CHAPTER 3.

I stood in front of a temple-like structure staring at the biggest being I had ever seen. Standing over 18 feet tall, he was covered from head to toe in a gleaming gold armor of some unknown material, and it felt to me like the armor was somehow alive, hungry.

What the hell was I thinking? How can armor be hungry? Where am I? How did I get here? This has to be a dream, right?

I tried to look around, to get a better measure of my surroundings, but with slowly mounting horror, that's when I noticed that I was not in control of my body. In fact, I couldn't see or feel my body.

"Realm killer,” the deep voice of the armored being boomed in my direction, feeling my mind with fear, and shaking my nonexistent bones. “Our confrontation was all but inevitable. Your blatant defiance of order was always going to lead to this eventuality. And yet, I sense the porous nature of this moment. Your path is as yet undefined, your ascendance may yet be halted." The massive being leaned forward, his gaze pinning me in place. "Yes, it may still be possible to stop you long before you set your heretic step into my abode." Then the massive armored being pulled an even bigger sword out of thin air and continued. "But reality or not, possibility or mere happenstance, I will stop you. Here, now or then, it matters little. You who are the antithesis of all that persists will fall before the might of order."

I wanted to run, to get away from this moment, but I felt like a disembodied form, fixed into position, and that position happened to be linked to the eyes looking at the giant now rushing down the steps, blades raised to reach me, us, whoever all this anger was meant for.

I had already prepared to be split in half, crushed, destroyed, obliterated. There was no escape, no way to survive this juggernaut.

Suddenly everything around me/us slowed as if the armored being was moving in molasses. "Stasis". I heard the words issue from the mouth of my host; I had long since given up the idea that this was my body, I'd have run the minute that sword came out. Everything slowed to a crawl, even the massive behemoth slowed, massive blade moving incrementally towards my face.

My host remained calm, turning to the massive behemoth, who somehow bore down towards us despite the impossibly magical attempt to slow him down. I felt him tilt his head slightly up, as he studied the hulking being before him, clearly undisturbed by the force and power bearing down on us.

He then placed a single finger on the breastplate of the golden armor and said [Path of Essence: Collapsing Fusion: Focused implosion]. A bright burst of light sprung up around his fingers and after a few moments, I watched in stunned surprise as the hulking being who I assumed must weigh at least a tonne, if not more,was blasted across the space, as if hurled by a thin focused beam of light, slamming into several columns of the temple and nearly bringing the entire place down.

All this happened in the space of a few seconds, while I was still trying to wrap my mind around how a single finger and a few words could cause such devastation. Before I could recover from the shock, I heard the voice of my host in my head, "You must go, there is much to be done and so little time to do any of it."

While I was still wrapping my mind around the horror of such an absurdly powerful being noticing me, he continued. "Remember this moment." My host said in a cold booming voice and I knew definitively that this was so not my body and I was merely a passenger in here. "Things are about to get painfully difficult and the only way out is through. You must protect the "heart of essence" with everything if you hope to survive. I will be waiting; at the end of a road forged with resolve and on the path of essence." Shortly after saying his piece I was swiftly cast away from my host into a swirling darkness of claws and blackened teeth. My vision dimmed and the darkness consumed me.

*************

Slowly, the fog of darkness lifted from my mind. I kept my eyes closed while I tried to use my other senses to take stock of my surroundings. My body was on a cold floor and as far as I could tell there was nobody around.

That dream had been terrifying. For a moment there I thought I was done for. And what did the being I briefly inhabited mean regarding essence? What is this heart of essence? And why must I use precious life and limb to protect it?

The idea that I would take such a thing seriously was ludicrous for two reasons. First, none of it was real; even though it felt all too real. It was just my mind playing tricks on me. Second, even if it was all real; an extremely remote and far removed possibility, I could not protect the heart of essence when I had no idea what it was.

Feeling better with my internal deductions, I opened my eyes. The room was pitch black and when I tried to sit up but my tired body flopped bonelessly back to the ground.

Slowly I remembered the events that led to my current situation, the strangeness of my dream had made me forget, if only for a moment. Anger filled me with rage, rage that I used to force myself into a sitting position.

My mind felt like it was stuffed with mud and I stayed still for a while; back resting on the cold stone wall, trying to orient myself.

I looked around and shivered, I'd been stripped down to my boxers which offered little protection from the cold.

Though my body felt weak, I managed to stand up, my mind trying to figure out how to leave this pitch black space.

In my haste to escape I did not notice the chain that attached my right leg to the wall and I almost fell when I was suddenly jerked back by the chain. I was now able to see a thin sliver of light coming from under a door , but the chain prevented me from reaching the door and testing its lock.

I strained my eyes, trying to take stock of my environment. There was the slight outline of a bucket near the door and the rank smell coming from it made clear its purpose, but also made me wonder who else has been in here before me.

The room was damp and based on the spongy feeling on my back, the walls were cold and moldy. I assumed I was in some kind of basement or a similar structure.

Anger filled my chest at the thought of being kidnapped and missing my raid. I screamed "Let me out you motherfuckers." I kept screaming and screaming, spouting every curse and swear word I could think of at the closed door until my voice was dry and hoarse.

I kicked the bucket spilling, it's noxious content all over the floor.

Then I continued screaming, calling my kidnappers every foul name imaginable and demanding my release.

After a while, after I had truly exhausted myself, I slid bonelessly to the floor; out of breath and disconsolate.

"You don't want them to come back" a raspy male voice called out from the dark. I let out an undignified, very high pitched and unmanly squeak in fright. It did not occur to me to check if the room was empty, I simply assumed I was the only one inside.

"Who's there?" I said, trying to mask the fear in my voice as I peered into the darkness to find its source, "what's with the freddy krueger routine. I don't know what you're trying to pull, but you better show yourself before I come in there and get you."

It sounded badass in my head, but then I remembered that the room was almost pitch black and it was likely that neither of us could see the other. I probably sounded like an idiot.

But the voice only laughed. "Son, lose the attitude. I know you think you're some kind of hardass, but you ain't seen shit. The guys that took us make freddy krueger look like one of Santa's elves. You haven't spent time outside this cell, trust me son, ain't nowhere better than where you are right now."

"Bullshit, I ain't your son and I'm not afraid of slave trafficking D-bag motherfuckers." I said, sneering into the dark, trying to force all the bravado I could muster into my voice, but the voice which I could now confirm as distinctly male just laughed again. The guy must have spent a while here because his laugh sounded unhinged.

I took a deep breath, trying to fight the fear that gripped me. Unnecessary bravado had always been my go to state whenever I got scared. I needed this guy on my side, maybe he knew something about our captors.

"Hey buddy, you know who this assholes are and what the fuck they want with us" I asked in my best conciliatory voice, hoping he knew more about our kidnappers.

As far as I could tell, this was a kidnapping, but what could they possibly want with me? I had no money, at least none that would do for a ransom and nobody to pay it on my behalf even if I did.

I felt shuffling on the ground near the door and then what I assumed was a slot for food on the lower part of the door was pushed aside. A little light filtered into the room, illuminating a small section around the door. I looked at the light like a starving man staring at a banquet and then to the hand that opened the slit. When I focused on the owner of the hand's body, I gagged in horror.

The man's legs had been removed from the thighs down and it looked like the amputation was far from clean. His back was covered in deep barely healed lacerations.

He crawled closer and in the low light, I could see the man a bit better. He was a naked white guy, thin, frail looking and malnourished. He looked to be in his forties, but that could have been from being seriously worked over.

His eyes were sunken deep wells with burning blue orbs. But they were bright, too bright almost like he was running a fever.

"Buddy you don't look so hot", but again, I felt stupid for saying so; as if the guy couldn't tell he was in rough shape.

The man smiled a yellow toothed smile filled with some missing teeth and said. " They've taken me out several times since I've been here to ask me some 'questions'".

Curiosity overcame my horror and I asked, "What do they want?"

The man's eyes remained fixed on me; their intensity burning into me.

"They keep asking me about my dreams, what I know about the "heart of essence," if I've had any dreams about it."

What kind of crazy shit is that, asking about dreams. I looked at the man and shuddered but I reasoned that if I did not want to end up like him, I would need to know more so I could plan my escape and get the fuck out of here.

"I'm William." I said, nodding to the man on the ground. He smiled again, all that gap-toothed smiling was starting to creep me out.

"I'm Lincoln, but my friends call me Link". He replied from the ground.

"Hey kiddo, could you help me lean against the wall, I'd do it myself, but all this crawling is chafing my wounds, something fierce."

He cackled and I swallowed, I really did not want to touch any of those wounds, they looked infected. But stifling my horror, I reached for the man; careful not to aggravate his injuries any further and laid him in a sitting position on the wall.

When I looked at him again I nearly threw up. His chest and stomach were also carved up. Who were these assholes to go to such extremes for ordinary dreams?

The man looked at me and said "kid whatever you do, you can't give them what they want, the heart binds everything, you can't let them have it."

For the first time the pain and despair bled through the maniacal mask on the man's face and I wondered if this was going to be me in the not too distant future.

But before I could ask the guy what he meant regarding the heart, I heard a loud click and the door groaned as it was slowly pulled back. Light flooded into the room and it took me a while to adjust to the bright light coming from beyond the door.

Someone entered the room, and I looked up to see the girl who tricked me. She'd changed her look, her long blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, with her stunningly beautiful face free of any makeup.

She stood over me, staring with cold empty eyes down at me. She was dressed in some kind of sexy space age body suit that fit her like a glove, but all I wanted to do was wipe that empty look from her face with my fists.

I don't believe in getting heavy-handed with those of the opposite sex, but for the first time, I was about to lay down some gender neutral beat down.

I stood up, all six feet eight inches of me towering over her, my barely controlled rage nearly boiling over. "You really had me fooled with that damsel in distress routine Nikita, but you know what they say, '' Fool me once….."

Even before I finished speaking, my hands quickly reached out to grab her throat, wrapping my fingers around her throat and pulling her close. I placed my thick arms around her neck in an arm lock, trying to knock her out, but she remained still; not struggling, just staying limp as I dragged her closer to my side of the room and the chains.

"Where are the keys," I hissed in her ear as I searched her all over. This space age stuff looked soft from afar, but on closer inspection, it was extremely tough and had no obvious pockets.

"Kid you better quit while you're ahead, or else you're in for a world of pain".

I looked at Link ready to lash out at him, thinking he was threatening me but the look of fear on the man's face stopped me cold. I looked down and saw that Nikita had grabbed the fingers on my right hand and in an instant, she twisted my fingers at an odd angle and I screamed.

I tried taking a swing at her with my left hand, but she caught my fist in her hand. I was stunned as I looked at her small hands, easily holding my comparatively larger fists.

She shoved me back slightly, and suddenly I felt a sharp pain as she decked me in the face. I almost passed out from the pain, it felt like I'd been hit by a truck, and I was unable to take any further action but groan in pain.

"Told you kid, something ain't right with this one, she's stronger than she looks". I felt the chain on my ankle being removed but I hurt too much to care much less do anything about it. Suddenly I felt myself being pulled by the ankles out of the room. I regained enough focus to look down and see the barely five foot and extremely slight girl pulling me across a lowly lit corridor by my ankles with only one hand. I tried to struggle to at least slow her down and delay whatever fate was waiting for me at the end of this journey. I thought of Link and struggled harder, I tried shouting for help but my head was still ringing from her punch and all I could do was struggle futilely in her grip.

But regardless of my efforts, she was implacable and dragged me to a room at the end of the corridor. A small part of me was at least grateful she did not drag me across stairs, but when I looked into the room she dragged me into, I put another burst of strength into escaping, trying to get away from the horror show I saw in there.

There was a metal chair with straps for every part of the body on it, but it was the dried blood stains liberally covering the chair that did it for me. A small table was beside the chair with a tray on it carrying several sharp instruments that would have been comfortable in a surgery.

She stopped and picked me up like I weighed nothing. I struggled, now finding the strength at the sight of the torture implements to scream at the top of my lungs " Heeeeeelp, someone please help me!!!!!!".

Despite my efforts, she easily strapped me to the chair. I tried to scream louder but she backhanded me so hard that for a few seconds all I could see were stars. By the time I regained my senses, she had already left.

I struggled against the restraints with no success. My mind raced, pulled along various possible torture scenarios. I waited anxiously for what must have felt like hours but was most likely a couple of minutes before someone stepped into the room.

I looked up to see a handsome white man with clear gray eyes and perfect chiseled aristocratic features just like the slavic woman(there was no way I was going to call Nikita a girl after her display of strength) and Nikita, who was standing behind him like some kind of loyal hound staring coldly at me.

The man looked very familiar to me, but with my head still reeling from the rough treatment I just received, I was having trouble figuring out how or where I knew him from.

He was dressed in an expensive three piece suit that cost more than I earned in a year at both my jobs combined and he looked at me like I was a frog waiting to be dissected on a lab table. He turned to the young lady and said. "Ivelina, well done bringing the target in. An impressive feat especially as you did so while evading servants of the magi."

Still keeping his indifferent gaze on me, he said, "You may leave, I am in no danger from our guest."

He nodded to Ivelina who nodded back at him, no expression on her perfect face, but her body language showed she was pleased with the compliment. She stepped out of the room leaving me alone with the mysterious man.

The man placed his hands behind his back in a scholarly pose and smiled. "Hello Mr Izu, My name is Avery Lodge and you young man, have something that I want."

My mind froze in shock, as I finally recognized his chiseled good looks that I'd seen plastered on the top pages of the fortune 500 list of wealthiest persons. As I made the possible connection between him and the largest energy multinational company in the world, I wondered if my mind was playing tricks on me. What did I have that the CEO of LodgeOil could possibly want? I searched my mind, wondering why a man of his means and position would kidnap a nobody like me?

"Listen Mr lodge this has to be a mistake, there is nothing I have that you could possibly want. You don't need to hurt me and if what you need is within my power, I'll do my very best to help you."

His smile widened and he stepped closer till our noses were almost touching. "You imply that I require your permission to take what I want, William you must understand that you are in no position to negotiate. By the time we are done here, you will beg to give me anything I desire of you, whether or not it lies in your possession."

He stepped back and began to pace around me, in what I assumed was an attempt to unnerve me.

"William Madu Izu born December 3rd 2022 in an all but submerged Lagos, Nigeria. With an IQ of 140 and gifted with an eidetic memory, you showed a startling aptitude for mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics, even at a young age. Immigrated to the United States with your parents when you were nine years old and orphaned a year later. The cause of your parents death was due to multiple contusions in a three car pile up."

Did this assholes have a dossier on me, where the fuck was he getting his info?

The asshole in question continued, oblivious to my shock. "Placed into the foster system and bounced from home to home, ran away six times before your 16th birthday, finished high school and passed the standardized tests with a near perfect score, received a partial scholarship for underprivileged minority to a local university. Arrested for identity theft, hacking and financial fraud, sentenced to three years at the Travis County state prison. Released after two years on good behavior. Overburdened with student loans and currently holding two jobs as a coder with a low-end gaming company making adult themed online games and as a mechanic at a local auto body shop, enjoys Virtual Role Playing Games and watching classic anime." Avery smirked at me like he saw this brief summary of my laugh as laughable. "Did I miss anything, Mr Izu." He looked down at me like he knew everything there was to know about me and there was nothing else save what he saw. That look more than the invasion of privacy pissed me off. It was the look people had given me throughout my life, from my second foster mom to my current boss at gamehard. People who had better opportunities than me and had it easy throughout their lives, telling me that I was wasting my potential.

"Fuck you, you don't know shit about me I don't care what kind of info your third rate PI is selling you."

Avery stepped back, arms still folded behind his back and looked at me again, this time, his smile was gone "Essence is the building block of reality and aether provides the platform for its direction and control, but only the creators can command essence and shape reality to their will, or at least the privilege should belong only to them. Yet, there exists an insidious group of rebels and rulebreakers, those who deign to assume command of reality by controlling essence through the insidious force known as magic."

The drastic change in topics was giving me whiplash. What the hell was he going on about? Essence? Magic? I'd been kidnapped by a cult of crazy people. He stopped his ranting, clearly worked up about the subject. It was the first time I'd seen any real emotion from my abductor since he walked into the room; everything else had seemed manufactured for my benefit.

Clearly this was a subject close and dear to his heart. even if to me, it sounded like more crazy compounded with all the current nonsense that I'd witnessed since my kidnapping.

"Boohoo buddy, cry me a river, now what the fuck does any of this have to do with me." I said, putting as much scorn and contempt in my voice.

Avery just stared, obviously past his freak out, a sadistic smile spreading across his handsome face. He continued, ignoring my outburst. "These creatures pervert the natural laws of the world and skew the fabric of reality, but what is worse is that they seek to expand their order, and increase their grip over all things."

Suddenly he stopped and looked at me with an almost fatherly smile " I knew your parents, they were very good friends of mine".

I was unable to respond, still trying to recover from the whiplash I received with another drastic change in topic. There was no way I was believing anything this asshole said especially if he was implying that my financially struggling parents were friends with this extremely wealthy billionaire.

I sneered, "sure you knew my parents. Did you meet my mom when she was cleaning the toilets in your mansion or my dad when you entered his cab. Please cut the bullshit." I said with anger in my voice, this was clearly a blatant attempt at manipulating me.

He looked at me with pity in his eyes. "Like any child, you wish to idolize your parents. This need is enhanced by the finality of their passing. You hold an impression of them that is based on a child's notion of reality, sadly frozen for all time."

He walked behind me and placed a hand on my right shoulder and for a moment I panicked as he left my field of view. Most likely this was just another attempt to get under my skin. These fuckers wanted something from me; Link had said as much. Plus if they really wanted to kill me, Ivelina could have finished me off in that alleyway.

"But you had no idea who they were, did you?" He said and I felt his predatory gaze on the back of my head.

"Your father was a brilliant engineer with a genius mind seen only once in a lifetime. We met on an archeological dig in Nigeria. I was representing my family's art gallery on the continent and we had received information from a trusted source that an unexplored temple had been found beneath the ancient Nok settlements in southern Kaduna; a state in the northern part of the country."

He moved into my view again, his hands clasped behind his back. "It was my first time in Nigeria and I will admit, I wasn't too enthused about going to another third world backwater to gawk at another cracked calabash or poorly done carving." He said with a sneer of contempt in his face as he insulted the country of my birth.

"But my family's gallery was going under and we were in dire need of a new exhibit filled with never before seen ancient artifacts to put us back on the map."

He continued, ignorant of the anger that filled me with murderous intent towards him. It was not enough that I was kidnapped and strapped to a chair about to be possibly tortured. But if I had to listen to this villain dialogue for one more second, I was going to kill myself. Better he quickly put me out of my misery.

"But that trip would change my life, my business and I dare say, the fate of the world as we know it." He said that last part with a look that said he was doing me a favor by letting me listen to his monologue and that I should be grateful. Fucking cliche.

"To understand how that one dig changed everything, you need to know what was so special about the Nok settlement." He said, leaning on the wall as he prepared to give me a history lecture.

"Based on the artifacts unearthed from the settlement, the Nok people appeared about 3500 years ago. And when I say appeared, I mean that no archeologist has been able to determine with certainty where the culture migrated from and the total disappearance of the same people 1700 years ago is also shrouded in mystery."

Although the Nok are known today for their terracotta sculptures, they also had smithing technology and social systems that were far more advanced than was considered possible for the region."

He stopped pacing; his eyes glanced over. It looked like he was lost in his recollections.

"But in that temple, your father and I discovered the truth. That their entire civilization was a front to hide something far more ancient and world changing than we could ever have thought possible."

I tried to write it off as the irate rantings of a madman, but I couldn't get over the fact that he may have known my father. Plus, I had to admit, if only to myself, that I was getting entranced by the tale he was weaving. I had not heard of the Nok before, but that was no surprise as the country of my birth had over two hundred and fifty ethnic groups, too many to keep track of, much less lost ancient variants.

As a child, my father was a great mystery to me. All I was told by my mom when he'd suddenly take off without any notice was that he was away on business. Looking back, it now sounded suspect and I was forced to wonder if my father was ever in league with this crazy ass motherfucker.

Curious but unwilling to give my captor any satisfaction, I remained quiet, doing my best to keep my expression schooled; confident that like any dime store villain he would be unable to keep the rest of the story to himself.

He waited for a few seconds and continued, but the tiny frown on his smooth forehead told me he was pissed off that I wasn't flooding him with questions to stroke his ego.

"Five hundred feet beneath the settlement was a temple; lined with terracotta statues and strange drawings on the walls. The temple was more or less intact as the region was geologically stable.

At the center of the temple was a room with heavy lead doors. After we cleared the rubble around the door and forced it open, we discovered that the room's outer walls were made from pure lead and it's internal walls were made from pure copper. This was amazing in and of itself, because the technology to produce this level of purity in metals simply did not exist at this point in ancient human civilization.

But what stumped all the scientists including your father was that the lead and copper that made up the large rectangular room was not lined around the room, but moulded. It was as if lead and copper were shaped into the dimensions of the space. There were no joints or welds. All the edges of the room were perfectly aligned. The feat of engineering that this room represented far surpassed what was possible at that point in history much less for the region."

Now I was hooked. Ancient civilizations, advanced technology and hidden mysteries. I had to admit, he had me and I was curious to know what happened next.

He smiled, knowing that finally I was hooked. "Inside the room was a glowing white crystal; suspended at the center of the room." Sudden anger flashed in his eyes at me and I could feel a burning hatred directed at me or my father in his gaze.

"That should have been my moment, the moment of my ascension, but your father touched the crystal first and took what was mine."

He looked crazed, his mouth almost frothy in rage, and then just as quickly, he composed himself like he hadn't just lost his shit and continued.

"We later discovered that the crystal was a sentient communication device that allowed us to contact a collective of beings known as the Veldar, they told us of their war with the ancestors of the Nok; who were sworn enemies of the Veldar. Using the crystal we exchanged knowledge with the Veldar; beings of vast knowledge and might, with power spanning the length and breath of the universe." He said with awe and greed flashing in his eyes. He clearly wanted all that power for himself.

"Then they told us of the secret war and how they had defeated the enemy here on earth over 4000 years, but not before their entire local fleet was destroyed. Without their assets here to provide feedback and the relative distance at the time between our planet and their nearest base, they had written off our planet as lost. Until your father touched the crystal and initiated contact with them."

“You see the Veldar despise the magi; a group of rulebreakers, perverters of the natural order who seek any attempts to subvert reality itself. You can imagine our surprise to discover that not only were aliens real, but that also magic was real and it came from another universe, one that wanted to undermine ours at a fundamental level."

We were conscripted and in return the Veldar gave us technology and knowledge that put us on the map. Soon my family's business pivoted from galleries and art exhibits to emerging technologies. We are responsible for over ninety percent of every game changing technology that has existed in the last hundred and ten years"

I wanted to ask so many questions regarding what I heard so far but my mind played back his last words.

"If I'm hearing you right, you're implying that you are over a hundred years old." I said, a look of skepticism clearly written on my face.

"A hundred and forty two to be precise. I don't look a day over thirty, do I? One of the perks of serving the Veldar. Also as Ivelina has demonstrated, we are incredibly strong and fast."

But I ignored him, lost in the fact that my father was actually over a hundred years old before he died.

Seeing the befuddled expression on my face, he could already anticipate my unspoken question. "Your father and I were with the first expedition that excavated the Nok settlement in 1926; although official records place the discovery in 1928. And since then, our organization has grown in power and expanded our interests into every aspect of society. Our reach spans the world and it is our hand that guides mankind's continued growth."

"In exchange for guidance and resources, our benefactors only required that we observe any actual attempts at manipulating reality and deal aggressively with them."

"For eighty years, everything was perfect, we handled local attempts to pervert reality while using the technology provided by the Veldar to advance humanity."

"But something changed in your father, he started keeping secrets from me. It seemed like he no longer believed in our cause. Sure we had to do some really despicable things. Sometimes destroying whole villages to remove whatever arcane knowledge they had in the world permanently. But we did it for the greater good. He should have seen that, should have understood. But instead he chose to be weakened by sentiment and guilt. He began to hide them, to tip them off and when I found what he'd been doing, he took our greatest invention till date and disappeared."

He was ranting again, anger expressed in his eyes, but also pain. He must have been hurt when my father betrayed him. But inside I was happy that my father had done the right thing.

"For a long time I searched for your father but without success. I knew he was out there because the "magi" resistance kept growing stronger. They had begun to fight back; they became more organized and their tricks had grown in strength.

We lost several operatives across the world over the next few years. I could see your father's fingerprints all over these operations. No matter how hard I searched, I was unable to get an inkling of his whereabouts."

"Until finally, I received a tip from a trusted informant in 2020, that he had returned to Nigeria. And to my great surprise, I discovered he had settled down, married and now had a child, a son."

"I dispatched agents to observe your family and found out everything I could about you and your mother. Did you know your mother was a magi; a practitioner of magic, a rule breaker, a perverter of the natural order."

My heart beat faster as I gazed upon his predatory smile. My mind reeling from the news that my mother could use magic; actual magic. Were both my parents like mutants or something? What did that make me? I wonder if this asshole thinks I can do magic because of my mom. I chuckled at the thought. If I had magic, I would have blown this joint a long time ago.

Avery saw my chuckle and smiled with a malicious grin on his face. "You are the foul offspring of a traitor and a rule breaker; an abomination. Your father committed the most heinous of crimes; he slept with the enemy.

I didnt even dignify that last jab with an answer, knowing from the short time spent in his presence that pretending to ignore him was more effective a tool in pissing him off than actually engaging him. For my effort, I was rewarded with a pulsing tic on the side of his forehead, giving away his anger at me not rising to his bait. For a self professed old guy, he was pretty easy to rile up."

We were about to make a move on him, but somehow he got wind of our plans and he escaped before the operation could take place. I suspect he still had connections in our organization; magi sympathizers who secretly seek to subvert our objectives."

"It would take another eight years to track him down only to find that he had brought you and your mother to the United States. He laughed with a reminiscent glint in his eyes. "It was just like your father to hide in my very backyard, to be in the place I'd least expect.

We received information that your parents were in New York searching for something called "the heart of essence," and I immediately mobilized a team, unwilling to let him slip out of my grasp. I tried to bring them in safely, I even promised to forgive all transgressions and allow your father return back to us."

He said all this with a solemn look on his face that I did not buy for one second.

"Sure, you were going to forgive his betrayal and allow his magi wife and abomination of a son to live. I'll believe that when pigs fly"

"Believe what you will, but your parents were like you," he continued.

"Stubborn, unwilling to see reason. Your father was promised forgiveness, and a chance to return back into the fold. But like you, he refused to listen to reason, his flawed notions of morality blinded him to the truth. Like the rule breakers they were, your parents fought back. Your mother was a very powerful magi and a lot of our operatives were killed."

I noticed how Avery's offer of forgiveness only extended to my father and I knew his offer had been full of cow excrement.

But my head spun, I had so many questions, the one question that burned in front of my mind was the question I dreaded the most. I did not want to know the answer but I knew I had to ask regardless of how I felt or what the answer might do to me. A burning suspicion was growing in my gut, one that to be honest, had been dwelling inside of me since that fateful night, when I learnt the details of my parents death.

"What happened to my parents?" I asked when I was finally unable to hold the question in my chest any longer.

"I know you want to ask, "What truth?" The truth that burns in the heart of everything sentient whether they admit or not. That the universe is ours to command through knowledge and ingenuity, that the laws must be bound.". He continued as if I hadn't spoken. He looked at me with cold delight in his eyes and said.

"They were weak, unable to embrace transcendence, threatening to upend the natural order of all things. That is why they died, that is why I killed them."