Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Abomination

They stood in the quiet, sworn enemies now turned greatest allies. The architect's teacher's pet, and his problem children standing in one room. It occurred to Adam all at once that, perhaps the maker had been right to hide new Anima in construct boies. If he hadn't Celex might still be up to his old behavior instead of standing here with them. Beside him Celex must have heard the thought, turning his inhuman eyes over to look at Adam. In this shape the two of them were roughly the same height, and their eyes locked. Adam tried to dredge up the old maker memories, tried to find whatever feeling of annoyance or, maybe even hatred, that he might once have felt towards this man, but there was nothing there other than a kindred feeling of friendship the two of them had built up over many years.

Perhaps he shouldn't like Celex as much as he did, the man was a mass murderer along the lines of Darth Vader and worse because he was actually real. After all, he had blown up a planet Death Star style just to get rid of his cheating wife.... Which was distinctly un Darth-vader of him. By all rights he certainly shouldn't be friends with him.

He could certainly rationalize the decision.

Celex's actions had been purely cultural. Maybe as a human he wouldn't have blown up an entire planet, but as a Celzex, blowing up planets was certainly within the realm of possibility, and as far as Adam understood their culture, the Celex had only ever looked up to him for it. He was the greatest emperor their people had ever seen.

So he would ignore it for now and leave any moral dilemma for when they eventually met the architect.

Celex gave him a wry smile.

Adam chuckled

Celex was not ready to meet his maker yet, pun intended.

To their surprise, it was MItzen who broke the silence, his voice small in the vast room, his mind appearing even smaller as the world collapsed around him, "You... everything I knew.... It's a lie/'

They all turned to look at him, quiet and unsure as they stared back and forth between each other.

How to phrase this.

Sunny stepped forward first spear held gently in one hand as she looked down at mitzen, small, dwarfed against her natural height, "The world, this universe is not how it once seemed. All of us held inaccuracies to some degree, and the truth of the Makers and the forever war is..... The most tangible." Mitzen sunk lower, but Sunny held up a hand, "However, just because you have learned something new, does not make your past or what you believed pointless or a waste of time."

She waved her spear in a grand gesture about the room, though her eyes were fixed on mitzen, "Our beliefs shape us, make us who we are. It may be difficult to accept that the world you know is different than you once believed, but your past isn't a waste, your beliefs are not unimportant."

Adam was a bit surprised at Sunny's Sudden show of compassion towards Mitzen.

Not that she wasn't a compassionate person, she was, just not generally in a verbal sort of way.

Not that he minded of course.

Mitzen looked up at her, and though her words helped, Adam doubted that he would recover quickly.

Before the quiet could become too pronounced, the maker stepped forward, still keeping a wary eye trained on Celex and Conn, who now hovered at the back of their group like some sort of ghoulish wraith.

"Perhaps you teaming up is all well and good, but I do not intend to let my archive fall, like the polaris archive fell, and if you are here that means the void is not far behind."

"A riveting deduction, maker, and when I say rivitening, I mean completely useless."

The voice came from the shadows, echoing up and down the walls, and clinging to the very air around them like tar. It oozed and bubbled slowly, and languidly as it made its echoing pass around the room, before terminating back at the shadows once again. In response to the voice, their group turned violently towards the noise raising their weapons. Sunny's spear was in her hand fastest, followed shortly by the rest of them, as spears and guns were drawn in equal measure and pointed towards the shadows from which the sound emanated.