Chapter 9: Live-a-eviL
As the valloon floated above the ocean at a decent height and toward what seemed to be nowhere for now, Bobby could not do much while grabbing after the side of the basket. He was forced to listen to Elder Frost constantly mumbling to himself and coming up with a speech to address his daughter.
"Let's see. I guess I could just say I'm sorry… No, that won't be enough, not after everything I've done. How about I promise her something but what? Giving her a pet cowcow is completely childish and she's not a child anymore… Well, even before she left she was no longer a child. Ooohh! I don't know how I'll apologise to her!" Elder Frost lamented.
The valloon then entered a foggy area and Bobby could barely see around him. Inside the fog, he heard a loud growl but, since he was grabbing after the basket and could not cover his ears in fear to fall down, he had no choice but to endure the loud growl. Then, he noticed something big approaching the basket. It seemed like the arm of a gargantuan creature with the rear being a mix of sandy orange and a more yellow-ish orange and the front colored of a light purple. Between the three claws, there was an orange orb the same size as the valloon carrying the basket. The arm passed by but the basket stopped on its track. The child could hear Elder Frost talking to himself more.
"There you are, you big ugly flying rattlecrab. Show me the way to the ruins." The elder said.
What passed by showed up once again, this time facing the valloon. Just like Elder frost called it, the monster looked like a gargantuan crab with a funnel mouth. The mouth was composed of three fangs surrounding an orb but only the same size as the basket as opposed to those on the arms. A bigger fang also appeared a bit further away from the mouth on each side. The monster stared at the valloon with its menacing yellow eyes and its light green eyebrows. Elder Frost jumped on the creature. The elder landed on the top right after the eyebros. Because of that, Bobby had no other choice but to do the same. He jumped from his spot, revealing himself to the rattlecrab, and landed on the funnel mouth right where the monster could perfectly see him. The monster let out a more fearsome growl which caught the elder's attention but the chameleon managed to camouflage once again to avoid being spotted.
"I don't know what your problem is but I don't care! Just take me to the ruins and then you can mind your own business!" Elder Frost scolded then completely dismissed the growl.
On the rattlecrab, Bobby had much more space where he could walk and no longer needed to be either on a wall or upside down. Naturally, he had to avoid the monster's eyes to climb on the top. He kept his distance from Elder Frost while still blending in. On the monster, just like in the basket, he kept mumbling to himself.
"Everything's gonna turn out okay. My baby girl's gonna come back to me and we'll be a little happy together again just like mommy wanted. And those softies, what's the worse punishment they'll give me? I'm sure they'll just ask me to step down and let my baby girl become the next Klonium elder. She's just having a phase. I can understand that." He desperately said.
Just looking at the elder weirded out Bobby. Elder Frost began anxiously shaking and constantly moaned. He looked around uncontrollably. Then, his paranoia reached new levels as the elder began walking around on the top of the rattlecrab looking for something. This forced the lightning descendant to move to someplace the elder would never walk to. Elder Frost became more and more enraged as he was unable to find what he was looking for.
"Come out, COME OUT! I know you're here, Elder Fulgur! I know you've been following me all along and never left to Desollem! I know you don't believe my baby girl is an angel! You never loved her! You were always jealous when I had her on my side before Looger stole her from me! I know you appreciated her serving that demon as a "serves you right" type of punishment! Answer me!" He screamed.
There was no response. Bobby was certainly not going to reveal himself. Elder Fulgur ordered him to remain unseen. This only made the elder angrier than he already is.
"ANSWER ME!" He shouted from the top of his lungs, his voice cracking with how much force he put to scream.
Again, there was no response. Elder Frost dropped his head in the hopelessness of not having found Elder Fulgur or whoever stalked him and let out an exhausted sight. He lied down on the top of the monster but not for too long. The fog finally vanished and a gigantic island holding ruins of an ancient civilization was revealed. Elder Frost jumped down the flying creature but Bobby had to wait a bit before jumping down as well. He nearly missed the island as the rattlecrab flew away from it but the chameleon managed to grab after the cliff and climb up to the top to follow Elder Frost once again. The elder did not move yet. He just stared at what was left of the ruins.
"Paradise… Where only the worthy ones rule and the unworthy ones serve." He whispered.
The frostoma began walking away and Bobby followed him inside the ruins, camouflaged as usual. They first passed by a long corridors decorated by many statues of reptilians on the sides. There was not a specific type of reptilian among the statues and few barely shared things in common aside the obvious differences between the six reptilian tribes of Reptilia. Sometimes, Elder Frost at some of the statues, obviously the ones depicting a frostoma, to show his passion and love of his people.
"Oh! What I'd give to meet you guys. You've been our true heroes in every Era of Looger... Unlike other descendants." He said.
He then moved to other statues, this time chamelightning ones, and spat at the feet of those statues. Bobby was disgusted by this favoritism but could only watch as Elder Frost desecrated all the descendants before him.
"Pfah! Filthy overpowered abominations! You all got lucky to have one of yours that just showed up like that twelve years later! I was laughing so hard when your elder couldn't nominate a new one for some reason! But your last one's gonna shapeshift into a corpse because that's the only thing he's good that and then I'll say good riddance for good!" The elder mocked.
Elder Frost finally had enough of idolizing his descendants and vilifying the lightning ones and carried on to the end of this corridor where a stone block stood. It could have seemed like there was supposed to be a statue there too but there were no sign of such thing, not even stone debris around the stand. He stopped at the block and stared at it for a good moment.
"I wonder what this other creator looked like. Surely something like the magnificent frostomas I am part of and not like one of those other ugly reptilians. Glad this one's not around to see the perversion that is our world." He mumbled.
Bobby was getting more and more uncomfortable as he listened to Elder Frost rambling about everything he said since they left Koradus. He could understand why the other elders did not like him much but were forced to as the people of Klonium saw him fit to be an elder. The frostoma left into another large corridor while Bobby stayed around the first corridor a little to examine the statues. With everything that had been going on in his life, from feeling the contact with Rafael to having otherworldly strangers go after him, questions clouded his mind. Those were the same one he had when Leon told him about multiverse but, even at this point, the child was unable to pick an answer. All those lightning descendants could have been his ancestors but those were also complete strangers. Plus, if his human parents found him and adopted him, he would obviously stick with them with how well they raised him but would he? In Reptilia, he met so many reptilians that were now friends and treated him as one of them rather than a different being in the first place like back in the human world. He still remembered the painful moments of other children fearing him and never knowing why back then but, now, he finally knew the answer. He did not belong in the human world yet he grew there. Nothing would prevent humans to treat him differently and, despite having been treated like a superhero in the last year, Bobby just wanted to be treated like anyone else. Eventually, he stopped thinking about it since he had work to do and carried on to follow Elder Frost who, surprisingly, was taking his time in this new corridor. This one was also decorated with statues of reptilians on the sides of the corridor but those reptilians had horns like Rhombus and Turbine had. Just like the chamelightning statues, Elder Frost showed his disgrace and disrespect to them.
"I never understood why those morons insisted on building statues of servants of Looger. Bunch of misfits and rejects that should've been forgotten in the shadow. Soon enough, they'll put my baby girl as one of those statues and… Aaah! What if they do another Koradus Incident, this time on my people!? I can't let the world know my baby girl once served Looger! I have to think of something fast!" He screamed frantically.
The elder began trembling as he walked down the corridor but his paranoia died down the closer he got to the end where a statue of Looger stood. This Looged boasted a very firm and authoritarian pose standing on his two legs with an arm behind his back and the other close to his chest with the hand open as if he was holding his heart that just left his body. The head was looking away, to his left, with the head pointed a bit upward to portrait its superiority to anything that ever lived in this world. Frost stopped right in front of the statue and looked high up at the dragon emperor.
"Looger… You took my baby girl from me fifteen years ago! You pushed me into this down spiral into insanity! You and your servants will not go unpunished, even if the others let a mere child make the decisions! I'll give them what they really deserve! And today, I'm claiming back my baby girl as it should've always been! You lost, dragon emperor, as always! Who's laughing out now!? WHO'S LAUGHING NOW!?" He hysterically yelled.
He finished his insane rant with a laugh at terrified Bobby and froze him in place. The laugh was abruptly cut when some noise could be heard. It did not come from the elder or the child. It came from another room, one where the noises echoed for a while and quite far away. Elder Frost anxiously continued on his way inside the ruined civilization but Bobby stayed here to stare at Looger. He was unable to separate Zack from the dragon emperor. He could neither imagine Zack being this evil as, back in the human world, he saw him as a father figure since his other father gone and with Zack sharing so many traits with his former father. There had to be a reason as of why Looger was able to display such amount of humanity despite being the one to have been terrorized Reptilia for centuries. Bobby brushed the thought away for now and carried on to follow Elder Frost. He followed him until they entered a vast room with a high ceiling. This room did not have anything in particular other than more debris, broken statues and old rusted weapons lying around. The roof itself lacked huge chunks allowing anyone to see the sky from inside but, with the dense fog, there was nothing of interest. With all the debris around, Bobby no longer needed to camouflage and instead hid behind those as he followed Elder Frost from afar. Eventually, they reached the source of all that noise which was another reptilian. The child recognized this new reptilian to be the same one he kept seeing all over Reptilia, this one who kept toying with him, but something was definitively wrong with her this time as far as he could see. The purple color on her scales became much more apparent than last times that it no longer seemed to be caused by a lighting perspective. In fact, it even reached for the spiral patterns on her shoulders and arms that made the marks of Looger. What was happening to her? Could this be the result of serving Looger for too long? What was about to happen next if no one put a stop to her or the dragon emperor? From where he was, Bobby could not see the two frostomas without fearing to be seen and had to hide some other place. The one he found only allowed him to see the shadows of the two but he could not tell which one was Frost or which one was the other frostoma. One of the shadows stood still while the other kept searching for something.
"Darling? Is that really you?" Frost's voice anxiously asked.
The second shadow stopped searching and stood up. It did not do anything else as of now, not even look back at the first shadow. Now, Bobby could finally distinguish the two shadows with their behavior. The first shadow put his hands on his heart.
"It's you. It's really you. You're my dear little Jazz. Oh… How you changed so much since last time. What happened to your scales?" The elder worryingly spoke.
The second shadow walked away but the first one did not move yet. The first shadow extended his arms toward the second one.
"Don't you recognize that lovely voice? The one that tutored you? The one that told you stories in your childhood? Please, tell me something!" He begged.
Since the second shadow completely ignored the first one, the latter walked at her. The first shadow then passed the second but barely and they stopped. Bobby was no longer able to distinguish the two shadows.
"I know! You loved him but I had no choice! First, you remember that it's against nature to have two different species mate with each other, right? Have you seen what happens? I saw it and it was ugly! Then, what if he was just lying to us!? What if all of that was just an excuse to awaken Looger and destroy all descents thus dooming us!? You remember how it happened, right? I couldn't take the risk! I couldn't risk millions of lives just to have someone "prove a point"! You understand that?" Elder Frost explained.
The two shadows looked at each other for a long time. One of the two slowly opened its arms while the other jumped at it.
"Ohhh! My baby girl! You finally remember your old man! I thought I lost you for good! Everything's gonna be alright now. We'll put an end to this Era of Looger. The others will make you elder of Klonium while I'll step down. You'll see." Elder Frost sobbed.
Bobby was not convinced by any of that at all. It did not take long afterward for one of the shadows to extend high up in the air. Why would someone do such thing while hugging? Then, Bobby noticed something pointy erecting from the end of the arm-like shadow part but in a completely different direction as if one of the two was holding a dagger. Could all of this have been an excuse for Elder Frost to end it with his daughter once and for all after his failed attempt on her fifteen years ago? This time, the lightning descendant chose to directly look at the two but it was too late. As he just saw them, the dagger-like shadow was already gone and the arm no longer extended. Elder Frost let out a pained grunt after that. The child finally saw what happened. The elder had a dagger stuck high up in his back, near the neck, held by Jazz. The elder could not do much but look at his daughter.
"My darling?" He weakly stuttered.
Jazz approached her long mouth to the side of Frost's head. Much like the other time, she had that mocking unwelcoming attitude on her face.
"Can you feel it?" She whispered.
"Feel what?" Frost stuttered again, losing voice by the second.
This was not the answer Jazz was looking for and forcedly pulled the dagger down his father's back ripping the wound more open and causing Elder Frost to scream in atrocious agony. Bobby had to cover his ears with how painfully loud the elder was screaming and could no longer look at the two frostomas without being terrified himself. Right before the dagger reached the tail, Jazz pulled it out and let her prey go but to where? Frost just fell back on his back, unable to move much, as the excruciating pain paralyzed him. Somehow, he was still alive despite a fatal wound that would have surely torn everything inside apart. A mix of fear and anger took over Frost, the same one he showed to the other former servants of Looger.
"My body… What did you do to me, you stupid backstabbing BITCH!? Why am I still alive!?" He screamed out of anger and fear.
Jazz simply squatted down and put her long mouth close to her father's head.
"This is just a taste of the dream mortals seek to achieve, the one only the worthy may achieve. Imagine this but without feeling any pain, without being paralyzed, look at what I have achieved by myself and that is just the beginning. Unfortunately, I only gave it to you long enough to say a few words." She whispered.
"You crazy inconsiderate BITCH! I thought you still loved me! You deserve to die!"
"I beg to differ, father."
The purple frostoma stood back up and raised her arm high up in the air. Her fingers were ready to snap.
"Goodbye, father." She just said before snapping her fingers.
Her fingers created a small icicle that flew to the ceiling and hit a fragile part of it. This caused large stone debris to fall down the ceiling onto Elder Frost crushing him to death but not before the dying elder could let out a terrified scream. Bobby began running away in hope he would not meet the same fate now. He ran to where he first entered the room and looked back to make sure Jazz did not see him. Out of nowhere, he bumped into something and fell down. He looked back forward and noticed a force field blocking the entrance. This was not here before but the child had no time to examine it. He thought about leaving the ruins by one of the holes in the ceiling. He turned around and got horrified when Jazz was right in front of him. He backed away as far as he could from her only to have his back on the force field.
"My, what a pleasant surprise we have here, just as I finished some business that was long due." She greeted with her devious grin.
She was still holding the dagger covered with Frost's blood. The sight scared the child who tried to lean his head back as much as he could but the force field prevented him to.
"I am glad you are here right now, Scaler. I just wanted to see how my favorite descendant was doing. You know you worried me sick when you had plans to go after my other test subject." The servant mocked.
Test subject? What was she talking about? Were Rhombus and Turbine just test subjects to her? If so, in what way? And, of all the times she could have called him Scaler, she chose now. It was never back in the human world when Bobby was doing his heroic deeds and took the nickname. Though, she never referred to him as Bobby either. It was always by insults to emphasis on his small size or worthlessness like vermin or worm.
"I am glad you have finally finished that little task I gave you and I thank you for contributing to my dream. However, before we move on to more serious business…" She continued as she walked away from Bobby.
The child just stood by the force field, too scared to move right now, as the servant walked away a few meters and looked back at the boy.
"Why do you persist to fight evil?" She asked.
What kind of odd question was that? She asked it as if evil never died. Bobby mustered back his courage, or at least as much as he could, and boasted a more determinant pose to face the last servant of Looger.
"Oh my… The little descendant is finally going to fight back?" Jazz mockingly asked.
"You know the drill. Looger needs to be stopped and I'll fight you since you serve him!" Bobby bravely replied.
"Serve him? Who told you I serve him?"
Those last words completely confused Bobby. He was not sure what to think of those. Why would Jazz dismiss her allegiance to Looger yet serve her at the same time? She was no Rhombus or Turbine who could have served the dragon emperor as they did not have any other choice. Though, the last servant just chuckled.
"So, you're one of those pretenders that claim to fight for the good cause? Let me tell you something, child: There is no true good, only evil. There exist only two types of "good people": Those who pretend to do good let alone anything and those who fight evil with more evil. See? The concept of good does not really exist. Do you want to know why?" She explained.
Bobby was disgusted by such take on life but just nodded. He was curious of why Jazz would think such thing as this could be the last he would ever get to hear.
"Remember that evil spelled backward is live. And guess what we're doing right now…" The last servant said.
"Live…" The child just answered.
"Good! You understand fast. And by that, we are all made of evil. It will never die for as long as we exist."
"Have you never felt good once?"
"Have I? Well, just like anyone else, I did. However, once you grow to be my age, you'll understand why I advocate for something that had always been honest to its preys and victims."
Bobby did not understand in the slightest what she meant. Being incredible vague, anything could be possible. Either she once was like everyone else, full of joy, but felt betrayed by the actions of a loved one or she was always like that in the beginning and waited for the right moment to express it.
"I'm sorry to end this abruptly but I have other things to do besides rambling to a child. Oh, and, once you reach the deepest abysses of Komoldo…" Jazz brought up.
It was then that Bobby noticed the necklace around the servant's neck. The latter took it off and threw it at the child who managed to catch it. It was a vial with a red liquid inside. With how dense the liquid was, the child saw it as blood. He did not pay attention at Jazzz who used her hands to summon a long ice spike.
"Thank your parents for this marvelous gift." She concluded as she was about to stab the child with the ice spike.
Bobby raised his head to notice just in time that Jazz was ready to finish him. He immediately jumped aside as the frostoma broke her spike on the force field. The lightning descendant landed near a few weapons scattered around. He took one of those, a sword that he held with both hands, and stood back up. The last servant was very close to him and swung a newly made spike at him. Though Bobby managed to deflect the attack, the strength and accuracy put into it caused Bobby to lose balance and allowed Jazz to slash him on the chest. The wound was nowhere deep enough to cause fatal damage as it only reached the scales but the pain scared the boy who retaliated with a hit on Jazz's left side. Despite the weapon getting stuck in the side and causing the servant to flinch sideway, the latter just chuckled.
"What are you afraid of, my child? To see your existence fade away as does anything else? I am offering you a quick and painless demise yet you decline such generous offer. You should understand that will be the only time I'll be this generous." She mocked.
Jazz raised her spike and thrusted it at Bobby but the chameleon managed to avoid it and unstuck his sword. He hit her another time and hit her on her long mouth. As with the first hit, she did flinch but only chuckled afterward. Bobby found it strange to notice someone who did not mind how much pain that person was feeling. The last servant kicked him away, sending him far back near some debris. The child quickly stood back up but Jazz did not do anything. She just stood there like an undead.
"How much will you still persist before you finally realize there is no way to fight evil? How much will you sacrifice until you find out how powerless you really are to its magnificence? It's not like I'm getting tired of you but you seem to want to push me to my limits. Do you want to see what happens when we break reality?" She asked.
The marks of Looger brightened in a powerful light of a mix between green and purple. Her eyes did too but, to her, it was not enough. She then focused her energy to obtain more from her dragon emperor; so much that reality began distorting. She was screaming of pain and joy as if she was pleasing a sick fetish of hers. Walls melted around them, debris disintegrated on spot, the floor became dust that flew off to the slightest wind. Bobby got frightened and tried to avoid whatever was happening right now by climbing on some debris but everything vanished. Even if he could still feel the no longer existent floor, his body thought he was falling down. The scenery now became an astral sky full of stars, constellation and vortexes. Despite the beautiful scenery, the way of achieving it disturbed him. He looked back at Jazz who became something he could not understand. The marks of Looger now shined in a divine white light, so did her eyes. Her scales became purpler than ever, so purple she could have been mistaken with the dragon emperor himself. She was levitating in the air looking back at the child. A powerful light appeared behind her.
"FaCtI sUnT mIhI mOrTeM, pEsTiFeR mUnDi!" She spoke.
Her lips did not even move. To make things worse, it was like if someone spoke over Jazz, certainly Looger, and that those two voices infinitely echoed in this environment. Though, to her, she could have sounded like she was still speaking the same language, to Bobby, it sounded like she changed language. The being moved her hands to form a large ring of light. The middle shined in that same light. Bobby's first thought was to move out the way. True to his feeling, a devastating laser emerged from the ring. As the being was too busy with its laser, the lightning descendant raised his sword and charged at it. The being unsummoned its ring and extended an hand to where the child would be attacking from. It did not even look at its foe. As the boy got close enough to stab it with the sword, his weapon disintegrated. It did not even reach the hand. The child immediately let go the sword and backed away before he would meet the same fate.
"QuOd StUlTuS eS. EgO sUm DeUs!" The being spoke.
Its hand emitted a powerful psionic blast that sent the child away. There did not seem to be any way out of that one but Bobby was not the kind of person to give up. He stood back up and shifted into a bakudan and threw a bomb at it. He detonated it before it got too close to it and disintegrated. The explosion managed to reach the being but it did not even scorch anything on it.
"Et QuOmOdO pOtEsTiS dEo InTeRfIcErE? QuAm MaGnIfIcUm Et InEbRiArE pOtEnTeM cRiMiNaTiOnIbUs IsTiS eSsE. QuO mOdO iTa SiMpLiCiTaTe TiBi?!" The being spoke.
Even if he could understand what it was saying, Bobby would not stop. He kept throwing bombs at it as it slowly hovered toward him. He had to detonate the bombs sooner and sooner the closer it got to him. At some point, he was forced back to his chamelightning shape, an emergency defense mechanism by the collar he was wearing to prevent him to overdo himself. There was nothing else he could do.
"NoN eSt EfFuGiUm. VeNi!" The being spoke.
After that, something unusual happened, as if anything could be considered unusual at this point. The being stopped on its way to the child and seemed to be enduring something as its body uncontrollably clenched. It abruptly landed on the inexistent ground and stood on its limbs. It let out a powerful scream forcing Bobby to cover his hears. He then noticed dust that formed the floor of the ruins. He looked around and everything was being brought back to the ruined civilization he was in before the impossible was done. Once everything back to normal, he looked back at where the being used to be. It was now Jazz painfully breathing and in the same position as the being was before. The lightning descendant looked around and picked up one of the weapons scattered around, this time an axe. He looked back at the last servant but the latter was standing up grabbing after her side. As usual, she still had that evil look on her face.
"Have you witnessed it, my child? This was the result of just twelve years of research and harvest. Imagine twelve more years of that. Imagine how much we could break the universe and for how long. I still need more power but I know where exactly to find it." She boasted.
Something collided with the ruins. Bobby looked above to the ceiling and saw the same worm dragon creature forcing its way inside. This caused this part of the ruins to shake like in an earthquake. The child lost balance and fell on the floor but the last servant joined her ride out of here.
"I'll see you soon, descendant, assuming you don't get yourself stuck here." She concluded before flying away with her ride.
The force field to where Bobby came from disappeared but huge debris were falling all over the floor. Plus, Bobby was not close to it so he had a long way before he could make it to safety. Alas, debris blocked the path and found himself trapped inside the room. Everything went pitch black. He did not know if he was still here. He no longer felt anything, not even pain. He had one last thought, one last dream where he would finally find back his father and reunite his family. Sadly, even if this dream came true, he would never be there to see it from his own eyes.