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Chapter 22- The Song of Greed
🕑 Added 2023-08-18 22:19:28 +0000 UTCChapter 22
The Song of Greed
Elijah’s first appearance as an Awakened wouldn’t happen for some four months still. As far as Ethan knew, he would remain holed up in the city’s military camp for the initial duration as was the case with most people. His story became popular due to the fact that he saved quite a few people after a Kaynul breach of the military camp, showing no restraint in the process.
Ethan, however, had no intention of waiting for four months–not only was the delay fairly long, but it would also be that much harder to actually recruit the kid by then. The best time was yesterday, and the second best time was today–but he also couldn’t simply go in blind. By now, he was certain that the military had at least a rough description of him–lanky, bearded, weird-looking, classic victim of witness accounts. While he wouldn’t be recognised at first sight or even second, if he stuck around the city long enough, there was a chance somebody might put two and two together.
And the only way to recruit Elijah right now was to inseminate himself into the military camp as one of the citizens–or one of the military personnel. Neither would be easy, which caused no small amount of headache for Ethan. Initially, he was planning on returning to the city after the initial chaos calmed down with the military presence and, in fact, just becoming one of the people living there until he found Elijah. But due to Tara and Ronald and his little escapade at the mart, that was no longer a possibility.
There was also the alternative case of sneaking in and kidnapping the kid, but that wouldn’t fly either. Elijah Awakened in the moment of need, and per the boy’s own words, he did not choose a Class–he was assigned one from the onset. This meant that Ethan would have to, somehow, create a replica of the situation that would stimulate the boy and, hopefully, end in him getting the same Class.
This was one of those tasks that he’d have to do alone. As much as he’d like to bring Tara or Ronald for some on-the-field learning, they were too volatile of variables for what he needed to do.
There were alternatives still that he could tap into if need be–he could simply showcase his powers to whoever was in charge of the military camp and promise to disclose how he got them if they helped him. That was, beyond all shadow of a doubt, the last-last-last resort and one that likely wouldn’t go for even if it was the only choice. For now, he could only mull in brooding silence, something both Tara and Ronald noted–out loud–and several times at that.
“Why are you so angry these days?” Tian floated by his side, asking with a curious expression. The fairy creature spent most of its time hanging around Layla, seeming to like the youthful innocence and naivety that allowed him to boast to the sky and back.
“I’m not angry,” Ethan said. “Just thinking too hard.”
“What are you thinking about so hard?”
“How to kill you without making Layla cry.”
“...”
“...”
“I could help, you know?! If you weren’t such a pissy-piss!”
“... yeah. You could help,” a plan began to immediately formulate inside Ethan’s head. While Tian had to limit his interaction with the world for undisclosed reasons (Ethan was fairly sure that it had something to do with hiding his presence from whoever he pissed off by bringing Ethan back into the past), that didn’t mean that the fairy was incapable of it.
“Exactly!”
“And you will help me,” Ethan said. A picture was beginning to form inside his head, and it seemed quite plausible to execute. There were still kinks to work out, but, in broad strokes, it was doable. “You can show yourself to Kaynuls, right?”
“Yes. Why?” Tian asked.
“You can make them follow you?”
“I can if I annoy them enough. They usually avoid faerie folk but if I persist enough, I can get them to follow me.”
“Good,” Ethan’s smile was rather… wicked. It wasn’t a blissful, just plan–if anything, it was destructive, manipulative, and, in some ways, outright evil. Chances were that quite a few people would die because of him and yet, he couldn’t quite find it in his heart to care.
Ethan wasn’t certain exactly where Elijah was in the camp–whether it was in one of the apartment buildings on temporary shelters or even as a minor member of the military, such as a cook or a cleaner. For starters, he’d have to feed the boy’s basic description to Tian and ask the strange fairy to locate him. Which he could do right away.
"I need you to go back to the city," Ethan said immediately. "And find someone. At this point, I think he's 16-17 years old. He should be around five-three, roughly 180 pounds. He has short, brown hair and brown eyes. Right, even back then–or, well, back now, he used to wear that stupid earring. It’s like a hook with an odd bevel at the handle. From what I remember, people said he was quite shy and didn’t really talk to anyone at this point, so look for a kid that’s avoiding others, just sort of observing the world, that matches that basic description. Chances are you might find more than one that roughly matches it, so report to me every single one.”
“Okay!” Tian exclaimed.
"Right, on the way back, also see how many Kaynuls you can spot within five miles of the city. I have absolutely no idea where most of them are at this point, so you have to find at least two-three."
“Will do!” the fairy seemed rather excited to have a proper task assigned to it that wasn’t babysitting Ethan’s little sister. He flew out and off soon after, alight with strange, culpable joy.
In the meantime, Ethan was beginning to work out the kinks of his plan. The biggest issue, beyond locating Elijah, was getting him to Awaken. There was a high chance that the entire thing might go up in flames and not work out as it did in the past. However, that was the risk of playing with the altering events–the longer he lived and altered events, the less he’d be able to rely on his knowledge of the future. Even now, he’d likely altered the course of the world, however slightly, by his actions at the mart, not to mention killing Kaynul and closing the Tunnel outside the city well before the last go-around.
It was a risk that he didn’t necessarily have to take as he could probably wait four months for a natural progression, but he would be handicapping his progress too much. Because, if he elected to wait for four months, he wouldn’t be able to hunt down any Kaynul or even other Tunnels near the city as he didn’t know exactly what prompted the Kaynul in question to break into the military camp or even which Kaynul actually did that, so if he accidentally killed the one that was supposed to be responsible for Elijah’s Awakening, the entire thing would become pointless.
Impromptu invasions weren't exactly the norm this early post-Descent, and that particular one was seen as an extreme outlier even amongst other invasions due to its nature. As such, Ethan, no matter how clever he was or how many things about the future he knew, had absolutely no means of predicting the causal effects and any attempt at it would be a severe waste of time.
The plan, for now, in his head was that he'd have Tian guide two Kaynuls toward the military camp, just at different timings–the first one would be responsible for Elijah's Awakening, and the second one would be for Ethan to swoop in and 'save the day', so to say, while showing Elijah that was not alone in the absurdity of what he'd just undergone. It was… flimsy, yes, but anything more structured and nuanced would either take too long or was infeasible for current Ethan.
Tian returned precisely two days later. Those two days weren’t short as Layla bemoaned the fact that ‘Ethan took her best friend away without permission’ so he ‘had’ to spend every waking hour with the girl. Under the curious gazes of two college kids who couldn’t decipher a very simple him, he spent the two days frolicking about the woods and playing pretend with the young girl to her heart’s content.
“You found him?” Ethan asked. He was alone, just outside the lodge, drinking beer and watching the few rays of moonlight wash down through the canopy of the trees.
“I think so,” the fairy replied, sitting on his shoulder. “He was big and small like you said and he had that weird jewellery in his ear that you mentioned and he didn’t talk to anyone even when they made fun of him for it.”
“Sounds like my guy,” Ethan said. “Where is he?”
Following Tian’s description of the location, Ethan frowned. Though it has been a long time since he took a stroll around the city so his memory was quite foggy, from the sounds of it, he was ‘part’ of the military brass–or, at the very least, a relative of one, as he appeared to live in a building adjacent to the main headquarters.
“You don’t seem happy that I found him?” Tian quizzed, floating over in front of Ethan.
“No, it’s not that,” he shook his head. “It’s just that… I don’t think my plan will work any longer.”
“Why?”
“Zowolves are susceptible to bullets,” Ethan explained. “And chances are that the military has already hunted a couple of them down, which means they are familiar with them. If the kid’s precisely next to the main military building, there’s probably a trove of guards everywhere that would gun down the monsters in an instant, and he’d never get a chance to Awaken in the first place. You said that others were making fun of him. Why?”
“I’m not sure,” Tian mumbled, stroking his chin. “They mentioned his mother on several occasions, and how his father was the one who killed her. There was also something about his sister, but… I didn’t understand the words they used.”
“Hm?” Ethan frowned again. “He never mentioned anything about his family in the past… in fact, most people assumed he was an orphan.”
“You are confused?”
“... not confused,” Ethan said, stroking his chin as well. The fairy seemed to have picked it up off of him. “Curious, more like. There are hundreds of reasons why he never mentioned his family. Perhaps it was too painful because they died at some point, perhaps it was because he didn’t consider them a family, and perhaps it was something else. Regardless, it’s an in.”
“An in? Oh, like a place to rest! You plan on opening an inn?”
“Huh? What? No, what are you talking about? I’m saying that there’s still an opening for me to goad him into coming over to my side,” Ethan elaborated. “That means I’m back to needing to sneak into the camp, though. Did he ever leave the building?”
“Once, I saw him! He walked around the building for a bit and then went back inside. So weird~~”
"Alright. I'll leave tomorrow night," as he didn't intend to bring Tara or Ronald, it would actually be a fairly short trip since he'd run rather than drive. While his peak speed would be slower, he wouldn't have to worry about navigating car-infested streets or worry about being spotted for being loud. Though he still didn't have every detail worked out, he was mostly confident in his plan–which was to emotionally kidnap the kid and get him to Awaken with Tara and Ronald's help sometime later. Man, my head’s really fucked up, huh? He mused for a moment, shrugging the thought away. He was who he was, in the end.
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