Universe's End

Chapter 276: Bedside Talks and Bar Side Ruminations

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Fingers drummed on a table until at last they halted, a deep sigh escaping.

Stupid.

This was all so stupid. There was no shot that she would want to see her after-

“She’s awake,” A woman bowed low to her as Allison shot to her feet, but not before giving the ‘nurse’ a quick nod.

“Thank you.”

“Of course. Lady Ascendress is a close ally to our Lord Founder,” the nurse said, a brief flicker of her lips enough for Allison to get the gist of what went unsaid.

And you want to kill that same Lord.

Shaking her head, Allison walked past, entering the small room. Inside, Zoe was lying on a bed, her skin now only badly charred rather than melted wax.

“Zoe?” Allison asked, her voice wavering for a moment.

“Squirt,” Zoey said, her voice coming out rough.

“You okay?” Allison asked. It felt so off to beat around the bush that the only reason she was-

“After I immolated myself trying to beat your ass? Yeah, dandy,” Zoe said with a snort, wincing as it clearly pained her.

Oh, not beating around the bush.

“Sit,” Her older sister commanded as Allison, one of the top two Founders, meekly sat down.

The two sat in silence for several minutes, the moment stretching on without the complication of words.

“You’re an idiot,” Zoe finally sighed.

For a moment, Allison wanted to argue before finally hanging her head.

“Yeah.”

“What was he like?”

“He was gruff,” Allison snorted. “Always getting baited into scuffles with Eric. The Rogue, I mean. Cared far more about training our people than being some stuffy leader. He was a hard ass when it came to training others, but that was because he cared deeply,cared. Anyone who died? Be it heading out on missions or anything? You can bet your ass Garfunk was at each funeral. Always there for the families, always wanting to do what he could. He was a hard ass when it mattered because, be it a minor injury or someone dying, he felt that on a personal level, each one was his failure to prepare them, something he could have done better. For total strangers, or what were basically total strangers.”

The two sisters went quiet once more as Allison grieved in silence.

“You know, not everyone is like Dad,” Zoey said after a few moments had passed.

“I know. I know that more now than I ever did as a kid. I don’t blame you for running away. You were just a teenager; the idea of stealing away your kid sister probably seemed impossible. Hell, you probably hoped that if you left, maybe Dad would wake up, treat me better.”

“Something like that, but sometimes I wonder if I wasn’t just trying to absolve myself of guilt.”

“At least I had you growing up. You were on your own for how long?” Allison sighed.

“You don’t compare suffrages,” Zoey softly said, trying to shake her head before giving up. “In that same sense, I don’t want you looking at me right now and putting it all on yourself. World On Fire still is a new technique that I decided to bust out before it was ready.”

With cooler heads, Allison could now only feel guilt that her sister had gone so far.

“Anyway, I’ll be fine shortly,” Zoey added. “You don’t end up with as much durability as I do and take a long time to recover. You should see how often I lose these,” Zoey slowly held her hands up, wiggling her crispy finger. “Honestly, I’m shocked I didn’t lose them for once.”

“Your fingers?”

“Nah, the entirety of my hands,” Zoey laughed, the sound somewhat pained, though it didn’t stop Zoey from continuing.

“He isn’t evil, is he?” Allison asked quietly.

“Take a fat fucking guess,” Zoey snorted.

“Garfunk, he… he hated them,” Allison explained, replaying the scene in her mind. The depth of his hatred she’d never truly understood until she felt it consume him; any anger she’d ever felt before was like a puddle in comparison to the ocean world of tar-like hatred Garfunk had felt in his final moments.

“From what you said about him, I can understand,” Zoey sighed. “I’ve felt something like that only once before.”

“Oh?” Allison asked.

“Rory, The Architect, his Bane nearly killed his daughter.”

“Oh,” Allison’s face fell. If, and only if, Allison removed her personal involvement from the situation and looked at things logically, she could understand that if the same person who’d felt that same sort of anger at the prospect of his daughter being threatened saw that same scale of emotion levied at said daughter, well...

“You still hate him, don’t you?” Zoey asked.

“How can I not? He killed my best friend,” Allison wanted to have more venom in her words, but she was simply so tired, her head drooping low. None of this had gone as planned.

Zoey watched her younger sister for several seconds before shaking her head.

“Give me your hand.”

Looking up at her older sister, Zoey sighed before rolling her eyes.

“Give me your hand,” Zoey repeated.

Doing as she was told, Allison reached out as Zoey cupped her hand between her own.

“We are still sisters, and we always will be. Go, check out the city some more. Get a coffee, eat some ice cream, hell, there are even some solid bars. I would check out Delta Blue, great music. Take your mind off the chaos, off the responsibilities and expectations for a bit. Because let me ask you this, did Garfunk want to crush his enemies, or did he want what was best for your people?”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Well, he did enjoy a scuffle,” Allison answered, a half-hearted attempt at levity as Zoey rolled her eyes again.

“Go. Maybe meet up with your other two allies.”

“Are you-”

“Yes, I’m certain, and if I have to get up out of this bed to clobber you over the head, I will.”

There was a certain steel in her voice that made it clear to Allison that her older sister was not kidding.

Standing up, Allison opened her mouth to say something before the words failed her.

“Love you, you little brat,” Zoey said, saving her younger sister, saying the words Allison had been uncertain that she was allowed to say.

“Love you too.”

And with that, the proud Spear left the room, wiping what was totally a stray piece of dust in the corner of her eyes.

Alone, Zoey painfully sank back into the cushions of her bed. For a magical existence, it sure did feel like hospital visits hadn’t changed that much.

Stupid.

World On Fire definitely hadn’t been ready, but damn if it didn’t sting her pride in having lost to her younger sister.

For a normal person, hell, even for an elite, the sheer degree of pain Zoey was in would have been debilitating, but she hadn’t been blowing her hands off for fun over the decades not to be, pound for pound, the most pain-tolerant person alive. Rory might be able to cheat a little by squirreling away his sense of pain into a locked-off mental thread, but that was cheating, and so Zoey didn’t count it.

“Still wish I won,” Zoey sighed.

“Don’t we all,” a new voice said as a person appeared within the room.

“You know, I could have been naked, and then wouldn’t you have been embarrassed?” Zoey said as Rory appeared within the room.

“Oh, how scandalous, I’d have gotten an eyeful of the ground beef that falls between the cracks in a grill and gets burnt up,” Rory said, crossing his arms.

“My maiden honor has been tarnished,” Zoey said with an even tone. “How are you doing?”

“All things considered? A lot better than some of you,” Rory plopped down in the chair Allison had just been seated in.

“You were spying the entire time?”

“Wasn’t spying,” Rory corrected. “Just been keeping tabs on where all the others are meandering throughout the city. Not like I heard anything you two discussed, just knew she was here with you.”

“Got your City King rights back or whatever?” Zoey asked.

“Not a City King and… you know, what? Yeah, yeah, sure I have,” Rory sighed.

“Is Roxy okay?”

“Tsarina got Roxy out of dodge basically the moment shit went down,” Rory answered. “But yes, she is safe.”

For a moment, Rory was silent, turning thoughts over in his mind before sighing. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I fucked this all up. I thought I had done a good enough job keeping Roxy way the hell away. Worst-case scenario, I figured we’d have time before any of them had a chance to meet her, in which case tensions wouldn’t have exploded like that. When Irene told me she was bringing crafters to meet the others, my brain didn’t once consider she might try to leverage Roxy as one of those figures; she’s one of our best, and she is my daughter. In her mind, that would be a great way to show we are better off as partners. Except, it’s not like she knew about Sensen history.”

“Lots of small fuck ups coming together for a huge fuck up,” Zoey agreed.

“I just couldn’t let him live,” Rory admitted. “Baneful hate isn’t something that just gets washed away with time. In fact, it only stews and grows, festering and multiplying. The moments you spend alone, you don’t realize it, but your mind turns back to that.”

“It’s what you feel toward your Bane,” Zoey said.

“Yes, and even then, his baneful hate has had decades longer to fester. My daughter would have a target on her back for the rest of her life by a person who has the power and sway to do something about it. Would he convince the Rogue to come after her? Turn it into a war against Ehkorrus? I can logic my way through the decision to remove a piece from the board early on as correct, but in the end, I won’t lie. He wanted to kill my daughter. So, I killed him first. I won’t apologize for that.”

Rory stuck his chin out slightly, a look of defiance in his eyes as if challenging Zoey to call him out, to which Zoey once more found herself rolling her eyes for the umpteenth time.

“Seems like today I’m stuck with the braincell,” Zoey muttered as Rory frowned at her. “Nothing, just stuck with the adult pants on a lot today. I’m not going to call you out; what’s done is done. But at least keep in mind that it was one man. It wasn’t my sister, nor was it the others. They’re just people who have just finished losing a compatriot, or even a friend.”

Rory’s frown deepened as Zoey took the moment to continue.

“Oh, and one other thing. When you fight my sister?”

“Take it easy?” Rory asked. “Because I don’t think I-”

“No, in fact, the opposite,” Zoey shook her head. “Make sure she is fighting for real.”

“What, like I’m supposed to be here to cheer her up?”

“No,” Zoey repeated, shaking her head once more. “But she’s lost right now, a whole fucking lot is going on through that stupid head of hers. Piss her off, get her angry, whatever the case may be. But call it the wisdom of the one in custody of the brain cell and wearing the Adult Pants today. If she isn’t able to get it out of her system, this is the sort of thing that festers. You should know that much. Plus, it’s not like you win and hooray, the storybook closes. We’ve still got Aelia’s siblings to deal with, and that is coming up soon. Do you really want to end up on an alien world, stuck with someone who has a festering hate for you? How long until that turns into baneful hate?”

“I don’t like it when you have the Adult Pants on,” Rory grumbled. “It feels weird.”

“Call it the consequence of my baby sister being around, suddenly I’m back to having to behave a little,” Zoey chuckled. “Now go, because while I didn’t tell my sister this, I’m in a whole fucking lot of pain. Like, I’m the dance floor at a party for an orgy of bulls, that amount of pain.”

“That is probably one of the worst visuals I’ve ever had put into my head.”

“See, this is what happens when I take the Adult Pants back off.”

“Just keep the clothes on in general. You are so far past well done, you’ve become ‘horrifically overachieving.’”

“I’m pretty sure that’s just called being burnt to a crisp,” Zoey pointed out.

“Yeah, but I like my name better,” Rory cracked a grin. “But alright, I’ll consider what you said.”

“Oh, and before you go?” Zoey asked, having known Rory long enough that he was moments from pulling his best Batman impression and vanishing.

“Yeah?”

“Headlock and noogie her, for me.”

For most bar owners, three patrons sitting at the bar, taking turns downing a drink and staring off into the distance, would have been business as usual.

For the owner of Delta Blue, Elijah, it was anything but business as usual, as three adversarial Founders sat there, downing drinks and listening to the music.

“How does it feel to be the only loser?” Eric, the Primordial Rogue, asked as he made a pointed look at Tom, the First Monk, even if his heart wasn’t really in it.

“You were also the only one to face a non-Founder,” Tom pointed out. For a monk, he proved himself quite the formidable drinker, taking the drink he was handed, brewed from a base of Running Ice, and slamming it back without a single wince.

“That snake may as well have been a person,” Eric rebuked. “Didn’t behave like any god damn monster I’ve encountered. Hell, it even held itself back from attempting a few kill shots.”

“So, you’re saying you only won because it held back,” Tom asked, the corner of his lips turning up in a rare moment of humor.

“I never said it would have worked, but it didn’t behave much like a monster. And you fuckin’ try fighting a snake that can switch between energies like a crack addict switches between dealers.”

Of the three, only Allison remained silent, ruminating over her conversation with her sister.

“I was the one who actually fought the Architect, not his pet snake,” Tom pointed out, purposely needling his long-time ‘friend’ more than usual now that Garfunk was no longer around for the verbal sparring.

“Wasn’t much of a pet, I’ll tell you that,” Eric grumbled. “How’d he beat you anyway?”

“Some form of magic I’ve never seen before. It was like a sequence. In the end, it turned Form Eight against me, the drain I’m under while it’s active only feeding further into it.”

“Damn shame,” Eric sighed. “Had you won, we coulda axed the fucker and been done with this.”

Glancing over at the bar owner who was washing a dish, Eric winced slightly and nodded. “Err, metaphorically?”

“We’re not going to kill the man,” Tom sighed before flashing four fingers at the bar owner, who quickly brought out four shot glasses. “Ooh, nice scent. What is this stuff?”

“Arboreal Spiced Coffee Bourbon. Special blend, worked with the best chef in all of Ehkorrus to get this made, even had some input from our Lord Founder.”

“Maybe he isn’t so bad after all,” Eric said as he took a quick sniff at the shot of alcohol.

Grabbing the shot, Allison raised it high as her two partners and even the bar owner –albeit with a small hesitation— copied her lead.

“To Garfunk.”

“To Garfunk,” they repeated.

“To my stupid sister,”

“To a stupid sister,”

“And to hoping I’m not hungover tomorrow.”

“And to no hangovers,” they cheered, an odd combination of somber reflection and grieving, paired against an attitude that all Founders had, the irrevocable need to keep on keeping on.

Drinking her shot, Allison stared at the empty glass for a moment before turning to the bar owner.

“On second thought, bring me the entire bottle.”