ocean-life [74] I Want You Back
[74] I Want You Back
[74] I Want You Back
Bjorn woke up in a void, a dark blankness that somehow felt familiar, but he couldn’t tell how he knew this place. His body had reverted to how it had been when he first hatched from his egg. He was tiny in comparison to what he’d been a moment ago. He felt dizzy, like he lacked depth perception now that he only had one head again. He’d never thought he would find it weird to only have one pair of eyes. He wasn’t on the ground, he was floating? Levitating? He also didn’t know if there was a ground. He couldn’t help but wonder if he was dead.
“Failsafe? You there, buddy?” Bjorn asked.
There was no response, then a booming voice vibrated him to the core.
“There is only us here, my son,” the voice said. “Do not fear.”
From the void massive eyes opened a great distance away. Their amber light shone like a dying star. Then even more eyes appeared, each one shown like the thousands of stars in the sky. Then a pair fell from the heavens until a massive head much like his own appeared. The creature was a hydra; well no, as soon as Bjorn saw her, he knew at an instinctive level this was not just any Hydra. This was The Lernaean Hydra. This was the Queen of a Thousand Heads.
“I have finally found you. I have finally found my sweet little baby,” the Queen said. Her voice echoed a thousand times over all at once. “Mama is coming to gather you from that wretched Lower World. Look at what they have done to you.” The eyes of the queen looked all around him, worry etched across her draconic face. “I shall poison that reality for stealing you from me.” She bared her teeth as she said the words.
“No!” Bjorn yelled, then stopped. His voice startled him. Why could he speak all of a sudden? “Do not destroy my world.”
The Queen looked amused. “Your world? Young one, that is not your world, you are mine. You are from somewhere far greater.”
Bjorn braced himself, he was not afraid of a True. “I am from there, that is my-”
“Ah, you mean from your previous life?” the Queen asked. “Bjorn or Isin, it matters not where souls come from and I know better than most that Reincarnation has a funny sense of humor. All that matters is that you are returned to where you belong. You are no nephilim, no King of Chains, you are not the Sunderer of the Angelic Throng. You are Aki’al Hashemi, Son of P̵̫̗͗o̸̖͛̂i̴͔͐s̷͍̈o̵̯̗̓ǹ̸̘̌!”
Bjorn was speechless for a moment as he processed what P̵̫̗͗o̸̖͛̂i̴͔͐s̷͍̈o̵̯̗̓ǹ̸̘̌ said. She already knew who he was and that he was reincarnated. King of Chains? Sunderer of the Angelic Throng? He had no idea what she was talking about. He needed to know more. What had he done to the Angels?
“You know who I was?” Bjorn asked.
“I would be a bad mother if I did not know my own son. There are no secrets that are not laid bare before the Queen of a Thousand Heads,” P̵̫̗͗o̸̖͛̂i̴͔͐s̷͍̈o̵̯̗̓ǹ̸̘̌ stated proudly. “You are far from me and you have been reaching out into the Higher Planes so desperately. I felt your cries, Aki’al, but I could not pull you to me. Now I see why. Your core yearns for home, you are displaced thrice over. Taken from me, deprived of the power of your birth realm, born in a lower world, forced you to use mana and alter your core, and your memories damaged what remained.”
“What do you mean, you tried to pull me to you?” Bjorn asked.
“Later. Focus now. We have to go,” Bjorn said.
“Bjorn?” Tanisha said, shocked. “Uh, okay, Jo-Tyr, we have to run.”
Joha looked back only for a second. His eyes widened, then he shook himself and deflected an arrow with Tyr’s sword.
“We still need to follow the plan and pull these people away from the gate,” Joha said, then pointed to the distance. “There it is, let's go.”
“Bjorn, can you run?” Tanisha asked as he pulled away the saddle, which was now too big.
Bjorn nodded and followed behind the pair, finding his smaller frame was faster than his larger one. He still needed to get used to the change in size again. After so long in the larger body he’d forgotten how agile he actually was. The escape was not clean, but the plan seemed to have worked. Those who weren’t injured in the assault were giving chase. There was no sign of the Hands, which was concerning but nothing they could do anything about at the moment.
The Knight Commander, not letting them go so easily, shot more and more of his powerful arrows. Each arrow blazed through the air with the force of a cannon as wind and heat swirled around the air constructs. Sir Harald wasn’t heartless; he never let an arrow hit a building directly. Most of them sailed past Bjorn and Tanisha into the wall of the city, which was unaffected by the attack, or they were redirected upward into the sky.
If Tanisha and Bjorn had been alone they would’ve been dead several times over, but Joha was always there in the nick of time to push or pull them out of the way. Joha could have deflected them, but Tyr wouldn’t have been able to, so he had to avoid them to keep up the disguise.
At one of the buildings they jumped through a window. Inside Svan was waiting for them; he was surprised at the large change in plan.
“You were supposed to meet me out back,” Svan said.
“Bjorn shrunk, he can fit in the building now,” Joha stated without hesitation.
Svan looked at the three-headed creature. “That’s unexpected, but will make this easier. Follow me.”
The building was a textile shop, one of several businesses owned by the Isi family. The second floor was the apartment of the shopkeeper. They’d unfortunately been killed in the raid on the Isi estate, and soon the shop would be annexed by the city.
Before the group could run out of the room, the Knight Commander jumped through the window with his bow drawn. He landed with speed and grace, letting the arrow loose as soon as he locked onto his target.