Chapter 757 - The Need for Closure

“You don’t have to do this.”

“You’ve said that to me before.”

“And I’ve meant it every time, Ezekiel.”

He shook his head, turning away from Eveline.  She flitted across the room, planting herself in front of him.  It was hard to believe just how much she had changed, though only if he forgot just how much time had passed.  The woman he’d met so long ago was such a different person than the bobbing ball of blinking light he now saw. 

But aside from how she presented herself, which was striking enough on its own, Zeke was more shocked by her change in demeanor.  He pointed that out by saying, “There was a time when you would have encouraged me to kill everyone who stood before me.”

“She’s not standing in front of you.  She’s in hiding.”

“She wouldn’t be if she thought for a second she could beat me,” he stated.  And that was true.  Shar Maelaine was nothing if not an opportunist.  And a coward, as far as he was concerned. She wouldn’t engage unless she believed she could steamroll her way to victory. 

That was why she’d fled.  After seeing what Zeke had done to her contemporaries, she’d targeted weaker gods like Talia and Pudge.  And it had gotten to the point where Talia had begged him for help.  He still wasn’t certain what she had expected from him, but he’d since destroyed the so-called Sun Goddess’ entire organization, and in multiple realms.  What’s more, he’d engineered a situation where even mentioning her name would see entire communities turn on whoever did so. 

Twenty-five years was all it took.

And hundreds of thousands of dead bodies, but it was just a drop in the bucket compared to Zeke’s true kill total. 

He didn’t want to think about that, though.  It was depressing, even if he hated admitting as much.  So, he asked, “What happened to the bloodthirsty succubus I met in Mal Canis?”

“You convinced her that she didn’t have to be a demon anymore,” Eveline stated evenly.  “You gave her a chance to be better.  You saved her from a life of bitterness and hate.”

“Doesn’t sound like me,” Zeke said, trying to make a joke.

It didn’t land.

“That’s because you won’t let it be you,” was Eveline’s response.  “You’ve turned away from everything that made you good.”

“Not much of a choice here.”

“Of course there is,” she argued.  “There’s always a choice.”

“I can’t do what needs to be done if I’m worried about collateral damage, Eveline,” he sighed.  “You know that.”

“Is that what they are?  Collateral damage?  They’re people, Zeke.  They had lives.  Families.  Friends.  And –”

“Do you think I’m unaware?” he cut her off.  The manor shook with his frustrations, and the threads trembled under his ire.  Even Eveline dimmed a little.

Zeke closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  “Sorry,” he sighed.  “It keeps getting away from me.”

Indeed, in the year since he’d returned from his self-imposed mission to turn two realms against Shar Maelaine, he’d experienced something of a breakthrough with the threads.  Or rather, the anti-threads.  Suddenly, manipulating them – still by proxy – was much easier than it ever had been before.  He had no idea what had changed, but with that newfound expertise had come unintended consequences.  Chiefly, that his slightest emotional peaks or valleys created chain reactions with the threads.  If he didn’t keep himself under control, the entire world could unravel. 

Six months ago, it almost had.  Thankfully, he’d been inside the Waymaster’s chamber, and that overgrown amoeba had helped him reign things in.  Since then, Zeke had spent almost every waking moment establishing control. 

It still slipped a bit from time to time, but not nearly enough to cause lasting damage.

“You’re ready to explode, Ezekiel.”

“I’ve got it under control.”

“I’m not talking about your strings,” she said.  “I’m talking about you.  About everything inside.  You can’t keep going like this.”

“I suppose you have an alternative.  You know the stakes better than anyone else,” he said.  Since coming back, he’d often confided in her.  After all, she could split her consciousness a thousand different ways, which allowed her to effectively be in multiple places at once.  It didn’t take much for her to dedicate one facet of her mind to keeping Zeke company.

So long as he remained inside the tower, which more often than not, he did.  The only other place he went was to consult with the Waymaster.  Where else was he meant to go?  His friends didn’t want to see him.  Not after what he’d done.  After who he had become. 

Not even Pudge.

“You don’t have to be this lonely,” she said.

“I think I do.  The peak is a lonely place,” he stated.  “Nobody else can do what I need to do.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” she repeated.

He sighed.  “Do you have any idea what it’s like?” he asked.  “I get wrapped up in my training, and then, suddenly, a thousand years have gone by.  During that time, people live their lives.  They keep moving forward.  They age.  A lot of them die.  Tucker.  Jasper.  Silik…”

He looked up.  “I know what you’re going to say.”

“Do you?”

“I could focus on being with them while we have time,” he said.  “I’ve thought the same thing.  Believe me, I want to do that.  Things would be so much easier if I could.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“You can’t feel it.”

“What?” she asked.  “The threads?  No.  I can’t feel them.”

“No.  It.  Our doom.  The end.  The adversary looking over our shoulder.  Whatever you want to call it, it looms over us.  Getting closer day by day.  If I don’t dedicate every possible moment to countering it…”

“What?” she asked when he didn’t continue.

He let out a harsh chuckle.  “I was going to say that I couldn’t forgive myself if that happened, but that’s not really true.  I won’t be around to forgive anyone.  None of us will.  We’ll just cease to exist,” he said.

Then, he continued, “That’s what’s at stake here, Eveline.  I know you don’t believe me.  I –”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you…”

“It’s fine.  I get it.  I might as well be holding up a sign that says the end is nigh, right?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Zeke explained the idea to her, then added, “That’s me, right now.  I’m telling you the end is coming.  Just like some crazy, homeless guy standing on a street corner.  The difference is that I’m right.  Our world is unraveling.”

“What does that have to do with what you did in the lower realms?”

“Nothing.  Except that I wanted to give them something to remember me by.”

“Who?  Talia and Pudge?”

He shrugged.  “Yes.  No.  I don’t know.  The world, maybe?  It’s all so tangled up here,” he muttered, running his hand through his hair.  “I’m not going to be around much longer.”

“And you thought killing thousands of people who couldn’t fight back was a good…going-away present?”

“Maybe.”

“Ezekiel…”

“I know.  God, I know, Eveline.  Do you think I don’t know how crazy it sounds?  Everything makes sense when I’m doing it.  When I got down there and destroyed that first city…I just knew I was on the right track.  That went on until I killed that last member of the Radiant Host,” Zeke explained.  “But then I got back…”

“And you saw the horror in their eyes.”

Zeke nodded.  “It wasn’t just Pudge and Talia, either.  The kobolds look at me differently, too.  I didn’t think I could do anything to lose their support.  Guess I was wrong.  I should have gotten used to it by now.”

“You’re too hard on yourself.”

“Am I?  By all rights, I’m the evil god every religion warns their followers about,” he said.  “I’m the great devil.  The evil overlord.  I’m the bad guy.”

“You’re not.”

“Tell that to all the people I killed,” he said.  “But I can’t let myself care about any of that, Eveline.  I wish I could.  As bad as I feel about it, I have to push that aside.  Because it doesn’t matter.  What really matters is saving our reality.”

“And yet you took twenty-five years to –”

“I know.”

“How do you justify it?” she asked.

Zeke shrugged.  “Mostly, I don’t.  Normally, I don’t need to.  You’re the only person I talk to.”

“That…that’s so…sad.”

“But if you really want me to justify it, I can –”

“It’s not necessary, Ezekiel,” she said, though Zeke could tell that she was only placating him.  That was one of the reasons he’d withdrawn so surely.  Everyone walked on egg shells around him, always trying to spare his feelings.  In a lot of ways, he could understand it.  Nobody wanted to anger the man who could unmake them in an instant.  But there was a part of him that longed for the days when his friends and allies treated him like he was one of them.

He wasn’t.

Zeke knew that.  But it would have been nice to pretend.

“You can cut it off,” Eveline said.  “Stop the cycle, here and now.”

“That’s why I can’t stop, Eveline.  You know that.”

They’d had the same conversation what felt like a thousand times.  Eveline was worried about his mental state, and as a result, she wanted him to abandon his quest for Shar Maelaine’s death.  So far, it had been easy to follow that advice, but that was mostly because when she’d fled to parts unknown, Zeke hadn’t wanted to waste the time necessary to find her.

But she’d resurfaced only recently. 

“It is a trap.  You must see that.”

“I do.”

It didn’t take a genius to recognize that much.  Shar Maelaine could have stayed hidden indefinitely, and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference to her.  She could have even rebuilt her base of worshippers, and he wouldn’t have noticed.  The multi-verse was big enough for that.  But she’d recently made a show of returning to the public stage.

It was bait.

“And yet, you want to walk right into it.  Why?”

“I don’t really plan on walking,” Zeke said.  “Technically, I’ll be pulling myself along by the strings.  It looks like flying, but –”

“Ezekiel.”

“Right.  Why do I want to spring the trap?” he echoed her question.  “It’s simple.  She can’t hurt me.”  He ran his hand through his hair again.  “Well, that’s not true.  She can hurt me.  She just can’t injure me.”

“What’s the difference?”

He let out a small chuckle.  “It was something my old baseball coach used to say.  If you’re hurt, you can get back up and keep playing.  But if you’re injured, you’re out of the game.”

“This is no game, Ezekiel.”

“Well aware, Eveline.  This is about the fate of our reality.”

“It pointedly is not,” she said.  “This is about…your ego, maybe?  About wanting to reach your goal?  I don’t know what drives you, but even if I assume you’re right about the world ending…this isn’t about that.”

Zeke shrugged.  “Maybe not.  But I’m still going to do it.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s just something I need to do, Eveline.”

And that was mostly true.  In reality, though, Zeke was driven by a multitude of things.  The easiest to quantify was his hatred for Shar Maelaine and everything she stood for.  Slavery.  Human superiority.  Arrogance.  The list went on and on.  That alone should have been enough to oppose her.  But she’d also targeted his friends, and even if they didn’t really want anything to do with him anymore, he would do whatever he could to protect them.

She had already been defeated once, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t return at first opportunity. 

There was pride in there, too.  A need to prove that he could reach his goal.  Potential benefits as well.  Perhaps killing her would grant him more strength which could translate into increased mastery over the threads.  And a hundred other reasons that even he couldn’t really define.

In the end, though, he was set.  If he had to spring a trap to get to her, he would. 

“I can see that you’re set on this, and there’s nothing I can do to change your mind,” Eveline said.  “So, I will only say – be careful.  If you die, we all die.”

“When am I not careful?” he asked, giving her his best smile.  By now, it had become such an unfamiliar expression that he feared it came off more as a grimace.  So, before Eveline could further try to dissuade him, he stepped out of the manor and made his way to the teleporter.  It was time he finished the fight that had started long, long ago.