by Ryan Johnson
Lusìvar placed his sword and stepped with a foot. Suddenly, he appeared in front of Valverno and punched Valverno in the belly.
Valverno felt great pain swelling in his guts and bones breaking. He puked out dropped of red blood from his mouth, and he was pushed toward a wall, impacting a hole. And the Crystal Sword fell from his hands.
“Elder Brother!” shouted Sora. Sora jumped toward the Shadow King.
“Stupid Pangaean!” Lusìvar raised his hand and a black-striped, yellow ball appeared in his palm. It shot and released a storm of lightening.
“No!” shouted Valverno, jumping in the way of the electrifying power. Valverno pushed the White Knight out of the way and felt the conjuring pulse of Lusìvar’s power. He was zapped upon a single touch of his skin and took the entire damage.
And after ten seconds, the lightening vanished and Valverno stood still in the air. He then fell and landed on the platform where Marina’s body was lying. He felt his skin was smoked like fried meat and his muscles too shocked to move; he felt paralyzed when he saved his sister.
“You are thoroughly predicable, hybrid,” said Lusìvar. “You had another opportunity to kill me. When I shot my power at your sister, you chose to save them, just like how your mother chose to save you. She had the opportunity to kill me (in my ghost form), but she made the wrong choice and ended up losing her life. All you Pangaeans have soft hearts and resulted their deaths. Evolution is going downwind, which means humanity might go extinct. I see I no longer will have to stay here. I may kill you, but the power coursing through the Pool of Light will prevent anyone from dying, but not for those who don’t have souls. I wanted a long time to get what I desire, so I’ll wait a little longer if I have to.”
Lusìvar turned and left the destroyed cavern but halted when he was at the exit. “And I remember!”
The Shadow King lifted up a hand and the armor artifact rose to the sky and a black sphere surrounded it. “There is your armor, and no one will be allowed to touch it but you, hybrid. All you have to do is touch it and it is yours.
“And remember this: you never unleashed your divine power. All you did was use your mortal power, never your divine power. In order to unleash your divine power, another substance needs to balance out your divine power.
“And that would be Pangaean magic your mother created for all Pangaeans. And those armor artifacts were enhancements for you, hybrid. And with all three, you would be able to unleash your to switch between your mortal magic power and your divine power. But without all three, you are rendered unless.”
Then Lusìvar remained silent and finally left the tree and the orb suddenly destroyed, leaving the paralyzed hybrid and his three companions behind with a dead Siren.
Valverno weakly crawled over to his dead wife. His legs and wings had strength to help him crawl, but his half human torso had no strength. The electric power Valverno shielded from his sister against paralyzed his muscles, finger-to-bone. Now, his dragon body parts were the only things unharmed and were moving him. He felt little strength in his arms and lifted Marina’s head closer to his eyes.
Marina’s eyes were closed if she was sleeping. Bu, in his heart, Valverno knew Marina was dead and no longer part of the Mortal Realm.
Tears dripped from Valverno’s eyes. Then Valverno placed an arm on Marina’s back on the other arm on Marina’s knees. In one bolt of a mighty strength, Valverno stood up, carrying Marina like a princess. Her head rested on his shoulder, and her arms draping down.
Valverno jumped across the pillared stones to the ledge that led to the exit. He paid no attention to the others following him and exiting the tree with him.
When they exited the tree, Sora walked in front of Valverno. Before she could issue out a word from her mouth, she saw a great anger flaring in her brother’s eyes. An anger of a living demon and a strong lust of hate. Sora halted as she watched Valverno walk from the tree’s gap and walked toward the edges the Pool of Light waved.
“Valverno…” Sora whispered.
Valverno walked into the water and knelt down. She laid Marina on the Pool’s surface. Then he crossed Marina’s hands on her chest if she was praying. After he crossed Marina’s hand, Valverno placed one hand on Marina’s crossed hands while holding to Marina’s back with one hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you or our three seeds.”
A single tear dripped from one of Valverno’s eyes and dropped on Marina’s face. And Valverno released Marina’s body from his grip and saw her body briefly float, before sinking into the water and deep into the Pool of Light.
Before she sunk, Valverno grabbed hold of the sapphire neckless he gave her the night he proposed to her and strapped it around his right arm.
Marina was laid to rest in the Pool of Light and Valverno closed his eyes when Marina disappeared from his eyes.
BACK AT THE OLD CITY
Valverno got out of the Pool of Light before he could feel its purity that would consume him and his heart and destroy him as it did with the people of Pangaea. He wasn’t going to have the Pool of Light’s power, and he won’t have any magical purity coursing through the Pool of Light. The purity he would will forfeit his personality to fight and no longer take action against Lusìvar. At this point, Valverno had already lost it; he felt he no longer had the dignity to fight.
He saw Flavius, Monico and Sora glaring at him with sadden faces. The White Knights’ faces were speechless of what to say. When it comes to grievances, there could be no words to what has already been done.
Valverno strolled passed them and back toward the entrance to the tree’s interior cavern. He walked toward the ledge’s cliffs and look down below the Pool of Light still flowing at the bottom. Then he looked up and saw the armor artifact floating high above the air with Lusìvar’s barrier protecting it. It was high from the ground and close above the edges where the tree was destroyed.
The smoke had cleared and Valverno could see the clear sky from where he was standing. He was close yet so far. He was close of retrieving what would have been his, and he would have been able to finally complete his quest. But when Marina got stabbed, Valverno jumped for a dying Siren instead of the armor.
“I’m not going to give up, not after everything I went through to get here,” Valverno grunted. Valverno marched over toward the walls and started climbing. His climbed the wall straight to the top, with his wings propelling him instead of using his human arms. He climbed fast and straight and in no time he reached the burned out echoes of the destroyed tree. There was enough space for him to stand on, and he looked at the armor just floating toward the center of the damaged tree.
With one leap, the hybrid jumped and widened out his wings and began to flap them. At first, he felt flying with momentum. Then his body started to descend; the armor fell from his view, shrinking from his eyesight as he suddenly fell.
Valverno fell from a great height and saw the himself landing back toward the ground where he climbed from. The hope he had for the future faded when he the final artifact shrank from his eyes, descended down, and landed hard on the ground. He landed collapsed hard enough he felt his spine and several ribs breaking at once.
What felt like a month was only a few short seconds when Valverno fell from the air and landed on the ground. Then Valverno painfully sat himself up and coughed out blood. He coughed hard and nearly choked after landing hard and surviving, even though the fall wasn’t long but long enough to make Valverno suffer internal injuries.
Anger drift in his eyes along with a hint of sadness. When he got back to his feet, he wiped his chin with his right hand and saw the blood he wiped on his hand. He looked at the ground he landed on. and it was the pillar the armor artifact first floated over and where Marina was killed by Lusìvar. “Marina, I’ve failed us all!” he sighed, turning his head toward the exit to see Flavius, Monico, and Sora standing there.
Valverno blinked
once and looked away. He raised his left hand and streams of red glow sprang from the healed, scarred skin of his left arm; it was the muscle fiber showing itself from Valverno’s skin.
Before his eyes, a small portal big as him appeared. There was an image of a pile of stones: ruins of a collapsed building. Valverno took a step and marched through the portal.
“Wait! Where are you going?” shouted the voice of Flavius.
“Home!” grunted Valverno. He walked through the portal without taking a look behind him and strolled into the portal. He whipped his tail and the portal close. Valverno found himself in a dark, shadowy place where no light was seen.
Then he shot up a few fireballs to light the darkness, and the fires lit the darkness with bright light like the sun’s flaring light. He found ruins of towered buildings stretching high in the air; it was his old home city buried beneath the island of Shimabellia, which is now destroyed.
The comets that destroyed Shimabellia didn’t seem to harm the buried city, given it is buried underground and well preserved by the magic power the ancient Pangaeans tried to save, with their families members as well.
Valverno looked only at one building; a giant pile of rubble and stones. The building collapsed and just a pile of rubble, and he knew it was his house he grew up in with Sora.
Valverno exhaled a cold, chilly air from his mouth toward the giant pile of collapsed stones that suddenly floated into shape. In a short time, the stones began to construct themselves into the shape of a squared, triangular house.
The entrance was short and the building was long as Geraldus’s mansion house. The roof was triangular stacked by pillars of limestone squared along the edges of the roof. The collapsed ruin was a complete masterpiece remade from Valverno’s single breath.
Valverno walked toward the entrance, which was covered by a single tapestry. He moved it aside as he walked into his old house. Inside, it was dark and glooming but Valverno spat a few more fireballs and lit the darkness.
The dark room Valverno entered felt mussy to his skin, and the air he breathed was fresh and clear like the scent of jungle trees. He saw the floor was flat and made of marble stone and stretched out wide as his eyes can see. Several pictures of faded paint hang on the walls.
Inside Valverno walked around and saw it as a one-room building. While the building’s outside appearance looked perfect, the inside was dusty. Tapestries ripped hung from the ceiling and walls. No furniture was in view.
“I am home,” whispered Valverno. “How long it must have been the last time I took my last step in this house.” Valverno walked through the entire room and saw everything was the same but different. There were many rusty items lingering everywhere and covered with dust. It was like a pile of dumped garbage left to rot in a broken house.
Valverno strolled to the back of the building and looked at four squared stone cubes lying next to each other. Those were built in the form of beds without mattresses or pillows. Two were big and about the same size in length, meant to be for the parents and two smaller ones meant for kids: one for Valverno and the other for Sora.
When Valverno took a step forward, a sound of breaking glass echoed. Valverno removed his foot and saw a metal frame on the floor. He picked it up to look at what picture was on it.
The picture was covered with dust, and the metal linings were rusted and ready to break. The glass was cracked and several pieces fell out. Valverno blew the dust off the painting and saw it as an oil painting labeled with the perfect design to make four figures on the painting look realistic.
The four figures showed two tall figures and two short figures, and one of the figures looking like Valverno without horns or ears. The other one was Sora but that image of her showed she had long pointy ears. Before he went to look at the two other figures whom were his parents, Valverno gazed back at the beds.
On one of the smaller beds, a ragdoll laid on the surface. The ragdoll was a foot long and liked like a regular ragdoll any girl would play with. It had green hair and a strange face painted with black markings. A small cloth covered it and made it look like a peasant girl doll.
Valverno picked up the doll with one free hand and held it close to his eyes. “I remember you well, when I gave you to Sora on her birthday,” Valverno spoke to the doll.
After he spoke, he turned toward the entrance and saw a figure walking in, and it was no other than Sora entering the house they both lived in once upon a time.
Sora came walking from the entrance and joined Valverno standing in the very back. “You forgot this,” said Sora, holding up the Crystal Sword.
Valverno grabbed it and sheathed it on the scabbard still hanging on his back. After placing the Crystal Sword away, Valverno saw Sora looking at their home that has rusted away.
She looked at all the paintings and tapestries that hung on the walls. “I remember walking through this house and thought of how big it was. Now, I realize how small it is, the smallest house in the biggest city of Pangaea.
“I remember the paintings showed of Angel Warriors battling the Demons, and the tapestries of the Three Gods creating the Mortal Realm of all the creatures of the First Generations and the Second Generation. This was our Pangaean life style.
“For the longest of all times, I still considered you as my full brother than half. I always thought of my father being your biological father. I had never known your true, biological father was the Devil King that led many Fallen Angels against the Three Gods and casted down from the Realm of the Gods. Nothing in this one-room house has changed yet it looks different.”
Valverno remained silent for a few short seconds before turning to the doll. “Remember this little doll?” he asked. “”The doll I gave you on your birthday, just before Pangaea’s destruction.” Valverno tossed the dusty doll to Sora, and she caught it with one hand.
“This house is the place we grew up in. Mother and Stepfather stood by the walls while we both played on the floor and sometimes we would go for walks in the streets of the city. Sometimes I would be chasing you and other times you were chasing after me, mostly to grab my tail. This house holds the most memories I have of you and them.”
Then Valverno looked back at the family picture and at the two tall figures. A beautiful woman with blue hair carrying a long emerald-ruby staff and a large man carrying a long black staff with golden hair, beard, and mustache that covered his face stood behind the two kids of Sora and Valverno. The picture showed Valverno looking like a ten-year old and Sora looking like a six-year old.
“I had hoped of bringing this old house back to the surface. I hoped my children could grow up here, in the same way you and I did growing up with Mother and Stepfather. And I could relive the moments you and I shared. And I would build this house to make it bigger have more rooms added to make it a large castle where my kids can run, shout, and bang the walls with toy swords. But now, that dream won’t become a reality.”
Valverno placed the family frame on a short bed, the bed that used to be his. A great anger lusted on his face. His eyes stricken with in grieving anger; anger that Marina, his most treasured Siren, died in his arms.
“Why did Marina die? I was right there. I was right beside her, but I didn’t have the power to save her. And to make matters worse, Lusìvar placed a barrier around the last artifact that prohibits any mortal from touching it. Why don’t I have the personality to kill him with the power that I have? The armor was right in front of me when Marina held it, and I could have grabbed it when it slipped from Marina’s hands. Instead I grabbed Marina and had it slipped from my grasp.” Valverno sat on the small stone cubed bed and grunted softly. “But that’s reality, there’s nothing that can be done about it. No one has the power to bring the dead back to life. Even if there is, the corpse will only be a zombie, not the living person itself. The body may come back to life, but the soul can’t come back to its body.”
“Oh, my brother Valverno.” Sora sat beside her brother and she cried softly on his shoulder. Her cry of grieve was the same as Valverno’s, but Valverno couldn’t find it to cry.
“I see you started to love Marina as a true sister of this family,” stated Valverno. “What future this family could have had, if I only spent time looking for the last artifact instead of ruling of Shimabellia. Everything would have been avoided, if I took the necessary action.”
Valverno placed a hand on Sora’s neck as a way to comfort her; they both lost their home country, they parents, their old comrades: the original White Knights, and now Marina. “How many more loved ones must we lose to that monster!?”
“And from what I’ve heard from Lusìvar you were a monster as well,” whispered Sora, ceasing her crying. “You maybe a demigod, but you once were a Demon Prince. I heard him speaking the truth, and you did destroy the First Generation and the Titans.
“But I know you now; you are not a monster, Elder Brother. You are the person I knew growing up, and I still want to see you growing, not as a demigod or a monster, but as a brother. You and Marina are not monsters to my eyes; you and she are my family. We need to remain strong and keep enduring these hardships we’re facing. We need to keep pushing forward and not give up until you have fulfilled your mission. And I will keep supporting you, Demigod Brother Valverno.”
With those words, Sora wiped tears from her eyes and got up. She looked at her toy doll one more time, and she laid it on the bed. “I’ll leave you be to our old house. This is where it needs to stay from now on. Pangaea and the Second Generation are in the past, and there is now the Third Generation and the future we need to save from that ruthless monster.” Then Sora departed and left the building.
