To Save Your Life

"Trying to kill your son over an alliance seems like the sort of thing a terrible father would do," I muttered under my breath. I lowered the saber, capturing the attention of both Lucius and Charlie as they focused on the unsteady consistency of the colors flowing.

I was starting to understand just how easy I had it with Sky as my father.

"You must not know Sky Asterio then. The man who commit genocide against the Human Race to establish his place at the top. The reason I was brought back was to take him down and eliminate all of his allies, no matter if they ended up being my children or not," Lucius explained. I clicked my tongue as a bad taste filled my mouth. Again and again, he was misunderstood.

Nobody knows why Sky did what he did, but we know the things that led up to it. His friends were killed, his family was torn away, and he was cornered. Genocide isn't what he did, he stood up for himself when the whole world hated him.

Standing up for yourself... when you're hated...

"I do know Sky Asterio. He's my father," I told him. Lucius looked at me with spiteful scorn, then a bout of disgust before nodding his head and taking another strike at me.

I was more than capable of ending his puny existence and I harshly considered it as he dared to move closer. However, it was Charlie's father, not mine, so I disarmed him and broke his arm, kicking him back a little further so Charlie could ask his questions once more.

"You're his daughter? Figures, you act like him,"

"Oh really? Wanna see some shit he would pull then?" 

Upon asking Lucius such a rude, yet necessary, question, he backed up for a moment, only focusing on Charlie once more.

"This is really the people you want to lump yourself with? They limit your true capability," Lucius told his son. Everybody around him could see it was a load of shit, and Charlie chuckled at the response of his father.

"I'm a leader among Sky's people, Lucius. There's never been a time where I was told I couldn't do something. You weren't there when I woke up, I had no family, but the people you see around me? They are my family. You are not. I don't care if four thousand years ago or whatever I was your son, but right now? I'm not your son. I'm their friend. If you were any father of mine, you would obviously see that," Charlie explained. 

I was touched by his talk, even if he wasn't talking to me, it still felt like he meant it directed at me. With a slight smile, I waited around for Charlie to finish his inquiry.

"In any capacity, the fact you're alive is odd. How were you brought back? Were you ever dead?"

"Yes, I was dead. Killed by Sky Asterio. I was brought back by Fico in order to take him and his allies down. It's not that complicated, is it?" 

"It's plenty complicated, as in you being brought back to life. Not to mention for the wrong cause, and not once have you mentioned my existence as the thing that kept you motivated to keep going. You don't even care about your son. Sounds like a bad trait you'd loop in with Sky, doesn't it?"

Charlie shot back at his father with maximum power, so much so that I smiled with Charlotte as Lucius searched desperately for a response to that. He was unable to find anything and instead sighed.

"You overlook the things that could save you. It's a darn shame that you've brought me to this point--" Before Lucius could finish speaking, Charlie slammed the base of his sword into his chest, causing him to pause and gasp out in shock.

"You'd dare hurt your own father?! The man who gave you life?!" Lucius cried out. Charlie took out the sword from his chest and whipped the flowing blood onto the ground before sheathing it on his hip.

"You gave me life and abandoned me. You tried to kill me. You may have given me life, but you have not preserved it in the same way Sky has and still would, no matter what," He said with his arms crossed.

I was shocked to see Charlie had the balls to kill the man who claimed to be his father, but at the end of the day, it wasn't my business. Lucius fell to his knees and clutched his chest, looking up at me from behind.

"You Asterios... you ruin everything, don't you?"

"Yep," I told him.

I slammed my fist into the base of his skull with his head turned back and Lucius fell over with his brains splattered onto the ground. I shook the blood off of my knuckles and looked at Charlie again with Iridescent Strands still looming around the saber I held.

"Something happened with you, I can see. What are those? Does it hurt?" He asked me.

"No, did that hurt?" I pointed to his dead father and he shook his head.

"My father wouldn't have tried to kill me like that. So... those were the people brought back, all searching for an opportunity to take us down and stop Sky, huh?" Charlie asked me. I nodded, looking around to see if any more followed us.

"Yeah, and I assume more of them will introduce themselves to our friends when we go back. Where are Khalil and Mizu? And Dani?"

"I haven't seen them since Lucius. Khalil took Mizu, dodged an attack, and kept running, I guess," Charlie explained.

I had never been too suspicious of an ally, but something about the way Charlie explained the situation with a bad tone made me curious about why they were separated. Perhaps Mizu had wanted to see Ultima after all this time and forced Khali to do so.

Regardless, they were next on the list of collecting everybody. Once we had enough manpower, we could certainly break Sky out of whatever he was trapped in. I was still curious about what I would say to him...