Haunting Dawn
Part I
Yan was with me, in some corners of the Pit. It appeared that there was a massive Nithling that had to be slain and that no one was able to slay it. Even the three Grotesques in that sector were not able to kill it, that included Yan. The monster looked like an amalgam of various items, hair brushes, mirrors, teddy bears, toys and tools… a kind of Item Golem.
"Yan!" shouted Sethera. "Azer and I will not hold it any longer! There are three Artillery Steam Cannons on the way but I doubt it will do it if our Disgusting Beam doesn't harm it, but perhaps it will dissolve it if you unite your power with ours!"
Yan drew his Crystal Sword and pointed the Nithling, as did Sethera and Azer. Each blade fired a vomit like green beam at the monster. They called that beam the "Disgusting Beam" due to the colour. The deadly ray was inflicting a curious mix of pains. It was burning, freezing and also electrifying. I knew it because one time, a Nithling deflected the vile beam at me, and I felt it at full power because all seven of the Grotesques fired at the same time, and it did hurt me.
"Master! The cannons have arrived and are awaiting command!" shouted Sethera. "They are waiting your signal!"
-"Damn is this! Don't ask me and fire! Fire!" I shouted back in exasperation.
The cannon fired blasts of super heated steam, mostly destroying the Nithling, but as they reloaded, the monster rushed at the cannons and destroyed two of them. The third fired, but was soon buried in an avalanche of multiple objects.
"You incompetent fools, must I do everything for you!" I muttered for myself. I then extended my hands toward the object-creature and a beam of light shot out of my hands. The Nithling was quickly reduced to ashes. A big mirror fell to my feet as the creature quickly died. "You're wasting my time here, doing so, my money. Next time you can't kill a Nithling, get killed by it! It also applies to you, Azer and Sethera. You are one of the Grim's Grotesques; I expected you would be able to handle this situation!"
-"We apologize for this, Master." Said Sethera. "However the other cannons we had were all broken, due of budgetary cut. Now, those are also in that category."
-"Are you fools or what? Can't you repair them!" I replied.
-"We were not ordered doing so. We had to oversee the miners here and…"
-"There are two of you here! One could oversee and the other repair!"
-"Yes but there's too many miners for one of us…"
-"Silence! I no longer want to hear anymore of that! This disturbance shall be noted. For this, you will not be paid today. Both of you. Be gone Azer, and you too Sethera."
Yan approached to my side. He looked at me, waiting for orders.
"Stay there and help those fools here. You, Tan, Methera, Tethera and Pit are much more competent then these idiots there. Also, organize a small cleaning team to get all those scraps out of the way, and try to be nice looking because you awfully look like Dawn…" I said when I looked in the mirror at my feet, and saw his reflection.
-"Hum… yes Master. It will be done, Master." Replied yan.
-"No wait don't move!" I quickly added. I focused a little more and I noticed his reflection was completely normal. "Sorry, I probably hallucinated. That Nothing explosion is still probably affecting me…" I said as I glanced at my own reflection, looking at where my eyebrows should still have been. It was a few years after the Grotesques' creation that a Nothing explosion whipped out me eyebrows from my handsome face. Nothing very serious, only I was less beautiful then I was, which a shame it is.
"Yan, bring the Steam-Car here. We need to move to Third Way Station, Tethera is meant to meet us there. It appears there are some problems, but first, we'll go to the Pyramid construction site."
-"Yes, Master. Right away Master."
As Yan walked away, I broke a piece of the mirror on the ground in front of me, and I positioned it in order for me to see Yan's reflection. I saw Dawn in the mirror, mimicking the exact moves of my Grotesque. He turned his head to look back at me for a second, and the one I thought I had killed several hundred years before did so.
"Surprised huh?" she said, and she kept going away exactly as my servant did. I blinked a three times in quick succession and it was my servant's reflection I was looking at, not Dawn's. I clenched my fist, breaking the mirror.
I must be tired… Thomas is at the Pyramid construction site, I'll relax with him for the rest of the day… Tethera can deal with whatever he has to deal twith."
"So the Pyramid, sir?" asked Yan as he came back, driving my Steam-Car.
-"Yes… You will also summon all the Grotesques there, I think there is something I need to check…"
-"I think it will take a while, Master. The Pit is wide and deep, it might take…"
-"No time if they take wings! You'll tell them that when you'll contact them! Now to the Pyramid, now!"
I climbed inside the car and took a seat next Yan, who was the driver. As we got away, we rolled aside a cliff. Down it was a few Nothing Tanks, their top open so the fumes or smoke would not cause explosions. I looked at Yan through the car's mirror. Much to my surprise, I did not see the Grotesque, but once again, Dawn. I was so surprised that when she said: "Boo", I completely lost control over myself and cried out in fear:
"Aaaahhhh!"
Startled, my servant steered "exactly" toward the Nothing Tanks. As the car was falling toward the deadly liquid or gas matter, the world around me quickly slowed down by a lot. I glanced at the Second Key, my work gauntlet, and saw they were glowing. The Key was slowing down the Time for a few moments so I could react faster. I shouted: "Key, grant me flying ability!"
My voice was strangely more ominous and slow, but time was slowed down also. Suddenly, all went back to normal speed. My quick reflexes made me grab Yan's wrist in a fraction of second before he and the car fell into the Nothing, which was beginning to rise to reach my wings. I quickly moved away and dispelled my wings. As I did, the Nothing dropped back into its tank.
"Sorry Master," said Yan. "I should have concentrated more on the road."
-"Yes! YES WHAT WERE YOU DOING DAMNIT!"I shouted back. I knew it was Dawn's fault, but she was partly inside Yan, and the message was mostly addressed to her.
-"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
-"Let it be let it be! I can craft Transfer Plates from the Nothing there. Let me some tine…"
I thought about a huge gobbet of Nothing stopping right in front of me, and it did happen in reality. I thought about the plate and also muttered words for myself.
"A plate of silver with a coin pattern… a Transfer Plate damnit nothing fancy…"
The gobbet grew luminous and two coin shaped plates were in front of me in a flash of light.
"Step in, you know how it works anyway. You can keep the plate." I said hastily. I quickly stepped on my plate, and glanced at Yan's reflection in his, once again I saw Dawn. She seemed upset, probably because she failed to kill me…
Shortly after, I was at the Pyramid. The eastern and northern faces were already built and the western one was almost complete, scaffolds still sitting near it. Six Grotesques were there, playing with Thomas to some game where one person had to touch someone else, then that person had to touch someone else and so on, but of course you had to do your best to not get touched. After a certain amount of time, the one who had to touch someone was loosing. That was why you had to not be touched. As soon he saw me, Thomas rushed toward me and hugged me.
"Uncle Tuesday! I heard your car fell in a Nothing Tank!" the child cried out.
-"Calm down, dear, I'm okay." I said calmly. "Now excuse me a little will you? Grotesques! All in line now!"
My servants were smiling, probably they found that Thomas' game was funny, but as soon I called them, that smile slipped away. Yan did not join the line; he stood beside me, only I did not notice. I turned around and looked at him for a moment; he looked at me, then at the scaffold on the western side, then at me, then at the scaffold and so on until I asked him: "What are you looking at? Join the line now!"
In answer, he drew his sword and fired his Disgusting Beam at the scaffold's base, making it fall right on me. The structure was also supporting the uncompleted glass wall of the pyramid, which fell toward me, Thomas and the Grotesques. We all made our wings appear and got away. I looked my nephew flying; I remembered when I first gave him wings. He couldn't get separate of them. Finally, I showed him how to make them shrink in your back when he refused to ever get them off.
The huge glass wall fell on my Tower, the place where I stored loots from the Secondary Realms. Mostly great works of arts, and thousands of thousands tons of gold were stored there. The Treasure Tower, as I called it, wasn't even shaken a little by the very noisy impact, but the whole Far Reaches were. A massive earthquake occurred as the glass loudly cracked and broke on the Tower, which was normal since it was Immaterial Glass.
Some glass went flying to my feet, I looked at it and saw Dawn seven times. She seemed furious. She had the same pose then Yan, her head down looking at her feet only, more like she was very frustrated, not like my servant who seemed quite worried, anxious and sad at the same time.
"YAN! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING DAMNIT!" I shouted furiously.
-"I… I don't know… Someone in my head told me to fire there…"
-"Fire huh? I SHOULD FIRE YOU YES! BLASSSSTTT!" I was really mad after that incompetent fool! "THAT'S ALL I NEEDED, ONE OF MY SERVANTS GOING MAD! THAT'S IT! EVERYONE IN THE TOWER NOW!"
I walked quickly toward the Tower, and entered the Hall. It was the only place very handsome, after my room, inside here. The rest was a replica of a prison I had visited with Thomas. The Hall was covered by a red carpet. There was a lot of fancy furniture, but it was mostly for Thomas. I did not like that but, anything for him. There was one thing I suddenly hated, the mirrors. The four walls of the piece were mirrors, and as I feared, I was actually looking five times by seven times at Tuesday's Dawn…
"Now that's it! Out! You're all going out! Everyone is forbidden here now except me! And that includes the Pyramid, though you can stay in the Pyramid if you want Thomas, just not the Treasure Tower." I said my voice suddenly softer as I spoke to my nephew.
-"Can Azer stay with me, Uncle Tuesday?"
-"Hem… yeah I spose so, though if you want to always be with him, you'll have to follow him to work sometime, but I guess he'll protect you."
-"Yes sir." Said Azer.
-"Thomas, could you leave me alone with Azer a minute? Everyone else out, now!"
As everyone left, I spoke to Azer one last time.
"Faint but stay up, by the power of the Second Key." I said. The Grotesque fainted but stayed up, he did not fall on the ground. "Stop mimicking him Dawn."
As I said that, she suddenly stopped imitating him and left his position. She moved and even so, his reflection did not come back. I noticed Azer's shadow moved along with Dawn, and that it had her silhouette.
"We meet again."
I quickly noticed a change, she was not uglier, like Noon and Dusk through the Grotesque, she was more handsome and her hairs were undulating.
"Dawn… you survived…"
-"You did not kill me." She said coldly. "And I don't know if I should thank you or hate you for this. I promised I would kill you did I?"
-"Banish a monster does not mean to kill it." I mused. She looked at the door of the staircase, then at the main door of the Hall. Both of them locked, and shut tight so it was almost hermetic, then water poured from the wall.
"But there is no water canalisation!" I shouted to her.
-"Oh… perhaps you should ask one of those stupid Grotesques. They obey every single command I order them…" said Dawn, obviously unaffected by the water on her side.
-"Grrrr damnit. You think you will kill me like this…" I said. I pointed a finger at the door, I focused but it did not explode.
-"Oh the hell! What have you done to my power!" I cried in anger.
-"…Nothing." She said, and she vanished in a grey mist, the reflection of Azer reappearing in the same fashion. He quickly woke up.
"Master, there is water canalisations here?" he asked dumbly.
-"I thought not but there is! Any idea?"
-"We could transform some of the furniture into Nothing and transform them into some kind of oxygen breathing machine, since our human shape need it. I assume if our body dies, we will also."
-"Smart! Very smart!" I quickly proceeded and when the tanks were ready, we quickly put the oxygen mask on our face and waited. I mentally contacted the other Grotesque and Thomas, and after a while, we were out, carried out by a wave of water.
"Uncle Tuesday!"
A few seconds after I was being washed away, Thomas was hugging me once more, even though I was soaked.
"I'm okay, it's all right." I said. Shortly after, I looked at one of my Grotesque's reflection and saw Dawn, staring at me. After five minutes, she made her wings burst out on her back and flew in the reflection of the Far Reaches, to disappear in a cloud of grey smoke. In the wind, I swear I heard her say: "I will be back, and someday, I will succeed to make you suffer so much you'll want to die..."