= Alexander "Xander" Cirillo - M - The Dragon Lord's Descendant - Mentions: N/A =

Xander thought, for a moment, that he’d just leave whenever the flow of the crowd allowed him. He wanted to rush back home as quickly as possible, forget he’d ever been out here and just go back to bed. It didn’t take long before he realized that that chance would never come, though -- the crowd rushed before him, a moving mass with barely any space between any given two bodies as people rushed to get into their places for a better view of the largest screen in the city. It would probably be comparable to a raging torrent, or an opened dam, or whatever comparisons a person could think of when mild annoyance wasn’t scratching away all of their brain power. Alas, his state did not allow for much except for quiet fuming as Xander attempted to blend into his surroundings and warm up a little so he could wait out the next half hour so people could fuck off and clear out.

It took a few minutes of staring into a crowd out of a cold, dark alleyway like an idiot before anything changed. His gaze flickered back up to the screens as he spotted movement in his peripheral vision -- ah, fuck, finally, something was happening. Evidently, the time had crawled a little closer to the main event -- up there was Emery (no, no -- the future King), waving and smiling to the booming cheers of the crowd that threatened to blow Xander’s eardrums out as the camera zoomed unnecessarily close to their face.

He pressed his lips into a thin line, pausing in his jostling around for warmth in order to watch with furrowed brows as the future King came up to the microphone, settling over the mic and sending an instant hush over the crowd. Even the people in the city had, miraculously, shut up.

And then they preceded to work the crowd.

Basic crowd working skills were pretty damn difficult to master. Xander certainly couldn’t do it -- his work was mostly pre-recorded stuff, and he never could garner up enough enthusiasm in order to get people excited. It was impressive to him, then, how the soon-to-be King managed to garner so much genuine energy to hype up the crowd. The people at the Hall certainly seemed enthusiastic, at least, which was to be expected -- the only people who would manage to get in there are the super-rich and obsessive fans. The people at the festival were different, though, since a lot more people were there just to have fun and to see a once-in-a-lifetime deal rather than to celebrate the King themself -- still, even they seemed to be energized by the speech, not talking over them and watching the screen intently with bated breath. He could feel the energy in the room, and that, in itself, was impressive. He and Emery had gone down similar paths, in the end, but they were probably more suited for theirs.

(note: things are going to get a little bit god-mod-y here, but just let it happen. i’ll get in trouble, you won’t. needs to happen for the plot so just trust me bro)

With the bow that marked the end of the speech, the almost-King turned and began the walk over to the altar. It, really, wasn’t something that should have been as suspenseful as it was -- it was only ten, twenty feet at most, and yet cameras flashed and showed the trek from every possible angle as they made their merry way over to the area where their life would change.

The altar itself was a beautiful thing. It was a small, incredibly ornate pillar on which rested the crown the first King had donned and afterward every King to follow, decorated with gold and jewels and made to rest comfortably on plush velvet. Before it were several snow-covered arches that the king was made to walk under, the light reflecting off the snow and onto their outfit as they slowly came to rest before the crown.

He swore it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop, then -- there wasn’t a single sound save the rustling of the King’s robes as they knelt, bowing their head and resting their hands in their lap, murmuring;

“Bestow what you will upon me, O Kings of the past; grant me the power of the King of the future.”

Silence. The crowds across the country held their breath and waited.

...

And they waited,

And they waited.

It took a minute before restlessness turned to unease. The crowd began to murmur, shifting as they tried to figure out if this was supposed to happen. Had they been scammed? Were the previous stories of a spirit coming down to crown the King been a lie?

Suddenly, the camera moved, positioning itself to movement that’d begun stirring in the sky, and the crowd shut up again. Finally, the spirit was here. It was a minute or two late, but it was here --

... or, two were.

Or three. Or four.

... Hm.

Within the sky, faint wisps of color were stirring, bringing relief to the masses as they eagerly awaited the proper ceremony. Those faint wisps soon split into four, which, in itself, was a matter of concern -- concern that turned to horror when the wisps began to form the shape of humans. Not one, but four. Even the claim of humanity became unclear when wings burst forth from the form of one and an inhumanly gaunt figure formed from another, and yet one thing was clear -- none of these beings, as they may be, were the first King.

Four pairs of feet lighted on the ground. Of the four, none were particularly normal-looking. One, standing the most to the left, was a rather short man with long, black hair, fingers clasped together in a fidgeting motion as startlingly red eyes flickered about the crowd, bringing to attention the strange shape of his left pupil -- an hourglass, which seemed fitting to the rest of his getup. He wore green, fancy attire with gold decorating the rim and vest; to one gold chain, in particular, was attached a stopwatch, though it seemed to have been long broken, its hands hanging limply to shake at every movement. The man either didn’t notice or didn’t care, still taking it after a few moments of being on the ground to stare at it with a furrowed brow.

Beside him was a tall, inhumanly gaunt woman with high cheekbones and long lashes. Her hair covered most of her face, falling straight across her back and nose; her eyes, however, were in full display from where they were trained in a gawking stare on the sky, so dark a black that no light could save it from its blank expanse. She wore all-black as though she were at a funeral, her long skirts flowing about her legs to drag on the floor.

On the far right was a seemingly middle-aged man with a thick, black goatee and unnaturally dazzling eyes of seemingly every color. His hair was close-shaven and his teeth-showing grin was almost as dazzling as his eyes, though that had absolutely nothing on his outfit. The man was dressed like a crow’s nest, covered in shinies and colors; it was difficult to look at with how bright it all was and how hard everything clashed, considering he seemed to have stitched together just about everything he found pretty and called it fashion. Perhaps there was a bit of charm to it, to some; to most, though, it was just an eyesore.

Xander, however, was more focused on the person next to her.

Tall. White hair. Blue eyes. Wings. Dragon wings.

She was taller than all the rest of the arrivals with long, white hair that she’d put up in a ponytail. Small braids crossed from behind her ear to meet the area she’d put her hair up. Horns rose from her head, pulling back most of her bangs to reveal her piercing blue eyes. She wore armored clothes, though the armor pulled back in the areas where white scales and spikes poked through, custom-tailored to not get torn apart by her draconic features.

It was only then that Xander figured out what was happening.

The Dragon Lord.

She should be dead. She should be dead.

“Is this a prank?” Someone in front of him muttered, and Xander found himself shaking his head, even though they certainly couldn’t see him. No, no, it couldn’t be a prank, it couldn’t be, why were her horns, her hair, white? Why were her eyes blue? Why did she look just like him, why did she have the traits he was meant to inherit? He’d heard about the tales of the draconic god, the only person he could’ve possibly gotten these traits, and his suspicion was only growing by the moment as the woman’s lips parted to speak and showed the flash of fangs underneath.

“How disappointing.” The camera was shaky, so he couldn’t get a good view of the woman’s expression on the screen, though he could probably guess it was one filled with spite. Her voice, as clear as it was through the speakers set up along the city, certainly seemed to suggest it. “Two millennia and this is all our dear friend could come up with?”

“What ugly architecture,” The rainbow-eyed man commented, prodding at one of the arches with an unimpressed look on his face.

The woman did not look at him. “Your taste in architecture is worse, dear.”

“Pfffff.”

The other woman didn’t seem to be paying attention to the conversation, her gaze still fixed upon the sky. Her lips were moving, too quiet to hear from the cameraman’s distance; it became clearer when she repeated the movement, steadily growing louder, that what she was saying was “spirits”.

“Spirits,” She suddenly interjected at full speaking volume after the white and black-haired gods’ conversations were finished. “I can’t see the spirits. The air is too thick. Oh, friends,” She cried, clasping her hands together, “what have they done to the sky?”

The man with the stopwatch patted her on the shoulder, partially reassuringly and partially out of urgency. “I hope you recall we don’t have much time today?” He half-said, half-murmured to her. “Say your piece and leave, friend; you may deal with the spirits afterward.”

She seemed to steel up a bit from this, her gaze finally falling from the sky in order to flicker about her surroundings before eventually falling upon Emery.

“You,” She said, taking a step forward. “You must be the current era’s King.”

She took a few more steps forward. At this, the security in the area seemed to recover from their shock and come to life, rushing towards the scene --

The winged woman nonchalantly waved a hand, causing earth to rise out of its place and wall off the area. The camera shook violently and dropped to the floor, coming to lie on its side (though it seemed to have not been walled off, allowing onlookers to still view the scene); this left Emery, the gods and the one or two cameras that weren’t blocked, able to record the moment that the gaunt woman stood before the young King to place her hand on their shoulders.

“You banish me,” She spoke coldly, “and then you neglect your spirits? Neglect your skies, the places that harbor life? What a pitiful world you’ve left for your living. Perhaps it’d be better fit for the dead.”

Her grip on their shoulders tightened, and she leaned forward, eyes dark enough to consume their very being.

“I hope that you’re left with no living to govern.”

She shoved them back, then, done with speaking to them. They were caught by the man with the multicolored eyes, who held onto them to steady them as he looked past at the altar through a half-lidded stare.

“Such a boring place,” He drawled. “All white and smooth edges. No color, no detail, no jagged edges or blocks or anything interesting. Really, what have you done with this place, old friend? You’ve made a place filled with color and shape so simple and smooth.”

He leaned forward, placing his head on Emery’s shoulder so that they’d be able to see him.

“I hope your land falls to nothing but chaos.”

He pulled away, shoving them toward the other man in the group, who pulled them to their feet and steadied them. When he was sure they were perfectly fine, he gave them an empathetic and sad look.

“What a terrible fate you’ve led your kingdom to,” He eventually spoke. “I wonder if this really was the best option.”

He said nothing more, letting go of them and stepping back to let the final god step into view, standing in front of Emery and looking down at them with an odd, unreadable expression on her face.

“We’ll be going, now.” She told them. “Prepare your kingdom for what’s to come. It’s your legacy, isn’t it? Weren’t you meant to be sworn into protecting it today? I’m sure that you want to keep it from harm. It’s two millennia worth of your ancestor’s legacy, the result of hard work and blood, sweat, and tears.”

She crouched down, making sure the two were eye-level. “Try to protect it. I’m sure you’ll try your best.”

She smiled.

“It’s only then that we’ll get to see the face of the King as all he wished to protect crumbles underneath his gaze.”

In the next moment, she was gone.

The earth blocking some of the screens' view had fallen back into its initial place, allowing onlookers to see the stunned faces of the security as they checked the King and area for damage. They found nothing -- everything was untouched, seeming almost as though the gods had never arrived if not for the forming bruises on the King’s shoulders where the Reaper had held them.

... That was, at least, in the Grand Hall.

Xander’s eyes moved a few centimetres upward from the screen, focusing on the stern face that’d suddenly materialized a foot before him.

Ah.

“Alexander.” She lighted down on the floor, her wings flapping once in order to gather her balance. Her voice sounded deeper, more stern, when she was directly in front of him than when she was up on the screen. Xander felt like he was about to die.

“Did you really have to go down this path?” Her tone was that of a disappointed mother as she stepped towards him. He stepped back. “A social media influencer. Really,” she shook her head once, “the scales aren’t for show.”

She stopped, letting out a long sigh. “But it’s fine, I suppose. You’ve done what you’ve done. There’s no going back.”

There was a brief pause as she thought to herself, looking down at Xander. After a moment, her hand reached out, brushing the hair out of his face, scaring the absolute shit out of him. She didn’t seem to notice that, though.

“I’ve done something I can’t go back on, too.” She told him. Her voice was strangely soft. “I’m sure you’ve already seen it. The technology these days is something I’ve never seen before, but I’m sure you already know.” She sighed again. “I don’t want innocents to get caught up in this. The others do, but -- really, really, all I want to see is the King falling. He betrayed us and destroyed our legacy, so the least we can do is return the favor, don’t you agree?” She paused for a moment, almost as if to let him speak.

He didn’t.

She went on before he could, anyway (which led him to believe she never meant for him to respond), saying “The world will soon fall apart. I’m sure you’ll have your own hand in it. I must request of you, however, that you refrain from harming innocents. Please, make sure no one other than those who deserve it get caught up in this. The others will be careless, but I cannot accept the same from you.”

She stepped forward again, placing both her hands on Xander’s shoulders as he gawked up at her. “Protect the world. If you can’t do that, then find whatever it is you wish to protect and defend that with your life. I’ve entrusted my legacy to you. Prove that you deserve it.”

There was a flash of blue eyes, and then she was gone.

Xander stared at the space where she was standing, and was briefly cognisant of the crowd that’d formed around the alleyway before he promptly fainted.

--

The Timekeeper appeared above a crowd.

He materialized a bit above where his descendant was, drawing many terrified and confused stares alike as he scanned the crowd with a furrowed brow and a bitten lip.

“Ah -- Monika,” He eventually said, seemingly delighted as he lighted down on the ground, the crowd, luckily for him, having the common sense to clear the area so that he had a 10 foot radius to stand on as he stood face-to-face with his descendant.

He briefly glanced at the crowd. “I was hoping we could meet with a little bit fewer people around,” he commented before looking back to his descendant’s face, “but there’s not much to do about that, I suppose. I’ve not much time.”

He then, unceremoniously, began his monologue.

“Life was better, once. I had my allies, everyone else had theirs -- it was happy for all of us, for me. It was better, then. I’m sure you have the ability to return it to how it was.” He reached out a hand, pressing his palm to her cheek and forcibly activating her first ability.

He kept his hand there for a few moments, long enough for her to see the history of the gods and their bonds, before he eventually pulled away, eyes sparkling. “Do you see? We were happy before, and far more powerful than we were now. The others wish for revenge, but I care not. I’d rather have things return to how it was, that we all get to see our descendants flourish with the bonds that’d allow them to grow to their best potential. Doesn’t that sound lovely, Monika?”

He stepped away, clasping his hands together and beginning to fidget once more. He seemed about ready to leave, but he paused, a sheepish expression coming over his face.

“Ah, but I do have one more request.” His eyes seemed to come unfocused, staring right past Monika as if imagining something. “I had a library, once.”

He gestured, vaguely, in the air, as if trying to form something with his hands. “It was big and filled with information. Just about everything I could find out about the world, about history. Scientific things, recollection of adventures, speciation on characters, all of that; all things from my time and long, long before it. I lived a long time and recorded a lot of things. It should all be there.”

His hands fell, then, as his gaze lowered from the sky to the ground. “I’m afraid I don’t remember where this library is. I made it two millennia ago, so perhaps it’s in ruins, buried in the ground. I could not tell you. My life’s work.”

He stopped talking for a moment before looking back up to Monika’s face. “But now you’re here!” He cried. “Perhaps you could recreate it, fill in the information I’ve missed; perhaps you can even uncover it and add to it!” He smiled, clapping his hands together, before he lowered his voice for his next statement. “There’s some information there -- dangerous, dangerous. Speculations about my, our, demise or whatnot. I hesitate to ask you to burn those, but perhaps you can hide them away before anyone else comes to find them? Just look for it, if you could. I’d appreciate it.”

He sighed before glancing up at the sky. “Ah, ah, no time, no time -- I’ve better go, dear. A word of advice; when I’m gone, you’ll have an ability -- see the paths of the future and all that. You’ll see. Try using it to escape this crowd, mm? Go somewhere where you’ll be alone. Better off that way, believe me.”

He pat Monika on the shoulder with a brief “good luck”, and as fast as he’d come, he was gone.

--

The Unicorn King appeared, rather unfortunately, in the cramped confines of a truck.

“Coming through, coming through, god on the loose,” He called, shoving aside some poor shmuck as he landed feet-first in the truck with a loud “thunk” and made his way over to Petyr.

“Mind accompanying me a minute, kid?” He asked, grabbing onto his descendant’s arm -- not that he’d give him a chance to answer, no; he was more intent on leading him out of the truck as quickly as possible, flicking a hand in order to seal off the others at the scene with a bending of metal as soon as they hit the ground outside of it.

“Don’t worry, they’re safe in there. I’ll let them out in a minute. Or you could do it yourself, your choice,” He told him, patting him on the shoulder on what he hoped to be at least a mildly reassuring gesture. “Just listen, alright? I’ll make it quick.”

He pat Petyr on the back once more before he started his story. “So, you saw that whole scene, right? Doesn’t matter if you didn’t, it makes no difference to me. Either way, things are going to go to shit in a little bit. You’re going to help me, alright?”

He stepped back from Petyr, making some grand, vague gestures with his hands as he continued on, saying, “Now’s your chance to really start some shit. I’m talking do whatever you want. Really, whatever you want. We’re starting the apocalypse, here -- there are no consequences whatsoever. Think of it like The Purge. You’re going to get an ability in a bit, too, that’ll let you do whatever the fuck you want with anything -- make some booze, make some really fucked up statues, whatever. You probably won’t be able to bend reality as you know it quite yet, but if you’re really creative, you can probably bend a few minds. All I ask of you is that you make the chaos worse.”

“Shape the world into whatever you want it to be. Burn it all down and rebuild it anew. Unfiltered destruction and unfiltered creation, both at your fingertips -- all you’ve got to do is grab it. That’s all I ask.” He leaned in, offering him a smug grin. “Doesn’t it sound great?”

He leaned back, then, throwing up both his hands in a lazy “whatever” motion. “That’s all, that’s all. I said I’d be brief, so I’ll get off your dick, now. You’ll get that ability I talked about in a moment, so why don’t you try using it to unseal off your brothers?”

He pointed with his chin towards the truck before looking back to Petyr and giving him a grin and double thumbs up. “It’ll all start in a moment. I’ll show you how it’s done, and then it’s your turn.”

And then he was gone.

--

The Reaper stepped towards the bed her descendant was nestled in, letting out a soft hum as she came to rest beside him.

“Michael?”

She sat down beside him on the bed, staring down at him. Ah, she thought, she must have been a scary sight, suddenly appearing in his home -- but it was alright, it was alright. She had to do what she had to do.

“I hesitate to wake you from your slumber, but I’m afraid I must ask you to rise once more.” She shifted, slightly, then, so that her descendant may be able to see her better. “Do you recognize me?”

She gave him a moment before she shook her head. “Nevermind, nevermind. It matters little, in the grand scheme of things. I’m far beyond this world, now, and you are not.”

She smiled, then, giddily, as she kicked out a leg and fell back on the bed, letting her hair fan out against the sheets as she smiled up at Michael. “Isn’t it lovely? The beyond, I mean. I hope that you love it as much as I do. Even if you don’t, hopefully, you’ll come to the same sort of love.”

As she spoke, she stretched out an arm up, up, reaching out towards the sky. “This land has ruined their chances, I’ve seen it coming for a long time -- but the dead, they stay strong, they stay free. They’ve no need for the material things that have led your kind to filthy this earth. They’re dead, you know?”

Her hand paused in the air for a moment, pulling it back sheepishly as she sat up on the bed.

“But that’s enough of the ramblings of an old soul, I suppose.” She said, gaze coming back to meet that of her descendant’s. Her descendant’s.

“My, my, you must be lost,” She mused, straightening for a moment before allowing her arms to fall lax, leaning forward to let her hair fall over her lap as she smiled at him. “But, really, you don’t need to know much. It’s simple. Soon, my descendant, I’ll give you a lovely ability to commune with the dead so that you may be able to guide them in their journey to this world. I’m sure you’ll do well.”

Her smile grew a bit wider, then, as she leaned closer toward Michael with a sparkle in her eyes that seemed to transform the darkness of her gaze into something else entirely.

“Soon, soon, I’ll be merging the two worlds, the beyond and the current land. It’ll be a bit chaotic in the beginning, yes, but in the end, I do believe you’ll come to see it’s better for everyone involved! I’m sure that you can help make it a little bit less chaotic, dear; your abilities will certainly help. Help me let the neglected souls of the lost roam free.”

Her smile formed into a grin.

“I’ll start for the both of us.”

And in a moment, she was gone.

And then the land split, spirits groaned, and chaos began to sew itself into the earth all at once.