CHAPTER 51

7243

CROSS

"You became a robot?" Alex asks.

Cross shifts uneasily as he breaks apart more Queoquartzite to add to his systems—other chunks he'll save for reserve. "My soul fractured into a million million pieces across the universe. I am the largest chunk, the only to retain my memories of my fate with Friedrich. I'm sure there are other parts out there that better remember my sister, or even parts that better remember the pain of my eye accident. There's even a piece with us here, right now."

"Oh...you mean this right here? I was going to ask you who that was."

"They're going through a lot, there's a lot they've been learning over time. They're different, but parts of me, all the same. The large majority of my soul erupted all over the universe, taking shelter in any place they could—animate object or not."

"How does that work?"

"For living things, much like how we are now. Since they are smaller pieces of a soul, they don't claim any dominance in the current living creature, the large majority aren't ever recognized as a separate existence. Humans on Earth did discover them, however they likened them to mental illnesses such like Schizophrenia or Multiple Personality Disorder. Inanimate objects is where things got interesting. Here, the soul existed as an intelligence, and inanimate or lesser-animate beings receive added intelligence, they evolve and grow into their own species. This is the case with every single other species and piece of intelligence here in our universe."

"Everything...is you?"

"You're going to be seeing some creatures that look like creatures from Earth. Lions, frogs, crickets, even light. Each of these things originally came from Earth in a time before it was destroyed and separately found their way to space—each from a separate time and space all finding their way to discover Sayar, a communal planet in a communal time. Of course, none of these races are aware of their origins. One day they didn't exist and then they did the next. And none of them are truly aware of how closely knit we all are."

"Wow...that's..." she pauses. "I understand. Normally I wouldn't be able to absorb all of that, but being with you here helps it make some sense. I think I had a learning disability back on Earth, thing's are making sense easier now."

"I'm glad to be of some help."

"Now, you said that you had a...mission of getting the parts of you back?"

"Yes. My goal is to recover all of my fractured souls. I've made some progress in the last seven thousand years, but of course there is a lot of creatures that have been affected by this curse of my soul inside of them. You see...they'd never understand this, but this isn't how things should be. It never was, and everything that is here now is just a corruption of what should be. It's a pity party set up by Friedrich."

"Well...what about Friedrich? Shouldn't we stop him from doing anything else like what he did to you?"

"Impossible. He's more than dead now, he's been erased by the current god of the world."

"Well...that's good, right?"

"Humans should never play god. After a few hundred years any normal human's morality begins to shift. You cannot retain your humanity after that long a lifespan."

"But you're still here."

"Unfortunately, I'm this world's villain."

"I...don't think you're a villain. You're just trying to survive."

"That's a pathetic reason for poor choices. Not close, however. My reason to continue leads directly back into the one who ruined you, Devon Campton. My life was wasted so that he could be born unto this world, and look at the mess that he became, wasting each of our lives."

"I..." she stops. "I didn't want...I just wanted things to go back to the way they were," she begins crying a tearless sound. "I just wanted us to go back."

"No longer. He's not going to ruin anybody else, because I have a plan."

"What...is your plan?"

"Each of the new races created by my souls has the most concentration of soul-body in their race's progenitor. The older the body the more soul continually picked up over the millennium, they refer to these progenitors as Heroes. Now, there's something about these souls of mine I neglected to mention since it wasn't important until now. If small concentrations of my soul are released then they obviously return to me with little disturbance to the world around us. However, if there are large scale returns..."

"Large-scale disturbances," she finishes.

"Now, in my time of slumber, I saw the one who ruined your life, and I cannot forgive that he is allowed to come to this time unscathed. So, my goals happened to align up as if it were some sick joke meant to taunt me. So, if I were to return large enough concentrations of my soul—if I were to kill each of the eleven heroes I can cause a large enough disturbance to end everything."

"I...I don't...think killing people is right."

Cross shakes his head, "I don't want to kill anybody. But I cannot let this go on. If you were sick and were told you had a tumor that would kill you if left untreated, would you sit idly by?"

"I...can't say that I'd do anything as credence to the fact that I'm here...but I get the analogy."

"My soul in bodies that are not my own are a tumor, and nothing good comes from it. Not even touching the fact that the hell-spawn is getting another chance at life with absolutely no consequence for what he did to the both of us."

"Yeah...that is pretty fucked up."

"First time I've heard you swear."

"I'm sorry..."

"No, don't apologize for it. You're going to need that fire."

"And why's that?"

"Because I need your help. Last time I tried I was killed. Shut down, mainly, but killed if I were flesh. I despise the fact that fate leads people to certain places, but I'd be a fool if I tried to fight it's existence."

Cross can almost feel her rest against his ashen heart. "I just want the pain to stop. I feel like every time I try not to think about it he's there...telling me to shut up or punching me. I just want it to stop."

"Help me, and it can all stop for good. We can do right by his waste."

She thinks on it, and then he hears, echoing inside his head, "Okay, I'm in."

"Excellent. We're going to rest here for the night, I don't want to run out of Queoquartzite in deep-space, so I should be full by the morning with plenty to spare."

"Where are we going, next?"

"We're going to make a quick round-trip back to Nastor, we're going to need some reinforcements. It'd be a suicide mission to mount any kind of assault by ourselves."

"Fair point. I can't say I know much about anything, but whatever you need I'll try my best to help you with."

"Just stay by my side."

"I don't have much of a choice, but yes. I will."

"Thank you."