NOVEL NEXT 399. Come
Ike flashed toward Brightbriar, punching toward the man. As he closed in, Brightbriar waved his hand. A door appeared in front of him and opened miliseconds before Ike impacted it, swinging inward to allow him into a new space. Ike stumbled over a shiny steel floor, his punch whooshing through empty air. He kicked off the ground and instantly retreated, only for his shoulders to hit a thick wall instead.
Puppets floated in glass vats of liquid on all sides of him. Human-sized vats holding human-sized puppets, the transparent greenish fluid bubbling gently all around them.
Another door opened at the far side of the space, hundreds of meters away, and Brightbriar stepped through. He walked away, vanishing into the aisles.
"Get back here!" Ike shouted. He chased after Brightbriar, racing at his top speed, only to see Brightbriar vanish into another door. He gritted his teeth and followed, but the door slammed shut in his face. He slammed into the door, and it splintered, but simply became wooden splinters on the floor rather than letting him through to whatever laid behind it.
Ike looked around. Brightbriar appeared at a walkway on the second floor, his robes swishing as he vanished into yet another doorway. This doorway wasn't magical, though, but simply a way through to the next space.
"Get back here," Ike grumbled. He charged forward and leaped off the ground, purple lightning chasing after his heels as he landed on the second floor. He chased after Brightbriar again, only to find himself alone in a large room once more. The room hurtled upward, an enormously tall tower that was hollow in the inside and sought to pierce the sky. Ike looked up, already predicting Brightbriar's next move. He'd separated them by height once, so why not do it again?
"You know, I didn't foresee the Unique movement skill I gave you becoming such a problem," Brightbriar commented, ten floors up. "Movement skills are the second-weakest kind of Unique skill, after support skills. I truly did not foresee you transcending it into a System-breaking speed-and-enhancement skill with no parallel."
Ike kicked off the ground and bounded off the railings, chasing after Brightbriar, up, up, up the tower. Brightbriar vanished into a door before he reached the man, only to appear on the other side, seven floors down. "I didn't have any expectations when I cast you away. I thought you might live or die, and I would send Llewyn to collect your body when it was over. When you survived childhood, I thought I might toss you a bone. Let you escape with that Unique skill."
"Did you orchestrate that?" Ike asked, dropping down, even though he knew Brightbriar would leave before he got there.
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Brightbriar turned, and Ike landed two floors down, rather than plunging the full seven. Brightbriar reappeared above him, far higher than he'd ever appeared before, and still out of Ike's reach, despite his brilliant ploy.
If Wisp or Mag were here, we'd have this guy, Ike thought, vaguely annoyed.
"Orchestrate it? The theft? No, that was merely happenstance. Allow you to escape with the Unique skill? Yes, that I allowed. Or did you think my men were truly so incompetent as to miss a mortal radiating a powerful Unique aura?"
"I dunno, they seemed pretty incompetent to me," Ike said. He stood still, rather than waste his time chasing Brightbriar, tilting his head back to look at Brightbriar on his new perch.
Brightbriar chuckled. "I admit, I didn't pay overmuch attention to the plight of my mortal citizens. Perhaps that was a failing of mine, but it's one that doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things."
"Yeah, I bet," Ike grumbled, crossing his arms. This was the problem with immortal mages… or at least, overly-long-lived mages. They forgot. They forgot what it meant to be mortal, and struggle every day to eke out enough of a living that they could fill their bellies. Brightbriar was the worst of them. He didn't remember a thing. He wasn't human at all. Compared to Ike, despite Wisp's questions and probing, despite the fact that he was a fragment of the greater being… compared to Ike, Brightbriar was much less human. He was the being known as a mage, and he'd completely forgotten every piece of his humanity.
Ike's eyes widened as he realized it, finally. Brightbriar's punishment. His obsession with dolls and puppets. The fragments, always failing. His search for the perfect version of the greater being, which could never come to fruition. His lack of interest in humans, mortals, or even low-level mages, and his assumption that he was always correct, even when he made the worst decision or chose the exact wrong path for his child. The gentlest, and harshest punishment. It all came together, all of it building toward one conclusion.
"You don't remember, do you? You don't remember being a human. No… you don't remember being a weak mage, or even…" Ike looked at Brightbriar, as the depths of the situation sunk in. "You don't remember your time with the greater being, do you? You don't remember him. All this time, you've been desperately clawing your way to recreate him, because… because you remember that he was important to you, but you can't remember anything about him, or anything from before whatever happened with you and the greater being and everyone else involved in that."
Brightbriar's face contorted for the first time, irritation flashing over his face. "You understand nothing."
"Oh, but I do. Do you think that you can remember everything, if only you perfectly recreate him?"
Brightbriar's face twitched.
Ike laughed. "As if that fog-lady will turn back into human. As if anything that has been done to you, can be undone. You'll die like this, even if you can recreate the greater being. You can't take back what's been taken from you. Your memories are gone forever. Those days will never come back. You'll have to live the rest of your life with that bitter feeling of missing the most important part of yourself, the best days of your life, and you'll never get it back."