“Yes I am a Synestate and I can hear you just fine. Are you going to tell me why everywhere you go there is nothing but death and destruction?!”
He looks back at the completely engulfed building with the most innocent of looks, “This? This is just discipline. Thanks to my extended vacation dealing with you, it seems people forgot who was boss and thought to rise up against me. It’ll be over real soon.”
“Rise up against you? What are you, some kind of crime lord?!”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“That wasn’t a serious question!”
Even though it was not exactly the conversation he was hoping to have, Anaar was at least happy there had not been another attack sent his way. If he could keep Yefferson talking, perhaps there was hope for them yet.
“I found our mother. She-”
Dashing away again he ducked and rolled under gout after gout of flame sent from Yefferson. For whatever reason just mentioning Yatik set him off again.
“That cunt is no mother of mine. Bitch fucking abandoned me and left me to rot, while you got to play happy family!”
Anaar noticed the flames that were contacting surfaces were not dying down. He was fascinated by their ability to burn so intensely without accelerants and on substances that should not be burning, but his scientific curiosity would have to wait. Whether Yefferson intended to burn down the entire area even without his influence was yet to be determined, but with him there, it was an absolute certainty there would be a lot of collateral damage.
He knew he needed to do something to stop Yefferson’s destruction, but since he was prone to random acts of aggression toward the slightest thing, the only way he could prevent him from burning down a large city block would be to take him elsewhere. Anaar thought of the most desolate place that would be able to withstand the assault of an enraged True Fire Affinity and opened a portal directly beneath him. Thinking better of utilizing the same portal lest he dive into an open flame, he closed Yefferson’s and opened one of his own to here he had sent him.
Yefferson had never been through a portal before, so the experience was completely jarring for him. He was confused as he hit the ground in a sandy place somehow hotter than where he was previously. When he stood up to dust himself off, spitting sand from his mouth, he realized sand was all he could see. Anaar had sent him to a desert.
Stepping through a nearby portal, Anaar watched a facedown Yefferson flail and sputter as he coughed up sand. He forgot that Transporters were not exactly common, so the chance that Yefferson had any experience was minor. Though he wanted to apologize for the abrupt relocation, he thought better of dropping his guard given Yefferson’s temperament. He did not need to wait long to find that his instincts were correct.
The moment he oriented himself upright, Yefferson proceeded to douse everything in flame, topped with explosions in all directions. Anaar realized that Yefferson was still somewhat blinded from his fall, so he took the opportunity to put some distance between them. If he had learned anything, being in close proximity to Yefferson came at one’s own peril. Once his tantrum had settled down, he finally decided to look around to see if he had hit anything.
Though the landscape had been changed, it did not look as if he had done any damage to Anaar. The random craters and flaming patches gave no sign of his annoying other younger brother. Since there was no one around, he flopped to the ground, bewildered about where he ended up and how he planned to get out of his situation. He had been sitting for a few minutes when seemingly out of thin air Anaar appeared in a skintight dark blue bodysuit.
“Are you going to stop terraforming everything so we can have a conversation?”
“Where the fuck did you send me?! Just like you sneaky fucking Air Affinities to pull some shit like this.”
“We are currently in a desert.”
Yefferson flails a bit in the sand in response. “No fucking shit!! Send me back!”
“Not until you talk to me. Also, you are prone to extreme acts of arson so I needed you somewhere you couldn’t hurt anything.”
“You think you are so much better than me!”
“Where did you begin to get this idea? I only recently found out you existed. How would I form such a derogatory opinion of you that quickly?”
“See! Using all your big words and talking down to me. And you go to that fancy school for all the sellouts!”
“What big word did I use…”
“I don’t need you looking down on me just because you were the favorite. Once I kill you, I’m going to find that bitch and kill her too.”
“Look, I know very little about you, but what I do know is you do have a point. The life you had to live should have never been forced upon you. I can’t do anything about that now, but maybe if-”
Anaar jumped back just in time to dodge a pillar of scorching flame. “Will you stop that?!”
“All you want to do is talk, because you can’t fight. You are scared of me!”
“You think?! You introduced yourself by trying to kill my boyfriend and destroying part of the town I live in! A simple hello would have sufficed!”
“I don’t want to talk to you! I want you dead!”
Sighing as he rubs his temples, “I haven’t done anything to you! Well, not directly, or intentionally. I can’t change what our mother did, and it is unfair of you to make me accountable for her actions. I’m not saying you have to love her, hell you can continue hating her, but remember I was given away just like you. It isn’t like she left you and kept me.”
Yefferson springs from the ground and charges at Anaar like a bull as he roars in anger. Annar noticed he did not move any faster than the typical person with an athletic build, but he knew firsthand what would happen if he was hit. His best course of action was to continue utilizing his speed to prevent damage. Yefferson might be far more powerful than him, but in terms of speed he might as well be moving in slow motion.
With his abilities and his training from Master Shin, Yefferson was absolutely incapable of landing a blow no matter how hard he tried. When Yefferson saw he would never catch up to Anaar, he began weaving explosions into his attacks in hopes to pincer him and stop his movements. Though it did catch Anaar off guard initially, he was able to adjust his momentum to escape the highly concentrated blasts that kicked up clouds of sand and left deep craters in their wake.
The game of cat and mouse continued for what seemed like hours, massive swaths of the desert landscape irreparably changed. Anaar’s movements began to slow, a couple of the explosions nearly catching him unaware. With every chance he tried to speak and calm Yefferson down, but it only made him angrier and more ferocious. Anaar worried that even his grand plan of bringing them to somewhere Yefferson could not destroy was literally going up in flames since flaming bursts had now been added into the attack pattern.
The slower Anaar became, the greater Yefferson chose to press the attack. It had become so intense that Anaar could not even properly aim a portal to send Yefferson away, but even that seemed like it would be thoughtless as just removing him from the area would not necessarily stop his destruction. If he was able to send Yefferson back to civilization the casualties would no doubt be astronomical. In a war of attrition, Yefferson’s seemingly boundless stamina easily won out against Anaar’s.
There was nothing Anaar could think of that would end up in a peaceful resolution. If he managed to send Yefferson away, he would simply rampage for some indeterminate amount of time, causing issues for the both of them. If he himself ran away, it would leave Yefferson stranded in the desert with no food or water. He was not sure how either of them would fare against dehydration and starvation. He could not even get an edge in to attack because no gust, explosion nor blast of water seemed to cause Yefferson to falter. It was as if being connected to the earth itself made him immoveable.
Wait, that’s it! He’s like me. He has abilities that don’t register as manifestations. The reason I can’t move him is because he
directly draws power directly from the earth! Why did I not notice this before?! His Earth attunement is completely defensive, whereas his Fire Attunement is completely offensive. If I can just get his feet off the ground-
Anaar’s moment of joy in his understanding of Yefferson’s abilities proved extremely costly. In his distraction he failed to pay attention to what was happening before him. He knew he had slowed, but he did not realize it was affecting his ability to split his attention as well. Though he was not as inventive nor as quick as Anaar, Yefferson understood when something was not working. Rather than keep up a futile assault, he did something he was sure would be effective: He decided to destroy everything around him.
Yefferson had to admit no one had even come close to causing him the trouble Anaar had. He had always been untouchable, but he was also easily able to overpower his enemies. Anaar’s evasiveness was a nuisance he had grown completely disgusted with, so utilizing his own resistance to his advantage took away what little Anaar had. He could not be damaged, and Anaar could not escape if there was nowhere to escape to. With a roar he unleashed an explosion of power so enormous it consumed everything within miles.
Sand and smoke swirled around, plumes of thick black clouds obscuring vision everywhere. Try as he might, he could not make out anything in shroud. Given a brief respite from the assaults as the veil of destruction hid him, Anaar found himself in pain as the missing portion of his body began to regenerate. Even with a thick shell of twenty extraordinarily potent shields layered atop him he still failed to mitigate the damage. His own shields were destroyed, causing the damage to his body. As he laid on the ground in pain, rapidly recovering, his mind was processing the ramifications of releasing such a monster onto the world.
It was his own fault that Yefferson had become so enraged. If he had left well enough alone, perhaps things could have gone back to normal. His selfish desire to reunite with his brother was not reciprocated. Yefferson’s only desire was to rid himself of everything that reminded him of a painful past he had been thrown into. Even his idea of ‘discipline’ was nothing but wanton destruction. Anaar realized that while he may have exacerbated the situation, Yefferson was a time bomb waiting to go off.
His body had almost fully recovered and he was thinking about what to do to contain him when a chord struck in his memory, a familiar feeling to something that had happened to him before.
“There are those who words can no longer reach. You must become willing to accept when that time comes.”
The words of Master Shin once again reverberated in his spirit as he began to wonder if the wise old man himself did not somehow possess the power of Prophecy. For the second time he had predicted with frightening accuracy the reality of a situation in his life. Anaar knew that he had to stop Yefferson no matter the cost, even if somehow he lost his life in the process. The grand flaw in that plan was easily the fact that he was facing off against an invulnerable opponent many times stronger than he was. More words flitted to the forefront of his mind as he tried to figure out his predicament.
“Too much light sears and destroys everything it touches. This is why the dark exists to consume the light so that it does not leave the world a wasteland. Never forget that your darkness is as critical to the cycle as is light.”
Darkness… Never have I been able to control such a thing, it was always a reflex. If darkness consumes light, maybe that might be enough to subdue him…
Anaar stood from his position, somewhat shakily but the strength in his limbs was returning. Finding his center, he drew upon the mysterious power that sometimes spilled forth from him. His eyes became black as pitch and they glowed with a black light even in the cloud of soot and smoke. He dug deeper and deeper, the black energy roiling from his body in waves as it intensified. The black energy began to coalesce into a form, something he had not expected. With the energy reaching its apex, he held a massive scythe, several times bigger than himself, the handle sutured to his hands with the energy.
With a mighty swirling burst, Anaar released a gust that almost instantly cleared the area of the hanging cover that protected him. Not far ahead he found Yefferson stumbling around, the sudden clarity causing him to look around in shock. When he laid eyes on Anaar, he was concerned for a moment by this strange pulsating shroud and the large weapon in his hands, but he realized how undermatched he was and began to laugh.
“That’s a nice party trick! I guess the little bitch is finally going to come at me like a man! Not that it matters since nothing can pierce me anyway! I’ll kill you as many times as I have to until you don’t come back!”
Anaar shot off like bottled lightning, his body being propelled faster and faster by the hungry black energy. Rather than running, his body had been pulled slightly from the ground and he was floating as he crossed the large gap in almost an instant. Through no will of his own the scythe blade came down at exactly the right moment, cleaving Yefferson in two. His stroke finished with him behind Yefferson, a barely audible whisper escaping from his lips.
“Twilight Sonata.”
Yefferson was still laughing defiantly when the strike hit him, and when Anaar reappeared just behind him, the laugh was still continuing. There was not a scratch on Yefferson’s body and Anaar collapsed to the ground, already spent from everything else he had been fighting against for the past hour.
“I told you that you couldn’t do shit to me! All that flash and nothing to-”
The cloak of dark energy pulled its way back into Anaar’s prone body as Yefferson’s statement stopped short. Yefferson felt his body began to feel tight, almost as if he was being desiccated. Before he could speak again, his throat had fully seized and his body began to transform into a hard stone, much like when he shifted into his Terra elemental form. Once the transformation was complete, the statue that he had become crumbled into dust. An unconscious Anaar could not know at the time, but his brother was defeated.
40
Anaar awoke simultaneously drenched and dehydrated. When he tried to open his eyes, he realized he was face down in a sea of sand. His surprise at his state caused him to gasp, the sudden intake of air sucking in grains of sand into his throat and nostrils choking him. Rolling to his side ever so slightly, he found his wet body pulled the grains with him.
He had never utilized his abilities in such a manner before, but he immediately appreciated that he was his own personal oasis in the middle of the desert. Summoning up a construct with water that replenished itself, he drank voraciously until his thirst was quenched. Finally standing up, he took stock of his current situation.
He was clearly in a desert, and he had no idea just how long he had been there. He realized that his recent habit of falling unconscious and losing time was not his favorite activity. When he tried to think back on why he was in a desert in the first place, he was for some reason drawing a blank. With the setting sun, he admired the scenery for a moment until he realized he only had on his suit.
He could distinctly remember wearing something he did not mind losing, but why he had done that in the first place was just out of reach. He was just about to figure out how to approach Yefferson when the harsh realization hit him. He spun around, but there was no one to be found. He focused but he could not sense his brother anywhere. When he tried tugging on the thread that connected them, he found it was gone.
Images of them fighting came flooding back into his mind, filling him with an impending sense of dread. Once the movie that was their encounter came to an end, Anaar crumpled to his knees, his chest heaving as the weight of what happened settled upon him. No one was around, their connection was gone, he could not sense Yefferson anywhere. He had killed his brother.
He had of course thought about the possibility of killing his brother, but it never seemed like something that would actually occur. His brother was far too strong, much stronger than he was, and he was invulnerable seemingly down to the core. The only thing that he could have thought of which might prove effective was
a psychic assault, but he was woefully lacking in that department. If he truly did kill his brother, what force allowed him to do so?
He tried desperately to remember, but it was all fragmented. Everything around him was in shadow, it felt like night. A scythe came to mind, not something he would ever use, but it was so vivid it must have some truth to it. There was a flash, he charged Yefferson, and sliced him in half. When this happened, the night lit up like daytime as light spilled from Yefferson’s body. The scenery was a void, not a desert, so perhaps his mind was simply playing tricks on him. If it were, why did his heart feel nothing but loss?
His memory had always been practically infallible, so for him to remember killing Yefferson, he had little other choice but to believe it. He clutched his chest as he began heaving again, his mind comprehending what he had done. He had no choice, or did he? Less than the choice, the execution is what still boggled his mind the most. He felt weary and confused, and he realized all he wanted was to go home. Opening a portal, he stepped through to a familiar space he had not seen in a week. He was back in his room at Sophangence.
Even though it was his choice to go completely dark until he had finished his mission, he could not help but be overwhelmed with joy at the face staring back him from his bed. Phavian’s shocked reaction made it clear he was not used to Anaar arriving via portal, but he recovered quickly in order to welcome his boyfriend back. Springing from the bed, he gives a small hop with a fist pump into the air.
“Success?! Did you totally kick his ass?!”
What Phavian expected was a modest affirmation, or even a scolding from Anaar, but instead he was completely caught off guard when the man he loved crumped into his arms and burst into tears. If it had not been for his enhanced strength he would have likely fallen over as Anaar had completely collapsed, becoming dead weight that was overcome with emotion. Gently, he lowered the both of them to the floor and simply held Anaar as he wept.
Phavian knew Anaar was capable of emotion, but it seemed rare, and usually it was as a result of some fight they were currently having. For him to be so completely consumed was an oddity for Phavian. Not sure what to say, he chose silence as he stroked Anaar’s head. He was ready to be there for him as long as it took, his time on the sidelines having caused him to amass great amounts of worry about the situation. When Anaar finally began to speak, Phavian had to focus all his attention on deciphering his words through the choked sobs.
Apotheosis (Song of Sophangence Book 3) Page 47