The First Age

"You are here because you are sick,"
He had been sick before. Right now, he felt himself in a more lucid state, where his mind wasn’t befuddled with medications or sleep deprivation. He remembered the awful pains, convulsions, and he was vaguely aware of the time that past although it was more or less a blur because of the lack of thought and overwhelming doom that consumed him before today. But his musing fall came to a full stop. The Ascendancy was moving towards him. Heat, not born of the fire coursing through him, flushed his body. Alric’s body sense the danger this man posed well before his conscious decided to join in.

The pressure between them intensified and magnified as the Ascendancy stood at his side, becoming the only visible thing in his eyes. Alric knew, instantly, that his life was endangered. His training, left to dust in the back of his mind, swept forward. He needed to be calm and patient now. Despite his words and tone, as a operative he knew the tale tell signs of aggression. The Ascendancy was the man to conquer half of the world there was no one greater or more powerful. Alric knew that if compliance wasn’t given, immediately, that whatever it was that was flushing his body with power and which clung to Nikolai Brandon like an old coat would clash and the cost would be stupendous.

There was a moment though were Alric’s mind considered fighting. He didn’t know if this lucidity would last or even if he were to comply that the man that dominated everything he set his mind to wouldn’t kill him. The primal part of his brain urged him to fight and destroy the threat then flee. But he always knew that deep down, there was no way of him coming out of such fight alive. Sure, he may take the man hovering over him with him to the grave but the point of a fight was to come out still breathing.

Just release it. It was hard, to say the least, to relinquish that which gave the Amulet of Man pause. The Ascendancy’s position forced Alric to stare at the man eyes while he steeled himself against his need to fight against him, crush his captors.. or were they my saviors? Panic threatened to overtake him in his confusion. Facts of the disease, while not completely understood by him, were known and death was always the final stroke. It wasn't beyond the scope of reason that they had to take such drastic measures in order to reverse the damage this had done to him. Or they kept him alive long enough to conqueror the Power. Either way he let loose his grip of the icy hot force and immediately felt a large feeling of emptiness and lack of clarity took its place. Alric also found it curious that he could no longer feel the dominating pressure that emanated from the Ascendancy. “Your will, Excellency.
”

There were long moments when Nik steeled himself for the breaking of this inevitable avalanche. Yet he refused to allow crisis to overwhelm logical reasoning. Alric must comply. There was no other option.

Finally, the impression of danger diminished. If ever there was a time to breathe a sigh of relief, it was now. He knew Alric’s struggle. Had sensed it keenly. The air was thinned of their battle with the Ascendancy retreating the victor. Yet that cripple of doubt threatened once more, and he knew the war was only now beginning.

“Well done,”
he stated plainly. Conscious manipulation of their shared powers was the key to surviving, but Nikolai was unsure whether their interaction had slowed the man’s approaching death or had ushered it forward in time. We will find out.

A brief wave summoned the scientists. One entered immediately wearing the same white labcoat as before, but his face was covered with a surgical mask. He held a spare in one hand, but the Ascendancy refused the offer. It was a little late to worry about quarantine measures now. “The sickness may come upon him again,”
he started, glancing briefly at the subject of their discussion. “Likely today or tomorrow. Watch him. And inform me of the outcome.”


The man turned slowly toward Alric, “Ascendancy, how can you predict--”

“Because I can,”
Nikolai interrupted, frustration sharpening his tone. The doctor paled but did not argue again.

Looking down upon Alric, he processed the man’s confusion. “If it comes once more, survive it. When next we speak again, I will explain what you are.”
An ominous cliffhanger, but Alric’s future hung on the next forty-eight hours. It was up to him what he did with it.

With that, Nikolai disappeared behind the two-way glass. His thoughts shelved all thought for what the boy was facing, and returned to considering another, more harrowing, possibility than the existence of a second god. That there may, in fact, be a third.

Alric watched as the Ascendancy’s group left, . He focused on his breathing and his words while a familiar pair of hands moved over his body checking vitals and the sensors attached to his flesh. Survive and I’ll explain what you are.

Very well, Excellency. Alric resigned himself to his potential saviors guidance closing his eyes for what seemed a restfulness that was but a distant memory.

Continued at Discovery


Edited by Alric Xavier Rainer, Oct 4 2013, 12:30 PM.