Titans of the Current: Hands of God Edition

Part 10:3:4

BOOM!

"Son of a bitch!" I'm firing rockets into its legs, yet it acts as though I'm not even here! I can't even begin to scratch it.

All it's doing is just looking into the sky... At those... Souls.... Shit!

It's that damn music! I fortunately am blessed with the ink, I created earplugs. Unfortunately, it's killing the people who didn't close their ears. So this was his idea: purposely stage a losing war just to feed alrach.

It wasn't enough to just clone should too feed him. He wanted to take out as much competition in the process, leaving only the major players to fight over what's left.

But what does Derkeszher gain out of all this? After all is said and done, Tamiel or Etrius will simply kill him.

"It looks like those two aren't the only ones playing the game."

"Derkeszher is playing a game over their games, Jack."

"Ba-al? What's been happening on your end?"

He was shaken up by something, but he seemed different. Like how power was changed, or amplified. "Are you stronger, what happened to you?"

"Jack, you don't have mamon's soul do you?"

"So... You finally figured it out... Yeah, my old man took it from me."

"Incredible....." We gaze up to the motionless behemoth as he continues his point. "We revere ourselves as Titans, because we were tools. Why can't that word mean something else? To you it does, it means blazing your own path through reality. You have walked a mile in everyone's shoes. You've seen the whole world with your father, and strived to help humanity and mythical being alike. What made you change from your father's course?"

I put my hands into my pockets, still content on the sight of the god-slayer. "That's easy, my old man told me to. He told me that mercy and loyalty were dead concepts and that I should leave his side forever."

"That's awfully strange of Torpor to act like. What did you do?"

"I told him to shit the fuck up, and that his perfession wasn't philosophy for a reason."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"It was a test, he wanted to see my outlook on humanity. So many people lost sight of what matters after the squall. In those days, Mammon constantly tempted me with promises of eternal life and shit. My father was well aware, because he too, was one of the three."

"So why would that influence him to seal Mammon inside of himself?"

"Because I was special," I prick my fingers with my dagger, and black ooze seeps from the wound. It drops to the ground, but with a flick of my finger, it returns to my hand. "And special people get used. I stayed with you guys just so I could watch Etrius. I don't really care about Tamiel, at least he has a developed understanding of morality. He knows what he is doing is greater than the concept of evil can handle, but he does it anyways. Don't you see, we ask choose to embrace our fate by reasoning around it. We could've just choose not to do anything Etrius said, but we ourselves felt it necessary to bring his dream to frutation. We never trusted him, and we only rescued him to spite Tamiel. Don't you see? Torpor set all this in motion, unintentionally, Tamiel was the instigator who forced us to band against a common enemy, and Etrius is the follow through, the one to realize the day."

"You know.... It sounds like someone else is calling all the shots."

"You're damn right. All those shini worked for Zitsu-kato, but who was Zitsu-kato? He was a pawn of an old Shinto diety who was slain. He himself became an entity under the valkyries control. That wasn't self evident at first, but Jhage told me about the Nightshade. They had blackmailed the oni into working for Oragnik, by using their seer to find targets. Now... When they attacked us, they tried to take Luciere. Of course they failed, but it caused major disturbance. They were supposed to succeed, but since they didn't, Etrius had to change his plans."

"So you think they worked together?"

"Not voluntarily. After Oragnik's death, the oni knew they could resume business, and any soul that is taken from the spirit world takes away from the power they would receive today. Think about it, we kill someone, their soul is ejected into the spirit world, where it is then harvested by the IAC for energy. With the oni interfering, Etrius knew the only way to secure more power was by sending us to take care of it."

"Shit! I get what you're saying! And he sent me and Luciere to Siberia to fuck with Tamiel. He knew we couldn't beat him. He wanted to send a message, but not the kind we expected. He was his way of saying that their plan was starting early!"

"Right! The only thing is, I don't understand why the other guys came here.... Even Nelly.."

"Where is she? She wasn't made for war."

"She wasn't made... Sure she is a clone... But she had my energy.. It's like she was a chip off the old block."

Ba-al gives me a surprised look, "well.. Congratulations."

"Where is Luciere?"

"Bitch threw me into the horde and I haven't seen her since. Got stuck fighting my clone."

"We all did. I haven't heard from the others. Not even Koto has came by to see me."

"I saw her.... Mourning for her valiant knight, or something like that. I didn't know she cared about her soldiers that much."

"She doesn't..."

"Jack"

"Vlad's dead... It's the only thing that can mean."

Ba-al slumps into a stool that surprisingly still stool. "You're right, you know. We tried to make our own reasons for coming here. Because of it, we all suffer. It's truly a waste..."

"But you know what? The only thing worse than that, is that these two wannabe gods are just being played like the rest of us."

"Yep.... Derkeszher... How does this work? How do we restore the balance?"

I swing my body around, turning to Ba-al, "that's easy, we apply force to the other end."

"Dafuck are you taking about?"

"I thought about it quite literally. Imagine a ball rolling off a desk. Our actions asked this ball up by accelerating smaller forces into larger forces."

"Okay... So you can teach physics... Go on."

"Well, acceleration isn't instantaneous, so you can't go straight into a force from zero. You have to gradually speed up by increments that correlate. Otherwise you'll decelerate."

"Well shit, Jack, I really enjoy this lesson. Remind me to thank you when I'm running for my life, and that thing slams me into the wall. I can think, 'wow! This painful experience was enriched by my deeper understanding of acceleration.' Nice."

"Then think metaphorically, smart ass. We are playing this game like walking up stairs. If you want to go up, you don't jump to a higher step then backtrack to get the steps you missed. Whatever Derkeszher is planning, it's very specific, and the slightest misstep causes panic in the maelstrom. It's yet another reason we should play along, because if we don't, we jeopardize reality. Now I say, let's push the envelope on existence."

"Whatever your saying sounds devious," his skin shifts and teeth reveal slightly from the folds, "go on".

"We will not merely jump a step, we are going to bring the ceiling to the floor, and put the door halfway up!"

"That makes no sense."

I smile... And I mean every ounce of joy that went into it.

"You're damn right it doesn't! I'm about about to teach you my favorite physics theory. It's called entropy, and we are about to let disorder out into Derkeszher's order."

"And how are we supposed to do that?"

"I thought you'd never ask!"