The Chosen: the Age of Corbin Tyler the Undying

Chapter 15

What happened next cannot be explained so simply as the last few clashes. 

It was a flash. Or a series of flashes. The glinting of our weapons reflecting the sunlight. The flicker of sparks. The whistle of two razor sharp blades whipping through the air. The determination in both our eyes. The dust kicked up from the mere speed of our weapons. The cracks left in the ground from our steps. 

The purity of battle. 

There were no semantics. No beating around the bush. No walking on eggshells. Just the weapons, and the wielders who had staked their lives on them. 

It was exhilarating.

Every time our weapons clashed, it was like a gun went off. The sound of metal clanging against metal rang through my ears. Sent chills down my spine. This felt natural to me. 

But I knew this wouldn't last. 

Just as I thought that, I deflected an attack and created an opening.

I took it. 

I sheathed my weapon as she fell to her knees clutching at the gaping slash mark in her abdomen, blood running freely from the wound onto the ground.

The spear slipped from her grasp and landed in the bloodstained dirt.

I moved toward her, but she held up her hand. 

"No," she choked out. "Let me die." She fell to the ground, gasping for air.

I moved next to her and watched her armor melt off of her and it was replaced with her regular clothes.

"Corbin," she muttered. "My son . . . do you . . . think he'll . . . look at me the same . . . as he did . . so long ago?"

I looked at her. I felt terrible. Like I was going to throw up, but I held it back. "I don't have the answer to that question, Diana."

She looked at me with eyes focused on something far, far away, and smiled. "No one does, I suppose." 

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around to see a beast of a man in a dark blue suit. He was six foot seven with black hair peppered with gray. He looked at me with deep blue eyes filled with sadness and grief. 

"Thank you," he said. 

Diana heard him and moved her head to face him. "Hello, my dear," she said with the warmest smile I had ever seen.

He smiled gently back at her. "Hello, my love."

She chuckled softly. "I'm going on ahead."

The man's smile faded. "I could fix this." 

She shook her head as much as she was able, her body beginning to turn to dust. "I don't want you to."

He grit his teeth and knelt next to her. "I'm sorry." He took her hand. "I should have stopped our son."

"This was always our fate," Diana told him. "Our son could not have changed anything." She looked up toward the sky again. "Ah. It's time then."

The man choked back a little bit. "Tell your brother, I said hey, and that I still think he's a punk."

Diana chuckled, and then went still, then turned completely into dust, and all was silent.

-

I was seated for a few moments, eyes fixated on the pile of dust left on the ground, fighting the urge to throw up.

"Is my wife the first person you've killed?" The man asked.

"Yes."

He was silent for a moment. Then said, "how does it feel? To take the life of another? Does it feel empowering?" 

I kept my eyes on the dust. "No." 

"What did you feel?"

I looked up at the sky. "Everything."

"Everything?" 

"I felt the wind. The ground beneath my feet. The ants tickling the dust of the earth a million miles away. The star that went supernova trillions of light years from earth. The black hole that started eating again. The crack of a sealed stone in Japan. The first drop of permafrost thaw. The touch of pen to paper. The steel that rent her flesh. And the blood that hit my hands. I felt it all. In a fraction of a second."

The man was silent.

"I felt no empowerment from that. Only a sensation akin to shrinking."

"Have you lost the faith that allowed you to defeat my wife?"

"No," I replied without hesitation.

"Good," he answered. "You will need it." 

"Are you like her?" I asked. 

"What do you mean, 'like her?'"

"Someone with a lot of power. Power that normal people don't have."

He rose to his feet. "Yes," he answered. "My name is Timothy Powers, though many know me as Time. You can use whichever you prefer."

I looked up at him, then lifted my sword and rose to my feet too. "You want to go ahead and get started then?" 

He looked at me sympathetically. "Young Chosen," he said with far more respect than I had earned. "Do you know what it means to be the strongest?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" 

"Answer me."

I sighed. "No."

"To be the strongest is not to seek out fights, but to know when to avoid them, even if you know that you will have to fight that exact individual later down the road. Young Chosen, if you and I fight right now, I would beat you." 

I narrowed my eyes, frustrated, but I knew he was right.

I sheathed my sword again. 

"A wise choice," he said. "You have much to learn Young Chosen. Maybe you are learning much about this world through your deep faith, but you still must learn about the responsibilities of having power. Especially the kind of power that you have."

"What's special about my power?" I asked. 

"People who have abilities and powers like us are generally born with them, either that or they are earned. You however, were given this power almost freely. Even those who are born with a power, or earned it, they have to work to make it stronger, you are going to have to work to keep yourself from dying from this power. I imagine that one day, you will look back on the battles you will face in the years to come and say, 'those weren't so bad as what I face now.'"

"Sounds great." 

He chuckled darkly. "What will you do then?"

"What can I do?"

"Wait. Listen. Train. Get stronger. Know this, Young Chosen," he said. "There are some of us who have to fight you that do not wish to win."

"Are you one?" I asked.

"As was my wife," he placed a hand on my shoulder. "Learn, Corbin. Learn everything you can about how to fight, and what it means to be the strongest. What responsibilities come with it."

I nodded. "I will have to fight you though. One day."

"One day," he agreed with a nod. "But until that day, I am not your enemy."

Then he was gone.