Post by Mizagium on May 9, 2013 2:39:02 GMT -5
Chapter One: A Light in the Darkness
Johnny stared at himself in the mirror. Something was off about his appearance, but he couldn’t figure out what. Was it his eyes? His nose? Mouth? Ears? No, his hair. He leaned in closer. Overnight, his hair had turned a slight shade of blue. Blue! Not the weirdest thing he’d ever transformed into, but still—for his hair become that on its own was a bad sign. And it wasn’t the first time that had happened. Ever since using the False Shield to transform into an Abercrombie & Fitch model (and accidentally on purpose being lured into working for McJimmy) he hadn’t been able to revert back to his true form for very long.
What was his true form?
“Sarah!”
“What?”
“Do we have any recent pictures of me and you around the palace?”
“What?”
“Well, just me, really.”
Sarah appeared in the bathroom. “What do you need those…oh.” She raised an eyebrow. “Blue hair, huh? That’s new.”
He frowned in the mirror at her. “It’s getting worse, Sarah. I’m shifting at an almost daily rate. Six months ago is was occasionally, where I didn’t notice it until it was too late.”
She nodded. “Yeah, when I saw you after escaping the Veral Dimension, I figured the silver hair bit was a disguise.”
He shook his head. “Not on purpose.” He grimaced and turned to face her fully. “Sarah, I’m forgetting what I look like. Please, I need to see a picture.”
She nodded slowly, studying her brother. He was right. He hadn’t looked the same in ages, and now he seemed to be different more regularly. What would happened if the shifts kept up at this exponential growth rate. Would he become a Rorschach ink blot, ever changing? That was not something she wished to consider. “Right, come on. Remember that big portrait mom had commissioned a few years ago?”
He ran a hand through his hair skeptically. “In their bedroom?”
“It’s fine. They’re gone. Come on!” She grabbed him by the hand and pulled him through the palace, dodging servants and maids before arriving at the threshold to their parents’ bedroom. For them, it was something of a forbidden place. No explicit or implicit command had ever been given to stay out, but Johnny and Sarah had always avoided the room. Something mystical seemed to emanate from beneath the door.
Sarah turned the nod, swung the door inward, and the spell was broken—the mystique lost. It was just another room. They went in. On the wall to their immediate left hung the large canvas which depicted the four of them on the eve of Sarah’s eighteen birthday. The King and Queen looked almost exactly the same now. Sarah had aged well, looking more like an adult that she had then. And Johnny…he seemed to be an entirely different person.
“Is that…me?” Brown hair. Brown eyes. Medium height. There was something to decidedly normal about him in that painting, it unnerved him. What had happened in those years? Had his time in Awesome Land really changed him that much?
“Wow, Johnny…” Sarah’s eyes widened.
“What?”
“You’re…changing!”
Immediately, he bolted and ran for the nearest bathroom mirror. He made it in time to catch the tail end of the changes. His features shifted, becoming more and more like the boy in the portrait. But it still wasn’t him. He now looked like the portrait of the boy, not the boy. And it made him angry. He balled his fists, fought back a scream, and felt the darkness seep out like black flames between his fingers. Tendrils of shadow licked at his skin, lazily attempting to escape the confines of his body. Hastily, he reigned in his powers and turned away from the mirror.
Sarah awaited, nervously chewing on a few strands of blond hair. “Johnny…”
“I need to do it.”
“I already told you: the True Sword won’t work.”
“It shatters all illusions and spells.”
“I don’t think this is either!”
“I have to try!”
“Johnny-“
“Sarah! Please!”
She huffed. “Fine. Come on.” Down she lead him, beneath the palace, to the crypts where the Artifacts of Wisdom were held. For both of them, it brought back memories. Sarah had last been here when taking the True Sword to pursue Leon Veralice to Awesome Land in order to retrieve the stolen Beauty Mirror. Johnny had, a year later, snuck down here and stolen the Ugly Stick and the False Shield to locate her, coming into conflict with their Caretaker (who turned out to be the Time Keeper in disguise) in the process.
Without ceremony, Sarah took the True Sword from its pedestal. “Ready?” Johnny nodded. She flourished it, calling on its power, and held it out at her brother, point aimed squarely at his heart. “Reveal,” she commanded. They waited. Nothing happened. “See? Nothing.”
“Maybe you did it wrong,” he protested weakly.
“Really?”
“Don’t you have to, like, swing it, or something? Actually break the enchantment?”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “There’s no spell to break!” She swung it in his direction to prove her point. “There. Whatever it is that’s wrong with you is not magical in nature. I think it’s something fundamentally wrong with your being.”
“I’m broken?”
“For lack of a better phrase, yes.” She replaced the Sword. “I’ve been combing the library in all of my free time looking for anything like this, but I can’t find anything.” She beckoned him and they made their way back up to the palace. “I really don’t know, Johnny. I’ve seen a few vague references to Random World, but nothing solid. But I’ll keep looking, Johnny. Mom and Dad are looking during any free time they have in Incrediland, but you know how diplomacy can be…” she trailed off. Johnny didn’t speak. He stormed off once they were above ground and didn’t reappear for the rest of the day.
By the time night fell, his had reverted back to his look from the morning. Unable to sleep, he watched the waxing crescent moon rise from his window while playing with the tendrils of darkness that seemed from his hands. Fate had not given him time to explore the curiously-gotten powers. He barely remembered the shipwreck or what came after—the journey through the Darkness. Then he was back in Awesome Land. Then Random World. Then Awesome Land again. Then the journey to the Sea of Sand and Pyresean Mountain. Then Random World again. Then BACK to Awesome Land.
It’s a wonder he was still sane.
But still, that dark journey was the only thing he couldn’t remember. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that he had somehow stumbled through a section of Zais’ domain. It made as much sense as anything else. He would have to remember to ask the Immortal next time he saw him. Which should be soon, given his life.
A wave of sleep washed over him and she fell into bed and drifted off immediately. Terrible dreams haunted him. He was running—from something, to somewhere—through a long, dark tunnel. Things in the walls reached out and grabbed at him, snatch at his feet. Someone called his name, hissed it, spat it like a curse. Something chased him, a formless wave that sounded like a thousand cicadas. It washed over him, a million tiny hands…and laughed.
He awoke, shaking, sweating, panting.
And he knew in his soul that was more than a dream.
“The sleeping prince awakens,” observed a voice from within his room. Johnny nearly fell out of bed in a very un-princely fashion, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there, calling for help with a voice lost in his nightmares. “Peace, Johnny. I’m not here to hurt you.”
He recognized that voice from somewhere.
Light manifested and lit up the room, revealing the ember-colored face of Vespi, the Fire Immortal, perched on the windowsill. A cool midnight air batted at the curtains.
“You remember me, dontcha?”
“Vespi,” he croaked out. “What are you doing here?”
She shrugged. “Thought I’d pay Torran a visit. Heard he was alive again. Turns out he doesn’t remember me, which is why he never let me know. Did you know? He’s from some other time line, because he died in this one, but we never met in that one. Oh, but he remembers Gree, alright. He remembers the bastard that killed him from across time, but apparently, any feelings he had for me got lost in the rush of time.” She sniffed and blinked away a few tears. “But whatever. I get it.”
“I’m sure he’ll come around,” Johnny said uneasily. “He’s still the same Torran. If he loved you once…”
“That’s sweet.” Vespi moved from her perch. “But I’m not here to pine over lost love. I’d talk to your sister if that were the case—can you believe it? Cha Cha and Knox? At least she still has a shot with Knox, sorta.”
“Yeah, I heard,” Johnny grumbled. Discussing his sister’s love life was not a favorite topic of his. His parents kept asking her about “that nice foreign boy with the trumpet that stayed with you for a while”—when was he coming around again? She tried to tell them about Knox, but then they wondered where he was, and so she avoided the topic altogether. Johnny had taken to doing the same; the kept asking Cassandra to set Sarah with “some nice local boy” that she knew. “So what are you doing here?”
“Ah. I heard about your…condition.”
His eyes narrowed. “How?”
“Word gets around. Immortals tend to gossip. And spy. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is: Your condition to very similar to what’s been plaguing Random World for generations. You saw it, you saw the constantly shifting geography. The others and I have been doing our best, but at this rate, the world is going to tear itself apart. And Zais’s Shadow Empire isn’t really doing anything to help, so I figured I’d recruit you.”
“Why me?”
She blinked. “Because you’re a well-to-do hero type with a fair amount of angst from some dark secret you’re hiding from everyone, even Sarah and Cassy.” She grinned sheepily. “I like spying.”
“Why were you…nevermind. What makes you think I can do anything you can’t?”
“Ventus picked you as his successor. If that isn’t a clear sign of true hero material, I don’t know what is. Plus, what harm can it have to come take a look, huh?”
She had a point. Plus, he remembered Sarah mentioning Random World earlier.
“Ok, Vespi. I’ll go with you to Random World…tomorrow.” He yawned. “Let me sleep until sunrise.”
“I can set the ceiling on fire to make you think the sun is rising.”
“Please don’t,” he muttered as he crawled into bed. He was asleep almost before he pulled the blanket up; he almost didn’t notice Vespi lay down next to him either, but couldn’t think of anything to say before darkness claimed him.
Johnny stared at himself in the mirror. Something was off about his appearance, but he couldn’t figure out what. Was it his eyes? His nose? Mouth? Ears? No, his hair. He leaned in closer. Overnight, his hair had turned a slight shade of blue. Blue! Not the weirdest thing he’d ever transformed into, but still—for his hair become that on its own was a bad sign. And it wasn’t the first time that had happened. Ever since using the False Shield to transform into an Abercrombie & Fitch model (and accidentally on purpose being lured into working for McJimmy) he hadn’t been able to revert back to his true form for very long.
What was his true form?
“Sarah!”
“What?”
“Do we have any recent pictures of me and you around the palace?”
“What?”
“Well, just me, really.”
Sarah appeared in the bathroom. “What do you need those…oh.” She raised an eyebrow. “Blue hair, huh? That’s new.”
He frowned in the mirror at her. “It’s getting worse, Sarah. I’m shifting at an almost daily rate. Six months ago is was occasionally, where I didn’t notice it until it was too late.”
She nodded. “Yeah, when I saw you after escaping the Veral Dimension, I figured the silver hair bit was a disguise.”
He shook his head. “Not on purpose.” He grimaced and turned to face her fully. “Sarah, I’m forgetting what I look like. Please, I need to see a picture.”
She nodded slowly, studying her brother. He was right. He hadn’t looked the same in ages, and now he seemed to be different more regularly. What would happened if the shifts kept up at this exponential growth rate. Would he become a Rorschach ink blot, ever changing? That was not something she wished to consider. “Right, come on. Remember that big portrait mom had commissioned a few years ago?”
He ran a hand through his hair skeptically. “In their bedroom?”
“It’s fine. They’re gone. Come on!” She grabbed him by the hand and pulled him through the palace, dodging servants and maids before arriving at the threshold to their parents’ bedroom. For them, it was something of a forbidden place. No explicit or implicit command had ever been given to stay out, but Johnny and Sarah had always avoided the room. Something mystical seemed to emanate from beneath the door.
Sarah turned the nod, swung the door inward, and the spell was broken—the mystique lost. It was just another room. They went in. On the wall to their immediate left hung the large canvas which depicted the four of them on the eve of Sarah’s eighteen birthday. The King and Queen looked almost exactly the same now. Sarah had aged well, looking more like an adult that she had then. And Johnny…he seemed to be an entirely different person.
“Is that…me?” Brown hair. Brown eyes. Medium height. There was something to decidedly normal about him in that painting, it unnerved him. What had happened in those years? Had his time in Awesome Land really changed him that much?
“Wow, Johnny…” Sarah’s eyes widened.
“What?”
“You’re…changing!”
Immediately, he bolted and ran for the nearest bathroom mirror. He made it in time to catch the tail end of the changes. His features shifted, becoming more and more like the boy in the portrait. But it still wasn’t him. He now looked like the portrait of the boy, not the boy. And it made him angry. He balled his fists, fought back a scream, and felt the darkness seep out like black flames between his fingers. Tendrils of shadow licked at his skin, lazily attempting to escape the confines of his body. Hastily, he reigned in his powers and turned away from the mirror.
Sarah awaited, nervously chewing on a few strands of blond hair. “Johnny…”
“I need to do it.”
“I already told you: the True Sword won’t work.”
“It shatters all illusions and spells.”
“I don’t think this is either!”
“I have to try!”
“Johnny-“
“Sarah! Please!”
She huffed. “Fine. Come on.” Down she lead him, beneath the palace, to the crypts where the Artifacts of Wisdom were held. For both of them, it brought back memories. Sarah had last been here when taking the True Sword to pursue Leon Veralice to Awesome Land in order to retrieve the stolen Beauty Mirror. Johnny had, a year later, snuck down here and stolen the Ugly Stick and the False Shield to locate her, coming into conflict with their Caretaker (who turned out to be the Time Keeper in disguise) in the process.
Without ceremony, Sarah took the True Sword from its pedestal. “Ready?” Johnny nodded. She flourished it, calling on its power, and held it out at her brother, point aimed squarely at his heart. “Reveal,” she commanded. They waited. Nothing happened. “See? Nothing.”
“Maybe you did it wrong,” he protested weakly.
“Really?”
“Don’t you have to, like, swing it, or something? Actually break the enchantment?”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “There’s no spell to break!” She swung it in his direction to prove her point. “There. Whatever it is that’s wrong with you is not magical in nature. I think it’s something fundamentally wrong with your being.”
“I’m broken?”
“For lack of a better phrase, yes.” She replaced the Sword. “I’ve been combing the library in all of my free time looking for anything like this, but I can’t find anything.” She beckoned him and they made their way back up to the palace. “I really don’t know, Johnny. I’ve seen a few vague references to Random World, but nothing solid. But I’ll keep looking, Johnny. Mom and Dad are looking during any free time they have in Incrediland, but you know how diplomacy can be…” she trailed off. Johnny didn’t speak. He stormed off once they were above ground and didn’t reappear for the rest of the day.
By the time night fell, his had reverted back to his look from the morning. Unable to sleep, he watched the waxing crescent moon rise from his window while playing with the tendrils of darkness that seemed from his hands. Fate had not given him time to explore the curiously-gotten powers. He barely remembered the shipwreck or what came after—the journey through the Darkness. Then he was back in Awesome Land. Then Random World. Then Awesome Land again. Then the journey to the Sea of Sand and Pyresean Mountain. Then Random World again. Then BACK to Awesome Land.
It’s a wonder he was still sane.
But still, that dark journey was the only thing he couldn’t remember. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that he had somehow stumbled through a section of Zais’ domain. It made as much sense as anything else. He would have to remember to ask the Immortal next time he saw him. Which should be soon, given his life.
A wave of sleep washed over him and she fell into bed and drifted off immediately. Terrible dreams haunted him. He was running—from something, to somewhere—through a long, dark tunnel. Things in the walls reached out and grabbed at him, snatch at his feet. Someone called his name, hissed it, spat it like a curse. Something chased him, a formless wave that sounded like a thousand cicadas. It washed over him, a million tiny hands…and laughed.
He awoke, shaking, sweating, panting.
And he knew in his soul that was more than a dream.
“The sleeping prince awakens,” observed a voice from within his room. Johnny nearly fell out of bed in a very un-princely fashion, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there, calling for help with a voice lost in his nightmares. “Peace, Johnny. I’m not here to hurt you.”
He recognized that voice from somewhere.
Light manifested and lit up the room, revealing the ember-colored face of Vespi, the Fire Immortal, perched on the windowsill. A cool midnight air batted at the curtains.
“You remember me, dontcha?”
“Vespi,” he croaked out. “What are you doing here?”
She shrugged. “Thought I’d pay Torran a visit. Heard he was alive again. Turns out he doesn’t remember me, which is why he never let me know. Did you know? He’s from some other time line, because he died in this one, but we never met in that one. Oh, but he remembers Gree, alright. He remembers the bastard that killed him from across time, but apparently, any feelings he had for me got lost in the rush of time.” She sniffed and blinked away a few tears. “But whatever. I get it.”
“I’m sure he’ll come around,” Johnny said uneasily. “He’s still the same Torran. If he loved you once…”
“That’s sweet.” Vespi moved from her perch. “But I’m not here to pine over lost love. I’d talk to your sister if that were the case—can you believe it? Cha Cha and Knox? At least she still has a shot with Knox, sorta.”
“Yeah, I heard,” Johnny grumbled. Discussing his sister’s love life was not a favorite topic of his. His parents kept asking her about “that nice foreign boy with the trumpet that stayed with you for a while”—when was he coming around again? She tried to tell them about Knox, but then they wondered where he was, and so she avoided the topic altogether. Johnny had taken to doing the same; the kept asking Cassandra to set Sarah with “some nice local boy” that she knew. “So what are you doing here?”
“Ah. I heard about your…condition.”
His eyes narrowed. “How?”
“Word gets around. Immortals tend to gossip. And spy. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is: Your condition to very similar to what’s been plaguing Random World for generations. You saw it, you saw the constantly shifting geography. The others and I have been doing our best, but at this rate, the world is going to tear itself apart. And Zais’s Shadow Empire isn’t really doing anything to help, so I figured I’d recruit you.”
“Why me?”
She blinked. “Because you’re a well-to-do hero type with a fair amount of angst from some dark secret you’re hiding from everyone, even Sarah and Cassy.” She grinned sheepily. “I like spying.”
“Why were you…nevermind. What makes you think I can do anything you can’t?”
“Ventus picked you as his successor. If that isn’t a clear sign of true hero material, I don’t know what is. Plus, what harm can it have to come take a look, huh?”
She had a point. Plus, he remembered Sarah mentioning Random World earlier.
“Ok, Vespi. I’ll go with you to Random World…tomorrow.” He yawned. “Let me sleep until sunrise.”
“I can set the ceiling on fire to make you think the sun is rising.”
“Please don’t,” he muttered as he crawled into bed. He was asleep almost before he pulled the blanket up; he almost didn’t notice Vespi lay down next to him either, but couldn’t think of anything to say before darkness claimed him.