Chapter 11: 70 years was a Long Time; Long Enough for an Invasion

(A/N: please do bring any typos or grammatical errors to my attention, either by chapter or paragraph comments so I can immediately fix and attend to it. As I am only human too, there's only so much I can do without making mistakes. Thank you, and enjoy!)

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"Fine. Speak." Saying so, Huey crossed his hands and sat against the floor reluctantly.

Lyra could almost imagine him pouting, but quickly blinked the thought out of her head and rushed to sit opposite him.

'... This is weird.' 

It certainly was.

She was casually sitting around outside of the Walls and having a casual conversation like in a picnic. She wasn't wearing any working gears or visor to protect her from the air and 'Mana' radiation, or a single weapon to fight off an Elder God if one were to ambush them.

Which for some reason... hadn't happened.

There was nothing but desolation in sight. No prowling Elder God's, which was weird considering a Rift opened not to far away.

Then she looked at the aloof man before her, slowly her gaze fell to the black sword resting on him. She lingered on the black ebony blade. Dull red details spread across the surface of the blade. She had seen those details throb like living veins and spreading a chaotic aura all around.

Even now she still felt disturbed just from looking at it. It wasn't activated like last time, but the chaotic feeling was still there. 

The longer she stared at the blade, the more she was certain she could slowly hear growls and snarls in the back of her head, slowly devouring her from the inside with unadulterated horror and dread.

Instantly she concluded; that black blade was devastatingly dangerous.

"Speak." Huey spoke again, realizing the girl had her mind wandering somewhere else.

Lyra sharply blinked. She hadn't realized it but she was suddenly sweating profusely and her breathing was deep and rough.

Blinking away at the cold sensation that slowly covered her mind, she looked up and began.

"R-right. F-first of all, I'll need to know who exactly you are and where you come from."

Huey narrowed his eyes slightly but ultimately restrained himself and limited himself to at least replying her inquiries.

When he thought about introducing himself and his shocking backstory, Huey couldn't resist a stupid grin from cracking his mask.

"I'm Huey Blade. And as you saw earlier, I came out of what you call the 'red rift.'"

This time around it was Lyra's turn to narrow her eyes.

"I see. So you really are from the other side."

"No. I'm from Earth." He casually interjected and Lyra jerked her head for another question but was instantly cut off by Huey's voice.

"You already asked your question. Don't I get a turn?"

Lyra retracted and sighed.

"Excuse me. Yes, feel free to ask anything."

Huey nodded mildly and his aura shifted in accordance to his mood.

"Then I'll ask the most important thing."

Lyra gulped.

"Call of Duty... that's still a thing, right?"

"...eh?" Lyra stared, bewildered and Huey pushed on, even leaning closer.

"This is the future, right? 2124 and all that. That means there must be over a hundred missed updates, and perhaps even a virtualized version of the game or something. So tell me, Call of Duty is still a thing, yes? And is my account still valid?"

Lyra felt pressured by the sudden intensity of his red gaze and flustered from the proximity of their faces. She panicked, befuddled, stuttered stupidly and backed off with her hands in the air defensively.

"H-h-hold on a second! Just wait! I-i don't know what your talking about? Call of Duty, what's that? We have nothing like that in this era." She readily admitted, trying to calm her racing heart.

Huey froze, then his red eyes slowly widened in horror.

"No...Call Of Duty...?" He repeated absent mindedly to himself and Lyra could only bashfully nod.

Then Huey threw out all the pretense.

"Yo, what the fuck?!" He grabbed his sword and swore to the bleak heavens in protest.

The realization dawned on him like an anvil, and he felt something inside of his shatter like fragile glass.

It was his hope.

But Huey Blade was tenacious!

"Fuck, that's a lie! A big, big lie! Call of Duty, gone? My painfully and heart wrenching account, erased? Like hell! Don't kid with me? You prolly' just never heard of Call Of Duty before, or just don't know what it is! And that in on itself is wrong! You're wrong!" He shamelessly prattled on.

'Eh?' Lyra could only blink in shocking amazement and bewilderment at the curse fluently flying straight out of the man's mouth at that moment.

Lyra's lips slow parted to give a reply.

"Ah. Ah, well. Maybe you're right? It's just, a lot of things happened within the seventy years the world faced it's fall. Humanity lost millennials worth of records and history, so it wouldn't be weird if someone like me hadn't heard of...Call Of Duty. I guess." 

Hearing that, Huey managed to calm down then fell in thought. His aloof mask reformed like it never left.

"Explain." He plainly said.

Lyra stiffened at the sudden change in tone of voice and demeanor, then nodded tightly as her mind wondered through her memories and knowledge of mankind's recent history.

Lyra's eyes fell dim with dark somber light. He shoulders slumped slightly, her voice was low.

"According to history, the end of the world began seventy years ago, the moment humanity discovered the first Elder God in our world. It's not exactly clear what happened after that as that information and knowledge was lost during the first active invasion from this creatures of another world." 

She looked up at Huey, uncertainly into his still red eyes.

"I-i can't tell you much of the details as I wasn't there. This was something that happened over half a century ago, after all. But...I can recount what I know...what all remnant of humanity know." 

Lyra paused.

She looked away then lingered.

"They say on the First day, the sky and it's firmaments fell first, bridging the boundaries between the day and the night. It was then we lost something called the 'Sun' and 'stars'." Lyra's azure eyes gleamed wistfully in thought.

"On the second day, the ground withered. The third, we lost our oceans. And by the fifth...half of mankind was wiped out."

Then she stopped abruptly.

Throughout the whole time, Huey maintained an ambiguous silence, and only limited himself to pay rapt attention to Lyra's words. He hadn't failed to realize the shift in expressions and mood of the girl as she narrated.

Then he muttered to himself.

"...A lot of things did happen while I was gone..." There was a pang of pain and sorrow in his heart. Side by side anger. 

Lyra realized the subtle crack in his mask and only stared softly.

Huey's thoughts and emotions raged internally. He restrained them, bottled them and tightly squeezed them shot into a corner of his heart. 

He looked at Lyra who could only stare back silently.

He had questions, even more of those now. Slowly, one by one, he was going to get them all answered.

'Old man... Shiloh...'

Unconsciously his grip on the black sword tightened.

Eventually he sighed and simply said:

"I see." Then straightened up impassively.

Lyra stared a little conflicted at the indifference but soon remembered she had a question.

"You said you were from Earth, but you obviously came out of that rift. What does that mean?" This time around she asked softly and cautiously.

Huey silently observed her expression, considering his next words then nodded mildly.

"Indeed. I do come from Earth, which means, I am human." He folded his arms then paused abruptly, in thought for his next words.

Then casually injected.

"But I'm from Seventy years ago. Or, no. To be more presise, I was from Earth seventy years ago, but was suddenly whisked away to some shitty place, nearly died a few times, killed a dragon, and I've only managed to return now...to 2124."

He paused to think again.

"Umu. Yes, that's about it." He nodded, clearly satisfied with his explanation.