Heretical Edge

Prompt: What is the backstory of Asclepius, the man with the power to change almost anything mentally or physically about a person simply by saying, 'I Heal You Of ______', who Denuvus wants to kill after he used that power to enslave her family? And what does he have to do with Apollo/Lucifer?

The boy was barely old enough to walk, a toddler who had wandered away from his mother when her back was turned for a moment. He shouldn't have made it very far, but the wooden gate that was meant to block his progress out of the household garden had been accidentally left just far enough open for the boy to slip through. Looking up and down the dirt path around the building, he saw a cat running off down a nearby alley and giggled while toddling after it.

Dark shadows filled most of the narrow alley, thanks to nearby walls and an assortment of tall trees, leaving it difficult to see very well. But the small boy managed to catch sight of the cat sitting about halfway through it, staring back as though waiting for him. Another giggle escaped the tiny child before he picked up his pace, hurrying that way with a single, quite cheerfully called, "Pretty kitty!" Soon, he had reached the waiting cat and leaned forward to pet the thing.

In that instant, without any warning at all, the cat changed. Its entire body-- at least the part that could be seen, opened up. What had appeared to be a simple, ordinary feline split apart to reveal a mouth full of teeth. Meanwhile, the ground underneath the supposed cat broke apart as the much larger creature it was attached to lifted itself up. It looked like a salamander, with the fake cat body perched on top of its head. The creature spent most of its time under the Earth, burrowing its way through the dirt as it used the cat body on its head to lure in prey before the 'cat' would open up to reveal that waiting mouth, grabbing the target and dragging them down.

The boy would have vanished in an instant, without any hope of surviving or ever being seen again. The creature would have devoured him and left no trace for his mother to have any idea of what had happened. A human toddler faced with something like this? There was no contest. He would have been eaten. Except, at the exact moment that the creature lunged, a hand came down out of nowhere and grabbed it by the neck, right behind the fake cat head. The tall, handsome blond man easily ripped the rest of the creature out of the ground, pivoted, and slammed the thing into the nearby wall with enough force to turn a fair portion of it into a pulverized smear of blood and bone fragments. Then he threw what remained of it to the ground. As the broken body weakly twitched and flailed, the man drove a sword down into it, cutting the dying thing in half.

A second later, even as the toddler fell back onto his rear and started to cry, his mother came running around the corner. "Ascley? Ascley!" The woman rushed over, seeing the dead monster and stumbling a little before reaching down to pick up the sobbing boy. She held him to her chest, soothing the child before looking over at the blond man. "You-- this was-- you saved him. You saved Asclepius. Thank you, thank you so much." She was quite literally shaking in relief.

"It's okay," the man assured her with an easy smile, using his foot to kick the corpse of the thing out of the way. "Anyone else would have done the same. I'm just glad he's okay. But that gate should really be closed and locked if the little guy's determined to be such an intrepid explorer."

With a heavy sigh, the woman muttered several curses under her breath before lamenting that she had tried to fix the broken gate herself to no avail, and her husband was off at war, as usual. She had no one who would volunteer to come by and ensure that it actually latched correctly.

"Well, I have a minute," the man replied, already starting to walk that way. "Let's see if we can find out what's wrong with the thing. Wouldn't want little Asclepius to go wandering off again."

Clutching her little boy to her chest, the woman shuddered with palpable fear at the thought before following the man, thanking him with every step. She also introduced herself as Coronis.

"You can call me Lucifer," the blond man informed her, already kneeling by the gate to take a look. In the end, he fixed it rather easily, taking a moment to push at the thing to make sure it would actually hold against the weight of a determined toddler shoving himself at it. Finally, the man gave a nod of satisfaction. "There we go. I think Ascley is gonna be nice and trapped now."

Thanking him again, Coronis insisted he come in and have something to eat. It was the least she could do for him after all that. Lucifer started to politely decline and say that he had to get going, before hesitating. After thinking it through, he offered her a small smile, his hand accepting hers. "You know what? I think I might have a little time after all. And a meal sounds absolutely wonderful."

He only intended to stay for that single supper, but in the end, the Seosten man remained there for several weeks before moving on. Even then, he returned every once in awhile, visiting Coronis and Asclepius at least a couple times per year for a full decade.

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Unfortunately, there were times when Lucifer wasn't there. And it was during one of those times that tragedy struck. Coronis became ill, her still rather young son staying at her side for weeks as she became frailer and frailer, suffering immensely. When he heard what was happening, Lucifer returned but only made it back in time to share a few words with the human woman he had grown to care about quite a lot. Then she passed, before he could find any real solution.

After her funeral, Lucifer found himself standing in the doorway of Asclepius's sleeping area. The boy lay on his kline, or bed, curled up into a ball. His shoulders were shaking heavily.

Moving to sit next to the thirteen-year-old boy, Lucifer gently put a hand on his shoulder. His voice was soft. "I'm sorry. I wish I'd been here before. I wish I could--" He stopped, knowing that nothing he said right then would help at all. So, he stopped talking and simply sat there silently.

"I just wanted to save her, why couldn't I save her?" Asclepius managed, voice breaking as his tears overwhelmed him once more. His body shook violently before he added a weak, "I'm going to die too. Everyone dies. I'm a failure, I'm weak. I couldn't protect my mother and I can't protect myself. I was supposed to protect her. Father's been dead for years, you're only here once in awhile. It was me. It was my job to save her and I couldn't. She's only dead because I failed."

Lucifer's head shook, his hand squeezing the boy's shoulder. "No, Ascley. It wasn't your fault. She just got sick. That happens sometimes. I don't--" He hesitated before exhaling. "You won't die. Not like that. Not now. Your mother, I tried to convince her to let me find a creature for her to bond to, but she wanted to live an ordinary life here with you. She told me to wait until a time when she was gone, then find something for you to bond to. Something to make you strong."

There was silence for a moment, before the boy slowly turned over, staring at him through eyes that were thick with tears. His voice was barely audible. "What... what do you mean, Lucifer?

"What sort of bond?"

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For the next year, Lucifer tried to find a suitable creature for the boy to bond to, something he could grow attached to and create a suitable connection with. But nothing seemed to fit right. Either Asclepius declined them, or he couldn't bring himself to actually connect with the creature properly. They tried the bonding process repeatedly to no real avail. Obviously, a human couldn't bond immediately with any old creature. It had a higher chance of working if there was some sort of emotional connection, and Asclepius had withdrawn so much that there just… wasn't any. Even when he tried, and he did try with some, the human blood-bond just wouldn't take properly.

They traveled together, the two of them, searching for anything the boy could try to connect with. Lucifer often had to disappear, off to do his mysterious job, the one he didn't want to talk with the boy about. But he would always return before too long, and they would continue their journey.

Eventually, Lucifer understood why nothing else was working, why the boy couldn't connect with anything or showed no interest in the options he was presented with. At his very core, deep down, Asclepius wanted to heal people. He had watched his mother get sick and die, and now all he wanted was to erase that sort of damage. The only power he wanted was something that would actually allow him to heal the sick, erase injuries, and just stop people from dying. Nothing that he had really been offered so far had that sort of ability. Not to the right extent, in any case.

So, after a year of traveling and searching for just the right thing to no avail, Lucifer appeared by the teen boy's sleeping cot one night. He had been gone for several days at that point, leaving strict instructions for Asclepius to stay at this campsite and to not go wandering off. The boy was accustomed to being left alone for days at a time then, knowing Lucifer would eventually return.

"I have it," the Seosten man announced, kneeling next to the cot while holding something up in his palm so his companion could see it properly. "This is the answer we've been looking for."

Asclepius blinked that way. He was a small, frail-looking boy who looked like a stiff breeze would make him fall apart. His reddish-brown hair looked like a wild, unkempt bird nest at the best of times, but even more so after just waking up. He stared at the presented object. "It's a rock."

With a chuckle, Lucifer shook his head. "Not just any rock, I promise. This is the Malsaic Stone." He waited, only to realize the boy had no idea what he was talking about. "It's a mythical object. They say this rock was somehow sent back in time from the very end of the universe. It knows the answer to every question. You hold it in your hand and ask it anything you want. But only one thing, because it'll disappear after that, and go somewhere else in the universe for someone else to find and use. My… sister and I were looking for it for a long time. It was supposed to help her save own mother. But she heard about your situation and… and she said she wanted you to use it instead. She said we can always try to find it again later. You want to be a healer, right? We could search for decades without finding the right creature for you. With this, all you have to do is ask how we can make that happen. One question, one answer, then it's gone."

Slowly taking the stone, the small boy made a soft noise of disbelief. "A-are you sure, Lucifer? But you could do a lot with one question, couldn't you? You could ask it anything you wanted to. Or, or your sister could use it. Why doesn't she want to help her mother?"

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"I wasn't there for your mother," Lucifer replied in a hoarse voice, his regret as clear as it had ever been. "I couldn't help her. I can help you. You want to be able to help people. That's a worthy goal. Go ahead, ask it the question. Wherever it sends us, we'll go there together. And believe me, Sariel does want to help her mother. But she says… she says her mother is still out there, her mother has hope. Yours is gone. And you only live for a fraction of the time that we do, without help. She wants you to have this chance first."

For a moment, Asclepius simply sat there on the edge of his cot, holding the stone carefully in both hands. He stared down at the thing cupped there, took a long, deep breath, then slowly asked, "How can I become the most powerful healer in the world?"

The stone began to glow brightly, as did the boy's own eyes. After a few seconds, the light was gone, along with the stone itself. It had vanished.

"Did… did it work?" Lucifer hesitantly asked, almost afraid to learn that the stone was fake or that something had gone wrong.

Asclepius didn't answer at first. He just sat there, a shudder running through him. Then his gaze slowly rose, and he smiled before leaning in to embrace the man. "It worked. I know what to do. I know where to go. And I know…"

As he trailed off, the boy's hand pressed something against Lucifer's back and spoke a quick spell command, giving him just enough time to recognize the sleep magic, something he had taught the boy during their time together. Then the power overtook him, and Lucifer slumped. He collapsed, passing out just after hearing Asclepius murmur, "... that you can't come with me."

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Another year passed. Asclepius was fifteen now, a grown man by his peoples' standards. He still had yet to grow very much, at least physically. He stood barely over five feet in height, with a body that refused to gain much muscle definition no matter what he did. The past year had been spent doing everything the stone had told him to do, even the things that had left him quivering in grief and regret. He had asked how to become the most powerful healer in the world, and the stone had told him. It required the sort of sacrifice he had known Lucifer wouldn't want to make. So, he had been forced to leave his guardian behind and move on without him. For this past year, he had traveled hundreds of miles, and had done everything he had to in order to get to this point.

Now, the boy stood deep underground, in a cavern whose entrance had been hidden behind a tomb on the edge of a small village. There had been dozens of traps, magical and otherwise in the way, but the stone had told him how to get past all of them when the time came, once he had done everything else that was necessary. It had given him every step he needed to take to get here, and how exactly to avoid everything that could have stopped him.

Lifting a clay jar, Asclepius uncorked it. He spoke clearly, giving the seemingly blank wall in front of him the words that had filled his mind a year earlier when he asked the stone for instructions. The words were in a language that hadn't been spoken on this world for millions of years, but they translated to, "You were locked away, hidden until our people returned. We bring you proof of our faith, of our strength. Behold the blood of ten orphaned children, of ten sapient species. Their parents were taken by our hands, then the throats of the orphans slit so that their blood would fill this jar."
He lifted the jar and emptied the horrific contents, contents he had spent the past year gathering, over the wall. As he did so, magical runes appeared along the once-blank surface. With a groan, the wall slid aside, revealing a small alcove. It was barely large enough for the stone altar that lay within, a strange skeleton carefully situated on it. The skeleton would have been only three feet tall if it was standing up, and was distinctly not human, considering the four legs, six very thin arms, and triangular skull.

"You," Asclepius murmured quietly, stepping that way before reaching out a hand to touch the skeleton gingerly. "You were one of those ancient ones, the people they call Primals. You have the power I want, the power I need. Your people revered you for your ability, and you… you squandered it. I won't. I will use your power better than you ever did. You will be forgotten forever. And I…"

His hand rose, becoming a fist which he slammed down into the brittle skull, smashing it. The impact made the entire skeleton disintegrate, its dust filling the small space, before the boy leaned that way and breathed it in. He let it come into his mouth and nose, breathing it, taking it, absorbing it.

"I will become a god."

**********

Prompt: A look at a couple times Flick narrowly avoided learning about Jacob early.

Risa Kohaku made her way through the inner archive area of the Crossroads school library. Few were aware that this area even existed. The staff part itself was already located below the student library, and this particular part of it was even further hidden. Gaia had secretly expanded what had once been a closet, using magic to make the space much larger than it had been, and then built a wall around that. So few people came down here to begin with that no one noticed the missing closet.

It was in this area that the headmistress kept many tomes that she didn't want others to have access to, and that she didn't want them to know she had access to. Only her closest allies had any idea it existed.

Risa had spent the past twenty minutes searching the room for what she needed, and was finally on her way out with three different old books tucked under her arm. All were one of a kind, personal journals that were handwritten from across the centuries.

No sooner had she begun to leave, then a familiar figure stepped into the room. Gaia offered the other woman a soft smile. "Risa, I thought you were going to take a break after everything you've been through. We only got the real you back yesterday. Don't tell me you're already going to start a new project."

Shaking her head, Risa made a face. "Believe me, I have no desire to immediately jump into something. I need time to be myself now that I don't have a certain puppet master sitting in my brain. But the only reason I have that chance is thanks to Felicity. And Sariel, but I don't know what to do for her. I do know what to do for the Chambers girl. She inherited that Necromancy power. She's going to need help with that."

Gaia opened her mouth, before her eyes started down toward those three books. A look of understanding crossed the woman's face, and she exhaled. "The records about Jacob, that's what those are, isn't it?"

Risa was nodding. "I've never understood exactly why you wanted to keep everything about Jacob locked away. You took any mention of him off the curriculum. You even managed to convince Ruthers that it was best to ignore the man instead of giving him attention. You and I both know that that's not the real reason you decided to stop teaching the students here anything about him. What I've never known is what that real reason is. Regardless, if anyone can teach Felicity how to control her Necromancy, it's him. I thought if she looked through these books and could see what we know about him, there might be some way for the girl to find him. There were those rumors about the man trying to find other Necromancers, and she certainly fits the bill."

Gaia was quiet for a minute, clearly deep in thought. She looked troubled, and torn, as though she wanted to say something but wasn't certain if she should. In the end, she stepped into the room and let the door close behind her. Even then, in this secret area that almost no one knew about, Gaia still took a moment to put up no less than half a dozen privacy spells. All while the other woman stood there and watched in confusion and uncertainty, having no idea what could have prompted so much need for secrecy.

Only once all that was done and she was apparently satisfied that absolutely no one could overhear them in any way, did Gaia conjure a couple chairs and gesture for Risa to sit in one while she took the other. When the two were comfortable, she finally started to talk.

She told Risa exactly why she shouldn't mention Jacob to Felicity, why the girl could not hear that man's name until the right time.

Until she took it for herself.

********

"I need more Necromancy books." With that announcement, Flick stood with her hands on her hips, gazing at the computer in front of her. Tabbris was nearby, perched on the edge of a chair. The two of them were in one of the Fusion School's research labs. It had access to vast amounts of information not only from here on Earth, but across the known Seosten Empire.

"There's gotta be lots of stuff in here about Necromancy!" Tabbris cheerfully announced while swinging back-and-forth on the chair. "Mama told me all about it, she helped program the interface so humans could use it better. I bet we can find stuff about every Necromancer who ever stepped on this planet." Belatedly, the girls seemed to remember they weren't actually on Earth at the moment, and turned in a circle on the chair with her hand out, until she was pretty sure she was pointing in the right direction. "I mean, on that planet."

Snickering despite herself, Flick reached out to rub her little sister's hair. "Damn straight. By the time we're done putting this thing through its paces, we're gonna know everything there is to know about the Necromancers of Earth."

Her head tilted thoughtfully as the girl mused, "I wonder how many of them are still alive. I mean how many do you think managed to avoid Fossor? He doesn't seem like the type who accepts that sort of competition, you know?"

Tabbris shuddered before giving a quick nod. "Uh huh, he's a real jerk. But we can-- oh hi, Mama!" Hopping off her seat, the girl started over to embrace the older woman, who had just come into the room.

Sariel lifted her daughter off the floor and held her tightly while greeting both of them. Then she gave a curious glance to Flick. "Here to do a project for one of your classes already? I didn't know you were so studious." She teased a little. "You're an even better role model for Tabbris than I thought."

With a blush, Flick dropped her gaze briefly, before carefully stepping out of the girl in question's kicking range. "Oh, it's not-- I mean, it's kind of a personal project, not exactly for school." She explained what they were doing, ending with, "Not that I don't appreciate learning from Brom Bones, I do. But I just feel like I should be trying everything I can to learn about this… Necromancy stuff, and if there really are others out there, Necromancers who survived with Fossor running around, maybe they can teach me something important."

For a moment, the woman simply stood there, an unreadable expression on her face. Then she offered a faint smile before agreeing, "That's a good idea. There's so much you still need to learn, and dear Mr. Bones probably can't teach you all of it. Not in time anyway." She went silent again, looking thoughtful as she glanced over at her daughter. Her fingers gently brushed through the young girl's hair.

"Yes," she finally announced, "I think it's safe to say you need help to become the person we know you're capable of being. You have so much potential."

Despite her actual words, something in her voice almost sounded off. She sounded regretful or something. It was enough to make both girls look at her uncertainly, until she shook it off. "Never mind that. I'm just sorry you don't have a chance to live a more normal life, both of you. The weight of what we put on you, what the universe puts on you, is absurd." Her eyes met Flick's and a wave of something seemed to pass through her expression before she straightened and spoke firmly. "You don't deserve what's being put on you. I'm sorry that we can't take that away."

Flick hesitated before shaking her head. "Fossor is the one responsible for all this, not you or anyone else here. He's the one who took my mom, the one who did all this evil shit. And he's the one who's going to pay for it. You know, somehow. I'm just glad I'm not alone with this. I really need all the help I can get."

Tabbris bobbed her head up and down quickly in agreement. "Uh huh! And Mama and all the others are gonna make sure he gets the beating he deserves, right, Mama?"

Again, there was the slightest pause before Sariel leaned in to kiss her daughter's forehead as she slowly set the girl back down. "He has earned quite the beating, certainly. And I believe we may be ready to give that to him when the time comes. Especially if Felicity keeps taking her training seriously." As she said that, the woman was already looking back that way. "Speaking of which, I believe Risa wanted to run through a bit of a sparring match with you, to check on your progress. I'll take care of this." Her head nodded toward the computer. "If there are any Necromancers in here that look like promising tutors, I will make a list for you."

There was a moment of hesitation, but eventually Flick agreed. She and Tabbris set off to find Professor Kohaku. Which left Sariel sitting by the computer. She watched them leave, then looked back to the screen. Taking a deep breath, the woman reached out, highlighting several paragraphs of information right at the top of the list the computer had provided while they were talking.

With a single tap, she deleted it.