Author's Note:
Greetings. This story is a mostly original tale set in the world of my series, Clash of the Elements. The reason its listed under "Mario" is because that is where the story began, and thus for the sake of making it easier to keep track of I'm putting it here for now, much like a couple prior parts that focused on original content.
Now, elements of Mario stuff will show up in this story, but so will aspects from other fictional franchises. I will give a fair warning in advance for some of them due to spoilers, but otherwise a vast majority of this story is to be purely original content.
While this is a prequel story, and thus can be viewed without much prior knowledge of the other Parts, the Prologue, Intermissions and Epilogue to this story continues off from the Epilogue of Part 6 (R), so if you haven't read up to that point or looked at the Summary, then feel free to skip over these parts.
Otherwise, if you have no interest, just click out of here and go about your day. I hope its a good one.
Now then...
"Time is a curious thing. Moving forward, frame by frame, like a reel of film, only unable to be rewound.
Burned into the retinas of history, these moments in time never truly leave us. However faint, the memory can be reclaimed.
But where does our own time truly begin? With our birth? Nay, the prologue was etched in time long beforehand, guided by the pen of He we cannot see, but believe in unconditionally.
'Fate'. 'Destiny'. Words interwoven into the lexicon of mankind's collective consciousness, deceitful in their ways, culpable in guiding the masses to shun any blame upon oneself.
The truth is much worse. Much crueler. We are not a blameless lot. No guiding hand, nor the blank ink dripping from its pen, is to blame for the decisions we make.
We are one guilty collective, muddied by sin. And just as our footsteps leave an imprint in time, so too do our mistakes...Some too numerous to name.
But these mistakes are etched with reason. So that the past can affect the future, and keep those mistakes from repeating.
Even if the gap between us is two-thousand years wide, I hope this message I utter shall reach your ears someday.
...So that you may not continue to repeat the mistakes of your predecessor."
Prologue: A Flame Adrift in Time
Frozen at the doorstep of his familial home, Alex Whiter stared down into the eyes of this azure-haired woman who had nonchalantly admitted to being his mother.
His mother...who was standing before him with cheeks as red as roses and skin as warm as a fleece blanket, not a hint of paleness to speak of.
The touch of her chin upon his chest left his then still heart racing, sending such a sudden jolt to his numbed body that it was like his brain was being stabbed from above.
His lips winced into a pained scowl, his body trembling.
The lady took two steps back and leveled her gaze towards the boy's descending face, as he grabbed the side of his head in one hand and fell to his knees.
"Ha...ha...ha!" He took deep, gasping breaths, his pupils now less than dots.
"Hey," The mother cooed with concern, thrusting her hands upon his shoulders and causing his gaze to jolt upward at her face, "You feeling ok?"
Her gaze projected stronger than her petite frame would suspect it capable of, but it pierced his cold soul with a sincere warmth he hadn't felt in years.
And her hands, so small yet taut, held onto him just tightly enough to keep the tremors at bay.
For a brief moment, Alex's view of the world turned foggy, as this exact perspective played back in his head. Only he was looking up at her from cradled arms, as she rocked him back and forth, humming the exact tune she played for those two babies earlier.
His skin got goosebumps as a single tear forced itself from his parched eye, and rolled on down against the edge of his trembling scowl.
Then came a tear from the other eye, escaping just as the eyelids closed themselves halfway shut.
"M-M-M..." He bit his lower lip and took one deep gulp of saliva, his hands raised with an uncontrollable shakiness to them.
He then swung his arms around her thin torso and pulled her in closer, resting his chin upon her shoulder. His tears squeezing out between his taut eyelids and soaking into her shirt.
"Mom...! Mom...! I-I-Its really you! I...I..." He struggled to get a word out without losing his breath. Gasping between tears, he just shook his head and rubbed his cheek against her warm body to remember what it was like to be held and loved.
And she stood there, her smile and posture becoming a little looser. She held him around the torso and patted him on the back, telling him softly, "It's alright, let it all out. A Whiter should never be afraid to cry..."
He let himself cry and cry until the shoulder of her shirt was absolutely drenched.
Finally, he reclaimed the strength within to open his eyes tenderly and whisper in her ear, "I don't want to let go..."
His mother winced and started to pull herself away from his grasp, "I know its hard son, but..."
She was roadblocked by his fingers tightening against her back. But after a couple grunts of exertion she managed to break free, leaving his hands to plummet to the floor.
She then wiggled her head around and huffed out a "Wooo!" once steady, "You're gonna snap me like a pretzel if you keep holding on like that!"
Her eyes then lit up with pride as she hollered, "Damn, look at you! All big and strong!"
With her grin even wider she casually flexed her right bicep and poked at it, the skin as hard as a rock, "You got the best qualities you could ask for right from your mom!"
She then leaned forward suddenly, causing Alex's head to recoil back with a tense gulp as she glared up and down his body, muttering to herself, "Including a knack for roughhousing it looks like."
She then lightly slapped him twice on the cheek, causing a blush and smile to appear and wane in moments as she joked, "Seriously DID you try and fight a bear?"
Alex's head hung as he began to recall what happened. But the moment he touched upon those events, all he saw was fire burning through cities, people screaming as their flesh was scorched off in an instant, a god bleeding by his hand...And then his own blood, oozing black from the pores of his dried flesh, as a man with hazy yellow eyes coldly bore his words of judgment into his cranium, and ended him without hesitation.
...Except this wasn't the end, but rather, a return to the beginning.
And there's no need to think about the 'How'. With his body tensing up, Alex's gaze was about to bore itself into the black and gold stone in his right pocket when suddenly...
"Lumina, what's with the commotion?"
There was another voice in the room, coming from a polite and patient sounding man. Alex raised his head as his mother, Lumina, swerved to her side and faced the hall, her fists propping up against her hips.
At the entrance to the hallway was a tall man that looked about as thin and lanky as a cornstalk. He was dressed in a loose buttoned black and white plaid shirt and night pants. His irises were brown with a hint of red and there were two rows of bags beneath his eyes. His black hair was perfectly cut to just a centimeter length all around, and he had bristled hairs all over his chin, with a healing cut mark below his bony cheek.
Presenting himself with not much of a presence it was no wonder Alex couldn't feel him coming. But had he done so sooner, his body would've reacted in the same way it is now...Staring straight at the man's face, with his eyes as wide as dinner plates.
"...Dad?" He muttered immediately.
His mother then shouted, "Guess who just showed up, Abe?!"
She then forced her right arm around his neck like a bear would grapple a tree to loosen fruit and pulled his head up under her armpit, smiling proudly as she begged her husband, "C'mon! Guess!"
The man arched a brow and then dug into his shirt pocket to pull out a pair of rectangular rimmed glasses. Once adorned they helped him glance at the boy, where it only took a second for both his brows to stiffen up.
"Joseph? No, wait..." In the blink of an eye the man slid across the room and was on his knees with his son's head sandwiched between his hands.
There wasn't as much warmth in his father's touch compared to his mother. His hands were the same size as his, but seemed bonier, weaker, like he barely took care of himself.
Alex couldn't recall his father ever holding him or hugging him, or even giving him a good night kiss. Yet while his father held him in his hands, he felt safe and protected.
The man squinted his eyes and a faint glint of red grew in his irises, murmuring aloud, "I don't sense the Diavolo Manifesto in you. You're...Alex?"
Alex's eyes froze wide-open from his father's gaze. The color change was one thing but there was a presence, a dark presence, that came with it that reminded him of Joe Dark...
But then he squeezed his eyes shut as she heard a 'Clunk!' coming from atop his father's head.
Lumina had bonked him on the head with her fist but all that did was make his glasses slide down his nose. He then slowly panned his gaze up towards her face and caught her grinning.
"What're you doing bringing that up like that! He's probably confused enough as is!"
While standing up Alex's father nudged his glasses into place and weakly pointed downward from his left hip, "You say that honey, but..."
Lumina raised her right arm and adorned on the wrist was a glistening stone bracelet with one rock slotted atop it. Alex's heart skipped a beat and his gaze couldn't stop looking at it even as she hastily tried to slide the bracelet behind her back.
"Aww don't worry, he's probably not even thought about it!" She said, gleefully waving her free hand before her face and trying so hard to keep smiling.
Too late though, as Alex mustered up whatever strength he could to thrust a finger at the bracelet and exclaim, "W-Why are you wearing THAT type of bracelet mom?!"
And then he swung his finger towards his dad and exclaimed, "And...and you have darkness inside of you dad?!"
Lumina let her arms slump down to her hips and uttered a brief and blunt "Fuck" while Abraham, his father, pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a sigh of, "We were warned to handle this delicately, honey."
Lumina swung her right arm up past her face as she swerved towards him to shout, "Well excuse me! I didn't think our future son was gonna show up while I was breast-feeding our present sons!"
"It was already going to be difficult enough to explain how we knew he was coming. I thought we'd ease him into the other stuff ONCE that part was settled..." Abraham kept eerily calm throughout their whole talk, sounding more mildly inconvenienced than anything else.
"Time travel's a big pain in the ass, I swear!" Lumina's throat lumped up from a hefty gulp followed by an even heftier groan, upon which she turned face-first at Alex and shouted, "Surprise kiddo! Your mom's an Aurian!"
"Ah...Aaahh...!" Alex choked on what could only be described as an attempt at forming coherent sentences.
He could feel his entire body getting numb again as his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell backwards, crashing skull first into the floor, the last thing he heard being his parent's collective exclamation of "Alex?!"
Silence followed, decorated in a scenery of black.
It was broken up by some faint mumbling close by. As Alex began to quietly groan awake, the mumbling got clearer.
"I took the cribs upstairs. They've finally settled down for the night." Spoke his father.
"Oh that's good. Still can't believe that THAT is going to grow up to be THIS." Said his mother.
Alex could feel something wet not on his head, but around his left hand. It was covering it up to the wrist, but was getting shallower by the second.
"...You dipped our son's hand in water? Is it really time for that, Lumina?" Abraham groaned.
"I ain't trying to do that! Remember? Absorbing elemental energy'll help him heal," She replied, followed by a curt chuckle, "Though wouldn't it be funny if it didn't work and he wet himself right on our couch?"
To which Abraham sighed, yet chuckled beneath his breath.
Alex could see his parents sitting and standing over him through a cloudy filter. His head slowly pivoted towards the right, where he felt the water sinking towards his fingertips.
"Oh! Oh! He's waking up!" Lumina clapped her hands and then took the bucket out from under Alex's soaked hand.
Their comments didn't stop just cause he was raising his head up.
"Y'know, he's got your eyes, Abe." Lumina said fondly.
"And your mother's glare." Abe said poignantly.
Lumina scoffed and quietly tapped her fingers along the edge of the table.
Alex finally got visibility once he gripped the side of his head, upon which he shook off the throbbing sensation in the back of his skull and turned towards his parents.
His mom had dried her shirt off and tidied up her hair a little, so it was like a beautiful, silky smooth curtain of azure. While his dad had put on a black and white businessman attire complete with tights and red clip-on tie.
He was standing up while she was sitting down, leaning forward to gently put her small hand atop his shoulder.
Alex shuddered, and froze in place momentarily, before locking eyes with her mother's nervous smile.
"Sorry for spooking you like that son," Her smile cocked up on the side and she patted him on the back, "Not very often I get caught off-guard, y'know?"
"...Well, I guess you wouldn't know, given, well..." She sucked her lips in with a resounding "Pop!" and then turned her head away, rubbing the back of her skull.
Alex's eyes fluttered a few times and he panned his gaze around the room. All these familiar sights of home felt...unnerving. Even just looking outside the window made him feel like he was somewhere he shouldn't be.
He put his hands on the opposing elbows and rubbed up his arms. His shirt was still beaten and torn up but any signs of blood and scars were gone...Physically, perhaps, but not emotionally.
Rubbing his upper shoulder made him remember a laser burning through his flesh. His knuckles getting taut reminded him that a sword once pierced his hand. And then, when his arms pressed against his chest...
"...!" The life in his eyes fled through a haunting gasp of air, as he felt magical stone and steel twist through his innards, spearing his heart whole and leaving him to drown in a puddle of his own blood.
Those hazy, yellow eyes, taunting him from above, as a rain of black orbs descended upon his helpless flesh.
"You lay on the ground like a worm. Your body is as black as the dirt. And even so weak you can't even stand, all you thought about was killing for your own ends. And it's doubtless to me that even in your final moments..."
Alex's whole body shivered as his teeth clenched together and tore into the enamel, the final words echoing bluntly against the walls of his mind.
"You will be left wondering where everything went wrong..."
With the eyes of a dead man walking Alex pulled himself off the couch and nudged his mother's face with his elbow to push past her.
"H-Hey!" She uttered bewilderingly.
He tried to run for the door but his father slid in his way, staring him straight in the eyes with no intent to budge, "Son, settle down for a moment-"
"I-I can't be here! This is a mistake...a goddamn mistake!" He shoved his head into his father's chest but he only moved an inch.
He then steadily extended his hand, only for Alex to swat it away as he recoiled, his gaze inflamed, "I can't be alive right now! I-If I'm alive, then you're all in danger! Everyone's lives will be threatened!"
Abraham squinted at him and muttered, "What are you saying? What threat?"
Alex threw his hands against his chest and screamed tearfully, "Me, dad! I'm the threat!"
As his dad's eyes widened, he buckled his feet into the carpet and prepared to shove forth, "N-Now please step aside, or I-I-"
He didn't want to THINK of what he'd say next.
"Alex," Uttered Lumina, "Turn around."
"Wha-?!" Alex did so but didn't even get to finish before the hearing in his left ear was shot, broken by the sound of her tiny hand delivering the equivalent of a shotgun blast to the side of his face.
Her palm was left reddened and her gaze was like a tiger's. Furious, sure, but able to melt away with the serenity one would show to their cub.
Alex's mouth was agape. It stung, but only in his heart. His heartbeat elevated for a few seconds, then dropped to a more manageable pace as he faced his mother and rubbed his now reddened cheek.
"Haaaa..." Lumina crossed her arms and stamped her foot on the ground, drawing a metaphorical line in the sand, "I ain't gonna pretend to know how you got this way kiddo, but there's one thing I know for sure..."
She looked him dead in the eyes and said, "We're not going to let you run away from people who wanna help. I didn't birth that kinda man. Got it?"
Alex flinched from his father's touch on his shoulder, which caused him to glance back just in time to see him nod.
"She's right son. We'll always be here for you."
"Ghhh...!" Alex bit his lower lip and his chin dug into his chest.
"Y-You're not...!" He mumbled, "And that..."
He rolled his shoulder to force his dad's hand off and then cobbled his way back over to the couch, falling flat on his rear, while his hands caught his head as it fell.
"Is a scar that I can't heal."
Lumina and Abraham looked at one another, with Abraham nodding, and Lumina following suit. She then sat back down on the table, positioning herself sideways with one leg crossing the other.
"...So, we ARE dead in the future, huh?" Lumina said, sounding almost...unsatisfied with herself. She briefly cocked her head towards Alex and let her mouth linger agape for a moment. But then she pulled back and shook her head, "Y'know...Never mind. I shouldn't ask. Gotta preserve the timeline and all that crap, right?"
She forced her arms against her chest and pouted. Abraham sighed and gently remarked, "Multiverse theory, dea-"
"Oh spare me that," She gestured her hand up and around dismissively, "Y'know Abe, couldn't you at least be a LITTLE upset about this?"
Abraham's lips shifted downward a little as he remarked, "Honey this IS my upset face. I just...am a little more accepting of my fate, that's all."
"Well if it were up to ME, I'd fight fate with my bare hands! Strangle it with its own intestines, and FORCE THERE to be not a SINGLE timeline where I have to leave my sons to fend for themselves!"
All said with her graphically depicting her struggle with fate using her bare hands and brutally gritting her teeth.
Alex sank his hands into his face deeper, causing Abraham to quietly remark, "I know you would, but...I don't think that bravado will help him in the present, honey."
Lumina slammed her hands on the table and remarked, "No, you're right...This ain't the time for the Azure Tiger to bear her fangs. It's time for Lumina Whiter, the mother, to help her child in need."
She swiveled towards Alex and leaned forward, gently tapping her foot below his knee as she said, "So put your hands down and look at us. We're gonna do everything in our power to help you, kiddo."
"Heh heh...!" Slipped out of Alex's mouth. He raised his hands, and his eyes looked red and watery, and just so very tired. It made his smile look out of place, even if it didn't last long.
"This...this is what I always wanted," He said, shaking his head, "Just...me sitting here, with both of you acting like a happy married couple. All of us, o-one happy family. Its like...I've finally managed to make my dreams a reality.'"
He held his hands out towards them both and whimpered, "This...this is what I've always wanted, but..."
His shaky hands squeezed into fists as he pulled them away, casting his gaze aside in shame, "I don't deserve it. I don't, I don't!"
He grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, "I...! Am a threat! To you, to dad, to everyone! Not even my happiness is safe...!"
His heart started racing, "I should've been the one to die back then, not you! Then everyone else would've been happier for it! You two! Joe Dark! Shina...! God...Shina...!"
He grit his teeth with a feral gravitas and then swerved his head down to his right pocket. He thrust his hand down and pulled the black and gold stone, holding it with such strength that he would've broken it to dust had it been made of any other rock.
"This all could've been prevented, IF YOU WOULD'VE JUST LISTENED TO ME YOU GODDAMN STUPID STONE!"
He threw his hand up high ready to bury the stone miles beneath the surface, only for his mother to latch her tiny hand barely around his wrist and force him still.
His gaze shifted right towards her, as she roared with a gravelly sound in her voice, "Alexander Elijah Whiter you listen to ME for one goddamn second!"
"That stone's saved your life more than you can possibly remember! As did the man whose spirit resides within you! So I ain't gonna sit here and listen to you disrespect them both by treating your life like some throwaway piece of trash!"
Alex's body stiffened as he tried to wrestle against his mother's grasp, held back only by his own feelings for her.
"Your life has meaning! Because you're alive! So when I let go, you're going to put that stone down nice and gently, or so Tellis help me, you don't want to THINK about what I'm gonna do next!"
She let go on the spot, but kept her hands within striking distance so long as Alex kept the stone raised.
Alex's racing heart caused him to breathe rapidly. His hand shook, then clutched the stone tighter. Then, much like a stone, his hand sank to the couch, and let it go.
She then put her hands on her lap, while he thrust his up to cover his face in shame.
"I just want it to end...! All the pain, misery and suffering..." He peeled his hands away enough so that his voice would no longer be muffled, "I thought...that by becoming the Elemental Overlord, I would be able to MAKE something of myself in spite of all my suffering."
"But it's pointless! The universe has it out for me, and my supposed mentor...That ASSHOLE Sarajin or whatever the fuck his name is, he LIED to me and led me on, when he KNEW I was the inferior choice!"
Alex raised his head and spat out in disgust, "Saved my life? He's no savior! That fallen hero has just been loitering in my body for years!"
"Oh good grief..." Lumina groaned and then glanced aside at Abraham, "Y'know, he didn't get this attitude from me..."
Abraham raised his brows and poked his chest hard.
Lumina shrugged and then faced her son again, "Look I get you're probably pissed off about him..."
"PROBABLY?! Do you even understand what I'm saying here, mom?" Alex asked, wagging his hands out in a baffled manner.
She shrugged and told him, "We were told the basic gist of it from Miss Aurora."
"...A-Aurora?" Alex had to pause and collect himself, "You don't mean...AURIS Aurora?"
"Yeah. Before we came down to the surface she told us a few things that were going to happen. So we sorta get what's going on. Though, I feel like I'm forgetting something..."
Abraham stepped closer and raised a parcel wrapped in old paper and rope up by his chest, "You mean this, honey?"
She snapped her fingers and shouted, "Right! That! She gave us a few packages before we came down."
Though weak and emotionally drained, Alex could pick up that behind the protective packaging was more paper and a hardback cover. A book, to be sure, but a book of what exactly?
He watched quietly as his dad undid the knot and let the rope and paper fall to the ground. Indeed, it was a book he held. One with a turquoise hardback and golden, embroidered seal. The color faded, and the hem of the pages were wrinkled and musky. Probably too stiff to open, let alone read.
Abraham walked up to Alex and handed him the book, which he took without question. There was nothing on the front. No name, no title, nothing.
He turned it around to see if there was some hidden trick to this book that would reveal its true nature, but no, it was just an ordinary book.
He put it down on his lap and looked up at his parents in exasperation, "L-Look, I don't see what-"
"Ah ah ah," Lumina put a finger to his mouth, "Read it first, then talk."
Alex squinted, then looked down at the book. His gaze wandered towards the stone at his hip, where he felt like it was taunting him.
...But he was too drained to even be annoyed or come up with an insult. He laid a hand atop the cover of the book, lingering on the corner.
"..." Alex closed his eyes and his mother's words echoed in tune with another's.
"Your life has meaning!"
"When are you going to wake up and realize that you're not alone?!"
"I'm not..." He caught himself from speaking too loudly, and took in a deep breath, then let it go.
"...Haaaa..." He sighed and pinched the rough cover of the book to pull it back. But what sprung up immediately wasn't the aged ink and paper he was expecting, but rather a freshly written one, on parchment as white as snow.
"...Huh?" Alex picked it up between two fingers and held it closer. And as he read the text, he could hear the writer's voice as plain as day.
"So, you're finally reading this. I had hoped it wouldn't come to this, but I suppose once a troublemaker always a troublemaker...No, I'm not referring to you, Alex Whiter. My words for you are too many to write on this single page, so I shall temper my fanged tongue for the moment...Rather, I am speaking to your protector, your...'Gaia Temporis' as you know it to be."
He felt movement in the leather seating and suddenly glanced to the right. He could've sworn the stone had moved...
Shaking it off as a delusion, he resumed reading the letter.
"That impish one's actions have always been hard to peg down with my clairvoyance, but I predicted you would be sent to this point in time. Though if that's the case, then that means my fears came true. You became the 'Phoenix of Destruction' and set forth to set the universe ablaze, until all was made ash...All because you believed you could run away from your pain."
"Ridiculous."
"If pain were so easily escaped, then it's only through sheer cowardice, not derived from noble reasons or resolve."
"But again, I must temper my feelings for the moment. There is a reason you're reading this now, Alex Whiter, Phoenix of Destruction...Whatever it is you've chosen to call yourself."
"What you hold in your hand is one of my three journals. In them detailing the history of the man who inhabits your body...The TRUE history, not the erroneous lies I etched into stone so many centuries ago."
"I've grown weary of sitting back, listening to your venomous slander towards my husband echo throughout time."
"It's time you learned who the Elemental Overlord really was, and how his actions defined the lives of many, and saved many more...Including my own."
Alex squeezed the letter in his hand and then slammed it back down into the book, then slammed the cover shut with just as much force.
"I'm not doing this." He said without hesitation.
He began to stand and Lumina followed, reprimanding him with a swift "Now hold on a sec-"
"Mom! This book..." Alex held the book aloft and fluttered the back of his hand against the cover, "Is just going to be filled with more lies!"
And before there could be anymore debate on the subject, Alex opened his hand and let a flame emerge to swallow the book whole, turning it straight to ash.
Lumina then gawked at him, which admittedly did leave his eyes sagging with some degree of guilt. But his mind had been made up, he wasn't going to let himself be strung along by another game of lies.
"I knew you would do that." Uttered Abraham beside them. But he was not speaking on his own, he was reading from ANOTHER letter, this one placed in the copy of the very book he just burned down.
Alex's eyes bulged out of their sockets, and before Abraham could read aloud another word Alex snatched both letter and book from his hand.
But curiosity outpaced his flames and before he knew it, he was sneaking a peek at the letter, and reading it aloud in his head.
"I am partially understanding of your distrust in me, and in Sarajin. There should've been more communication on our front regarding the state of affairs we put you in...Though Sarajin shoulders more of the blame there than I do."
"But our silence until now isn't without reason. I cannot force you to read my journals, Alex Whiter, but I URGE you to do so. Not for me. Not for Sarajin. But for yourself."
"All I ask is that you read through them, and TRY to understand the kind of man Sarajin was. But if you burn this book and letter here, then that's YOUR choice. I won't be able to convince you any further."
"But here, in this place, in this time period, you have all the time in the world to settle down and think things through...About who you are, and what your place in the universe is. Will you still be the Phoenix of Destruction? Will you return to being Alex Whiter? Or will you become someone entirely new..."
"I believe...these stories will help you decide. But again, that decision...I leave entirely up to you."
"But I'm certain the 'Gaia Temporis' agrees with me so...I think you understand what I'm saying, yes?"
The letter ended on a rather swift and unexpected gut punch that Alex begrudgingly had to admit made sense. Even IF Auris had planned ahead to intercept him here, it was that stupid stone that brought him here to begin with.
Like or not he was once more at their mercy.
"...Alright, fine." Alex got one last shot in at Auris by crumbling her letter in his hand and tossing it over his shoulder. He then carried himself back to the couch with the book under his arm and sat back in the same spot, still kept as warm as he had left it.
Before he opened the door to the past however, he looked at both his parents and wondered aloud, "So did either of you guys read this?"
Lumina paddled her feet in place and remarked, "Nope!"
"Ms. Auris told us not to, and well..." Abraham's throat lumped up as he gave his tie a quick tug, "I'd rather not disgrace the kindness she showed me years ago."
Alex's brows raised curiously as he thought, "Dad owes her something...?"
There'd be time to address that later. Shaking his head, he positioned his eyes over the book and slowly peeled the cover back, "I don't do much reading anymore but...I prefer to read in my head. Is that ok?"
"Sure sure, it's your book anyways." Lumina comfortably sat back with her hands behind her head.
"I'll go make us some warm milk," Abraham turned and made his way to the kitchen, "Do you still like chocolate in yours, son?"
"Dad, I'm too old for..." Alex froze, stunned at just how...natural that response felt. With a small ache in his heart, he glanced over his shoulder and whispered, "A-Actually, that'd be...nice."
"Heh." Abraham smiled and made his way to the cupboard, while Alex dove right into the first page of this thick, meaty journal, whose age could be felt with every paper he touched.
"What you're about to read isn't the story of a legend...Or a hero...Or a savior. It's about a boy, who grew up to be a man. Who fought, who struggled, who lived, who died...
It's a story about change, and the struggle against ourselves.
It's the story of my husband, and the friends he made along the way...
A story that begins on the planet Genestasia, 2000 years in the past..."
CLASH OF THE ELEMENTS PART 0: THE WINDS OF DAYS PAST
