The One
Chapter Six, Soldiers
Benjamin sat in his chair and listened to the report being read to him by a strange looking man. The man in
front of Benjamin was dressed in a black full body suit, with his mask covering his face. At his waist were
several curved daggers and strapped across his back a short dirk engraved with various symbols of a long
forgotten language. Underneath his mask his face was stark white as if it had not seen the sun since he was
born. His eyes were emotionless and colored a very light blue, almost gray. His mouth barely moved when
he talked and he was speaking softly but with confidence. His ears came up to a rounded point at the top
and the lobes of his ears hung slightly low. His head was shaved bald and there was not a trace of hair on
his face besides his eyebrows. He was kneeled in front of Benjamin as he spoke and his eyes lever left the
floor in front of him. But the strangest thing about the man was that his body seemed to waver in and out of
visibility. Benjamin listened to the man with rapt attention and his own green eyes never left the other man.
"After seeing you tell him where the portal was located he ran back to his residence and woke his
companions. They left for the portal shortly after and the one with lavender hair opened the portal. The man
with the scar entered last after the red haired one and the portal closed after them. I waited for an hour, as
instructed, by the portal and then it opened as you said it would. Although the color was different, bright
colors of red, orange, and yellow to be exact, I entered it and was taken by the portal to the main hall of
your castle. That's is all." The man said in a hushed voice.
"Good. Just like Kilborne wanted. What about the revolt rumors that have been floating around the
fortress?" Benjamin asked in an demanding voice.
"I have yet to discover anything. I will have to use…other methods of obtaining the information." The man
answered in a flat tone.
"You had best be quicker with your tasks, or you may find yourself next to the heads atop the roof."
Benjamin said, anger slowly rising in his voice. 'Kill the fucking pig. He deserved to die.' The man's
shoulder's tensed and Benjamin added, "Not yet. You have a day to finish the task. Make good use of it."
"Thank you, sir." The man said as his shoulder's relaxed noticeable. "I will not disappoint you."
"I know you won't Shade. Now go." Benjamin said, signaling for him to leave with a wave of his hand.
Shade stood up and walked out backwards towards the door. He exited through the door and it closed after
him.
'You should have killed him. He failed you. He should have died like the worthless dog he is.' Benjamin
closed his eyes as the voice began to speak. He wanted it too stop, but he was stricken with suddenly with a
great tiredness and could not summon up the strength to banish it from his mind. 'He should be lying in
front of you with his fucking guts next to him. His head should decorate your throne. You should have cut
off his fucking testicles and fed them to him. He should have died.' Benjamin began to shake his head
slowly.
"No." he murmered. "No. He's the best one yet. He's loyal. He won't fail me."
'He will. Just like all the other bastards before him. They couldn't do what you wanted and died. Why
spare him? He'll fail again. You can count on that.' The voice whispered insistently inside his head.
"Dammit, no. He won't fail. I won't kill him. I won't." Benjamin whined in an unusually small voice. "I
need him."
'You need no one. No one but yourself, and of course, me.'
Benjamin began to rock in his chair and whispered, "Go away. Go away." His voice began to rise in
volume and anger. "Go away!" He stopped rocking. "GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HEAD!" he screamed
into the empty room.
Benjamin sat in silence and realized that he had banished the voice. He looked around dazed for a few
seconds and then began to laugh. He laughed aloud and the people walking by the room shivered in fear.
His laugh was like nails scraping against their very souls. No one entered the room to see what the scream
was this time, and the bloody blade still lie forgotten on the floor next to Benjamin.
******************************
Kilborne was sitting at a large desk with an open book in front of him. He read a passage aloud in a
whisper.
"And the One of Destiny will come forth at the peak of the Great War to declare his allegiance. Whomever
he sides with will become the Masters of the Great Flame and after the Last Battle his enemies will be
banished forever to the Frozen Plains of Gander where they will remain for all eternity." Kilborne looked
up from the book and closed his eyes. 'He will be ours soon.' Kilborne thought to himself, 'Ours.' Kilborne
began to laugh coldly into the darkness around him. 'Mine.'
******************************
Magnus stood next to Gasper and listened to Lucca talk.
"So, as I was saying, Gasper and I have come up with three possible reasons as to why the Gates are
opening again." Lucca said. She pointed up her first finger. "First, there's the theory that the Gates are a
natural occurring phenomena. They have always been there and they randomly open and close and can be
opened manually when something is tuned to their, let's say, frequency. Such as the Gate Key. They also
can collapse in on themselves because the energy that created them has either run out or shifted to a
different location of the planet. Second is the theory of Gaia. Which is that the spirit of the planet, called
Gaia, opened the Gates for us before so we could become stronger and defeat Lavos, whom was destroying
the planet. This means that the planet opens and collapses Gates depending on its needs. Which would also
mean that the Gates we recently used were opened for some reason we're not sure of yet. The final theory
is that the Gates are rips in the space-time continuum and that only a being, or device, of immense power or
on the same frequency as the Gates can open them. So that would mean that when Lavos appeared in
Magus' Castle and the giant Gate opened was his doing in whatever logic Lavos was using. And that could
also mean that another being of immense power could open other Gates around the planet as well."
Crono, Marle, and Magnus all looked at Lucca as if she were speaking another language.
"You lost me." Magnus said, scratching his head.
"Yeah, me too." Crono and Marle said almost at the same time.
Lucca looked at all of them with her eyebrow cocked and asked, "You're serious? But, I said it as simply as
I could."
"Let me have a turn." Gasper said, pushing back his hat a bit. "What Lucca was saying is that either the
Gates open by themselves and close by themselves, or that the planet itself opens them when its in trouble,
or that a being of immense power opens them."
"Gotcha." Magnus said, understanding dawning on his face.
Marle and Crono nodded their agreement.
"Why couldn't you explain it that way brainiac?" Magnus asked Lucca, poking fun at her.
"It's not my fault everyone's not as smart as me." Lucca said vainly. " I guess it's just to complicated for
you."
Crono began to laugh at this and soon Marle and Magnus started to laugh too. Lucca looked them dumbly
for a second before she burst out laughing too. Gasper smiled underneath the shadow of the brim of his hat.
'Oh to be young again.' He thought to himself with a silent laugh.
"Well, now that we're all done making fun of me," Lucca said with mock hurt, "I think we should figure
out which Gate is ours."
"Right. Gasper should be able to help us out." Crono said, looking at Gasper expectably.
"Well," Gasper began, "I should be able too. Crono, I believe that the Gate back to your time is…" Gasper
trailed off suddenly with a slight frown on his face. "Well that's odd. The Gates just…shifted."
"Shifted?! What does that mean?" Lucca asked, beginning to become alarmed.
"Well…I guess you could say that the, let's say destinations, just changed in the Gates. It's only happened
once before, and not on Earth…" Gasper said with a hint of worry in his voice as he trailed off. "It doesn't
mean that your way home is gone though. It just means it will be harder to find." He added when a look of
worry crossed all four companions' faces. 'A lot harder.' He though to himself.
******************************
Shade walked away from the room where Benjamin was in a slow walk. He kept his pale blue eyes on the
empty space in front of him and continued to walk. He came to the end of the hallway and began to turn left
at the branch but stopped. He looked to the right and saw three women standing in the hallway. The tallest
of the three was uglier than the rest and was wearing what appeared to be a maid's uniform. The second
one was older and was also wearing the uniform of a maid. The third was the one that caught Shade's
attention more than the others and he found himself staring at her.
'Who is she?' he asked himself in his mind. 'I know her, but who…' Shade continued to stare at the
woman while continued to ask himself who she was.
The woman who had caught Shade's attention was a young woman of what appeared to be nineteen years
old. She had light blonde hair that she was wearing at shoulder length. Her eyes were a deep blue and her
ears also ended in a point at the top, as was natural in her race. She wore a simple white tunic and white
pants. The uniform of the kitchen staff. Her skin was slightly tanned and her face was what men would call
beautiful. But none of that interested Shade, all that interested him was that he knew who she was but could
not figure out from where he knew her. Then it came to him.
'Her. It's actually her.' He thought to himself. 'Sylphis. My sister.'
Shade turned around and began to walk towards the three women. They noticed him only when he was a
few feet away and their soft conversation quickly ended as they bowed their heads in respect for a high-
ranking officer of The Ruler Benjamin. Shade stopped in front of them and casually turned his head
towards them. The women kept their heads down.
"Your names." Shade demanded quietly.
The tallest one answered, "Katera."
"Olga." The older replied.
"My name is Sylphis." The third women answered in a quiet whisper.
Something Shade had not felt in a long time threatened to surge to the surface of his mind. Joy. But he
quickly quashed it and said in a strained voice, "Do not tarry in the halls."
The three women quickly walked away to the left of Shade and went through a door marked 'Kitchen'.
Shade looked at the door they had walked through for a moment and thought to himself, 'Sister. Why are
you here...'
Shade stood in place for a few more moments before his form began to dim and then became almost
invisible. He turned around and began to walk back down the hall he had originally chosen.
******************************
Kilborne stood in a dark room only lit be a single blue torch held by a man in black armor. The torchlight
flickered and reflected off the walls by them but no light was reflected by the man's armor, it was almost
like it was absorbing it. Kilborne waved his hand forward and the man began to walk slowly forward. As he
walked forward the light given off by the torch showed dead bodies of men and other creatures lying in
straight lines. The man stopped and turned to face Kilborne. Kilborne snapped his fingers and the flame of
the torch flared brightly and began to cast unnatural amounts of light around the room. In a few seconds the
room was completely illuminated in an eerie blue light. The light showed that the room had ten long lines
of various creatures and man-like figures lined up long ways wall to wall. Their bodies appeared to be
perfectly preserved except for the wounds that had killed them. Kilborne walked towards the man holding
the torch and stood in front of him.
"Watch Charles. Watch as I call your soldiers from the dead." Kilborne said with a monotone voice.
"Watch as I call them forth with powers beyond life that can only be found in death."
Charles remained silent and his eyes looked around at the corpses in a detached gaze. He watched as
Kilborne raised his hands and a pale red light began to pulse around his body.
"Traseious, kaltenk, pali, rutis." Kilorne spoke in a soft voice. "Frahis, lowrea, deptar!" he said in a louder
voice. "Rise from your death sleep and obey me." He spoke in a softer voice then before.
The red light began to run from Kilborne's body and slowly enveloped the corpses that lay on the floor.
The bodies began to twitch and move slightly. A small smile broke out on Kilborne's face and his eyes
seemed to light up at the sight of the dead bodies moving. Charles face remained expressionless as he stood
gazing out at the bodies. The bodies suddenly stopped twitching and their limbs began to move, as if the
dead were testing out their former bodies to see if they still worked. A minute passed and then the first of
the corpses began to sit up, then stand. Charles swept his eyes across the various creatures standing before
him. His line of vision crossed men, what looked like a cross between a man and a wolf, winged creatures
that looked like gothic style gargoyles, and various other species.
"Your men Charles. Your men." Kilborne all but whispered to him. "Yours to control and to use to
dominate others."
"I will use them well, master." Charles replied in an emotionless tone.
"I know you will." Kilborne said, a cruel smile spread across his lips. "I know you will. They," he said
pointing to the now reanimated corpses, "will wait in here until they are needed. Now come Charles, and
leave the flame in the holder at the end of the room."
Charles turned and walked to the back of the room, where he placed the torch in a holder hanging on the
wall. The blue light was reflected dully in the undead eyes of the corpses. Charles turned around again and
followed Kilborne out of the room, closing the door behind him and sealing the blue light inside of the
room with the corpses of the once living warriors.
Chapter Six, Soldiers
Benjamin sat in his chair and listened to the report being read to him by a strange looking man. The man in
front of Benjamin was dressed in a black full body suit, with his mask covering his face. At his waist were
several curved daggers and strapped across his back a short dirk engraved with various symbols of a long
forgotten language. Underneath his mask his face was stark white as if it had not seen the sun since he was
born. His eyes were emotionless and colored a very light blue, almost gray. His mouth barely moved when
he talked and he was speaking softly but with confidence. His ears came up to a rounded point at the top
and the lobes of his ears hung slightly low. His head was shaved bald and there was not a trace of hair on
his face besides his eyebrows. He was kneeled in front of Benjamin as he spoke and his eyes lever left the
floor in front of him. But the strangest thing about the man was that his body seemed to waver in and out of
visibility. Benjamin listened to the man with rapt attention and his own green eyes never left the other man.
"After seeing you tell him where the portal was located he ran back to his residence and woke his
companions. They left for the portal shortly after and the one with lavender hair opened the portal. The man
with the scar entered last after the red haired one and the portal closed after them. I waited for an hour, as
instructed, by the portal and then it opened as you said it would. Although the color was different, bright
colors of red, orange, and yellow to be exact, I entered it and was taken by the portal to the main hall of
your castle. That's is all." The man said in a hushed voice.
"Good. Just like Kilborne wanted. What about the revolt rumors that have been floating around the
fortress?" Benjamin asked in an demanding voice.
"I have yet to discover anything. I will have to use…other methods of obtaining the information." The man
answered in a flat tone.
"You had best be quicker with your tasks, or you may find yourself next to the heads atop the roof."
Benjamin said, anger slowly rising in his voice. 'Kill the fucking pig. He deserved to die.' The man's
shoulder's tensed and Benjamin added, "Not yet. You have a day to finish the task. Make good use of it."
"Thank you, sir." The man said as his shoulder's relaxed noticeable. "I will not disappoint you."
"I know you won't Shade. Now go." Benjamin said, signaling for him to leave with a wave of his hand.
Shade stood up and walked out backwards towards the door. He exited through the door and it closed after
him.
'You should have killed him. He failed you. He should have died like the worthless dog he is.' Benjamin
closed his eyes as the voice began to speak. He wanted it too stop, but he was stricken with suddenly with a
great tiredness and could not summon up the strength to banish it from his mind. 'He should be lying in
front of you with his fucking guts next to him. His head should decorate your throne. You should have cut
off his fucking testicles and fed them to him. He should have died.' Benjamin began to shake his head
slowly.
"No." he murmered. "No. He's the best one yet. He's loyal. He won't fail me."
'He will. Just like all the other bastards before him. They couldn't do what you wanted and died. Why
spare him? He'll fail again. You can count on that.' The voice whispered insistently inside his head.
"Dammit, no. He won't fail. I won't kill him. I won't." Benjamin whined in an unusually small voice. "I
need him."
'You need no one. No one but yourself, and of course, me.'
Benjamin began to rock in his chair and whispered, "Go away. Go away." His voice began to rise in
volume and anger. "Go away!" He stopped rocking. "GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HEAD!" he screamed
into the empty room.
Benjamin sat in silence and realized that he had banished the voice. He looked around dazed for a few
seconds and then began to laugh. He laughed aloud and the people walking by the room shivered in fear.
His laugh was like nails scraping against their very souls. No one entered the room to see what the scream
was this time, and the bloody blade still lie forgotten on the floor next to Benjamin.
******************************
Kilborne was sitting at a large desk with an open book in front of him. He read a passage aloud in a
whisper.
"And the One of Destiny will come forth at the peak of the Great War to declare his allegiance. Whomever
he sides with will become the Masters of the Great Flame and after the Last Battle his enemies will be
banished forever to the Frozen Plains of Gander where they will remain for all eternity." Kilborne looked
up from the book and closed his eyes. 'He will be ours soon.' Kilborne thought to himself, 'Ours.' Kilborne
began to laugh coldly into the darkness around him. 'Mine.'
******************************
Magnus stood next to Gasper and listened to Lucca talk.
"So, as I was saying, Gasper and I have come up with three possible reasons as to why the Gates are
opening again." Lucca said. She pointed up her first finger. "First, there's the theory that the Gates are a
natural occurring phenomena. They have always been there and they randomly open and close and can be
opened manually when something is tuned to their, let's say, frequency. Such as the Gate Key. They also
can collapse in on themselves because the energy that created them has either run out or shifted to a
different location of the planet. Second is the theory of Gaia. Which is that the spirit of the planet, called
Gaia, opened the Gates for us before so we could become stronger and defeat Lavos, whom was destroying
the planet. This means that the planet opens and collapses Gates depending on its needs. Which would also
mean that the Gates we recently used were opened for some reason we're not sure of yet. The final theory
is that the Gates are rips in the space-time continuum and that only a being, or device, of immense power or
on the same frequency as the Gates can open them. So that would mean that when Lavos appeared in
Magus' Castle and the giant Gate opened was his doing in whatever logic Lavos was using. And that could
also mean that another being of immense power could open other Gates around the planet as well."
Crono, Marle, and Magnus all looked at Lucca as if she were speaking another language.
"You lost me." Magnus said, scratching his head.
"Yeah, me too." Crono and Marle said almost at the same time.
Lucca looked at all of them with her eyebrow cocked and asked, "You're serious? But, I said it as simply as
I could."
"Let me have a turn." Gasper said, pushing back his hat a bit. "What Lucca was saying is that either the
Gates open by themselves and close by themselves, or that the planet itself opens them when its in trouble,
or that a being of immense power opens them."
"Gotcha." Magnus said, understanding dawning on his face.
Marle and Crono nodded their agreement.
"Why couldn't you explain it that way brainiac?" Magnus asked Lucca, poking fun at her.
"It's not my fault everyone's not as smart as me." Lucca said vainly. " I guess it's just to complicated for
you."
Crono began to laugh at this and soon Marle and Magnus started to laugh too. Lucca looked them dumbly
for a second before she burst out laughing too. Gasper smiled underneath the shadow of the brim of his hat.
'Oh to be young again.' He thought to himself with a silent laugh.
"Well, now that we're all done making fun of me," Lucca said with mock hurt, "I think we should figure
out which Gate is ours."
"Right. Gasper should be able to help us out." Crono said, looking at Gasper expectably.
"Well," Gasper began, "I should be able too. Crono, I believe that the Gate back to your time is…" Gasper
trailed off suddenly with a slight frown on his face. "Well that's odd. The Gates just…shifted."
"Shifted?! What does that mean?" Lucca asked, beginning to become alarmed.
"Well…I guess you could say that the, let's say destinations, just changed in the Gates. It's only happened
once before, and not on Earth…" Gasper said with a hint of worry in his voice as he trailed off. "It doesn't
mean that your way home is gone though. It just means it will be harder to find." He added when a look of
worry crossed all four companions' faces. 'A lot harder.' He though to himself.
******************************
Shade walked away from the room where Benjamin was in a slow walk. He kept his pale blue eyes on the
empty space in front of him and continued to walk. He came to the end of the hallway and began to turn left
at the branch but stopped. He looked to the right and saw three women standing in the hallway. The tallest
of the three was uglier than the rest and was wearing what appeared to be a maid's uniform. The second
one was older and was also wearing the uniform of a maid. The third was the one that caught Shade's
attention more than the others and he found himself staring at her.
'Who is she?' he asked himself in his mind. 'I know her, but who…' Shade continued to stare at the
woman while continued to ask himself who she was.
The woman who had caught Shade's attention was a young woman of what appeared to be nineteen years
old. She had light blonde hair that she was wearing at shoulder length. Her eyes were a deep blue and her
ears also ended in a point at the top, as was natural in her race. She wore a simple white tunic and white
pants. The uniform of the kitchen staff. Her skin was slightly tanned and her face was what men would call
beautiful. But none of that interested Shade, all that interested him was that he knew who she was but could
not figure out from where he knew her. Then it came to him.
'Her. It's actually her.' He thought to himself. 'Sylphis. My sister.'
Shade turned around and began to walk towards the three women. They noticed him only when he was a
few feet away and their soft conversation quickly ended as they bowed their heads in respect for a high-
ranking officer of The Ruler Benjamin. Shade stopped in front of them and casually turned his head
towards them. The women kept their heads down.
"Your names." Shade demanded quietly.
The tallest one answered, "Katera."
"Olga." The older replied.
"My name is Sylphis." The third women answered in a quiet whisper.
Something Shade had not felt in a long time threatened to surge to the surface of his mind. Joy. But he
quickly quashed it and said in a strained voice, "Do not tarry in the halls."
The three women quickly walked away to the left of Shade and went through a door marked 'Kitchen'.
Shade looked at the door they had walked through for a moment and thought to himself, 'Sister. Why are
you here...'
Shade stood in place for a few more moments before his form began to dim and then became almost
invisible. He turned around and began to walk back down the hall he had originally chosen.
******************************
Kilborne stood in a dark room only lit be a single blue torch held by a man in black armor. The torchlight
flickered and reflected off the walls by them but no light was reflected by the man's armor, it was almost
like it was absorbing it. Kilborne waved his hand forward and the man began to walk slowly forward. As he
walked forward the light given off by the torch showed dead bodies of men and other creatures lying in
straight lines. The man stopped and turned to face Kilborne. Kilborne snapped his fingers and the flame of
the torch flared brightly and began to cast unnatural amounts of light around the room. In a few seconds the
room was completely illuminated in an eerie blue light. The light showed that the room had ten long lines
of various creatures and man-like figures lined up long ways wall to wall. Their bodies appeared to be
perfectly preserved except for the wounds that had killed them. Kilborne walked towards the man holding
the torch and stood in front of him.
"Watch Charles. Watch as I call your soldiers from the dead." Kilborne said with a monotone voice.
"Watch as I call them forth with powers beyond life that can only be found in death."
Charles remained silent and his eyes looked around at the corpses in a detached gaze. He watched as
Kilborne raised his hands and a pale red light began to pulse around his body.
"Traseious, kaltenk, pali, rutis." Kilorne spoke in a soft voice. "Frahis, lowrea, deptar!" he said in a louder
voice. "Rise from your death sleep and obey me." He spoke in a softer voice then before.
The red light began to run from Kilborne's body and slowly enveloped the corpses that lay on the floor.
The bodies began to twitch and move slightly. A small smile broke out on Kilborne's face and his eyes
seemed to light up at the sight of the dead bodies moving. Charles face remained expressionless as he stood
gazing out at the bodies. The bodies suddenly stopped twitching and their limbs began to move, as if the
dead were testing out their former bodies to see if they still worked. A minute passed and then the first of
the corpses began to sit up, then stand. Charles swept his eyes across the various creatures standing before
him. His line of vision crossed men, what looked like a cross between a man and a wolf, winged creatures
that looked like gothic style gargoyles, and various other species.
"Your men Charles. Your men." Kilborne all but whispered to him. "Yours to control and to use to
dominate others."
"I will use them well, master." Charles replied in an emotionless tone.
"I know you will." Kilborne said, a cruel smile spread across his lips. "I know you will. They," he said
pointing to the now reanimated corpses, "will wait in here until they are needed. Now come Charles, and
leave the flame in the holder at the end of the room."
Charles turned and walked to the back of the room, where he placed the torch in a holder hanging on the
wall. The blue light was reflected dully in the undead eyes of the corpses. Charles turned around again and
followed Kilborne out of the room, closing the door behind him and sealing the blue light inside of the
room with the corpses of the once living warriors.
