Deception 9

Disguise 3

Sword 8

Pistol 6

Mana Manipulation 4

Jumping 3

Leadership 2

Affinities:

Goblinoid F

Iron E

Steel F

Magnesium F

Mendau Wood B

Limestone E

Cobalt E

Deep Lead E

Nickel E

Copper E

Pex Oil E

Osmium F