BlaiseCorvin
patreon
Past Life Hero 2, ch 58
🕑 Added 2024-03-08 18:43:54 +0000 UTCAll of Max's spirits were arrayed in a semicircle around him. They were not physically manifesting, but Max could feel their presence all the same. He said, "Everyone, I've told you before that we may have to leave the Quartet one day in a hurry. My escape plans... Well, the time has come. We're starting an escape plan right now."
"Which one?" asked Lavinia, her voice unexpectedly devoid of emotion.
Max hesitated and said, "Number three."
She didn’t say anything in response immediately. A couple seconds passed before she yelled, "You can't possibly be serious. We're not ready. It's all untested!"
"Yes, but you agreed with me that it should work now.”
"I thought it would work before I died, too! I was wrong back then! I can be wrong again!"
"Yeah, well," Max shrugged, "I believe in you, and I believe in me, and I'm willing to risk it because these are worth it." He pointed at the line of daggers on the ground that he'd secured from the sheath on Adjudicator Swan’s body. There was a white dagger, a black dagger, a purple dagger, a blue dagger, and a red one. He hadn't seen all these colors even in the visions. He was curious about them, but now was not the time to be examining magical artifacts.
"Are you sure you won't change your mind?" asked Lavinia.
"Not at all," said Max. "This is what we're doing."
Her voice was small as she asked, "What if you die?"
Max grinned and directed the expression at all of his spirits. "If I die, then hopefully I'll end up coming back like you did, and we will all be able to spend a lot more time together."
Saliron cackled. "Contractor, if you can become as a spirit, I can truly teach you the joy of playing with bones."
"Of course, Saliron," said Max. "I was expecting you to say something like that."
"I am glad that I met your expectations, Contractor. Anything for the bones," Saliron chuckled again.
Speaking of bones… Max reached into his pocket for one bone bead and then threw it at his feet. He used a small burst of power from the mana vault and help from Saliron. That one bead turned into a portal to his storage area in seconds. Then, Max began throwing everything he could find on the two corpses that might be useful into the portal, except for the white dagger. Max concealed it in his clothing. The red-headed professor hadn't had much on her except for a money pouch and a journal. Everything went into the storage portal. Then Max deactivated it.
The next thing he did was send an emergency message to all of his friends in the Quartet, telling them to meet him at the rendezvous point different from their normal training area. Max didn't think that anyone was going to find out about Adjudicator Swan being killed within the next hour, but there was no harm in being careful.
It was ironic that her own meddling was actually benefiting Max now that she was dead.
He said, "Lavinia, can you send this message out from my tablet every minute or two? I set it up so you just need to push a button on my wrist. The vibrations on everybody else's wrist should make sure they get the message. I know it's a weird time, but..."
"I've got it, Max. You can focus on what you need to."
"Okay, good," said Max. He filled his muscles with mana and ran all the way to the rendezvous area where he would hopefully be seeing his comrades soon. Sure enough, he began getting messages back from his friends as they woke up and began coming. He'd never done anything like this before, and some of his friends had been present at the exhibition match.
The first to arrive was the white-haired Gantry. He saw Max in the darkness as he ran in and began to say something but must have noticed the expression on Max's face. Instead of talking, he quietly stood nearby, getting his breathing back under control as he scanned their surroundings.
In his messages, Max had been very sparse on details. He just told everyone that they needed to gather at the rendezvous place immediately and that it was a matter of life and death. The next to arrive was Benjamin G. Northstrider. The big man nodded to Max in the darkness and went to stand by Gantry Pliss.
Even though Max's students were not very advanced mana swordsmen, the power accumulated in their bodies was enough to find their way in the darkness well enough not to trip over everything. One by one, Max's students trickled in.
When Momo arrived, she darted into the area and drew her weapons, taking a position behind a tree. The fierce woman scanned their surroundings, and Benjamin whispered, "What's got you so worked up, Momo?"
"Don’t know what is going on. Max is covered in blood," she murmured. All the other students that had gathered turned in surprise at Max. He'd been hiding evidence of his fight with Adjudicator Swan.
Max winced. "That was from a while ago, but we're pressed for time. I think we're okay for now, but I need to start this soon." Everybody slowly nodded.
He waited another five minutes for everybody to gather. Eolas ran in at the last possible moment, huffing and out of breath. He explained, "Almost forgot my weapon, had to go back." Max rolled his eyes.
For a person who could be so focused when he wanted to be, Eolas had a surprisingly klutzy side to him. Max was glad to see that all of his other students had their weapons on them. Of course, they probably didn't have anywhere to leave them since they lived in the normal dorms and had to take everything they owned with them everywhere they went. But as far as he knew, everyone he gifted a weapon to had used the mana units Max gave them to imprint it on their souls. That meant after they left the Quartet, their weapon would appear next to them regardless of what world they went to. Another advantage of the imprinting was, if someone stole an imprinted weapon and never got the soul anchor rewritten, it would still appear next to the rightful owner after they were back on their own world.
"Okay, listen up," said Max. "There are some things I'm going to tell you, but there are some things I still can't tell most of you. The highlights of how everything just got messed up is that Adjudicator Swan and Professor Munka... neither of them is going to come back. They're both fully dead."
There were gasps all around. But Gantry asked, "How do you know that?"
"I just know," said Max. He shook his head. "This is one of the things I can't tell you guys yet. I'm sorry. But trust me, I'm not withholding information to be mysterious. It's to protect you. And that kind of leads into this next part. I am planning to leave the Quartet tonight. My route is going to be a little bit more dangerous, but I now have the knowledge and the means to send any of you back to your world immediately if you would like me to. And I am going to be honest, I don't know what's going to happen here in the Quartet in the next few days, hell, maybe even the next few months.
“Maybe just being my friend probably means that you'll be in danger, too. I promise you, I swear on my world that I didn't do anything wrong. There are things going on in the entire Quartet system that I cannot tell you. I fear that if any of you stay in the Quartet, you will become targets, and I don't want that on my conscience. However, I know that this is your life, your choice, and your responsibility to your world. If you want to stay here, that is fine. But if you would like me to send you back to your world now, tonight, you need to make a decision."
"Is there anything more that you can tell us?" asked Eolas. "Anything at all? Come on, Max, you're not giving us much to work with here."
Max shook his head. "I thought about it before you all got here, and I truly don't think it would be a good idea to fill you in on everything. If you would like me to try finding you again after I'm back on my own world and reunite with you, to bring you to me, I will attempt to do so."
In the darkness, Max noticed a few of his students glance at each other. Nobody said anything. Max got up and began walking back to the academy. He said, "In one half hour, if you want to leave the Quartet, come to my dorm. I believe all of you know where it is. After an hour is up, maybe less, this window will close.”
“So that’s it?” asked Tessa Alvarez.
“That’s it. I'm sorry for the short notice and I'm sorry for the short time to decide, but I am truly in danger right now, real danger, not even the kind— Actually, no, I am not going to elaborate on that. Please do not message me on our tablets ever again after this. Actually, maybe if it’s truly an emergency." He smiled without humor. "That's it, everyone. Go make your decisions."
Benjamin raised a hand and hissed, "Only a half-hour? Even if I run full speed back to the academy, change, and get to your dorm, I won’t have much time to spare."
"Yeah, well, better hurry," said Max. Several of his students looked at each other, looked at Max, and then began jogging back to the academy. Max walked at a brisk but reasonable pace and gave Momo, Gantry, and Lance a tight smile. The three of them ran with him all the way straight back to his dorm.
***
"Okay, everyone, wait out here while I prepare some things," Max went into his dark room in his dorm and shut the door behind him.
He heard Gantry whisper to Lance, "Did you always know that Max's dorm was like this?"
"Yup," said Lance. "Why do you think I came over here all the time? I mean, Momo was obvious because she wants into Max's pants. But yeah, I came over here to hang."
"...Wanted in his pants?" Gantry asked. Then he chuckled. Momo sniffed, obviously conveying that she was above their banter. The joking seemed to break some of the tension that Max's friends were under, and all three of them began softly laughing before focusing again.
In the dark room, he took a piece of bone out of his pocket, quickly making a storage gate. Then he threw everything in his room that he'd accumulated into the portal. After this, after he dealt with his friends, he planned to stow all of his clothing and most of the furniture from his dorm. Since his storage area was large enough, he planned to steal everything that wasn't nailed down. Finally, he closed the magical structure again. He tucked the white dagger that he’d taken off Adjudicator Swan’s corpse into the back of his belt.
Max went to the door and opened it. In all his two lives, Max had never experienced murdering one of his friends. This was going to be a first. Unfortunately, he couldn't even tell them what he was going to do because it would take time and possibly even cause time-wasting problems.
He had to move fast. Eventually, someone was going to figure out Adjudicator Swan's was dead. Max had zero illusions that once that information came out, he would be a prisoner. Although he was likely the strongest student in this quartet now, he had zero confidence in his ability to fight an army of professors, including the four headmasters. There as also the possibility of a squad of other adjudicators showing up…or worse.
And even if he won, then what? There's always a bigger fish. No, he needed to escape, and he wanted to help his friends who were willing to take the plunge as well. In the back of his mind, he accepted that he might be screwing them over. Perhaps when everything shook out, none of them would be in any trouble or be persecuted at all. But he somehow doubted that.
What was hardest about what he planned to do was that he'd need to start with Momo. Otherwise, the moment she entered the room, she'd smell the fresh blood and understand. He also didn’t want any of them to be scared. They trusted him. He felt like a bastard, but he could use that to make it easier for them. Max went to the door. He asked them all to remove their tablets. He’d put them into his storage soon. Then he called Momo in.
"What do I do?" she asked. "How does this work?"
"Just trust me," said Max. "It's surprisingly simple, just not a whole lot of fun."
"Will it hurt?"
"Yes, probably. I won't lie to you, but at least I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing, so it won't be too bad."
"Okay, I trust you," she said.
Max’s heart lurched. He felt a pang of guilt before ruthlessly suppressing it. Then he led her over to one corner of the room. He instructed, "Face the corner. Fold your arms in front of your chest, close your eyes, and relax. I need to form the circle behind you."
"Okay," she replied. As she folded her arms, she said, "Don't forget your promise. One way or another, find me. I want to go to your world."
"I won't forget," Max said. "I promise."
He drew the white dagger from behind his belt, and his arm flashed forward horizontally, planting the blade all the way through Momo's skull. A pale light began to glow the moment the blade entered, and it grew brighter as Momo died. Seconds later, there was a muted flash, and Momo’s body was gone. Max almost dropped the dagger. He stared at the area where Momo had just been standing and reached up with one hand to wipe away the dampness in his eyes. Other than a small misting of blood on his hand and arm, and a bit on the wall, there was no evidence she’d even just been standing there.
"Well, this isn't fun," he muttered.
Part of him wanted to wonder if he was doing the right thing again. Another part of him wanted to dwell on his uncertainty in any proof that the white dagger did what he believed it did. He ignored the voices. If he was wrong, his friends might resurrect in a week, or maybe they'd find themselves waking up in an unfamiliar Quartet.
As long as he was not killing them for good or sending them to the “Tower,” it was not the end of the line. If he was right about all of this, he might be saving them a lot of pain and suffering—suffering that he would have caused. And besides, at least one of his friends had wanted this all along.
Max went to the door and called in Lance.
Two more times he stabbed the dagger through one of his friends’ heads, a feat that was easy for him as a three star mana body Blade Sorcerer. Each time he did it, he focused, making sure that it was a clean hit, that nothing was amiss. After the last of them, Gantry, had disappeared, Max tossed a bone on the floor, making the portal to his storage again. He tossed the white dagger inside.
Max wished that he didn't feel so terrible and wasn't hating himself so much right now. But he was also glad that he’d followed through. Ironically, if he couldn't kill some of his best friends without feeling conflicted about it, he wasn't sure if he could have lived with himself anymore.
None of his other friends had shown up. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Max got up. He didn't realize that he'd taken a seat in the middle of the floor. He went to the door and then robotically began gathering up everything in his dorm that was worth putting into his storage. As he did, a screen popped up in his vision. It read,
Slick: I'm sorry, but I think you did the right thing.
A moment later, Lavinia's voice whispered in his ear, "I'm so sorry, Max. Do you want to talk?"
"No," he muttered. "Too much to do. Maybe if everything works out, maybe later. But not right now."
"I understand," she said.
Max felt a mental pat from Trill and sent the little spirit back a wave of gratitude. As he was gathering up the sheets and bedding in his room to take back to the portal, in the back of his mind, Saliron said, I don't understand the problem. You even let them keep their bones.
***
Max felt more naked than he had in a long time as he low-crawled through the bush outside the secret entrance to Lavinia's laboratory. He had stowed all of his weapons, put almost everything in storage. The only thing he was currently armed with was a pencil in his pocket and his dubious wits.
He made it to the secret doorway, closed it, moved down the hallway to Lavinia's old laboratory, and then shut that door behind him too. Lavinia appeared to his standard sight with her hands on her hips, in a long frilly skirt and a "Born to be Wild" t-shirt. The former summoner said, "I can't believe you are actually going through with this."
"What else am I supposed to do?" Max asked. "I could try falling on the white dagger, but I don't know if it'd work. And even if it did, I'd be leaving it behind. I'm not willing to do that. The only way that I can get out of here and keep everything that I just literally killed for is to use your machine to return to my world."
"That worked out so great for me," said Lavinia. “Remember?”
"You weren't really trying to return," said Max. "You were trying to fight the flow of the Quartet, of the universe directly. We've already talked about this before."
"We've never tested it though," said Lavinia.
"That's because we couldn't, Lavinia. You know that. It's not like we have some handy students that we can throw in this thing and risk their lives. No, it's got to be my life that I'm risking. But we've worked on this thing for months."
"Weeks," corrected Lavinia.
"Weeks. But you've had hundreds of years to study it. And I had a new perspective. I believe in this machine. I believe in you."
"Yes, well, I believed in myself too. And I wound up wandering around feeling sorry for myself for a few centuries."
Max laughed at her tone. "Well, I did think about that and you know what? If we're wrong, maybe I'll turn into something like you and then we can haunt each other."
Lavinia stopped her pacing and gave him an arched look. "Are you serious about that?"
"Of course I am," said Max.
"You would still spend time with me even if we weren't contracted anymore?"
"Of course," Max reassured her. "Like I told you, we're friends. Friend for life. Forever."
Lavinia smiled radiantly at him and looked at her feet. Max added, "Besides, if my situation is exactly like yours, you'll still be contacted to me just like your spirits are. So, I guess I'd be a high level spirit."
Her head shot up. "I hadn't even considered that.” A number of emotions splashed across her face. “Would that even be possible?"
"I have no idea," said Max, "and I'd rather not die to find out. Or at least not permanently. But I think I'm going to have to die just like my friends just did, at least temporarily, in order to make this thing work."
"Okay." She quietly said, “I’m scared.”
“I’m scared too. But the only sure way to never grow and to never survive tight scrapes is to be too afraid to act.”
Suddenly, Max's tablet started chiming with rapid fire notification sounds. He raised his eyebrows and stared at the thing. "I guess they found out," he said. "I can't believe I forgot to get rid of this thing.” He drew out a piece of bone from his pocket and created a storage gate again.
"You should probably stop doing that so often," said Lavinia. "Don't you have to use a little bit of mana from your mana gate every time you do it?"
"Yes," said Max, "but that's only a problem here. If I somehow get back to Earth, all I have to do is take that thing out for like an hour and it'll be charged for a year."
"Good point," she said.
Max got a pensive expression before going back and forth about sending one last text to Amy before leaving. He ultimately decided not to. Whatever closure it might offer wouldn’t be worth the danger it might put her in. Then he threw his tablet in its bracelet form into the doorway of his storage space. After that he cancelled the ability, making the portal collapse. Now he truly had no tools or weapons on him.
"It's too bad that none of your other friends came to your dorm," said Lavinia.
Max shook his head. "No, they made their choice. My conscience is clear either way. Now I just need to hope that everything works out for them."
He thought about Iolas's quick wit, Benjamin's huge frame, and Tessa's confident smile. "Hell, maybe they'll end up winning the Junior Quartet competition or something. Sucks that I can't be there." Max went to one table and fiddled with a box.
"What are you doing?" asked Lavinia. "I never did ask what you were messing with over there before."
"Time work," grunted Max. He opened a small pocket in the contraption that he'd been working on off and on for several weeks. "It's been done for a while now. I just didn't know how much boom to put in it."
"Boom?"
"Yeah, boom." Max showed her the fifty explosive beads squirreled away inside the device. "Once I hit this button, five minutes later, all these beads are going to go boom. Once I leave this room, one way or another, nobody else will be able to use any of this stuff that we've worked on."
Lavinia stared at him. "Max, I will admit, sometimes I forget that you used to be Chasa de Milo. However, at times like this, I'm reminded all over again."
"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Max.
"If you ever read an Albion history book, at least from my era, you would understand."
"Don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean," Max grumbled. He checked his explosive device one more time, and then hit the button. "Okay, this is it," he said.
Then he mounted the stairs to the platform in the middle of the room and sat in the cold metal chair surrounded by magical scripts and glyphs. He closed the restraints over his feet and legs, closed one over his arm and wrists, and Lavinia's spirits helped him close the last over his other arm and wrist. Then he said, "All spirits, all aboard, or else I have no idea what's going to happen to you."
A moment later, he ensured that all of his spirits were safely tucked away inside his soul. Then he said a silent prayer to Lady Luck and, after a moment of hesitation, shrugged and said, "Fuck it." Then he sent a quick prayer to the goddess Morrigan.
"Goodbye, Quartet," he said out loud. "I wish I could say it was all fun."
Max yelled, "Adios!" He used his mana to activate the machine around him. Brilliant purple lights sprang up, running through all the glyphs and magical text around the machine until it reached the chair itself. Suddenly, it felt like Max was being stretched in every direction at once and compressed about a thousand times per second. The sensation didn't last long before he knew no more.
In the room, Max vanished off of the chair. Four minutes later, the explosives he'd rigged up detonated, taking out the room and doing extensive damage to the floor of the building above. If not for the heavy protection magic on the structure, it likely would have smashed through the floor and done a great deal of damage to the building.
The biomechanical generator on one wall was not so much as scratched.
Comments
Blaise Corvin
It was just Momo, Lance, and Gantry. I kinda screwed up by mentioning Eolas. Oops! I need to edit that out of the final, too. Good catch.
Maxx
It might just be me but it doesn't seem too clear on all who came to the dorm. Momo, Lance, and Gantry for sure. Eolas maybe? And no one else?
