Twilight Hero Chapter 2

The chanting kept going for half a minute before I worked up the nerve to call out, "Please stop!"

My call was barely loud enough for me to hear it over the chanting, and I was prepared to shout louder to be heard, only to be surprised as they all immediately stopped.

"Um... Please get up?" I tried.

Immediately they all rose to their feet, staring at me with rapt attention. I shuddered.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

As I asked, the man who I happened to be looking at cleared his throat and answered, "We venerate you, our Lord Ozymondias, in thanks for saving our lives."

I blinked at the sound of complete adoration in his voice. Adoration directed at... Me. It's something I've never experienced before and I'm not sure if I like it very much. Also...

"Saved your lives? What are you talking about?" I asked, confused.

"We are the newly converted, subjects of the Lord of Twilight, saved from our inevitable deaths," the man answered to which the crowd nodded murmuring in agreement.

I blinked in shock. "You... You were all dying?" I asked, incredulous. What, did I end up crashing into a colony of the terminally ill?

"Everyone is dying, my lord," the man answered solemnly before smiling, "but through you, we can be saved. We no longer need fear death. For you have saved us. Thank you!"

"Praise Lord Ozymondias!" someone in the crowd called out, and others quickly took up the chant and I grimaced. "Please! Stop!"

The crowd quieted down instantly, creeping me out just a little. This isn't going to get anywhere at this rate... Sighing, I pointed at the man. "You. What's your name?"

"Bill. Bill Wallace, My Lord." he answered.

Bill... Wallace? Despite myself a grin stole across my face for a moment. "Is that short for William?"

For the first time the look on the man's face switched from adoration to a slight grimace. "Ah... Yes, My Lord. Though I prefer to go by Bill."

I nodded, relaxing slightly. "Fair enough. Could you come over here, Bill? And the rest of you... Uh... Just... Want to have a private conversation, here..."

The crowd thankfully took the hint and began to disperse, some moving off a ways to converse among themselves while others headed away towards their homes.

Bill, meanwhile, stepped forward then stopped once he was about a meter away.

"What can I do for you, My Lord?" Bill asked.

I grimaced again. "Well, for starters, can you stop that? Just... Talk to me like a normal person?"

"Sure, I can do that," Bill replied, smiling easily at me.

I nodded gratefully, then paused to gather my thoughts and asked, "Ok, putting this in the simplest terms possible, minus all the adulation and stuff, what exactly are you talking about when you say that you were dying?"

Bill's face grew solemn and he answered, "Exactly what I said, My Lord. Everyone's dying. It's part of being human, sad to say. Whether it's from a car accident tomorrow, or old age several decades down the line. From disease, to war, to famine... Except us. You chose us. Rescued us."

"How?" I asked, flummoxed. "How did I save you? Cause from my perspective, it seemed like I accidentally unleashed a zombie apocalypse and you started attacking everyone before I ended up dragging you all here where you've turned into... This."

Bill nodded, smiling. "That's one way to look at it, I suppose. From my perspective, I was a human bound to die, then I was chosen for conversion to become one of the Twili, and now I am one. Free from death and living in the Twilight Realm. Your Realm, My Lord."

"I... See..." I said slowly, digesting what he said. "I have a lot of questions, since you seem to have the answers, but first... Can you stop calling me that?"

"What would you like me to call you?" Bill asked.

I opened my mouth, then paused, and slowly shut it, then opened it again, only to close it once more. I wanted to tell him to call me by my name, but... "What... What is my name?" I murmured aloud to myself.

"You are Lord Ozymondias, Master of Twilight," Bill responded promptly.

I hummed to myself, frowning in confusion. "Is it...?"

Ozymondias. That... I don't know what my name is. I can remember everything about my life, but my name escapes me. I guess... I guess Ozymondias is as good a name as any, I decided.

"Call me Oz," I stated.

"As you say, Lord Oz," Bill replied, a small grin on his face. And he started chuckling at the deadpan look on my face.

"Sorry Oz, I couldn't resist. You did ask me to talk to you like a normal person," Bill replied once his chuckles finished dying down.

I rolled my eyes. "Well, at least that's better than the weird adoration you all were throwing at me earlier... You said I saved you, but I didn't go into that with the intention of saving anyone. I had no idea what I was doing, and I have a lot of questions with no answers."

Bill sobered up and nodded seriously. "I'm willing to answer anything I can, Oz. But you should know, intentional or not, all of us folk from Mooresville who made it are forever grateful to you anyway. I don't know if I could ever do justice to how it feels to not be dying anymore. Closest I can think of is like bein' constantly in pain your whole life so you just don't know any different till it's gone. It's kinda like that, but a whole lot... More, yanno?"

I nodded thoughtfully. "I think I get it. So basically I accidentally turned the lot of you into zombies, then you got pulled here, and now you're... Like this now, and being like this means you can't die?"

Bill nodded, then paused, "Well, sorta? I mean, we can't die here, but all of us want to help however we can, you know? Which means going to the Overworld and helping convert more folk, and while we can't die here, we can over there. But if it would mean even just one more person saved, it'd be worth it. Plus all the people who die before conversion finished are still here too, but as shades. They just need bodies, yanno?"

I was going to ask what he meant by that, but considering he ended his explanation by waggling his eyebrows suggestively, I could take a pretty good guess.

"I see, well... That's... Good then?" I trailed off, then shook my head, "I can't believe I'm considering unleashing the zombie apocalypse as potentially a good thing..."

"It is a bit of a twist, huh?" Bill asked rhetorically, chuckling.

"Yeah... Anyway, I had more questions." I said, getting back on track, "You said this place is called the Twilight Realm? And I'm Master of Twilight? What exactly does that mean?"

Bill nodded. "It's pretty straight forward. The Twilight Realm is... More or less your essence, if you want to get fancy about it. This place is you, basically. The Realm... The Citadel... Your Core... It's all you." the last two he gestured to the building we stood in and myself respectively.

I looked down at myself, then back at Bill, eyebrow raised. "My Core? I would've thought this was my body?"

"Nah, the Citadel's your Body. The you right here? This is your Core, for sure." he replied.

I hummed thoughtfully, before a sudden thought had me asking, "How do you know all this?"

Bill chuckled. "In a nutshell? You want answers, so I know the answers. I don't actually know what the answer to your question is till you ask. It's all part of being one of your subjects. Whatever your need, if it's something we can do, we'll fulfill it. And getting answers from your own power this way is simple enough."

"So... This power I have is feeding you the answers to the questions I ask as soon as I ask them?" I clarified, just to make sure I understood.

"Yup," Bill answered with a nod.

"Where did this power come from? I don't know exactly what happened, but... Well last I checked, I was just a normal guy living a normal life, and then I'm suddenly waking up here to some weird voice in my head telling me what to do, which lead to me being in your town."

Bill nodded seriously, "That voice was The High Priest. He... Huh. This parts a little confused. I think you were supposed to follow his orders like we would yours, but... You seem able to ignore them if you want to? That's weird..." Bill trailed off, getting a confused look on his face. "The rest of what you asked... Doesn't make much sense either. I'm getting the impression something happened that wasn't supposed to, something running into something else, causing an imprint? I'm not entirely sure, but if I had to guess... Maybe what you are now when you were created bumped into something else and ended up giving you memories from someone?"

"Are you... Suggesting that I'm not who I remember being?" I asked, frowning.

"Eh, depends on your perspective?" Bill responded, waggling his hand in the air. "Nature vs Nurture, I think you'd call it. By your own experience, you are that person from your memories, but by your nature, you are what you are now, Oz."

I thought about that for a moment, then slowly nodded. "Going back a bit, you said something about you following my orders the way I should have followed the High Priest's? Am I... Mind controlling you?"

Bill grimaced slightly, then waggled his hand in the air again. "Sorta? I know it's not the answer you want to hear, but it's part of who and what you are now. And it's not like we're mindless slaves or anything. I mean, we could be if you wanted us to be, but you don't, so we're not. I mean, we kinda were earlier with the whole cult adulation thing, but you stopped that."

I opened my mouth, paused, then thought furiously for a moment, then sighed. "And I don't suppose there's any way that I could just cut you off from being mind controlled by me?"

"Nope," Bill said, looking at least a bit apologetic, "this is as close as you can get. If it's any consolation, even without the mastering, I'm pretty sure I'd be fine with helping you out and following orders if it means stopping people from dying. Especially with how the whole world's gone to shit."

"No kidding..." I muttered. "Well, I guess that'll have to be good enough for now I guess... Next question. Who is the High Priest?"

"...Huh. Some guy named David? Normally goes by-" Bill froze and his eyes went wide, "Eidolon? Eidolon was supposed to be mastering you?!"

I'm pretty sure at that point the only reason I didn't pale in shock was because I was already as white as one could possibly get. Even still, I got so lightheaded, Bill had to grab my arm to steady me, and looked at me in concern. "You ok?"

I shook my head slowly. "...Bill?... Is there a golden man flying around Earth rescuing kittens from trees?"

"You mean Scion? Yeah, why?" Bill asked.

I slowly tilted my head towards the sky and started screaming obscenities.