Beep beep beep

He rolled over to his back and opened his eyes to a pure white ceiling as an alarm clock rang.

"What? Wasn't I just in a fight?" He asked himself while laying in a soft bed. "Did I die?"

"Ughhh," someone groaned from beside him. "Please turn off the alarm, Grey."

Without thinking he rolled over and hit the alarm clock.

"Wait? That was a woman's voice?"

He looked back to see a beautiful young woman with gun metal colored hair laying on her side with her eyes closed.

"That's right, I'm married to Tess," he thought with a smile. He then remembered something else and pulled the sheets off of her.

"Greyyy," Tess whined, as her pregnant stomach was revealed. "Give me back my covers."

He didn't listen and moved down the bed. He pulled up his black tee shirt she was wearing and kissed her stomach.

"Good Morning little one," he said with a blissful smile.

Tess giggled. "Well if that was your intention I guess I can't complain."

He then moved back up and kissed her lips. "And good morning to you my beautiful wife."

He brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear, a human ear, and looked a little confused.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"Have you ever had a dream that felt so real you weren't sure if it was actually reality?"

"What kind of dream did you have where my ear is making you confused?" She questioned.

"Well, it was a fantasy world with magic, and of course you were there, but you were..." he felt a little embarrassed. "You were an elf."

"Oooo," she said, sounding excited. "Was I a sexy elf?"

Grey gave a lustful grin as he moved in closer. "The sexiest elf there ever was."

He then started kissing her, then stepped up to making out. Being pregnant didn't do much to stop her sex drive, especially after the morning sickness went away. Her hands started going for his boxers and her left hand reached in and grabbed his member and gave it a squeeze. Grey gave a pleasure filled moan into the kiss. She stroked him as his hands started to work their way under her shirt when...

"Good morning your majesty, lady Tess," a maid greeted as she burst into the room.

"Knock!" Grey yelled as he pulled his hands out of Tess shirt and Tess hers out of his boxers.

"I'm sorry your majesty," she said with a bow. "But you yourself instructed me to come in like this."

"I did?"

"Yes, you said you both have a very busy day and don't have time to waste."

"Ugh. I remember that," Tess groaned as she rolled onto her back. "Cecilia and I are going shopping for the babies."

"Cecilia? Wasn't she dead? No. She and Nico are married now, she's even expecting herself," Grey thought as if the answers were being created right then and there.

The thought of Nico caused Grey's blood to boil. He wasn't sure why, but he could feel an urge to kill him slowly. Tess moved to the edge of the bed and sat up, then with the help of the maid was pulled to her feet.

"Good morning Regis," Tess called out.

Arthur shot up and looked around, and saw a large black wolf getting up from a large dog bed, then walked over to Tess.

"Aww, you're such a good boy," Tess praised the wolf as she scratched him behind the ear.

Arthur looked confused at the wolf.

"I remember. We found him as a puppy when we went on a picnic during a military training exercise I was observing. He was quite a runt back then, but now he's grown rather large, and often described as majestic. He's extremely protective of me and Tess, and many agreed that walking into a challenge against another nations representative with a wolf definitely added a huge intimidation factor."

As these answers entered his head his eyes locked with Regis'.

"WAKE THE FUCK UP PRINCESS!"

Grey's eyes widened suddenly as his body jerked back.

"Are you alright your majesty?" The maid asked as she looked to him in concern.

"Y-yeah," he replied as he shook his head. "I think I'm still partly asleep. Tell the kitchen staff to make my coffee extra strong today."

The maid and Tess chuckled.

"Yes your majesty. Oh, also, your father and sister have arrived and are waiting in the dining room."

"Father and sister? Agrona and Sylvie...no, that's not right, is it? Yes. Agrona and Sylvia adopted me, then a few years later Sylvia became pregnant with Sylvie. Sylvia died giving birth, and we were all sad. Agrona really stepped up as a father, wearing himself down everyday so we both felt loved. He was a former contender to be king, and trained me before I entered the military academy. Now as king I make sure both of them live comfortably so Agrona can finally rest after all his hard work raising us."

"Gotcha, thanks," Grey replied as he got out of bed.

——————————————————————-

"Tess! Brother!" Sylvie cried out as they entered the dining room, with Regis walking in front of them.

Sylvie was sixteen years old, with long blonde hair, and was wearing a black dress. She was a beauty, and as soon as the boys realized that Grey made sure they knew who her older brother was and assigned guards to keep them away.

"Good morning Sylvie," Tess greeted warmly as she hugged her sister-in-law.

"Good morning Sylv," Grey greeted, hiding the hurting feeling he felt in his heart from being called brother, but couldn't understand why this bothered him.

"Good morning," Agrona greeted warmly as he walked over.

Immediately Grey felt an overwhelming rage towards his adopted father that he just couldn't understand. He saw a steak knife sitting on the table, and fought against the extreme urge to grab it and slit his throat.

He came to Tess first and tried to hug her, but stopped at the sound of Regis growling at him.

"Good work Regis," Grey thought to himself proudly. "Wait, why am I proud of that?"

"Bad Regis," Tess scolded.

"Oh don't worry about it. I've heard of pets being over protective of their pregnant owner, and eventually the new born baby, that's probably it," Agrona replied kindly.

He tried to reach his hand out to pet Regis, but only tried to bite his hand.

"Good boy."

"Ok, maybe I'll just avoid him for now," Agrona said nervously and looked to Grey. "Good morning son. Ready to be a father yet?"

Grey smiled warmly and gently took Tess hand in his. "About as ready as I can be."

"That's all you can do, but you'll never be completely ready." He gave a sly smile. "At least with the first child."

They all sat down and enjoyed breakfast and conversation together, as Grey wrestled with his desire to take his adoptive father's head. Nothing about this morning was making sense to him right now, as if his dream was actually reality. Nevertheless he kept his wits about him and kept himself in check, constantly telling himself that this was the reality.

The doors to the dining room opened and a butler walked in, with a young pregnant woman wearing a red dress following behind.

"Mrs. Cecilia has arrived," the butler said before stepping aside and leaving.

"I'm not early, am I?" Cecilia asked.

"No, I'm just running late," Tess apologized.

"Good morning Cecilia," Agrona greeted.

"Good morning Mr. Vritia."

"So how's Nico? Is he actually getting any sleep?" Grey asked, swallowing his anger for saying his name.

"Ugh, no. I'm worried about him. Not only is he working nine hours a day at the lab, but then he comes home and works on the nursery. I mean, I appreciate all he's doing, he's even built some educational toys, but he's only getting maybe four hours of sleep. Our home constantly smells like coffee now, I'm worried he's going to work himself to an early grave." Cecilia looked hesitant while looking at Grey. "That's why I want to ask for your help. Do you think you could use some of that kingly authority and maybe give his lab a grant so he can hire some help?"

"I think I have a budget meeting either today or tomorrow. I'll bring it up then, but I would need some of his research notes so I can try and convince those old penny pinchers."

"Thank you so much," Cecilia replied graciously.

Grey smiled, but on the inside he felt like he wanted to throw up. Just the idea of doing anything other than killing Nico infuriated him.

"Alright let's go," Tess said to Cecilia as she got up from her seat. She then walked over to Grey and bent down a little and kissed his lips. "I'll see you this evening." With that she walked off.

"I hope I can have that with a cute guy someday," Sylvie commented with a dreamy tone.

Both Grey and Agrona froze, for once they had the same thought, they would need a lot of land to hide all those boys' bodies.

"Your majesty," an older man wearing a black suit said as he entered the room. "You have a meeting with the defense council."

"Right, let's go."

Grey excused himself, and he and the man exited the room with Regis walking right beside him. A few doors down they arrived at a long table where the nations council was already seated, along with two generals and their aids.

"Alright generals, what's going on?" Grey said as he approached his seat at the head.

The first cleared his throat as he stood up and walked to a screen on the wall.

"Yesterday the nation of Epheotus tested a new weapon they are calling the World Eater." He pressed a button on a remote and the screen showed a satellite view of an island. "You're about to see a satellite view of their test. For your reference, this island is about the size of the capital."

"Epheotus...a small country with a napoleon complex, and one of the last dictatorships in the world. Although they technically have a representative like myself, Kezess, he hasn't actually been seen to fight anyone in over a decade. He gained his title of king nearly twenty years ago, but has yet to be replaced. After two years there was a challenge for his title, but his opponent mysteriously disappeared the night before their duel. Similar things have happened with several other nations that challenged him, that they disappeared or died after an unfortunate accident. Only once has he fought against another nations' representative but he crippled him quickly. Because of this every nation has just left them alone for the last ten years," Grey mused to himself, while wondering why he knew so much about such a small country.

The recording started, nothing happened at first, but in seconds a white light appeared in the center of the island and began expanding. After thirty seconds the light faded, leaving everything black.

"The blast exceeded twice the range of the island, and left no readable radiation."

Murmurs were heard from the table. A weapon with the destructive power of a nuclear bomb but without the radiation, it was a terrifying idea.

"What is every other nation's response to this?" One of the council members asked.

"Unknown yet, they should all be seeing this information around now as well. So we can assume they'll have a response soon, but that's not all."

"What else?" Grey asked.

"They are threatening war against two of their neighboring countries, Alacrya and Dicathen. They threatened to use the World Eater on both countries if they didn't surrender in three days. That threat came twelve hours ago," the other general stated.

"And I imagine they've already requested help from the rest of the world," Grey mused.

"We can't risk war against them, not with that weapon!" A council member stated.

"But we can't just let them do as they please either," said another.

"What we need to do is contact the other major powers. A coalition will be needed. Hopefully working together the nations can force them to back off. If not, they can't win a war against the whole world," Grey stated.

"And if they don't stand down?" The second council member asked.

Grey sighed as he remembered the last actual war they fought, where they exterminated an entire country's population. "I think it's safe to say we have the most battle hardened military in the world right now, since there hasn't been a real war in so long. If this comes to war, we will fight against Epheotus with all our might."

——————————————————————-

Grey sat silently in the back seat of an armored SUV with Regis beside him. They were currently heading to a maximum security prison to witness the execution of a terrorist cell that was captured. He couldn't understand why he needed to be present, but he had too much on his mind to question that as well.

Ever since this morning too many things weren't adding up, and now that he had some time he was racking his brain to try and come up with some answers.

"Information is coming to me as if the author of a book is explaining it to readers, emotions that don't match up with "known" facts... am I part of some conspiracy? Is someone playing with my head somehow, and if so how?" Grey took a deep breath. "Let's start from the beginning of today. Tess, her being my wife isn't something that feels off, but her being pregnant does. How did we even meet? I rescued her from...slave traders? But slavery is illegal. What the hell is going on here?"

"Now that's the million dollar question."

Grey quickly looked around after hearing the voice, but no one was there with him but Regis. He stared at the wolf intently, but he just appeared to be sleeping.

"Damn it Arthur, are you going crazy?" Grey asked himself as he leaned his head back and looked up. He froze. "Arthur? That doesn't feel wrong, but my name is Grey."

After a little while longer they finally arrived at the prison. They walked down the halls to the viewing area for the execution room, and even though he still had a lot on his mind he remained observant, anything he noticed could be a clue as to what's going on. As they entered the viewing area he only noticed one thing that really stood out. Ever since this morning almost no one acknowledged Regis even existed, as if they couldn't even see him. Other than him, only Tess and Agrona saw Regis, but his memories told him that other people usually acknowledged him, from the chef making him his own food for meals, to the butlers and maids that would often pat his head and give him a treat. He knew whatever was happening, somehow Regis was connected.

After a few minutes they arrived at the viewing area and began taking their seats. As Grey sat down he looked through the glass to see a dozen gallows ready.

"What the hell is this?! Gallows?!" Grey said in disgust as he saw the method of execution.

"Method doesn't matter, only the results," someone said casually from behind.

Grey was angry, his instincts told him something was wrong here too. He noticed his aide, and him holding a tablet.

"Is the file about the prisoners being executed on there?" He asked.

"Yes your majesty," he replied, and pulled up the fuel and handed it over.

Grey took the tablet and began looking over the file. He quickly scrolled through the pages, looking more and more confused as he went on. Not because he felt the information looked suspicious, but because he couldn't read it. It wasn't a matter of a language barrier, he could identify every single letter. The problem was that the file looked like a bowl of alphabet soup. Letters were slapped together, not forming words or even sounds, but appearing to be placed together at random.

"I can't read this," Grey stated.

"I know right?" An older woman who was sitting next to him said.

Grey looked in her direction and flinched back in shock, but worked to maintain his composure. The figure had the body of a woman, and was even wearing a dress. She had gray curly hair, but she didn't have a face.

"To think they used children in their efforts. I wish they could have made this public to try and use them as an example," the woman said.

Grey nodded and looked forward. He could see everyone else around her was the same, and expected the same on his other side as well.

"Ok, something really weird is happening. I just need to stay calm for now. If someone really is doing something to me, if I act out of character they might get suspicious. I just need to wait for an opportunity," Grey told himself.

"Sorry princess, but this shits only going to get worse before it gets better."

Grey looked down at Regis, as he looked up at him. But Regis wasn't Regis anymore, a set of horns was now coming from his head as a flickering purple mane was along his back.

"Pay attention."

"Honored witnesses," the warden said as he entered the execution chamber. "Thank you all for attending today. As per the ####### act, these prisoners have only been here a week since their guilty verdict."

Grey looked in disbelief and confusion. It was as if the wardens words had been redacted as they exited his mouth. The prisoners then began entering the room, but they weren't wearing prison uniforms, instead they looked like they belonged at a renaissance festival.

"Blaine, Priscilla, Curtis, and Kathyln Glayder," the warden began naming the prisoners as they entered.

Grey's body shook. He knew these people, he wasn't sure how, but he knew them.

"Virion, Alduin, and Merial Eralith."

"Those are Tess parents and grandfather, but...." Arthur's thoughts trailed off, things that didn't make sense began piling up.

More and more people entered, all that he knew, but couldn't understand why. He struggled internally with what to do, sacrifice them as he tried to figure out what was going on, or save them. But as the last prisoners entered his mind went blank.

"Reynolds, Alice, and Elenoir Leywin."

"My family? But Agrona and Sylvie are my family, who...Agrona."

Grey felt his blood boil in rage upon thinking of Agrona, and with that he started to piece things together. Agrona was somehow behind this.

He tried to get up, but couldn't, as if some invisible force was holding him down.

"These individuals were found guilty of multiple counts of terrorism from..." the warden said, continuing as he stated specific incidents.

Grey however wasn't paying attention to the warden as he fought to move and watched the Leywins. Alice was clearly struggling to keep herself together as Ellie was balling her eyes out, while Reynolds was trying to console her. One of the executioners arrived and ripped Reynolds away, hitting him with a taser to the ribs in the process.

His rage peaked and he tried channeling kai to his muscles, but something was different. Not only did his kai feel different, it felt like a limitless pool compared to what he was used to.

"...hang by the neck until dead, may god have mercy on your souls," the warden said to the prisoners.

Hearing this Grey channeled the full force of this limitless power throughout his body, which started glowing with an amethyst hue. He felt his body starting to move when he saw the floor drop out from under their feet.

"NOOOO!" He roared as his body broke free.

Immediately the world around him shattered as if it were made of glass, leaving him in a white void. He stood there his eyes wide breathing heavily as he just stared into the seemingly limitless void as his memories returned to him, all of them. Agrona's tampering came with an unexpected side effect, a thousand life times of memories began to flood into Arthur's head.

"So," Regis said, bringing attention to himself. "Do you remember me?"

Arthur looked to his right and smiled in relief. "Thanks for bringing me back," he said, pushing all of these new past life memories back for now.

"And you're not pissed?"

"Why would I be pissed?"

"So um, I tried calling out to you but I was having trouble getting you to hear me. But I learned I could manipulate what you were seeing."

"The executions were your idea?"

"Not exactly. That was Agrona, probably some attempt to brainwash you into thinking they all needed to die. I added your parents and sister. I figured the best way to break you out of there was to shock you, and since your instincts seemed to be intact and you were questioning everything, I figured what better way to shock you."

Arthur got down on one knee before him. "I'm not pissed. So thank you again."

Regis leaned back. "You're not going to hug me are you?"

"No way," Arthur said flatly.

"Good, because we don't have that kind of relationship." He then raised a paw. "Bump?"

Arthur nodded and fist bumped Regis' paw.

"So, ready to get out of here?" Regis asked.

"Just lead the way," Arthur replied.

"Umm, then we have a problem. We're still in your mind. I honestly expected we were just going to wake back up at Agrona's place."

Clomp clomp clomp

It started quiet, but the sound was building. Footsteps from behind, and they were getting closer. They both turned around and froze. There was a man walking towards them, he was middle aged, tall with a strong build, and streaks of gray mixed in with his auburn hair and beard.

Arthur shook as his eyes welled up with tears as he continued to close the distance. He didn't know if this was real or not, but right now he didn't care.

"Dad?" Arthur asked as tears started to escape his eyes.

"Hey Arthur," Reynolds said with a grin.

Arthur immediately took his father into a tight embrace as he let the tears fall freely. Rey returned the hug, holding his son as he let out the pain he had been holding.

"Are you really here?" Arthur asked after a few minutes.

"Umm, I think so?" Rey said, sounding obviously confused. "I remember dying, and then I was here."

"I'm sorry," Arthur said as tears started to come back again. "I'm so sorry, it was all my fault.."

"No," Rey said consolingly while looking him in the eyes. "We're at war, this happens."

"But I let him escape. I was arrogant. If I had just finished him off..."

"You made a mistake. It happens to the best of us, it's a part of growing up."

"Remember, I'm reincarnated. Technically my mental age is a lot older."

"No, you're only a kid. A kid who time and time again has been forced to grow up much too soon. I don't know how, but I can see your past childhoods. You've never had a normal innocent childhood. You've never been able to just be a kid."

Arthur thought about it, not just as Grey or Arthur, but all of his past lives. He had never been born into a life where he could just enjoy it. His childhoods were always hard, and contained some kind of tragedy that hit by his teenage years.

"So stop being so hard on yourself, ok?"

Arthur nodded as he whipped away the tears. Most of his previous lives he didn't have a good father figure, but even then, he didn't think he could ever find as great of a father as Rey.

"Don't get too comfortable here. I'm close to unlocking fate, a powerful ancient mage spell that should allow me to bring you back."

Reynolds shook his head sadly. "Don't. Your mother and sister have been mourning. Let them move on."

"But, don't you want to be back? To see us grow up? To grow old with mom?"

"Of course I do. But death is supposed to be final, and it should stay that way."

"But..."

"Arthur, just listen to me." Rey took a deep breath before continuing. "I haven't always made the best decisions in life, sometimes things became harder for us because of it. But life is full of hardships, sometimes there isn't a right decision, you just need to make a choice and be confident in it. Go left, go right, fight a war or stay at home. I don't regret the choices I made, because it was my decision, not some predetermined plan for me. We make our own choices, sometimes we take the easiest route, while other times the hardest. As long as you felt you made the right choice at the time, then that's all that matters."

Arthur listened to Rey's words and let them sink in. As he did this he had an epiphany.

"There is no fate," he breathed out.

Suddenly Arthur's body glowed golden, as all of his runes glowed together, as new ones formed on his hands, feet, and over his heart.

"Arthur?"

"Thank you." Arthur said with a warm smile. "In your lesson I gained the last piece I needed to unlock fate."

"Art..."

"Don't worry. Your words came through. So I'll just use fate to ensure the rest of our family doesn't die prematurely."

"Let those horned bastards do the dying instead."

"My thoughts exactly."

"Well of course, you are my son after all."