Reaper

by Wesley Brown

  “I’m ending this,” Blink said. He walked to the man. His armor was practically disintegrating; only his forearm cannon and the metallic plates over his legs remained. Blink stood over the man and fired again, the gun aimed at the man’s head. The shot froze in midair as Specter directed all of his telekinetic power at the bullet. Blink wheeled, furious, and aimed at his enemy, but instead found himself frozen in place too.

  “That doesn’t belong here,” the Specter said, pointing at the pistol. He created a ball of pressure no bigger than an ant inside the gun, then expanded the field. The gun burst, and hundreds of little pieces of metal flew. Blink’s hand was a bloody mess. He staggered for a moment, holding his shredded right hand in his left.

  “You. You think that can stop me?” Blink cracked a smile. “I can still fight the two of you.”

  “Go back to your own time. Leave us. This will be your last chance. I will not be so kind should you refuse.”

  “I want to see the worst that you can do,” Blink said.

  As these two exchanged threats back and forth, the man was dragging himself along the ground. His legs were healing again. The leg that had been shot had healed relatively quickly. He searched frantically for something to help him stand, his eyes landing on the obsidian-colored scythe. A cane. Perfect. He snatched the cool rod between his fingers.

  As soon as the scythe was in his grasp, something warm and tingling swept over his body—like honey in his veins. He looked down and gasped in awe as he realized that in the space of an instant, his wounds had vanished and his legs had regrown. He wobbled weakly, hardly daring to believe his eyes. What kind of power did this simple stick hold?

  “No!” Blink shouted.

  The Specter laughed maniacally, clutching his sides. “You went far, but you’ve come only to fail once more.”

  “No. I will still fight—this changes nothing,” Blink said, standing his ground.

  “I might feel a little threatened,” the Specter said with a smile, “if you even had two arms.”

  “What are you t—” Blink’s question was interrupted by the disturbing sight and sound of his right arm exploding the same way that the Specter had destroyed the pistol. The blood and muscle dropped all around. Small pieces of bone rained down. Blink let out a sour bellow of pain as he fell to his knees, then collapsed back into a growing puddle of his own blood. He slid what remained of his helmet off of his head. “I-I will not give up. Not as long as I have breath,” he said, slowly coming to his feet. Even on his knees, he was still making threats.

  “I’ll take your breath, then,” the Specter said, walking toward Blink. “Or… come, kill the meddler. Consider it your rite of passage.” The Specter was now enjoying himself greatly. It was not often, especially in this time, that anyone got the better of him.

  “No. No, no, no.” The man was afraid. He was seeing so much from the scythe. He saw the faces of all that had died to that point. Their memories flooded his mind. “Take it back. I don’t want it.” He held it out to the Specter.

  “All deals are final,” the Specter said. “If it takes you time to come to terms with this power, I can wait. I will kill the time-traveler.”

  The man screamed in pain, grabbed his head, and wept.

  The Specter lifted his right hand, extending his index finger toward Blink on the ground. A glowing white light appeared, and a beam of light shot from his fingertip. Blink’s eyes widened as the blast shot toward him, and he knew it was over. I failed. This is the end. I couldn’t—

  Suddenly, the blast was ricocheting away, disintegrating a nearby tree to ash. Blink gasped, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing. The man had lunged between the two fighters, using his scythe to deflect the blast. He’d saved him. The man he thought would be his mortal enemy had saved him.

  “What are you doing?” The Specter was enraged.

  “You monster!” the man shouted, and swung the scythe over his head.

  The Specter sidestepped the blow with arrogant nonchalance, reappearing just behind the man with the speed and ease of a ghost and grabbing the scythe before it could fall. “A scythe is not an ax…”

  “I will kill you.” The man took the scythe in both hands.

  “Of course you will,” the Specter said mockingly. “For now, kill the time-traveler.” He threw the man down over by Blink. The man and Blink locked eyes for the moment.

  “Get it over with. I won’t beg,” Blink said stubbornly.

  “I will not murder you.”

  “What?” Blink was surprised and confused. This was not the Reaper that he had faced so many times before. Blink had known a merciless Reaper. A hate filled killer only seeking power.

  The man stood quickly, swinging the scythe as he did. There it was—the sound of metal and metal flesh being cut. The Specter’s right arm just below the shoulder, like Blink’s, was now gone. The scaly, metal-plated limb struck the ground, and the black blood of the Specter gushed out.

  The Specter looked down at the black blood as though it belonged to a different person, then poked at the wound gingerly with one skeletal finger. “You wounded me?” He sounded more bewildered than scared, but then his flame-like eyes snapped coldly toward Blink again, the spell broken. “It doesn’t matter.” He waved his hand, and a portal opened in front of him.

  “Where are you going?” The man grabbed the Specter’s cape to stop him, but it made no difference.

  “Somewhere that you cannot follow me,” the Specter said. “Be in Athens in two weeks; I’ll find you there.” He entered the portal, which rippled like water. The man was still holding the Specter’s cape when he entered. By mid-forearm, the pain was so great that the man tried to jerked his arm back. Instead, the portal hardened into glass and shattered. The part of his left hand that was in the portal was now missing—all that was left was a stub showing muscle and bones. The man just stared at it, but he turned quickly as he heard the sound of Blink’s portal opening.

  “No, wait! Please don’t go!” the man shouted, reaching out with his regrowing limb.

  “I’ll die if I don’t get the right help,” Blink said. “You saved me; why?”

  “I saw the people that monster killed… the things he did,” the man said.

  “I want to help you, but I need you to trust me first,” Blink said.

  “Anything.”

  “Go to Memphis in Egypt. I’ll find you there.” Blink fell into his portal.

  On the other side of the portal, Blink had arrived back in his own time. He collapsed onto a low, long, stainless-steel table, flecked with rusted blood spatters from past, similar aftermath. There, Entity appeared in her holographic form.

  “Blink?” she gasped. “What happened? Why are you back?”

  “All in good time,” Blink squeezed out. “Get this armor off me and scan the damage.” Machines came down and took the armor off Blink the best that they could. Much of the damage to the armor had made it difficult to remove.

  “Blink, I cannot get all of it off,” Entity said.

  “Rip it off!” Blink shouted at her. “Restrain my legs and arm.” Metal clamps came up and held him down. “The damage—what can you tell me about it?”

  “It’s bad, Blink. I’m not sure how much I can do for you.”

  “Just stop the bleeding for now.” A machine glowing from heat was brought forward, and it pressed against the bloody stump. He struggled and screamed. Sweat rushed from his pours like rivers down from a mountain.

  “Blink, I need you to not struggle so much. I don’t want to hurt you more than absolutely necessary,” Entity said, calmly.

  “Thanks for that; I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Blink said through grunts of pain. The wound was successfully cauterized. Blink laid his head down and took in deep breaths. “Thank you. What would I do without you?”

  “Odds are you would die. Badly, too,” Entity said. “Should I assume that Project B.C. was a failure?”

  “Yes.”

  “After year
s of work. All our friends have given their lives for that last-ditch effort.” Entity said. She went down on her knees. “You know, if I could still cry, I would be hysterical right now.”

  “This fight isn’t over,” Blink said. “I have a new plan. I’ll need a new arm.”

  “Prepping for artificial right appendage,” Entity said. “What is your plan, if I may ask?”

  “I’m going back again.” The many components of the arm were brought forward, the machines surrounding Blink piecing it meticulously together bit by bit as it traveled toward his truncated shoulder.

  “Blink, your body can’t take it anymore,” Entity said. “It was already struggling before you left, but you went back thousands of years. With the armor, that wouldn’t have been an issue, but something serious must have happened while you were gone. Now, even if you could make it there alive, with or without the suit, you will be stuck back there. You’ve taken too much strain on your body. I’m sorry, Blink, but you can’t use your powers anymore or you will die.”

  Blink banged his head back on the table. “Then what are we supposed to do?”

  “If you told me your plan, maybe I could help come up with something.”

  “I saw something back there,” Blink said. “Something simply unbelievable without seeing it yourself. The Reaper saved my life and attacked Specter.”

  “Did he kill Specter?” Entity asked, rising to her feet with a hopeful smile across her face.

  “No, I’m afraid not. We both failed at that,” Blink said, looking away with shame. He turned his head back to her. “Specter was stronger there. More powerful than when I fought him before.”

  “Perhaps his age made him weak when you fought him,” Entity said.

  “Either way, the Reaper told me himself that he wants help. I’m going to help him.” The words came out through gritted teeth, as Blink was still wincing from the operation he was going through. “And you wanted to go back through time to mold him into a hero.” Entity smiled. “What a plan.”

  “It’s no use now,” Blink said. “I’ll take the arm and face the Death one last time.”

  “You may not have to,” Entity said. “You can’t go back in time, but I think we can use your powers in a different way.”

  Entity attached the first pieces of the new arm to Blink’s stump. He shouted and screeched from the pain. Only the cuff plate was welded to him. It would make the overall procedure less difficult later. After being injected with strong pain medicine, Blink and Entity went down to the room where Blink could observe all time. He put on his helmet and fell into a deep sleep. As he slept Entity watched and calculated probabilities. She was writing a new history. She looked at the good, bad, and unavoidable from as many times as she could comprehend at once, with significant amounts of guesses, odds, and probability. She left room for present perception, as well as room for no action at all. She looked at what must happen and what must never come to pass. When she was finished hours later, she woke Blink.

  “Wha—!” Blink jolted, lifting one arm over his face and stump as if his missing arm were still there.

  “I’m sorry, Blink, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Entity said.

  “You didn’t. And even if you did, I have plenty of reasons to occasionally get scared.”

  “But you weren’t.”

  “Of course not.” Blink took off the helmet. “What happened?”

  “You fell asleep.”

  “Well, what have you been doing?” Blink stood, holding the back of his chair.

  “Your mind was racing, and I looked through many histories, trying to find the way to make the Reaper a hero. I think I’ve got it,” Entity said, smiling with her arms behind her back.

  “Is there anything you can’t do with science?” Blink asked with a chuckle.

  “I can’t send you back to use this formula.” Entity’s smile left her.

  “What good is it, then?”

  “Maybe we could send it back to someone who can use it,” Entity suggested.

  “But who? We would need someone we can put our trust in, someone who could either go through time, or someone who could live with him,” Blink said.

  “There is always you.”

  “You said I can’t anymore.”

  “For being a learned time-traveler, you are dense.”

  “Please don’t screw with me right now. Be straight—what are you saying?” Blink asked.

  “A younger you. We send this to a younger you from a different time,” Entity said.

  “That’s good. I like that,” Blink stated. “Render all our data to a mobile ocular device.”

  “Blink, we only have one left,” Entity said.

  “I’ll still have it in a younger version.”

  “You might consider leaving a message for yourself,” Entity said. “So you—the younger you—can better understand why he’s receiving this.”

  “I will,” Blink said, walking away.

  “Blink!” Entity called, something that sounded almost like anxiousness twinging her monotone.

  Blink turned around. “What?”

  She paused, as though her circuitry was preventing her from delivering the message she actually wanted to. Finally, “There is a ninety-eight-point-six chance you will fail.”

  Blink swallowed, but let a nonchalant smile spread over his face as he shrugged. “I’ll take any chance I can get.”

  “One. Two. Three,” Back in 335 B.C., the Reaper was looking into his new abilities. He was on his hands and knees, clutching a rock the size of a grapefruit over his head. He took a few deep breaths. “One. Two. Three.”

  He crushed his left hand at the wrist. The bones shattered and the flesh ripped. He had hit closer to the side with his thumb. He lifted his hand to examine the damage and the subsequent rapid regeneration. The blood flowed and the pain was intense, but all he could do was look at the hand dangling by a thread of flesh, watching as a new hand grew back. First, the bones regrew and the muscles wove around them. Then, skin covered all of it. The first hand fell off when the second hand had grown back.

  “I am a monster,” the Reaper muttered, flexing his hand and turning it around to gaze in miserable horror at the smooth, flawless skin of his palm. “What do they want with me?” His mind spun with uncertainty as he thought of the two paths that had been offered to him. Athens, with the Specter who had given him this curse, or Memphis, toward the strange man with the weapons and the portals. Which should I choose?

  “My power.” A hollow voice echoed within the Reaper’s head.

  “Who is there?” the Reaper asked, scared and confused.

  “Who.”

  “I hear your voice in my head,” the Reaper said. “Where are you?”

  “In the shiver down your spine.”

  “Where should I go?”

  “We must go to Athens.”

  “That creature told me to go there.”

  “Yes, and he can teach you how to better understand and use this power.”

  “What did the other man want?” the Reaper asked.

  “It matters not,” the voice said. “Go to Athens. Meet the Specter.” The voice had become colder and less friendly.

  “I will not,” the Reaper said. “I will go find my family. Hades have you all.”

  “Hmm, yes, I like this,” the voice said. “Let’s find them.”

  “Why do you so easily sway? What do you have to gain from my actions?” the Reaper asked.

  “GO!” the voice shouted, and a skeleton cloaked in a black robe appeared inches from Reaper’s face. The Reaper fell back in fear. He hurled a large rock that passed right through Death’s chest. “Get up, you coward. You must manifest this power.”

  “I don’t want it!” Reaper shouted. He threw down his armor, tearing his red cape and letting it hang from one shoulder, then snatched up a length of rope from his tent and used to tie his scythe to his back.

  “Where will you go?” the voice asked.

  “You want an
swers. So do I.”

  “What do you wish to know?”

  “What is your name?” Reaper asked.

  “I am going to Memphis,” Reaper said.

  “To meet up with future-man? He’ll kill you,” Death replied coldly.

  Reaper shook his head. “No, he wants to help me. I can feel it. I know it makes no sense, but I don’t trust Specter, even if he gave me this power. Wherever he is, I need to be far away from there.”

  Death laughed. “The Specter didn’t try to kill you. Can the same be said for the other man?”

  “I will take my chances,” Reaper said, turning from the cloaked skeleton. “I will find a way to get rid of this curse.”

  The Reaper began to walk south towards Argos. It took him just under a week, but he finally made it to the docks, where he bartered with merchants until finding a crew that would take him.

  He offered to work aboard their ship without pay, only asking for a piece of bread each day. This ship agreed to take him as far as Crete, seeing as how the merchants had business there, but they would go no further. They refused to go to Egypt.

  While aboard, Reaper met a young Athenian man named Theseus. He was chiseled and strong, and worked hard on the ship every day—harder even than the Reaper, with his supernatural strength. Reaper was actually afraid that this man was making him look slow and he might be thrown off for slacking.

  The image and voice of Death was a constant distraction, causing Reaper’s slower work. One night, Reaper asked the young man why he needed to set foot on Crete. The man told him how he had become a champion in the region of Athens for ridding the roads of vile thieves and murderers. Reaper congratulated the young man for his many impressive achievements. The man went on to say that one day, while he was away from his home, fourteen children had been taken to Crete, and he was going to free them. A great challenge to be sure. As Theseus reflected on his task and asked Reaper to aid him.