Return of the Hero 1 - Return

His name was Lucas, and he was finding the concept of returning home scarier than war itself. Despite having fought alongside gods and devils against unspeakable horrors, as he stood before the way home, he found himself hesitating. The portal itself was a swirling golden oval contained within a sleek arch of pure white stone and carved runes – a far cry different than the tears in reality he was used to, all jagged edges and bleeding energy. He slowly reached out one hand, catching a little spark of light as it flicked off the portal, letting it dance along his fingers like an ember.

“You’re stalling,” the man beside him boomed, muscular arms crossed across his barrel chest. His thick, curly dark hair lay matted against his forehead with sweat. Despite the war being officially halted for the moment, a peace treaty struck no one believed would last for too long, Lucas had no doubt he had likely been hitting the gym or training instead of relaxing. To him, those were probably the same thing.

“Yes. Yes I am,” Lucas admitted shamelessly.

“Fear is unbecoming of you,”

“I do not care. I’m heading back to be human. How am I supposed to be human?” Lucas challenged, setting his hands on his hips. Did he even remember how? What did being human even mean?

“You are overthinking,” the new voice that answered thrummed in his ears, reverberating and echoing true meaning and intent. Lucas scowled, turning to face the figure descending from the skies. He glowed with divine power, gleaming silver armor covered his divine form, six snow-white wings stretching from his back. His face was stern but kind looking, eyes glowing gold. “We did not strip away your humanity in your time with us; your training only taught you to become more yourself, not less. Besides, Heracles is correct. Fear is unbecoming of you.”

“Did you hear that? For once, Michael agreed with me!” Heracles boomed, laughing and laying one massive hand on Lucas’ shoulder.

“Yes, but,” Lucas started, gesturing vaguely at the portal. “I don’t know what I’m walking back into. I haven’t seen my family in…” he trailed off, shaking his head and wringing his hands. Heracles’ grip tightened, not enough to be painful, but enough to let him know he knew what he was trying to say.

“Far, far too long. You deserve some time away. Think of it as a vacation; go live out the rest of your mortal life in the realms below. I trust you will have no issue reintegrating into society no matter how much time has passed or how much Earth has changed; you have faced far more dangerous things than what awaits you there now.” Michael said, landing on the solid marble beside Lucas. This close he could feel the holy energy radiating from the archangel like radiation from a nuclear reactor, and he marveled a little at how far he had come. When he’d first arrived in Heaven he could barely stand twenty feet from Michael without falling to his knees from the sheer spiritual pressure alone. Now he felt it as a warmth, a constant reminder of the archangel’s true power without it being overwhelming.

It was a far cry different from his war form.

“Plus there’s that thing with the time dilation issue and your body potentially dying and soul shattering. Can’t have my student and weight-lifting buddy dying on me!” Heracles nodded sagely, as if he pointed out some great truth Lucas wasn’t already considering. He scowled at the overly buff man, shaking his head.

That was true, partially.

“Yes. You’ve spent too long up here; the time dilation effect is rapidly deteriorating. With the cease-fire struck and treaties signed, you no longer have an excuse to keep putting off heading back. You need to return to when you arrived from for the dilation effect to be resolved, and not snap the tether between soul and body. It would not shatter your soul, but it would undo a fair chunk of your training.” Michael agreed, folding his arms across his chest. Lucas scoffed, ignoring the sting of Michael’s words. He had been putting off returning, but…that was because he hadn’t been able to turn away, not because he was afraid of returning. The threats they’d been facing, the reason they’d managed to call his soul up here in the first place…

He felt like he was a different person, now. He’d done so much, and seen even more. Would his family even recognize the man who returned? How big were his siblings, the twins? What about his parents?

“How much time has passed on earth, again?” he asked, already knowing the answer but needing to hear it once more.

“Nearly six years. Five years and eight months, to be precise,” Michael said.

“An eternity,” Heracles said, voice colored with a touch of sadness.

“The blink of an eye,” Michael disagreed.

“Far too long. Time to stop being a wimp.” Lucas whispered, taking one step forward, hesitating at threshold of the portal and turning back to the two. His mentors. His friends. Myths and legends made manifest, and nothing like the stories made them out to be. He met Michael’s kind, patient smile with his own, and Heracles’ dark, knowing eyes with his own sad gaze. “Thank you, for everything.”

“You are allowed to stand tall, Lucas. You are a commander of the armies of Heaven, and you have earned this rest. Go, and be neither afraid, nor sad. When your mortal flesh dies, we will meet again.” Michael assured him. Lucas puffed up his chest a little, pride surging through him – just in time for Heracles’ patience to snap, the buff man roughly shoving him into the portal. A curse tore itself out of his lips as white light filled his vision, mixing with Heracles’ booming laughter.

“Goodbye, Lucas! We will see you soon!”

Lucas thrashed as he fell, still cursing Heracles’ name and his stupid personality as his soul was shunted between dimensions; white light mixing with gold and silver and a thousand other unnamable colors as he spun rapidly out of control. A wordless scream tore its way out of his mouth, soul flipping end over end, occasionally catching glimpses of realities – a giant tree that connected worlds, cloudy parts of heavens, old battlefields scorched by the war of Heaven and slowly being rebuilt – his very existence compressing and stretching in a dozen unpleasant ways.

I don’t remember the portal being like this! His mind screamed as he fell, finally managing to control his endless flipping to see what he was falling toward. Rainbow colors flashed before his eyes like a kaleidoscope, reality blending with the images until, with a pop, he found himself in freefall in the clouds. Physical wind blew through his spiritual form, a thin golden thread connecting his chest to wherever his body was, tugging him down, down, arms flailing as he burst through the cloud, hurtling toward a tall, wide building that sang with strange, painful energy.

Roof! His mind unhelpfully supplied, eyes snapping shut and arms covering his face to instinctually brace –

He felt heavy. Heavy in a way he hadn’t in a long, long time. Mortal. His limbs were leaden and exhausted, weak and fragile. His chest rose and fell slowly, each breath an exercise in rhythm. His brain felt like it was made of clouds, his consciousness fighting him every step of the way as he pulled himself to full wakefulness, confusion echoing in his mind. Everything felt…hollow, save for a strange sense of fullness in his stomach and pelvis.

Then the smell hit him. It was sterile and chemically and wrong, lacking any sort of naturalness to it. Beeping from electronics and machines echoed painfully in his ears, accompanied by the crackling of electrical static running through the walls and the dull mutterings of people talking.

Lucas forced his eyes open, and saw white.

It was not the soft, pleasing white of Heaven, but the bright, sterile white of a fluorescent lightbulb that sung of strangeness and a hospital ceiling. Exhaustion tugged at him yet he forced his way through it, used to far worse sensations than merely this. He blinked once, twice, fighting down the panic that surged in his chest at his limbs not moving the way he wanted them to, arms sluggish, almost as if they were weighed down by bags of sand. His fingers clenched and unclenched, the digits stiff and sore, as he slowly lifted his head to look about his room, his neck stiffer than even his fingers.

It was nice. Big. Sunlight streamed through a large window along his right side, where an empty visitor’s bench sat, a TV on the news showing a man in a black suit talking. The light from the screen hurt his eyes enough he squinted, looking toward the door. Everything was too bright – everything was just overwhelming.

Even the blanket they had over him, some polyester thing that made his skin itch, felt wrong in ways that was difficult to describe. Echoes from the entire hospital pounded against his soul, so raw from re-entering his body after so long, his spiritual senses screaming at him – he took a deep, shuddering breath, his tongue thick and dry as he tried to speak but only managed a weak croak. His limbs twitched as he tried to will himself to move, his body not reacting like it was his own.

Is this what being mortal is like? I hate it. His head fell back against the pillow behind his head, to stare at the ceiling silently.

He closed his eyes, trying to will everything away, all the brightness, all the noise, attempting to meditate and falling back into a dreamless, if fitful, sleep.

“Alright, Mr. Ward, it’s time for cleaning and exercise once again,” the casual statement had Lucas’ snapping out of his slumber, eyes immediately finding the intruder in his room. A young man, broad shouldered and bald, hints of a beard dusting his chin, walked by the foot of his bed, snapping on some latex gloves. Lucas watched the nurse as he shuffled about, never looking up, never looking him in the eye as he pulled a machine to the bedside. It hummed with electricity, little white pads all over the unholy contraption that the nurse – Mark, that was the name on his scrubs – started to unwind a little. “Just gonna get this baby started, then we’ll check your catheter.”

Catheter? Wait – catheter? Was that the pressure he was feeling in his pelvis?!

Mark whistled as he flipped the machine on, and started moving around the bed to – what, lift up the blankets? Nope. That’s not happening. That was not what he wanted his first interaction with another human after so long to be, some man looking at his unmentionables.

Lucas opened his mouth and croaked, working his tongue to try and get some saliva on it. Speak words, mouth.

Mark froze at the foot of his bed, wide eyes meeting Lucas’ own. He wiggled his fingers, and his eyebrows, working his tongue just a little bit.

“At least,” he managed, then swallowed again, working his jaw. “Buy me dinner first,”

“Shit. Holy shit. Doctor!” Mark immediately rushed forward, around the bed, gently grabbing Lucas’ head and staring into his eyes. He held up one finger, moving it back and forth that Lucas reflexively tracked, then immediately smashed a button on the side of the bed. “Lucas. Lucas Ward, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Lucas croaked out, squeezing his eyes shut and blinking hard. Everything still felt weird, but worst of all was the noise outside getting worse. His magic thrummed in his chest, burning like the morning sun rising over the mountains, yet all that did was make it worse. Pain echoed through every square inch of the hospital building. He could hear them, the emotions, the sickness, feel it all down to his very bones. This place was a monument to suffering in his eyes, a place where sick people came to die or get better. Where pain echoed and the dead lingered – breathe. Close yourself off if it gets too much. Archangel Michael’s advice rang in his mind; Lucas’ jaw clenched. He was still too out of it to shut it all away, and the hovering nurse was distracting.

A hand laid itself on Lucas’ shoulder and his eyes opened again, the wrongness of something entering his stomach, the full feeling in his pelvis, the screaming of the world a constant, thrumming pressure in the forefront of his mind.

“Sleep if you need to, it’s ok,” Mark muttered, searching his face. Lucas shook his head. He already slept.

“Water,” he croaked out.

“Not yet, not yet. We have to make sure your throat isn’t weak, ok? You could breathe on your own, but water is a different story. Can’t have you choking. The Ward twins would kill us if you woke up and choked to death on water.” Mark chattered calmly. “I’m going to run a few tests real quick, alright? Check your throat and mouth for swallowing reflex. We’ll notify your family about you waking up, but it may be a while before they can respond. Last I heard they got pulled away to help close a Gate in Washington, so it may be a few days.” Mark’s latex-glove covered fingers found Lucas’ mouth to gently pry it open, the man muttering to himself as he peered inside.

Gate? Lucas wondered, letting the man do whatever he wanted at this point even as he tried to mentally pull away into meditation to clear out some of the excess noise. Washington? What have the twins been up to? And what about our parents? The thought was strange. To them, it had been five years. Five years and eight months that he’d been…what, in a coma? That means the twins had to be in their early twenties now. Twenty-one? Two? It was hard to think straight. But for now, at least, he could say he was back.

And the entire world had no idea who he was, or what he had done. He figured he’d prefer it that way. Who knew how people would react if he showed his true abilities? The least he could imagine was cults starting to form.

“Mr. Lucas,” a new voice chimed in, and Lucas opened his eyes. The woman standing beside him was older, with a few lines on her face and grey in her black hair. Her dark eyes looking him over critically. “You know your name? Don’t speak, you don’t have to nod, just blink once if yes, twice if no.”

Lucas nodded, ignoring her comment, and opened his mouth.

“Hush, I said no speaking. We don’t want to strain your throat,” the doctor said. “I am doctor Amanda Holt, your primary physician. Do you know where you are?”

Lucas thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. No. Not really. A hospital for sure, but the specifics?

“You’re in the hospital. You’ve been asleep for a long time, Mr. Ward.” Doctor Holt said slowly. “I need to run you through a few tests just to make sure everything is alright. Please refrain from trying to remove any of the tubing – can you manage that?” Lucas nodded again and relaxed as the good doctor ran through a few tests, checking his vital signs on a monitor, helping him lift his arms and flex, all while talking to him calmly and patiently, like a child.

Lucas let her, slowly filtering out the screaming of the hospital’s spiritual presence while she worked. The news continued mutely on the TV, and he felt his soul slowly settling back into his body. His fingers had regained some strength and range of movement, though it would take a while to get fully settled. He doubted it would be a fast process, but…at the same time he likewise knew his body was not nearly as atrophied as it should have been.

His holy magic probably took care of that. Just because his soul had been separated didn’t mean that his magic left his body unaffected. Especially with how much stronger he had gotten…how were the doctors going to deal with that? How did he explain that – it would be best to play dumb, for now.

Something touched him.

It wasn’t physical, which was why he didn’t pay it much mind at first. It was a little tingling in his chest that spread through his ribs and bones, touching his soul and following the natural energy pathways of his body. Diagnostics. Someone’s making sure my energy’s ok. He noted mildly, relaxing into the sensation. He’d felt this exact technique a thousand times in Heaven. Then he stiffened.

This was a spiritual technique.

His eyes flew open to stare at Doctor Holt as she leaned over him, hands on his chest and eyes closed as she muttered to herself. Only, her hands were glowing green. He stared. Mark noticed, and gently tapped the Doctor. Her eyes flew open and she shot him a glare, only to meet Lucas’ wide eyes. She blinked, looked down at her hands, then back up at him. A wry smile crossed her lips as she held her hands up for Lucas to see.

“Right. Five years. You wouldn’t know about magic. You have a lot to catch up on, Mr. Ward,”