Rythian looked at Duncan a bit desperately "Are you sure?"
" Pretty much" stated Duncan
Rythian sighed, he already knew the answer, now he was just stalling. He looked at Zoey, ad hoped, out of everyone here, that she would accept him once he told them all the truth.
Duncan finished up rebandaging him, and turned to leave with Kim.
"Wait" called Rythian "You saved my life, plus you already know a part of this, you should hear the full story as well"
"Are you sure?" asked Kim skeptically
"Yes"
" He knows what he's doing Kim, lets hear the story" said Duncan
"Alright"
Rythian closed his eyes, and prepared himself.
Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes and started to tell his story
" I'm sure you've all figured this out by now, but I'm...half endermen."
There was cautious nods all around
"But...for as to how I got this way....Well it's complicated. When I was younger, I was already skilled in magic, I've always had a talent for it. During this time, people started to go missing. I didn't know it at the time, but the Queen of the End was rounding up people with magic abilities, testing on them. I was captured by her. She was trying to find a way, using magic, to turn people into endermen. But so far, all of her tests had failed. She.........She did the testing on me, and obviously it only half worked, but it was the best success yet. I gained many of the abilities of an endermen, I can see better in the dark, I can sense endermen, plus my magic was fused with ender and void magic. Because of my human side, I can't teleport, but there is not much else I can't do. I also gained the weaknesses of them as well, the rain and water don't exactly hurt, but it's not comfortable. Not to mention that it hurts to hold enderbane. I changed physically as well, my heart fused with an ender pearl, tying it to my life force, and giving me my abilities. My eye color changed, and my teeth....they grew sharper, elongated."
"Oh! Is that why you wear the mask?" asked Zoey excitedly
Rythian looked older and world weary at this
"No Zoey, I'll explain everything, then......just be patient, I'll tell you why." Rythian said haltingly
"Okay...?" said Zoey worriedly
Rythian took a steadying breath, and continued.
" The Queen had destroyed the previous failures, but for some reason she decided to spare me. She kept me in the End, and had me train to use my power. I didn't.....I didn't know that the endermen and the Queen were bad. But then, I found out about the Queen's plan. To invade the Brightlands, take it over and cover it in darkness. I realized that I had been deceived, and I decided to flee. I had heard about this sword that the endermen had, a sword that could be used to sever their connection to the end, killing them almost instantly. I found this sword, and managed to escape the end with it, but the queen managed to inflict a blow as I left the end. She clawed me across my torso, leaving three deep wounds that would later scar. The Queen was furious and she vowed to exact revenge on me for my betrayal."
"What happened next?" asked Duncan
Rythian's eyes darkened, and he said with age old anger, ''Science happened"
"What!" exclaimed Duncan and Zoey
"Guys, let him explain" said Kim "Go ahead Rythian."
He nodded and began telling the final part to his story
" I spent months researching everything to do with endermen, the End, and the Queen. What I found out about the endermen, and their world was appalling. Their world is a dead world, covered in darkness. The endermen themselves are beings of pure darkness, and they cannot tolerate light. That's why they attack you when you look them in the eyes, they are after your light, your soul. They infest our world, looking to plunge it into darkness, just like theirs is. And I am half of one of these wrenched creatures. I had to find a way to make me fully human again. I found a scientist, who specialized in creatures and monsters. I learned from him a way I could make myself human again. Every calculation was correct, every instrument, flawless. He helped me to create the machine that would turn me back to normal. But.........it failed. Science and Technology failed!" Rythian ground out " Something went wrong, and it backfired, the way it always does! The blast killed my mentor, scaring and changing me even further in the process....... After that I had nothing left........everything seemed pointless. I practically begged the Queen to end me. She found me, and had endermen bring me back to the end. I kneeled before her, waiting for death. But....she spared me, she withheld the killing blow, instead banishing me from the end. When I got back to the Brightlands, I vowed to hunt down their kind, Every last one of them, and eventually to stop the Queen."
"But what happened that made you wear the mask?" questioned Zoey
"The explosion caused more than scars, It....changed me even more so." Rythian took a deep breath, hoping against all hope, that she wouldn't run after seeing him. But what choice did he have? he had to tell them the truth, the whole truth, and that included showing them what he had kept hidden since that day.
"It did this." he said, and he pulled off his mask.
Underneath they could see faded burn scars across his mouth and neck, and the sharpened teeth that he talked about as he grimaced. But the most noticeable thing, was the spread of deep purple, almost black, across his whole neck and mouth area.
Rythian braced himself, and looked them in the eyes. "This is what science did." He stated "What magic created, science made worse. "
He braced himself, and hoped that she would accept him still.
