9.

Tony.

Immediately he took off the hood, X’s hands tightened around the chair, almost breaking it. I could already feel the slight emissions of elven magic from him. He was mad. And he wasn’t even trying to hide it. I didn’t recognise the man, and no-one else there seemed to. Not even Zeus or Horus. The man, now that I had a better look at him, had similar features to X. Same eyes, hair, skin....I looked at X as a realization hit me “Is he your father?” X didn’t reply. It was an unspoken rule between us. We never talked about his father. Ever. Once I pried too much and lost an arm. I had to learn regeneration that day. He never spoke of his past, and I just assumed it was too traumatic and I never asked again, especially after I lost my hand. But now...

“X, is he your father?”, I asked again, this time he gave a grim nod, never breaking his gaze way from the man, as if he would vanish if he did. Confused murmurs rose from the Arch-mages. The man ignored them and faced X completely. “Hello son” His voice carried across the hall, reaching X and I. This is not going to end well. X's hair was already flaring up in violent white sparks. “How are you...”, he laughed, a loud screeching guffaw. X’s hair turned white now, anger building up. “Alive? Oh my dear boy... I tried to tell you, Zoi had a plan for us.” His face creased into a frown. “But your mother, that damned bitch... kept you from your true potential” His smile quickly returned, a wide, ravenous smile. “Well, she’s not a problem anymore, her soul was a rich sacrifice to him–“

X screamed. Not a yell. Not a battle cry. A scream. One that told of pent up rage, guilt and maddening anger. Half of the throne room was blown apart and I was blown away. X was already launching at his father with murderous rage in those blindingly white eyes. His sword exploded with white light As he yelled his annihilation spell.

“Antaroq Eznon Dymor!”

The other half of the throne room was immediately vaporised as the attack hit his father and launched him upward. Even in his blinded rage, he tried not to destroy the planet. The blast sent him a few light-years away in an instant. From what I saw, X had reached him in split seconds. I couldn’t open a portal here, and I wasn’t that fast reaching them would take years. Damn, X will end up blowing up half of the system. What do I do?

“Need some help?” Míriel stood beside me, squinting into the distance. “You’re not getting there by teleporting.” I didn’t even notice her come up to me. Assassin by nature, I guess. “Oh hey, didn’t see you there.” I glance over at her. She was wearing her usual garb, but with the hood down, exposing her long, red hair.

“Stop trying to be friendly with me. I want to get to Xassin, are you in?” she never stopped looking into the sky. “I guess I am. But why do you want to see X?” I asked, hinting suspicion in my tone. She smirked. It was the closest I had seen to a smile. “I still I want to kill him, so I’ll learn, up close.” The smirk was gone as quickly as it had surfaced. “Then when the time is right, I’ll end it” She concluded, matter-of-factly.

“Riiight, good luck with that.” I said, more bothered by how X would be rampaging across the system. “Can we go now?” I was getting impatient, thinking of how X was faring. That man did not give off a good vibe. She held my shoulder and looked up. “Hold on.” She said and my eyes were assaulted with a blinding flash of yellow. The next moment, we were floating in an empty space. I gagged and gasped momentarily before the Shard’s life support aura kicked in. We were in space, looking at the black hole.

I turned angrily to tell something at her when out of the corner of my eyes, I saw a flash of light and she pulled me out of the way. The blast hit a planet and the planet was disintegrated. My eyes followed the blast back to its source. There was X fighting his father. The cloak was gone, revealing his full body. He was clad in black armour that seemed to shift and writhe. All the while he fought, he wore his mad grin.

“X!”, I yelled, starting to move towards them. I felt a hand in my shoulder, stopping me. “You’ll die. They are worlds above us. At best, you’ll get in his way” I opened my mouth to protest, but I knew she was right. Instead I asked “What do we do then?” She looked back at the fight and replied grimly, “We wait, there will eventually be a loser.”

I enhanced my senses and zoomed into the distance where they were fighting. I could see X, with his eyes glowing and....cracks? Cracks were forming on his face, spilling white light. They increased as he kept fighting. The father was still grinning, on par with X, matching his every move. He looked leisured as he parried and blocked and occasionally struck X. This served to infuriate X more. He would launch more complex spells, barraging his father with them. The father, unfazed would grin more and taunt him. “I see you have my fire, my boy.” he would say between clashes. “You remind me of myself when I was younger!”

“Shut” X replied, “ Your fucking mouth!” angrily driving the blade down his father’s mouth. Blood spurted from his mouth and he grinned still, grabbing the blade and breaking it. The blood would trickle back into his mouth and he would be fine again. “Save your strength, I can’t be killed. Not by you anyway” X calmed down significantly. He finally realised that attacking blindly wasn’t working.

“We’ll see about that” He said, sheathing his sword and creating a single sigil that I hadn’t seen before. “Rise. King of the Seventh Circle. Rise, Astaroth. A black shadow grew impossibly high behind X, it looked like a gate of sorts. A scrawny, black hand came through the shadow, followed by a large head. It was black, featureless and horned. One purple glowing eye was at the forehead and the other was where the mouth would be, if it had one. The remaining body was black and scrawny. I half expected it to fall over, but it stood tall, towering over X and his father. “Contract in order. Possession of demon contracted” The demon god’s voice invaded my psyche.

Almost immediately, it shrank and entered X. The white glow was gone and replaced with with an ominous purple. His father was still grinning, but he seemed unsure of himself now. A demon god wasn’t something to be trifled with. Even gods steered away from them. I never knew X had a contract with one, no less a king of a circle. X raised a hand, now calm, and balled it into a fist. His father went up in flames immediately. Black, unending flames that seemed to eat at him. “Flame of naught”, I heard X say, before he threw his father into the black hole. He want past the event horizon and remained frozen, a prisoner of physics.

X turned to me. Staring all those light-years across, I knew he could see me. He made a single movement, like blinking out of existence. And then he was in front of me. The purple eyes were gone, even the white ones.

“Let’s go, man. It’s over” He said with a tired smile. He looked at Míriel with sad eyes and smiled. “I hope you leant as much as you wanted to.” She didn’t reply. She turned away, obviously shook and teleported back to Le'uthara. I gave one last glance at the black hole as X flew us back to Le’uthara. For an instant, I thought I saw something dark streak out of the black hole. Probably just something from the accretion disk, I thought.

That notion faded when I saw the faint glint of a grin.