Chapter 81: Ch120. Arrival and reunion
"It was a resplendent sunset, and the colors of that day will stay in my memory forever.
Humans went on with their lives, and I just watched them.
Being a hatchling, we Ishir learn from very early on our youths that our home is the battlefield, and our mission is to conquer all.
But I just watched them
Until the monstrous rock crossed the sky, dyeing it in a sickly crimson hue.
The humans were alarmed by it, but when they saw the light of the explosion that came after the moment of the impact...
Things changed right then and there.
First, the atmosphere around the continent called Australia, where the meteor crashed, started acting different.
The animals there started behaving more wildly, more aggressively.
Then, when the first bubble was formed, humankind didn’t have the necessary knowledge to understand that they needed to contain the infestation within a certain time frame.
Since humankind hadn’t evolved yet, they didn’t know.
So, they just left it there, sending scientists to analyze and study the strange dimensional formation.
It was vastly different from anything they’ve ever encountered before, and since they didn’t have the energy or the tools to go through the bubble and venture inside that new world, they left it alone.
But when the time came, it wasn’t beasts that crossed the threshold..."
Yisal gave it a pause so he could take a breath, and Kurt was about to ask him, but the Ishir interrupted the young man.
"I can’t tell you about it, because you’re the one who has to find out personally, when you go back to your world. What matters in what I’m telling you, is that you keep in mind how this story ends, not how it begins."
Kurt frowned, slight anxiety taking over him, but he dismissed it and kept paying attention to Yisal’s words.
"... In a few days, Australia turned into a no man’s land, and the Beasts spread throughout the world as more bubbles began to appear here and there.
In less than a month, the whole world was in utter chaos.
But when humanity thought that it was the end of the line to them... The first Child of Essentium was awakened.
However, he didn’t know that his power was followed by a death sentence.
He died protecting the human race, remained a part of the power that now resides in you, and with him, lies the answer to what your world truly is.
Because this first, fallen hero, is the only one who have found the answer and the true relation between the Essentium and the Calamite.
And he is a person you came to know better and better at each passing day."
Kurt frowned, looking at the sunset.
"Orkas..."
Yisal looked like he was smiling, saying right after looking at Kurt.
"Oh, you might know him by that name, yes." For some reason, Yisal’s eyes were filled with nostalgia as he spoke. "But he had another name, until he chose to try and alter his fate, by changing his identity, his ways, and echoed to another direction, giving birth to the character in this story that you now know as Orkas, the Dark Hero..."
The sun was getting lower and lower in the horizon, filling the sky with a rosy red hue that made the whole world look like it was in peace.
Slowly, Kurt was putting the pieces of the puzzle together in his mind.
But what made his eyes spark with intense realization, was what the Ishir had said before.
What matters in what I’m telling you, is that you keep in mind how this story ends, not how it begins.
Kurt’s eyes widened and he got up, standing in front of Yisal like he was an impossible existence.
"You... Don’t tell me... Orkas is..."
"Back in that day..." Yisal spoke. "Or should I say in that world... Orkas was known to his peers and loved ones as... Kurt. Blake."
Kurt’s eyes couldn’t get any wider than that as he just stared at Yisal, speechless.
After a moment of awe, Kurt was able to speak again.
"You’re telling me that... Orkas is another version of me?"
"No." Yisal said, to Kurt’s surprise. "What Orkas is, is an echo to your existence. An echo that, impossibly as it might be, reverberated two times in the whole scheme of things. That is why he was able to become you and him, as separate people."
"Okay, and although I’m not following as much as I wanted, I have to ask..."
There was a pause in which Kurt and Yisal exchanged glances of strange familiarity between each other.
"How do you know the story? What were you doing on Earth back then? And... Why do you sound so much like you knew that me...?"
Yisal looked at Kurt with a smile on his lips before he spoke.
"Because you took care of me when even my father wouldn’t."
The Ishir got up and stood in front of Kurt.
He growled from deep down his throat, and his body began to grow.
Where there was blood-red stained scales, white ones appeared.
And after seconds of contorting in pain, like his body would be torn apart from inside out, what stood in front of Kurt wasn’t Yisal anymore.
It was a majestic creature that he came to know and meet a few times, even though not in its real form.
Kurt gasped as he looked at the enormous winged shape in front of him.
It was a gigantic white dragon, with black eyes coated in a silvery hue, and bone spikes protruding from his back.
The dragon reached its head towards Kurt, and in a completely unexpected movement, nudged Kurt’s forehead.
"It’s good to finally meet you in person, Kurt Blake..." It said, in Kurt’s mind.
"A-"
"Shhh... Let me savor this moment of reunion, even if you’re not you... Yet."
Kurt kept quiet, without understanding what the being in front of him meant.
"I said it, because once you say my true name, the system will befall the last step of this part of your journey, and I’m afraid we will have to part our ways..."
"But... There are so many things I can’t quite understand now... How?"
"I’ll grant you the final piece of that puzzle, if you really want it. But we might not be able to meet ever again after that. However, we will live right beside each other, if you would like it."
Kurt knew he was rushing things, but the urge to know and understand got the best of him, as he nodded to the dragon, without fully comprehending what it meant, to have it in front of him like that.
"Say my name, loud and clear. And two things will happen. The past will, sort of, repeat itself, and you will give the final step... To the beginning of your true journey."
Kurt felt that it was the right thing to do, so he inhaled deeply, and the word just flew out of his mouth.
"Arias..."
