I do not own Chaotic nor anything related to it. It belongs to TCDigital.

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Act V: Warlord

The Return to Al Mipedim

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I open my eyes.

I'm lying on a soft mattress. A warm blanket covers me up to my neck. A pillow raises my head a little.

The floor jolts a little, and for a moment I wonder why. Wooden floor, cloth ceiling... ah, right, a wagon. Most likely one headed for Al Mipedim.

I can feel that I'm not alone. I turn my head to right and see a beautiful red-scaled Mipedian woman lying on the wooden floor beside me. She's wearing a plain white dress, wrinkled and dusty. It doesn't detract from her appearance at all.

The Mipedian smiles when I look at her. "Hello, Michael," she says.

"Isis," I whisper. It hurts to speak any louder. Earlier I was shouting at the top of my lungs, but rage and adrenaline had been dulling the pain back then. "I'm so glad to see you."

"Me too," Isis whispers back, tears welling up in her eyes. "We never got to say goodbye."

"No, we didn't," I mutter. My heart feels heavy.

Isis frowns, and her hands tense up. "I was so scared when we didn't hear from you. Terrified when we heard that the Doors had been opened."

I raise a finger to my lips. "Shh..."

Isis stops talking. There's pain in her expression.

I lower my finger. "Let's not talk about painful things right now. Later, maybe, but now, no."

Isis cracks a smile. "All right, then."

Isis had been pregnant before the world went to hell. "Boy or girl?" I ask.

"Boy," Isis smiles. "Our little Jupiter."

"I can't wait to meet him," I say. "And how's Hera? Mugical master of Al Mipedim yet?"

"No," Isis chuckles. "She is casting mugic now, though."

"Already?" I laugh. "She really is a prodigy. Casting mugic at twelve solans old? Wow!"

Isis's smile falters. "Hera's... not twelve."

I cringe. "Sorry, I completely lost track time. Thirteen?"

Isis slowly shakes her head.

I can feel chills run down my back. "Fourteen?"

"Hera is twenty solans old, Michael," Isis whispers.

Twenty? The word hits me like a ton of bricks. "Th-that's not possible," I stammer.

The pain has returned to Isis's face. "You were in the Deepmines for ten solans, to the very day. Today's your seventieth solan."

Ten solans, five years. That long... I missed all of Hera's lessons, missed Jupiter growing up. I'm never going to hold little baby Jupiter in my arms. I don't even know what he looks like yet, and I'm already mourning the loss of all that time...

"I'm so sorry," Isis says. There are tears streaming from her eyes.

"It's not your fault," I mutter.

Dare I look? Ten solans... What do I look like after that long? I push my hand out from under the blanket and look at it. Really look at it.

I can't believe I hadn't noticed before. My fingers are thin, and my skin is incredibly pale. I take my entire arm out from under the blanket, and I gasp at the sight. I'm skin and bones. I can easily wrap my entire hand around my upper arm.

I push myself into a sitting position with great difficulty, and I push the blanket all the way off my body. The sight of my naked body makes my heart freeze. I'm a living skeleton. I can see the ripples of my ribs, the crest of my sternum. My abdomen is narrow, and my legs are spindly. Patches of my body are covered with a brittle coating of stark white hair.

H-how can Isis look at me without feeling nauseated? How am I going to recover? Do I even want to know what my face looks like?

...Yes, I do. "I need a mirror," I whisper.

Isis looks like she doesn't want me anywhere near a mirror, but she grimaces and reaches behind her anyway. "It's better that I'm here when you see," she mutters as she turns the reflective surface towards me.

...My eyes are sunken, and there are dark circles surrounding them. My cheeks are thin, giving me a face shape almost like a vampire's. The hair on my scalp and chin is long, thin, and white as snow.

I was down there for ten solans. I look like I was down there for a hundred. It's a good thing I wasn't holding the mirror, or I would have dropped it.

Isis lowers the mirror. "I know it's a shock, but you'll recover." Her voice shakes a little as she speaks.

"I hope so," I mutter as I lie back down.

I should be thankful. I've been fed, don't know how they managed that while I was a nutcase, so I'm not starving. I'm not decrepit enough that I can't move. Overall, I'm doing better than I really expected to be.

Isis crawls over and kneels beside me. "I still love you," she whispers, "no matter what you look like."

I feel a smile crawl over my face. "I never doubted you about that," I whisper back, "but it's wonderful to hear you say it. I love you, too."

Isis grins, and she lowers her face towards me. I feel my heart start to pound harder as she approaches. Her eyes close as her lips press against mine, and she takes a hold of my shoulders-

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He takes a hold of my shoulders and presses my back against the ground. Aa'une is above me now, his eyes wild, his mouth in a wicked open-mouthed snarl. The lights have all been extinguished, so the only light comes from Aa'une himself. His skin shines, his eyes and mouth glow slightly more, but the majority of the light comes from his glowing erect penis.

"Apparently you never learn," he growls. "How many more times are you going to try to escape?"

I squirm and kick, but I'm not strong enough. Aa'une pins me down. I beg for him to stop, but he ignores me, and my voice breaks into a scream as Aa'une thrusts his-

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I realize that I'm screaming. Isis has backed away, a look of terror on her face. "Did I hurt you?!" she cries out. "I'm sorry."

I clamp my mouth shut and force myself to stop screaming. I slowly shake my head. "I-I don't want to be touched right now," I stammer.

"Wh-what happened?" Isis asks.

"Don't ask," I whisper as I pull the covers over my head. "Please don't ask."

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Up next: The Daughter and the Son

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Like I said before, Chaotic belongs to TCDigital.

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