Time flew by. Harlow and I were more often than not… fighting. If not with cards and magic, with claws, fists, or whatever.
We were fourteen now, and honestly I was amazed we got any work done in our apprenticeship when we were also always fighting one another.
“Another day, another stupid amount of time with edgy mcfluffy prick…” I growled.
“I’m amazed you’ve kept up with this apprenticeship given how much you seem to hate Harlow.” Brandy said as we were playing a normal game of YuGiOh in my house.
“Because I kinda have to?” I offered carefully. “Cause this is my apprenticeship to try and get strong enough to start becoming an All Maker, and if I have to deal with that jerk the entire time I work through cleaning up Nitch’s mess than I have to deal with it…”
“Right, but that also means Harlow would have to be part of it, cause he’s the Chaos to your Order, you two will be going together when it gets to that point wouldn’t you?”
“Probably? I hate it but from what I’ve been told, my ‘partner’ needs to be as strong as me…and either I deal with him or someone worse.” I said carefully.
“Think there is anything that can get you two to get along?” She asked.
“I doubt it, cause as far as he’s shown me he's a spiteful bastard that cares about nothing other than power and a massive superiority complex that I am personally challenging and he hates that.” I admitted. “And I personally find that part hilarious.”
“Huh. Sounds a bit like you, you know.” Brandy said, making me gasp and clench my heart in mock betrayal.
“Brandy, my confidant, why must thou stab mine heart like that?” I asked dramatically.
“I’m just saying. Sometimes you can be a bit egotistical, overconfident, stubborn, rude, and you always have to be in the right when there’s only a small amount of truth in what you’re doing or know.” She said. “The only thing you don’t have is his temper and even that you do have when you both are in the room. No wonder your dads thought you two would be a good pair for Order and Chaos, you two are a lot alike.”
“I am not egotistical, do I look overconfident…I can be stubborn, I try not to be rude…and most of the time I’ve had to constantly have a reason to do thing’s or say stuff before people just call me an idiot and ignore what I do…” I explained
“You’re kinda proving my point about always having to be in the right…” Brandy said, putting down a card. “Also, I win.”
I looked over, looking at my own cards and grumbling, knowing I should have used Evenly Matched last turn…”I’m not proving anything, and I never said I was right, I was pointing out what I am and am not…” I said, scooping up my cards and shuffling again. “Alright, one thing I can correct, do I look confident to you?” I asked, cause besides all the wanton amounts of sheep murder…then slumped my shoulders. ”I…just realized something that I hate so much…”
“You’re in the closet?” She asked, making me drop my cards.
“Woman please.” I whined. “The important thing I’m trying to talk about is that…my stupid training with Harlow is like Sunset and Pureblood’s ‘rivalry’...I should be better than just blatant murder and violence because I don’t like them…but apparently I’m not allowed to…”
“Huh. Well that’s irony at it’s finest.” Brandy said.
“Yes, and it bites because I’m no better than what I’m trying to stop.” I sighed,.
“So… what are you going to do then?”
“No idea at this point…because I’m doing all this so that I can help Equis become a better place, not placate it’s nonsense or worse, to join in on it’s nonsense…but what do I know…” I shook my head bitterly.
“Well, did Harlow tell you why he wanted to become an All Maker?”
“Because he wants to find some dumbass door to the Afterlife and he needs to be ‘the strongest’ to really find it.” I rolled my eyes.
“And you… insulted him for it?”
“Not until he pissed me off enough.” I said honestly. “Before that I was confused why he was only nine years old without a sense of pain constantly acting like he was the greatest thing since sliced bread…”
“Well his dad is a God of War, he probably inherited some useful powers from that, plus his mom is a Goddess of Life so, more than likely a powerful passive healing factor on top of pain nullification and possibly even natural talents for combat and magic in general.” Brandy hummed.
“He said he started working towards being ‘the strongest’ ever since he could start his training.” I said. “Then I asked him why he was so single minded in this goal, that he would throw away everything else just to pursue it…he just gave me a vague ‘well, we’re ageless so why not?’ and left it at that.”
“Well, we are.” Brandy shrugged. “There is a lot we could do in life, with all the time we have. My sisters have all done a lot over the years, but they all usually have one thing they do constantly, for personal or other reasons. It helps keep them centered when they realize just how much time passes, and how fast it can pass when you stop counting the years.”
“Alright, but I know what I’m doing this for.” I admitted. “Oh yeah, he also kept telling me a bunch of ‘you know who your parents are right?’, and should I care? Does me being a griffon dire wolf hybrid mean something magically?”
“... You don’t know who your parents are or what your parents do within The Family?” Brandy asked me like I just grew a second head.
“Who and what?” I asked.
“Mike, your dad is Joy the Paladin, younger brother to All Maker King and veteran of the War for Creation… and your mom, Jenny the Sniper? Also a war Veteran and is skilled in any form of weapon with a trigger regardless of skill, size or design. The two of them are legends and despite not being All Makers are on the same power level as them.” Brandy said.
I blinked, honestly surprised at how well known they were…but that still raised the question…”And…what does that have to do with me?” I asked carefully.
“Everything! Mike, your parents give you your powers just by you being born to them. How quickly or how powerful you are at the beginning of your development depends heavily on what you inherited from them. Not only that, it also determines things like how fast you gain skills and powers in combat, those relating to what you inherit will be easier to get than those not related to them.”
“Uh…huh…” I said slowly. “I…suppose that’s why Harlow keeps getting more and more pissed at me every waking moment I bridge the gap in our strength each time we fight, but after that…I never noticed a single thing that would suggest I was special?” I shrugged helplessly.
“Well, you’ve mostly been using cards and magic, your parents specialized in spears and firearms. Not to mention your mom’s Bloodlust Rage…” Brandy said.
“Okay that I noticed.” I admitted. “The rage is…rather scary sometimes…”
“You really need to talk with your parents about that. Were it anyone other than Harlow you could have really hurt someone if you went off.”
“Well good thing that dad specifically wanted Wolf and Harlow to be my trainers.” I admitted.
“You had your first Bloodlust Rage?!” Dad yelped.
Mom scooped me up and hugged me. “My baby’s finally growing up into their killer instincts!” She cheered.
“I…technically had my first Bloodlust Rage when I was nine…” I admitted sheepishly. “But uh…Brandy seemed to think I was absolutely insane for believing that you two being my parents was…nothing really special?”
“Oh honey, were you ignoring schoolwork and deck building in class back when you were in school?” Mom asked me.
… Eheheh…
“Uh…no?” I said sheepishly. “I was paying attention, I’m getting straight A’s for a reason!” I tried to defend myself here.
“Clearly not paying attention all the time.” Dad sighed. “Thought it was weird you didn’t ask us questions but I figured maybe you talked with your brothers.”
Mom then put me down. “Well, you’re still young Mike, but your powers and abilities can become whatever you want them to be, but at your age they’re heavily aligned towards what your father and I do and have. Think of them like how genetics typically works. You inherited some of our powers and those powers will be strongest in you while you are young and while you grow up they will also grow passively, but once you’re matured you can alter your powers towards what you want to do.” Mom said.
“Right…so should I start using spears and guns then?” I asked carefully. “Cause that’s what Brandy said you two were really good at with…whatever those Titles ment.”
“Well, you will have a natural talent for them.” Dad said. “You can still use your cards, but your potential with them won’t grow until you age into adulthood and your powers mature, letting you control their development.”
“Of course…” I grumbled. “Good to know I’ve more or less been gimping myself through power growth…though I still find it hilarious how fast I’ve been ruining Harlow’s ego with me getting stronger and better than him each fight.”
“Well you do have an unfair advantage.” Mom smirked. “You’re our son. Power wise Wolf and his wife are much lower than we are, so of course you’re going to be more powerful than him with minimal effort. Probably why he hates you so much, he’s training hard for what you got from us.”
… Well now I feel guilty…
“Certainly didn’t seem that way when I had no idea I was this strong or get this strong.” I frowned. “Probably was getting more pissed because I was getting better through me not knowing…well, sucks for him, he’s been an ass to me this whole time when I at least wanted to be friends with him at the start.”
“Now now, don’t be like that.” Dad said. “Some people don’t want friendship until they can prove something, in this case, that he can beat you.”
“Oh, I know! I can bring you to his house, it will be fun and I know he won’t try and attack you immediately around his mom.” Mom said. “Been a while since I spoke to Roxy anyway.”
“Well…hopefully the rest of Harlow’s family is kinder…” I admitted.
“Awe! You’re so fluffy and cute and AH!” The humanoid Guardivor, named Roxy, was hugging me very tight as soon as she saw me. Honestly upon arriving at Harlow’s home I noticed that, first, it was a massive planet filled with various humanoid pokemon people. Apparently some are Wolf’s other Wives, some are Roxy’s other mates, and the vast majority are Harlow’s siblings.
Honestly upon arriving here, I saw Harlow, and wanted to laugh because he was dressed in what looked to be a little sailors uniform… then his mom appeared, made a noise that made my canine ears want to bleed before crushing me in her arms and… rather large… chest…
Now I was in a similar sailor suit, having photos taken while she and mom talked.
When that ended, I was able to escape with Harlow over towards a small forest clearing that had a small pond with a tree next to it. The tree had some makeshift hammock hanging from it.
“So, A, that was mom. She’ll do that a lot. B, why are you here? C, laugh and need I remind you our outfits match and you are not pulling that off…” Harlow said with a frown now that it was just us two.
“Bitch I look better in this than you.” I countered. “But to start…your mom is very energetic when it comes to cute things…and I’m here because mom wanted to talk to your mom and also to try and magically help us become friends.” I admitted.
“... Firstly… don’t… don’t enjoy the outfits… second… not likely.” He said, leaping up into the tree and landing in the hammock. “Just kill time until your mom takes you home.” He sighed.
“Really? That’s all you do?” I asked. “Just sit in a hammock and not do much?”
“I do take breaks and honestly, I’m in no mood to train right now…”
“Cause your mom wanted to see you be a sailor?” I asked.
“Heh, no, shit like this is normal. Has been since I was a baby.”
“Alright, so what’s got your fluff in a twist all of a sudden? Cause you don’t sound like ‘I’m taking a break today so let’s enjoy it’ and more ‘life sucks, I don’t want to do anything today’.” I admitted, cause while being here made us not fight…seeing him just kinda lay there and not even want to take jabs at me felt a little…strange.
“Just been feeling a bit… nostalgic.” He said, sounding… tired.
“Nostalgic?” I inquired. “And…are you okay? I know we’ve been at this for four years but…you’ve never sounded tired before…” I admitted nervously.
“You’re a reborn too, right?” He asked. I nodded. “Well, around this time of year, back in my old life, is when I got sick… when I started dying.”
“O-oh…” I said carefully. “What…did you get sick with?”
“Blood Cancer.” He chuckled. “Just, one day I was fine and good… next, I collapsed at work, woke up with my life cut down to just a month or less.”
“Oh…okay that’s…that’s terrible.” I said in horror.
“Yeah. That’s why I’m obsessed with breaking through that wall to the place beyond Afterlife… See, there was this… guy I liked. I never told him, and one day he just… vanished. No trace or anything. When I was dying I met some…thing called Echo. Said he could take me somewhere my illness means nothing, where I could find him… but my body gave out before I could say anything, and woke up reborn in this body. If he’s there… Then I need to get to him…”
“Well…holding out hope to be with the one you love is good.” I nodded, at least this helps me explain that there’s at least something more to his outlandish need for power.
“Don’t tell anyone now…” He said. “Never got to tell the guy how I felt. Might have been for the best, he didn’t seem into guys… still, out of all my regrets, not telling him is top on that list…”
“I…understand.” I nodded, knowing leaving a world with regrets is always a terrible thing.
“Do you have regrets before you arrived here? I know you… were brought in based on some deal but… any regrets when you were basically kidnapped?”
That made me laugh a little.
“Oh boy…” I sighed. “I…suppose I should have two different isekai regrets…” I sighed. “My first regret…would be I never got to make my parents really proud of me, just got out of high school, was planning on maybe going to college but I could have also done some online stuff, did card games and made money from streaming it or done tournaments…but that’ll never happen…” I sighed. “Second regret…I suppose my regret in Equis, with my new life…I never noticed how wrong everything was until it was too late…till I was doing nothing but getting more confused and angry over Nitch’s bullshit that was affecting my friends and loved ones…”
“Yeah… Nitch sucks.” Harlow agreed.
“Yeah, and I thanked Wolf for dealing with the UwU Shakespeare world.” I admitted. “But…all I was, was confused and mad at my loved ones when they didn’t know better…and now I’ve died twice on Equis and I don’t know whether to tell them off with their nonsense of ‘congrats on dying’...or try and tell them how much I care about them…”
“Ironic considering how often we’ve killed each other and thought nothing of it at this point.” Harlow said.
“Oh, it gets worse when all this reminds me of my first girlfriend and her half sisters relationship.” I groaned. “The first week me and Sunset get back to Equis and save Canterlot from being Carded…her and Pureblood get into an extremely bloody fist fight for no reason…every waking moment they were damn near beating each other to death and I was making it boring for them by trying to stop and heal them before they actually died…little did I know that death means nothing there cause why not…”
“And now you’ve died, came back, and just kept coming at me each time. In the end you became part of the problem you were trying to put a stop to.” Harlow stated.
“Yes, and it fucking sucks.” I growled. “I’m supposed to be better, I agreed to Nitch’s deal so that I could be better, but lo and behold, you get thrown at me and everything just…” I trailed off and lightly rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands in aggravation.
“Well, do you understand at least?”
“Understand what?” I asked, cause there was a lot of things to contemplate here.
“How people from a place where death is meaningless could not understand your confusion at their antics?” Harlow asked. “All the times we’ve gone at one another, I can tell you never gave the killing blow a second thought. Because you knew I’d just get back up. It’s the same for them. They’re used to it, and don’t get why you’re making a big deal out of something they’ve lived their whole lives knowing and are used to. For them, dying while fighting and coming back later is just part of life and is normal.”
“Oh no, that whole thing was because I went into a Bloodlust Rage that I apparently got from Mom.” I said. “Believe it or not I’m…still trying to process the fact that I just…murdered you so many times…that I still feel your blood in my fur and…the taste will never leave…” I shuddered.
“... So… Does that mean my blood tastes good?” He asked.
“You're a sheep, I’m a dire wolf griffon hybrid, even if I want to say no, predator instincts force me to know otherwise.” I shook my head. “But that’s not the point…I murdered you, so many times due to my own instincts and rage…and I hate it…too many night’s over the past five years I’ve cried myself to sleep knowing that if one person is so easy to kill then…suddenly I could just kill everyone else that upsets me…Life is supposed to mean something, not just some paltry shit that can be ignored or act like some vacation spot…”
“Well, coming from someone who did die and got a second chance, I’ll tell you this… Dying was unfair for me. I wanted to live and to do things I wasn’t able to. Now that Death is meaningless to me, I’m not afraid to get hurt or say what I mean. Nothing can stop me from enjoying my new life how I see fit. If I die a few times doing that then I’ll just get back up.”
“It’s still not something I enjoy…Death is hard, but it’s something we all have to go through…making it pointless doesn’t feel right, like what you do in Life would feel more like ‘oh yeah, Jim’s taking a vacation for a week, he’ll be back to life by then and get back to work’...” I tried to give some example of how I feel about this.
“I get that I guess, but that’s what I think you forget, for them, they can still die permanently. Most revival spells only work if the person hasn’t lived the full natural lifespan they could live. So, one day they are gonna die permanently. Then there’s us where… Death is truly meaningless for us. We’re immortal, body and soul so… how does one like us live when we continue past all life?”
“Not cold and unfeeling, where Death is meaningless and we’re above it, where ‘killing’ each other is so commonplace that when actual, real Death happens we won’t just shrug and go ‘well, sucks for them’...” I said carefully. “Where people getting hurt and close to death isn’t just something we shrug at and think it’s just something they’ll get over…”
“... Does that mean to fix that you’ll have to make them experience the pain of real loss? Wouldn’t that hurt them all more in the long run?”
…
“I don’t want to…but from what I’ve been told, just me taking over the world and having them learn that Nitch’s bullshit isn’t reality…I’m scared they’ll all just…break from learning that all their lives weren’t supposed to be so cold, uncaring and contrarian…”
“Sounds like you’re gonna have to be the bad guy in order to do some good.”
“I don’t want to…I want to save people, not destroy things…” I said bitterly.
“...Sometimes in order to fix something, you have to break it and rebuild it entirely.”
"Then…everyone would hate me…I'd be betraying their trust…" I said, putting a hand to my head as my mind decided to show me a bad situation that could happen if this all went through.
“You could… blame me.” Harlow said.
"If you were the one that was causing it that would be true…but I have to reorder what Nitch did and…the order in reality needed would be such a massive tonal shift for everyone…" I groaned. "This keeps getting worse for me…"
“Not if you blame it on me.” Harlow said. “I take the blame and you get a free pass. I am supposed to be the Chaos God in this partnership. Why not make me out as the bad guy then?”
"Because Chaos isn't technically all evil, without Chaos there would be boring blank slate Order, like Jyggalag, just gray bland and boring from the Elder Scrolls…"
“Maybe, but it’s an option.” Harlow said. “At the very least, it puts their hate on me and not you.”
"Maybe…" I sighed. "So…I'd rather get away from this depressing talk…has anyone decided to…tease you about dating?" I asked, my brain deciding to remind me about Brandy's joke to me.
“Heh, mom usually. Some of my siblings.”
"Right, cause Brandy has…decided to start teasing me, both with her and…you…" I said carefully.
“Pft. She probably just knows I’m into guys. Doubt you are though.”
"She joked that I was in the closest and how were so similar…" I huffed. "I still want to date Brandy cause she's…just beautiful…and you…up for debate since everything we've done."
“Pft, is that a pity date offer or do you swing it both ways?” Harlow asked, for once sounding a bit more like his normal self.
"I mean, maybe I do?" I asked. "Who knows…I'm already planning on asking Brandy out soon…gonna need to ask her mom to leash Pegasus for the duration of it though…" I frowned.
“But aren’t you like, well over eighteen?”
"Technically I'm fourteen going through puberty again, and how old were you before all this?" I asked.
“Twenty.” Harlow said.
"Alright." I nodded. "But my point still stands."
“Just seems odd to me. Don’t think I’ll be dating anyone until I and they are both eighteen.”
"Fair." I said honestly.
To be continued...