Chapter 36
"We're continuing this conversation later, when our children aren't within earshot!" She snapped at me before I could speak.
"How was I supposed to know?" I muttered, angrily and we went over to her crystal ball.
"Let's see who he's talking to," She said, her hand hovering over it. An image popped up of a grassy hill outside of the Palace. I saw Father walking with someone else that I had never seen before. His stature was smaller and his robes were unlike any I had seen before.
"I believe we are outside of hearing range," The smaller figure said, a resonant voice that was male spoke.
"Good," Father said, nodding, his bare and mocha-colored head moved. And then he did the most unexpected thing: He punched the smaller man in the head. The six-foot-tall man was old and wiry it looked like with gray robes and white beard as well as some kind of cap on his head. He rubbed his face after landing about a good three miles away while Father appeared right before him.
"YOU SONS OF BITCHES AND BASTARDS! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT THIS SHIT?!" He roared as he pounded the old man repeated, the blows making the old man go further into a crater as each blow landed on him.
. We could barely hear the blows from inside the house and both of us looked outside to see where exactly they were.
"I think I can see them," She said, squinting.
"Damn, he's really pounding the hell out of him." She commented, shaking her head. She winced.
"And he just-" She started to say as I looked back at the ball. I saw my own adoptive father just stomp on the old man's crotch. I winced as I hled my own.
"OY VEY!" She shouted in shock at what she saw. She had started the habit of saying that after Adam noticed her swearing around the kids at certain times when she was angry. Of course, neither of us knew what it meant as he never told us. . Salem was shocked as she watched him beat an apparently old and defenseless old man.
He stopped pounding the old man whom merely got up with no apparent damage done to his tunic or his body. He got up just as easily as a young man. He looked up at the alien with blue eyes.
"Are you finished, young man? Or must you pound this disguise once more to express your rage?" He asked. Adam grunted like a bull.
"I did your dirty work for centuries and this is the thanks I get?!" Adam said, angrily, his fists clenched.
"I come home to find that thousands of years or more have passed, but my son's still alive, but his hair got changed!" He roared, counting with his fingers.
"The moon's like that," He said, pointing to the moon. "Every city I knew here is pretty much gone and desolate with new cities rising up, and humans all of a sudden can't do magic here." He counted.
"And my son got hitched and is now a fucking Emperor of Mankind on this planet and his wife looks damn close to a damn Harbinger! So, mind telling me what the fuck is going on?!" He roared at the smaller figure. We blinked.
"What is he talking about?" I whispered.
"What's a 'harbinger'?" She asked, remembering the incident two years before.
The old man, apparently someone that Father knew, sighed and shook his head. I frowned. How was he still alive after the pounding that Adam gave him?
"I apologize for your anger, and it is quite understandable," The old 'man' said, dusting himself.
"I was away from my son for who-knows-how-long and I even did a blood oath when the Gods told me he needed help to show how serious I was!" He said, angrily.
"Now, I'm back home and everything's worse than fucked up!" He said, angrily.
"I know you bastards know something about this!" He accused, pointing at him. The old man looked at him defiantly.
"I am not here about that. Besides, it would be better if shown rather than told by someone else."
"What do you mean?" Adam asked, leaning over the old man, his powerful physique against the old one's own. Father's face was twisted into an alien and hateful snarl.
"I mean: we need you for another ta-" Adam's fist sent him flying a lot farther than we ever saw. We saw him fly off about ten miles or more maybe and then Adam again, ran up to him.
"This is the kind of shit I'm talking about!" Adam swore as he walked up to the old man that stood up.
"I try to relax and then you send me off again! Do you realize the shit that's been happening here too?!" He asked, angrily.
"One of them showed up about a year ago and took out a bunch of villages! And then, some jackholes who shouldn't be here are coming down like cats and dogs!" He said, gesturing to the coast and then the sky as he spoke to the old man who looked at him patiently.
"Do you realize just what I had to do to make sure word didn't get back to my family about what happened?!" He yelled at them.
"Do you realize what I've done to protect them all?!" He yelled, pointing back to our Palace.
"So, either it's you fuckers or something else!" Adam roared as he pointed at the old man.
"I am perplexed at this as well, but that is not my task. For you see, the world we will send you was originally someone else's task, more specifically: two." He said, raising two fingers.
"However, they requested your aid specifically." He added. Adam looked at the thing in confusion.
"I haven't met anyone from home in a long-ass time," He said, flatly.
"You fuckers never sent anyone else to help me and you sure as fuck didn't tell me what happened to everyone from back home!" He said, angrily as he spread his arms. He used a lot of swear words I noticed. I wondered just whom this being my father spoke with was.
"I was ordered to give you this as proof of whom requested your aid." The old man said, producing a small bag.
Adam looked at him suspiciously. He gave the bag to Adam who took it with hesitation. He opened it and reached inside. He frowned and held his breath as he brought something out. It looked like some kind of headband in the moonlight. The color from the cloth was faded, worn, and torn, but the symbol was perplexing. It was a circle with an arrowhead at the lower left hand corner of the outside of the circle. Adam's look was that of recognition and surprise. He turned it over as we spoke. The thing was tiny in his massive hands as he held it gently like a baby. I saw his expression of confusion as his eyes went to the old man.
"Isn't that a headband worn by the ninja clans?" I asked. The shinobi were fierce warriors in the old humanity and the new humanity also had them, or were starting to. Neither of us were that much knowledgeable on them at the time.
"I don't know the symbol for that clan," She told me, honestly.
He turned it over and I saw his eyes widen as his mouth dropped. On the back of the headband were written 'Property of MAC' in Modern Vytalian written in marker or something like it.
"What's 'MAC'?" I asked aloud as I saw this.
"That's something we're going to have to ask him when he gets back" Salem said without looking at me as she was frowning. We heard his gasp as he looked up at the 'man' and then reached inside and grabbed another object. It was a some kind of necklace with an image we never saw before. The crystal ball couldn't zoom in to get a closer look, but we saw that there was some kind of image on it. Adam then grabbed the old man and pulled him close.
"They're alive?! Both of them?! After all these years?!" He asked, his voice frantic. The old man smiled.
"Time has passed much shorter for them than for you, my friend." The thing that pretended to be a man answered.
"All these years," Adam whispered as he dropped the old man. He kneeled and I heard him laugh as if he was going insane. We watched him laugh as he looked up at the shattered moon with tears in his eyes.
"Thank you," He whispered as he made a gesture I had seen him when he taught the girls to pray.
"Thank you so much!" He said, putting his hands over his face. I then heard him cry as he laughed.
"All these years and I thought they were dead!" He said, laughing. The old man smiled.
"I told them that much time had passed for you. And as such, I requested that proof be given that they are indeed alive." He said.
"I gave him that headband for his birthday and that medallion was given to her by my grandmother!" He said, holding up the objects. He sniffled.
"How are they?! Are they okay?" He asked, standing up.
"What do you need me to do?!" He asked. He then paused.
"SHIT!" He roared and smacked his head.
"Salem and Ozma! Fuck!" He roared as he paced.
"What do I tell them?! What the hell do I tell them?!" He asked no one in particular as he thought.
"Perhaps, if you were to bring them back, then perhaps they would have a very good conversation?" The old 'man' suggested. Adam looked up and smiled.
"Yeah, that's-" He then paused.
"Wait," He frowned as he looked at him. The old man sighed and muttered something. His face turned into one of anger.
"What's the catch?" He asked, hands on his hips.
He sighed.
"The answers you seek about what happened in the past will be discovered on the world that they're in." The old 'man' said.
"What the hell do you mean by that?! What pa-" He started to say. His eyes widened and both of us held our breath.
"Oy Vey," Salem said simply as we both realized that our lies and our cover-up of what happened, or more accurately: her disastrous rebellion which caused an 'Armageddon' and our lying to him were going to come crashing down.
"Shit," I muttered, closing my eyes.
"What do we do now?" I whispered. She sighed a loud 'Fuck!' as she rubbed her face.
"You're saying they're... in the future?" I heard Father's voice ask. We turned back to the ball. The old man nodded as he spoke.
"They're alive and well, but they have been insistent in requesting your aid." The old man said.
"However, it's not your future, though it could well turn into it. It's-" he paused. Both of us froze as we saw his eyes look at us. Not move randomly, but right at us.
"It's something you should see for yourself," The old man said.
"How in the fuck did he know we were watching?" I whispered, shocked. Salem blinked.
"I don't think Adam noticed," She said. Adam looked at the old man with a wary expression.
"You stopped mid-sentence, why?" He asked. The old man smiled.
"My concern, not yours. Just realized I need to discipline some upstart children is all." Adam sighed and muttered.
"It's that bastard son of yours again, isn't it?" He asked the old man who started to glare at him.
"Thought I told his punk-ass if I ever caught him doing that kind of shit again, I'd-" He started to say and then he disappeared with a loud crack being heard all the way to our mansion. We both turned to see a very small figure move fast as a lightning bolt and a loud inhuman scream of 'SHIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTT' as he flew through the moonlit night. Our jaws dropped.
"HOLY SHIT!" We both yelled in shock. I had never seen anyone hurt Adam much less make him so much as budge before save a very large Grimm once. But this old 'man', this person or whatever he or it was... made him fly like a bird. Adam crashed to the earth with a crater about half-a-mile wide. We blinked.
"Can you do that?" I asked my wife. She looked at me and then scoffed.
"'Can I do that', you ask? Remember that time I flipped the coffee table after we found out the dog shat in the Palace again?" She asked.
"You do realize we never told him about what happened to the dog, right?" I reminded her. She closed her eyes and sighed as she pinched them.
XXXX
Artyr looked at his uncle with very fearful confusion.
"What did Salem do to the dog?" He asked, his eye twitching.
"You don't want to know," Uncle Oz stated, shaking his head with painful memories coming to mind.
"Did Adam ever find out?"
"I have no idea and I hope to the Gods he never did because he loved that dog like life itself." Uncle Oz said, nodding with fear in his eyes. They sat in silence.
"What happened next? Did the old guy ever say whom he was or how he knew?" Artyr asked, curious as to what this being was that could knock a full-grown, ancient Sym off of his feet with a mere punch.
XXX
Adam got up and rubbed his nose. I saw blood come out of it.
"Guess you're setting that again," I told her. She sighed.
"I wish someone else could do it,"
"You punched me in the face! No one's hit me like that since-" He started to say as he got up. The old man suddenly appeared before him.
"I will not have you threaten members of my family just as you will not have anyone threaten members of yours, Adam Sym!" The old man roared in an inhuman voice that sounded close to a God.
"I know of your suffering and your sacrifice and I will admit like others of my kind that your rest is well-deserved and well-needed." The old man admitted. "But, you have been requested and you must leave as soon as possible!"
"I've only been back for about five or six years! I can't just up and leave now- I don't know how long I'll be gone this time!" Adam protested like a child.
"You will be back in time that much I know." The old 'man' told him like a father or an officer in an army.
"What about my son? My daughter-in-law and my grandkids?!" Adam asked, gesturing towards our house. Again, the old man looked at us though Adam most likely didn't know what was going on.
"Have no fear," He said, putting a hand on Adam's arm.
"You will return just in time," He said, cryptically. We both frowned. Just what in the hell did he mean by that?!
"I suggest you go now and tell your family you'll be off as you are needed elsewhere. I will take you to the necessary place for you to restock. Then, I'll take you there myself." The old man told him. Adam nodded, wiping the blood off of his nose.
The old man then gestured for him to lean closer to which Adam did and then in a flash, Adam screamed as he jerked back.
'What the hell, man?!" He roared at the smaller and older man with his nose now reset.
"I just reset your nose, Adam Sym. You don't want to have a broken nose when you visit your family again, don't you?" The old man grinned mischievously.
Adam sighed.
"Thanks, old one. I'll go-" A flash happened as he spoke next and he blinked as he showed up right at our front door.
"Back home and tell my family," He said. He sighed.
"Pretentious old fart," He muttered as the guards stammered and he let himself through without explaining himself. Right before we could bolt out the doors to meet him and try to hide our reactions to what we just saw. Guess who showed up right in front of the only way out besides the windows.
We both stopped dead in our tracks and prepared for a fight, our auras glowing. Hers was black and mine was yellow. The old man smiled.
"Amazing facade you both have put up," The old man said, walking forward.
"I am not here to fight you, only to warn you both of your consequences." The old man said with a serious expression, raising his hand.
"Who are you and how do you know Adam?" Salem asked, tilting her head as she walked forward. The old man smiled.
"Oh, to use a phrase from his old homeworld: We go back a-ways." He said, jerking a thumb back. He then became serious.
"You have no idea how much you and your children mean to him," The old man said, seriously.
"Ask yourselves: What would a father do for his children to ensure their safety? Much less their survival?" He asked us, cryptically. He looked at me as he spoke. I tilted my head as I looked at him.
"What are you saying?" Salem asked, shaking her head.
"What the hell are you and how can you do that?" She angrily asked, pointing at him.
"All will be revealed in time," The old man said.
"And when that happens, both of you shall know the full weight of your errors." The old man warned.
"And the truth of your adopted family's origins," He added before disappearing. We both looked at each other in confusion.
"I would like to know," Salem started to say.
"What is going on with Adam?" She asked, shaking her head.
"And who was he?!" She asked, pointing her finger at where the old man stood. We heard Adam's voice calling and sighed. We tried to hide our reactions to what had just happened as we went out of the study and found him outside.
He wore the headband on his head with the top part of his skull covered. I saw the blood on his robe's sleeve as he looked at both of us.
"Something wrong, father?" Salem asked, playing her facade again. He walked over to both of us and went down to our eye level as though we were both children.
"Look, I'm sorry to do this to both of you..." He sighed as he looked away.
"Again," He dipped his head and Salem closed her eyes and shook her head.
"But, something just came up and I have to go... again." He groaned the last word. Salem sighed.
"Why?" She asked, angrily.
"You've been doing this for the past three years and Hannah's birthday is next month!" She roared at him. He rubbed his face.
"Something really important just came up," He told us.
"What is it then? Why do you leave all the time? Where are you going?" She asked, looking up at him.
"Out fucking whores?" She asked. Adam's jaw dropped as she said this and his eyes widened. I looked at her in shock.
'Salem!" I said aloud.
"That..." Adam started to say.
"Is not something I ever expected you to say in all the years that I've known you." He said to her honestly.
"And you're not the Adam that Ozma told me about," She retorted. His face became one of sorrow and he dipped his head. He sighed.
"I'm bringing people from where I'm going back here to help explain things," He told us.
"What kind of people?" I asked, suspicious. He looked at me and smiled.
"The best kind. I've known them both since I was a kid." He told me, shrugging.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
"I mean, you're going to meet people who I knew from back home. And our family's going to be a whole lot bigger now," He said, smiling.
"They'll help explain whom and what we are," He told me.
"'We?' By what 'we' do you mean?" She asked.
"My people," He told her flatly. She looked at him, curiously.
"Alright... come back here with your friends and we'll have a talk about everything." She said, wagering. He wickedly grinned.
"Bet you'll drop your jaw when the truth's out," He told her.
"You're on," She grinned wickedly back at him. I could see the mischief in her eyes if she won.
"I also bet that you won't make it back within a week," She told him. He frowned and then thought.
"If you win?" He asked.
"I kick your ass out of the Palace even if you do indeed bring your friends back with you," She told him.
"Take it, you never really stay that long here anyway," She said, grinning again. He looked at her.
"Fine," He said.
"I'll take that bet," He told her. They shook on it.
"Tell the girls that I'm going away and I'll be back as soon as I can. Tell them that I'll be bringing their aintin and uncail." He told us before kissing us both on the head.
"They'll know what that means," He told us as he turned away.. Salem looked at him angrily.
"What have you been teaching my daughters behind my back, you shit-stained son of a bitch?!" She roared at him as she raised her hand, about to send a blast of magic at his own back. He stopped about five of his paces away from us and he looked at her as he was about to go.
"There are a lot of things I taught them that you would never know," He told her, cryptically.
XXX
"Okay, what did he mean by that?" Artyr asked as the ship they were in traveled to its destination in Atlas.
"I haven't a clue," Uncle Oz shrugged.
"We asked them, but they told us that they would tell us about it when their grandfather returned home." Artyr frowned at Oz's explanation as the stars shone down upon them as well as the shattered moon.
"We asked them about what else he taught them and they all told us that it was a secret." His ancestral uncle answered.
"Something tells me there was a lot going on behind both of your backs at the time other than him teaching them prayers and songs,"
"Well, I remember him teaching them a bit of his people's languages." Ozma said, thinking. He frowned.
"I had a lot of time to think about it, but I forget my earlier thoughts." He sighed.
"I swear I'm getting senile even without a body!" He muttered.
XXX
I remember the girls being sad that we told them that their grandfather had to go away again, but they were happy when they told us that he was bringing them back their 'aintin' and 'uncail'. We asked them about it, they told us that it was a secret... all four of them. Not even Hannah told us and she was close to six years old!
Almost a week passed and I kept thinking about what Salem had done and told me. I started to realize that perhaps the Salem I once knew and loved was indeed gone... corrupted beyond measure. She had been a good mother, yes. But, I could see she was having very evil plans for our children. So, I decided to take action. I had to keep up my own facade with Salem. I suspected Salem herself was thinking I was going to do something that she didn't like. She was right.
The sixth night that Adam was gone, I told the girls that their mother wasn't feeling right and that I was taking them away to a safe place. They were scared and asked if Grandpa was home. I told them 'no', but that I would make sure he would find us and help me help their mother.
I remember that we went down the main hall and told them not to make a sound. Salem had told me that she would be out on a diplomatic mission to a kingdom to ensure their alliance with us. She obviously lied as she stood in front of the windows of the main hall, her form illuminated by the moonlight.
I could feel the tension in the air as she saw our children being taken close to out of the house in the middle of the night.
I remember her red eyes glaring at me with both hurt and betrayal.
"Mommy?" Hannah asked, scared at her mother's anger. I took a step back in the hall as we stood far apart.
"Don't do this, Salem." I told her, my eyes pleading for her not to fight... not in front of our children. She grunted in anger and I saw her magic start to form in her hands, ready to strike. Just as she was about to strike, a flash of light illuminated the room and blinded us all.
When the blindness faded, we both saw a new and old member join us in the confrontation.
"Grandpa!" The girls said, happily with tears in their eyes. Adam stood in the darkness at first, his blue eyes illuminated as a smaller light was formed. He stepped out of the shadows as Salem spoke. Salem stood in shock.
"How?" She asked, shaking her head.
"Never mind that, Sale." He told her, a pet name he called her which she hated as he stepped forward, revealing a cigarette in his mouth that was lit.
"I know about everything," He said, angrily.
"Grandpa?" The girls asked almost simultaneously. His gaze softened as he looked at his granddaughters. I saw tears start to form.
"How's it going, girls? Been good for your parents?" He asked. They thought for a moment.
"Never mind that," He said, dismissively.
"Go back to bed, your ma, da and I have something to talk about." He told them.
"Yes, go back to bed, my sweets." Salem said, looking at Adam. She had a faux motherly tone as she glared at Adam.
"The adults have a lot to say," She told them. The girls looked afraid as I looked at them and gestured back to the door leading to their rooms. They nodded and left, all going back the way they came.
Adam then started speaking.
"I know everything about what happened," He began, looking at us both while he walked to a spot between us and yet a little far from us.
"I know you got humanity killed in your damnable rebellion, Sale." He told her.
"Took you long enough," She spat.
"I know the Gods gave you immortality not as a blessing, but a curse." He told her.
"I know that it was you whom made the Gods leave after you forced their hands... twice." He said, raising his massive fingers.
"AND YOU HAD MY SON DISINTEGRATED THRICE!" He roared at her in anger. She stood in shock at the mere force of his booming voice. The windows shattered from it and the halls shook.
I looked at her in shock at what was said. By this time, I didn't know the Gods left because of Salem! She looked at him.
"How did you know?" She asked.
He glared at her and then looked at me.
"Ozma," He began in a softer tone with tears in his eyes.
"You didn't tell me you died!" He told me with tears in his eyes as he whispered something like 'gain' under his breath.
"There wasn't enough time, Father! We had a choice to make!" I defended myself.
"We did! And I swore that I would do everything to help you because you're my son!" He told me as he pointed at me.
"But, I"m also ashamed of what you both did!" He said at both of us.
"I told you what happens when you play God and what did you do?!" He said, angrily and sadly.
"You made yourself a tyrant and your own wife was pulling the damned strings!" He said, pointing at me.
"I didn't do anything like that!" I told him, defending myself.
"You both had temples dedicated to you! Temples that I never saw because you made me not see them or go near them!" He scolded us.
"And you fell for it like a chump!" She spat at him with glee, relishing his sadness. He glared at her.
"Do you have any fucking idea what I did for you, Salem?" He asked, stepping forward.
"Do you realize what I sacrificed just so I could be with you all? So I could be with him?" He asked, pointing at me.
"Do you realize what I had to do so that I could get a chance to be back with him again?! Do you realize I never had a choice in any event of what happened to me?!" He yelled at her.
"Do you realize what I lost?!" He yelled, raising his hands as he looked at them.
"I lost my old body, my mom, my dad, my world, my friends, my family, everything!" He told her.
"EVERYTHING!" He roared at her.
"I thought that I would never get another chance at a family again, not ever!" He told her.
"And then I met him!" He told her, pointing at me.
"That's all it's ever been about, isn't it? You and Ozma? What about me and the girls?!" She asked, pointing at herself.
"Correction: 'About you'." He corrected her. She gritted her teeth.
"You blamed everyone save yourself after the God of Darkness did his thing," He told her.
"You got turned immortal because you turned the Gods against themselves so that you could bring Ozma back! You idolized him so much over your gods that your gods decided you should learn a lesson. Then, you turned into a false idol yourself after you jumped into that pool of fucking evil when your rebellion against the Gods failed with you the sole survivor!" He told her.
"How in the hell do you know all this?" She asked him.
"Never mind that, I've got ways of knowing." He snapped her.
"Fuck you!" She told him.
"You're always hiding shit from us! Always! You're never around when we need you, like when Ozma died!" She told him.
"Oh, so it's my fault?!" He told her, stepping forward.
"You think I had a choice?! I had none! I had literally no choice and no way to get back to him and I didn't know about it until after I went to where I was sent!" He told her.
"And how far into the future was that?" She asked. He sighed in anger.
"So, you used that damn ball, didn't you?" He asked, looking at her.
"I fucking knew it when I was sensed that we were being watched," He told her as he took his cigarette and put it on the floor, promptly stopping it.
"Yeah, I did. Because you owe me for all the times you stole the damn thing and you owe me for all the times you've been shifty!"
"You're shifty yourself! Remember that one time when you killed that ambassador from that one land and made it look like someone else did it and then told that nation that the Empire would avenge it?! Well guess what: Both of those nations now lick our boots because of it!"
"If someone doesn't like us or has something bad to say about the work you've been doing? You sick the Grimm on them!" He accused. I looked at her in shock. She shook her head and muttered something.
"You and the Grimm are one now, aren't you? You fell in and they all now bow to your command because you're a level above them since you have or have had a soul, don't you?" He said, shaking his head.
"You were the light of his life and he was the light of mine and now you went to the dark side and took him down with it!" He said, nudging his head to me.
"Well, at least he had second thoughts! At least he acted like the ruler he was: but you?" He scoffed. She snorted in response.
"He can't make plans for shit!" She roared at my father. I looked at her stung and in shock. He shook his head.
"So much for 'being the love of his life'." He said aloud.
"And to think you're my daughter-in-law!" He shook his head.
"So, this is what you came back to do? You didn't bring your friends with you?" She asked.
"I don't need to. I don't want them to go overboard with what I'm going to do:" He told her, stepping forward.
"And that is?" She asked, her hands glowing.
"Saving what's left of my family, if I have any left." He told her.
"And I'm going to do it in any way that I can, so help me God!" He said, his hands curling into fists.
"Even if it means-" He started to say. Before he could say the next sentence, she struck. She sent a blast of magic at him. Before he could do anything, I fired my own magic blast at her from my cane, trying to intercept it as Adam dove to the left by instinct, her blast missing him. She charged at him with her magic and then the unthinkable happened: My blast hit my wife head on. She staggered as the blast struck her. Her flesh seared upon impact and I stopped immediately, realizing my error.
"Salem, I am so, so sorry." I told her, solemnly. She looked at me with her flesh being put back together thanks to her curse. Her face had melted and her robes had been burnt on impact, melting into her skin.
"Mother of Mercy," Adam whispered, making that gesture again.
"'Mercy'?" She asked, looking at him in anger.
"There will be no mercy," She hissed. She launched two blasts with both hands as I was about to launch a defensive salvo. Adam raised both hands, freezing both of us in place. Salem's red magic glowed within her palms, searing her flesh like a hellish fire. She grunted in pain.
"Both of you will stop fighting like roosters in a cock-fight!" He scolded us.
"We're still a family, last I checked. And we're going to talk this out and figure out a way to fix it!" He said.
"You want to kill me, you prick!" She roared. Adam looked at her.
"You dumb bitch! I'm trying to-" Just then, he paused and turned to see something out of our views.
"Eve?! What are you doing here?!" He asked, his concentration faltering as he saw our daughter. Salem took the chance as his grip loosened.
"I told you to get back to y-" He started to say as she launched a blast. It hit him. I could smell his robes burning as he grunted. It wasn't in pain.
"DAMN IT, WOMAN!" He roared in anger. I then struck back at her.
"YOU BITCH! I GAVE YOU EVERYTHING AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED!" I roared at her in anger. I remember well our fight. Adam did his best to try to control us, but our attacks were too quick for him to control. I can remember him screaming for us to stop fighting. Our salvos lit the hall and I'm sure Grimm would be gathering about this. I recall hearing his scared voice as he pleaded for us to stop fighting. And then: the dead-lock. Our energies were matched by sheer will and anger at eachother alone. I remember Adam yelling: 'The kids!' I didn't look as I was focused on Salem. I remember Adam screaming as did our children
The last thing I heard from them were screams of fear and terror as the combined magical energies resulted in an explosion that tore apart the palace. I remember waking up, bleeding and Salem was where she had stood, in a puddle. Seconds later, she reformed into herself and walked over to me.
Her look was not of love or sorrow but of cold hatred. She then put her foot over me as I turned my bleeding body over to talk to her. I wondered what happened to our children and my father. The black star-lit sky loomed over us as witnesses. I felt her press hard onto my chest.
"Have the freedom you deserve," She told me. I started to say 'I'm sorry' and then she immolated me with a spell. I felt the hot flames burn me alive and I screamed in pain. In my third incarnation, someone else: I went back to the ruins of the Castle and found what was left. I heard that there were no survivors from the Palace and the Empire had crumbled. Our cities overrun, our armies disbanded and scattered as Grimm killed them all. Our Empire had crumbled no thanks to both of us and my dream, or rather, the Gods' task of a reunited humanity was lost for a time.
Among the ruins of the palace, I found the iPhone amongst the rubble, still functional after all that time. Salem must've either not cared for it or something else. I tried to discern if she put any tracking spells or anything on it: no such luck.
As for the fate of my father and my children? I found two small charred fingers of a small child in what would've been a hall. I realized the fate of my children: they had been killed in the blast. My errors had killed my... our children. And thus began the long and torturous years ahead until the Vytal Treaty, or so I thought.
XXX
"Holy shit... that's my legacy: fixing the problems before all this? Fixing yours and Salem's mistakes?" Artyr asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Uncle," He said, putting his hand.
"Why didn't you tell the world about this? They deserve to know! Everything that happened?!" He asked. Uncle Oz looked at him and ishged.
"There'd be a panic, even if I told the kings then and the world now: there'd be a hell of a panic." He said.
"Witch hunts, a massive war, even. Probably a lot worse than the Great War, maybe as humanity would try to destroy every last Grimm on this planet, which would probably spawn even more Grimm." He told me.
"Humanity would be wiped to barely even less than a hundred by my reckoning!"
"What about Salem? Is there a way to stop her?"
"Well, I used the relic of knowledge to see if there was a way to..." He hesitated and then sighed as he rubbed his face.
"Kill her," He said, shaking his head.
"Kill my own wife so that I can accomplish my goal," He told his nephew. Artyr looked at him.
"And?" He croaked, the thought of his own aunt becoming something so evil and his uncle thinking of killing her was just... unbelievable!
"The relics each have a spirit inside them with the powers of their respective attribute when you say their name around the artifact which holds said 'spirit'." Oz explained.
"Djinn, the Relic of Knowledge, told me that I can't after I asked her where the other artifacts were." He said. Artyr sighed.
"Well, shit." He said, sighing rubbing his face as his uncle said 'indeed'.
"And your plans for stopping her if any?" He asked as well.
"None," Oz spat.
"I can't think of anything," He said, scoffing.
"Salem will just use her orb to find their locations and then she summons the Gods back to Remnant so that she can pretty much start a new rebellion against the Gods after subduing humanity."
"And my ancestors? Dad? Marcus?" Artyr asked. Ozma sighed.
"I haven't a clue as to how, where and even when Adam sired a biological son, but he showed up after my third incarnation started getting old." Ozpin said.
"He told me he was a Jedi and that his last name was Sym. I asked him if Adam was his father and he said 'yes'. I asked him how long it had been since the Jedi heard of him and he says that it's been about twenty years since Adam disappeared for the Order. Then, about ten years later and him trying to fix things between me and Salem if he could find her... he vanishes and a new guy shows up about twenty-years later!" He said. He shook his head.
"Each and every member of my family-our family." Oz said, angrily and bitterly as his hands curled into fists.
"Has been taken away from this world for no damn reason and I'm pretty fucking sure that my ex-wife has been up to something about it!" He said, angrily. Artyr then had a growing pit feeling in his stomach. Ozma sighed and rubbed his eyes as he spoke and looked at his nephew.
"Artyr... did the Order have any records of any of your Order's heroes or otherwise meeting a red-eyed, ashen-pale woman?" He asked. Artyr then realized what he meant by asking.
"No," Artyr said, shaking his head. "No," He repeated.
"That's not possible," He whispered, thinking. His eyes widened and then they came to tears.
"Artyr?" Ozma asked, putting a hand on his nephew's arm as he saw his nephew think.
Artyr then started sobbing as the memories came back of his first unit's death: their screams and their deaths in the Force, and more importantly: what killed them.
"That bitch," Artyr whispered.
"That..." His body began to grow into a much bigger form as his armor started to strain. Ozma started having tears in his eyes and sighed.
"I'm so, so sorry, Artyr." He told his nephew, sympathetically. Both of the Ozma and Ozpin souls agreed in their sympathy and sorrow for their natural kinsman.
"She killed my pod," Artyr said in his alternate form... or rather, his ancestral form. His bluish-green eyes started to sob as his gauntleted fists clenched.
"My aunt killed my brothers," He sobbed and then started to cry.