The scene progressed with Eternity watching the Nightingale suspiciously and then simply walking past her. To his surprise, she followed him, always staying a few steps behind him. After a minute, he spoke. “Who are you?”

The Nightingale shrugged. “Someone who doesn’t like the Monsters. An ally of yours. Is my name necessary?”

Eternity turned around, intrigued. “How do you know I’m against the Monsters? If I wasn’t, I would’ve just killed you for that statement, wouldn’t I?”

The Nightingale held up two posters. One had a picture of her on it, and the other had Eternity’s picture on it. The reward section was blurred. “I can’t remember what the reward was, even though I remember almost every other detail,” his clone told him, as they kept watching. “There are bounties on you and me.”

Eternity nodded, gazing at the posters for a split second before continuing walking down the path. “Are you part of any kind of rebellion?”

The Nightingale sucked in a breath, her face visibly growing happier. “No. I was hoping… we could create one?”

Eternity paused at that. “Names are in order, I think.”

“I’m Erin.”

Eternity nodded and attempted to tell her his name. “I’m-I’m.”

Eternity stood there, his eyes open in surprise. He’d forgotten his own name. “I’ve been called Brother. I’ve been called Archmage. I’ve been called worse things as well. But I cannot remember my given name.”

The Nightingale shrugged. “What do you go by?”

“Eternity. Though, that won’t do for speaking to people.”

The Nightingale looked up, thinking for a brief moment. “I go by Nightingale. Are you okay with having a bird for a name?”

Eternity nodded. “Birds are… free. Deadly if they want to be. Quick. Perceptive. It’ll be a good name, to do with them.”

“Then I’ll call you Jay.”

“Good choice, Erin.”

The Nightingale-no, Erin-walked with them into a city where everyone was at least as strong as Eternity, if not stronger.

And they planned a rebellion.

His clone skipped forward to the two of them sitting at a table in a crowded restaurant. “No one’s about to join a rebellion,” Erin spoke.

Eternity winced. “Even though I’m catching the sound waves, I can’t help but not like talking about a rebellion in the middle of the city.”

Erin waved his concerns away. “You’re capable enough that it’s fine. But my point stands. No one’s joining. We might have to call this off.” She seemed regretful to have wasted Eternity’s time.

Eternity looked back and chuckled. “Erin. Do I seem like someone who’s going to back down from this?”

“Um. No?”

“We’re going to burn down the Monsters together, with no other help if we have to.”

Amon’s voice sounded from under his clothes. “I’m helping, don’t forget.”

“Yes, yes. When would I forget you?,” Eternity asked.

The Nightingale sat back. “Well. If I’m going to die, I’ll go out in a blaze of glory, I suppose.”

Eternity suddenly turned serious. “Erin. If you believe you’re going to die, you will. If you believe in your survival, you’ll come out of this all the stronger.”

Erin sighed and got up. “Well, here we go.”

The scene skipped forward once again, to Eternity and the Nightingale standing outside the city gates. “I challenge the Monsters as Men within this city!,” Eternity shouted. “Anyone who isn’t a coward, come out here and fight!”

The city was silent for a moment, and then people poured out of the gates, and over them, like flies emerging from the insides of a shook corpse. Then they descended on the madly laughing Eternity and Erin, who looked tiny next to him.

Eternity thrived in the flow of combat, building up momentum and carving through anyone who he fought. Erin didn’t do so well, taking injuries left and right, Eternity stepping in to save her multiple times. “Erin, feel the flow of combat! Don’t avoid the fight! Embrace it!”

With those words, he descended into the fray. Behind him, he heard Erin start fighting, and killing. Though these people had the power, they didn’t have the skill to back it up, and they quickly carved through the forces, leaving nothing behind. The corpses littered the ground as Eternity turned to Erin, who was covered in quite a few wounds. She, however, now exuded an aura of power, far stronger than before the fight.

Eternity nodded at her before looking up at the sky, a strike squad composed of five Knights and one Baron in control of all of them. Quicksilver claws flowed out of the ends of his fingers, and Eternity smiled at Erin. “This is where you make it or break it. If you prove yourself, we can work together. If you don’t, you’ll probably be dead.”

Erin, to her credit, simply unsheathed daggers, darkness flowing among them unnaturally. Her dress turned black for no visible reason, and Eternity smiled. “Ah, you figured out Dream, didn’t you?”

Erin nodded. “During the last fight.”

“Twisted Dreams are no longer Dreams. Remember that.”

And then the fight started. Eternity ripped his claws through a breastplate, nearly latching onto the Knight’s ribcage, but they pulled away just enough that he only scraped over it. Lightning coursed down his hand, stunning the Knight for a moment, long enough to reach again and grab it.

With a heave, Eternity pulled the ribcage, with its organs, towards him so fast he ripped it out of the man’s body, along with a bit of his spine. He reached into the remaining flesh and crushed the man’s heart before letting the ribcage fall to the ground. Jay felt Eternity use a hint of Space, a dark crescent blade emerging from a claw swipe, shooting at another Knight, who died as well. The Baron was fighting Erin, and quickly winning, so Eternity threw himself over, another space-attuned Thoughtcleave his opening move.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The Baron died just as easily as the Knight, and the rest of the men fell after, with Eternity slowly descending to the ground. “That was a test, wasn’t it?,” Erin asked. “Both by you and the Monsters.”

Eternity nodded. “They’re testing our strength. And I yours by not wiping them out.”

Erin put her hands on her hips. “So, I can come with you now?”

“Be my guest. Don’t die, okay?”

Erin glared at him. “Before you know it, I’ll be telling you not to die.”

The scene changed, and Eternity was now standing in front of a woman who was clearly his enemy, smiling and holding a rapier. “Erin. Run.”

The Nightingale instantly started moving away at her full speed, but before she left, she threw a single phrase back at Eternity. “Don’t you die, okay?”

Eternity smiled, Amon coating him in a suit of quicksilver. “I don’t plan to.”

Eternity woke up without warning, the scene suddenly ending. The Memory he’d used had changed him, outside and in.

Suddenly, memories started flooding into his mind, instantly stored by his mind. He did not need to go through them. They were memories, so as they trickled in, more information was simply accessible to him.

These were the complete memories of Eternity, and the path he’d taken. Jay saw him walk away from his friends and do so much more, though his actions all were what he thought right. I’m not about to make those mistakes.

Good. Now, you have a fight on your hands.

Jay discarded the paths Eternity had taken, and his understanding of the world. He had his own abilities, and he would pursue those instead of trying to catapult himself to power through someone else’s work. Then he looked up at the surrounding scene. Gold and Onyx were fighting high above, Onyx having donned a color-changing mask. Ooh. He’s Void.

Jay probed his memories and found the pertinent ones. Void. Didn’t he die?

No, apparently, though I don’t know how he survived.

Jay nodded as Onyx was beat straight down by Gold, flying into the floor. “Void.”

Onyx forced himself up to his feet. “Hello, Eternity. I’m going to die from this fight, but you should be able to win.”

Jay quirked an eyebrow. “Just like you died all those years ago?”

Onyx winced. “Well, this one’s more… permanent.”

Amon’s mouth popped out of his shoulder. “You’re far weaker than you were in the past. What happened?”

“Death isn’t something I can overcome as simply as you can. I lost much of my potential because of dying, while you… somehow increased it. As such, I am limited to one death. And I’m burning my soul now, so…”

Jay nodded, stepping forward. “Release your soul and go back to the Void. I will remember you, both in the Forest and in my memory.”

Void nodded and released a deep sigh. Jay sensed his death, the last of his soul exiting his body and returning to the void, whence it came from. Jay looked up. I don’t think I’m as strong as Onyx yet, and he got absolutely destroyed by Gold.

Don’t forget about your friends.

Jay winced, seeing how his previous memories had almost inspired him to repeat the mistakes of Eternity, forgetting his friends. He locked them up even tighter, resolving not to open the mental box unless there was a good reason to. Eternity’s memories were simply so strong that they infected his own without him even noticing. Amon grabbed the box, shoving it somewhere in the depths of his metaphysical body.

Jay turned to his friends. “Catherine. Crystal. Drake. Reveal your hidden cards, please.”

Crystal blinked. “How’d you know about that?’

Jay shrugged. “You weren’t growing as fast as I was, and I expected you to be at least as strong as I was, at all times.”

Catherine chuckled. “You’re too smart for your own good, ye know that? Anyway, these would’ve made us stronger than you, but now that you’ve gotten stronger, we’re probably of equal strength.”

Jay shrugged. “What can I say? I’d rather be too smart than too dumb. Catherine obviously thinks the other way-”

“Hey!”

Jay continued, heedless. “But we don’t have time for debating whether being smarter or dumber is better.”

Drake nodded. “I’d like to banter, but Gold’s lackeys are kinda attacking us, and we have to not die. Onyx is also dead, and we can deal with that later because we have to not die.”

“Alright, let’s up and get em!,” Catherine said, levering her hammer onto her shoulder. A Song of the Ocean, of its Depths and Monsters, started, a deep beat coming from nowhere and everywhere.

Jay added to it, a song of Cataclysm joining in, tsunamis appearing around Catherine as she nodded at him with a surprised thanks. He felt Cataclysm-the woman herself dancing within the Song, joining in from her place in the Lonely Star. She winked at him as her eye was torn out, continuing to dance, even as her body broke and healed, over and over again.

Drake’s Aura covered him, dark armor raising itself out of his body, a full suit complete without concessions for the face. It just had a smooth covering where eyeholes or anything else would be. Drake faded in Jay’s senses, becoming harder to detect-if Jay didn’t have the skill he did, Drake would be invisible. The surrounding shadows lengthened, the multiple Auras Drake had created working together. One of Darkness, right against his skin, raising the armor. Another of Shadow, pooling it in his area. A more subtle one infused his surroundings with Void, intangible and inert, until he did something with it. Jay reached out with Amon, offering a weapon, but Drake conjured his own, refusing the offer good-naturedly.

Crystal was perhaps the most impressive, as usual, two fireballs-each bigger than her-appearing in her hands, her Thought conjuring yet more in the sky, miniature suns ready to do her bidding. Jay didn’t extend any help to her-to be honest, he was slightly scared of offending her, remembering when he’d climbed up to her window. Ooh, that was fun to watch. You should poke her again, later. That’ll be interesting. Also, below you.

Jay looked down, seeing Platinum’s fist shoot through him. His Aura locked down the world around him, and Jay grabbed all the momentum he could before it overloaded, using it to spin around and drive a silver spike through Platinum, who exploded into chunks. “Didn’t I kill you earlier?”

Platinum’s shoulders rebuilt themselves and shrugged. “I guess,” a disembodied mouth said, with no visible vocal chords to make the noise.

Platinum’s body came back together, a gruesome vision of blood cascading back into his body as bone fused back together. Jay mirrored him with Thought, his own stomach patching itself together. His affinities had decided to respond again. “So, how many times do I have to kill you?’

Platinum shrugged. “I’m technically immortal, so I dunno. I hope you can, though. I’ve been alive far too long.” He sighed. “Immortality is actually kinda annoying. I’d like to die soon.”

Jay stepped back. “Hey, why don’t you stop fighting me?”

Platinum shook his head. “Man, I don’t want Gold to see me stop fighting you. He’ll torture me.” Platinum shuddered. “I don’t like when he does that.”

Jay stepped forward, and Amon made a cage around Platinum, who tested the bars. “How’s this to keep you out of battle?”

Platinum punched the bars, then nodded. “It’s sturdy enough that I can pretend to be out of the fight. Good luck, by the way!”

“Thank you, thank you.”

Jay had no doubt Platinum could get out of the cage if he wanted to-after all, he could chop himself up and toss himself through, and he probably had other abilities-but it was nice to have someone out of the fight. He’d figure out what to do with Platinum later.

Platinum sat down in the cage, simply waiting, not doing anything. Jay watched him for a few seconds. He seemed pretty reasonable. I think he’s just following Gold because of fear. We could get him to our side, maybe.

I’ll figure that out later. For now, we have a war to finish.

Oh yeah, behind you again.

For the second time that day, a fist punched through Jay’s recently healed stomach. Grabbing the momentum in the area, he prepared himself. Here we go again.