5:3 Backstory

The Rival was not sure where to begin his story. He stood with his back to Statera, atop one of many mountain peaks that overlooked the first Karmic Valley. The Karmic Realm was not a place he came often, but he figured it would be a good place to meditate on ascending to godhood. Even for ones such as he, the process of ascending to divinity was not always so simple as deciding to. Especially not in a universe like this. It was a long process, no matter what you did, if you wanted to do it right.

And he would do it right, “wanting” be damned.

He watched silently for a time as souls drifted down from the Spirit River. Angels and Karmic Kings and Holy Beasts and a variety of other spiritual beings, such as the Asura, organized them into lines and made sure none split off from the flow. Souls flooded through the lines, a constant stream, the Spirit River continuing to roll by overhead until it picked the souls up at the end of the Karmic Valley, when each was ready for its new task — be it to attend to the Spirit Realm in some capacity, or to bring souls to the next physical place for their reincarnation.

Solana, the great fiery phoenix, was perched on top of the Karmic Palace, watching it all happen, guarding the duties that Keilan had left behind.

“Did you know that I can no longer feel fear?” the Rival asked finally, hands clasped behind his back, as he watched one particular animal soul get lost for just a moment, only for an angel to swoop in and gently drive it back into line. “I’ve forgotten what true fear tastes like. How it sits on the tongue and trembles the hand. Oh, I can still get panicked, a little worried, concerned even, but they are fleeting things, nothing like true existential dread. Not even encounters with the Shadow or the Void, which can obliterate my soul, make me truly fear anymore. I avoid it, and get scared when it’s used against me, but it’s not…it’s not real fear, or terror. I wonder what other emotions I have forgotten?”

Statera was thankfully silent, letting him proceed as he wished. He chewed on nothing, the working of his jaw fueling the story building in his mind.

“I would love to say that I do not remember who I used to be, but the gift of the Monkey Wrench is also its curse. I remember that overzealous young being I once was, and I know what I lost to get here. Things that were so important to me back then are so much less important to me now. I am sure to some degree you know of what I speak. The older I get, the more I see, the less I know, the more I learn to let it go. The death of a single individual means less to me now than it ever did. Tragedies and trauma and all those petty things everyone gets so worked up about — I do not care anymore. I see the entire thing as a whole: a whole problem, a whole solution, less and more. It’s…”

“Perspective,” Statera finished softly. He nodded slowly, gnawing on his lower lip as Solana shrieked and winged into the sky, fire trailing from her wings. She was doing a poor job of pretending not to listen.

“I used to think that our constant reincarnation — starting over from the base, as much as we could, again and again — was just to remind us of the little things. Warriors choose things to fight for; that is one of the most common similarities between all the universes I’ve been to. Warriors choose a reason to fight, and often it is for something small. A person, a place, a thing. Their attachment to that drives them forward. I believed that this process we endure was to remind us of this, to continually give us small things to fight for. I now know that that is not necessarily the case. We had to start from the bottom and work our way up to find and purge the things we did, the viruses I believe I once told you about, the ones the Monkey Wrenches were originally designed to fight.” He turned to face Statera. “You asked me why I fear the First. I do not. Not entirely. He has forgotten...no, he is…” He trailed off, looking for the words, searching for the story or idea or anything he could possibly think of that would get his point across.

He could tell her about the times when they were first made. The First made first, of course, and the Rival made originally as the Second, the Lieutenant to the General. He could talk about the universes they saved, the universes they’d watched burn as those viruses multiplied and fled from universe to universe, hopping like the Monkey Wrenches were designed to do, leaving destruction and corruption and death in their wake. Now, they felt like small stories, mostly. It was such a long time ago now that he did not have the full thought, the full histories; they did not carry the emotion they once did. Just detached, and empty. Trauma through a looking glass.

“The first universe we watched burn was a Heart universe. That was where the viruses started, the ones we were created to stop, because the Heart is, well, as I’m sure you’re aware, very important. This one had been a standard fantasy world, at one point. Well, sort of. It’s funny, actually — it was the direct successor of the first fantasy world, the one that introduced the concepts of what you would call Western fantasy to the multiverse at large. It was the first universe we ascended to godhood in. There were twelve of us back then, and we banded together to fight the so-called ‘demon lord.’ It was a pyrrhic victory. We slew it, but failed to save the universe.

“I remember how it felt to watch all those beings die, to feel the weight of it on my shoulders. The viruses had infiltrated deep, corrupting gods, turning them to their side like a cancer. And yet, it wasn’t the demon lord that truly destroyed the universe. It was the First and I. We were given permission, practically ordered, to bring the universe down, the order coming from the deity that governed the Heart Cluster. What else could we do but obey? We blamed the destruction of the universes on the viruses, but the truth of the matter was that they wanted the universes for their own, and when said realms got too far gone we had to exterminate them — destroy them, if we could not stop the virus from taking over — or else the infection spread further and further, exactly like a cancer. Every universe they took was one more weapon in their arsenal. The Overgod was no help, busy as he was with the origin of the threat, not the mere symptoms. That, I think, was the part that hurt the most to learn: we were treating the symptoms, not the actual disease.

“I want you to understand that, Statera. I had just watched a universe burn, and the worst part for me back then was that I was not fighting the same fight as the Overgod. I was not fighting in what I thought was the right place. I did not cry that day. The First did. That’s how righteous I felt. I don’t think you would have liked me much back then.”

Statera took the Rival’s pause as an opening to repeat something from long ago. “No, perhaps I wouldn’t have. But I know who you are now,” she said, and the Rival smiled sadly.

“I know, but that doesn’t make me not feel the same shame. And that’s also the point. After the war was over, after far too many universes burned to kick out the viruses, the first generation of Monkey Wrenches was given the option to settle down. It didn’t matter if it was in a universe we had been to before, or in a universe of the Overgod’s or Cluster gods’ choosing. I never did get a full count of how many of us first generation there were, and many did choose to go back to old universes; I think some of them became gods, or protector deities. Others, of course, elected to keep wandering and fighting until they found a place to settle down. The First and I traveled together, willingly, back then — he the gentleman general, the wandering gun hand who doled out justice, and I his right hand. The First would sought to continue the good fight, to stop the injustices and the things that would cause a universe to burn, and I went because I was a warrior who had not yet learned to set down his sword.

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“Funny thing is, my rivalry with the First started off as jokes. I would mess up his plans when I thought he was taking something far too seriously, and he would mess up mine. You know that kind of feeling when someone’s working on something and you shut off the lights in the room, and you shout, and you’re cackling? Or when you pull the plug on a tool in their workshop, like a saw or amp, and you watch them panic for a moment, wondering why the hell it stopped working? That was what I was doing to the First. But that was also, I guess, the start of it. Because you’ve seen how I am now — not perfect by a long shot, still don’t know how to set down my sword, but I discovered the value of the little things. I could always enjoy a sunset, but now those little things are what I look forward to the most in new universes. The time it takes a bird to shift on a branch, or flowers, swaying in the breeze. The lives of people, mundane and glorious and boring all at once. The path of a soul that had built up too much negative karma in a past life and burned it away by journeying through, just living, just existing next to people. Some never reaching higher, some striving for greater heights but never reaching it. Other souls, able to settle, but most struggling, methodically looking for more but never finding it. Birds and bees and plants and insects, all of it, all of them, mundane and supernatural. All became equal in my eyes. When I realized that, I learned why the First wept when that first universe burned.”

The Rival trailed off, lost in memory, war and peace playing in his mind’s eye. Statera shocked him back to the waking world with a simple comment.

“And the First forgot it?” she asked. And the Rival chuckled. It was not a nice chuckle; in fact, it was a very, very dark one.

“Quite the opposite, Stat,” he said. “Those became the only things he cared about. He stopped seeing the forest for the trees, fixating now on the smaller things more than the greater. I can’t pin down what the hell’s wrong with him, what changed him, what makes him what he is. He didn’t go from that general to a wholly different person — just to the same person with a confused outlook on life. He’s lost himself along the way, but he’s still noticeably himself. He is the type to weep over beautiful things, to mourn a dead garden and step over countless bodies to get there. I have no better way to describe him than that.

“What you call fear, I call caution. The First is just like me, and you have no idea the things that we are truly capable of. Until recently I had never met an origin deity — or at least I thought I hadn’t. We’ve received plenty of orders from such deities, but never physically met them. Now that I have, I am more certain than ever of what he and I are missing, and why we were never chosen to create our own universes. And I’m becoming less and less certain that he will ever see it. I think he’ll keep trying to make his perfect world, no matter what stands guard against it. And the part I did not say aloud before — the part I am saying to you now — is that his hunger and my chase are the same shape. The only difference between him and me is that I still get up in the morning and watch the people, instead of just the trees. I fear the day that difference no longer exists.”

Statera was silent for a moment. “I see. I think… I’m not certain I share your concern, but as you said, I have truthfully not seen what someone like you or the First is capable of. The Mad Scientist is wonderful, but she has been very measured in her actions, seeking to understand what we have been creating here rather than to alter it. I’d liken her to one of those cameramen from the old nature documentaries, forced to sit and watch as the world goes by around them. That, I believe, is what she is like.”

“You know that rebellion going on in the Physical Realm? The Original Sin, I believe the Mad Scientist called it, the one that’s been put on the back burner for you because everything else is just so crazy right now? That’s something that would have been inflamed by the First’s mere presence. He probably wouldn’t have even tried. Just been in the right place at the right time and said the wrong thing. His very nature is to be drawn to those big events. Or such events are drawn to him.” The Rival shook his head. “It’s annoying. I have to go looking for them, but that’s another part of my concern. Not that he’ll necessarily, willingly, openly interfere at first, but that he’ll just appear there. And this? All of this? It’s the biggest thing I believe has happened around either of us in a long time.” Which wasn’t completely true, but wasn’t completely untrue, either. Universes died all the time. Cluster universes were far more rare. Whatever this was, even moreso.

Statera hummed and nodded, looking up at the sky absently. “If you are so serious about it, I will take it seriously also,” she said.

“I want you to know that if he does end up showing up here, despite being in another universe at the moment, I will stop him. Whatever his plan is, whatever his non-plan is, he will not be allowed to gain traction. And I apologize in advance if I show you a side of me that you do not approve of.”

Statera laughed at him then, tossing her head back, her amusement audible in the way the Spirit River splashed, in the rumble of the stones beneath his feet, in the Will of the Four Realms itself. “I appreciate that. But I do not think my approval is what matters, nor do I care to approve or disapprove of any part of you. You forget; all I ask is that you know yourself.”

The Rival grinned, a weight lifting off his shoulders at the vague reassurance. It was a silly thing to feel, he knew, because there was no guarantee she would not see him differently if his worst fear came to pass. But as they say: pray for the worst, hope for the best. But reassured he still felt.

He let out a breath, planted his feet, squared his shoulders, feeling what divinity he had been nurturing pulse a little within him. “Good. Then—”

Statera cut him off, the air in his lungs refusing to move as she shot him a mock little glare and stood. He was frozen in place as she took two steps forward, gliding across the ground, and set one hand on his shoulder and the other on his chest, just above his heart, her power wrapping around the divinity within him.

“Which is why I will not let you take the next step yet.” And she tore a chunk of it out.

It hurt. The Rival most definitely did not react to it beyond the slight tensing of his shoulders, in front of the girl he liked. Such would be the shame of a man! No matter how much it stung!

“Honesty with the self. All I did was remove the parts that were lies.” She patted his head like a parent to a child, despite him being far, far older than her. He chuckled, amused.

“Fine, fine.” He rubbed his chest. “That’s what I need, though — what you have in your hand right there.”

“I don’t care what you think you need. I care about who and what you are, and that you know it too. I will come for you when it is time for the meeting. And Rival? Thank you for sharing.” And just like that, she was gone, and the Rival was left alone as he had wanted.

He took a deep, shuddering breath and rubbed his chest, curling over, groaning in pain. “Ow. That hurt.” He finally allowed himself to feel it, this one ache, as he sat back down and considered his own soul. He didn’t need to relive everything in his memories again. But he did need to sort some things out, and on that, at least, Statera was right — because no transformation such as godhood should be undertaken without knowing himself first.

And there was one thing he had not let her take, because it was not a lie to take. Under the chase, in the place the fear used to live, sat the quiet, patient wanting of a tired man who had found something beautiful and did not want to leave it. He pushed it back down where it had to stay until his duty was done, the way he always did, and told himself, again, that getting up in the morning was the only thing that made him different from the First. One day, he supposed, he would learn whether that was true.