Well, what the fuck was I supposed to say to that? How was I supposed to react? How were any of us supposed to react? This flock of Theriangeli had just come together and transformed into a single woman, who announced that her name was Jessica Trent, the Phoenix-Bonded of the Sol System (whatever that meant exactly) and that she had been waiting for Avalon for awhile. Waiting for Avalon so she could pass her power on.
That added on top of everything else that was already weird about this place and… yeah, I had nothing. No idea. For a couple seconds, I did the same thing as the others: stood there with my mouth open. Hell, even their assortment of animal companions, robot and projected tattoo magic alike, sat on their haunches looking completely baffled about the entire situation.
Probably unsurprisingly, it was Avalon herself who managed to find her voice first. After giving a soft grunt, she took a step forward next to me, her eyes focused intently on the woman in front of us. “I know that name. Jessica Trent. You were one of the Boschers, part of the Rebellion. After it came back, after everyone’s memories were returned, people started looking for old members, trying to make sure they weren’t being held prisoner. You were one of the missing ones. Everyone assumed you were being held in one of the Crossroads prisons. They were trying to find and rescue you.”
Of course Valley would know about that. Given Gaia’s situation, I was sure she had been keeping up on all the news and rumors about the Crossroads prisons and who might have been held in them. She’d even been on a couple of the raids to find those prisons, but none of them had been where Gaia herself was being held, unfortunately.
“Wait, I know that name too.” That was Roxa, straightening up with realization. “She’s right, we were looking for you. I mean, my pack. The Rebellion had us sniff some of your clothes and search around some known prison areas to try to figure out if you were there. We could never pick out your scent at any of their possibilities though.” After a brief pause, she looked around and added, “I suppose now we know why.”
“But you look older,” Sean put in, apparently remembering the woman as well. I was starting to think I was the only one here who didn’t know who she was. “They gave us your picture, one from shortly before the Rebellion started up again. You looked like you were in your early twenties. I mean, obviously you were a lot older then, but now you--” He paused, grimacing. “Yeah, I know that’s getting into the realm of never asking a woman her age. But it’s been a long time for you since all that happened, hasn’t it? Whatever you’ve been doing, it’s obviously been much longer for you than it has been for the rest of us.”
A very small, kind of wistful smile crossed the scarred woman’s face. Which, come to think of it, the scar itself probably helped the others identify her. It was pretty distinctive. Her eyes shifted over to me, then back to Avalon as she gave a short nod. “Yes, it has been awhile. I ahh… you could say I went on a quest of my own. I’ll tell you about it, and about why we’re here right now. But first, why don’t you all sit down?” At a gesture from her, an assortment of comfortable armchair recliners simply materialized around us. “I’ll bring in some drinks and we can discuss the whole situation from the start.” She must have seen our expressions, because she added, “I know, it’s confusing. And you were probably expecting some sort of fight. I can’t say that won’t happen before this is over. But for now, you’re all perfectly safe here, I promise.”
Yeah, just on the surface of it, I wouldn’t exactly have been surprised if she said that and then in two more minutes was trying to kill us. I had no idea who this woman was, aside from the fact that she had apparently been part of the Rebellion and then disappeared shortly after it was brought back. Given the utter confusion of this entire situation, how weird it had been even from the start, the fact that we were here to find that rift, and… and all of it, I wasn’t too inclined to instantly believe her when she said we were perfectly safe here. But on the other hand, sitting down and talking was probably the best chance we had at getting answers. Maybe I should just tell my hefty paranoia to settle down for a few minutes.
We’re all working on that whole calming down thing, Extra informed me. But it’s not easy. I mean, look at… uhh, everything in our lives. Just all of it, the whole thing.
Still, despite my very understandable nerves, we all exchanged looks before taking the offered seats. What else were we going to do? This was the best way to get answers, and we desperately needed some of those right now. I was tired of being so confused.
I could tell the others were just as anxious--okay maybe not just as anxious. They didn’t have a bunch of duplicates in their heads amplifying their reactions after all. But still, none of us said anything. We just sat down, straightened up, and stared at Jessica in expectant silence. Whatever was really going on, this was her story to tell.
Still, she didn’t start immediately. After sitting down in her own chair, the woman clasped her hands together and rested her chin on them, staring very intently at the floor. It was like she wasn’t exactly sure how to start after all. Though I had a feeling she had been imagining this whole situation for what was probably a very long time. There was clearly a difference between imagining a moment like this and being there.
“Yes,” she finally started, “I was a part of the Rebellion. But not… not really. I rebelled from Crossroads, but it was to live a real life. I had a husband and son. Xhan, he was my husband, was a Tzeuen. Our son… Sergei, is a hybrid, half-human, half-Tzeuen. We lived in our little house, having our own lives, for thirty years without bothering anyone. We were happy. When they erased the Rebellion, I forgot them. I forgot my family. I went back to Crossroads and spent decades hunting and killing people like my husband and son.” Her voice cracked through part of that, audibly trembling in anger.
God, what was I supposed to say to that? It was awful. I knew there had been people put in that sort of situation, people who had been made to start killing innocents again just because their memories were erased. At least my mother hadn''t been put through that. She''d ended up back in the Bystander world instead of being made to kill people. Except even that wasn''t really true, because then she had been taken by Fossor, and he definitely made her kill people. So yeah, the whole situation sucked.
In the end, none of us managed to find the right words before Jessica simply continued her story.
“After remembering everything, I had two main goals. I wanted to find my husband and son to put my family back together, and I wanted revenge. Revenge on Ruthers, most of all. But also on all the loyalists, on everyone who had done that to us. I just wanted to make the bastards pay for all of it.”
Sean spoke up carefully and quietly. “Considering how strong the Committee is, or even just Ruthers by himself, it would have taken a lot to hurt them.”
Her gaze met his as she raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking if I came back in time because I was trying to hurt that piece of shit in a moment before he became too strong for me to actually handle?”
Sean, for his part, simply offered a slow shrug without looking away from her. “Well, did you?”
There was silence for a moment before Jessica admitted, “The thought did occur to me at the time, I won’t deny that. But it didn''t take long for me to understand that it would be pointless. Changing the past wouldn''t actually affect my own timeline. It just creates a new one. I didn''t want to create some alternate version of Ruthers who didn''t do all the things he did. I wanted to make the right one pay for it.”
After letting that answer settle for a moment, she continued. “I was searching for a way to get a lot of power, a way to become strong enough to actually challenge him. It probably won''t surprise you to hear that it''s not exactly that easy to find that sort of boost. Gaining the power you’d need to even pose a vague threat to a Committee member as a single person requires something utterly miraculous, or very, very dark and evil shit that I wanted nothing to do with. Yes, I wanted revenge, but not like that. Believe it or not, it’s possible to want revenge without dismissing all of your morality in the process.
“But I wasn''t willing to give up on the idea either. I wasn''t going to walk away and just let Ruthers escape the consequences. And yes, before you say it, I could have gone back to the new Rebellion. But part of me was afraid the same thing would happen again. They were following the same tactics. I wanted to do something much more drastic to actually change all of it for good.”
The woman fell silent for a few seconds, apparently lost in her own memories. Finally, she swallowed audibly before pushing on. “As part of my search, I found a few spells that could identify surges of power, bursts of magical energy that might be useful. I spent months tracking down every possible lead, searching through rumors and hints about powers, spells, weapons, anything that could be useful. In between searching for my family too.”
“Did you ever end up finding them?” I couldn''t help but ask then. “Your husband and son, I mean.”
She gave me a brief look before a very faint smile, almost imperceptible, found its way to her face. There was sadness and acceptance in that smile. “Yes and no. My husband was already gone. He died before my memories even came back. But I did find my son eventually. That''s getting a little ahead of ourselves though. First, I found the Egg.”
She watched our reactions with an unreadable expression before pushing on. From her voice, I could tell that this was something that had actually happened a long time ago, yet was still very clear in her emotions and memory.
“Even with all my efforts to identify any surges of magical energy, I only found that one because it wanted me too. It reached out to me. It chose me. I’m still not exactly sure why, even after all this time. But whatever its reason, it allowed me to find the Egg at the top of a mountain high in the Himalayas. I had to fight my way through a pack of vicious creatures and stop them from taking the Egg for themselves. Not that it actually needed my help to deal with them, but it was simply part of the test, part of the challenge to earn what was coming.”
By that point, a quick mental check inward revealed that the entire Flique, those who were physically active anyway, were all gathered together, sitting in folding chairs, eating popcorn and other snacks while paying very rapt attention to this entire story. Extra had started to withdraw, allowing Hot Type to take her place once more. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Jessica was still explaining, even as she gazed off into the distance. “After killing all those creatures and passing that test, I made my way into the Egg.”
“Whoa, wait, what?” Roxa quickly put in. “What do you mean, into the Egg? How big is the thing?”
The question made the other woman chuckle softly. “Well, that''s a rather complicated question. The Egg is precisely as large or small as it needs to be at any given time. Both inside and outside, and neither tend to have any real correlation to one another. But for the most part, the outside of the Egg tends to be the size of a baseball. The inside, on the other hand, can contain an entire world, or even more. Sometimes it depends on what sort of mood the Egg happens to be in. It stretches and forms new areas when it''s feeling anxious or uncertain. It’s as alive and capable of thoughts and feelings as any of us.”
Yeah, I was definitely lost right then. But I did have a realization, raising my hand. “That Egg, whatever it is, that''s where we are right now, isn''t it? When we went through the mountain, we went into the Egg. That''s why I can''t teleport out, or check how far away we are from anything. We''re inside the Egg.” Yeah, saying that whole bit out loud made me feel weird, but it was hardly the strangest sentence that had ever made its way out of my mouth, really.
Nodding easily to me in confirmation, Jessica replied, “Yes, precisely. This building was brought into the egg during a certain… well, let''s just say there was a big problem in Boston and the building had to be taken out of the equation before that problem got even worse. So, it came here. It''s underwater because the thing responsible for that situation needed to go for a swim. I never moved the building after that.”
Roxa made a noise deep in her throat before sputtering, “It’s like a pocket dimension. The building and the ocean outside is part of this whole pocket dimension?”
Jessica glanced to her with another very small smile. “As I said, it’s as large on the inside as it needs to be. In any case, when you entered the Egg, it deposited you here. I''m not sure why. I came over and decided to wait for you to come find me. Mostly because I wanted to see what you’d do.”
“You were testing us,” Avalon noted mildly. “You call this an Egg, but you also say that it can be small enough to hold on the outside, and have an entire world inside. Not exactly unbelievable, given everything else we’ve seen. But still, pretty impressive.”
A small smile played at the scarred woman’s lips. “Oh, you haven’t heard the half of it. But yes, small Egg, big world. There’s probably a metaphor or something somewhere in there, but I was never very good at those. The point is, you’re absolutely safe here.”
“What about--okay I’m still confused,” I had to admit. “What about the rift? We came--I mean we were sent to that canyon to find the--do you even know about the rift thing?”
“I know,” she confirmed. “And we’re still at the rift. That is, the Egg is near it, and our power is hiding it from anyone who might be trying to find it. That monster you fought before, it was sent to search the canyon for the rift. There are more of them scattered across the whole mountain range. We’ve… let’s just say we masked enough of the rift’s power that they know it’s in the mountains, but not precisely where. There’s an awful lot of mountains to search. Especially when the rift is inside one of the caves dotted around. But we should still try to hurry this up a bit. There’s a lot left to do.”
Roxa spoke up then. “What exactly do we need to do? What’s going on here? What was that about being the Phoenix-Bonded, or giving it to Avalon?”
“Ahem, let me finish my story,” Jessica advised, “and you’ll have a better idea. I found this Egg, and it… chose me. Or rather, its former guardian did. He was finished with his duties, ready to retire. He gave the responsibility, and the power, to me. My job, since that point, has been to handle situations as they arise. Situations that threaten this world, this solar system, and some of those surrounding it. I carry out those duties, wherever they may take me.”
That made all of us stare, before Sean finally found his voice. “Um, are you sure you’ve been doing your job? I mean, err, no offense, just--there’s an awful lot of threats out there still and they’ve all--”
“They’re all being attended to one way or another,” Jessica reminded him. “I’m not speaking of the threats you already know about, the ones that you and your friends are actively fighting. I’m speaking of the threats you don’t know about. The ones that would have damaged or destroyed this world a dozen times over in these past millennia. The secret threats from outside this universe.”
“Outside this universe? Like Tartarus?” That was Sean, as his eyes narrowed.
“Like and beyond that singular threat,” she informed us before taking a moment to consider. “How should I… ahem, you see, within each star as it is born there is a guardian, a child of the star. This is the Phoenix.”
“What about dragons? They come from stars, right?” Avalon mused.
“Dragons were artificially created many millions of years ago,” Jessica explained. “They were placed within certain stars to grow, to absorb energy and become strong enough to one day stand against the spawn of Tartarus, who once came close to killing all life in this universe. They are important, but they are not the children of the stars. They are… well, adopted is probably the closest word for it. Think of those who created and placed the dragons in the stars as doing the equivalent of leaving an infant in a basket at the doorstep. The Phoenix, meanwhile, are the stars’ natural born children. They were each created to defend the star, and those around it, from threats far beyond the understanding, let alone capability, of mortals and mortal-adjacent. As we speak, there are… forces outside of this universe and those like it who are trying to tear their way through. In the same way that your own battles may carry you past a hive of ants, with neither you or they ever understanding the struggles of the other, the Phoenix are at constant war with Outsiders. Their mother, our mother, the creator of all, placed them here to act the guardians of all that she has placed. They are her first-born, and we are their infant siblings. They guard against threats from outside our understanding or capacity.”
“And… you were… bonded to one of them? Like a Heretic?” Roxa managed weakly.
Jessica made a so-so gesture. “The Bond of a Phoenix is unlike that of any other creature to a human, in the way you’re thinking. For one, it does not require a human. The Phoenix may bond itself to any singular creature it chooses. The Phoenix-Bonded becomes its… aide, its assistant, its student, of sorts. Each Phoenix carries out its duties, guarding the edges of reality against those intruders. Which means it must leave a protector here, someone who may stand against other threats.”
“So let me get this straight,” Sean started while raising both hands. “Every star has a Phoenix. Those Phoenixes are fighting against things outside our reality, things we can’t even comprehend. They’re at the edge of the universe, holding the line to keep complete annihilation outside. But there’s still other problems right in their own backyards, so they give some of their power to a chosen… servant, who deals with anything else so they don’t have to abandon their posts. That’s you. I mean, you’re one of those.”
“Correct,” she confirmed. “I believe it was a great sage of the ancient times who once said, ‘there’s always a bigger fish.’ No matter what heights you may reach, there will always be something beyond that. The Creator struggles against those like her. She has made children, the Phoenix, who stand against those who would overwhelm her stars while she is occupied with her own battles. They, in turn, bond with their servants, who protect each star individually from threats the Phoenix itself cannot turn toward. And we would be overwhelmed if not for all those who carry the defense against so many other things. Together is the only way we can possibly keep our stars intact. Every being in its place, defending as it can, as it is capable.”
Swallowing hard, I offered a weak, “I thought we had enough problems as it was.”
Her head bobbed toward me. “Precisely. You do have enough problems. That’s why you weren’t called on to stand against these others. You and your people stand against those threats. Those who are stronger, the Phoenix, burn away the others. But now a threat has begun to rise which may overwhelm all. The dark universe and the bloody horde have begun to interact. They have begun to come together. Under their combined threat, the flames may be smothered, you and your allies drowned and overrun.”
“The Fomorians and Tartarus,” I muttered. “You mean they’re starting to work together, knowingly or unknowingly at the moment, but either way it’s a problem. And you’re saying it’s going to get worse.”
“Indeed,” she confirmed. “Their darkness may overwhelm not only this solar system, but everything else beyond that. They may snuff out this star and so many more. But there is hope. If those threats work together, so must those who stand against them. With the school you wish to build, the school you are putting together, true balance may be struck on that point. The purging fire and the soul-gatherers must work together to burn away those threats, and bring these worlds, and all beyond this system, back into the light.”
“So you want to work with us?” Sean asked uncertainly. “I mean, this Egg gave you all this power, apparently--still confused on that point by the way--and you’ve been protecting the solar system from all those other threats for what is apparently a very long time. And now these major threats are getting to be too much for any of us apart, so… you want to join Flick’s Necromancer school and fight them together?” Even as he said that, the boy was already shaking his head. “Wait, no, you said… Avalon…”
His question was met with a soft, kind of regretful sigh. “Yes, I did say that. I’ve done what I can for many, many centuries now. I found my son and brought him back with me. He’s waiting for me to be done with this, waiting for me to hand over this responsibility to the one who is to come next, the one to take this power and all that comes with it. I know that I do not have what is necessary to finish this fight, to stop what is coming. I can’t work with your people properly. It’s not in me.”
Before I could say anything to that, Avalon spoke up knowingly. “And you think that should be me instead?”
The expression on Jessica Trent’s face turned almost regretful, yet also somewhat relieved and proud. “Yes. As I said, the flames must join with the soul-gatherers. And who better to tend that fire and bring it to where it must be than one who is so well-entwined with the leader of those Necromancers? The one who never dies must be linked with the one who masters the dead. The Master of Life and the Master of Death.”
My mouth opened and shut. “Okay, I’m not the Master of anything. But… if you say Avalon can help…”
“She will be able to,” came the confirmation, “once she is Bonded to the fire.”
“Wait hold on,” Sean put in. “She’s already a Boscher Heretic, you can only Bond to one--wait--even you were a Boscher Heretic too.”
“And she said the Phoenix Bond doesn’t work like an ordinary human Bonded,” Roxa pointed out.
Jessica chuckled slightly. “Yes, precisely. This Bonding operates by… let’s call it different rules. This is not human bonding. As I said, one need not even be human to connect to the Flame, and there may only ever be one connected to each Phoenix at one time. This is about connecting to the star itself. Each star has one Flame, and each Flame may have one Bonded to it. I have been that Bonded for many years now, having been brought back to the past upon my first connection. My time as its Bonded is over, and yours is about to begin.”
Her gaze met ours each in turn with an intensity that almost made us flinch. But the heat in her eyes wasn’t anger. It was power. I could see--fire? Actual fire smoldering around those eyes, a fire that felt comforting. Its heat filled the room and made me feel protected.
“Destiny. Responsibility. Power. Danger. Pain. Loss. Great heights and great lows. The potential to stand as high as any, or to plummet below where any have fallen. That is what I am passing on, should she accept. It will take some years for the embers I am passing to grow into its full fire, but those embers will be a strength all on their own. It is time for Avalon Sinclaire to become the Flame of the Phoenix.”
It was probably for the best that in the long, poignant silence that followed, no one other than me heard the voice of Hot Type. Dude, you know what this means?
We literally have the hottest girlfriend in the world.