Chaotic Worlds: Book 1

Chapter 5: Answers

Disclaimer: The only thing original here is the plot and my characters. Nothing else belongs to me.

Universe 1566: Mithril HQ

Brian Fanell stood patiently in the main lobby of Mithril HQ, his hands in his pockets. He was waiting for the arrival of eight people. He looked at his watch. The warp portal was due to materialize in about five minutes. His stomach suddenly rumbled weakly, and he realized that he hadn't had lunch yet. All around him, people dressed just like him were heading off in different directions. Some of them paused to wave a greeting at their commander's second son. He waved in return while strolling over to a nearby vending machine for a snack. As he slotted in the last coin, a pleasant, female automatic voice chimed over the loudspeakers. "Warp portal manifesting in ten seconds. Please move away from the warp area."

Brian retrieved his chocolate bar from the vending machine and stood beside it eating his bar as a warp portal suddenly manifested over the huge Mithril logo in the middle of the lobby. Still chewing his chocolate, he watched as a chorus of petrified yells echoed from within the portal. As he looked on, six teenagers fell out from the portal one after another onto the marble floor, ending up in a painful mass of tangled limbs. He finished up his snack and stuffed the crumpled wrapper in his pocket while walking towards the six teenagers. Moments later, his elder brother Van and Isaac Matthews dropped down from the portal, landing easily beside the groaning teenagers who were now beginning to pick themselves up.

"I wish we could do that," Ken remarked of Van's and Isaac's smooth and painless landing. He was about to say something else when he saw a young man about the same age as Isaac and the tall stranger they had met previously walking briskly towards their small group. He resembled the tall stranger, so Ken surmised that the two were probably related. What he didn't expect was the words that came from this new addition.

"You'll get the hang of it sooner or later, little brother."

"Say what?"

The new stranger looked accusingly at the two other Mithril agents, who just shrugged sheepishly.

"Sorry, bro. I guess I forgot," the tall stranger apologized. Isaac nodded in agreement, happy to put the blame on Van.

The new stranger went to Ken and stuck a helping hand out at him. He gratefully accepted it and pulled himself up. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it, Ken."

"You know my name?"

"Of course I know your name. Why wouldn't I know my younger brother's name? Look, I know it's a bit confusing right now, so why don't you and your friends come with us? We'll bring you to see Dad, he's waiting in his office with Mom."

Ken's eyes suddenly widened in realization. "No way…Dad told me and Lisa and Sam and Ally you two were…" he stuttered incoherently. In his shock, he almost fell on his butt again when the tall stranger caught him by the arm. This time his face did not have the cold, detached expression that it had when they had just met. It was now replaced by the same warm friendly face that the other stranger was wearing. Ken shook his head hard, as if trying to clear the confusion in his head. His friends meanwhile were just sitting there observing the whole conversation bewilderedly.

"Are you Van or Brian?" he asked the stranger supporting him while getting back up on his feet.

"I'm Van," answered the tall stranger. Pointing to the new stranger he remarked, "And that's Brian."

"Wait, wait, what about the rest? Lisa, Sam and Ally?"

"They're fine too Ken. Like Brian said, Dad has all the answers you and your friends need. C'mon, we'll tell you everything over lunch."

His hand on Ken's shoulder, Van Fanell led his younger brother down the hallway to their father's office while the others followed silently behind them.

Ken walked quietly with his friends as they followed Van and Brian who were walking in front of them down the corridor. Both were deep in conversation with Isaac. Ken tried to focus all five of his senses, heightened as a result of the awakening of his lightning powers, in order to be able to eavesdrop on their conversation. He failed. His friends, on the other hand, were still staring him, each with a million different questions. Ken noticed this, but chose to ignore it. He himself had a million questions of his own.

"Are you guys gonna tell me what's on your minds or are you all just gonna keep quiet?" he abruptly burst out. Taken aback, the other five teenagers hesitated. Jake was the first to ask.

"Why did Brian call you 'little brother'?"

"It's a long story."

"We've got time. It's a long corridor."

"A few years back, when I was 15, my parents told me, Lisa and Sam about Van and Brian, our two brothers. My youngest sister Ally was only five at the time, so they didn't tell her about them. Ok so far?"

"Yeah."

"Before that, the four of us thought that I was the eldest child, followed by Lisa, then Sam and finally Ally. But Van and Brian were born before me. Van was three years older than me and Brian a year younger than him. The unfortunate thing was that both were miscarried babies. I've always beieved it to be the truth, but now, I don't know what to believe anymore. If they are really who they say they are, then they weren't miscarried babies and my parents lied to me and my siblings for some reason. Man, I really don't know what's going on anymore. If any of you told me yesterday that I would get lightning powers today I would've thought you were off your rocker. Now that it's happened, though, I just…I don't know, guys. I don't know what to believe, and I really don't know what to do."

"So what do you feel about the Van and Brian that we're following right now?"

"It's weird, but somehow they both feel very familiar to me even though I've never seen them before. It's like they're very old friends who I haven't seen in a long time. I trust them, guys. I don't know why, but I trust them."

Universe 1566: Mithril HQ (Commander's Office)

Commander Karl Fanell, overall chief of the peacekeeping taskforce Mithril, sat at his desk while taking a sip of his coffee. His computer screen displayed numerous reports from his various divisions regarding the renewed presence of the Chaos Legion. Nearby, his wife Jessica, the head of Mithril's medical division, sat on a black leather couch reviewing her own reports from her division when they both heard a knock on the door.

"Who is it?"

"Captain Van Fanell, and Lieutenants Brian Fanell and Isaac Matthews, sir, bringing the Seven Seals to see you," answered Van's voice from outside the door. Karl pushed a button under his desk, unlocking the heavy-security door to his office for the group outside to enter. His wife, meanwhile, began to tidy up her area, keeping all her documents in a metal briefcase lying at her feet while getting ready to greet the Seals.

Outside, the group heard the distinct sound of a heavy, secure door bolt unlocking, then the whooshing of a small gust of air as the door swung open slightly. Van glanced questioningly at Ken, who took a dep breath, then nodded. Smiling, Van then pushed open the hug metal door and led his group into a huge, beautifully-decorated room. The room, because the teenagers could not think of it as an office, was bathed in soft light by exquisite chandeliers. A huge, intricately-designed carpet was spread out over the carpeted floor. Rows of bookshelves, all fully stacked, stood at the left side of the room. Nearby were three comfy leather armchairs. There were more things in the room for the teenagers to gape at, such as the vintage collection of medieval and Japanese swords hanging on the wall. Ken, however, had eyes only for the man sitting behind the desk in front of him and the woman standing beside the man, tears in her eyes. They were his parents.

As he stood there dumbstruck, his friends and brothers watching, Karl and Jessica Fanell rushed to their son and hugged him tightly. They didn't have to wait long before Ken hugged them back, tears streaming down his own face.

After that tearful reunion, Karl led the rest to the building's cafeteria where he promised to tell the six teenagers all that he knew about the prophecy of the Seven Seals over lunch. They were soon joined by Ken's younger siblings who were thrilled at being reunited with their older brother. As the group settled down to eat, Karl Fanell began his story.

"All right, who's going to start the questions first?" he asked, looking around at the six teenagers.

"What's Mithril, Uncle Karl?" asked Jake curiously.

"Mithril was founded by my father, Ken's grandfather as a kind of inter-dimensional peacekeeping task force. We're basically something like an inter-dimensional police force, one that is however totally neutral in stance. I took over when I was about Van's age and I've been in charge ever since then. What do I mean by inter-dimensional? The answer to that lies in the fact that there are many parallel worlds. I assume you're all familiar with the concept?"

On seeing the nods of assent, he continued. "Our main enemies are basically the Chaos Legion who, being typical anagonists, want to take over the world. And the universe. And the alternate universes that we monitor in addition to this one. They aim to achieve this basically by creating chaos. Remove all sense of order and the people will eventually turn on themselves, giving them less work to do. When the dust has settled and there's no one left to oppose them, they plan to come out of the shadows and take over easily. Whatever opposition is left should be easily taken swept away by them.

"But Mithril can stand up to them, right Uncle Karl?" asked Kyle.

"It's not that simple. Think about it. On this world alone there are six billion people. If every single one of them went insane and turned on each other as a result of the chaos brought about by the Legion, all the police and military forces of the countries could not control the chaos, even if we were there to help. Furthermore, the powers of the Legion agents, such as those Warlords you met, are strengthened by the life-force of people."

"Life-force?"

"The living energy inside humans, son. All humans have life-force as long as they are alive. The amount that they have, though, differs from person to person. It's dependent on the health and personality of every individual. The Legion consumes the life-force of any person who dies in a situation of chaos, meaning that the person did not die a peaceful death. The energy of that person's life-force is corrupted and makes its way to the Legion who then use it to make themselves stronger.

"So where do we come in, Mr Fanell?" Cassie asked.

"Call me Uncle Karl. The six of you and Isaac here have been prophesied to be the Seven Seals, the seven most powerful mortals of your time. You are the ones who have the power to restore balance to all the universes. See, Mithril's job is not to be the universal police force. Our job is simply to maintain the balance between good and evil, light and dark, chaos and order. Too much chaos is obviously bad, but too much order can be bad too because you can end up with something where freedom and rights of people are trampled on.just so that the world is a peaceful one. Where possible though, we try to tip the scales slightly more towards the "good" side. It's very complicated; sometimes I have problems myself deciding what's good and what's not."

Van picked up from where his father left off. "Even though Mithril is a relatively young organistion, we've progressed a lot since Grandfather's time. Mithril has bases in many parallel universes; all staffed with capable agents who maintain cover identities. Also, in each universe, outposts are located on various planets, so we have quite a number of alien life-forms working for us. Our agents are classified according to normal human/alien agents and superpowered ones; that is to say that they have powers of some sort. However, none of them can stand up to any of you, even as you guys are right now. If you trained hard, you'd completely surpass them.

"We don't have a choice in the matter, do we?"

"Actually, you do," answered Brian. "We're not assholes; we won't force you to join if you don't want to. But because of your powers, the Legion will definitely be after you whether you like it or not and they have no qualms about going through anybody just to get to you."

"Speaking for myself, I don't regret joining up," Isaac added. "Mithril prepared me for the threat of the Chaos Legion and equipped me with the skills and knowledge with which I could deal with the Legion. And we really are doing some good here. Besides, the pay's great."

"I will give you all a few days to think about it," Karl said. "No pressure involved, no more sales pitches. You have the freedom to decide. We will respect your wishes once you have made your decision. However, I advise you to think hard about what has just happened. Only yesterday, the Legion sent 50 cursed zombies after the six of you. This morning, they sent three times that number and also three Warlords. The Chaos Legion is out for you for two reasons. One, you are a threat to them, especially now that all of you have awakened your powers. Two, your powers will strengthen them exponentially once they kill you and absorb your life-forces and make no mistake, they WILL try to kill you."

"Oh yeah, no pressure there," muttered Ken darkly.

"No pressure at all, Ken," answered his father cheerfully. "Now, what say we finish our lunch?"

A/N: Finally it's done. I can't believe how long this took. Exams are coming up and I haven't had time.