Ddraig fell upon my memories and greedily scoured the library that was my mind. I was incapable of doing anything as I was dragged along behind him.
A woman with brown hair and a bright smile calling out to me, a warm feeling spreading through my chest as I looked at her. We came together and-
I was violently yanked away as Ddraig delved elsewhere.
I was cold; so very cold. I hadn't eaten in days. I had only one choice left. I remembered from the flavor text that it was down in the undercity. This was my one chance. I needed to find Duskmantle before I-
A splitting headache grew in my mind as Ddraig moved elsewhere.
I knelt before the man of many faces, a multitude of emotions swimming through my chest.
"Congratulations, acolyte. You have earned the right to call yourself one of us. Now rise. Rise, Xarion, of House Dimir."
Xarion. So that was to be my new name. All I'd been through; everyone I'd climbed over to reach this point, and I finally had a name. People would come to-
A new memory surfaced as Ddraig became bored with the last.
My spirits spotted a woman leaving the home of the Living Guildpact. The woman was beautiful, likely one of Jace's many flings Lavinia arranged to get him to loosen up. Whether Jace rejected her or not was still unknown, but I would follow her regardless. She could be used against him if the Guildpact grew attached to her.
I ordered my spirit to follow her underground as she made her way home. No one ever looked beneath the ground for spies.
Unceremoniously, the woman stopped, then, inexplicably, she looked beneath her. "How interesting." she said idly as she waved her hand.
I felt my control of the spirit slip away as the woman easily pulled it under her own control.
"Who was your previous master?" the woman said curiously as she ordered the spirit to rise from the ground.
I watched in slowly growing fear from my place obscured in the shadows as the woman's gaze landed right on me, giving my first good look at the woman.
She had hair the color of a raven's feather and skin as elegant as ivory. Her eyes shone a dark, intelligent violet and there were several arcane lines seared into her flesh, running up her neck to her face and down to disappear beneath the fabric of her dress.
It was only then that I recognized this woman. I had seen her in another life, and I knew exactly what she was capable of.
I shivered in terror as she walked towards me.
"Hello, boy." she said, a conniving smile on her face.
"Now this is interesting." Ddraig said as he followed the memory to others associated with the woman.
A body exploded in front of me, coating my leather armor with viscera.
"You used too much mana, boy." the woman said scoldingly. "And now you've dirtied my dress." she said in disappointment, looking down at the dress in question.
Bowing my head, I quickly said "I'm sorry master. It won't happen again. I-"
"Oh, do shut up." With a wave of her hand, her dress was spotless once more. "I have taken an interest in you because you have potential. Do not make me regret that decision."
"You won't, master." I said, steel in my voice. I would not lose this chance. I was learning from one of the few old walkers that was still around. Nothing would steal this chance from-
"Old walker? What is an old walker?" Ddraig asked curiously as he sought out the answer in my mind.
I was sitting in front of my computer just like I was every Saturday night. I didn't really have any friends.
Open on the page before me were various pictures. A vampire unmaking an angel he himself created with grief coloring his features. An albino woman screaming in fury as a storm of stone flew through the air around her. A necromancer lounging on an opulent throne as her undead servants saw to her every need. An aging man in elegant robes marching at the forefront of an artificial army. A dark skinned man walking across a vast sea of sand as empires rose from nothing and faded back to ash around him with each step. A human-turned demon lord pillaging all in sight. A woman seemingly made from fire burning empires with a wave of her hand. A great silver dragon presiding over-
"What is this?" Ddraig said as his attention focused on the last shape, hungrily following its thread through my thoughts.
Two titans, two brothers who had seen the rise of entire worlds together, battled in the skies high above a land of dragons. The silver scaled dragon cried out in pain as his brother landed a devastating blow. The dragon pressed his advantage, forcing his power upon his brother.
As the silver dragon fell to the ground, already dead, the second, mightier dragon roared his triumph, disappearing in a flash of light as he planeswalked away.
"What is this?" Ddraig asked in disbelief, his idle curiosity evolving into a carnal need to understand.
We flew through my memories, landing back where we began, only it could not have been more different.
Ravnica's sky was on fire. White streaks decorated the air as they flew towards a triumphant dragon standing atop a mighty citadel, collecting into a gem levitating between his mighty horns.
Planeswalkers fell all across the plane-wide city, each having their spark torn from their corpse by an army of undead encased in violet armor.
All would be destroyed. All would worship the mighty dragon. For Nicol Bolas had become a Dragon-God.
"There is more. There must be. Show me everything!"
A mechanical world inhabited by scuttling monstrosities bent on devouring all in-
A once rich land torn down by incomprehensible Titans who feasted on the plane's very soul. One fled while the others gorged themselves on-
A colony of interlinked serpents all sharing in each other's power as they tore down everything that stood in their-
"This is impossible. If this is true, how did you arrive here?" Ddraig dove through my mind, seeking an answer to his question.
"No! Wait-" I tried to stop him, but he refused to listen and I had given over control of our journey to him. There was no stopping the dragon.
"You're progressing well." my master said in praise. "If nothing else, you've provided me with a novel distraction from the boredom that is immortality. Perhaps I'll make taking on students a regular endeavor? It has proved quite amusing."
"Thank you for the compliment, master." I said as I bowed my head to her. She was right. I'd only been learning from her for half a year and I'd already become twice as capable as I was when I started. Powerful though Guild Dimir was, it lacked the benefits learning from a centuries old planeswalker possessed.
"Think nothing of it." she waved away my gratitude. "It was merely an observation. Now, I think it's time we start on-ugh." she stumbled and fell against a nearby table, the arcane lines branded into her skin flaring bright violet.
"Master?" I said in concern, reaching out to try to help her.
"No! Get back!"
Before I could ask what was happening, a yawning vortex appeared in the center of the chamber we'd claimed for training purposes. The vortex sucked everything in the vicinity towards it.
"No!" I heard my master growl. She threw her arms forward as the portal swallowed her and I felt an unseen force propel me away from the portal.
It wasn't enough. The portal's pull sucked me backwards, causing my flight to change rapidly, sending my organs crashing around inside me. The portal swallowed me just as it closed.
I was in a land of nothing.
Up was down. Right was left. Left was ten minutes away. And existence was tearing at both my body and my mind. I'd fallen out of reality to something else; something between, above and not.
My mouth opened to scream but the only sound in this place was the unnatural grating of reality against the network of my conscience. It was pure, unfiltered pain.
Suddenly there was something in front of me. A light? Or maybe a fracture in the wrongness? I didn't know. All I knew was different meant hope.
Summoning every ounce of will I possessed, I hurled myself through the tear.
I fell prone onto a bed of fresh green grass and started crying even as I screamed, my mind still recovering from whatever it had just experienced.
"Sir? Sir! Are you alright?" a voice called, but I was too busy screaming the wrongness from my mind to listen to them.
Arms grabbed at me and I reflexively coated myself in my illusions, crawling away as much as my fractured state would allow.
My hand struck something solid as I crawled, and I paused my frantic flight to look upon the surface.
Asphalt. I hadn't seen asphalt since….
My jaw fell open as I looked up to see a skyscraper not two hundred feet away from the small park I'd landed in.
Was I back?
I was thrust from the memory at the same time Ddraig was. The two of us recoiled apart as our mental bodies recovered from the unnatural place my memories had taken us.
"What…. What was that?" the dragon asked, a small trace of genuine fear coloring his voice.
"I can't be sure." I said as I slowly rocked back and forth, doing everything I could to reassure myself that I was safely stored in fixed reality again. "But I think it was the Blind Eternities. The space between the planes."
"That was not the Dimensional Gap." Ddraig said.
Even the mighty Red Dragon Emperor was shaken up by seeing what I'd lived through first hand. If nothing else, that made me feel better about curling up and crying in an alley for the better part of a week before my higher functions finally returned.
"No, it wasn't." I said in agreement. "The Dimensional Gap surrounds this plane. Great Red patrols it to keep out anything that might threaten its continued existence, but he doesn't care about anything beyond it. What lies beyond is the Blind Eternities. Don't ask me how long they go on for because I don't know. What I do know is I should be dead or corrupted from even spending the few moments there that I did, but somehow I'm fine."
Seeming to have mostly recovered, Ddraig said, "Yes. These planeswalkers in your memories seem to be the only ones who may traverse them without incident. How do they do so?"
Shrugging, I said, "It's an inherent part of who and what they are. Occasionally, people are born with the spark to travel between planes, but few that have it ever awaken it."
Ddraig's full attention finally settled on me. He had been staring off into nothing as he made sense of everything he had seen, but now his full focus was once more on me. "You were born in a land that could view others through fiction and used that to grow in power in another. Now you are here, seeking me out for my power. I believe I know why you requested my strength, but what do you plan to do with it?"
"First and foremost? Survive. Whether I'm stuck here forever or get sucked through another vortex, there are beings who could casually dismantle my entire being. I want to get strong enough to where those very beings are afraid of pissing me off. Then? Who knows? Travel around and see all there is to see most likely." I'd always had a bit of an adventurous streak; I just hadn't been able to make the most of it for this life because I'd been so focused on staying alive. When I was finally strong enough to stand on even footing with gods, I'd allow myself to take a break.
Ddraig was silent as his massive form studied me. Silently, he turned his head to look at the slumbering form of Issei still in the cage I'd fashioned for him. Seemingly coming to a decision, his gaze returned to me. "You have seen and done things many gods of this world would not have survived. You intrigue me, and I want to see what else you can accomplish. You were correct when you said my current host is lacking. I would have you become my new partner. If, of course, you are still willing."
Bowing my head in respect, I said, "It would be an honor and a privilege, Red Dragon Emperor."
"Do not bow to me, Xarion. Soon we will be one and the same; now awaken. And tell Azazel to complete the process of transferring the Boosted Gear into you. There is more I wish to discuss, but it shall wait until we are joined."
"Then until next we meet." I said, flexing my magic and withdrawing from Issei's mind.
When I opened my physical eyes, I was staring up at a white ceiling.
"Xarion!" Azazel's face screamed down at me. "We thought we lost you, kid! How are you feeling?"
"I think I'm developing a migraine, but otherwise I'm fine." I said, sitting up to realize I was in a medical room with Vali, Azazel and several fallen angels in hospital getup gathered around me.
"I take it that something happened to me." I said, turning a questioning gaze to Azazel.
"Xarion," he said in a pained voice. "You were bleeding out of your eyes. And your ears. And your nose. That's not normal, kid. Did Ddraig attack you?"
It must have been my brief visit back to the Blind Eternities. It seemed it was almost as unpleasant to relive the experience as it was to live through it the first time.
"No, Ddraig didn't attack me. In fact, he agreed to take me on as his new host."
Azazel's eyes widened. "That's great!" His eyes immediately narrowed. "Then what caused the eye bleeding?"
I waved him off, hoping to stall until I could come up with a convincing story. "Later. Ddraig said to tell you to hurry up, so let's get Boosted Gear in me and worry about everything else after."
Azazel looked like he wanted to argue, but in the end he nodded. "Alright. I'll take Issei and extract the Gear from him. Just wait here until I'm done." he turned around and began shooing the other fallen from the room as he left himself, a gurney with Issei's unconscious body being dragged behind him.
I felt a little bad for the kid, but the idea of receiving phenomenal cosmic power far outweighed the cost of his life in my eyes.
"What happened?"
I looked over my shoulder to find Vali staring at me with his arms crossed over his chest. "What do you mean?" I said, trying to play dumb.
His eyes narrowed as he said, "What didn't you want to tell Azazel? What caused you to start seizing and screaming?"
Was it really that bad? I knew it felt that bad, but I wasn't aware the effects would reach my physical body when it was all happening directly to my mind. I was going to call it the Matrix Effect.
Focusing back on Vali, I almost started spewing bullshit at him, but something stopped me. It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that Vali was my only friend. We hadn't known each other terribly long, but I was surprised to find I trusted him. Not with the full story, of course, but I knew I wasn't just an asset to him like I was to Azazel.
Sighing, I said, "Look, I really don't want to talk about it. Suffice to say that Ddraig and I stumbled upon a really unpleasant memory of mine while we were taking a trip down memory lane, and it had more of an effect than I wanted it to. Said memory is one of the single most unpleasant things I have ever experienced. Maybe I'll tell you the details some other time." It was becoming a common occurrence for me to say those words to Vali. I must have really liked him if I thought he was going to stick around.
Vali regarded me suspiciously for a moment longer, then nodded in acceptance. "I won't pry, but we will be revisiting this discussion at a later date." His tone left no room for argument.
I nodded and said, "Alright, we'll talk later. For now, I'm getting a Sacred Gear and a new voice in my head." I stood up from my bed and motioned towards the door. "Shall we?"
Vali rolled his eyes at my theatrics and the two of us followed in the direction we saw Azazel go.
"So where do you think they're-"
My question was cut off by a blood curdling scream; the kind reserved for the dying and those in excruciating pain.
"Nevermind." I said. "I think I just figured it out."
Vali and I walked in the direction the scream came from and entered a room with Azazel and three other fallen angels standing around the chained up corpse of Issei. And he was assuredly dead; he had no mental presence for me to feel.
Looking at Azazel, I saw him staring in wonder at a fist-sized green orb in his hand. As if in a daze, he brought the orb up to his eyes to inspect it, the other fallen staring as longingly at the orb as Azazel himself.
"Is that it?" I said a little louder than I needed to, breaking the greed-filled stares of the fallen away from the orb. I'd made a deal with Ddraig, and he now knew all of my secrets. Even if I had to find some way to fight everyone in this room, I was taking that Sacred Gear.
"Xarion." Azazel said, more than a little shock in his voice. He hefted the orb and said, "Here it is. Catch!" he tossed the orb towards me, the gazes of the fallen angels in the room following it hungrily, and I caught it.
"So how do I bond with it?" I said, wanting to get the process completed as quickly as possible.
Azazel smirked and said, "That's the easy part. All you have to do is-"
"Unworthy!" one of the fallen in the room bellowed as she charged towards me, her eyes fixed on the orb in my hand. "A filthy human would never be able to serve Azazel-sama like I can!"
Did she really just say 'Azazel-sama'? I thought the fallen angels took after the christian's way of speaking. Was she just that obsessed?
Stepping out of an illusory copy of myself and under an invisibility cloak, I stepped out of the fallen's way.
She barreled into my illusion only for it to shatter around her. As she looked around for me, I held out my hand and her own shadow leapt up to clasp around her legs.
Her wings shot out of her back and she thrashed around, trying to break free, but my umbral bindings held strong.
Azazel. I said in the Fallen's mind. Tell me how to bind the Sacred Gear to myself before another one of your psycho underlings tries to take my head off. Also restrain her if you don't want me to kill her.
Just push it into your chest. Azazel said back as he grabbed the fallen who had charged me by the throat. "Raynare!" he screamed. "What is the meaning of this!"
"My lord!" she cried out in desperation. "We must stop the filthy human! He isn't worthy to…"
I tuned out whatever else she was saying as I left the room under the protection of my invisibility spell. Azazel's followers had never been overly fond of me, but none of them had ever outright attacked me. I really needed to finish my sword. The faster it was done, the sooner I could leave this place. And it was looking like sooner was better. If the others thought like she did, how long would it be until I had people creeping into my room in the middle of the night to kill me?
As soon as I was out of the room, I wasted no time. I pressed the small globe into my chest and forced it forward when I felt it snag on something metaphysical.
Gasping, I felt something slot into place with the rest of me and the orb was completely absorbed into my chest.
Oh yes. I heard Ddraig's voice in my mind, a purr in his voice. I had almost forgotten what strength felt like. You and I will do great things together, Xarion.
Looking forward to it. I said back.
"Is it done?"
I turned around to find Vali staring right at me.
Dropping my invisibility, it was useless since Albion could somehow sense me, I nodded and said. "It's done. Ddraig is already talking to me."
"Can you summon Boosted Gear?" Vali said, excited.
Do you think I can summon the gauntlet? I said to the dragon who now lived in my head.
There is only one way to find out.
Closing my eyes, I felt around for the new power within me. At first there was nothing, then there was a faint presence in my left hand. I grasped onto that presence and pulled. A red gauntlet with clawed fingers appeared on my arm, surprising me with how easily I was able to summon it.
"Wow." I breathed as I ran my opposite hand over the Sacred Gear. It was smooth to the touch and I could sense its strength. This thing would easily weather an assault from a sledgehammer.
Well done. Ddraig said in my mind. Now we must focus on unlocking the Balance Breaker and finishing your sword. The sooner we are out from under the crow's thumb, the better.
How did he know it was a sword I was making?
Dumb question; he was in my head now. This was going to take some getting used to.
Letting the gauntlet fade into motes of green energy, I looked back up at Vali. "I guess I can summon the Boosted Gear."
There was no trace of humor in Vali's eyes. He was dead serious as he said, "Xarion, you are my friend, and you have now become my rival. We will push each other to become the strongest beings in existence. And then, we will face each other in a battle the world will never forget. Be ready." He spun on his heel and walked away without further comment.
That was a little intense.
Be that as it may, he is not wrong. He may be your friend, but he will one day be your greatest challenge. Our greatest challenge. I will not allow him to defeat us.
Nor will I.
Good. Then bring us to your forge. We have work to do.
Turning my back on Vali, I headed towards my lab. The sword would be done in a few months. When it was, I would finally be free to pursue my own goals.
Ddraig was right. We had work to do.
A.N
That is the extent of what I have prewritten. I'll put out the next chapter when it is done.