Well, at least AIRES was useful when I needed him to be, because if he wasn’t, I would have removed him long, long ago. A few milliseconds of regular time had passed, which meant Milo was still giving me that puppy eyed look. If I was going to help him out, I could at least attempt to clarify his situation.

“Why would you want me to teach you magic? I mean, from what I can tell, your body strengthening magic is above average, isn’t it?”. Upon hearing this he looked away, with an expression of shame on his face. I sensed a story was to be found here, so I donned my friendliest face, knelt down to his height, placed my hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye. “What’s wrong, Milo?”, I asked him, using my tried and tested therapist voice. It seemed to be working, because it looked like he was about to launch into a spiel.

“You’re right, my strengthening magic is stronger than most people’s, but thats useless.”

“Why on earth would that be useless?”, I queried in utter confusion.

“I cant use any elemental or advanced magic, Mr Hannibal”, he replied. “Most people can use those from a young age, but I was never blessed as a child. No god has seen it fit to lend me their power”.

Worry welled up within me. Were the gods present in this universe as well and were they the same gods that had plagues the C.S.S for so long? If so, I needed to get home, and I needed to do so fast. Headquarters needed to know about this, plus they needed to know urgently.

“I’m going to receive my official blessing soon, but since I don’t use any advanced magic now, its most likely I wont receive one.”

Man, this kid seemed to have a rough life. To be living out here in the middle of nowhere, half starved to death and rejected by the gods he looked up to, must be rough. If only he knew the true nature of their ‘divinity’, perhaps he would feel better about his predicament. Anyhow, I still had to try and get more information out of him.

“Why are you living out here?”

“Me and Mother have been banned from the town, Mr Hannibal. By the decree of Lord Urbanos himself, and by all accounts, we were lucky to just be exiled. You see, Samuel Urbanos, the Lords son, is my father.”

“And so how does having a high-born father warrant you living out here?”

“I’m nit his legitimate son, Mr Hannibal. He had an affair with my mother. The worst thing is that he would have let us stay in town if I received a blessing, ut since I didn’t have one, he drove us out so that he could hide his shame. He gave us this allotment as compensation.”

“This allotment doesn’t seem like any form of compensation.”

In reply, Milo let out a heavy sigh. “I know that, but it’s not like I can complain. It’s the Lord and his son, after all.”

“And so you want me to teach you magic, so that you can return”? Milo nodded in response, which led to me internally cringing. “Boy, let me tell you something important. Its not worth improving yourself for someone like him, someone who wont even appreciate it. He’s already driven you out, so what makes you think he’ll accept you back into the town? I mean, he’s letting you starve”! Milo simply looked away in shame. I couldn’t just leave him like this.

I turned towards the field and activated AIRES.

*Yes, but doing so will generate some light and minor amounts of heat. Are you fine with him seeing that, Sir? *

*OK then, activating nanite synthesis. *

“Milo, I want you to see something. Step away from the field”. I watched him take a few steps back, then raised my hands towards the field for theatrics. A faint light emanated from the field, much to Milo’s visible shock.

“What did you do!?”, he shouted at me, the worry and fear clear as day.

“I gave you some good soil, Milo. From now on, your crops will grow quickly and be extremely nutritious. You’ll never have to go hungry again”. Milo stood still for close to a minute, taking some time to process this life changing piece of news. But I wasn’t done helping him yet. I approached him, with my arms outstretched, trying to give off the impression of being something grand. At the very least, he seemed to believe it.

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“I may not be able to give you a god’s blessing, but I can show you how to put your strength to good use, Milo. I’ll turn you into an exceptional fighter”. Well, this was partly true. A nanite injection would increase his speed, strength, reaction times and even give him some helpful ‘instincts’. Id keep the part about the nanites discreet though.

He turned towards me with tears in his eyes and proceeded to …bow?? “Whoa, what are you doing.”

“Thank you, Mr Hannibal, for seeing it fit to improve my life in this manner. You will forever have my allegiance”.

“OK then, as my first decree, I will have you stop bowing towards me, it’s weird as hell. Secondly, I’ll need your knowledge. I’m not aware of your local customs, so I’ll need you to fill in any gaps in my knowledge”.

“You don’t want me to treat you with any respect? When you’ve performed a miracle in front of my eyes?”, he almost yelled dumbfoundedly. I could tell it would be a hassle getting through to this kid. I simply nodded in reply, to which he seemed to calm down.

“Anything else you need to tell me?”

“Actually, there are two things I think I need to tell you, Mr Hannibal. Me and Mother are surely not the only ones to have seen you fall from the sky, so you can expect the lords forces to be here within the week. The second thing I need to tell you is, well, more of a request”, he said sheepishly, to my slight bemusement.

“Well, what is it”? I saw Milo take a deep breath, seemingly preparing himself for something big.

“Could you use your magic to heal my mother”?

I chuckled slightly at the prospect of healing somebody being a major task worth stressing over but immediately stopped, as Milo inexplicably seemed downcast. Perhaps he thought I was laughing at him. If so, I would have to fix that.

“Milo, I’m not laughing at you asking me for help, I’m laughing at you being so stressed over it. Of course I’ll heal your mother”, I explained, as clearly as I could. “In fact. Why don’t we go to your house and do it now”? I turned away from him and started to make my way to his home, slowing my pace so that he could keep up. The nanites I had just implanted him with were already making themselves useful, so I could keep a track on his vitals. If there’s one thing that really grabbed my attention, it was his dopamine levels skyrocketing. A little bit of pride welled up within me, due to the fact that I inspired such happiness within him. I couldn’t let this get to my head however, as my ego would suffer for it. Plus, AIRES would use it as ammo to further tease me with, which I absolutely could not allow.

It would take a few minutes to reach his home, so I had allowed my mind to wander a bit. The strangeness of the situation had just sunk in, and to my surprise I wasn’t really worried. As a result of Project Paragon, I could most likely handle anything this planet could throw at me, and then some. With AIRES and the nanite’s aid, I could also repair my ship given some time. But it would take some time, up to a couple of years perhaps, so while I was here I could potentially do some good. I could potentially liberate this world from its ‘gods’, but doing something like that without supervision from my superiors was bound to cause some trouble, so it was best to gather some information. Maybe I could start with asking Milo some more, specifically about my landing. Maybe he could shed some light on how I ended up here.

“Milo, do you mind if I ask you something.”

“Sure, what do you want to know?”

“When I cra… fell from the heavens, what did you see exactly?”

Upon hearing this, his face lit up. “Oh, it was absolutely spectacular, Mr Hannibal! I was lying down outside, looking up at the heavens to relax, but then one of the moving stars got brighter and brighter! After watching for almost a minute, it split in two! One of the pieces fell close to the farm, and that’s where I found you!”

Two pieces? What the fuck did he mean two pieces? I would need to clarify, so I booted up AIRES.

*No, Sir. The Sparrow is minimally damaged, and any pieces that did break off were too small to burn up for more than a second. *

*All available nanites will enter sentry mode. We’ll find it, hopefully before it does any damage. *

Fuck. How could I have overlooked this? If I ended up here, there was a chance of one of the enemies ending up here, especially the one that shot me down. I wouldn’t have been the only one affected by the spatial anomaly, after all. I spun up my fusion core and prepared my internal weapons, ready to end the bastard if I even caught a glimpse of him. This caused electricity to arc on my skin, much to Milo’s shock. I decided that I owed him an explanation.

“Milo, my carriage stayed intact when I fell to earth. It didn’t split into two pieces, which means that my enemy fell with me.”

“Enemy? Is that why you fell from the sky? Were you fighting him?”

“Yes, and unfortunately I didn’t kill him. There’s a war in heaven, and the enemy is vicious Milo, so stay close to me. If you’re not careful, you could end up with your soul taken. They’re attracted to mortals after all.” Milo took a couple of seconds to process the news and then his eyes widened.

“Me and my mother would be the closest mortals for miles”, he whispered despondently. “What about my mother?”. His home was still a few minutes’ walk away, so I scooped him up and activated Flight. How could I have overlooked this? I had been a fool to assume the bastard was dead, and now Milo’s mother was in danger. He already had a hard life, and if he lost his mother it would be unimaginably harder. Milo squirmed for a few seconds in my arms, but then settled down. It seemed that he realised where I was headed and he was even more eager than I was to get there; however, I couldn’t go to full speed with him in my arms, so it would take twenty seconds to get there.

As I approached, the faint smell of smoke got stronger and stronger, much to my despair. As I crested over a hill, his home was finally in sight. There was an angel stood outside of it. It was on fire.

And his mother was on the ground.