Jake's story, ch 5

Jake ran for a really long time, so long and so fast he created enough distance sometimes to hide and circulate his ki.  There was a limit to how many times he could do this, and he not only got diminishing returns, the ability also ate away at his body and soul.

He was still alive, though.

The acid burns on his back were a problem.  He’d gotten a few cuts too, but nothing major like the acid wound.  At one point a fire attack had taken some of his clothes and half his hair, but he could still see and still had his senses.  

At one point he’d gotten so hungry while running that he’d found another cave full of monkey things, killed one, and ate it raw while he kept moving.  His ragged clothing was wet with blood down the front from his grisly meal.  The food had helped, but his body was deteriorating and he knew it.  Where the acid had hit his back earlier was still bleeding, and he could feel it eating into his bone and muscle.  Only madly cycling his energy was still keeping him going.

Jake growled, frustrated that he had been chased for so long, not least of which because it was forcing him to admit he might be losing his mind.  The way he was reacting to any of this was not normal, and probably not okay.  But he was tired of being hunted, so he decided to stop fleeing.

After circling around, flanking through a side tunnel he’d actually been down before, he ran through another, wider tunnel he could flash step through, and found himself in an intersection of three tunnels.  He arrived right as a group of howling demons were beginning to cross.

Jake tore into them, and the demons began screaming.

This group had been bipedal, bestial, with one or two sets of arms, and horns.  Jake took heads and arms with his weapon, delivering savage, energy-empowered cuts.  His word was chipped and notched from all the abuse he’d put it through, but pumping angry energy into the steel kept it in one piece and glowing a sullen red.

He chuckled, like he was laughing at his own jokes as he danced among the hellspawn.  At this point he was sure he was going to die anyway, which was freeing in a way.  Ironically, he cut down the entire squad of demons without taking a single scratch.  The last one was gibbering on the ground, some sort of ugly goat-headed thing with blocky teeth.  It held out a clawed hand that Jake dispassionately chopped off.

“You fucksticks invade my planet, take a mile or whatever of Ohio to this hellhole,crucify us, rape us, murder us, eat us, and you want mercy?  Fuck off.”  Jake put the tip of his sword to the demon’s neck and pushed slowly.  The creature’s eyes bulged, meeting Jake’s as it died.  Somehow, it managed to let out a whisper, and too late, Jake realized it’d been some sort of spell.  All the sounds of demons that had been moving away suddenly got louder.

“Great.  Goat boy set off an alarm.”  Jake spat on the dead demon and gave it a kick in the head.  His foot hit the horn and the tip jabbed through his ragged boot, stabbing his toe.  “God dammit!” he hissed, then laughed again.

He could feel the vibration of running feet and the dim shadows down one tunnel were beginning to move, so Jake took off running again.  Eventually he was going to run out of energy, or be hit again, but until then, he planned to stay alive as long as possible.  Avoiding death and killing hellspawn was the last way he could throw his defiance at this world.  Maybe he could punish these fucks some more for killing his friends.

Jake cackled as he ran away and stopped caring how crazy he probably sounded.

***

Time had no meaning in the tunnels, or above ground for that matter.  Everything was always the same.  Jake’s existence became running, violence, and constant vigilance.  He’d lost track of how many demons he’d killed and how many times he’d almost been killed.  But everything always eventually comes to an end, and now he’d somehow found himself in the last place he’d ever expected to be again.

There was only one direction to go, his tunnel was full of pursuing demons behind him, but he could see the cloudy crimson sky through the opening ahead.

“Fuck it,” he grated, and put on a burst of speed.  His body was completely emaciated at this point.  He’d been burning everything, and was probably losing muscle by the minute now.  All that was keeping him going was a new technique he’d learned, a way to sip energy from the world around him as he circulated it.  He could barely maintain his flight this way, but he was still losing power--small amounts of energy from his dantian, and larger amounts from his body.

Once outside the tunnel, he turned and saw demons everywhere.  Most of them seemed more shocked to see him that he was to see them, and strangely enough, some even ran away.  Jake sprinted and flash-stepped away from the largest group of them, directly between rotting human bodies on crosses and up steps, into the temple that the demons had been building.

The building was actually fairly tall, and Jake ran up so many flights of stairs he started to feel light headed despite the mystical energy empowering him.  When he reached the top, he tripped and fell, rolling forward as evil magic flashed over his head.  He laughed as he realized that he’d somehow escaped death yet again, and sprang up, flash stepping forward to deliver a savage cut to a very surprised looking demon in a robe.

“I tripped, I tripped, fuck you, you ugly sonofabitch, I tripped,” he chanted.  He could hear thundering footsteps as demons followed him up the stairs, and he had no doubt that the more powerful demons, and the giants were on their way too.  He was screwed.  This was the end of the line.

He turned and realized that he was in the highest room of the temple, the very top.  There was an altar to one side, and on a stone pedestal in the middle stood a pillar so dark it seemed to be the absence of light.  On top of that was a crystal that pulsed purple with red streaks.  It was whispering at him.  A part of Jake was mesmerized by the stone, but a large part of him was more wild animal than man now.

“This seems like as good of a time as any to use that ability,” he said out loud.  When his teacher had taught him to cultivate years ago, the man had given him a scroll, apologizing that it was the only one he had.  Jake had still memorized the ability, and knew how the attack worked, but had never dared to try using it before.  

Three Winds Northern Lights Fist was actually a Core Refinement ability.  Even Foundation Pillars stage experts would take damage from an attempt to use it, but to a Body Refinement cultivator like Jake, it could be catastrophic.

At this point he didn’t care.  

Jake gathered every bit of energy he had left and chambered one hand on his hip.  After taking two slow breaths, Jake twisted his energy in an unfamiliar way, making it spin, then pushing it forward in a very complex, and incredibly detailed pattern.

“Three Winds Northern Lights Fist!” he screamed.  “And fuck this crystal thing in particular!”

The attack shot out like a burst of hot plasma.  It connected with the crystal, making a deep gong sound.  At first, nothing happened, but after a few seconds, cracks began to show in the crystal.

“Three Winds Northern Lights Fist,” muttered Jake. “I always wanted to try it.”  Then he coughed up blood, and veins on his arms and legs simultaneously exploded.  He collapsed to the stony floor.

Jake turned to watch the crystal, and saw more cracks forming.  Even though his meridians had burst along with what was left of his withered veins, he could feel pressure building in the crystal.  This was going to be bad for all the demons in this place.  He smiled.

“Seriously, fuck this place,” he sighed.

Everything went red.

***

The next thing Jake knew, he was sitting in a white leather chair, dressed in a suit, and another man was sitting across a mahogany table, nursing a drink.

Jake took a moment to remember his final moments before death and looked around wildly, seeing only empty white space in every direction.  He tried to cycle his ki, but nothing happened, and he forced himself to calm down, think logically, and remember his magical training from before he had become a cultivator.

“Excuse me, is this a pocket dimension?” he asked.

“Something like that,” said the other man with a smile.  The stranger was so handsome that even Jake could tell.  The stranger was clean shaven, wore an easy smile, and had wavy hair.  Jake’s suit was black, but the other man’s suit was white.  A purple stone with red and black streaks topped a cane loosely held in the man’s non-drink hand, and Jake recognized the color of the crystal.

“Ah,” he said out loud.  He still didn’t entirely know what was going on, but the man’s stone looking the same as the crystal that Jake had blown up must be connected.  It felt good to have his mind working again.  He felt completely sane now--changed, but sane.

The man nodded indulgently, lifting his cane a hair and letting it drop.  “Yes, your mind works fast!  Very good, very good.” He took a sip from his glass and asked, “Would you like something to drink?”  A wet bar appeared out of nowhere next to Jake, who eyed it skeptically.

His intuition was telling him to tread carefully, and his old magic training asserted itself.  In old books and movies, plucky heroes would talk to powerful beings casually or even disrespectfully.  Jake might have been crazy for a while, but he was not stupid.  Being unnecessarily rude to extremely powerful supernatural beings was usually a bad idea unless you were really, really sure that you held all the cards.  Even if they couldn’t directly affect you, they tended not to forget a slight and held long grudges.

“May I ask your name?”

The man smiled, showing perfect teeth and bright eyes that any old Hollywood actor would kill for.  “You may.”  That was all he said.  He got up to refill his glass, sat back down, and stared at Jake.  Jake stared back.  Being polite was important, but so was showing strength.  Displaying weakness was not a good way to be taken seriously by the strong.

It took awhile for Jake to puzzle out that the stranger likely hadn’t answered him because Jake hadn’t properly responded to the offer for a drink. He coughed and said, “Excuse my late reply.  Thank you for your offer, but I would prefer not to get a drink.”

The man nodded.  “You really might want to try some.  As you may have gathered, this is not a normal place, and those are not normal drinks.”

Jake smiled neutrally and inclined his head.  “Even so, I would like to respectfully decline right now.”

“Have it your way, Jacob Hessian Mazzariello.”  The man stirred his drink with a finger.  “You’re dead, you know that ,right?”

“I figured so, yes.”

“You seem to be taking all of this rather calmly.”

“I suppose so.”  Jake decided to be honest.  “Although I wish I had a weapon.”

The man laughed.  “I am not surprised.”  He took a swig of his amber colored drink and said, “You have given me quite a bit of trouble.  In fact, I have been thinking about flaying your soul for eternity, visiting you with every agony ever invented.”

Jake swallowed.  “That doesn’t sound pleasant.”

“It wouldn’t be.”  The well-dressed stranger touched the stone at the end of his cane and said, “Do you know what it was that you destroyed?  Of course you don’t, that was a silly question.”  He sighed dramatically.  “It was a focal stone, where I was gathering all the resources from that entire world.  One of the only reasons we are having this chat is because the situation was so strange that a few unique requirements were met and I am allowed a repeat.”

Jake didn’t say anything.  This man was definitely not a man, and had to be a very powerful supernatural being.  Jake was trying hard not to think about worst-case scenarios and the g-word.  But either way, this entity had to know that Jake wouldn’t understand what was going on.  The best course of action for the moment was to shut his mouth and listen.

The man continued, “You were in my realm.  Did you know that my children were calling you Judgement?  The closest translation for you would be,” he said, pausing to think for a second, “the boogie man. Imagine what the situation seemed like to them.  A lone alien, a human, was living in their birthing tunnels beneath a new temple, in what should have been one of the safest places on the entire world.  They searched but couldn’t find you, all while you randomly hunted them and ate their children.”

Jake blinked and couldn’t help himself from asking, “Children?”

“Yes Jake, you were eating the babies of a few species of demons.”  The man smiled without humor.  “And you were leaving piles of entrails all throughout the tunnels that my worshippers were interpreting as a challenge and curse.”

“Oh.”

“Then you led them on a chase for over a week after they ambushed you, somehow learning how to use the power of my realm against me, and through some bizarre twist of fate, slipped past all the defenses for my new temple, killed my distracted priest, and destroyed a focal stone.”  The man in the white suit stared for a moment, face blank, but suddenly stood and screamed in pure rage.  All the white space in the distance rippled and the man’s voice shook the air.  Even though the energy and pure malevolence of the tantrum didn’t directly touch Jake, just the presence of it was enough to shake him to his core.  The man flung his drink to the ground where it shattered and disappeared.

As quickly as the outburst came, it stopped.  The man composed himself, sat down elegantly, crossed his legs, and calmly said, “You may ask what I am called.”

Jake worked to keep his sudden fear in check.  “May I please ask what you are called?”

“I have had many names, but you would probably best know me by the name Ahriman.”

Jake slowly nodded.  Inside, his instincts were screaming at him that he was in terrible danger, but he forced himself to stay calm.  “What may I call you directly?  To clarify, what would be an appropriate way for me to address you?” he asked.  He’d almost asked what Ahriman wanted to be called, but that would have been a mistake.

The god grinned and his eyes flashed dark for a second.  “You are smart, Jake, maybe a little too smart for your own good.  You may just call me by my name for now.”

“I understand, Ahriman.”

“Jake, I’ve looked into your soul.  You see, you are a mystery.  The sheer number of coincidences necessary for you to do what you did is staggering.  On top of that, through ignorance, you somehow went about offending me in almost every possible way.  Why in the world would you recite Bible verses in my realm?  I’ve looked through past events.  Doing what you did caused you pain, but you did it anyway.  Incredible.

“Then there’s the perfect storm necessary for you to escape for so long, even thrive in a way.  You see, my children didn’t know you were even still alive for a long time.  Nobody took a count!”  Ahriman laughed.  “My most powerful children were elsewhere except for enforcers and giants.  Somehow, a low ranked adventurer from the newly-rediscovered Earth, a weak cultivator without any particular talent, managed to evade death or capture, all while carrying out a psychologically damaging guerilla campaign against demons.  Demons.”  He shook his head.  “Perhaps I should thank you.  I won’t be allowing anything like that to ever happen again!

“But again, I’ve researched you thoroughly, including some of your greatest regrets, biggest triumphs, and darkest secrets.  Remember how I mentioned a repeat?”

Jake answered, “Yes Ahriman.”  He’d almost only nodded, but didn’t want to give the evil god any excuse to do something unpleasant.  All of his magical studies had agreed that the oldest, most powerful beings were all sticklers for rules.  Humanity hadn’t known for sure that gods or beings that could be called gods existed until Purple Rain.  After that, humanity learned the rules of the larger universe ASAP.

“I have a very rare opportunity to reverse time, or rather, start a new timeline that will become dominant.  Think about that for a moment.”  He grinned.  “And the mystical event that would be best to reset the timeline to would be what you call Purple Rain.  I know your wish, to save your parents, your sister.  They were murdered soon after Purple Rain, right?”

If Jake had been breathing, he would have held his breath.  The god had him there.

“Do you know why I am appearing to you like this instead of something else?”

“Do you mean like something evil, Ahriman?”

The god scoffed.  “Evil.  That word is meaningless.  What is ‘good?’  Evil is just a label, usually given to free thinkers and independents with power of their own.  Do you know what my greatest sin is, at least in the eyes of my enemies?  I refused to bow to a fussy group of self-proclaimed rule-makers with no greater authority to dictate reality than I do.

“I chose this form because if I were a dragon, or a demon, you wouldn’t be phased, and would likely just mistrust me more.  This visit is not to frighten you, Jake.  I want to recruit you.”

Jake definitely had not expected this, and was so surprised he just said, “What?”

If Ahriman took offense, he didn’t show it.  Instead, the god spread his hands, and one had a drink dangled between his fingers again.  “You can go back to the Purple Rain, save your family, maybe even save your world!”

“And what would the price for that be, Ahriman?”

“So suspicious!  I would like you to be my soldier, my warrior.  You have always admired paladins, right?  You could be a dark paladin, unfettered by the conventions and silly rules of others!  I would back your every action that was made in my name.”

Jake crossed his arms.  “May I ask a serious question?”

“Of course.  This is a negotiation.  You may speak freely.”

“What about my soul?”

“Really?”  Ahriman took a drink from his glass and it disappeared.  “Your soul?  What has your soul ever done for you?  You were rejected by the god of your childhood while in my realm, weren’t you?”

Jake said, “I’m going to take that to mean that my soul would be part of the cost.”  Ahriman just looked at him and rolled his eyes, but Jake wasn’t cowed.  He said, “I’ve read or heard someone in a similar situation say if a soul has so little value, nobody would bargain so hard to attain one.  This seems like solid logic to me.”

“Souls and paladins go hand and hand,” Ahriman said, flipping a hand.

“So if I agree to this deal, I will be your warrior, give up my soul, and I’m assuming you will physically move the position I was at when Purple Rain happened the first time, right?  I was too far away to save my family last time.”

“Yes!”

“Where will I be, then?  Physically I mean.”

“In the same state and same city as your parents.”

Jake thought fast.  “This is a difficult decision, so may I ask for a boon?”  He used the archaic term from his magical studies.

Ahriman narrowed his eyes, and that one gesture allowed Jake to know the god couldn’t read his mind.  If he could, Ahriman would likely be furious.  “A favor for nothing in return?  That is a rather bold thing to ask of a god, especially one you were willing to label ‘evil’ earlier.”

Jake nodded.  “I promise that I will give this matter my very serious consideration if you agree to this boon.  If you agree, I will know within three more questions whether I can be your warrior.”  Supernatural entities loved sets of three, too.

Ahriman gestured with his disappearing and reappearing drink.  “The favor must be within my power, and must be reasonable.”

“Reasonable meaning what?  That seems open to interpretation.  How about if the favor I ask is something I could do, you will agree to it.”

Ahriman smiled widely.  “Agreed.”

Gotcha! Thought Jake, and focused on not letting his face so much as twitch.  “The favor I would like to ask, that you agreed to if it is something I could do, is to tell the truth.”

The dark god’s smile slowly fell, and Jake worked even harder to keep his face blank.  It was one thing to trick an evil god, and another entirely to gloat about it.  Ahriman had doubtlessly thought that Jake being dead, with no body and no power had been a loophole to refuse the favor.  But truth required no power, only honesty.

“Granted,” the god grated.  His clear green eyes began to glow red and he tapped his cane impatiently.  “Be careful what you ask, Jake.  Some truths can be more dangerous than others.”

“Oh, I know that, Ahriman.  I promise that I do not plan to ask anything disrespectful or irrelevant to this conversation.”  Jake’s magical training in the past had made it clear that this was wise.  Knowledge could be dangerous.  “To recap, you have agreed to this boon for me, and I have stated that I would make my decision after three questions.”  

Ahriman didn’t reply, so Jake asked his first question.  “Are you able to directly harm me?”  This was something he’d been wondering for a while, and had been doubting ever since the subject of his soul had come up.

“No,” grated the well-dressed god.

Jake nodded and thought carefully about his second question.  Now was not the time to ponder why he was at least temporarily safe.  He needed to think of his next question, to choose it, actually.  He’d already thought of all the questions he would ask in response to how the god replied.

Without being trained as a mage prior to becoming a cultivator, he would have never thought to ask his next question, but now he was fairly sure of the reason he was having this conversation in the first place.  “Whether time is being reset by your choice or not, since I was directly involved in the events leading up to it, will I keep my memories even if I do not accept your offer?”

Ahriman’s appearance began to change.  “No disrespect?  Ha.  I have not been this disrespected by a mortal in millenia.”  Jake didn’t say anything, just patiently waited for a direct response.  The answer to this question was incredibly important.  Little clues throughout this conversation had made him suspicious about Ahriman’s claims.

Finally, Ahriman snarled, “Yes.  It was your meddling that caused the event, and you are directly tied to it.”

Jake nodded.  “So what you are really offering, in general, is to change my physical location during the Purple Rain event that happened in the past, correct?”

Ahriman was now fully demonic in appearance, with great curving horns, fiery eyes, and three tongues.  His appearance just kept getting more terrifying, but Jake had lived in hell, apparently for weeks.  It took a lot more than what he was seeing to phase him anymore.  “YES!” bellowed the god.

Jake stood and bowed, then formally said, “Ahriman, I reject your offer.  Thank you for this discussion and the opportunity.”

Ahriman shrieked and reached for Jake, but even though his claws came within a hair of him, they never actually touched.  Tentacles erupted from the dark god, covering the entire horizon.  Horrible sounds and smells assaulted Jake, but he was mostly unaffected.  In the most polite tone of voice he could manage, he said, “Ahriman, you have told me that you may not harm me.  Since harm is open to interpretation, I am respectfully informing you that I find our current interaction stressful and harmful.”

The world trembled as Ahriman screamed, and Jake tumbled into darkness.  In one ear he heard a hissing whisper.  “Curse you, Jacob Hessian Mazzariello.  You will regret this rejection!  I have seen your heart.  Now you will know true anguish.  Your cries and the gnashing of your teeth will be music!  I will never forget this.”

***

Jake opened his eyes, and felt a second of pure joy at the feeling of being alive again.  He’d never really noticed it before, but now that he knew what it felt to be dead, feeling alive was something he couldn’t explain but cherished all the same.

He was standing in the middle of the street, and people were running around. Surrounding sounds faded into a muted blur as he noticed he was wet, and just getting wetter.  He frowned and glanced up at the sky.

The clouds were violet.  “Oh great,” he muttered, and immediately understood what was happening.

This was Purple Rain and he was out in the open.  He remembered what Ahriman had said about being able to control his physical location and sighed.  Jake had been clever, but not clever enough.  No Bible verses were going to save him from this, either.

“Shit.”