Interpreting Truth
Adrenaline wasn't it. A crude hormone that loosely manipulated the central nervous system was a poor man's weapon.
What Gabriel did was overclocking his own mind at a level that wasn't possible for mortals, pulling in every resource: physical, mental, and spiritual, to the call of that action.
With razor-sharp focus, he took in the grinning monster, pupils narrowing to a pinprick, and the world around them into a deadly tunnel. The rain around him fell with incredible lethargy, each droplet moving past his line of sight with the laziness of a snail.
Analysis. It was a classic titan, as high as a skyscraper was tall. It had four arms, chitinous full-plate armor - evolved, or grafted? There might be no difference for a creature such as this.
He focused on its armaments instead. In its lower arms, a bow that could fit arrows large enough that if they were hollowed and implanted with machinery and wings, they could serve as transport airplanes. In its right was a longsword with a thick obsidian blade like a mid-rise building that had been put on a grinder and sharpened into a melee implement, and in its left, a rather coarse-featured metal sai.
Did those armaments carry implications about its own combat skills? Was it a fighter among the others of its kind, or did it merely carry the weapons for the convenience of better destroying the city?
Combat assessment: a beast that size and that muscular would be a pain to hurt in any manner, especially with all that armor...
His morningstar would've been a much better weapon for this fight as its spikes would be able to shatter the chitin to some degree, but Gabriel left it at home in favor of the plain sledgehammer.
The Ring of Prowess moved on, analytical prowess turning into combat prowess. It guided Gabriel's eyes to the armpits and the neck; the only exposed spots, weak points in the giant's otherwise seemingly impenetrable form. If it had a measure of human physiology, then the brachial artery and the jugular artery would be in those spots.
The brute was moving, probably because it noticed that Gabriel was preparing his attack. Its own eyes started narrowing gradually in uttermost concentration, and the bow in its hands aimed at Gabriel as it nocked an arrow on the string. That was enough for Gabriel to understand his time was up.
Gabriel inhaled. The pressure from his skin loosed, causing a bright explosion of violet in every direction. The coating held onto his skin dearly, sheltering him from the rain and making him a little stronger and faster. The fire roared in his ears and invigorated him.
The arrow was pulled back.
Gabriel sprinted to the side with the acceleration of a speeding car and much finger handling. He ran behind a ruined theater building, dimming his Affectfire's luminosity as much as possible, to avoid giving himself away.
The titanic arrow was loosed. It raced across the air with a supersonic boom, the bowstring's release causing a shockwave reflected as a visible distortion in the air.
The arrow crossed nearly half a kilometer in less than a second and caused an explosion similar to high-power artillery at its point of impact, rubble, earth, dirt, and stone upheaved at its penetration and flying up in an obscure mushroom of detritus. The entire city trembled, but Gabriel stood on his feet thanks to superior balance.
A second later, the torrential thundershower washed the dust and shrapnel out of the air, revealing the result of the attack. The fletching was now sticking out of the middle of the courtyard in front of the former Duomo di Milano, surrounded by a crater the size of a house. The arrow had pierced the exact spot where Gabriel stood initially.
His ears caught the strain of the bowstring. The giant was loading another arrow.
Gabriel's best chance was to blind it first. If he could do that, his potential to attack would increase. It could probably use magic to see or sense its surroundings to a degree, but going for the eyes was a fair bet.
With an exercise of will, a swarm of pitch-black truth-seeking orbs appeared around him, not dissimilar from Prolessarch's soulfire. It had been inspired by that procedure, and its concepts were drawn from the necromantic sigils the skeletal archmage utilized in the past.
With guided effort, Gabriel visualized the giant behind the cover of the building and loosed the orbs, aimed at the monster's eyes.
The orbs went over the building like smart attack drones, rising in a low curve and then cruising at their target. There was a loud snap as an arrow was loosed, and Gabriel unleashed a burst of Affectfire with a simultaneous release of kinetic force, leaping almost a hundred meters to the side - barely on time to avoid the second arrow that shattered the theater building into rubble and then stuck into the next building across the street; a rain-soaked homeless shelter. As before, the earth trembled.
Gabriel landed on his feet, sneakers that had been soaked through with the torrential downpour of the rainstorm nearly burning rubber against the watery tarmac as he slid across it at supernal velocity. The tension of the slide would've pulled some muscles if Gabriel was still a normal human.
The giant cried out in pain a moment later, although Gabriel's new cover in the form of a large residential building that had been cut in half with a sword at some point obscured the sight of that victory.
Nonetheless, Gabriel felt a spark of determination at that sound. That shout was proof that Gabriel was up to the task.
With a release of precisely focused Affectfire from his feet, legs, and arms, Gabriel blasted off into the air, over the face of the broken residential block. He landed on top and prepared to evade more attacks, but it didn't seem like the giant was even targeting him anymore.
He understood that he wasn't alone in fighting the monster.
There was a figure in the distance, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and drawing the creature's attention. A short man wreathed in blue, trailing behind silver moonlight into the air and wielding a gnarled wooden staff in his left hand.
As he crossed the rooftops, he slammed the staff's bottom into them, leaving behind magic circles in his trademark coloration that glowed so brightly it was like someone activated spotlights directed skyward. He was trying to surround the colossus with them, but the giant was having none of it, doing its best to destroy the magic circles as they appeared.
It was laughing uproariously as if mocking the man's feeble attempts at trapping it, but the magus didn't give up.
Gabriel focused on his reserve of Pentex, trawling through in search of useful spells. Once he found a good combination, he deployed a spell that created a malleable ball of aether in front of him; a translucent sorcerous blue. He molded it into a spear ten feet in length with a modest exertion.
With a strong focus on making the fire attach well, Gabriel sparked a violet spark of Affectfire and wreathed the spear in it.
Using two more, individual spells, one for supernatural precision and imbuing a launched projectile with slight homing properties and one for touch-applicable propulsion, Gabriel thrust the spear at the speed of sound at the giant's trachea. There was a gunshot sound, rattling every single one of Gabriel's bones and ruffling his hair.
The spear flew in the giant's blind spot and slammed on target a couple of seconds later; a venerable syringe of justice spreading the fiery vengeance of the righteous.
The giant plucked it out of his neck, but the flame was already clinging to his skin. He didn't seem too bothered, using his hand to rub the spot where the javelin made an impact. Despite Affectfire's retention extending even to underwater environments or places without an atmosphere, he was somehow managing to lighten its intensity with each pass of the hand.
But it was a good distraction. The roof-leaping magus finished his array thanks to the momentary lapse; a crescent of the ritual circles formed and connected to each other.
Each circle focused its glow into a single thread of pure azure magical energy. Curving and straight threads converged on a central nexus in the air, a singularity of energy that started to grow like a snowball rolling down a mountain and accumulating size and velocity. The giant turned to address it and raised both of his forearms in front of his face.
Once the energy reached critical mass, it released a flare of blinding lightning, its luminosity reaching the level of combusting phosphorus and whitening the skies of Milan as if there were no storm clouds to conceal the sun.
When the effect passed and Gabriel's eyes cleared, he saw that some of the giant's chitin on his arms had been partially vaporized. The places that weren't had been crusted, blackened and cracked as if repeatedly hit with a hammer and some of his surface muscles and skin had been frayed and then cauterized into pitch-black meat-soot.
The blue-wreathed magus put his hands together and started making wild gestures. The raindrops in his vicinity distorted, ignoring the pull of gravity and moving back up.
The giant moved his sai in a vengeful thrust and nearly managed to catch the magus with the strike, but the man transformed into a ghostly phantom and sunk into the roof.
Blasting up in the air once more, Gabriel managed to make a series of controlled hops between rooftops, half-gliding in the direction of the giant, using larger buildings as cover to partially conceal his arrival. It seemed like the colossus was too occupied with looking around his immediate area in search of the mage anyway.
The magus emerged on another rooftop a second later. He stumbled, weakened through the exertion of spellcasting.
As if calling upon some mystical force to restore him, the magus breathed in and a blue halo of sparks wreathed him, flowing like water into his heart.
He raised up a hand, even as he regenerated. At speed of thought, a baton of stained glass in colors of dark purple, magenta, and violet manifested in his grasp. The magus delivered a slash at a low arc, creating a patch of ripped, distorted air. A tentacled beast emerged from the portal and then sprouted a beak and a pair of membranous wings, flying upon the giant, even as the magus hopped to the side and slashed again, repeating the summoning procedure a number of times.
Gabriel scowled. Was the mage trying to make the situation even worse? Filling the city with additional monsters wasn't the solution!
The Cursebearer recalled a piece of anecdotal sophistry mentioned by a friend. It was a stupid thing, but it might well come into use right now: the best way to bully an athlete who regularly pumped iron would be to stick a 'kick me' note to their back since their musculature was so poorly optimized for backward-flexibility they were unable to scratch the space below their shoulder blades, let alone pull off a note like that.
In other words, the only spot where the monster couldn't reach with his arms would be his back; the giant monster was clearly a fighter and presumably would suffer from the same limitation.
By the time that Gabriel managed to make a half-circle around the enemy, the magus summoned an entire army of tentacled, clawed, beaked, taloned, and feathered monstrosities. Some of them didn't have wings, instead leaping upon the giant's feet and nibbling at his ankles or toes. Others constantly swarmed around his eyes and interfered with his vision, while others dive-bombed his vulnerable spots from above or below.
The magus was hopping between rooftops, as light as a phantom dancing in the wind and casting light-beam spells in order to blind the enemy and prevent him from making effective strikes, while the monsters carried out the role of bleeding it.
A death of a thousand bites, but Gabriel wasn't sure if the magus could last a battle of attrition like that one, given his earlier show of weakness.
Gabriel felt a bland mixture of subtle relief and throbbing anxiety. It was the perfect distraction, but he feared the aftermath. If those eldritch beasts remained and didn't obey the mage's commands, they'd probably linger in the area and possibly go as far as to procreate.
Ignoring that fact, he kept leaping between rooftops clockwise around the titan, while the magus leaped counter-clockwise seemingly unaware of Gabriel's presence. Soon, Gabriel was close enough to hear the mage incant his spells despite the constant white noise of the rain around them.
"First Universal Truth: All that can be said to live, dies. Second Universal Truth: Beings that are of an immortal stature exist."
The magus stopped at the second level, then raised both hands and unleashed a conflagrating bolt of electricity that connected with their mutual foe's stomach and riddled it with pockmarks. With his leftover energy, he shot a spotlight-bright flash of light into the colossus' open eyes, causing it to roar and stumble blindly.
He incanted again, inexhaustible, but beginning to struggle, and stutter, "F-First Universal Truth: all that c-can be said to live, dies. Second Universal Truth..."
Gabriel needed to help.
Looking up, he regretfully realized that his foe's back started a full hundred meters high into the air, so Gabriel had to find a 'ramp' to reach it. Luckily, there was a building tall enough to allow for an ascending trajectory.
Grappling onto the broken balconies and protruding steel rebar, Gabriel reached the rooftop a mere couple of seconds later. He cast a Pentex spell in order to increase the density of his leg muscles and bolster the skeleton, then crouched low and leaped off, using a burst of Affectfire as additional propulsion.
He came to land on the ledge of the monster's lowest back-plate, next to the spine and held onto it with both hands.
The giant's entire body was trembling and vibrating, and the rain made the plate slippery despite its otherwise imperfect smoothness. Nearby, an eldritch beast was likewise holding onto the gigantic monster's body with several tentacles; a couple of them had mouths with saw-like jaws that were brutally ripping pieces off from the goliath's body.
Gabriel needed to reach the neck or the exposed forearms. The magus' life, his own, and that of many other people depended on it - he could not let them down. He climbed up the armor as fast as he could.
The magus down in the city seemed to notice the fact that Gabriel existed for the first time, because Gabriel felt something trying to access his mind - that something carried the instinctive 'sensation' of the magus' aura. He was somewhat used to telepathy because of Prolessarch's occasional use of it, and this felt distinctly like it.
Gabriel let the magus through, as he climbed up. A little busy!
You're the new calamity, the voice commented, surprisingly young in its own mind. The magus either thought himself to be a teenager, or he actually was one.
I've no idea what that means, but thanks for the help, Gabriel replied, half-way to the neck. The goliath didn't seem to have noticed Gabriel's ascent, too occupied with using one hand to shield himself from the harassment of the magus and the other three in order to shake off the various insect-sized eldritch beasts gnawing at him.
This monster is here for you, the magus said in an explanatory manner.
Yes, that I know, and he won't be the last.
There was no response. Only a subtle feeling of malice from the other side.
With a level of newfound bitterness, the magus added, I will keep distracting him. Kill him if you can.
Send your beasts to the armpits, dig for the brachial arteries, Gabriel helpfully suggested, climbing over one of the beasts to pass a flat expanse of armor where he had no grapple-holds.
I can't control them with that level of precision. I can only tell them who or what to attack or defend, but not how.
Gabriel didn't answer to that, keeping the magus on hold.
Having finally reached the shoulder, Gabriel knew he had to cut through the neck in some way - the jugular was on the side of the neck, and it was on the relative surface compared to the brachial arteries of the armpits. If he could manage it, then he'd injure the monster significantly.
Summoning a blade of the same aether-matter as the spear and likewise coating it in Affectfire, Gabriel gripped the object tightly. With a brutal push, he thrust the entirety of the ten-foot blade deep inside the colossus' neck, where the jugular artery would've been in a human.
The monster recoiled, then clapped its hand down on the shoulder.
Gabriel survived through sheer fluke, having stood at a spot where none of its fingers landed.He narrowly managed to lower his center of gravity fast enough to keep himself from falling off.
Once the threat of being swatted like a glorified mosquito subsided, Gabriel redoubled his efforts. He started creating and infusing the spear with copious, room-sweltering quantities of Affectfire into his assailant's circulatory system. The asshole would burn from the inside, and he'd hopefully have no way of escaping that gruesome fate. Once the toothpick-sized blade was infused with sufficient Affectfire, Gabriel pushed it through into the titan's artery: an injection of pure, vengeful flame.
The giant screamed, then delivered a more thorough strike, slamming his hand down and then sweeping across the entire shoulder. Gabriel simply didn't have time to react despite his improved reflexes and coordination, and he was flung into the air like a grain of sand into the desert wind.
"Damn you." The titan's voice rumbled at this distance, like an earthquake or a hurricane. Gabriel's bones rattled from it as much as they had when he fired the initial javelin.
Gabriel surrounded himself in a bubble of transparent force. It manifested right on time, as he reached the ground a second later. Due to the high-speed impact with the street, the bubble popped and released Gabriel at less than half the velocity he was originally falling with.
His impact with the ground was considerably lessened, but he grunted out in pain and felt his entire back throbbing in dull pain. It felt like someone took a hammer and went Rambo on his spine.
A shadow loomed over him suddenly, and the slippery pressure of the constant rain stopped.
Gabriel created the same bubble again, covered with ten-foot lances, pointed upwards.
The monster's foot slammed down. The bubble popped effortlessly underneath but its pressure managed to gouge a slight indentation in the earth, saving Gabriel from having the entirety of his bones cracked apart. For the second time in less than a quarter of a minute, he narrowly evaded death.
The foot rose again.
Gabriel cursed under his breath and spent one of his remaining mobility spells, teleporting a hundred meters to the side with a flash of light and a thundercrack. He emerged under the shadow of a ruined clothing store's ceiling, more or less secure and invisible from the position of the titan's head. Scantily a half-second later, there was a deep calamitous tremor indicative of the foot kicking into the spot where he used to be.
As Gabriel panted heavily, teeth grit through the pain, he released a steady quantity of Affectfire to seal his wounds, while simultaneously using a Pentex spell to mend his bones. Some of his spinal rings had been cracked. He was one strong hit away from needing a wheelchair.
The spell wasn't instantaneous. His bones mended with excruciating slowness, one crack healing at a time. He realized that minutes would have to pass before he'd be cured of his afflictions - how good were the odds the giant wouldn't simply step on the building and collapse its entire weight on top of him?
Gabriel should have ran away at the start of the fight, rather than trying to be a hero. Gabriel laid there, numb in the darkness of the store. The occasional noise of the fight outside reached him through the pouring rain.
A couple of moments later, a deep purple mist covered the sky. Gabriel heard, more in his soul than in his ears, the voice of the magus, "Eighth Universal Truth: All in the beforeworld is at their whim." His soul appeared to shudder in deep, instinctive repulsion.
His body felt the very opposite. As if understanding the truth on its own, his spine refused to be broken anymore.
It didn't heal, it didn't restore itself and it didn't revert in time. It would be more accurate to say that his spine asserted its existence over the base, weak, and disgustingly pathetic matter of the universe and forced the universe to accept the fact that it existed in a pristine, uncracked form again. The same happened to the rest of Gabriel's wounds, and he felt even stronger than he'd ever been. It was as if he'd been ontologically bettered, reaching some cosmic insight of what a perfect ideal of his current self was supposed to be. It wasn't a permanent change - he could tell instinctively - but it was enough to get him up.
Gabriel burst into the air with newfound power, the might of Affectfire's blast searing across the sidewalk so intensely it sheared away loose stone and cleaned off remaining detritus.
He directed himself towards the colossus once more, using periodic bursts of Affectfire in order to leap from the ledges of buildings to other ledges. His telepathic link with the magus had been cut at some point, and the magus was now hovering a hundred feet in the air, surrounded by a blazing nimbus of purple-blue energy.
The magus' arms were spread, the staff of gnarled wood transformed into a reminiscent form made out of dark purple glass that seemed to be a portal to another existence entirely. The aura that surrounded him receded and then fell out over and over, like a beating heart.
The colossus was running and doing it rather fast. Gabriel's eyes tracked his expression and saw actual terror in it. At some point, the eldritch beasts fell to the earth like swatted flies.
Gabriel's body was wholly surrounded by a field of Affectfire, spinning wildly like a hurricane.
You're not going anywhere, he thought, as he released his entire offensive arsenal of spells at the giant's legs and exposed nape, to cut off its escape.
It wasn't even a drop in the ocean of damage: a fireball, a weak lightning bolt, an exploding skull, and an energy ray from primordial ether. The colossus didn't even stop or consider that he was being hurt.
The magus balled up the entirety of his aura at the top of his staff and then fired it at the sky. A boundary was created, like a sky-dome that surrounded the entirety of Milan and separated it from the rest of the world. The dome was translucent, its reflection showing a sky that wasn't quite Earth's, and wasn't quite the sky of the Eldritch Plane.
Gabriel felt the crackle of the pearl that was in his pocket, the gift of the Great One. The magus fell to his knees, utterly spent.
He can't run now, but I couldn't finish the spell. We're stuck between worlds. There is no escape.
I'll try to finish him off. Thank you.
Don't thank me. I will kill you next, when I am not so… tired… It felt like his consciousness was receding, perhaps falling unconscious.
Gabriel frowned at those words as if the thought originated from his own mind and generated a conflicting pain. Why?
Was this man Gabriel's Rival? Would he have to kill a man that had just helped him so much? Would it be wise to go after the giant and let the man rest, having seen his power, or would it be smarter to kill the man while he's down, and then finish the giant off?
The demon-colossus reached the edge of the bubble and stabbed the sai in one of his hands at it, managing to produce a minute crack.
There was no time.
Gabriel shot forward, sprinting and leaping with Affectfire. Rather than stopping, he kept accelerating and used the Ring of Prowess to enhance the relevant skills of bodily coordination and prediction, until momentum carried him fast enough to be able to close the distance in a relatively short timespan.
The giant stabbed again and started hitting the barrier with his fists, abandoning the bow in order to make faster work. The cracks started to spread.
He turned around and noticed Gabriel approaching at an intimidatingly fast speed, then scowled for a moment in deep thought, before returning to an indifferent but fixed expression.
"Parley," the monster from beyond offered, ceasing his unrelenting assault on the wall for a brief moment. "I do not wish to fight anymore. Not after what I have witnessed."
Gabriel kept approaching but slowed down noticeably. He landed on a rooftop only half a kilometer away from the giant. He wasn't sure if the creature would hear his voice, so Gabriel made sure to be as loud as possible. "Speak!"
"I am Lararfarrenox," the demonic colossus introduced himself.
He started to incrementally, but slowly walk in Gabriel's direction. As he did, his form started to compress on itself, becoming smaller and more compact; chitinous plates slid into each other, and muscles seemed to twist and braid into impossibly thick arrangements. Before five seconds had passed, he was already ten meters shorter and steadily decreasing. He was also starting to float, rather than walk.
"I serve the glory of the Master Beyond," Lararfarrenox said, before looking across the city with a grim face. "I had foolishly thought that I was beyond horror. After what your ally forced me to witness, I no longer wish to fight. I want nothing to do with your planet anymore. Allow me to leave."
"That man wants to kill me," Gabriel said in simple terms, some of the earlier aggression still in his tone, but quickly fading.
"I do not understand why that matters to me," Lararfarrenox pointed out calmly. His head tilted to the side in slight bafflement. Already, he was around two-thirds as tall as he used to. "Or is that a demand? Do you want me to make him want to kill you?"
Gabriel scowled, anger flowing through him. The idiotic question brought expediency to his mind, causing him to realize this conversation was pointless. "Why are we even talking? Do you just want me to… let you go after you laid waste to one of Italy's largest cities and killed my parents?"
He didn't even doubt the latter part, after seeing the city flattened. The odds that his parents survived were as good as one in a thousand. This creature was a genocidal murderer on a scale beyond what even an army could accomplish on its own.
"If you desire to kill me, nothing is preventing you," Lararfarrenox explained without a grudge. His earlier bloodthirsty grin and seeming excitement had been replaced by a degree of blankness, as if he were a doll steered via strings. "Aside, of course, from my desire to self-preserve. I should clarify: the Form of the Giant was one I use for siege warfare. This more compact form I have now is far better suited for combat against the likes of singular enemies."
He was less than forty meters tall, flying in front of Gabriel and steadily decreasing even more.
Presumably, he was faster and more flexible the smaller he was. But judging from the increasing density of his chitin and muscles, he would be no less strong or tough; if anything, that level of compression would make him more resilient in certain ways.
Gabriel's fists clenched in untold frustration, his knuckles whitening with fury. "You didn't answer my question. Why are we talking?"
"Because we are sapient and capable of using language," Lararfarrenox said dryly, although he didn't seem to see the humor in that statement. "And because I wished to parley. In exchange for letting me go, it is customary that you state your terms. By your tongue's definition, I am not omnipotent; but I can grant much."
Gabriel frowned, seeing nothing else to do but bargain for the upcoming, arguably harder fight that stood in his future. As much as he detested the creature in front of him, there was no assurance he'd be able to defeat it. If there was an easy way to ensure that he'd be able to power up and get ready for the future.
"Power enough to face that guy, on top of what I already have, if you can offer it," Gabriel settled with a note of finality. "If not, as much as you can offer."
Lararfarrenox smiled at him. It wasn't a mirthful smile, but rather a smile of honest confusion and amusement. "Face him? He knows the Truths of the Immortals. If he truly desires, nothing can face him. Although it might cost him much to defeat one as mighty as you - he nearly annihilated himself to lock me in here. Nonetheless, I shall comply."
Lararfarrenox stopped shrinking once he was twice as tall as Gabriel. Rising a magnanimous hand, the netherine essence of dark and red congealed into a flaming dagger in the demon's hand. He stabbed it into his own chest, an inch deep, then drew blood with a snappy motion.
Using some other magic, he gathered the blood - a color between royal purple and a fathomlessly deep black - into a flying ball, then asked, "My blood is what I offer. Do you have a container? Or if you'd prefer, you can drink it now."
Gabriel showed his Ring of Prowess, raising the hand and making it flare like a jewel of sunlight. "Would this work?"
Lararfarrenox looked down at the Ring, then frowned. "An interesting artifact. I suppose it would." He sent the orb of blood flying in Gabriel's direction. The Ring seemed to pulse with faint eagerness and the blood streamed into its band as if magnetized, sinking into the surface and disappearing.
The Ring began processing the blood's power. It seemed to have something to do with the Pentex, as well as pure, boundless energy. It wouldn't yield any significant results until at least a couple of days, though. The Ring of Prowess was more suited to receiving power from training, rather than open conflict, even if it could do both.
Gabriel sighed deeply. It was an underwhelming improvement, but the eldritch creature indeed kept his end of the deal. Gabriel nodded. "Very well."
"Then I am leaving. The magus will recover from the truth's burdens soon. If he means you ill, I suggest you run as far as you can," Lararfarrenox said. With those parting words, he turned in the air and then blasted off with a sonic boom. He started to pick up where he left off on cracking the barrier.
Gabriel had another idea. He started to advance towards the magus' location and took out his gun. Without the constant fighting and with the rain blocked off by the sky-dome, the entire city was almost dreadfully silent.
Soon enough, he reached the roof where the mage in question was slumped unconscious. Gabriel approached the body slowly, wary of an ambush. If Lararfarrenox was scared of this man, he must have been more formidable than he appeared.
Once Gabriel approached close enough, he actually saw the mage's face. His eyelids widened a millimeter.
It was a boy, younger than Gabriel by five or six years. His clothing was a tripartite arrangement, with some kind of white underlayer that contained a kevlar vest, a blue archmage's robe over that, and then a translucent white veil that glittered subtly. He wore a white-blue armband that declared him, 'PROGENITOR BLUE.'
The radio on his shoulder was crackling, as well. It seemed like someone was sternly requesting a status update.
"What…" Gabriel frowned and leaned forward, taking the radio in his hand, while pointing the gun at the boy's forehead. It felt wrong, but it felt worse to leave himself exposed and get stabbed in the back with an eldritch blast.
"Progenitor Blue, how do you copy? We're receiving dimensional interference, tuning crystals operative at sixty thaumclicks," a voice on the other side asked. Some kind of tactical console. "Status on Lararfarrenox? Do you need medical assistance?"
Gabriel didn't reply to their question, choosing instead to watch as the situation played out.
There was a moment of silence, as the radio crackled. "I repeat, Progenitor Blue, how do you copy?"
Gabriel frowned deeply, his face bordering on a scowl, as his eyes laid upon the unconscious boy labeled, 'Progenitor Blue.'
Dr. Serpenti had mentioned a Progenitor Red as being Gabriel's probable rival, which puts Red in POD leadership or elite forces. By extension, that adds Blue to the leadership or elite forces of the POD. Killing him would be a bad idea for many reasons, most of which were obvious: killing the President meant the Nation went after you. If he killed one of their big fish, they'd most likely pursue him even more than they used to.
But then again, if Gabriel didn't kill him, the POD and Blue himself would probably hunt him down nonetheless. It didn't seem like the POD was aware that Gabriel was even in Milan right now. If he could stage an accident, make it seem like Blue died in the fight... then he'd have one less asshole chasing him.
Still, he hesitated. A child this young? The boy lying down on the roof, unconscious, didn't even seem to be of the age where he'd attend middle-school. Could Gabriel really bring himself to do that?
"Progenitor Blue, if we do not receive an affirmative response in thirty seconds, protocol flatline has been authorized," the voice on the other side mentioned. It carried the same sobriety as saying, 'If you don't respond, we're nuking your coordinates.' "I'm sorry."
Seconds passed, as Gabriel considered. His finger was on the trigger, but if the radio was anything to go by, there would be no need to press it. The boy had dealt his own death.
"Progenitor Blue, this is Progenitor Red," another voice said. It was deeper, much deeper, and older; wizened, almost. It was a man in his late fifties, if not past that. "I don't know if you can hear me. I'd like you to know it's been an honor. Orange and Yellow think the same. Even Black agrees, though he'll never admit it."
Fuck, I know I'll regret it, but I feel like killing him is the worse choice here.
At this point, the Doom of Judgement was starting to press down upon him, casting its own opinion into the ring: killing a child, even one that had superpowers and desired your termination was abjectly immoral. It was monstrous; no better than Lararfarrenox who'd destroyed the entire city of Milan in glee.
Kneeling down, Gabriel slapped Progenitor Blue across the face. The boy's head recoiled, but he did not wake up.
"Progenitor Blue, this is mission control. Last chance to respond," the same man from before said. "Over."
If I kill him, I die. If I don't kill him, I die anyway. I have to talk.
"Progenitor Blue is unconscious due to extensive use of the Truths of the Immortals," Gabriel spoke in the radio through grit teeth, his fists clenching instinctively around both the gun and the body of the radio. "Over..."
There was silence on the radio channel for a moment. A very long moment. An entire ten seconds passed with no indication of anything happening, and for a moment, Gabriel's heart clenched in the idea they might initiate whatever 'protocol flatline' was, rendering his efforts naught but simultaneously revealing his presence.
Instead, after fifteen seconds, the voice of Progenitor Red spoke, "Unknown person of interest, please identify."
"Is it necessary?" Gabriel replied with a raised eyebrow.
"I believe it is," Progenitor Red insisted. "Why are you near the fallout zone at this time?"
"I was in Milan when the giant guy attacked," Gabriel replied, sweat beading on his forehead, trickling down his temples, leaving behind cold streaks of dread.
"And who are you?" Red pressed. "What's your involvement in all of this?"
"I tried to help," Gabriel replied simply. "The giant escaped."
"You're dodging the question," Red noted plainly. It seemed like his patience was running dry, slowly, but inevitably. There was a tense moment of silence, the emotions stretched like a violin string that had been pulled to its maximum extension then pressed in the middle with a finger. "Who are you?"
Feeling a chill of horror going down his spine at the realization not answering the question might as well equal a nuke up his ass or maybe something worse, Gabriel had to cave in and answer. "Gabriel."
Something on the other side of the radio fell over. There was a sound of glass shattering. Elsewhere, a person stammered and then yelled, "That one?!"
Gabriel heard Red saying the word, "Orange," in a loud, commanding tone before the line disconnected again. There was nothing but static from the radio.
The Ring of Prowess flared on Gabriel's finger vengefully, in a pre-emptive stopper to a panic attack. Gabriel felt its disdain, far deeper than anything as if reminding him of everything he'd weathered so far and practically recoiling in disgust at the fact that this event was enough to drive him to the border of panic.
On the ground, Progenitor Blue coughed several times, eyes remaining closed and breathing clearly arrhythmic. A trickle of blood started to run from his lips, down his cheek. Another stream appeared a moment later, running down from both eyes like bloody tears.
"Oh, thank the Accursed, he's alive," Gabriel whispered to himself, as he knelt next to him once more.
Gabriel cast a healing spell using the Pentex. It was his last one, its main purpose being the restoration of injured organs and internal bleeding. It was a gradual effect, and wouldn't really finish in another hour or so.
"Can you hear me?" Gabriel asked, lightly shaking Progenitor Blue's small frame. The boy didn't seem to be awake. He didn't even move, aside from an unsteady rising and lowering of the chest; he was like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Gabriel bit his lower lip and created a small flame on his palm.
He brought the flame closer to Blue's skin, to see whether it would burn or heal. It seemed to do nothing, as if the very presence of Progenitor Blue was interfering with the violet flames' operation.
Gabriel cursed to himself and then elected to try something else.
He fed the Eye of Knowledge everything Progenitor Blue had done - from the incantations, to the name of the magic system as called by the giant, to the effects of the various incantations and Gabriel's own personal experiences in relation to all the various 'truths' that Progenitor Blue used.
When the Crystal Eye received the First Universal Truth, the link to the nexus suddenly cut off.
A moment later, the Crystal Eye responded to the knowledge with the instinctive sensation that the knowledge Gabriel attempted to donate was corrupted and further attempts to introduce it to the system would result in permanent expulsion. Furthermore, this knowledge was rejected as it was dangerous to the system.
"Goddamn it!" Gabriel shouted out in frustration, kicking a piece of rubble off the building. It couldn't have been possibly that poisonous!? He needed something relevant - something to reverse the process!
Suddenly, Gabriel's PDA started ringing. Gabriel took it out and picked up at once. "Hello?"
"Codeword," Dr. Serpenti said at once, voice imperious.
"Head hit," Gabriel said.
"Mind fuck," the man answered swiftly. "We have two minutes to speak. Where are you right now?"
"Next to an unconscious, probably comatose Progenitor Blue." Gabriel looked across the city. Lararfarrenox was finishing up his work on the far end, the cracks starting to unveil a hole leading to the other side. "Under a big dome."
"Thank you for the smartass response, Mr. Lioni," Serpenti answered with the distinct sound of someone whose eyebrow was twitching in deep irritation. After a deep, audible breath and sigh, Serpenti calmly said, "Be more precise - which building?"
"S-Sorry." Gabriel looked around, and down at the building. "I think this is the Classical High School."
"A tube of white light is going to appear in the area in approximately twenty seconds," the doctor succinctly answered. "Drag Progenitor Blue through it, and then jump in yourself. If you don't make it in ten seconds, it will disappear and you'll be stranded there until Progenitor Black and Orange make it through. I assure you that your life will not continue if Black so much as bats an eyelash at you, and since everyone here seems to believe you're the one who knocked Blue unconscious, there will be hell to pay once they catch up. They're his teammates, and Orange is - if not infatuated with him - very fond of him."
Gabriel chose to heed the good doctor's advice, because ignoring it sounded too close like a synonym to suicide. The Cursebearer picked up the Progenitor and slipped him on his shoulder effortlessly, thanks to his improved physique. The boy was unnaturally light, to the point where Gabriel immediately became concerned if he was eating right. He couldn't have weighed that much more than thirty kilograms. "I've got him on my shoulder."
"Copy. Await further instructions," the doctor said.
"I could've shot him," Gabriel said, a tinge of insecurity in his voice. "Did I make the right call in not doing it?"
"If you kill him, you'll become the next Progenitor Blue," Dr. Serpenti answered with something that sounded close to a cringe of empathic pain. "Not a pleasant fate, I assure you. Especially since the POD would do its best to reclaim the role from you."
"Right call, then," Gabriel confirmed to himself with a nod. He looked around, awaiting the light.
"Portal in five. Serpenti out," the man said, as the PDA flickered to complete silence. As prophesized, five seconds later, the sky-dome was pierced by a flaring white beam of light that fell at an odd angle on the same rooftop Gabriel was standing on.
Gabriel walked into the tube of light without thinking twice about it, with the boy on his shoulder.
The sudden transition was smooth. He felt a deep warmth for a moment and then emerged in another tube of light. The air was subtly different; more cloistered and warmer, and slightly stuffier. There was a scent of antiseptics in the air.
It seemed like he was in a classic, almost stereotypical laboratory. It was covered in white tiles, a number of desks with chemistry implements and beakers, electronics, half-assembled devices, and other things. At least half a dozen scientists and engineers were putting together and tinkering with some of the objects, overseen by a couple of security officers dressed in standard GRUP armor, characteristic.
A GRUP trooper whose apparent codename was, 'Bull,' waited for Gabriel on the other side and nodded to him in greeting, as did a handful of operatives, each consumed with their own work next to a bunch of terminals. Serpenti himself was in one of the corners of the room, speaking to a handheld radio, answering questions with urgency.
A pair of medics who'd been clearly waiting on-site rolled up a stretcher next to Gabriel. Gabriel laid Progenitor Blue on the stretcher as gently as he could, sighing heavily.
Despite his heightened state stemming from the Progenitor's earlier spell, he was exhausted. If not physically, then mentally. It felt like he'd just ran a marathon and then participated in the Olympics in order to make it first place into a classroom for a math test.
"We finally meet, Mr. Lioni," Serpenti said, approaching and stuffing the radio into his labcoat's inner pocket. He indicated for Gabriel to follow with one hand. "With me, please. We don't have much time for pleasantries. Minutes, at most."
Gabriel smiled weakly in Dr. Serpenti's direction and nodded as he followed him.
"Right now, the entire POD is in chaos. As far as people know, you've possibly killed, compromised, or kidnapped one of its cornerstones," Serpenti explained at length. They fell into step down the corridor of the science laboratory. There were even more stations - people at terminals who typed away or created designs using software, while other people used mechanical lathes in order to create basic prototypes. The scale of the projects in this laboratory seemed to be vaster than anything Gabriel expected.
"The other Progenitors will be particularly upset, especially that loathsome Yellow," Serpenti nearly spat the word. "Our only recourse is to dump Blue somewhere innocuous for them to find and hope for the best. I'll take care of that - it would be in your best interest, however, to disappear off the radar temporarily."
Serpenti approached a retinal scanner and lowered down to it. A flat green scanner beeped once, and the door next to the scanner opened with an electric buzz.
Dr. Serpenti opened it and invited Gabriel to go through first, then followed after him. They were on some kind of catwalk above what seemed to be a pit with a number of unmarked crates. There was a deep echo in here and Gabriel felt lighter. The air was colder, too.
"I'll go back to my base and stay there until things cool down," Gabriel said, nodding once in confirmation. "I hope my friends will have been brought to the safehouse by this time."
"I cannot arrange such things at this time." Dr. Serpenti checked his wristwatch and walked in the direction of another door, stopping in front of it and frowning. "One minute, eighteen seconds. Let's hurry it up."
"Your men were instructed to do so before the skeleton and I left," Gabriel said, folding his arms. His tone held no aggression or accusations, just a simple statement. The doctor didn't seem to care too much, though.
Serpenti opened the door, and said, "In you go. It will be a very unpleasant ride, but it'll take you in the general vicinity of your hideout."
Gabriel shrugged and walked through the door.
There was something like a tube inside, made from alloyed steel in thick protective layers, and dark, tinted glass. It seemed to be exceptionally sturdy and heavy, and slightly sci-fi. Inside the tube was a single cushioned seat with four seatbelts meant to be strapped across the chest in an 'x' shape. There was a panel to the right side of the seat as well, but its buttons weren't lit, and there was an oxygen mask hanging from the top.
"It can't be worse than having my soul scream in agony," Gabriel commented, not terrified in the slightest by the vehicle.
"Maybe. Don't take off the oxygen mask. Even if you do, you probably won't asphyxiate, but it's better to be safe than sorry. This is a prototype meant to be untraceable." Serpenti looked down with a frown. "It hurts me to use it when it's not entirely finished, but… sacrifices have to be made."
"Sorry about everything, but answering the radio was the only call I could've made," Gabriel said, shaking his head and sitting down in the seat, strapping himself in and placing the oxygen mask on his face.
"I must go, have a nice ride." Serpenti closed the door. There was a hiss of air as the chamber that Gabriel was in started losing pressure, and a moment later, the tube he was in closed its door with a heavy clunk.
A moment later, the hatch on the floor was released, and the tube was loosed outside the complex Gabriel had been in.
...exposing his escape pod to the black vacuum of space, including the sun and Earth in all their glory.
WHAT THE FUCK! DR. SERPENTI IS IN SPACE?!
Was the first thought that Gabriel's mind screamed.
The second one was an actual scream as the escape pod started to accelerate towards Earth, with a robotic female voice declaring, "Re-entry protocol initiated."
