“I always wondered how will it happen. I imagined myself getting overrun by hundreds of enemies, taking at least three quarters of them with me to the grave or being killed by some massive machine intelligence for disturbing its millennia long slumber. The point is, I always thought that I will know when it will happen, that i will see it coming. Reality is often disappointing.”

The people around his body were crying. He could no longer hear or even see them but he somehow felt what was going on. His wife was holding his cold hand, letting out decades of feelings as her tears flowed down on their bed. Behind her, his girl was trying to hold back her own tears. Although he couldn’t tell the passing of time anymore, this scene must’ve lasted for some time.

His ability to feel his surroundings increased in power with time. At some point, he couldn’t tell if he was actually seeing, hearing or smelling things. Throughout the day, dozens of people came to pay their respects to him, bringing various objects with significance and causing a surge of memories to flood his consciousness. With no way of hearing their words, their farewells were just silent waves of emotion.

His consciousness was tied to his body, making him unable to leave the room but by focusing his senses he could discern a variety of events much further than his normal senses would allow. Somewhere in the distance, approaching fast on some sort of vehicle, his son was coming home.

The next day, the entire settlement came to his place. The procession was led by the skill masters and their direct apprentices, people that throughout their lives have stayed by his side. The crowd was growing minute by minute, hundreds of people from distant places, people he knew or didn’t, all came together to see him for the last time. The usual troublemakers, the androids, even some of the uglier mutants were allowed to participate. It was like his dream came true just after he left, all the races were in the same place with no obvious intention of killing each other.

After the ceremony was over, his body was sent with the hunter elites, his apprentices, to be put to rest in the Doom Shelters, a place he and the hunters cleared just a few weeks ago.

As they were leaving, the crowd couldn’t help but follow. The unusual sight attracted more attention as it was moving through the ruined parts of the ancient city making the crowd grow even larger. Enemies and allies alike were following this great hero for the last time.

Just before they reached the destination, the entire thing stopped. His presence was radiating in front of the hunter elites. The son of the great hero was home. He stood in front of the huge crowd, his presence being enough to make the air boil. Although the general attitude towards him was hostile, there was not a single person in this crowd that could stand up to him.

With a single swift motion, he took out his twin black-swords from his back and stuck the blades halfway into the asphalt making the non-warriors in the crowd take several steps back because of the intense shock wave that followed.

Finally, after years of conflict, the first apprentice of the great hero, Hunter Primus was back. He took the coffin from the other hunter elites and carried it by himself to the designated place.

After his funeral ended, the crowd dissolved, the only ones remaining being his family and his best friend, the Master Engineer of the settlement.

He was now dead and buried. His consciousness was fading but he wasn’t afraid. He could feel nothing anymore besides an intense cold. It was different from any cold he has ever felt, a sort of mental cold. His mind was slowing down, shutting down. The end of Maximus the Hero.

What followed was strange. He was ready to fade into oblivion, meet with whatever god was responsible for this mess, or pass into an awesome new world where he could drink and party with the heroes of old. Instead, his mind was now everywhere. The change was confusing but eventually everything came back to him. He has been here countless times before. The only thing left for him was to let go of this life and pass into the next. After he managed to concentrate, his mind was manifested in a sort of astral projection that floated somewhere in the upper atmosphere. A panoramic view of the entire earth was presented before him on a neat flat screen like those his parents used to have. A relic of the ancient past he poured countless hours into, watching animated cartoons or movies. It felt like the most significant thing from his childhood and a great addition to his astral plane. Using this, he could watch the entire planet.

“What if I postpone my next life for a bit. Time doesn’t matter anyway.”

The huge screen showed him what anyone was doing, just like machine intelligences were monitoring their laboratories using hundreds of tiny drones. He kind of felt bad about prying into the lives of these people but it didn’t make any difference now, he was going to pass into the next life without any knowledge of the past.

The settlement looked fine. Everyone was back to their daily lives, masters teaching their apprentices, hunters going on missions, healers tending to their patients and so on.

On the road outside the walls, some people were harassed by raiders.

“Those raiders are still doing this? I thought I got rid of them… Oh, those are not simple civilians… Let’s see… My family. I can’t believe Magnus actually showed up in the end. It was so cool. I wish I did something like that in my life.”

Magnus was now with his mother and sister in the settlement.

“The guards must’ve tried to stop him but that’s my son. I may have done some mistakes in his upbringing but I think he turned out a cool guy. He is powerful enough to watch over his family, he is pretty successful, oh… I can see where he lives now!”

The screen moved the focus to a remote location, about 100 kilometers from the settlement across the wasteland. An underground research facility operated by a machine intelligence. The place was full of people, each going about their business. His apartment was an SS residence, the most luxurious place Maximus had ever seen. The storage units were filled with ancient technology and loot from various places he visited. The amount of treasure this boy was hoarding was astonishing, even by his father’s standards.

“I think it could be almost half the size of my treasure collection and he isn’t even 30 years old yet. Wait, is that… His first sword?”

Hanging on the wall above his bed, was the sword he and Maximus found in their first mission together. They gutted the previous owner with his own blade and then stole it.

“I have no idea why he turned out so violent. Compared to him, even Ellie seems harmless. Let’s see Ellie’s house. She never allowed me stay more than a few hours when I visited. She must have something she doesn’t want me to know about.”

Her apartment was in the center of the settlement, the penthouse of the tallest building. Her residence encompasses the top 10 floors of the building, leaving the 5 floors below to the hospital.

“The Master Healer, Ellie. She surpassed her mother in just a few years then went on to become the most renown healer in the area. It’s a shame we couldn’t go on missions together more often…” 

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“The zoo and plant reservation are pretty boring… I thought it would be awesome to have exotic animals around but they are more of a drag than anything else. The penthouse, is bigger than I remember but there are so many things here! If she needed someone to organize her stuff, she should’ve asked me… Let’s see, what are you hiding little princess?”

The bedroom looked luxurious like everything else that she owned. The art gallery was boring and the bathroom looked like the inside of a spaceship.

“There has to be something, my kids are the exact opposite of what you would call normal. Wait, what is this…”

It never occurred to him, but the floor directly below her penthouse had a room that was inaccessible from that floor.

“What the actual… Is this a secret lab? I’m proud of you sweetpea! Let’s see what’s hiding in here.”

The lab was dark but Maximus could clearly see several huge tanks filled with water. These were cloning experiments.

“Is that her ex?! Oh my… My expectations for these kids were low but holy dang.”

After looking around some more, Maximus finally stopped.

“I should get going… My time has ended.”

Although he was preparing himself to go, the sight of his wife immediately changed his mind. Ashley wasn’t his first love but something about her grew on him so much that one day, he just proposed to her out of the blue. It wasn’t a rushed decision, both of them knew that they found the right person and finally married.

He remembered his best friend acting like a priest like in the old rites of marriage.

He quickly followed her around as she went about her business. He felt somewhat sad that he left her like this. The usual void that lived in his stomach returned to haunt him in the space between lives. He had to go and begin his new life but the old one was keeping him glued to the screen. After days of postponing, he just sat wherever down was and kept looking at his world.

As months passed, he witnessed the order he established during his life crumble. The settlement was constantly under attack from hordes of raiders, more and more dangerous monsters started to appear in the ruined parts and the unity of the people was at an all-time low. Without their hero, their beacon of hope, the people were unable to continue their previous lives. The world had come for them and their guardian was no more.

A few days prior, Magnus left the settlement with a huge and angry crowd behind him. Ellie has locked herself in her tower and Ashley overworked her body at the hospital then cried herself to sleep every night.

With his screen, Maximus could see the forces that were gathering against his settlement. Raider kings, war machines and a whole lot of bad guys he left alive in the past were rallying to deal the final blow to the unconquerable settlement.

The masters tried to call what allies they could find but it was too little and too late.

Sick of watching their pointless struggle, Maximus fell back and closed his eyes for some time. He thought about everything that he has done in his life, all the people he helped, the people he killed, treasure he hoarded and the settlement he built. Everything that he has done was about to be destroyed, his friends killed and achievements forgotten. He meditated for a long time but he couldn’t shake of the worst feeling of all, the thing he hated most even in his life, powerlessness. He couldn’t help his people and protect his family now. Everything was lost.

 The screen was still running. As his hearing focused, screams and battle cries filled his ears. The last battle had just started.

“Was I out of it for so long? May as well watch as it all falls to ruin. It doesn’t matter anymore…”

The scene was gruesome, bodies filling the fortified ditch at the entrance. The technological variation was spectacular, swordsmen attacking armored cars and laser guns frying the flying mounts. The difference in numbers was obvious as countless mercenaries were flooding the entrance fortifications. One by one, the hunter elites that were defending the walls were wounded and had to retreat. In the distance, a huge cannon was preparing to demolish the gates but Maximus was more interested in the whereabouts of his family. The first place he could think of was the hospital and as he moved to that location, Ashley was exactly where he predicted, knee deep in blood and Ellie was nowhere to be found. The hospital was quickly filling as the wounded were pouring from the battlefield outside.

The cannon in the distance accelerated a huge ball of plasma and hurled it towards the gates. In an instant, the mighty gates he personally stole from a machine intelligence hive were reduced to dust. The next moments were hard to follow because of the blinding flash of the explosion but after the initial shock faded, he could clearly see that the gates were no more.

Astral blood rushed to his head making him punch the screen and scream with anger but the screen was fine. The battle turned bad and the defenders were now retreating into the buildings. There was nothing more they could do but take as many of them down with them.

“Whatever…”

Curious about the plasma cannon, Maximus moved to its location. Strangely enough, everyone in the enemy forward base was dead. Down in the commander’s tent, Magnus was cleaning his blades. Maximus let out a loud shout of happiness. It was the first time in months when he felt like this, almost alive. He continued to watch Magnus with his eyes glued to the screen.

The plasma cannon looked hard to operate with all those screens and buttons but Magnus was quickly inputting some coordinates for a new strike.

“Um… Is this idiot going to plasma-bomb my settlement?”

After he finished, the mechanisms of the cannon started to move, positioning it away from the settlement. The sound of the shot being charged in the plasma chamber echoed through the astral reality. In an instant, the round was already one kilometer away, hurling towards its target at incredible speeds. By predicting the path of the projectile, Maximus arrived before the strike. The enemy base, was in chaos, everyone tried to run away in what vehicles they could find but it was too late. The explosion created the same blinding flash but Maximus kept watching as the enemy base was reduced to nothingness by the sustained plasma bombardment. After almost 10 minutes of rain, a huge lava pit was formed.

“Oh! The settlement!”

The battle for the settlement was still raging. The defenders barricaded themselves in the buildings, the only one fighting outside being Magnus. He was cutting through dozens of enemies. Without a leader, the horde was rampaging aimlessly. Their attention was completely caught by Magnus as they poured onto him.

“Come on, son, you can do it!” 

His movements were extremely fast, his strikes cutting through multiple enemies at once but it wasn’t enough. Little by little, the horde was chipping away at him. It was just a matter of time before he was brought down by sheer power of numbers.

“AAHH! I want to be there! There has to be a way…”

“BROTHER! GET OUT OF MY WAY!”

“Huh? Is that… Ellie?”

Her voice was extremely loud. The speakers of her tower were broadcasting her warning for Magnus and without any wasted time, he jumped from the middle of the horde and started cutting his way to their house, The Fortress. In just a few moments, from every floor of the tower emerged dozens of strange creatures. None of them looked alike, some having several arms, huge mouths filled with hundreds of teeth or razor-sharp blades instead of hands but every one of them looked alien. They broke the windows and poured over the horde in the most chaotic way possible causing panic to spread through their ranks.

“Xenomorphs, she actually managed to create them.”

The creatures started tearing through the horde, in their mindless rage they knew no difference between ally or foe. Having managed to escape, Magnus entered the Fortress and flew through the countless chambers to the exact spot where his father’s sword was resting. The mighty blade Ira, the weapon wielded by the Machine Emperor in his attempt of wiping out all organic life. With Ira in his hands, Magnus cleared The Fortress of his pursuers and returned to the battle. Every swing of this sword wreaked havoc on the battlefield, dozens perishing just by being in its blast radius. The scene could only be described as hellish, burned, sliced, obliterated corpses filling the settlement. Seeing their numbers dwindle and attacked with such ferocity from so many sides, the horde lost its will and started retreating in disarray. As they were running for their lives, the plasma cannon started glassing the fields around the settlement. The battle was over after Magnus slayed the last xenomorph.

“Huh… My children.”

Maximus was out of words. This outcome was something out of a story. With his smile back on his face, he took a last long look at his world. The settlement was wrecked, many had died in the battle but in the end, they managed to overcome what was thrown at them.

“I think the world will be alright, even without its old guardian. I’ve got to learn to trust my descendants I guess, not that I have a choice anyway. I only wish i could tell them how proud I am of them…”

In that moment, Magnus turned his gaze and looked directly at Maximus. Although it lasted for only a moment, their eyes met. Maximus was happy.

“I should get going. This world has to take care of itself from now on and I have no doubt it will. Goodbye.”

After his mind was cleared of his past, a light engulfed his vision. He could now hear the sound of someone’s voice.

“Am I a girl this time?!”