The Lewd Age of Superheroes Pt. 07

"I don't have the right."

"I thought you would have been angry at Exiled Prince, at first. Blamed it on him."

"He didn't make the gun. Didn't fire it. Didn't escape from the heroes instead of getting her help first. I always told her-"

"I know." Grey Sentinel paused. "How did you start the infection?"

"I infected myself first. Asked a random heroine for directions and just...waited."

"That's it?"

"That's it." Cody sighed and seemed to shrink in on himself. His body slowly writhed as though from some vague ache. Grey Sentinel pondered the man for a while and then slowly drew out the knife.

"I see." The man's voice was calm. "Are you sure?"

"I understand," said Grey Sentinel, "why. Why you wanted it to end. The violence. The conflict." He paused. "The deaths."

"But?"

"What you've created- it's a fake thing. It's a charm, a mental control. An illusion."

"Given time, it will rewrite the rules of the world. Nudge people together, turn conflict into pleasure. It can become real."

"It's not people's choice. You took away their right to decide on the right path."

"I know."

"I have to undo it."

"If you undo it now, if you break the spell- well. It will unravel. Some of those that were bound together, they will stay. They will remember their happiness and seek it anew on their own. But for so many others..."

"That's their choice."

"It will start again. The suffering. The anger..."

"That's the way the world is."

"But is it the way the world should be?" The man's voice was a whisper as Grey raised the knife. "Don't you wish for a kinder world?"

***

Grey stood silently before two lonely graves. He held an unbloodied knife in his hands.

Movement behind him. "Heya, Teach."

"Apprentice." He smiled. "Thank you for your swift thinking."

"It wasn't anything much like that," his young apprentice shrugged. "They were our friends, you know. And they were all still themselves. I just couldn't believe that when worst came to worst, they wouldn't have come."

"So you found and destroyed the jammer that Pit Mistress had placed to stop the warning. The warning I assumed they had heard and ignored."

"I just...sorry, but that defence stuff looked like a couples thing and I didn't want to play gooseberry, you know?

"Play gooseberry?"

"I like old books. So. We're not stopping it, are we? The curse."

"No." He let the knife fall from his hands. "If that's what it ever was."

She let out a long sigh. "Oh, good." She turned. "You can come out now!"

Rustles in the bushes. Voices.

Barrow Witch stepped out, wearing a black dress that hugged to her curves. Endless too, her dusky form clad in a pale shirt and skirt. She smiled at him, and the sad curve of her mouth tugged at his heart.

And behind him, dressed in a shirt and trousers...

"Master?" He gaped at the sight of the Dark Jailor walking the mortal realm. "But if you are here?"

"The denizens of the Dark Realm are quite occupied, it seems." His master smiled at him. "They are engaged in a millennia-long multidimensional orgy that defies all description. So I am free to abandon my post, despite the...interesting...view."

"How?"

"I talked to Endless," said Apprentice. "And then I talked to Barrow Witch. And then she had a word with her masters. And then, well..." She sighed and entwined her fingers with the Dark Jailor. "I always had a thing for older men, and, well, like he said. Interesting view."

"The protection of the Dark Realm..."

"Can be circumvented," said Barrow Witch, "if the user allows it." She exchanged a glance with Endless. The two women stepped forward. "Nathan. It's time."

"Time?"

Endless reached across to touch his face. "You've fought for so long. And so hard. But it's time to relax and let go."

"The world you sought...it's come to pass," murmured Barrow Witch, lightly touching his arm. "It's here. It's time to join it."

Grey Warden froze. He felt the heat of their skin, the faintest tremors of the world around him. He had made a promise.

(A promise that had been fulfilled.)

He had a duty.

(A duty that had ended.)

He had to remain strong and vigilant.

(Against who? Against what?)

He closed his eyes, feeling their touch on his skin.

And let go.

There was the faintest murmur, like the world shivered in delight, soft and gentle and over in a moment.

He smiled and opened his eyes to a kinder world.