Ancestral Lineage

The room quaked no longer, but the air was still thick, saturated with the remnants of their auras. The silver-gold light around Ethan dimmed to a faint glow, while Trevor's crimson-black flames hissed and receded, flickering like dying embers that refused to go out.

Ethan stood firm, chest rising and falling, his words still echoing in the silence: I was afraid of losing you.

Trevor didn't move. His jaw was tight, his fangs still visible, his fists trembling as though the anger demanded release even now. His eyes—burning crimson red—were locked on Ethan, but something beneath the fury shifted.

The silence stretched. Seconds felt like minutes, the tension pressing on both of them.

Ethan didn't look away. For once, he allowed the weight of his vulnerability to remain bare, unshielded.

Trevor's shoulders finally sagged. His aura sputtered out completely, leaving only the sound of his heavy breathing. He turned his head slightly, gaze dropping toward the shattered glass at his feet. His voice came low, raw, as though dragged from somewhere deep inside.

"…Do you have any idea how much it hurt? To watch you carry everything alone, and realize you didn't trust me enough to carry even a piece of it with you?"

Ethan swallowed hard, his throat dry, his eyes never leaving his brother.

Trevor's hands unclenched, his claws retracting as he pressed one palm flat against the window frame, grounding himself. "…I was there, Ethan. I've always been there. And you still made me feel like an outsider."

The words landed heavier than any shout.

Ethan took a slow step forward, his own aura fading completely now, leaving only the two of them, stripped bare of power, standing in the rawness of family and betrayal.

Ethan's chest tightened at Trevor's words, each one a blade driven deeper than any wound he'd suffered in battle. Slowly, carefully, he closed the distance between them until only a few feet remained.

"You were never an outsider to me," Ethan said softly. His voice lacked the thunder from before—now it was quiet, fragile, and painfully sincere. "You're my brother. You're my best friend. I kept you in the dark not because I doubted you… but because I couldn't stand the thought of watching you fall."

Trevor's breath hitched, his jaw tightening as he tried to hold his composure.

"I know I hurt you," Ethan continued, his mismatched eyes glimmering with regret. "And for that, I'm sorry. More than sorry. I thought I was protecting you, but all I did was push you away."

The dam inside Trevor cracked. He turned sharply, as if to hide it, but his voice wavered when he spoke. "Damn it, Ethan… you don't get it, do you? All I ever wanted was to fight beside you. To matter. To be trusted."

Ethan reached out, laying a firm hand on his shoulder. "You do matter, Trev. More than you'll ever know. I couldn't have come this far without you. I don't want to do any of this without you."

Trevor's crimson-red eyes finally met his, and for a long moment the anger melted away, leaving only hurt—and beneath the hurt, love.

Then, without warning, Trevor stepped forward and pulled Ethan into a rough, crushing embrace. His voice was muffled against Ethan's shoulder, low and shaking. "You bastard… don't you ever shut me out like that again."

Ethan let out a shaky laugh, his own arms wrapping around his brother just as tightly. "I won't. I promise."

The tension in the room dissolved, leaving only the sound of two brothers holding onto each other as though letting go meant losing everything.

They sat on the cold rail of Trevor's balcony, moonlight painting silver on their shoulders. For now, they were just brothers — best friends again, not emperor and king. The night smelled of distant pine.

"So tell me," Trevor said, finally calm, rolling another wine glass between his fingers, "what's this horror future you were talking about?"

Ethan huffed out a breath. "Long version or short?"

"Longer."

"I knew it."

"Piss off."

Ethan shot him a look and then began, voice low, measured. "It started before I went into seclusion — that's part of why I went. My mission was to build an artifact that would buy us time. Time to prepare for what's coming. But it changed… into something else. Before I get to that, the reason."

He paused, watching Trevor's face in the moonlight. "I saw it. Our real enemies aren't mortals. They aren't even Saint-Realm beings. They're gods — entities of such scale and power we don't have a hope of beating them in our current state. In the future I saw, we were doomed. Except… there was a one percent chance. Only if I broke out of the shell I'd been wearing and became something new. Became… me."

Trevor's brow lifted. "But Father and Asteria—aren't they celestial? Shouldn't that help?"

"They help," Ethan said. "They help a lot. But it wasn't enough. Have you ever wondered how they're linked to us? To you and me?"

Trevor turned that over, irritation fading into curiosity. "Now that you mention it… yeah. It's not normal to have gods in the family."

"We're no normal family," Ethan replied, the barest hint of a smile. "We're actually descendants of primordials. You and I — our line goes back to something older than gods."

Trevor stared at him. "You're kidding."

Ethan met his gaze and didn't flinch.

"Right?" Trevor demanded, one brow twitching.

Ethan's silence did the answering.

"You mean it?"

"Yeah."

Trevor's eyes widened, then narrowed, then widened again. "Fuck! Shouldn't the gods be the ones afraid of us, then?"

"That's the problem," Ethan said. "Zark isn't just a god — he's an arbiter. A being more powerful than most gods. Asteria is a god, too. The reason we ended up with them has to do with the system — the same system that shaped so much of what we know. It was created by our ancestor, Radar Spike Smith. Or Nethrix, the Primordial Death. Same being, different names."

Trevor whistled, the sound thin in the night. "That is a lot."

Ethan leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Long ago, Zark was defeated in a war and nearly killed. Asteria was born into that chaos and nearly died as well. To protect them, our ancestor bound their souls into the system. Over time, they reawakened and regained much of their strength. But they've already been beaten once, which means there's no guarantee they couldn't be beaten again."

Trevor let the words settle. The glass in his hand seemed heavier. "This is… a hell of a family secret."

Ethan rubbed his temple. "I know. It's hard to swallow. But it explains things — like how you awakened Sound."

Trevor blinked. "From a dream. A red-haired woman giving me a—wait, don't tell me—"

Ethan grinned, unable to keep the note of mischief out. "Keira. I believe she's one of our ancestors."

Trevor's jaw dropped. "No fucking way."

Ethan nudged him with an elbow. "Deal with it, bro."

They stayed on the balcony rail, the citadel's lights a distant scatter below them. Trevor turned his wine glass slowly, the question hanging between them.

"So — what was the cause of the war?" he asked.

Ethan exhaled, watching the moonlight slide across Trevor's profile. "Inheritance," he said simply. "The system was built to help descendants awaken their bloodlines — to raise lineage power. That's what it was designed to do. But when you put beings like Dad and Asteria into that equation, things get… complicated. The gods didn't want more competition. Primordials are already a threat to their supremacy. Imagine if the child of your enemy inherits equal or greater power than you — how would you feel?"

Trevor said nothing for a long moment. The glass clicked against his knuckles.

"So they started a war," he murmured.

"Exactly." Ethan's voice was flat, as if tasting old ash. "They fought to prevent the spread of that power. They nearly succeeded. Even though they lost, they came dangerously close. There's another wrinkle: primordials and arbiters are bound by rules — they can't directly meddle in affairs below their level. That restraint is part of why things escalated the way they did. Building the system skirted those rules. It was almost a transgression in itself."

He looked at Trevor, letting the weight of it sink in. "The system broke ground we were never supposed to cross. That's why the rest fell to us — to deal with the consequences."

Trevor swallowed. "And your mission… how did it change?"

Ethan's expression went distant. "I set out to make an artifact that would buy us time — a buffer, a way to prepare. But the artifact, the work, the strain… it shifted something in me. I didn't just build a tool. I changed. I became something else."

"A Primord, huh… as in Primordial?" Trevor asked, incredulous.

"Close," Ethan corrected with a tired half-smile. "Not exactly the old primordials, but a new divine lineage — a celestial race, if you like. Enough that it could tip the scales in that one percent chance I saw."