Author's Note: As of June 27th, 2016, the entire fanfic has been rewritten. That means this chapter, all that came before it, and all that follow it now contain different content that they did previously. You are strongly encouraged to go back and reread the entire fanfic from the beginning, as the revised continuity may confuse you if you jump in part of the way through.
"…but only after we emerged from the entrance to the temple did we realize that the worst had happened. Fallen trees covered the land, ash clogged up the sky, and as far as we could see only inky blackness awaited on the horizon." Fone paused for a moment to gauge the crowd. He, Thorn, Caydmar, Rankyne, Phoney, Jigafta, and X'lish were all sitting around a small circular table in the mess tent. It was barely big enough to fit all of their standard issue army rations on, but somehow they made it work. Bartleby was lying at Phoney's feet gnawing on the bone of an animal he had killed two days ago, Sybron was sitting with Delwin Curtiss and the other council members they rescued from the palace at a table at the far end of the mess hall, and Alex and Tom Elm, with Roderick perched on his shoulder, sat close by with the other soldiers, pretending not to listen but hanging on Fone's every word.
"What happened then?" Caydmar asked excitedly. He was poised on the edge of his seat waiting to hear the final third of the tale.
"You guys have had enough for today." Fone responded as he took his last bite of food. "Besides, Thorn, Phoney and I have been telling this story long enough. It's high time somebody else get a turn to talk."
"But I wanted to hear the end." Caydmar slumped back into his seat disappointed.
"What if one of us dies tomorrow?" Rankyne asked. "We'll pass on without ever having heard the conclusion to the greatest story ever told. How's that fair?"
"Well there's a simple solution to your predicament." X'lish retorted sarcastically. "Don't die." A slightly detached and depressed look spread across Rankyne's face.
"I doubt there's a possibility of that happening." He muttered depressingly.
"Come on Rankyne, keep a positive attitude. Compared to the last few weeks, I'm betting tomorrow will be a piece of cake." Jigafta interjected, trying to cheer Rankyne up.
"Easy for you to say, you're a professionally trained killing machine. You know how to use a gun. And you don't have to arm high explosives in a cave full of more high explosives." Rankyne shot back caustically.
"Ok, calm down." Phoney urged. "What's the point of telling stories if we immediately build back up whatever tension we relieve? Now does anyone else have any interesting stories to tell?"
"I've got a question actually." Thorn addressed X'lish and Jigafta. "How exactly did you two get exiled from the Republic? From what I've heard, you were national heroes. What happened to get you branded as criminals and thrown out of your own country by your own people?"
"National heroes?" X'lish exclaimed. She immediately burst out laughing intensely, and slapped her knee for effect. She glanced at Jigafta to try to elicit a response, but he just stared at her disapprovingly. Eventually she recovered enough breath to speak again in between chuckles. "Is that what the President told you? Or maybe your new boyfriend said that." Thorn blushed slightly, and Fone began looking at things that didn't let people make eye contact with him.
"X'lish, what did I say about antagonizing people?" Jigafta asked. Laced in his voice was a slight menace that put everyone in the room on edge, but only for a moment. Then it was gone.
"Sorry, boss." She apologized sheepishly. She turned back to Thorn. "The general populace wasn't aware that we existed until or last operation twenty-five years ago. Then we blew up one of the largest buildings in Boneville and slaughtered an entire secluded village. The President couldn't overlook our actions any longer after that. But I suppose I'm getting a little ahead of myself aren't I?" She looked around the table, and the humans seemed genuinely intrigued, so she continued recounting her tale.
"I guess we should start at the beginning then huh?" She leaned back in her chair and pondered for a moment. "My sister Nibet and I were brought up in a cult called the "Order of the Hollow Soul" who were obsessed with ancient artifacts that they claimed held the key to resurrecting some sort of god. To that end, they controlled a private research conglomerate that acted as a cover so the Order could extract the artifacts they were seeking from the ancient pre-diaspora ruins in the wasteland that separates our country from this valley."
"Pre dia-what-now?" Caydmar asked.
"Oh right, I keep forgetting none of you know anything about bone history. Sometime between three and five thousand years ago the bones had great civilizations spanning the deserts. And then some sort of great calamity or political upheaval struck them and they all moved to the lusher green lands to the west. That was called the diaspora. But that's beside the point. The point is that the Order's actions drew the attention of a lot of people, and they made a lot of enemies. So they began training from birth a small army of killers to protect the higher ranking members and eliminate threats to their "master plan". My sister and I were the daughters of the number three in the Order and the best students in our class for assassin training."
"One day, a hit gets put out on the team we would soon become a part of: Jigafta, Faldr, Victor Bone, and Satranik Haenkos. Needless to say, we failed to kill them. Instead, one of our own betrayed us and several of our teammates were heavily injured. After the dust settled, Nibet and I were taken into the government's custody, and eventually we were shone what a sham the Order was. As it turns out, the Order had been growing a lot of drugs and selling those drugs, along with illegal armaments, hideous amounts of contraband, endangered species, captured orphans and runaways, the government secrets of small developing nations, and these so-called artifacts of power on the black market. Oh, and they hired my sister, my friends and I as common thugs for the highest bidder to make extra cash on the side. Needless to say, we didn't take it well, but eventually we agreed to help take down the organization we once belonged to."
"We ran around a lot after that, jumping from city to province hunting leads and taking down isolated operations and proxy criminal organizations. At some point, Faldr proposed to me and I accepted and we got married. Never had any kids though. Eventually we beat the Order back so much that all that was left was the Order's base in Boneville and the small forest town I was trained in. Faldr, Victor and Nibet attacked the town while Jigafta, Satranik and I took out their headquarters. We didn't spare a soul. But after you collapse a skyscraper to its foundations and spend almost an hour rooting though the wreckage blasting people in the face angrily even though Jigafta told you to keep a low profile, the public tends to take notice. Jigafta and I were arrested, not for the first time mind you, but the government couldn't make up an excuse for us this time. You see, only a handful of people in the FIC were ever aware of the extent of our operations, so they cut ties with us and left us to our fate rather than face the horrible ensuing public relations disaster."
"We were tried in criminal court after that. The judge condemned us to death, but we broke out the night after the trial. The two of us then fled to a small island in the Wadral Sea, and Faldr and Nibet joined up with us several days later. From there on we lived out our days mostly on a beach we bought with stolen money drinking margaritas be bought with stolen money laughing about how little killing we had done recently. Good times. You know the rest."
"Wow." Rankyne said as he stared at X'lish stunned by what he just heard. "Your talent for storytelling is simply… breathtaking."
"Hey. Thorn asked, I answered. I don't see the problem."
"Well… Thorn, Fone and Phoney just spent over two hours and a half hours giving us the highlights of five months of their lives, and you just glanced over at least forty years in under ten minutes. Just… not a good follow up is all I'm saying."
"Well at the very least it was informative." Thorn interjected to move the conversation along. She turned to Phoney and Fone. "Though you guys probably knew all of that already, right?" She noticed for the first time that Fone's face had turned sour. He looked from X'lish to Jigafta to Phoney back to X'lish.
"No, this information is new actually." He directed his answer more at X'lish than Thorn. "What day did you say your final operation took place on?"
"I didn't." She answered hesitantly. "But if you want to know, August fifth. Why do you ask?" Fone didn't respond. He turned his gaze instead to Jigafta and Phoney. Jigafta turned to address Phoney as well.
"You didn't tell him, did you?" Jigafta asked.
"I wasn't planning on it." Phoney replied. He rolled his eyes as turned to Fone. "And before you ask any more questions, I suggest we take this outside the tent before things get heated. Understand? I wouldn't want anyone else getting involved in this." Fone and Jigafta nodded, and X'lish consented without really knowing what was happening just to move things forward. The four of them proceeded outside, and as soon as they cleared the tent flaps, Fone began talking again.
"So let me get this straight." Fone stared at Phoney with a cold, furious gaze. "You knew this whole time you were working with two of the people that had a hand in both our parents' deaths? At what point were you going to tell me any of this?"
"I wasn't." Phoney responded. "I didn't want you to know. It would have only hindered the effectiveness of our battle strategy. And besides, that isn't-" Fone cut him off.
"And here I was thinking we might be able to put the past behind us." Fone shook his head. "But it appears that you still think you know what's best for me." Phoney stood still for awhile.
"I'm going to say two things. First: I'm sorry. Over the past two months, I've done a lot of thinking about what you said in the dropship, and I realized I might have been a bit… controlling. But I assure you that I only wanted what was best for you, and I hope in the future we can move past our differences." Fone was rather taken aback by Phoney's sudden confession. "Second: These people didn't kill your parents or my parents."
"Now that I don't believe." Fone shot Jigafta and X'lish a piercing gaze. "They admitted they blew up a skyscraper on August fifth. That's the exact day the Boneville Explorers' Society headquarters mysteriously collapsed. They had to have been involved."
"We may have collapsed the building." Jigafta interjected. "But your parents died before we even arrived." Fone whirled around to face him.
"Don't give me that! Even if you didn't kill them directly, I've seen the coroner's report. I know they died of burns and puncture wounds caused by the collapse of the building!" Fone shouted back, his voice on the edge of breaking down or flipping out.
"That was a cover story. They were actually our agency's informants inside the Order. One day they went dark, and we knew they had been caught. We tried to extract them when we moved in to take down the Order for good, but we arrived too late."
"Wait what?" Fone asked, all of his anger suddenly derailed into confusion. "Are you saying my parents were spies or something?"
"Well, technically they were archeologists and explorers. But when we showed them exactly where all of their funding came from, they were disgusted, and agreed to gather intelligence on the Order to bring against them in court. And to root out what few cells they still had planted across the provinces. When they were discovered, the Order made an example out of them. The Order rounded up Henry's siblings and their spouses, and put them all to death. Unfortunately, the exact circumstances of the deaths remain a mystery to this day, since we lost most of the camera footage when the building came down."
"So my parents died because of your carelessness?"
"Oh would you calm down?" X'lish sighed. "Henry and Janet died trying to serve their country. Be proud of that." She turned to Jigafta and whispered in his ear. "He is Henry and Janet's son, right?" Jigafta gave a small nod. Fone, his anger subsiding, turned to Phoney for confirmation.
"It's true." He nodded. "I found out when I first took office."
"And you weren't going to tell me this?" Fone asked, looking for any remaining details to ignite his anger.
"Based on how you took the news, do you really think I made the wrong decision?"
"Well…" Fone paused. "I suppose, in this instance, no. But next time you find out some information that alters important details of my past, don't hesitate to share." Phoney placed his hand over his heart in a mocking imitation of swearing an oath.
"I swear that next time I learn anything important about your past, I'll tell you right away no matter how bad you take the news. Is this over now?"
"Yes, Phoney, this is over. We can go back to eating our food." Fone rolled his eyes. "But we still need to talk about your attitude."
"I think you mean your attitude." Phoney jeered as the four of them reentered the tent and took their seats again.
"What was all of that about?" Thorn asked Fone as he sat back down.
"Nothing." He replied. "Just a small misunderstanding. Apparently my dad was accidentally employed in a cult before he died. Who knew?"
"That must have made for an interesting childhood." Caydmar remarked.
"Yeah… so I was an orphan."
"That must have been nice." Rankyne muttered not as quietly as he would have liked to.
"Oh don't say that." Caydmar admonished his brother. "Mom and dad did the best they could to raise us, given the circumstances."
"Yeah, well their best ended up being getting killed in front of us and watching as we were dragged off into a war we wanted no part in, respectively. Not exactly what I'd call a stellar upbringing."
"Sounds like you've got an intriguing story to tell." Phoney said, probing to try to get Rankyne to come out of his shell.
"Yeah, well Caydmar can tell it then. I'm headed off to bed." Rankyne got up from the table and walked out of the tent.
"He's been rather distant lately." Jigafta remarked quizzically.
"Yeah, well I think this whole ordeal is beginning to remind him of our life during the war five years ago. Hell, even I still sometimes have nightmares about it all." Caydmar said in defense.
"Since we're all sharing stories, why don't you tell us what happened to you two that made Rankyne so upset?" Thorn asked.
"It isn't exactly the most heartwarming of stories."
"My parents were killed by my great aunt when I was five." Thorn coerced.
"My parents tried to cut my ears when I was a baby." Bartleby chimed in.
"My sister and my husband killed my father." X'lish remarked. "Though, technically I wanted to be the one to do it, so it probably doesn't count as something traumatic." Everyone around the table stared at her for a few seconds. She shrugged.
"Anyway…" Thorn started back up. "Everyone here has had their share of personal and familial challenges. Except maybe Jigafta, I still haven't got him figured out yet." She looked at the man in question. He continued to exude the feeling that he wasn't all there.
"And you never will." He responded without looking at her, instead staring quite discreetly at Fone.
"Whatever. The point is, whatever happened to you in your past, you can tell us. We'll understand."
"Very well then." Caydmar rubbed his hands together and prepared to unleash his story. "We weren't always royalty. Our father was the brother of the second in command of the Pawan army, but that wasn't much of a title since his parents disowned him and sent him to live a life as a common farmer on one of the fringe towns along the Atheian-Pawan border. We lived an okay life, I guess. Dad wasn't much good on a farm, so a lot of the villagers pitched in to help when they could until we were old enough to do the work ourselves. He wasn't the best parent either. He was indecisive at times, and a little hard on us, but he tried his best. Nothing particularly bad happened to us, as far as I can remember. We worked on the farm, chased girls, hung around town, the usual."
"Then one day, we were both nineteen at the time, soldiers stormed into the village. We had heard rumors that the chief had allied himself with a hooded figure in control of a large army of hairy men, but we didn't think much of the far-off politics of the central kingdom until that day. Apparently the leader of our village had refused to impose a draft on us, and his rebellious sentiment drew the wrath of the Hooded One's forces."
"They overran the town in minutes, crippling anyone that got in their way. They broke into our home and tried to drag us away so they could impress us into service. We were scared shitless because we had never been in any real danger before, so my brother and I both froze on the spot. But our mom refused to consign us to the army. They killed her when she resisted. Everything was sort of a blur after that. They took us and our father, who they captured while he was working in the fields, to his brother's camp where we were to be processed. Our uncle sneered at our father, called him a coward, and had his men beat him regularly. We were left relatively untouched though. Eventually, after months of training, we were considered ready to be a part of the great push back against our "natural enemy". Our father was a part of the strike force that attacked Atheia, while Rankyne and I were both assigned to the regiment that was to reinforce the assault on Old Man's Cave."
"It was a slaughter at Old Man's Cave when we arrived, and then things only got worse. That… massacre could hardly be called a battle at all. People died in droves on both sides, and that was before the mountain exploded and sent the whole battlefield tumbling even further into chaos. We barely managed to make it out alive. And when we did, we were two of maybe a dozen Pawans to do so. All of us were taken prisoner by the Venu monks. We sat in a prison cell for weeks, it seemed like. The conditions were horrible, and it seemed like we weren't going to make it, until one day Sybron Brook himself released us and told us that the war was over. And that we had lost. Not that we were particularly sad about the outcome though. Apparently our father had also survived. He hid himself in a cave until he surrendered to a passing group of Atheian soldiers. With the Chieftain slain by the Hooded One and our uncle dead at Sinner's Rock, the Atheian Council elected to put our father in power, officially making our family royalty."
"Not that it improved out family's situation much. Our mother was still dead, as the dead tend to be, our father didn't talk to us, and Rankyne had begun distancing himself from me, becoming standoffish and removed most of the time. And to make matters worse, our father wasn't even that good of a leader. In fact the people pretty much despised him. He was mostly a shut in who left all of his work to his advisors and his council, and when he did make public appearances, he stumbled over himself and generally made a mess out of everything. He struggled to cope with what a massive failure he had been for us and for our mom, I guess. But we'll never know the answer, because a little over a year and a half ago he swallowed a vial of poison and died, leaving us in charge of a crumbling country."
"I didn't know what to do, but Rankyne didn't want to repeat our father's mistakes. So he set to work rebuilding the kingdom. Unfortunately, the responsibility weighed heavy on him. He became erratic, moody, arrogant, and violent even. We'd both had nightmares ever since we got out of that prison, but I think Rankyne took everything particularly hard after our dad died because his seemed to get more vivid and more frequent. I wasn't ever able to get a coherent response about it out of him though, so I stopped trying."
"Well I think you should try again." Phoney suggested.
"Yeah Jigafta said the same thing. But I'm at a loss at where to start."
"You're his brother. You don't have to start anywhere in particular. Just ask him what's wrong, and if he doesn't tell you, call his bluff and keep pressing the issue. At least do something. Make some sort of effort. Because come tomorrow night, the enemy won't care what grieves your brother, they'll kill him all the same. And he won't be able to put up any sort of fight with baggage like that. You need to get through to him, for his sake."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. I suppose trying again can't hurt. Thanks for the pep talk."
"Well its getting really late, and I'm really tired, and I've got to go find and convince an army of smelly rat-men to join us tomorrow, so I think I'm going to turn in now." X'lish said as she stood up from her seat. "See you guys in the morning." She walked out of her tent.
"Same here. I'm bushed." Thorn said. "Come on Fone, let's hit the sack." She walked out of the tent yawning.
"Sure thing." Fone got up to leave as well. Eventually everyone began filing out of the tent alone or in small groups until only Jigafta, Phoney, and Caydmar remained.
"Find your brother." Jigafta said out of the blue.
"Fine. No point in putting it off any longer." Caydmar too got up and left the tent. Then it was just Phoney and Jigafta. As Jigafta got up to leave, Phoney stopped him.
"I need you to level with me." He said.
"I beg your pardon?" Jigafta replied.
"You may have everyone else fooled, but I know you're hiding something. Something big. Something that could affect the whole group, maybe even the outcome of this war. I need to know what it is."
"I can't tell you." Jigafta replied, eyes downcast.
"Why not?"
"I've made a lot of mistakes in my time on this earth, but keeping my past and your cousin's past a secret do not number among them. And they still don't."
"My cousin's past? What do you mean? What does this have to do with Fone?"
"I can't say much more yet. Too much information could destabilize the whole situation. I'll tell you everything when events necessitate it."
"You're not making a whole lot of sense. How could too much information destabilize the situation? And why do I get the feeling that you aren't talking about our fight with Glaian?"
"Glaian? He's small time. A mere preface for what is to come. I'm not concerned with him. He'll fall tomorrow like so many other upstarts who read a name and thought they could emulate the power that came with it without understanding the price that needs to be paid. But what does concerns me is the forces he has tried to put in motion."
"The Crystal Councilman."
"Bingo."
"Wait… Does that mean you've run into the councilman before?"
"Damn it. I said too much again. Listen, try to forget everything I just told you. You'll sleep better. I'll make everything clearer when Glaian is dead and a definite outcome has been achieved. Until then, just wait a little longer. Too much knowledge can be just as damaging as not enough." Jigafta began to leave the tent again.
"I've got one final question." Phoney stared at the back of Jigafta's head. He didn't respond, but Phoney asked anyway. "I've got a pretty good idea of who you are. Possibly. But I've got a hunch that you aren't the only one of your kind. How many of you are there?"
"There were many of us once. Now, hopefully, there are only a handful, and even that estimate is optimistic."
"And would my cousin number among them?" Jigafta was silent for a while. Then he spoke, ignoring the query entirely.
"Get some sleep, President Phoncible P. Bone. You're going to need it." Jigafta left the tent after that. Phoney stood there, alone in a dark room, thinking on all he had just learned. And after a while, he decided to take Jigafta's response to his question as a yes.
"Hey Rankyne." Caydmar said as he entered their tent. "Can I talk to you for a second?" Only after Caydmar fully entered the tent did he realize that he was talking to an empty room. "Damn." He muttered to himself as he ducked back out of his tent. Right as he emerged, he spotted Jigafta leaving the mess hall. Caydmar ran up to him and asked
"Hey, do you know where Rankyne went? He isn't in our tent."
"He isn't? I can't say I know where he is. But if I had to wager, I'd say he's on the roof, clearing his head or something. It's where I'd be anyway."
"Thanks." Caydmar ran off in the direction of the roof entrance. As he approached the entrance, he heard muffled shouting and a metallic object being repeatedly hit against stone. Caydmar slowed down, and walked up the stairs as quietly as possible. As he reached the top, he saw his brother sitting on the ground staring at a singular can placed on the ledge that earlier had served as their firing range. In front of him, his sidearm lay discarded on the ground.
"Having trouble?" Caydmar asked as he approached his brother. Rankyne looked back up at him with confusion in his eyes.
"You say guns are easy to understand. Jigafta says I don't have to understand. I think you're both wrong. I can't understand it, but I have to. Does that make any sense?" He cast his eyes back down and started to stare at the weapon in front of him.
"No, frankly, it doesn't." Caydmar said as he sat down next to his brother. "I think you feel like you need to understand it, but you keep telling yourself you can't, in order to keep yourself from using it."
"But why? I'm not afraid of it, I have no reason not to want to use it, so why can't I bring myself to?"
"Maybe we should approach the problem from a different angle. I don't think you don't want to understand the gun. I think you don't want to accept help from the bones."
"And what makes you say that?"
"Well, you don't want to end up like father. You believed he was a coward-"
"I'm not our father and he was a coward." Rankyne interrupted.
"I didn't say you were and I'm not saying he wasn't, just let me finish. You don't want to be a coward, so that means not backing down from a fight, not shying away from a challenge. That's why you want to master this so badly, and why you want to be of use in the attack tomorrow."
"I figured it out that far. Do you have anything else to add, oh wise one?" Rankyne asked sarcastically.
"Possibly. I think that same drive to not be dad also drives you not to trust people. You believe he was weak. And you don't want to be weak, which you see as taking charge and never accepting help from anyone. Which is why you don't want to master the gun and you don't want to go ahead with the attack tomorrow, because both were ideas suggested by the bones, people you don't want to trust, but also want to help. Does that make any sense?"
"Maybe. I don't know. Ever since dad died, I haven't really understood what's been going on. I'm just so afraid that I'll end up like him." Rankyne clenched his fist. "He was a colossal failure, and I feel like I'm destined to repeat his mistakes, but I can't see an out."
"You are repeating his mistakes." Caydmar said, all of the pieces finally clicking into place.
"What!" Rankyne shouted, jumping up and pulling back his arm to strike Caydmar. "Say that again, I dare you!" Caydmar just sat in his spot on the ground and looked up at his brother.
"Well you certainly aren't a coward."
"Are you calling me weak then? Huh? Out with it, let me hear you say it again!"
"Dad wasn't weak. There is no weakness in accepting help from others. Without the kindness of the villagers, do you think he would have been able to scrape out a living for us in our first few years in this world? I don't think so. I'd call that strength, if anything. You're like dad because, like him, you don't understand what it is that you need to be doing. I don't think he ever got over being disowned by his family, and because of that he was always distant, just a bit. Like he didn't know his place in the world anymore, like he was just going through the motions. You seem to have forgotten all of that however. You were so focused on being the ruler our father wasn't you became the person he was on a very crucial level. And to hide that form yourself, you created a false dichotomy in your mind that relied on false characteristics of your idea of who father was so that trying not to be dad could be blamed for that change in your personality." Rankyne dropped his raised fist.
"And that means?"
"You can't reconcile your ideas about who you are and who dad was so you created a situation where that could be acceptable. You lied to yourself." Caydmar stood up next to Rankyne and placed his hand on his brother's shoulder.
"If you really want to prove that you aren't father, then you have to try to understand people again. You have to try to understand yourself again. Stop antagonizing, stop cajoling, and stop putting up a front. From now on, you have to be completely honest with yourself and everyone else, or at least as honest as you can be."
"Well, if I'm going to start being honest," Rankyne said as he walked over to where the handgun rested on the ground and picked it up. "I'm really angry right now. Not at you, or Phoney, or Jigafta, or anyone here. I'm angry at Glaian. We spent years of our lives trying to bring order to the Pawan kingdom, and he brought that all crashing down in a day, taking thousands of our subjects captive and killing who knows how many more." He held the gun in his hand. "And if these bones can give me the power to tear his empire to shreds in kind, I don't really care about anything else." Slowly he leveled it, aimed it at the can, closed his eyes, opened them again, and pulled the trigger. The can popped off of the ledge.
"Satisfying, isn't it?" Caydmar asked. His brother nodded in agreement. "Though, when we're on the battlefield, taking your time and closing your eyes to focus won't be luxuries you'll be afforded."
"Yeah, I know. I'm going to have to keep practicing, which sucks. But at least I'll be going into battle tomorrow with a clear goal in mind. That has to count for something, right?"
"It'll count for less if you get yourself killed, but yeah, I get what you mean. Come on, let's go to bed. We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow." The two brothers walked back down the stairs and back to their tent. Sulking in one of the many shadows along their path, Jigafta afforded himself a tiny smile as he watched the composed, tranquil expression on Rankyne's face that had supplanted his previously conflicted emotions.
"This might turn out okay after all." He muttered to himself.
Glaian looked out at the city he had conquered from the veranda at the top of the temple tower. Everywhere he looked he saw order, stability, and zeal. His army came into these backwards lands and made them right. But his message had not spread beyond the walls he saw before him. Daunting and resilient things, they symbolized just how much his actions had trapped him. He could not crush all of the humans in one swift blow, and now he and his soldiers would serve as an object to focus all of the human's rage on. Instead of breaking them, he made them stronger. Stronger than he had intended.
Hope had begun to seep back into the camp outside his walls. Dangerous amounts of it. And that unbridled hope could prove to be his undoing. But it mattered little to him. These concerns were but small musings compared to his goals. He would crush the humans. He had decided to do so, and his decisions were law. If he thought he would champion over them, he would. There was simply no other alternative. And tomorrow, after the ceremony, when his forces went out and captured Phoncible and his cousin and made them watch as he executed each and every one of their precious humans, he would show them how small their hope was. He would make this whole valley an altar upon which his hatred and vengeance would flow forth to bring to life humanity's greatest enemy: The Crystal Councilman.
He had heard whispers of the Councilman since he was a child growing up in his father's cult. He heard the name mentioned in passing again when he was approached by the same benefactor that funded the Order of the Hollow Soul, but he failed to recognize the connection. Even after he and Archibald found the Councilman's prison several years ago, he still couldn't fully believe that his father's last words had meant everything they did. Only now, in this valley, with all of the evidence at his fingertips, did he know that freeing the Councilman was all along the goal he and Archibald had been working toward. And when he brought the Councilman back to life, he would unleash this power on all of the humans of the world. This scourge on his people would burn, and the Bones would take their rightful place in the world.
He opened the door behind him and descended back into the main chamber of the temple. Awaiting him were his soon-to-be-ordained generals: Izaroth, Glaian's fourth in command, was a natural born leader. Only age 25, and already he excelled more than any other soldier in the field. Additionally his tactical prowess had given them swift victory in the East. Glaian decided to give this prodigy his own army to lead against Admiral Satranik's forces. The other two, twin brother and sister, were great athletes and public figures, recruited by Glaian's benefactor shortly before the conquest of the Republic. They had personally spearheaded the assault that took down the government's Southern forces, and inspired great pride among Glaian's soldiers. Additionally, they had some past relation to the Order of the Hollow Soul, making Glaian's message easier for them to swallow. They were less important than Izaroth, as they were less tactically versed, but putting them on the front was good for both public goodwill and troop morale.
Izaroth was the first to speak when the three of them noticed Glaian had come to address them. The twins hung back, the woman whispering things into her taller brother's ear. She was very slender, while her brother bore more muscle than Glaian had ever seen before on a Bone.
"Lord Glaian, to what do we owe the pleasure? Shouldn't you be asleep, resting yourself in preparation for the ceremony tomorrow?" Izaroth asked. It was questions such as this that made Glaian happy he choose Izaroth to lead the domestic forces, and to succeed him if anything were to happen. He had an intuition and a bravery in the face of authority the others lacked. Glaian would need that if he was to bend the world to his will.
"Vengeance never sleeps, Izaroth. These humans must pay for everything they have done to our people, our culture and our way of life. I cannot sleep while I anticipate their destruction. I find that the feeling consumes me too wholly. Fret not, for I have the reserves necessary to see us through the tasks at hand."
"I'm sure Izaroth did not mean to imply that you had transgressed in some way, great one. He must have simply been so overwhelmed by your Lordship's stamina that he forgot himself." The sister of the twins spoke with a slight smirk.
"He does not need to apologize, Nemyunoi, and you do not need to apologize for him. He has spoken his honest opinion, and I respect that." He took a step closer to Nemyunoi and she backed away slightly, fearing some sort of violent reaction. "What I do not respect is you trying to take advantage of what you perceived as a mistake to try to further some sort of hidden agenda through false pretenses. I will not tolerate a power struggle between you two." He looked at both of them sternly. "Izaroth is in charge. This is the last I will hear of it." He backed off, and Nemyunoi breathed a sigh of relief. He had seen right through her, but at least she was still alive. Her brother Wunkhani just stayed silent.
Just then, Nibet stepped through the doors at the far side of the room. With her walked in a tall bone wearing a cloak. Glaian had seen his face before, but he couldn't place where.
"Ah, Nibet. Good to see you again. How did the search for the traitor go?"
"It didn't, Lord Glaian, I apologize. We could find no fault in our security or cause to suspect any member of the army. The conclusion the investigation team reached was that the intruder was here before we occupied the city, not after."
"That does complicate things." Glaian mulled this over for a moment. He looked at his generals, and motioned them to leave him be. They obliged, and Nemyunoi gave Nibet an odd look as she left the room. When Glaian spoke again, the only other two people in the room were Nibet and the new stranger, who had both moved closer to him. "I can only assume that the intruder was either Phoncible or his cousin Fone, since no other living bone was aware of the Valley prior to our invasion. If that is the case, there is no more cause for concern. The break out was circumstantial, and poses no threat to our safety."
"That kind of hubris will be your undoing." Spoke the cloaked bone.
"Who dares speak to me in such a manner?" Glaian asked. These rebellious types intrigued him the most. Out of every flavor of emotion he had consumed over the years, their audacity was the most potent, the most pleasing.
"I have no name, but I speak on with the authority of the Great Lord." The bone removed his hood. Spreading along the left side of his face grew a solid blue crystalline structure. In encompassed his left eye, most of his left forehead and the space in between, touched the left corner of his mouth, and ran down the backside of his neck to his shoulder where it spread like wildfire across the rest of the left side of his upper body. Glaian was very amused. The bone continued to speak.
"He sent me to ensure your safety, and that means from everyone including yourself. You are too arrogant for your own good. It will be your undoing if you do not heed my words."
"I'll take them under advisement. Did you have anything else to say?"
"Yes. I was to show you a gift my master has brought you. The final weapon that shall deliver you victory. It awaits outside." The three of them walked outside. Parked in the street was a giant white mech suit, taller than any other he had seen and teeming with weapons more imposing. "I am to be its pilot. I can assure you that my skills aren't lacking."
"This pleases me." Glaian said as he walked around the circumference of the white metallic giant. "This will serve me well, as will you. Tell me your name."
"As I said, I have no name. But if you must designate me, my master has called me Grimace on several occasions. You may refer to me as such."
"Ah. Grimace. Now I know where I've seen your face before. Ironic, considering. This will serve my plans well. Very well indeed." Glaian looked out into the mountains and laughed. The stars overhead twinkled especially bright. He could almost have said, in his joy, that they existed only for him. He felt invincible. "Come with your forces Phoncible!" He shouted in jubilation at his enemy. "Come to destroy me for your stupendously misguided revenge! Come to alleviate your crushing despair! I will revel in your resistance! I will meet your challenge head on!" He composed himself once again, and turned around to walk back to his war room. "And I will show you the true meaning of the word despair."