I felt the blistering cold before I could feel my body fully coalesce. The blaring blue hue in my eyes slowly faded, and with each sense coming around, I suddenly realized I was in the middle of nowhere, somewhere on an incline of a mountain.
Cold snow was falling. That is what this is isn't it? I'd never physically seen snow before. I had only ever read about it on those computer programs they used to teach me in my cell. But Vas knows of snow. And what Vas knows, I have an inkling of. But I had jumped from a hot wasteland, wearing little more than my underwear and a shirt bloodied from fighting the dregs of that world. Vas did not prepare me for this biting cold.
I gazed over the terrain around me. Where the mountain dropped below me, I could only see mists clouding my further view. Above me where the mountain seemed to climb more steeply, another haze of mists blocking me. My body began to shake uncontrollably, and when I fell to my knees I hadn't realized I had done so until half of me sat beneath the white fluff. Vas, Jonas Vassago, the multiverse protector, the thought of him burns inside me and I find a distant strength and a confusing thought as I begin to trudge up the ridge and begin climbing the steep and icy behemoth mounted in my way.
There were tales, I had read at one point, of men who lived high upon a mountain, and they could sit in the falling snow outside and sweat. They could tap into a power within themselves and somehow become their own furnace to withstand such an unforgiving climate. My fingers were growing numb, and turning a bright shade of blue. I debate pulling the crystalline slab from the elastic band in my underwear and breaking off a piece in order to jump from this place. But Jonas has been here, no far from here in fact, and if I were to run from this, I could never take his place.
Barely feeling my arms as they bent and then stretched above into the thick mists grabbing and pulling on the rock face in front of me, I found my eyes suddenly looking upon an end to my climb. The mists sat around me like a sea of unmoving gray folds. I pulled up onto the flatter land, still cold, but the sun was shining up here, though the air was thick. I tried to walk, but my legs collapsed under me. The staggering convulsions my body continued only seemed to grow more intense until finally a hand fell upon me as a thick sheet fell on top of me. Even through my horrible shakes I manage to react quickly, my stubborn fingers trying to fight me as I close them around the throat of the one that dared touch me.
His hands shoot out in protest, subdued ambivalence, I know immediately he is not here to harm me. He looks shocked, innocent, and he looks upon me with wide blue eyes, deep as the ice covered rock below. His head is shaved, but he has two piercings, one in each ear, and strange triangles dangle from them, arrows towards the Earth below. He is strong, his body well-worked, I can tell even with his thick wares on.
“Please, I mean you no harm.” He said in a choked voice.
“Where am I?” I say his throat shaking along with my hands.
“I walk these grounds at these hours, and I saw you emerge form the misty sea, I could not let one so unprepared die in such a place as this.”
“Where am I?” I ask again.
“The Delga, high mountain plane of the spiritually aligned.”
I release my grip, letting my chilled hands fall to the Earth.
“No, that is not good for them, you must warm them in the cloth.” He reaches for my hands with his own.
“Do not touch me, never touch me!” I shout as I slap at his hands, but only to my own pain.
“I will not hurt you, please, just let me put you in the cloth.” He says moving much more slowly this time.
He pulls at the Cloth instead this time, pointing out a small area with an opening, and points to my hands. I put my fist through, and immediately I find that I can feel some warmth from within.
“See, there is a gel woven into the cloth, it constantly moves, friction creates heat, and the gel never stops moving, so it keeps us quite warm.”
I shoot my other fist into the other hole, and soon I can feel much of my body again. I slowly rise to my feet, my legs still uncertain, but holding.
“Delga,” I say looking over his shoulder at a primitively structured palace. “Yes, this is it. Show me to your keep then, I have questions.”
“Of course, this way. All those who come here have questions.” He smiles, I nearly kill him.
I enter through the gate, a clunky thing, and I'm shown quickly to a room with a rousing fire in a small stone hearth. It's a small room, and it's filled with a heat I'm very happy to have at the moment.
“Please, stay here until you are warm, I will be just outside until you are ready for guidance. And please, help yourself to a garment, there is a closet full of them.”
I drop the cloth as I open the closet.
“Blood.” he says.
“Hmm...” I look down remembering what I must look like to him. “Yes, I fell into some trouble before coming here.”
“It's alright, it's just been some time since we had such...company up here.”
I stare at him wondering exactly what he meant by it. I rip of the shirt and toss it to the ground. He seems flustered as I am suddenly nearly naked in front of him. I grab a garment from the closet, a black robe, a tie at the center. It's thick, but it'll allow any movement necessary.
“I'm sorry, I did not mean to stare, but I couldn't help but notice the small thing tucked into your, uh, undergarment.”
I suddenly remember the crystal.
“What of it?” I ask.
“Oh...nothing, it's only...no, later. We will have time to discuss much as soon as you're thawed.”
He left the doorway, and I sat by the fire, letting the warmth fill the entire robe and beneath fully. I slip on some sandals in the closet and exit to find him sitting along the corridor looking thoughtful, perhaps too thoughtful.
“Now it seems you're the one with questions.” I say as he looks up.
“Hmmm...Indeed, but later. Let us go to the main hall, there you will find answers to questions.”
I follow, but his gait seems different. Fast, then slow, never consistent as it was before. The hall is massive, appearing much larger than I could have imagined outside. Pictures shine through multi-colored windows, pictures of a savior. Suddenly I recognize the man in the pictures. It's Jonas, Vas, I had never seen him at this age. The boys still all had had hair when I knew them for such short time. Indeed he had been here. But the worst part is that the man that had taken me in, was also Vas.
I stop and he stops ahead of me just as quickly. “Vas...” I say.
“Then you are aware of him. I must say I already put that together the moment I saw your device. Though he had since abandoned such a primitive thing, he still relayed such mechanical wonders to us so that we might improve at our own paces. Yes, Vas, I am he, for he is all of us, isn't that right, Vas? Though I don't think you belong here.”
“So you recognize that part of me as well then?”
“Yes, as we all will with one another. But even Vas Prime never mentioned a female version of himself. But I guess there are always further deviants from the original. Still, you do not belong here. Something about you does not fit here.”
“No, I don't suppose it does.”
“Yes, the multiverse readings said nothing of another Vas coming.”
“Then you have access to the spiral?”
He did not answer. I reach for his neck, my fingers begging to snap into it.
“That would be unwise.”
“You would think that of course.”
The tips of my fingers feel the heat of his skin as they graze on top of his throat, and suddenly I'm sent flying back against a hard wall, and crash to the ground, my back aching.
“I did warn you didn't I?”
“Cyber-shield?” I say recalling a thought I never had before.
“Yes, Vas Prime delivered to us a great many things, and he left me most protected of us all. For I will lead my people into a great new age.”
“Then why do you sever yourself from the world. This mountain isn't exactly a central location.”
“Time, Jonas, I needed time.”
“Don't call me that name.” I hate it, I have come to detest such a name, a harbinger of evil. “I am June, and I will soon be Vas Prime.”
“You?! Absurd! And June, what sort of name is that. Certainly not one that would call themselves Vas. And Prime? He was the first, the beginning, the discoverer, the maker, and you are obviously very new at all of this.”
“I was born in June. And where I came from, I am the first Vas. And he is not some great man, some God for you to worship in your fucked image. He came to my world, and he destroyed it, drove my world mad.”
“Silly girl, how could one man, no matter how great, drive a world mad?”
“It's obviously something far beyond your ability to understand.”
“No matter, you are obviously from a mad place. You reek of it, expel it with your every effort. And you are not fit for this world of mine.”
“Mine? You idolize a drifter, and think yourself the same caliber. Not all Vas' were created equal. I'll make you understand that before your time is over.”
“Fool! You can't even touch me remember? I have technology far superior than that little slab you carry on your ass. You will die here in this world, it is my decision.”
“I already told you, I will be the Prime, and that little shield you use, it does have a fault.”
“What sort of disturbed dream do you ha...”
He never finishes the sentence. I have dashed behind him, and thrust my fist through a weak area of the shield where it pulses every twenty-eight seconds to regenerate. It burns my hand, like thrusting it into boiling water for nearly a minute. The power of my hand punctures the are just below his ribs, I grab and rip out pieces of his internals. He falls to his knees and quickly to his face against the hard dirt ridden floor.
“The...how could you know? We only just...this is my world...How?”
“I will be Vas Prime. Even if I have to remove every world of the vile existence of each of them until only I am left. And your God, your coming provider you worship so will die at my hands just as you have.” I bend down to whisper in his ear. “And I'll make sure he suffers far more than you and your world. I will have my vengeance.”
He dies choking on his own blood and bodily fluids. The Cyber-shield deactivates as his heart beats it's last beat. I take it for myself.
The hallways are long, but I keep on the path the other Vas was taking me on, and find my way to the central hall, the gathering room. A great painting, nearly two stories tall, of Vas presides over the congregational area. I despise it, but a part of me is flattered by it all the same. I veer from the hall and find myself in this Vas' room. It's vast, a sprawling room laid out for a king. Hidden in his closet is a case, activated by his, our, hand print. It opens, and inside I find the much boasted technology Vas Prime had delivered.
A pistol, it's thin and miniature pellets capable of delivering a far more interesting death than any regular gun of it's ilk. Self tinting and analyzing shades, somewhat standard fare, but it'll be useful. Finally I find it. A crystalline device, much like my own, but far more complex. This one will be good for unlimited jumping. Finding Vas has just become far more easy. As I make to leave, I spot in the corner of the closet a long stick, black, sturdy. I take it as well, knowing full well exactly the turn necessary to expose the blade within.
I hear the people rushing around out in the halls. Most likely they've discovered their great idol dead by now. But I'll leave them a fair gift, one deserving of those that follow Vas. The case which housed the technology, activated only by the hands and life of Vas, also has a secondary function. A keypad sits within, and I key a code I find somewhere in the distant area of my mind. A countdown begins, and I key the new pad I have and it begins to shine as I'm enveloped again in the encompassing blue light, my body torn from itself, displaced.
As I ride the currents of the dimensional tunnel, I imagine the world I just left and the massive explosion from the containment box as it's own internal containment fails and fells that structure, all of it's inane sycophants, and each celebrating mural to the Great Vas Prime, who will soon suffer the same fate as will all those that follow him.
I emerge from the tunnel, the brightness of the light quickly fading from my eyes, but I have no idea where I am, or what I'm seeing.
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