Revelations (Song of Sophangence Book 4)

by E. I. McAllistair

  “So maybe you didn’t kill him!”

  “What else could I have done? His presence completely disappeared. We were in the middle of the desert. It isn’t like he just hoped on a bus and rode away.”

  “Why were you in the middle of the desert?”

  “Because he just sets everything ablaze! That fire burns beyond hot too. It liquifies rock instantaneously.”

  “So how did you get to the desert?”

  “I opened a portal below him and dropped him there in hopes he didn’t burn down the entire city of Houston.”

  “Wow, this just gets weirder and weirder.”

  “I haven’t even gotten to what is truly weird. That is why I called you over.”

  “There’s more?!”

  “Honestly… I think it is only just beginning.”

  Phavian leans back, looking at him through squinted eyes. “I don’t like the sound of this shit.”

  “Yeah well I don’t have many people who I can talk to about this so deal with it.”

  “Does this have to do with why you were screaming naked in the mirror?”

  Maggie gives Anaar a stifled smirk as Anaar glares angrily at Phavian. “Yes! Maggie didn’t need to know about that part but whatever… So I had been feeling weird since I woke up, but I did not pay much attention to it. I guess as some way to prevent feedback, my eyes don’t pick up my own aura unless I am focusing on my body.”

  “You mean your Affinity Detection?”

  “Right. Similarly, I suppose I am just used to how my own aura feels and whatnot since it has been with me for like ever, so it also does not really register unless I focus on it.”

  “Okay… And you are telling us this why?”

  “Well I had this excruciating pain in my chest while I was in the shower, and when I got out, I saw myself in the mirror.”

  “Still not understanding why this is such a shock. Did you not heal or something?”

  “Oh no, nothing like that. I think I know what happened to Yefferson.”

  “I thought you said you killed him?”

  “I think I did, but there is more to it than that. We are identical twins, which mean we started as one zygote and split into two. Yatik said when we were in her womb, she could not tell there was two of us, we just seemed like one big ball of all the attunements. Guys… I think I ate my brother.”

  Both Phavian and Maggie look at Anaar with shock and disbelief. Surprisingly quicker to the draw, Phavian screams at the top of his lungs, “What the fuck?!”

  Maggie followed suit, calmer but only barely. “What would make you think that?!”

  “Because on top of my of being a True Air and Water Quintessence, I am now a True Earth and Fire Quintessence too.”

  “How can you be so sure?! Maybe you got it wrong! You said your Affinity Detection was like impressions, maybe you just got the wrong impression!”

  “No… I can pretty clearly feel it.”

  Standing from the bed he extends both hands out and after a moment of silence, in his left hand a flaming ball about the size of an apple appeared, and in his right, a jagged piece of rock. The two floated gently just above his palms as he very curiously studied them. Maggie tumbled backwards off the bed with a yelp and scrambled back up, peeking just over it. Phavian simply sat slack jawed and doe eyed as he watched the display.

  “What the actual fuck! What entity saw fit to give you of all people a power up?! You were already overpowered!”

  Maggie immediately came back to her senses, slapping him in the arm as she stood up from the floor.

  “This is weird for me too! You mentioned a power up, but this isn’t even the half of it! My echelon went through the roof! Now I completely blind myself when I look in the mirror!”

  “It was already like 6.4 or something! You were already stronger than the Headmistress! Did you grow to Yefferson’s level and go to like 6.7? There is no way you went much higher than that!”

  Closing his eyes, Anaar seems to retreat into himself for a moment, “8.93.”

  Phavian crumples to the floor as Maggie begins coughing and sputtering. Creating a cup of water for Maggie, she greedily drinks it down, only to choke again as she is drinking it. Phavian is doing his best to stand back up, but he is finding his legs not responsive. Getting rid of the ball of flame and rock fragment so he could help Phavian up, the flame disperses, while the rock fragment drops to the floor. Everyone looks at the rock fragment on the floor, with Anaar exclaiming in anger.

  “What the shit?! It doesn’t just go away?!”

  Phavian looks at him with disbelief, “How do you not know that?!”

  “Well excuse the fuck out of me! I’ve only been a True Earth Quintessence for a few hours! Compare that to 19 years of Air and Water and I think I get a pass! Are you telling me you knew?!”

  “No… but I just figured there is like a manual or something that comes with that shit!”

  “What, like “The True Quintessence Guide for Dummies?!” It doesn’t work like that!”

  “Do something with it! It looks like someone laid a fat turd on the floor!”

  The rock floats back to Anaar’s hand and shifting his hand into a Terra form, he is able to consume the rock, causing it to disappear. Once he does that, he suddenly stops and cocks his head to the side.

  “Huh… I just realized something.”

  Maggie, who came to realize her cup of water did not refill itself without Anaar specifically making it, clears her throat as she recomposes herself. Still a bit in shock, she could not help but wonder what else there could be.

  “What did you realize?”

  “Yefferson wasn’t a Terrakinetic, so why am I? If JaMarkus is any indication, True Quintessences who have no actual control over what they create can only at best send it out in a rush or blast.”

  “What?!”

  “I’m just wondering why I have an ability he didn’t have. I just presumed I only got whatever he had. Maybe it is because I already had Hydrokinesis and Aerokinesis?” Stopping for a moment he closes his eyes again, retreating into himself. When he opens them, he looks at Phavian and beckons him. “Hit me as hard as you can.”

  “You want me to kill you?! Last time I did that you crumpled up like tissue and died!”

  Maggie remembering her own experience with Dan, “Don’t underestimate tissue… It can surprise you…”

  “What in the hell does that mean?!”

  “Don’t worry about it, just hit me already! Adrenal Trance and everything.”

  “I don’t wanna! Something about spouse abuse feels wrong!”

  “We aren’t married!”

  “You know what I mean!”

  “Phave just do it. The worst that could happen is that he dies and comes back to life right?”

  Anaar nods to Maggie, giving her a thumbs up for the assist. Phavian rises from the floor and takes a deep breath. The veins in his body begin to bulge as he winds up and hits Anaar as hard as he can. Anaar closes his eyes, afraid of what is going to happen, but instead of him crumpling under Phavian’s might as he had done before, there is a series of disgusting cracks and rips as his arm shatters and twists into a horrific shape.

  Screaming at the top of his lungs, Phavian falls to the ground holding his arm. “FUUCK!!! Shit!! Fuck!! Motherfucker!! Agghh!!! Burn in fucking hell!!!”

  Anaar quickly drops to the rolling and screaming Phavian as he is getting blood all over his floor. With barely a touch, Phavian’s arm makes another series of noises, this time straightening back up and completely healing almost instantly. With the wound gone, Phavian stops his screaming and looks around, then down at his arm.

  “What the fuck was that?! You didn’t even move! That was the worst thing I have ever felt in my life! Why would you do that?! You are a terrible boyfriend!”

  As Phavian is ranting, he suddenly realizes Anaar has taken the water construct Maggie was holding and is cleaning up the floor.

  “Are you seriously cleaning the fucki
ng floor?! Look at my arm! It is complete-” Phavian looks at his arm and realizes not only is it completely healed, but he is not in any pain. “What did you do?!”

  “Unfettered Healing. It seems my healing powers got an astronomical boost too. I didn’t even need to give directions, it just happened.”

  “You could have warned me!”

  Shrugging, “I wasn’t sure. I figured one of us was going to get hurt, so it was a coin flip.”

  “That is seriously fucked up!”

  “You are fine, stop being a baby. Look at my floor.”

  “The floor is fine! It is almost clean! I may be healed, but I am scarred for life!”

  Maggie snickers as she looks over at Phavian. “Well if there is ever a domestic violence call here I know who will be the victim.”

  Phavian stares wide eyed at Maggie in horror, “That is pure fucking evil! The only mind I could think of that could come up with some shit like that is Codi! That’s it, you two are finished!”

  Maggie dismisses Phavian and turns back to Anaar. “You said ‘Unfettered Healing.’ How is that different from regular healing?”

  Anaar’s eyes glimmer and Maggie sits back down on the bed, that look all too familiar. “Each attunement has their own healing. Of course Water has the most, but usually when I see it, it just registers as ‘Healing.’ From there I can tell if they are regenerative, active, or both. There are people like Genevieve who is considered a Medic, but her ability is not healing at all, it is something else completely. The generic ‘Healing’ is by far the most common you will find. The others are super rare. This is probably why Water Affinities got such prestige so early on since it is one of the most common manifestations for them.”

  “I’m already kicking myself for asking, but you said all attunements have a way to heal. What about the rest?”

  “Respite is the Air heal. It is purely regenerative, but it tends to be more potent than Water attuned regenerative healing of the same caliber. Cauterize is the Fire attuned heal. It can close wounds and increase the temperature of the body to fight infection. Super rare and fairly specialized since it can’t heal bones or nerves or anything like that. It is best for viral outbreaks. Reversion is about as rare as they come, it is even stronger than all of the others combined as it can practically heal anything. It is said that it is like turning back time to a state before damage, but it is so rare it hasn’t been able to be tested.”

  “So where does this Unfettered Healing come into play?”

  “That is what caused me to scream in the bathroom earlier. Phavian, you might actually want to listen for this part.”

  Phavian found himself somewhat embarrassed that it was so obvious he had been tuning out the earlier lesson and made sure to pay attention, especially since it had to do with Anaar’s earlier screams. Sitting up and straightening his back, he locked his eyes on Anaar’s ready to listen. “Hit me.”

  “So I told you that I ‘ate’ Yefferson. As you can see, apparently I obtained his abilities and seemingly his echelon was not just added to mine, but multiplied by mine. The part of the prophecy that mentioned the child’s powers said they would bear all attunements, which in my current state seems to be true. As it stands, it is like I am the complete version of what Yefferson and I were always intended to be.”

  “I don’t get how that is possible though.”

  “According to Yatik, I am the ‘Avatar of Darkness,’ yes I know, overly dramatic, but her words not mine. By her same words, darkness consumes. In that case, I think the way I killed Yefferson was by consuming him. I thought he might be vulnerable to psychic attack, but I don’t have anything like that.”

  Maggie leans forward, suddenly more interested. “If you ‘consumed’ him and I would suppose he was the what, ‘Avatar of Light,’ does that mean you are that too now?”

  “That I couldn’t tell you. I am going to have to talk through this with Yatik, and even then she might not be much help. If I can, I will find a way to get Gramps’ help on figuring this all out since he is the authority. What I do know is by having all the attunements, there seems to be the most curious of side effects.”

  Phavian snorts, “Besides being some sort of god now?”

  “Last I checked I’m still very much human. I think. The reason I thought you might be interested in this Phavian is because like your legend that the Seeds’ name is based off of, I am certain of it now, I have another attunement now: True Life.”

  “Bullshit. That is a pretty story that was made up long ago. There is no way it can be true.”

  “I have always believed that too. That is until I saw I have a new aura that is gold, and this Unfettered Healing ability belongs to it.”

  Maggie springs up from the bed and rushes over to grab Anaar’s hands. “I know better than to doubt you on something like this. You don’t joke around much, but this is something you are deathly serious about. So you said Unfettered Healing is a manifestation. What does a, I can’t believe I am saying this, Life attuned person have as normal traits?!”

  “Ummm… I have no idea. As you can expect, this is all clearly new to me, and of course the entire world, so I can’t begin to say what will happen.”

  “All the other attunements have an elemental form. What is the elemental form for Life?”

  “Huh… good question.”

  Closing his eyes, Anaar focuses inwards and tries his best to shift into his elemental form. Even though he had been effortlessly doing it with his Aqueous and Gaseous form for as long as he knew, he could not figure out how to shift into whatever form Life would embody. Grunting and grumbling, he finally opens his eyes, obviously dejected.

  “I have nothing.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t have one. Or maybe you aren’t a True Life Quintessence. Maybe Life is just Life.”

  “Who knows. I guess I’ll have to play with it to figure it out. I need to figure out that and whatever Assimilation is.”

  “You said that before. What is it?”

  Swatting Phavian on the back, “He just said he didn’t know what it was!”

  “Oh yeah, my bad.”

  “I know it is a Life attuned manifestation at least. What it does, I can’t figure out.”

  “You can tell it is a manifestation but not what it does?”

  “I told you it is just impressions that I get. The Life attunement is a completely new language for me. Unfettered Healing is pretty obvious, though I don’t know fully how it differs. I wonder if it interferes with or overrides my other healing. Assimilation and Biokinesis are complete enigmas.”

  “Wait, this new attunement came with three manifestations at once?!”

  “I can only assume I have a particularly strong predilection toward kinetics. Otherwise why else would I suddenly get Terrakinesis when Yefferson didn’t have it?”

  Phavian lets out a heavy breath and falls onto the floor. “Seriously, is this what it is going to be like being with you? I feel like every other day you are getting a new ability.”

  “To be accurate, the only new ability I had gotten for a long time was the ability to make windows. All the rest you just didn’t know about.”

  “Same thing.”

  Maggie smiles blankly then shakes herself. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I suppose I have no choice but tell Ixnes what happened. I should probably inform Master Shin too. That way everyone will be caught up.”

  “Sounds like you have a busy schedule.”

  “Yeah… It never ends.” He pauses for a moment and then looks between the two with a serious gaze. “Thanks for being here to help me through this. I know this seems like it is normal for me, but honestly, I have been living with most of my powers for my entire life. This is going to be completely different trying to get myself up to speed. I still don’t have a good handle on portaling yet and it has been a year. I hate to admit it, but I am going to be leaning on you both a lot.”

  Maggie slides over to him and gives him a hug. “Don’
t worry, we are here for you. Right Phave?”

  “Of course. This is going to be one hell of an adventure, but we will see it through together.

  Anaar smiles at them both as he hugs Maggie back. She releases him then moves to put back on her shoes. Phavian hops onto the bed as he lets out a heavy sigh, completely floored with all the new information. Anaar walks Maggie to the door, though right before she leaves, she turns back to him with an innocent and sweet look on her face.

  “So I was wondering…”

  Narrowing his eyes with a sigh, Anaar opens a portal to her front door. She jumps up and gives him a peck on the cheek, “You’re the best!”

  He watches as she enters her room, and then closes the portal. Walking back to his own room, he snuggles back up on the bed with Phavian, the warmth he had come to know not nearly as strong as he was used to, but he disregarded it. He closed his eyes wrapped in Phavian’s arms as he thought about how long tomorrow would be.

  2

  Overload.

  That was the only way Anaar could describe his feelings as he was wrenched from his slumber. He had been experiencing the most nightmarish of dreams in which everything around him was talking. The walls chattered. The floors squeaked. The air was an amalgam of scents that could never be identified. Bacteria crawled upon his skin in droves, threatening to consume him. He was living in hell.

  The greatest shock came when he had awoken. At first he thought he was lucid dreaming, suddenly aware of all the things happening in his sleep, which was why he could remember so clearly. He came to realize the true reason was because his dream had not been a dream at all. He sprang from his bed, no regard for the man who had encircled him, the normal resistance proving to be nothing as he flung Phavian out of the bed with him and into a wall.

  Anaar’s mind could not process what had happened, all he knew was that he needed it to stop. Phavian, groaning from the sudden impact to the wall, had barely any time to see the portal opening and then closing though his weary eyes. In a feat of pure instinct, Anaar had opened a portal to somewhere he felt could give him peace and quiet. Standing barefoot, completely frozen to the bone, he found himself atop the peak of Mount Everest.