Lives Left Behind

"Wish I could tell you more, hell I want to know more too." Ashton sighed, "I was only repeating what I got told."

Fayden raised an eyebrow, "I suppose it was one of the voices in your head then?"

"Yep, it was Alterum, the one with the temper?" Ashton responded as he relaxed a bit.

"Well then, we should probably ask him ourselves." Before Ashton could respond, Fayden placed his palm over his forehead, and they both entered Ashton's mind.

"And how do we-" Ashton cut himself off, "Right, you have mind magic bull shit."

Looking around the two stood in the charred remains of a forest, small patches of grass had started to grow back, yet much of it still remained destroyed. Just beyond the tree line silver chains seemed to make a barrier to keep the forest contained.

"Not what I expected your mind to look like, not going to lie," Fayden said looking around, "then again, it kinda suits you."

"Honestly, same. And um, thanks?" Ashton asked, wondering if that was a compliment or not.

Before Fayden spoke a black mass formed in front of them, shifting into a humanoid form with only two purple orbs where its eyes should have been. "Get out, you won't get any answers from me."

"Now, normally I would respect your wishes," Fayden began, "But you said something pretty interesting during our fight, and I'm not leaving until I have an answer."

"And how do you plan to get that answer? Simply pestering me won't cut it."

Fayden shrugged, "I could always force my way into your mind."

"Try it fuckface," He snarled.

Ashton quickly cut in, "Hey now, this is my mind remember? We don't need you two fucking everything up, I'm already on the brink of insanity."

Ashton turned to face Alterum, "Can you atleast tell us how you know something like that might happen?"

With a motion that resembled rolling his eyes Alterum said, "No, why would I?"

"Because I asked nicely?" Ashton said.

"And I'd like to know how in the nine circles of hell do you even know who Cecilia was?"

"Now that you say that, how do you know Cecilia?" Ashton asked, glancing back at Fayden.

"Same way you do I'd reckon," Fayden said, turning his gaze towards Ashton, "So, what was your old name?"

"Red, my parents had a thing for naming their kids after hair colors." Ashton sighed as he turned to Fayden, "and yours?"

Fayden grimaced, feeling a pang of pity for him. "Markus," He said, "not a very unique name, but its better than a color."

"Yea, tell me about it. So, I'm guessing you knew Grey and Nico?"

Fayden nodded, "I was Greys right-hand man, and Nico…well you know what happened."

Ashton remained quiet, "Right hand huh? Wish I got that treatment. As for Nico, I just know he wasn't around when I came back into the picture."

"Oh, well basically Cecilia committed suicide on Grey's sword and Nico saw that. Misunderstanding what happened, he swore revenge on him and left, but he never showed his face again for some reason." Fayden rubbed his chin in thought, "Maybe he was already dead by then?"

"Very likely if your world valued only strength like mine, Nico was book smart but not much else." Ashton sighed.

Fayden chuckled, "Well, at least he's got the strength to back himself up now."

"Well, I can't wait to see him fight." Ashton thought for a moment, "Elijah, right?"

"Yes," He nodded, "I managed to clear the misunderstanding before he fully awakened, he'd have probably joined Agrona already if I hadn't."

"Can the two of you take this outside? Preferably before I lop off your heads." Alterum finally cut in.

"We will if you give us something worthwhile." The two snapped back.

"How about no?"

"You realise I'll be pestering you till I die about this now right?" Ashton countered.

"And time moves differently in your mindscape, we could be here for millennia and not age a day."

"In most fairy tales when the dragon is slayed, the princess is taken to the castle" He grunted, tired of the duo's pestering.

"And whats that supposed to mean?" Fayden asked with a raised eyebrow, "That's a common theme in many old stories."

"I've given you enough, now leave me the fuck alone." Saying that, Alterum disappeared the same way he had arrived.

"Well, that didn't go well." Ashton muttered looking around his mindscape.

Fayden sighed wistfully, "If only I could see the future."

"That'd be handy, now wouldn't it?" Ashton thought, "hm, might work on a spell for that one day."

Fayden shrugged, "If we can manipulate time using aether, we can find a way to see the future,"

He sighed again, "Well, see you back in the real world then."

As the connection broke between the two, Fayden was thrown back into his body. Fortunately, he was accustomed to it by now and managed to keep himself from falling.

He waited for Ashton to regain his bearings before speaking, "Let's get something to eat, I'm starving after our fight."

Ashton nodded, "That would be nice."

It was during their meal that Elijah joined them, clearly exhausted from his fight with Nathan.

"So, who won?" Fayden asked, putting down his fork.

"Not me," Elijah grumbled as he stabbed his food with a vengeance.

"Don't be too discouraged, I mean he's like half god or something," Fayden shrugged, "And his control over fire based mana is a hindrance to your soulfire."

Elijah looked at him as if he had grown a second head, "What? No, soulfire is not a normal fire art, Nathan could not manipulate it. It's a part of my new grey mana abilities, I think Zerion called them decay arts?"

"Yeah, decay arts. They're technically a worse version of my nox arts." Ashton said as he finished chewing.

Elijah frowned, "I don't know how to feel about that, but I'll take any information you have about these decay arts."

Ashton sighed, "I don't know much, just that their decay arts mixed with the indrath's aether arts to make this. I know nox arts got its leaching effects from them and that's all."

"Hmm," Elijah rubbed his chin in thought, "Maybe I'll ask Noctis about this later…"

"Why don't you just make something to augment yourself? You were quite the artificer in your last life in this universe right?" Ashton said as he started to eat again.

"I…don't know what you're talking about." Elijah said, subtly glancing at Fayden with barely hidden anger.

Fayden sighed, "He's like us, he knew his worlds version of you in both lives."

"For a short while at least." Ashton said, "Glad you got a better path in this world."

"The whole kidnapping thing?" He said, "I'm not that helpless."

"Right," Fayden dragged out the word, "You were getting your ass kicked by the scythe before I came."

Elijah fixed his glasses, "I was still getting used to my new powers back then."

"Wait, a scythe?" Ashton blurted out.

"Yeah," Fayden looked at him, "He came in after Elijah and Nathan killed Draneeve. That didn't happen in your world?"

"No, I showed up right when Draneeve grabbed Elijah, and nearly killed him. Though my team from my last life stepped in." Ashton muttered the last line to himself.

"Draneeve?" Elijah repeated, "That weak little shit?"

"Yeah, that fucker. Got his ass saved by the bell is all." Ashton retorted.

"You mentioned something about a team just now," Fayden said, "And you also mentioned that there were other reincarnated in your world before. Care to elaborate further on that?"

"I was, to my knowledge, the fourth person reincarnated, before Arthur. The faction of Lykaios that sided with the Vitra were the first to reincarnate people. Starting with three members of my old team. Unlike me and Arthur, they got summoned into near full-blooded asuran bodies, and sadly they seem to have sided with the Vitra's faction." Ashton informed the two.

Elijah raised an eyebrow, "Can you not talk to them? If they used to be members of your old team, surely they would listen to you?"

"Well, two of them might, however one surely won't. The other two wouldn't be working with that one unless something had been done to them." Ashton said thinking, "Wait, didn't they do something to your mind?"

Fayden nodded, "The did, all of his memories upto awakening in Dicathen had been completely blocked off. I had to enter his mind to remove those blocks and let Nico out."

Ashton's eyes widened, "That'd make sense why the murderer and his victim are working together."

"..." Elijah stared at him for a moment, "Your own teammates killed each other?"

"That is kind of messed up, I'll agree." Fayden said, "Then again we do have our own Cecilia incident."

Elijah scowled, "That was more of a suicide than a murder."

Ashton shook his head, "I know for a fact it wasn't a Cecilia incident. He just thought I had gone soft."

"..." Fayden and Elijah glanced at each other, before Fayden spoke, "By any chance, did you recruit your members from a psychiatric hospital?"

"I found that abandoned buildings held better fighters," Ashton said, half joking and half serious.

Fayden shook his head and got up, "Well, I guess I'll be paying Azrul a visit now."

Ashton followed his lead, "I'll tag along, I wanna see if he has made any progress on my replacement."

That only left Elijah, who sighed heavily and agreed to come along with them. They wandered around for a few minutes before Fayden decided to contact his bond.

Are you there Zeke?

It took him a few minutes to answer back. I'm kind of in the middle of something here.

Could you ask Sierra to mentally contact me then?

She's kinda in the middle of something too. He answered after a pause. I'm gonna ask Noctis instead.

A few moments later the Asura in question void stepped in front of them. "What do you need?"

"Directions to Azruls lab." Fayden answered, "Although you could have just told me that mentally."

Noctis shrugged, "I'm not extremely busy at the moment. Azruls lab is on the top floor, come with me."

"Why do you wish to visit him?" Noctis asked as they got on the elevator.

"I have an idea for a device that could help us in the war," Fayden said, "I figured Azrul out of anyone would be able to make them,"

"Oh? What device, if I may ask?"

"A sort of soul-bonded weapon taking different shapes depending from person to person." He replied, "With some feature that amplifies mana absorption and purification."

Ashton chuckled, "We have similar ideas too? I'm having weapons for some people made back in my world with similar concepts."

"With every passing moment I feel like we really are different variants of the same person," Fayden deadpanned.

"Well, not like it's impossible. Do you have anything to say about that, Noctis?" Ashton asked, glancing at the asura.

Noctis glanced between the two for a moment before answering, "Your souls are too different for you to be variants of the same being. You do have some similarities, but not enough."

"Not to mention our past lives are different too." Fayden said, "Still, it's weird how we have similar thought processes and powers."

"Incredibly weird, though not impossible with how many universes there likely are." Ashton said.

"Although the chances of you landing in a universe with someone so similar to you is almost nonexistent," Elijah said, entering the conversation, "It makes me wonder if it was really chance or some twisted form of fate."

The conversation ended there and the elevator doors opened. Noctis led them down a hallway that looked indistinguishable from every other hallway, and stopped in front of a door at the end.

The doors opened automatically and they walked in. The inside of Azruls lab was far advanced than any Nico had seen back on Earth. It was like he had travelled a few millenia into the future. He could see plans for some of their technology on holographic screens around the lab, and even he had trouble comprehending some of the ideas.

Azrul left what he was working on and walked up to them, "Yes?"

Fayden went first, describing in detail exactly what he wanted the device to be like and how it would be connected to his Void Edge. Azrul listened intently, and another holographic screen floated up beside them, scribing out everything Fayden said.

"I can definitely make that," Azrul said, "Although, with my schedule, it will take a while. I also have Mr. Leywin's gauntlet to finish, along with a plethora of other projects I've been trying to complete for years. I'll have them ready by the time you leave, I can guarantee that."

Ashton raised his eyebrow, "So it'll be a gauntlet and not a bandage? That's probably for the best anyway."

Azrul nodded, "I have already made the blueprint for it, and I'm working on its design. If you want, I can show you the plan and you can make any changes you see fit."

Ashton smiled, "I'd love to see what you've got so far. I'm glad I can give input."

"Of course," Azrul said, guiding him to his work table.

While they were talking Elijah had slipped away to admire the height of the Marchosias' technology. He even thought he saw some of the things he had wanted to make himself. He remembered what Ashton had said about augmenting himself, and a plan started forming in his mind.

In his absentmindedness, Elijah bumped into a doorframe, fortunately, his glasses hadn't broken. Shaking his head, he looked into the room, and the blood froze in his veins.

"What in the nine circles of hell?" He whispered as his gaze swept over dozens of Marchosias corpses.