🕱Chapter Thirty-Six [6]🕱

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HI! It's been a long time! I haven't had a lot of inspiration as explained in the pervious part, but after reading some of your comments, I managed to scrounge up some inspiration and rewrite more than 90% of this chapter. (I hated the original draft whish was why I was never able to finish it and publish)

ALSO, some lines in this chapter reference a GO oneshot I wrote and posted in the GO Extra's book. If you haven't read it , you should, it was fun to write and focuses on Seto and Jason in the past. Jason is very different in the past than he is now.

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GAME OVER

Chapter 36 [6]

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Seto looked around the dimly lit lab. The faint smell of cold coffee filled the space, he never understood Jason's love for the foul beverage. He's had it on occasions, but mostly found it distasteful.

Here was the place Jason lived and worked for 510 years, such a small amount of time in comparison to himself. He's lived to see two kings, and he would likely live to see a third rise to the throne. Jason was nothing more than a child to him, a smart and remarkable child, but a child nonetheless. Children were impressionable, you could make a child sway easily to anything, they didn't have the will to resist.

Seto entered the lab space slowly as he took in the empty space. No, it wasn't empty, it was false to say so. The room was still filled with dismantled machines and tools placed precisely in place for use. Jason hardly kept a stray page or even a notebook around, he stored every ounce of information in his head after all.

Seto found himself in front of Jason's desk, the desk he sat and often slept at after long hours of work. There was a picture frame faced down, he was sure that was normally not there, but his memory tended to fail him as the years went by and his brain was crammed with information gathered over several lifetimes.

Seto frowned and picked the frame up. The picture in the frame was worn, likely due to constant contact to skin, Jason was far more sentimental that Seto ever could be. Though faded, it depicted the Clarks family before their youngest daughter was born, a small and young Jason with a larger gaping gap in his mouth grinned cheerfully in the image. Yet Jason was almost hidden behind thick lines scratched into the photo with marker. X's furiously crossed over the younger Jason as if trying to erase his existence from a moment in history.

Foolish.

Jason was just a child. An impressionable child. Hampered with thoughts of not belonging, with murder hanging over his head, with expectations placed on him by a father long dead, with crazed ideals racing through his mind. Jason was truly a child.

He scowled, what had he hoped to gain from coming here? There was nothing for him here, Jason was dead and if he wasn't here now, he would likely not be found alive. Jason would not carelessly keep his spawn point within the capital, he wasn't that much of a fool.

Seto turned away, this had been a waste of time.

"I-it's like you said, people die all the time, I just have to choose to not let it bother me."

Many centuries ago, when it had only been a year since Jason's arrival to the AHD, his father unexpectedly died. He remembered because the funeral was an unusual day. He'd performed the magical investigation of the death and he was never wrong. Though what he found and covered up and claimed not even magic could make sense of the accident.

"That is true, death is everywhere, and murder is no different."

He remembered muttering those words to a shaken Jason the day of his father's funeral.

There was a part of him that never understood why he hid the truth, there was a part of him that wondered would things be different if he'd revealed the truth of the sudden death of Jason's father? Would things still have spiraled so out of control, would Seto still be able to recognize the Jason now as the one from 510 years ago?

Or would the two still be unrecognizable from each other?

Seto let out a tense sigh. What a foolish sentiment.

"I-I told you, being bad j-just runs through my b-bl-blood..."

Seto closed his eyes for a moment to collect his thoughts and shoo away useless memories.

He gave one last look at the silent lab before he walked out leaving the lab in darkness.

He shook his head. Children.

~~~~~

Adam's body fell into the darkness. He was still unconscious but as the air grew colder Adam felt his senses return slowly. He wasn't sure how long he'd been falling but he fully woke when his body splashed into a dark liquid. It was cold like ice and felt like he was being dragged down and faster than normal water.

Adam opened his eyes, but he couldn't see anything, he began to swim upwards but the force pulling him was strong. Was this a void pool? Jason had said that a void pool could drag people down like a vacuum.

Adam strained against the force, he wasn't sure if he was getting anywhere but the terror of drowning in the dark scared him. Would he respawn if he did? He didn't want to take the chance.

His head broke the surface and he gasped for air, but the moment he relaxed he felt himself being pulled back in. He didn't have time to rest. He needed to swim for a shore, any shore.

Hundreds of thoughts raced through his mind. Did Ross make it? Where was he? How did he live? Could he still make it home?

His hands grasped the rocky shore and he pulled himself up onto land. He couldn't believe he had survived. His body flopped against the land, Adam coughed and wheezed before pushing himself up to his feet.

Resting without the threat of drowning gave Adam the opportunity to access his surroundings. What he saw was unexpected.

At first his brain processed a mountain of obsidian stood before him. However, as he rubbed away the liquid on his face and around his eyes and his vision cleared, he realised the mountain was more than just a mountain. It was a structure--no--a castle.

What towered before him in purple-black glory against a void filled sky was a castle of grand size. He was sure it was far larger and superior in detail than the one built into the base of the lone mountain of his home.

He was shocked and filled with stunned awe that he hardly noticed the severe shudders his body gave off in an attempt to scare off the cold chill seeping into his skin and rattling his bones. How was this possible? Who could have built such a structure below the surface of his home.

A faint image crossed his mind that grew as Adam recognized the connection. Ty. No he didn't think Ty built this, this thing had to have been built by hundreds of people long before he was even born given the old but grandiose style. A style long since out of date in Rekrum where buildings were more modern in appearance.

What realization crossed his mind when he thought of Ty was that Ty must have had parents, and those parents must have had parents too. There must have been a civilization of people here below Rekrium that existed in secret. Where did they come from and why did they hide?

Were they still around?

Was this Celean? The faint memory of Jason calling Ty a Celenian and Ty also being an Ender began to form an web in his brain. A web that split and connected several points to one center.

Celean was a real place. It existed, it was here. Right? But what did this mean? How did this happen? If only he knew what Ty knew, what Jason knew, even what Seto knew, maybe he could piece together the pieces. He groaned and scratched at his head in frustration. This wasn't the issue now, he was stranded, he had no way home from his current position.

"Preparations have been made M'lady," Adam stopped thinking when his ears picked up on a voice.

"Good, my brother will be pleased, the Rekrians will not get away with yet another murder," another voice answered. Adam did not feel ease at hearing voices, he was instantly on edge and looked around for the source. He had half a mind to slip back into the void pool to hide, but he didn't believe he had the strength to fight the force from pulling him in and under.

"Yes, the late Queen would be pleased by you and your brother's efforts. Will you be keeping the sword your brother presented to you?" Adam spotted them, they were closer than he thought. Two women approached around a pillar of black that had initially hid them from Adam's sight. One woman dressed in simple clothes befitting a simple woman. The other adorned armor of intricate design made for a queen of battle, she carried delicately in her hands a sword of massive size. A sword blacker than pitch and seeming weightless in her hands. The simple act of her daunting steps and her careful but confident care of the sword in her hands made her radiate with strength. She was a woman that could intimidate the likes of someone like Captain Mau, and Adam already felt the effects and he hasn't even been spotted yet.

Curse how close he had fallen to a location clearly in use. Curse how he had lost himself in thought pondering the origin of such a massive castle and mysterious history. There was no escape that avoided the immediate alert of the women slowly approaching.

Unfortunately, that didn't stop Adam from slowly attempting to scooch quietly away and hopefully out of their sight.

"It's a sword passed down to the Kings and Queens of our kingdom, as such I am not fitting to hold this blade. However, my brother has entrusted me the care of this sword relying on my strength and skill to lead a war against the Rekrians. He aims to end their foolish squabble and bring back our younger, infant brother. So it would be rude and disgraceful not to accept a blessing from our new King."

"Of course M'lady. Then should I send word for the troops to ready their arrival to Sooul?"

"No, I will head that alone--" Adam had stilled his body. Despite being able to hear every word and see every gesture they made, he was unable to prepare for the cold fear that pierced his heart as the woman's eyes laid upon him.

It was like spotlights being shined on him, her sudden silenced answer to the woman beside her alerted said woman who gasped upon realising his appearance.

"What is this? Who are you?" the sword-wielding woman demanded.

Adam shuddered and gulped, whether because of the chill of his soaked clothing, or the chill of her piercing red eyes that bore into his soul he didn't know.

"I-I'm..." Adam couldn't finish his sentence. This woman was as tall as Ty, she alone would tower over Adam. Her hair was short and her lips were pressed into a thin 'no fucks given' line.

Adam was shaking uncontrollably, he knew now it was not due to the cold wetness over his body, but due to the immense aura that seemed to radiate off her being. Even the woman that was beside this one seemed to shrink in size and back away.

The woman sniffed the air, "Like wet dog, you're a human, aren't you," Adam didn't have a chance to answer as she spoke again, "What unfortunate luck for you to fall here. Had you been a Player or even an OP you might've lived longer, but you're just a human."

The word stung like a slap on his face. Yes, he was just a human, a lousy and useless human who screwed everything up.

Adam choked on his words and swallowed the saliva forming in his mouth, "W-wait--" the woman's eyes were cold and dark as she stared Adam down. The sword she previously carried with delicacy was now gripped tightly as the sword was suddenly swung and pointed in Adam's face.

"Kala, return to the castle. I have some business to take care of before I head to Sooul."

"Of course M'lady," the woman behind her bowed and turned away. Adam watched her go with half pleading eyes as if he expected to be saved.

"I will put you out of your misery foolish and unlucky human," She narrowed her red eyes and Adma tried to scramble away, he tried to utter a word, a scream--a sound--, but he was filled with too much terror to mutter anything. Even his small efforts to scramble away were met with failure as the woman took one step, drew back her sword and swung.

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Well hopefully after such a long hiatus this chapter was decent! I struggled with writing how Adam arrived in the End and what exactly he encountered. I decided to follow the original plan instead of deviating like I originally did int he original version of the chapter.

Theories?

Some of you guys may know who this woman is since I've mentioned her in other series and how her role was originally for this story even though she is a character in my other story.

Thanks again for all the nice messages in the previous part, they are the main reason for why this chapter even exists right now!

~CATtheDrawer.

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