August Intruder- Chapter 203- Everything With A Beginning (Patreon)

Mrs. Talwort stared in devastated shock. She could not believe what she was looking at. Generations of predecessors, and she was going to be the one to screw up.

Impossible. She could not accept it.

Her phone rang once more and she picked it. Whoever was calling was calling at the wrongest time. She was currently going through a lot.

She picked up the call and placed it to her ears. “What?”

“There are portals in the school,” Mr. Okoro said. “There is something wrong with them. they are more violent.”

“Has any become a Chaos Run?” That was what was more important right now.

“None,” Mr. Okoro answered. “They are all S-ranks, and the necessary squads and teachers have already gone in. The first is in the biology lab of the first years.”

That was good. Every Gifted school, be they of repute or not, had automatic jurisdiction over portals that appeared within their vicinity.

“How many portals so far?” she asked.

“Eight ma’am.” Mr. Okoro was silent for a moment. “But the eighth one turned up a minute ago, so they could still be rising and… shit,” he swore. “Apologies for the language, ma’am. I just got an update. There are now nine portals in the school.”

Mrs. Talwort pressed her lips into a thin line, preventing herself from frowning. “What about the children?” They were what was most important. “Are there any casualties?”

“None. But we’ve been going through the list, starting from the new intakes. And there seems to be a problem.”

You think?

“What has happened, Mr. Okoro?”

“There are two students unaccounted for.”

Mrs. Talwort frowned. “Two first years?”

Children and their overenthusiastic sense of adventure. She had been hoping that they would have sense. You know, the common sense that said that when you saw a portal, you did not just jump into it.

She could only imagine how bad the normal schools were having it. Here, they did not have to worry about students dying just because a portal opened. Chaos Runs would be their problem.

And overenthusiastic students trying to make a name for themselves.

“Which students are they?” she asked.

Mr. Okoro hesitated. “Uhm… they are not both first years.”

“You said new intakes.”

“Yes, but not just from the first years.”

Names came to her mind, and Mrs. Talwort rubbed her forehead with hand and forefinger. “What happened to them?”

“Well, Mr—”

“No.” She shook her head, interrupting him. “I don’t want their names… not yet. Just what happened to them.”

“Nobody knows of… My apologies, I just got news of a tenth portal.” Mr. Okoro sighed in mental exhaustion. “No one can account for what really happened to the one in his second year. CCTV footage caught him running out of his class a second or two after the first portal appeared.”

“The one in the biology class?”

“No, before that one.”

Mrs. Talwort was confused. He had said the first portal was in the biology class, so what was he saying now? The second year student moved before that portal and there was another portal before that one? Then why was he saying that the first portal was in the biology class?

“Mr. Okoro, you’re losing me here,” she informed him. “What is happening?”

“Mr. Tar’arkna Lockwood, fled from his classroom and went missing before the portals arrived…”

Mrs. Talwort gritted her teeth. She had known who it was, but she had really not wanted to know their names. Not yet.

“And before that,” Mr. Okoro continued, “Mr. Melmarc Lockwood was abducted by a portal that disappeared after said abduction.”

Mrs. Talwort froze.

“Say that again.” Her voice was weak, slow. She could not believe what she was hearing.

“A portal,” Mr. Okoro repeated, slightly confused, “according to CCTV footage, appeared behind Melmarc Lockwood, teleported him, and disappeared.”

Mrs. Talwort’s knees shook beneath her. She staggered back, placing a hand on the wall for support. Raising her hand, she looked at her watch. It was a few minutes past ten in the night. The chaos had been going on for a while now.

“How long ago was this?” she asked, staring at her watch but not at the time. Her eyes were focused on the timer above it.

“Roughly eleven hours ago.”

“I need a time stamp.”

“Eleven fifty-two, ma’am.”

Mrs. Talwort rested her back against the wall and slid down to the ground. She sat there for a moment.

“Let me call you back.”

Without waiting for a response, she hung the call on the [Sage].

Eleven fifty-two.

She looked at the timer. Then she looked at the space in front of her. There was a transparent glass there, reinforced over countless years by [Mage]s and [Enchanter]s. On the other side of it, the ground was covered in marks and symbols, spells designed to keep the divine in place.

Then there were shackles that once held the divine. Now, they held nothing. They were empty, devoid of a prisoner.

A portal had appeared and taken away Melmarc Lockwood, then his brother had run off and disappeared into only God knew where. All of this had happened at least a full minute before the a portal had appeared right in front of her eyes and taken the angel away.

Melmarc Lockwood had been taken before the long-lived angel. The most powerful being she knew.

What did that mean?

What did anything mean? She ran her hand through grey hair. A lot of times she had taught woman that to be a lady, there are certain things you don’t do. Certain things you do not say. She had learnt it, perfected it.

Her body shook in barely restraint and she threw being lady-like to the wind. She groaned. She screamed. She roared.

“FUCK ME!”

…

“How many times have I told you to stop calling me brother,” a voice answered from the device. It sounded angry, yet tired at the same time. “It irks me. I am not your brother. You are irksome.”

Veebee watched Jabari stand there at attention, listening attentively. “But you are the closest thing to a brother to me.”

The voice groaned. “Closest thing is not the same. Now give the [August Intruder] his phone.”

Jabari looked back at Veebee and Melmarc.

“I am afraid the child is fighting for his life in the care of one of your many creations,” he said into the phone. “It cannot save him.”

There was a moment of silence, a pause.

“Well, that’s a bummer.” It came with a sigh. Then there was another pause, followed by a tone of accusation. “Wait. Did you cease existence just so that you could talk to the boy without me finding out?”

“Would it matter if I lied?”

“You fucking piece of shit. You—”

“I wanted to offer him the soulsmiths,” Jabari said, cutting him off, “but I thought better of it.”

Another silence.

Veebee found itself slightly petrified. Was the [Envoy of God] really talking to his creator through that thing right now? The very thought tugged at its existence, but it did not know in what direction.

It looked at Melmarc.

It was proud of itself. It had chosen to help an [August Intruder] with direct ties to its creator, if the [Envoy of God]’s words were to be believed.

Existence was surely in its favor.

“Why?” The other person asked.

“Because he is currently developing the concept of desolation and I was curious as to if emptiness will help him overtime.”

“Not that. Why didn’t you?”

“Oh. Because unlike the others,” Jabari answered, “it would do him more harm than good. His mind is not quiet, even without the madness and the pain and the war and the gratitude. He would take them and ruin worlds. Or worse, himself.”

“Hmmm.” The response sounded thoughtful. “Did you help him?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I have free will.” Jabari paused. “Do you want me to help him?”

“Does he still have natural born futures?”

“Yes. But no nexus point.”

Another silence. It lasted a little too long before an answer came.

“Then let him struggle.”

“He is not The Struggling One. He might not survive.”

“No,” the other person agreed. “But he is something more. Son to Madness and War. Brother to a [Demon King] and…”

“Favorite the one who bears the love who is loved,” Jabari finished for the other person. He looked down, as if emotionally touched. “I know, Beginning. I know.”

“Don’t call me that!” the other person snapped. “That is not who I am.”

“I was not there,” Jabari said in a tone of remorse.

There was silence for a moment. It was not a pause, just silent. The silence of two people who had nothing to say because there were no words to say.

The person on the other end snorted. “And if you had been?”

“I would’ve been on their side.”

The other person sighed. “I cannot say that I blame you. I know what you are.”

“The boy,” Jabari said, seeming to change the subject. “Are you aware of his talent as a [Namer].”

“Being a [Namer] does not require talent, Jabari. I’ve told you this before.”

“He named an existential being. One of your own.”

The beginning sighed. In Veebee’s ears it was completely and entirely human. It had expected its maker to be more… devastating?

“Let me guess,” the beginning said. “He named the void beast that he is currently with.”

Jabari looked back at Veebee. Veebee hoped a simple conversation was not about to get it killed when it had done everything to stay alive.

“Should I end it?” Jabari asked.

Panic filled Veebee. Did it survive the void just to end here?

“I can make it quick.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” the beginning replied. “They do not feel pain, not really. Except when they are eating each other.”

“I am aware. You gave them pain at the oddest of time; while being consumed.”

The beginning scoffed. “You and I both know that all living things created need to feel pain at some point. And the creator gets to choose when.”

“So should I end it?”

There was a thoughtful pause. “No,” the beginning answered. “There is no need to take a toy from a child when it will only serve to help.”

“I took Masamune from the soulsmith Masamune.”

“Yep. But Masamune had stopped being a child.”

Jabari fell silent at that. The beginning did not speak either. For a moment, it felt as if they were sizing each other up in the silence, deciding.

Veebee did not like that. It was rarely a good thing when true powers were thinking.

“Another world ended,” Jabari said suddenly.

Silence.

“Another is beginning,” he added.

The beginning sighed. “Another.” His tone was noncommittal.

“Yes.” Jabari cocked his head to the side in thought. “It is fuzzy, shaky. I do not know if it will grow. I don’t know if it will…”

“I hope it doesn’t beginning at all,” the beginning snapped. “He should leave creating for the [Creator]s.”

“And you think they are better at it than him?”

“No. But at least they give true free will, not this chaos of a thing everyone calls free will.”

“Do not give free will,” Jabari corrected. “Just because you cannot control someone, it does not mean that you have given them freedom.”

“But it is better.”

Jabari sighed. “Is it? Is it really?”

Silence.

“Are you sure you do not want me to help the boy?”

Jabari looked back at Melmarc. He was losing a lot of blood in the mist. The crimson was slowly becoming white. He wasn’t long for the world.

“He could die,” Jabari added. “His enemy did a number on him.”

“If he dies, then that was all he amounted to and all his world amounted to.” The beginning made a sound on his end that veebee could not figure out. “They are not ready for their apocalypse. They will die if he does not return.”

“Yet you do not require my help.”

“Do you want to help the boy, Jabari? Are you looking for an excuse to help?”

Jabari shook his head. “No.”

“Then why are you having this conversation? Are you trying to fit him into your grand master plan? Has Melchizedek suddenly adjusted his plans?”

Jabari paused, fell silent. Then he shook his head. “Nothing has changed. All is still the same.”

“So, he’s still raising an army?”

Jabari nodded. “The catholic church is almost everywhere. There are perhaps only a handful of civilizations without it. Maybe three hundred.”

“That’s not how you use the word handful.”

“Compared to the rest of Existence, that is a handful.”

There was a pause, thoughtful, before the beginning answered. “Fair enough. That [Priest] has always been something of a problem. And the Endless.”

“They remain quiet.”

The beginning laughed. “Do they remain quiet or are they still hiding from you? You do know that there is a difference.”

“They hide.”

“You cannot blame them. You showed them that you are capable of doing the impossible. When you killed one of them, you showed them that you are a threat.”

“They forgot their place.”

“Dude, they are concepts. Whatever they do, they do because it is their concept.” The beginning fell silent. Paused. “Shit.”

“Dude?” Jabari’s shoulders moved in what could have been a silent laughter. Veebee could not see it all because he had his back to it. “The world you are hiding in influences you.”

“Return the child’s phone and stop scaring the innocent void-beast.”

“It interfered with the boy, escaped the void.” Jabari looked back at Veebee with those grey empty eyes. “And ate one of its own. It is far from innocent.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the beginning droned on, uncaring. “To you and me, it is innocent. Leave the matters of those created by the sapient to those created by the sapient. Beings like you should not intervene in the affairs of the existential.”

“Perhaps.” Jabari frowned slightly. “It has no relationship with my plans, so I can leave it be. Do not weep too long when your [August Intruder] dies.”

“Leave, Jabari.”

“You seem to have taken a liking to this boy and his world. I hope your world survives.”

“The apocalypse or something else.”

“Everything.”

There was another length of silence. It seemed silence was a steady member of the conversation whenever the [Envoy of God] and the beginning spoke.

“God will get his reckoning, Jabari,” the beginning said in sudden anger. “You know this. Everything with a beginning…”

“Has an end,” Jabari finished. “Even you… Especially you.”

“Perhaps. But him first. He knows this. He can do whatever he wants to do, but I will come for him.”

“No, brother.” Jabari shook his head. “You will try.”