Chapter 80: Ch119. Freedom and history
K and Kurt appeared in the middle of a plaza in West Philly, right when Nikolai was standing there with the remaining members of the neighborhood’s Underzones.
Nikolai saw them, but was too worried looking at the sky to compliment them.
"What do you think, Nikita?" K asked in a grim tone.
"I think that whatever these starships are... We don’t stand a chance if they start shooting at us at that distance."
Kurt didn’t take part in the conversation, since he was too busy looking at the sky himself.
But it was for a different reason than them.
He was looking at a blazing light falling towards the earth, like a meteor or a shooting star.
It felt familiar to him, yet he couldn’t pick up on why.
But from where he was looking at it...
"Guys, I think you should take cover." K and Nikolai looked at Kurt, confused. "NOW!" Kurt shouted.
And K took him away from there with his own [SHADOW TRAVEL].
The glowing object was approaching the plaza at an incredible speed, and it didn’t take more than a minute to arrive, in a collision that sent a wave of destruction everywhere around them.
Kurt stood there, facing the dust wave that hit him with an inscrutable expression on his face.
After the dust settled, Kurt was able to see what was it that fell a few meters from him.
Yisal got up from his landing pose, all dressed in white, and displaying all his draconic features.
Kurt crossed his arms.
"Thank you for not attacking, Child of Essentium." Yisal said, raising his arms in a non-threatening manner.
"Are you the original, or just another part of my world-line’s Yisal?" Kurt asked, without giving time for the Ishir to make any other move.
"I’m the original one." The Ishir answered. "And judging by the question you just asked, I assume you already learned one thing or two about us."
"Not enough, and I would like to learn some more." Kurt made a dramatic pause. "Even if it means I have to kill every single one of you to get the answers I need."
Kurt’s eyes glowed in green as he spoke.
Yisal, however, smiled.
"I’m happy to say that you won’t have to, Child of Essentium. I’m not here to wage war against this echo. However, and mind that I’m not saying this in a threatening way, I do think you would have a hard time against the battle fleet right above us, right?"
Kurt’s eyes glowed in an even more intense tone of bright green.
"I’m willing to try." He smirked. "It wouldn’t be the first world-line I lose to death. But... I’m pretty confident, this time. Shall we try?"
"PLEASE, DON’T!" Yisal gestured towards him, almost begging to him not to start a fight. "There are many of my brothers and sisters up there, who are happy to feel for the very first time what it feel like to be free. So I wouldn’t... I wouldn’t want them to die without living properly."
Kurt raised a brow.
"Free?"
Kurt remembered how Rodrick explained Rhegal’s ability of taking control of someone’s mind, and wondered if it were anything like that, but Yisal had a different explanation to give him.
"Yes. As I see, you managed to fully purify the Essentium inside of you from every trace of the Calamite that once inhabited it. And by doing so, you broke the shackles that imprisoned my people within the grasp of the Calamite."
"I don’t think I follow..."
"Oh... I think you humans have another name for it." Yisal paused. "I think you’re used to call it... The Kha’Ur."
Kurt went through the countless conversations he had with K in his mind, until he remembered the time when K told him the little he had come to find out about the Great Calamity, and the meteor named Kha’Ur.
"Okay, it makes things clearer now, but I-"
Kurt interrupted himself, remembering how everything began.
Memories flashed through his mind, and everything made sense to him, finally.
"Do you mean that... The crystal fragment that I stole..."
"It was a piece of a mineral called Essentium, but about it, that’s all I can tell you. The first time you touched it, it was still corrupted by the Calamite, so you got... Infected by what you humans would call some kind of a virus."
"Wait!" Kurt’s head began aching ever so slightly. "That’s kind of a lot to take on in just a simple conversation, are you here really with no intentions to attack?"
Yisal raised his brow at the sudden off-topic question, but answered.
"Yes."
[THE ISHIR IS TELLING THE TRUTH]
Kurt sighed in relief.
"Okay. Then, I’d like to suggest one thing."
"Go on, Child of Essentium."
Kurt breathed in deeply.
"I assume you and your kin are ready to leave, forever, right?" Yisal nodded. "So I’d like to ask you to stay a little longer and tell me everything you can about this... Essentium, the Kha’Ur, and everything else you can. But I want your kin to go, or at least to stay as far away from Earth as possible. I don’t want the people from this world-line to be frightened by the Ishir any longer..."
Yisal nodded, serious.
"I agree, and I deeply apologize for everything, although the problem is far from solved..."
Kurt was silent, staring at Yisal, but he trusted him more, after his [POLYGRAPH] confirmed that Yisal wasn’t lying.
The Ishir growled deeply, and after a few seconds, the battleships began leaving the Earth’s atmosphere.
’Telepathy?’ Kurt asked himself.
But he dismissed the thought as soon as he heard the people celebrating.
Everybody looked like so happy that it seemed like Kurt had saved them all, but he still didn’t know if that was the case.
"So, where are we going, now?" Yisal asked, lowering his hands.
"I still don’t trust you enough to take you to our headquarters, but I’ll sure take you to somewhere you’ll be able to tell me everything."
Kurt smirked as he got closer to the Ishir.
Yisal’s eyes went wide as he saw the mantle of darkness covering them both.
And when he opened his eyes, he found himself in that world-line’s version of the Massachusets General Hospital.
They were at the patio garden, and the hospital itself was a little ruined by the time and the beasts’ attacks.
However, Yisal’s eyes went wide, and his eyes sparked up with memories.
"How did you-"
"Somehow, before I even woke up from my coma, I senses Zaval’s presence along with another one. And only now am I able to tell it perfectly. Why were you there, back then?"
They sat on a bench, and Yisal looked at the sky, admired.
"Somehow, I wasn’t always under the Calamite’s control, so I came to check on what Zaval would find. If he would kill the so-called virus, or if the Kurt on that world-echo would be different."
"World-echo?"
Kurt looked at Yisal with confusion.
"I think it’s better if we go back in time, if you want me to explain everything I can. So, how about you let me tell you about the Great Calamity...?"
