Act 2 Intermission: The Realization of Alex Whiter
The back cover of this incredibly thick book was slammed shut with a gravitas born of relief behind it.
Alex dropped the book into the space between table and couch and collapsed onto his right side, stretching out along the couch with a sigh.
His eyes drooped part way and he hung his hand out towards the table while letting out a groan, "Did nobody ever tell you to cut the filler, you old hag...?"
He then turned onto his back and plopped the hand over his chest to let out a sigh. The house was full of light and a quick check outside showed him it was morning.
His dad was nodding off a bit in the nearby chair while his mom was nowhere to be found.
There was...a LOT to digest from that book, but he was mentally worn out and figured he could nod off and take a short nap before thinking about it...
As he started to close his eyes though, his mom's sharp colored hair slid into view overhead and she shouted, "Well?! How was it?!"
"GAH!"
Alex sprang awake and cowered upright against the arm of the chair. His mom had slid stomach first atop the kitchen countertop and grinned like a little girl.
She then grabbed hold of the ledge and pulled herself across, somehow managing to flip over and plop onto the cushion in front of him.
She then rested her tiny legs atop his and leaned back against the opposite arm with arms crossed.
Alex laid a hand over his beating heart and grumbled, "Maybe I lucked out not dealing with this on a daily basis..."
Alex then rubbed the grains from his eyes and remarked, "Didn't think it'd take until morning to finish that..."
"Morning? Heh! Try the next day!" She said with an impish giggle.
"W-Wha..." Alex looked a second time and realized that his mom had changed clothes, now wearing a white open jacket top with black tiger stripes over the sleeves and a thin material sky blue shirt underneath along with a double-tier ankle length skirt with black lightly painted on it to look like flames moving up in a spiral.
Her hair was still messy but at this point he's been forced to accept that his mom is as wild as they come...
With a small smile he mimicked her crossed arms and told her, "There was a lot of information to take in this time..."
He reached his hand out and carefully summoned his sword, "I...I never knew my sword had a name, for one."
His mom lunged right at the sword and started rubbing it up and down, "WHOA! THIS is your sword? That's rad!"
"Y-Yeah, and my two cl-" Alex snapped his mouth shut upon realizing he probably shouldn't be opening up that can of worms right now, "C-Close...comrades back in the future have the other two weapons Dyntos made...I guess."
Once his mom was done drooling over the shiny amber coating he dispelled the sword and said, "Mom, you're an Aurian..."
He pinched his forehead and bemoaned, "God that feels so weird to say still..."
Then gestured his hand out to ask, "What's your weapon?"
She grinned high with pride and tapped her thumb against her chest, "You're looking at it!"
"..." Alex gave her a dull look and then shook his head, "Not surprised."
She then gave a quick, firm nod, "I learned a lot from listening to that story! Like, I always thought Lady Auris' clairvoyance just came with the Anti-Genesis Theorem!"
Alex's expression immediately went tense with surprise and he drew his gaze towards the stone trapped in his pockets, "...Yeah. So...I was right before. All this time...the Gaia Temporis...was Temporis Aurora."
His mom was going on and on about all the stuff she liked in the story but he drowned it out, a conflict forming between anger and confusion towards the person inside the stone.
Fog surrounded his vision as he glared down at the stone, shaking, wanting to reduce it to gravel at that moment, "You've been forcing me to stay alive all this time...WHY?!"
He pressed his hand against the stone and try as he might, the rage of his thoughts couldn't make the person inside respond, "I deserve to know...ANSWER ME...!"
"HEY!" His mom's ferocious roar of concern snapped him back into a more neutral state of mind.
She laughed his reaction off with a smile and then leaned back comfortably, "I was asking you a question, what'd you think about the last part?"
"U-Uhhh..." After bumbling around with his tongue for a few moments he narrowed his eyes and held nothing back, "Sarajin's reaction was overblown."
"Eh...?" His mom slacked her jaw and tilted her head the other way.
"It was just Lunarians, they're some of the worst scum in the universe! Their deaths shouldn't have affected him that much!"
His mom's eyes began to narrow unamused, "THAT'S your big takeaway from that?"
Alex smiled and started acting all high and mighty in tone, "I KNOW I'm right, mom."
She then slapped her forehead so hard her head pulled back and then sprang into place with her eyes flying wide open as she let out a gasp, "Hoi boy, here we go..."
Alex was baffled, "W-Why are you making a fuss, I thought you were ok with evil people getting their due?"
"That ain't the point, chief." She barked back.
Alex started to lean in and glare at her, "If someone treated your race like absolute scum, wouldn't you want them to pay?"
"Alex, back up and think it over again."
Alex continued to lean in, eyes widening as he became more invested in making his point, "If someone spent every waking moment terrorizing you to the point you couldn't even sleep, why do they deserve to live?! What are they giving back to the world?"
She began to grit her teeth and grumble, "You're letting your heart do the talkin' instead of your head."
Alex's expression was one of an utter frenzy unfolding as he was within inches of his mom's face, shouting and spitting at her, "Fascists don't want to be reasoned with! They've decided you don't deserve rights, or freedom, or hope and love...! They'll take it all away from you, and lock you up in a cold, steel cage until you're begging for the day when they'll finally-"
His mom rammed her forehead into his full force and ended up drawing blood from her own skin, "You're missing the point entirely, Alex! You're so far from the point, you can't even see the point! The point is a DOT to you...!"
Alex finally started to feel a little pain in his head and backed off, rubbing the point where she made contact and releasing a series of grunts.
With the blood still trickling down her nose she crossed her arms up right and breathed deep, "Haaa, it's not that the Lunarians didn't deserve what was coming to them. Sarajin never should've lost control and taken the easy way out like he did."
Alex slowly opened his eyes and was quiet from there on.
"He stuck to his convictions for most of his life. I don't think you realize how respectable that is."
Alex slanted his brows and argued, "His convictions were destroying him...!"
"So he should've just broken them whenever it was convenient?" His mom shook her head, the disappointment in her eyes weighing heavily on his heart, "If you can do that all willy-nilly then what's the point of having them?"
"Convictions have to mean something," Her eyes softened with a bit of worry but still overall maintained her ferocity, "You have your own convictions, don'tcha?"
Alex trembled and withdrew into his head, "I-I...of course I do..."
He could recall every moment that he's fought to kill the evil that's corrupted the world, "Evil has to be burned away at the roots."
His heart was trembling the most, as he struggled but failed to avoid looking further inside of himself, where the people he fought and in some cases killed didn't seem to be as guilty as he would like to make himself believe they were...
"T-That's the only thing I've ever done with this power."
His mind warped the perception of those events to continue justifying why his sword ran through their bodies, or his flames reduced their corpses to cinders...
But eventually the memories reached the not so far away past, where his conviction put him into a confrontation with a face undoubtedly innocent and a soul as pure as the most enviable light in the night sky...
Him, the clone he left behind, the shadow of a life he could have led...
The blank realm of his subconscious began to ripple with tear drops and through it, came whispers of doubt echoing inside of his heart...
"Is this really true...?"
"Was I...just making excuses so I'd believe my hands were clean...?"
His eyes expanded and stared blankly into the distance as he let out a gasp.
He started to invite memories from a little while back of conversations he had with Sarajin's spirit, how the man had tried so hard to sway him from thoughts of revenge, to not give up hope, to not surrender to the worst possible desires.
...Because he knew.
All along, more than anyone in the world, the original Elemental Overlord was empathetic to his pain.
And what did he do in response to all his attempts to help him?
Mock him. Hate him. Seal him away.
Because at the end of the day Alex Whiter stood for nothing.
He always took the easy way out.
Even when he reached out with words, it was only to sway others to commit violence alongside him.
But there was a positive to this realization...
It made him love her even more than he did before.
Because she never took the easy way out. She held on to her convictions to the bitter end.
Thus, why tears were currently rolling down his cheeks and dripped onto his hands clutching the denim of his jeans.
It took countless deaths, of other lives and his own, for him to finally realize what was wrong.
"The world's not at fault for ignoring my pain..."
"I-I-I...I'm the one who refuses to be healed..."
His face scrunched up uncomfortably as he looked at his mom and whimpered, "Oh god, mom...! Y-You're bleeding..."
Because just like always, all he could do was hurt the people who ever tried to give him the love he wanted...
His mom's eyes widened and she ran a finger up her nose area, "Huh? Oh shit, I'm bleeding!"
She reached up for a tissue and then spat it in before wiping the blood off her face, all the while she laughed it off.
When she was done and started smiling at him, all he could do was look the other way with heavy eyes, "I-I'm sorry for yelling at you."
"Ah, I'm just glad you were so invested in the topic!" She declared with a grin, "But uuuh, you really haven't read too many books huh?"
Alex flinched and then turned to her with a smile and a teary, cracking tone of voice, "H-Haven't had the time..."
"Heh heh, guess being an Elemental Overlord doesn't come with time off does it?"
"R-Right..." Alex muttered.
"Alex," His mom decided to be a little serious for a moment and looked him straight in the eyes, "Don't ever hold anything back just because I'm your mother. I may be a bite-sized tiger, but I can take my fair share of hits!"
"..." Alex hung his head and mumbled, "When I'm done with this story t-there...is a lot I want to tell you."
"Hey, you're in no rush to get back to your future, right? And little you's too young to remember you're here."
"A-Actually mom, my time travel works on split timeline theory."
She widened her eyes with shock, "Really?! Ah damn."
Alex finally took a moment to dry his face and give one last thought towards himself, "...What am I even going to do when I'm done here? I...I can't just go back to where I left off, can I?"
Right now, more than ever, his course of actions was being dictated by the Gaia Temporis...rather, Temporis Aurora. And if she hadn't sent him back yet, then obviously he wasn't done here.
He gestured to his mom and asked her, "There's one more book to read, right?"
"You bet! Lemme go get it!" His mom then sprang from her seat but made a brief detour to her napping husband to give him a couple feathery slap across both sides of his face, "C'mon Abraham, our son's gonna be starting the final book!"
His eyes opened with a light yawn and after stretching himself out he looked his wife in the eyes and mumbled, "Just a few more seconds, dear."
"Alright fine, take your time. At least fix your posture, you're going to throw your back out again."
His dad smiled back and said with a merry chuckle, "I've gotten used to that with you around."
"Heh...! Oh, you rascal."
Once his mom ran off upstairs, Alex looked over at his dad, who nudged his glasses back into place and whispered and looked much more full of vigor than a moment ago.
"I'm glad I stayed out of that argument."
Alex's face sagged with a sigh, "It was pretty heated..."
"But your mom is reasonable."
"You both have been..." Alex rubbed the back of his head and felt a tinge of regret inside, "...I always thought of you just as my mom and dad, I never thought about you as husband and wife."
His dad gave a dull look of surprise.
"I-I guess a part of me didn't want to believe I came from a couple who loved each other...I-I don't know but like..." He couldn't help but smile fondly as his pitch heightened, him struggling to maintain composure, "Y-You do...and I'm so happy."
"Your mom certainly didn't have to try too hard to make me fall in love."
He then sat up and remarked, "I'm sorry, I started to doze off near the end of the book. Recap the last part to me..."
"Uhh, sure." Alex gave him a brief retelling of the last few pages.
His dad then nudged his glasses as though the knowledge inspired conversation, "Huh...So King Solomon was once Sarajin's...ally."
"...Once?" Alex muttered.
It didn't take more than a moment after that for his heart to feel a sting that shot up to his head, "W-Wait...!"
The horrified look in his eyes led to them darting around as he pieced together the facts, "King...Solomon...King of Darkness..."
"Solomon is the Dark King...?!" It had been years upon years since the one and only time Alex was face-to-face with the writhing darkness that was the bane of the Elemental Overlord's past...but that shapeless mass was once a man and more surprising of all, a former ally, "W-W-W-WAIT...! Hold on...! If Solomon was...the Dark King...t-then wouldn't that mean the Elemental Overlord's greatest adversary was also his b-"
"AH LA LA LA LA LA!" His mom came marching into the room shouting while plugging her ears. She then held the last book, which was more comparable in thickness to the first, towards her son while glaring him down.
"No speculating! Hate it when people do that..."
"B-But..." Alex stuttered.
"Don't argue with your mom on this one, Alex." His father warned with a heavy sigh.
"Mmm-hmph!" His mom nodded with puffed cheeks.
Alex hung his shoulders and sighed. Then his mom went and laid the book on his lap. It had a heavier cover and was painted black.
No pause necessary this time. There were many questions that remained unanswered, and now, more than ever, he wanted to know how Sarajin's life concluded.
"Maybe, if I learn the truth...it'll tell me what I should do next with myself..."
He flipped open the front cover and inside was another note from Auris.
"We all assume we can be masters of our fate."
"But sometimes, we're just born to be cogs in someone else's machine."
"Everyone has their own ideals, their own beliefs."
"The conflict between them shall reach its climax in this tale."
"This is the beginning of the end."
"The final years...of my husband's ideal...and his life."
Next Time: Act 3
Author's Note:
It's crazy to think I've managed to get this far into this story.
This is definitely my favorite part of the story as of writing this today, a lot of my favorite moments have finally been written here.
That's not to say Act 3 will be weaker, far from it, there's a lot that needs to be wrapped up now and I plan to see this through to the bitter end.
There were too many breaks in Act 2 so this time, there won't be a break between now and the start of Act 3. So see you back here in a few days for the start of that.