Life started to normalize again as the week went on. Elijah spoke to his mom about going to school in Washington. She wasn't excited by the quickness he'd be leaving. However, the fact that he was going to a school environment rather than into a warzone was a huge plus in her book. He still had 83 hours left to accept his invite, but he was waiting as long as possible to accept it at Marcus' request.
"Ugh, why are you being so hard-headed on this? I'm not asking you to choose anyone else. I'm just saying, let's go to the meet-up tomorrow, see what other opportunities are there, rub elbows with other champions, and see if we meet anyone we know or like." Marcus tried explaining for what felt like thousandth time.
"Yeah, that's fine. I just sent Liv a text, inviting her to come with us. We should have our whole team there." Elijah wasn't looking up at the video screen in his framework, that he was talking to Marcus through. Instead, he was staring at his boots doing the polishing routine he'd learned for the marines.
"How exactly are you calling her our teammate? You haven't even asked her yet." Marcus was getting truly exasperated at his friends inability to properly socialize.
"She reminds me of you. She'll say yes." Eli raised his head and leveled his eyes at his friend. "Also, she just texted back. She'll meet us at the mall at 2 for lunch before we go to the meet-up." With his point made, he felt, his attention turned back to his boot.
"Just because she decided to join us for an afternoon doesn't mean she'll move across the country with us, dude! Also, I want to know exactly how a 6'4 curly haired, beautiful EMT woman reminds you of me." Marcus was looking away from his screen now playing with some pot seeds that he was experimenting on using his powers to grow and splicing different strands together.
"You feel the same, like i don't know, your soul or something." Elijah didn't elaborate further. "And I never called her beautiful."
---------------
Elijah was sitting outside of the hibachi restaurant in the food court wearing his shoes he'd spent a half hour shining the night before. He was dressed smartly with a pair of fitted black slacks and a forest green polo with his hair braided back. Marcus was sitting next to him while putting a small machine back together. Marcus was wearing an old flannel over a band tee and a dark grey beanie.
As Liv walked up to them, Elijah's attention turned up to her, but Marcus kept mumbling while looking down and screwing what looked like an infinity gauntlet back together. "-d, if this doesn't work this time, I'm just going with the rail gun idea."
Elijah stood up as Liv approached and waved at her happily. "Hey Liv!" She was wearing high-top cyan and black Jordan's, jeggings, and a poofy white coated with a faux fur trim around the hood.
"Hey Elijah! Good to see you're up and running again!" She moved in and gave him a hug. It was weird for her to look up to anybody being 6'1" before getting the framework. But ever since getting it, she was the tallest in most rooms, Elijah was one of the few people in her life who could still make her feel small. She pulled away and turned to look at Marcus, who was holding out the odd inifity gauntlet with large holes at the end of each finger. She shook two fingers of it. "Hi, I'm Olivia, Elijah has told me a lot about you."
"Marcus," he smiled at her. "I'm glad you see Elijah didn't understate how pretty you are." He stood up too, standing between the two of them. "Why are both of you so freaking tall?" He grumbled.
Elijah shrugged and turned around, grabbing his drink from his lunch and a cupcake he'd bought at the bakery in the food court. He held out the small box with the pink frosted cupcake. "Here a gift as a thank you for giving us a ride to the city for the meet and greet."
"Ohhh, you didn't have to do that! I was planning on going to the meet-up anyhow." She squealed out as she opened up the box and took a bite of the chocolate cupcake and got a full bite of delicious raspberry filling. She nearly moaned with pleasure as she chewed her cupcake. "I take that back, I'm going to need one of these every time I give you a ride."
They all walked out to her car, a white Kia soul covered in mushroom stickers all over the back. Once they got inside, the theme didn't change even a little. All across the top of the cars dashboard was a little diorama of a village filled with mushroom people, some bobble heads, and even a mushroomheaded hula girl.
"Your style is certainly creative." Marcus noted as he slid behind Elijah into the back seat.
"Thank you!" Liv said either missing or ignoring the judging undertone Marcus used.
-----------
After finding a spot to park, they made their way into the United Center in Chicago. To gain entry, you had to pay 20 dollars and show one of your tattoos. The line took half an hour to get in but once they did the entire arena was being used with booths set up, a large lounge area where a lot of people had gathered and were talking among themselves.
The whole scene looked somewhere between that of a job fair and comic con mixed.
They had all three put on their framework name tags in the car before they came in. It seemed like a few other people had figured out the badge feature as well. As a guy walked past them with the name tag, "Dragon of the North," while also wearing a scaley outfit with a "realistic" dragon head.
Liv skipped out ahead a few feet and then turned around. "I'll catch up with you guys in a few. I'm going to head over to talk to the two schools that invited me, I heard they both have a booth set up for this event." With that, she was off into the crowd with a cheerful wave and a smile.
"Well, what do we do now?" Elijah turned and looked at Marcus expectantly.
"Why do I have to have the plan for our day?" Marcus asked with feigned appaul.
"Because I didn't want to come today, I already know who is coming with me, and I know where I'm going. This all seems moot to me."
"And yet you're the one who got all fancy and looking nice. You even went and got your braids redone." Marcus started walking as he talked, "Well, I guess we can start by going and talking to the people at the Peak Empowerment booth."
So they set off, making a loop around the arena, passing quite a few schools for different types of champions. Each branch of the military had their own booth set up, which were some of the more popular booths. It seemed that a good portion of the people here were simply tired of schooling and ready to go out and learn their skills in the field.
As they approached the Peak Empowerment Academy table, they noticed a sign that was only at one or two other booths that said "Invitation only." There were 3 people sitting behind a table that had school merchandise and papers in tidy stacks along it.
"Hello! Do you have an invitation?" A perky blonde woman who looked a little younger than the two flanking her sides asked them.
"Uh, yeah, actually, but I'm not sure how to show it to you. It's on my Framework." Elijah pulled it up in front of his face.
[Victor Yates would like to initiate a framework link. He has disabled the call function provided by the link.]
Do you accept?
Yes/No
He mentally accepted it and showed the invitation to school. It was odd, though. The last time he'd done this, Marcus' profile popped right up, I guess it only gave out the information you were willing to share with that person.
Victor nodded, "He's telling the truth, and he's one of mine." He stood up nearly meeting Elijah for height. "I see you've been invited for the hero studies. In that case, you'll be working closely with all of us if you accept and join us at Peak Empowerment Academy. I'm Professer Yates, B Rank Durability type, they placed me in charge of power development at the school."
Marcus chimed in on that note. "Wait a minute, I'm sorry. You said what now?" Elijah must have missed what had Marcus looking so incredulously at Professer Yates. "I could have sworn you said you were a Champion too. But you're like 50. Also, durability isn't one of the 6 types, my dude."
"First of all, thank you for the compliment. I'm actually 91 years old. Also, _my dude_, durability is the type you get when you mix Stength and Endurance types. You didn't honestly think the leaders of our world would accept this deal without testing it first, did you? I'm one of the first to ever gain a framework. I was 20 years old and a part of the US Army. It was 1952 when I was selected as an F rank endurance type, I was basically just a really strong wall at the time. My abilities made me practically bulletproof."
Another, what Elijah had assumed was a teenager, came up to the table in the middle of Professor Yates' long-winded speech directed at Marcus. The teen had no decernable features. If he was 7 years younger and this kid was 3 feet taller, he'd be running for the doors yelling something about slenderman. But Prof. Yates stopped and checked his paperwork before turning to one of the ladies. "Costume department." The elegant silver haired woman on the left eagerly perked up and started talking with the new teen.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Elijah kept staring at the kid as they talked with the teacher. Sound was coming out of their face, but no mouth opened, nor did he see a jawline even twitch. He wasn't paying attention to anything else until a hand caught him on the back of the head.
"Ow!" Elijah flinched and glared daggers at Marcus. "Whyd you do that?"
"You weren't responding to ordinary stimulus, so I went to the extraordinary for help." Marcus pointed at Yates. "He asked you a question."
He snapped to attention and lowered his head. "Apologies sir, could you please repeat the question. I was lost in thought."
"I asked, what's stopping you from accepting the offer to come to our school." Prof. Yates asked, looking minorly annoyed at being forced to repeat himself.
Elijah didn't respond verbally at first, only pointing at Marcus. "He told me to keep my options open. I'm ready to accept, I already have my two support champions picked out as well."
Yates turned to Marcus. "Well, why hasn't he accepted then?" Elijah also turned and looked at him.
Marcus sighed in resignation. This guy was going to be a lot like Elijah he could just feel it. "I've already agreed to be his support, the other person he has picked out. He has yet to even ask her to join us. He's just been assuming she will. That's why I've told him to keep the timer running because HE, " Marcus emphasized with a pointed look, "doesn't know how to properly talk to people."
"So I see both of your ranks. Do you want to tell me a little bit about your powers, we know you're an agility type Elijah, but we know nothing else about your powers."
"Well, I -" Elijah had only begun talking when an explosion rocked the building. The floor under his feet shook as debris filled the air rolling down the floor of the United Center. His ears were already ringing from the sound of the blast that created the explosion. People were already panicking, the two women at the table and the faceless kid bolted for the doors on the opposite end of the building when a second blast rang out from that end of the building.
Victor wasted no time. He conjured an incredible set of armor and a blazing maul running directly into the smoke and rubble coming down from the second explosion.
"We've got to find Olivia!" Marcus was shouting in his face, finally breaking him free from his trance. With that thought now in his brain, he had a reason to move his frozen feet and a goal to move them towards. He wanted to turn on his ability and sprint and find her, but the chaos between people running and screaming and all the rubble in the air and on the ground made that idea less than ideal.
Instead, he picked up a few pieces of concrete from the floor ranging from golf ball to softball in size and started moving with Marcus right behind him. Both of them shouted out her name repeatedly as they moved along. Then they started hearing gunfire. An armed militia was pouring through the opened holes in the walls, pumping bullets into bodies of people trying to escape.
Marcus and Elijah dropped down behind a large steel beam that had fallen when part of the roof collapsed. Marcus was breathing heavily, like a panic attack was threatening to consume him. He was quickly making some last-minute adjustments to the gauntlet he had with him. "Change of plans. We need to escape and hope Liv does too." Elijah targeted the face of one of the attackers who's face was covered mostly by a bandana. He loosed a rock as hard as he could. He was almost sure he'd heard a sickening crunch as it made impact with the man's face. He fell back down behind the beam as bullets started pinging off of it behind him.
[Level 1 Human defeated! +1 experience]
He stopped for a moment as that pop up filled his vision for half a second before fading away just as quickly. He'd just taken another life. His head felt like it head a second heart in it as the thudding of his own heartbeat became thunderous in his skull.
He shook himself out of his daze and leaned up to peek out to see if he could find more cover he could dash to. More bullets found their way at him as he leaned out. He tried thinking quickly. There were fewer people running through the building now. The majority were either hunkered down and trying to fight back like he and Marcus or, they were dead, filled with bullet holes or crushed under rubble.
"I'm going to turn on my ability and sprint to the cover over there." Eli pointed at a car that was half crushed that was being given out as a raffle grand prize. "That will grab their attention. Once they turn their backs on you, I'm going to need you to run away, and then I'll escape too."
-------
Marcus nodded, but he had another plan. He waited half a heartbeat after Elijah started running. Machine gun fire chasing after him as he ran, Marcus popped out and shot a rose bush seed right in the middle of them and activated his second skill [Made in my Vision], and the seed exploded with thorny vines that wrapped themselves around the gunmen legs like a bunch of whips all tied together at the center keeping them from separating further or moving much at all.
The gunmen's second mistake after trying to shoot Eli was when they tried to untangle themselves, they must have forgotten that they were in a room full of budding heros because the moment they were bound one of the kids in the room screamed "THEY'RE STUCK EVERYONE ATTACK!" The gunmen tried to turn their guns back on them, but it was too little too late. They were swarmed by a wave of energies mixing and becoming volatile. Then, there was a third explosion. This one was their own, though. Rocking the group of gunmen and killing most of them.
Marcus shot out another seed, this time the poofy seed of a Willow tree. It grew to its full size over the course of a 10-second window. He gave it specific instructions, using his ability to speak to lower life forms, to coil its hanging vines around any of the gunmen that moved even an inch. With his tree set up, he ran over to the car and found Elijah lying on the ground, gasping for air.
_"Oh no. Oh god, no."_ Marcus breathed as he knelt down next to his friend and immediately pushed his palms down hard on a bleeding wound in his best friends chest.
Elijah winced when Marcus pressed on his wound, yelling out with pain. Gasping for breath around mouthfuls of blood that didn't seem to stop. He couldn't get a good breath of air. He reached up and grabbed Marcus by the collar "Help... me..." He was able to gurgle out, the panic gripping him as he couldn't hear his heart anymore, it no longer sounded in his ears like the drums of war.
The silence overwhelmed him.
The black enveloped him as his friends panicked face was the last thing that faded from his vision.
Marcus started screaming, joining in on the crying and wailing that he heard all around him. Except he only shouted for one person. "LIV! OLIVIA! PLEASE, GOD DONT DIE ELIJAH, OLIVIA!" He kept screaming as tears filled his vision. Elijah's skin was turning palid from blood loss. He could no longer hear the sounds of gunfire and fighting from the other side of the gym.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Liv appeared next to him, Marcus was nearly in full sobs over his friends body. "Heal him you've got to heal him!" Marcus was still shouting as his ears rang, his gut was clenched, and he felt like he'd vomit with the anxiety. He moved his hands to show Liv the wound under his hands just to the left of the sternum. Olivia's eyes widened when she saw the placement. She put her hands over it and prayed, the Mandala on her hand started glowing a warm orange as she did her best to heal him. Her eye was also glowing, so she seen the exact moment that the bullet hole went from a vibrant red with damage to the same neutral gray that enveloped the rest of his body when she used the power.
She turned off both of her powers and sat back on her knees, looking down at Elijah with her chin quivering. "I'm sor-"
"KEEP TRYING!" Marcus was there on the other side of his body, his hands instantly replacing hers when she pulled away.
"It's no use, Marcus. He's - "
"Don't say it. Please." Marcus almost whispered this interruption a sob wracking his body. He already knew. He felt it in his soul.
-----------------
Elijah opened his eyes and found himself sitting on a couch with a bucket of popcorn between him and another guy. All around them was an endless expanse of pure white with a large flat screen TV hovering in the air in front of them. On the screen was Elijah's dead body and Marcus laying across him sobbing, punching his unconscious chest, and screaming at him. "How dare you die! How dare you leave me alone, you know I don't make friends easily! Who will be my peer now?! Nobody is good enough. Nobody is impressive enough to be compared to me on a daily basis like you were. We were supposed to -" the feed cut off.
"Well, that's not how that was supposed to go at all." The other man turned to look at him, except when he turned, it felt like all of reality shifted around him, placing him in the beings' vision rather than him just turning his head.
He was rather plain looking. He was a 30-something man with a brown cardigan and a pair of tan pants on.
"I'm sorry to ruin your plans by dying?" Elijah questioned
"As you should be. I lost a bet on you." He pulled out what appeared to be a glowing green orb and sent it out to the ether.
"See, here's the thing, Elijah." He crossed one leg over the other, "I'm one of the few beings that still watch over the Framework, most of us that created it have either chosen death or have chosen to integrate into the populations we watch over." He paused and took a sip of a drink he didn't have a second earlier. "I like dramatic effect. I feel like a sip in the middle of a sentence helps add it." He said as he was actively taking the sip, the words not coming from his mouth but were still very much his words.
"I think it loses the effect if you explain it as you're doing it." Elijah cut in.
He ignored the interruption, continuing on anyhow. "Some people call me a God, my friends call me The Traveler. You make call me... Tod. That's a name from your world." Elijah nodded in confirmation, and Tod continued. "In any case, Elijah, there were only two outcomes us watchers foresaw when you were caught in the attack at the meet and greet. Either you died in the initial explosion. But that's only if you were stubborn and didn't want to check out the stuff there and waited by the front doors for your friends to finish. Or Marcus dies on the ground with a bullet through his heart, trying to save you. Much like you did."
He turned the screen back on, but instead of him, it was Marcus laying on the concrete and rubble with a hole in his chest. Elijah was there sobbing over his friends body instead. "You were meant to freeze under the pressure. That moment of hesitation would have given Marcus time to come up with his own plan using the rose seed to lash them all together. He did end up using it, but had you not provided the distraction you did, he would have been shot when he came out of cover. For lack of a better term, he was supposed to be the Uncle Ben to your Spiderman. The canon event that sends you running down the road with a savior complex."
"Well, can't I be the Uncle Ben for his Spiderman now?" Elijah asked curiously.
"No, for as intelligent as Marcus is, he doesn't have your determination. This moment will send Marcus spiraling down the hole of depression and alcoholism. He will die at 32, alone in his apartment, after mixing too many sleeping pills with whiskey."
"Then send me back." He said nonplussed.
"That's actually why I brought you here, Elijah. I have an offer I'd like to extend to you. I will give you a second chance at life. But I'll need something in return."
"Well, spit it out, I don't exactly have all day here. My body is already starting decomposition as you prattle on." Annoyance thick in his voice.
"Come now, Elijah, you meet the closest thing to a God that you'll ever meet, and this is how you act." He said chidingly. "Back in my day, people had reverence when talking to a God."
"Stop stalling. Seriously, I don't want to return to a body that has ulcers because my stomach acid started eating me."
"Oh, don't worry about that. I'll send you back to the moment we cut off the feed, I froze your time in that second. Anyhow, the deal. I will return you back to life where you will get to live out the rest of your mortal days, but on the day you are meant to die, you will instead ascend. And you will take my place in this room every other millennium. And I will finally get to taste true freedom and interact with my people for the first time since I ascended."
"What do you mean by ascend, exactly?" Elijah, now significantly less worried about returning to soiled underwear and uclers, inquired.
"I mean, you will become an omniscient super being that can see all possible futures and try to guide the people of the universe towards safety and comfort by manipulating apex moments in time. Like I do."
"Is that what this is? An Apex moment in time?" Elijah wondered aloud.
"No, actually. This is a moment within the apex moment. We call them moments because no matter how long the period lasts, it's just a blip in our infinite lifetimes." A fork with a perfect bite of steak and a smear of steak sauce appeared floating in mid-air, it swooped to his mouth he chewed it and the fork popped out of existence just as quick as it came into.
"The most recent apex moment started when humanity was given the framework on a large scale." He continued after swallowing his food.
"And are Apex moments bad things?" Elijah was officially curious, forgetting mostly about his death for now.
"They certainly can be, but not always. The only thing they reliably share every time is at the end of the apex moment. The universe is irrevocably changed." The surroundings expanded and closed in all at once, and they were suddenly on a couch floating in space looking at what Elijah thought was the milky way galaxy. "I can watch every outcome play out. The only problem is the unpredictability of humanity. There are some outcomes that the universe dies. That is the white void we were just sitting in. The only constant in the futures where the universe isn't wiped out entirely is you."
As the words left his lips Elijah realized they were no longer in a void but instead on what seemed to be a black sand beach reclining in beach chairs with large umbrellas protecting them from the sun's harsh rays.
"So you're telling me that there is some literal universal scale threat, and if I, me, Elijah, do not fight it. Everything is kaput?" His jaw was slack. If he could physically throw up right now, he would have.
"You'll be fine. Just remember, any machine is only as good as the sum of its parts. Find some good parts that fit well with you, and you'll make a machine better than any one part. But back on topic. The deal. Do you accept? You live your mortal life, do the work that needs to be done. And you will be rewarded with God hood. Mind you, this is the worst reward you will ever be given. You will have infinite power and the ability to use so little of it. You will have so much insight and only be able to give a minuscule fraction. It is the worst torture. You have to guide and trust. It is a thankless job that goes on endlessly with no breaks."
"You don't do a great job selling it, to be honest. But if I don't do this, everyone and everything is just gone. My mom, Marcus, Liv, Mr. Wilson, all of them, right?" Elijah asked sincerely.
"Yes, like I said. Only the futures in which you don't die prematurely does existence continue as it was." He took a sip from a glass of lemonade that only seemed to exist when he was taking drinking it. "Don't get me wrong. We can start again. We've done it before, but it's like grinding to max level on an mmo and your account getting banned. Starting back at level one sucks, but it's manageable. So don't worry, life will try again in a few billion years if you fail. No pressure at all. And in the case that you do end up dying prematurely, _again,_ you won't have to uphold your end of the deal as there will be no universe to watch or guide for a while until we can build the power to create a new big bang."
"I don't see there being another option then. I'll take the deal. Send me back."
"Perfect! I'll see you soon!" He said with a smile that dropped quickly. "But not too soon."
And just like that, this reality blinked out if existence left only a void.