Chapter Eleven – Castle Made of Dirt

        The Emblem of the Star-Crossed Lovers (Interitus 1: Book X)

Chapter Eleven – Castle Made of Dirt

 

It was late in the night when we awoke to the sound of a pound on the door. Aeliana bolted from my side and dashed across the floor. She clenched her daggers in her hands and steadied her arms for battle, but she tapped her foot three times as a quiet message. Somehow I was aware of the reality but locked in a dream. I could hear her admonition, but I deceived myself to stay for just an extra moment in the dying light of a once-comfortable world which would now have to burn. I could picture it in my head as a broken bowl beneath a winter night. Though water once poured from its hole and merely flooded the earth around it, the frigid winter sealed its cracks with ice. It could in this way temporarily disguise itself as ordinary and complete, even if it could only fill with water which would freeze. But time passes and seasons change, so now winter withered all around me. I could feel the proverbial ice thin and erode the flimsy barrier that granted a glimpse of normalcy. It was the end of an era. It was a frozen world at the edge of a fire. It was the suicide note of a peaceful life plunged into pandemonium.

Our tranquil façade of an ordinary life ended in the moment that a battleax came crashing through our door. Woodchips and sawdust exploded into our dusty home, but Aeliana threw herself into the cascade of shattered wood. She lunged past the battleax and ruthlessly tore her daggers into our attacker. I sat up in our bed and watched their shadows dance upon the cluttered floor. Orange streetlight flooded across the threshold and clearly defined her shadow as she repeatedly sank her blades into our invader. I saw hunks of flesh and blood spew forth from his body. I saw him fall upon his knees, and then she set the tip of her dagger against his throat.

“Does the queen of the dark know that you are here?” Aeliana demanded from someone who stood somewhat near.

“She gave us the address with her blessing. Hayatama is a benevolent man meant to build a better world. What right do you have to steal from him? We promised to him we would capture or kill you both,” explained another man as if he had given his oath.

I unsheathed my sword and said as I stepped through the door, “Then you already know that we are weapons of war. You are not the only person who ever dared to cross our path, but if you make one move against us then there is no going back.”

“I was given orders which say that you have to die,” answered the man as he lifted his hand to the sky.

Aeliana slit the throat of her captive with a bloody splash. As she dropped the body onto the doorstep where we had made love on the day this all began, our attacker activated his power with a flash of light. A bolt of lightning shot down from the sky and nearly struck us both, but it crashed instead upon a substitute I summoned with my stolen power. The shockwave destroyed the decoy and dealt us both a paralytic jolt. But even as I slammed against the wall behind me, I lifted my left hand and unleashed a full-force fireball forward at our enemy. The attacker crossed his arm shields and braced himself, but the explosive impact launched him backward in the street. The fiery glow overwhelmed the light of the stars in the sky, and the blazing shockwave sent shadows across the street. I grabbed Aeliana’s hand and took off running, though we stumbled from our electric paralysis. Our enemy unleashed another thunderbolt straight down from the sky, but it struck the street behind us with a shower of sparks.

A deafening crack of thunder tore across the sky and sent a shudder through the street. The shockwave sent a shudder through the streetlights. Two pedestrians stared at the sky with shock from the freak pair of lightning bolts, but then they audibly exclaimed when they saw us run through the street with our weapons in hand. Without thinking or speaking a word, we sprinted together toward the tract of land where I first took her hand. But with our eyes still scarred by lightning, the starlit shadows shifted and swirled up ahead. They contorted and crisscrossed to create a cloaked silhouette standing directly in our path. Unlike the civilians who fled from us as if we were far more dangerous than the plague they feared, this cloaked adversary unsheathed two swords and prepared to fight. A luminous energy coursed down his left arm, but in that moment, Aeliana activated her power and locked everything in place.

After she pressed her lips on mine, Aeliana said, “I have unlocked you in time.”

“Then let us run together to the coastline. Let us run to the beach where we met for the first time. Let’s swim like a spaceship sent to sail the stars; let’s swim through the sea that will one day be ours.”

Aeliana nodded with a shy smile and sheathed her daggers. She dragged me by the hand toward the beach, reversing the path we took on the first night I brought her to my quiet home. We ran past a crack in the street where steam seeped into the sky, and it looked like a waterfall in reverse that fell frozen in place. Tiny spirals in the steam swirled from the edges of the ascending cloud and surfed the breeze that swept in from the sea. As we ran hand-in-hand across this frozen wonderland, I saw a playground where Donovan pushed a smiling child on a swing. We decelerated as we approached the playground, and I peered through the streetlights to see my old friend’s face.

A part of me wondered if perhaps Donovan had betrayed us when Hayatama asked Bellaina where to find us. But when I saw his unguarded smile as he played with his daughter, I realized that it did not matter if he was innocent or guilty. His family meant the world to him, and he had stood at the edge of the shadows so that he could provide for them. He stood with one foot in the darkness so that he could protect them from the underworld. He and I were the same in that way. We were two men driven by love to commit countless crimes because any price was always worth it. Even if he had betrayed me, I knew I would have done the same to him if it meant saving Aeliana. I was just another crime he had to commit.

And though Donovan stood so deeply in the darkness that it drenched his skin with blood, reality rewarded him for his decision. Even frozen in time, his daughter leaned back in her swing just to smile at him from behind. His son swung a short distance away, excitedly watching him push her as if they were in a competition. Anna watched from a bench beneath a tree; her smile practically glowed from a streetlight. Even through the dim light and motionless world, I could see in her eyes that he had set her heart alight and alive with the fire of love. I stopped beside Donovan briefly as we ran past, and I wished him a fond farewell despite the part he possibly played in our departure.

Aeliana and I resumed our run through the next street, but I couldn’t decide if this was in defeat or just retreat. Like a specter I stared at the world we left behind. I saw small markets and four families all frozen in time. A shred of my broken heart just could not help but hurt, as if this city were ever more than a castle made of dirt. It wasn’t the pain of losing everything again; it was the pain of a past that never was but maybe could have been. If only I were normal, I could have made a friend. If only I were normal, I wouldn’t be the reason it must end. I was always almost happy here, but it never felt like home. This city is the closest thing to a home I’ve ever known.

The world returned to life when we were just a few blocks from the shore. The stars twinkled in the sky and sent a shudder in the shadows that scattered the street. Only two pedestrians stood in our area, but they stood at a distance from fear of plague. They had not even noticed that we practically appeared to emerge suddenly into the street from thin air. We ran past the ashen cinders of the buildings we had burned. I stepped in the place where we made love for the first time on the body of an enemy who had dared to attack us. But in the moment that we crossed from the ash-stained asphalt onto the sand of the quiet beach, a silhouette emerged from the steaming shallows. His hands glowed momentarily, and then a small wall of rock suddenly ascended from the sand.

“Asivario, look out!” she yelled with a sudden shout.

And though Aeliana was quick enough to brace herself and slam her forearms upon the rock wall, I crashed into it at full speed. She unsheathed her daggers in the same moment that I stumbled from the pain, but then another rock wall appeared to my left. Afraid that we would find ourselves boxed in, Aeliana wrapped her arms around me and then kicked off the wall. We flew just past the edge of a third rock wall which would have enclosed us, and then I aimed my left hand at the silhouette in the shallows. Fire spiraled across my arm and summoned a sphere of searing flames. I then unleashed the fireball straight at our attacker, but he crouched down and summoned a rock wall to take the hit. The fiery sphere engulfed the rock wall and crumbled it in an explosive shockwave, but our enemy stood unfazed in a shower of scarlet sparks and gravel. The glow of fire illuminated the waves which washed ashore.

“How did you know we would run away to this place?” I asked as Aeliana wiped a drop of blood from my face.

But our enemy drew his sword as he spoke, “Because Hayatama said you would run to this coast. Our attack force at your home was intentionally small. He knew that this was your escape ever since the moment you killed that Astrodeus in the street.”

In that moment, a blast of plasma struck us both from behind and shot us into the sand with a smolder. Smoke plumed from our clothes, and the thunderous shockwave shook the shore. Though Aeliana had been hit harder by the blast, she jumped upright to see our second enemy underneath a streetlight, just a few feet from the place where I killed a witness with a fireball. Still reeling from the last attack, Aeliana offered me her hand. With her help, I stumbled upright and unsheathed my chipped sword.

Aeliana steadied her daggers and whispered in my ear, “The worst thing we can do is both stand right here. If we stay in place, the man with the rock walls can lock us in place. I think we should both go on the attack and target the man with the plasma blast. He has no weapon. He has no way to defend himself. You run in front, block his blast with a decoy, and I’ll tear him down.”

Aeliana always had a proclivity for viciousness, and when we first met, I confess that it disturbed me at the time. Not because I thought of her as a savage or considered myself civilized, but instead because it meant that the brutality of the badlands branded her brain just as the savagery stained her skin with scars. I hated seeing the evidence that she had suffered so much just in trying to survive. But by this point, I had relinquished any reservations that repelled me in the past. We had only made it this far because she is mercilessly determined to survive. It is only because of her savagery that we will force our future onto this world by striking down anything in our way. Just as we are cosmic gamblers who exchange our memories for another lifetime at the end of each cycle, she gambles her body with her life as the stake just to exert her will upon this world.

I agreed to her plan and then took off running. We sprinted together toward the enemy in the street who had attacked us from a distance, and exactly as we predicted, this enemy unleashed a blast of white-hot plasma to impede our assault. Aeliana jolted behind me for protection, and I invoked the power I had stolen from Kalairo. I summoned a decoy in that moment and held it out front with both hands. And while it successfully shielded me from the scorching strike, the impact stopped us both in our tracks. The shockwave sent tremors through my arms as I dropped the smoldering remains of my own substitute. Our enemy appeared taken aback by this, but he lifted his left arm and prepared to unleash a second blast. In the moment that he forced particles in the air to come crashing together in a white-hot burst, Aeliana pushed me to the right with all her strength. The recoil of the push threw her to the left, and then the calamitous attack shot directly through the space between us.

“Asivario, please look to your right!” Aeliana said while we were blinded by light.

As plasma came crashing down upon the shore of Ember Bay, I swerved to the side and saw an enormous figure tear across the sand. He crashed into me with so much force that he sent me slamming to the sand with a violent roll. Even when I stopped, the stars seemed to spin and sway in the sky above. I climbed into a crouch and saw that he had already knocked Aeliana to the ground in the same way. He swung his sword straight down at her, but she threw herself into a backward somersault across the sand and narrowly escaped. But to my horror, this third attacker tore across the sand and struck her with a full-force kick that launched her into the air. Before she even came crashing down to the sand, I retaliated with a fireball which struck him directly in the chest. The sphere practically detonated with a shockwave of spiraling fire which bathed the beach in light, but he emerged from the scarlet sparks with his sword held high. His skin and clothes smoldered slightly, but my strongest attack had not even knocked him down.

The swordsman said as the sparks danced between scarlet and blue, “It is an honor and a shame to be the man who kills you. You are an anomaly of which I never thought possible. Hayatama warned me that he did not know your power, but now it is clear that you are unbound by singularity. Your soul can summon a shield and a sword. It’s such a shame that you dared to cross a city leader. I would have loved to fight beside you.”

As Aeliana stumbled to her feet in the background, I threw myself at the swordsman with my sword set to strike. I ran at my fastest speed, but right before I would have reached our enormous enemy, a rock wall ascended from the sand between us. Instead of stopping or slowing down, I accelerated and slammed the butt of my sword against the rock wall. Despite all my strength, I was stopped in my tracks. I slammed against the wall, and then the swordsman struck it from the other side with a full-force slash. His weapon transformed the rock wall into a scattershot of gravel; his sword struck the edge of my forearms and splashed blood into the air. The impact sent me reeling backward, and I nearly fell into the sand.

This enemy then slammed his way through the swirling dust and swung his sword in a speedy slash, but I sidestepped his strike and then counterattacked with a slash of my own. He twisted himself to escape my slash, but then I lifted my left hand and counterattacked with a sudden sphere of spiraling fire. And even though I unleashed the fireball with all my strength, he still managed to swerve and jump backward in the air. My incendiary sphere struck him and detonated with a full-force blast that launched him a short distance away. He crash-landed in the street without ever dropping his sword, and he executed a quick double-roll to extinguish the flames which clung to his clothes. The towering swordsman then jolted upright beside our other enemy, almost as if he would personally defend the man with the plasma blasts.

I said to the swordsman standing beneath the starlight, “We both know this doesn’t have to end in a fight. We are here not to fight but only to run; we both are fighting for the same outcome. Even if she and I were to both disappear, it means that in the end we would not be here. You could lie to Hayatama and say that you killed us. It is an easy end that we don’t need to discuss.”

“Hayatama may have set the stage for this fight, but I could not live with myself if I were to just let you leave. I know about the bodies that scatter your path. I must punish you for your malevolence as a message to this world! I always dreamed of one day fighting an evil with fearsome strength. It will be an honor to take you out,” said the swordsman in an enthralled shout.

Though his words sent a shiver through my soul, Aeliana said, “I’ve got him under control. Even together we cannot beat him now. I will hold him back, and you kill the one standing in the shallows. If we are to win this, we will need his power.”

An enemy unleashed a blast of white-hot plasma in that moment. It was so bright that it blinded my eyes from seeing any other detail, so I summoned a substitute and sprinted into the light. The blast struck the dummy with so much force that it stopped me in my tracks, and then I kicked off the dummy and pushed with the impact. I hit the ground running in a full-force sprint toward our first enemy who stood in the shallows. As blinding fire illuminated the darkness around us, I saw my target glow as if he intended to summon a rock wall. I steadied myself so that I shot by its side when it ascended from the sand. In the moment the light from the plasma blast fell, I unleashed a fireball of my own and launched it at my enemy. He desperately materialized a second wall which practically shattered in the shockwave of my attack. Spirals of fire illuminated the shore before me, and the clash of blades echoed into the sky behind me.

But as soon as I crossed from the sand and into the shallows, my enemy retaliated by throwing a short spear with all his strength. The spear shimmered in the starlight as it barreled forward and pierced into my chest. Or at least, that is what it looked like from his perspective. As Aeliana and her enemy grunted in the background, I threw aside the decoy dummy with the spear in its chest; it slammed in the shallows with a splash. The assailant then swerved to see my true body with a look of horror, but by the time he realized what had happened, it was already too late. The love of my life fought desperately in the background just to give me this opportunity, and I hated myself for endangering her just because I was too weak to end all our enemies at once. So with the strength of this self-hatred, I sidestepped his second spear and stabbed my sword straight through his chest. I shattered half his ribcage as we stood there in the shallows. As my blade broke his bones and barreled through his back, I pierced him so deeply that he touched the Array I had inscribed upon my sword. It illuminated with a flash, and then black fire blanketed his body. Black fire burned his barren soul.

I struck in the moment I felt myself devour his heart; I wanted nothing more than to split the two fighters apart. I forced a rock wall to suddenly ascend from the sand, but Aeliana was on her knees and still struggled to stand. The swordsman slammed his weapon against the wall, but somehow he barely damaged it at all. He chuckled and stepped back while still facing forward, still set to carry out the task for which he was ordered. I wondered if perhaps she had injured him during their fight, but I could still only see burn wounds beneath the starlight.

The swordsman stood at a short distance and said, “This is all the more reason I must strike you dead. These powers we possess are sacred centerpieces of our souls, given to us by God to enact His righteous will. But instead of defending this world with a power of your own, the two of you torment it by stealing weapons from the righteous. You are a conglomeration of evil, but Hayatama has empowered me with all that I need to take you out. You will pay for betraying the man who will save this hopeless world.”

I answered him as I reached Aeliana in the sand, “It looks to me like you are struggling to stand. Are you sure you can stop me? It seems your strength has seeped through your hands.”

“When I awaken my power, it doubles my strength and my speed. Even my stamina and durability double. I’m not telling you this just to brag; I just want you to understand why Hayatama empowered me to defend the city. The two of you are villains and must be brought to justice,” said the swordsman as a faint glow illuminated his skin.

The swordsman jumped atop the rock wall in the same moment that I reached Aeliana’s side. She had managed to stay upright, but deep gashes scattered her scarred skin. Her daggers dangled limply in her bloodstained hands. A tear shimmered in her eye as she struggled to lift her heavy hands; she had given all she had just to hold off the swordsman. I dismissed her with a tap of my hand, silently assuring her that she had already done enough. She had protected me so that I would steal the power to fight back, so it was now up to me. I only had this ground to stand on because of her.

I said to the swordsman as I subtly took aim, “Before we fight to the death, please tell me your name.”

“I am Elijah, but I serve as the hand of justice. And though I may execute the two of you in the end, I want you to know that it has been an honor to fight you,” said the swordsman as he jumped into motion without further ado.

In the moment that he landed on the sand, I outstretched my hand and unleashed a sudden sphere of fire. But to my surprise, Elijah kicked off the rock wall behind him and launched himself closer; the explosive shockwave behind him only accelerated his approach. I swung my sword with all my strength, but he clashed his blade against mine and sent me flying backward at a jarring speed. Even after he knocked me down, he sprinted closer and swung his sword for a decisive strike, but I blocked him with a sudden rock wall. I stumbled upright and steadied myself, but he crushed the wall in the next moment with a slash of his sword. A scattershot of shattered rock spattered my skin and lightly cut my bloody arms, but then I found myself under attack from a second angle.

As particles in the air came crashing together in his hand like an explosion in reverse, the other enemy unleashed a plasma blast from the edge of the street. I desperately summoned a dummy and kicked it into the blast as a shield, but the shockwave overpowered my substitute. It flew back and struck me with so much force that I was thrown backward and into the shallows with a splash. I steadied my sword and stumbled upright as Elijah launched himself toward me at his fastest speed. He possessed a strength that nothing could stop, but at the very least, I could beat him to the punch. Though I had practically no chance of success, I convinced myself that it was a mathematical certainty that this gamble would succeed in the end. After all, I had already resolved that this is my last lifetime. I was lost and locked in the limelight of a life I knew I could not lose, so this last-ditch effort therefore had to succeed.

I jolted forward as I ducked and thrust my sword so that I could use his momentum against him, but he blocked my blade with a flick of his wrist and a flicker in his eye. Our swords summoned a scarlet spark that sent shimmers on the shallows, but then he struck me in the upper chest with the handle of his sword. This impact alone was enough to throw me back into the waves. I glanced at Aeliana in desperate horror, but she shook her head with tears in her eyes; she did not possess the fuel to freeze time once again. She sought to look past this lost life as it ran by. She was untamed but wordless; she silently screamed herself into the sky as if the stars which crossed us could come and save us. I had to do something to save her. My thoughts strived to flow, but my words came out pouring.

“You are caught in Hayatama’s web of deception, so you’ve defended the darkness ever since your inception. You serve no purpose other than being his mule, but he never told you the dark truth to your fuel. Your power is fueled by the life force of the dead, stolen from the innocent that he claims to defend. He seizes this fuel by killing them himself, and then he uses it to bribe you and everyone else. You can declare yourself a hero like those this city reveres, but the crimes you’ve committed cause screams and not cheers. Do you know how many people died so you could play pretend? All because you believed the lies that he would portend. You can see the truth scarred into your ally’s eyes; he knows the truth that Hayatama wanted to hide. But he denied and defiled your sense of justice,” I said as I prayed that he would somehow trust us.

But Elijah seemed to stop in his tracks. He became stuck in a standstill and set to reconsider all that he had heard. I could tell by the pain in his gaze that this was not the first time he had wondered about the source of his fuel; it was likely not the first time he had heard a similar accusation. He glanced over his shoulder at his ally who stood at a safe distance. This ally nodded slowly, but Elijah shook his head as if he could hide from reality. If he denied the apparent truth, then he could rewrite the repugnant reality.

“I will not fall for your duplicity,” said Elijah as he turned away from the city.

In that moment, Elijah threw himself forward at a superhuman speed. I forced a rock wall to rise in his path, but he came crashing straight through it in a rage-fueled slam. A shower of rock splashed into the water as he rushed closer, but it had distracted him long enough for me to unleash a high-speed sphere of spiraling fire. It struck him with a fiery shockwave which launched him back into the remains of the rock wall. The impact disoriented the swordsman, so I threw myself forward and thrust my sword in a desperate attempt to end this fight. But instead of sidestepping my slash, he swung his sword so swiftly that it struck my weapon out of my hand. He then bolted forward at a frightening pace and then stopped with his sword to my throat. His bright blue eyes glared into mine as he contemplated his next move.

“You can kill me if you like, but it will not kill malevolence—not when it is your boss who harvests and kills innocents. You already know what we wanted when we came here. What crime could we commit at a bay by the pier? Who do you save by stopping us from running away?” I asked as he contemplated the orders from which he might stray.

I could tell by the ambiguity in Elijah’s eyes that he was too righteous to kill a person if he suspected their innocence; he could not run the risk of killing a good person and becoming a hand of the malice he so clearly detested. Still pressing his blade to my neck, he looked over his shoulder at his ally who now ran across the sand. This enemy seemed to realize that I had nearly pacified his comrade, so now he approached to finish the job.

I explained to Elijah as I took a deep breath, “She had to take his power or else it would be her death. It’s true that we stole his fuel and ran, by freezing time itself as only she can. But he would have killed us if we refused him; there was simply no other way that we could win. But for the sake of justice, it makes no difference in the end. Hayatama will kill anyone whether a foe or a friend.”

After a contemplative pause, Elijah groaned angrily and dropped his sword in the shallows. He ran over to Aeliana and scooped her up in his hands, and then together we took off running at full speed toward the pier. Our other enemy shouted Elijah’s name as we made our escape, but I forced a rock wall to ascend from the beach; I even heard the delightful sound of him crashing straight into it. The quiet pier was a considerable distance from the shallows where I had buried countless victims of the dark, but the urgency spurred me to heighten my speed. When we crossed from the sand to the wood which stretched out into the sea, I saw the starlight shimmer on the surface of a dozen moored ships. A blast of plasma in the distance illuminated the beach with a white flash, but we were too far away to fear our assailant now. Even as we raced toward the end of the dock, Elijah whispered a heartfelt apology for attacking us in the first place. I could tell his whole world had crumbled, including his perception of himself, but he distracted his breaking mind for the purpose of saving those that he had wronged.

Even after his power expired and his strength returned to normal, Elijah continued to push himself forward with Aeliana in his arms. For as much as I wished that I could carry her across the world if I needed, I wouldn’t have had the strength to save her in that moment even if it was our only option. Elijah then burned more quintessence to empower himself with the strength he needed to save us. It’s no exaggeration to say that Elijah is a living legend, determined to stand for justice and build a better world. He fired every muscle in his body and soul to carry us to the small boat at the end of the dock. He had sacrificed his own future and any hope he had of returning to his previous life, all because I upended the illusion that enamored him with Hayatama. He couldn’t go back to the life he had even if he forewent his own morals, all because he had elected to help us.

Elijah said to me as he stared across the bay, “I’m almost sad to see our battle end in this way. I hope you manage to stay safe somewhere out there. I almost wish… that I could somehow go with you.”

“You will join us on our quest in my head as a guest,” I said to Elijah as I stabbed my sword through his chest.

His eyes widened with shock as my blade burst through his back with a bloody splash. Every muscle in his body tensed, and he weakly set his hands on the steel of my blade. Aeliana watched from a short distance as she set two oars in the ocean, but I stared only into the bright blue eyes of the man who had saved us. I could see pain and confusion flash through his eyes as vividly as the stars danced in the sky.

He asked me in the moment that his knees fell to the floor, “Did you lie about everything you told me before? You said Hayatama is a monster. I tried to save you!”

“It was more than a try; you saved me for sure. I told you truth when I told you those words. Your boss poses a threat to all innocent lives, but we pose a threat to both the land and the skies. We will warp existence itself to further our goal, and your power will help me when I devour your soul. I never claimed to be a good man or even benign, for we will wage war on the stars until they align. Your act of justice or goodness can’t derail our path; we’re on a journey to eternity and can never turn back. You turned against a man who left dozens to rot in the sand, only to save a man who will harvest everyone left in this land. You are a steppingstone to the future we swore to create, and now that I’ve killed you, it’s already too late.”

I thrust my sword deeper into Elijah’s chest and watched black fire engulf his body as he took his final breath. His head bowed as the Array burned through his soul and empowered me with a weapon which was beyond all control. Aeliana watched with a smile as I kicked his body into the swift sea, and then I crouched beside her with an oar in my hand. She kissed me deeply and ran her hand through my hair. Her hazel eyes narrowed with a glowing smile. I slashed the ropes which bound our boat to the dock, and then I kicked off it to push ourselves into motion. Elijah’s former ally ran across shore toward the place where the pier met the sand, so I summoned a searing sphere of spiraling flames. I launched the fireball at its fastest speed and struck the base of the dock with an explosive crash. The fiery shockwave engulfed the pier and ignited the six boats closest to the blast. Fire illuminated the sky and the sea as I sailed from the city with her hand clasped in mine.

This story was never one of a willful man striving to fix a broken world; stronger men than me have tried. This world has proven it has no place for heroes or champions, otherwise it would not reward murderers with the power to rewrite reality.