Chapter CLXXXVIII: Recugrian’s Legacy ~Lich/Yoshi6400/Markior

Lich and Markior watched as Havering shut the door behind him. Markior frowned, and his pupil-less white eyes flashed in concentration.

“Hmm…maybe a nice Feedback into his skull,” he thought aloud. “Oh, yes, wonderful. Oh, oh…maybe this: cast Maelstrom on his heart. Ah, that’d be painful.”

“I can hear you!” the Time Bender called from within his room.

“Good!” he snarled. “Gives you a head start, weakling!”

“Come on,” Lich offered, “just leave him alone.”

“Why?” Markior asked, turning to him. “From what I heard, he’s only here now because he’s scared like a – little cry baby! – of one of his ex-minions. The fool was dead, I made sure; he should’ve stayed dead.” As an afterthought, he muttered, “Hmm…oh yes. Spoons in his eyes; I gotta write that down.”

Lich sighed. “I don’t know what he’s really up to, but I’m sure it’d be better if we stood back for a while and saw what happens.”

“Stood back? Stood back?! I think not, Lich. He’s evil, pure evil, and proud of it. I cannot believe that everyone here allows themselves to be used as pawns.” He looked towards the door. “Well, no longer. Now that I’m here, he’d better lay still. I can send him back to where he belongs. One false move from him – and I will, too…maybe something with sawdust…”

Havering taunted, “I tire of your banter – what was it? – Smokey…”

Lich winced as he heard one of Markior’s most hated nicknames, and tried to hold the Yoshi Guardian back. Markior’s eyes glowed intensely, and akin to the nickname, he slipped through his hands, throwing the door open with a burst of psychic power then pulled Havering out by telekinesis.

“I’ll tear your head off and replace it with a rock, Twilighter ghostboy!” he yelled. “Huge improvement!!”

As Markior reached for Havering’s head, he disappeared, laughing.

“Oh, yeah, right!” Markior taunted. “Who’s the smokey now, hmm? Ol’ dead chap!” He calmed down and added, “Hmm…train tracks…”

Lich was a bit shaken. “Er, coffee?” he offered.

“Urge to destroy…ris – Kakkaran?” Markior asked.

“It’s the only sort,” Lich smiled nervously, beginning to calm down himself. “Well, the only sort if you want your insides scraped clean, but yeah.”

Markior thought for a moment then replied, “No, thanks. Must work off frustration by plotting schemes for Twilighter mutilation and/or destruction.”

“Don’t involve me in it for a while, yet.”

“Aww,” Markior smiled. “Scratch the Mana Burst idea, then…”

He made the motion of erasing something in his hand as Lich smiled and turned to make his way towards the kitchen.

“I’ll be in the kitchen or lounge if you need me!” Lich called as he walked away.

Kuroihoshi was watching Markior’s scheming the whole time and she finally deceded to speak. “I’d rather take him down at his peak, dealing the ultimate humiliation, but if you wanted to kill him now…” she said before whispering something to the Yoshi guardian…

“Bring back numerous pointy stabbing things: Kuroi just gave me a nifty idea!” Markior called back.

Lich rolled his eyes and laughed, then went into the kitchen and located the tin of Kakkaran coffee. He held it out at arm’s length before taking a handy metal teaspoon and prising the lid open so that the strong aroma exited the tin away from him, then sat it down on the bench and peered in (but not too closely).

“Someone’s been in my coffee!” he called, annoyed, to the other passengers, marching out to the lounge. “Don’t you all realise how potent this stuff is?”

“Yeah, I do,” Sixtyfourhundred replied. “Saph and I have ‘borrowed’ some for offensive uses.”

“You could have asked me first,” he sighed as he retreated to the kitchen.

He dipped the teaspoon in and filled only half of it with the powerful granules, before tipping it into his cup. He added hot water from a dispenser, then took milk from the refrigerator, poured it, and retrieved a sugar cube from a nearby dish. After returning everything to their places, he took the cup out to the lounge, holding the teaspoon in one hand.

“May I?” he asked the Yoshies in the lounge, gesturing towards an empty cushion.

“Feel free,” Prism replied.

Lich sat down, across from Prism, and next to Sapphire. Sixtyfourhundred had his arm around her shoulders. Their attention was drawn to him as he vigorously stirred his drink with the spoon, before taking it out and frowning at the tarnished metal.

“So, where were we?” asked Prism.

Ark paced back and forth in a small section of the hangar, annoyed by his confusion, the Spear in his hand.

“What to do, what to do…”

Why don’t you just kill him? the Spear suggested, bluntly.

Ark paused and sighed. “And end up getting killed by the others?”

I have much power…

“DO NOT TEMPT ME!” Ark screamed, and hurled the Spear to other end of the hangar, black shadows in its wake. As it hit the wall with what sounded like a disappointed clink, Ark sank to his haunches and buried his face in his hands.

Your anger speaks of a love that remains, Eriuch’s voice echoed sadly.

“I can’t love a machine…”

“Can’t you?”

Ark turned to see Naaro leaning his back on a shadowy pile of crates, his arms crossed.

Pay no attention to him, the Zen Xi’Ara snapped.

“Ark?” Naaro asked. “You alright?”

Ark was wincing and holding his head with his hands. He turned towards the Spear and hissed in Pandoran, pointing, “You are mine, I tell you what to do!”

With no reply from the Spear, Ark turned back to Naaro, who was taken aback by his previous action.

“Are you sur–“

“Yes, I’m sure!” Ark snapped.

“Whoa, calm down…calm down.”

Ark took a deep breath and shook his head sadly.

“I’ve been watching you for a little wh–“

“Gee, thanks,” Ark sneered. “If I had asked for an audience, I would have…well, asked.”

“Hey, hey, I’m trying to help you out here,” Naaro said, raising his hands defensively.

“What good will any help do, I’ve been beyond it for years,” Ark spat.

Naaro remained silent.

“Well, go on, say what you want to say,” Ark said impatiently.

“If you can’t love a machine, then why do you work with them?”

Naaro pointed towards Ark’s makeshift laboratory on one side of the hangar.

“Because they don’t speak back. Like h–it.”

“But you want them to. You want them to live, speak, think, don’t you? I’ve seen you ogling over Ratch. ‘May I inspect your AI unit?’”

“He’s always been that way, though. Dy, Lich, whatever he calls himself, hasn’t.”

“Pardon?” Naaro asked, lost.

Ark glared at Naaro. “He’s a cyborg! You know, has metal parts?” he berated him, miming a robotic walk briefly.

“Ah, okay,” he nodded. “Explains why he can throw the Boomerang that fast, I guess.”

“You’re alright with that?!” Ark took a step back, repulsed.

Naaro shrugged. “Don’t see why I shouldn’t be.”

“But…but he–“

Ark faltered for words, and stopped, mouth agape.

“’But he’ what?” Naaro asked.

Ark blinked, and closed his mouth.

“I have no reason. I have no Elementals-forsaken reason…” he muttered.

The conversation, with the occasional “Now then, if X marks the spot where...no, that'd never work. How about a megaton bla– aww, dangit, we're in a train in space...hmm...ah yes, I could just push him straight through the wall. Wonderful!” and “How about reversing his magical element from dark to light while keeping his physical element dark…that should give a nasty burning sensation…” had meandered its way through topics to families.

“What’s your family like, Lich?” Prism asked.

“Well,” he leaned back, “there’s me, Ark, my parents in Kippo, and my Aunt Tia – my mother’s sister – in Yoshiville. They’re my only living relatives.”

“Living?” Sapphire asked.

“Well, all my grandparents died, and my other aunt.”

“I’m sorry,” Sapphire sympathised.

Lich shrugged. “It doesn’t worry me, I never knew them. Would have liked to, though. My other aunt was on my father's side. Never met her. She died before I hatched, I think. She married though, had a son. Had I known her, I would have had an Aunt Claudia and Uncle Reinhard. Don’t remember the last name.”

Sixtyfourhundred leant forward and muttered, “Those names remind me of something, as if I’ve heard them before…hmm…”

Lich continued, “They went on a holiday to the Western Continent and were attacked by some dragon, I think. Nobody knows what happened to the Koyoshi. Quicksilver seems to come to mind–“

“Now that’s very familiar,” Sixtyfourhundred interrupted, wildly interested. “Something that happened a long time ago, but I can't really remember. Do you know where this took place? Anywhere near my home town?”

Lich remembered that Sixtyfourhundred came from the Western Continent himself and answered, “Umm, I think so. I know I definitely saw the roadside graves.”

“It could be…no…it can’t be,” Sixtyfourhundred muttered, lost in thought.

“There’s a copy of a picture I found at home in this,” Lich suggested, laying the Boomerang flat on the coffee table, “and I think I may have taken a picture of the gravestones as well.”

With the Pandoran command, “Display”, the Ruby of Erisot glowed yellow, before projecting a vertical image above it, showing a sort of menu. Lich pressed a few buttons that led him to display the pictures he was after.

The first was of four Yoshies, one a yellow male clad in silver armour, with a dark blue cape, a white dragon insignia inscribed on the left side of his chestplate. Standing by his side was a blue female in intricate white cloaks, hinting that she was a cleric. Beside her was Reuben, with Kara at his side, arm around her shoulders, both dressed in Pandoran garb. The four stood on a lightly grassed hill with the town of Kippo below, in the distance.

The picture then faded out and a second one appeared...two grey-white rectangular stones shone in a harsh noon sun, pressed into the ground so that the top surface was level with the ground around them. The grass around them appeared to be freshly cleared, a patchy frame showing brown soil. A white rose lay on each grave, horizontally beneath the names etched into the stone. They read:

Reinhard Hiro Yoshike Claudia Mitsukai Yoshike (nee Yoshi)

“Yoshike, that was their–“ Lich started, before turning to see Sixtyfourhundred.

“You alright?” Sapphire asked.

Sixtyfourhundred’s eyes were wide and his mouth was open in shock.

“Those…those are…my parents,” he forced out.

“Pardon?” Lich asked, taken aback.

“My parents,” he repeated. “That’s a picture of my parents…but that can’t be…”

“Your parents? But…”

“That would mean we’re related,” Sixtyfourhundred said, agape.

“Well, I knew it was your hometown, but…”

“They died when I was young, but I could still remember them...then the White Dragon Knights took me in and took care of me from there.”

“…It makes sense,” Lich said after thinking a moment. “Of course the God of Warriors would come from Recugrian’s bloodline…”

“Whose bloodline?” Sapphire interrupted.

Lich looked up to see the other two Yoshies also taken back.

“Recugrian Yoshi,” he answered, still amazed. “He united the tribes of the island a long time ago. I’m his direct descendant, or so the Prophecy of Two Worlds claims…but…this is a bit of a shock. It means that you’re my lost cousin.”

“Wow, what a surprise,” Sixtyfourhundred shook his head, smiling. “We’ve been friends for so long and we both never knew.”

“Heh,” Lich smiled, offering his hand to the God of Warriors. “Welcome to the family, I guess.”

His cousin replied, and the two of them shook, the others applauding.

“No!” an angry voice echoed through the dark caves beneath Pandora.

The Dark Lich stopped scrying the conversation in the Spectrum, and floated as if he was pacing beside the pool he had used to gain his knowledge.

“The blasphemous one grows stronger! And that stupid pupil won’t do a damn thing! The brotherly love penetrated too deep! I warned him about this – did he listen? No!”

Dark continued to pace, his red eyes flashing and his black heart quivering in anger.

“I’m going to have to deal with him myself. But he knows the ways of Lumina, curse him. And what of his allies?”

He paused in thought.

“Isolation. If I can separate him from that accursed weapon and his family and allies…and block his powers…I will defeat him.”

He clenched his fist and smiled wryly.

“The time will come, lizard. Sooner than you imagine.”