https://youtu.be/y5wo_08Tlqo

Opening my eyes to a world which seemed to have been lost for so long and had been shunned by my siblings because they were blinded by both love and hatred seemed so nostalgic for me. It must have been because I came from Ecgtheow and my eomma came from this world.

I was still in the sky yet I was in a different one. I was not falling like before instead I was lying still without support. The sky was bright blue with puffs of thick clouds resting with me and I could perceive various words being spoken from a very distant and bittersweet memory which was persistently being shown yet constantly being rejected.

"Tom-Ak-Ta, what did you make?" Ecgtheow asked.

I sat up from the cloud and tried to look for the source of voices. Hearing my eomma's voice was rather a great melody to my ears. His voice was soft yet you could hear the delight in them. Compared to eomma, Tom-Ak-Ta had a dull sounding tone on him which complemented his rather heavy voice.

"I made a creature which is opposite to yours. I call them Dearil," Tom-Ak-Ta replied.

I took my first step on the cloud and tested if my foot will go through. When I consider it safe to walk on, I ventured through the vast expanse of thick and pinkish puffs of clouds in which I seemed to be the only one walking on. Where were they? Were they invisible?

"Mm? Are they as moody as you are?" Ecgtheow asked.

"Maybe..." Tom-Ak-Ta replied.

Through this vast expanse of clouds, there were trees which managed to grow and pierce through some parts of this high area. These trees possessed various bright colors which gave off a glittery appearance. Tiny birds which were as tall as my index finger flew from one tree to another.

As I continued to walk and listen to the soft and quiet conversation between Tom-Ak-Ta and Ecgtheow, the same ebony shadow from before rose up from the clouds with his back facing me.

"Tom-Ak-Ta?" I called out. The man stayed in place, unmoving. "My name is Aecha...I am a child of Ecgtheow," I introduced myself. "Is there something that you want to tell me? I am willing to listen."

Soft cries came out from Tom-Ak-Ta yet he continued to stay silent until he finally decided to at least say statements which could possibly make sense in the future.

"It all came natural to me yet it made me do the most unnatural thing to a friend..."

"Life and death were never meant to live together yet we were the greatest pair of all..."

"Ecgtheow...Ecgtheow...Forgive me my Ecgtheow..."

As expected, just like before, Tom-Ak-Ta slowly transformed into the octopod that we were chasing in the sky of planet Aecha. I stayed still and anchored my feet to the ground with no plans of bringing out any type of weapon.

Once it perfectly towered my height, a loud and menacing growl was emitted by the cronie yet I continued to stay still and gazed firmly at its clouded eyes. When the cronie noticed that I did not plan to attack it nor did I show any hostility towards it, the cronie -to my utter surprise- shrank much like the size of a ball.

The tiny octopod gazed up to me with its clouded eyes and then began to crawl using its short tentacles. It crawled up to my body and stopped between my shoulder and neck. I shut my eyes and waited for the bite which was a different spot from the last one.

I felt small little prickings on my neck which was short-lived. The octopod started to release a white smoke from various parts of its body before transforming back into its healthy form and size and once again towering above me.

The once peaceful and beautiful scenery of the skies and clouds melted into nothing but a dark sky with nothing much to look at. The land below was completely consumed by rot.

The octopod raised one thick tentacle and shoved me back into a window of eavesdrop where not only I can hear the conversation but also see for myself the two gods excluding their faces.

I saw a pale hand up close touching a red flower in the front row of a flower field. Once the hand touched the flower long enough, it slowly started to wither and die only to live once again when another figure wearing a clean and white looking robe walked close to who seemed to be Tom-Ak-Ta. When he saw that the flower that he was trying to kill was revived immediately, he let out a dissatisfied sigh.

"Tom-Ak-Ta...The Aishahs and the Dearils do not seem to be getting along," Ecgtheow told him.

"Because the Aishahs keep on reviving everything that the Dearils kill and vice versa," Tom-Ak-Ta replied.

"What is wrong with reviving the things that your creatures kill?" Ecgtheow asked with an upset tone.

"I could say the same thing for your creatures. What's wrong with killing everything that your creatures revive?" Tom-Ak-Ta calmly rebutted and stood up from his kneeling position. "You have two gods in a planet with different minds and different powers. What do you expect?"

I can now only see the movement of their feet and could now properly compare the contrast between their forms. Tom-Ak-Ta had a robe with rough edges on. His bare feet were a deathly pale of color. Ecgtheow had a perfectly seamed robe with a healthy looking skin tone.

"Yes, I do understand that Tom-Ak-Ta. I apologize," eomma calmly stated. "What do you think we should do?" he asked.

Tom-Ak-Ta stayed silent for awhile before answering. "We should take each half of world and let our creatures rule in separate lands. In that way, they wouldn't be in each other's way." Tom-Ak-Ta spoke in a sense of coldness towards Ecgtheow.

"But wouldn't that give them an idea that the two of us are not in good terms?" Ecgtheow asked. Tom-Ak-Ta grunted in response and turned the other way which didn't seem to give a nice meaning to Ecgtheow. "Tom-Ak-Ta...you seem to be distant. Is there something that I did that upset you? If so I'm really sorry," Ecgtheow humbly said with much anxiety in his voice.

"You did nothing Ecgtheow. My problem is what you are and what I am. We cannot stay together like this anymore," Tom-Ak-Ta replied with no remorse or hesitance in his tone.

Ecgtheow sauntered closer to Tom-Ak-Ta. His toes were touching the back of Tom-Ak-Ta's feet. "But we are friends Tom-Ak-Ta! There were no problems before. Why is it impossible now? There has got to be a very good reason. Don't turn your back on me, please?"

The image slowly started to fade with Tom-Ak-Ta walking away from Ecgtheow as he coldly stated:

"Life and Death cannot be together. Grow up Ecgtheow. We are Gods of our world and the direct opposite of one another. I do not see you as a friend. What I feel for you is mere hatred."

Ecgtheow was left to stand alone in front of the flower field which stood as audience to the end of a beautiful friendship that the two Gods once shared. It was a friendship which seemed to have bloomed like a flower of happiness in which the God of Death himself put an end to.

Ecgtheow took a shaky step forward to a fall which he cannot stop and glimmering tears descended from his unseen eyes towards the grass which shared the weight of burden that he now carried.

"But...I love you."

It was a confession carried by the winds which made haste to reach the God of Death's ears. The image that I was seeing shifted to Tom-Ak-Ta who was making strong and firm steps away from Ecgtheow. In a brink of a second Tom-Ak-Ta abruptly halted in his steps when the winds passed him but he did not bother looking back at all and instead of going back to respond positively to that confession, he chose to walk forward with each step indicating the rejection to my eomma's revelation. The farther he covered the bigger space it was for the word "Rejection" to be written on as a formidable weapon for a longing God.

Once I woke up from the memory, it took me some time to realize that I was safely confined in a bed in a foreign room which was not familiar to me. That memory had left me paralyzed from the heavy emotions pinning me down. I was not even involved in their disagreement yet being inside that world meant that I was also inside Tom-Ak-Ta's mind and ticker where he had stored his recollections of him and my eomma and distributed it across his dead land.

Gilmos entered the room I was in and sat beside me on a floating stool. The walls had appendages of long rectangular bars of light in the middle which lit the room.

"How are you feeling?" he asked me but my ticker felt so heavy to even respond early. "Once you were in that dimension, it took you three hours to get out. The octopod that became the cronie came out with you looking like it never became infected. Everything in the skies which were also infected returned back to normal once you came out. The octopod got you safely on the ground before departing again like nothing happened."

Gilmos placed his hand on my shoulder and gave me a light shake. "What happened in there? How did you do it?"

Nothing of what Gilmos told me or asked me got me to speak that it was until he told me something really devastating that he earned a response. I did not know if he did that on purpose to make me speak or to snap me out of my reverie but it wasn't Gilmos to use such tactic.

"The real Scion died early in the morning."

The shock of hearing of such loss jolted me to sit up with wide eyes. "What?"

Gilmos breathed out and sported a scowl on his face while he had told me what exactly happened and the very root of this chase with the Paragons.

Scion was found dead by one of the guards who brought him food. He was unresponsive but he still managed to maintain my appearance even in death. When the news reached the president, he ordered the guards to prevent this from leaking out because it will cause a riot since the child of Ecgtheow was the only hope of saving planet Aecha.

Scientists examined his body and experimented if a dead ascian particle from Scion can kill a live particle from a cronie that was weakened but it did nothing. This was the reason why the president suddenly became adamant in capturing me because I know something that they don't in which the knowledge that I was starting to collect was ignored and shunned by my deceased siblings and rejected by the Paragons themselves.

Anger bubbled inside of me and I couldn't stop myself from hitting the wall beside me with the side of my fist. It caused an indentation on the surface of the wall and it took seconds for guilt to finally creep inside of me.

I snatched my hand from the wall and held it tight with my other hand. I gazed down in shame and scolded myself from still having the feeling of rage towards the president. I shouldn't feel this way because rage can never have positive results. However, I can't bring myself to stay positive anymore knowing that the Paragons considered being the guardians of all planets were now my enemies and that Scion passed away in such an unrighteous way.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry..." I apologized breathlessly before covering my face with my hands. Tears flowed out of my eyes and my hands slowly crumpled into a tight fist. "I'm sorry..."

Scion died in jail. He spent his last moments being treated like a criminal when I was supposed to be the one in there. I couldn't even meet him in person to thank him for his sacrifice and I could not even present him with any progress just to show him that his efforts of coming here for me were not wasted.

Heavy hands were placed on top of my shoulders but I couldn't look at Gilmos's eyes to see his reaction from my breakdown.

"Starting from now on, I forbid you to cry. A Paragon should not compensate a brave sacrifice of a comrade with tears which won't even contribute to anything. Don't give him tears; offer him victory. Give tribute to him not with the sadness of loss but with the glory of taking back planet Aecha from its gruesome enemy."

I heard Gilmos stand up and then he pulled me up to rise. He slapped my hands which were covering my face and he harshly tipped my teary face up. His eyes gazed at me with wrath for my behavior.

"You have to be stronger than what you are right now. You have to be prepared to save people but at the same time, I want you to be stronger when it comes to losing someone. Trust me when I say that while you are breathing there will be people dying and as they fall, the bonds that connect you and him will drag you down with him," Gilmos told me. "In some games, the winner stands on a mountain of corpses made up of his brave comrades. I am willing to be one of those corpses underneath your feet for the sake of planet Aecha."

Gilmos threw an injector on my bed before turning around and exiting the room leaving me still with a broken resolve and a confused mind. I stopped myself from crying further as I looked at Gilmos's back with one question in my mind which was: Wasn't there another way of winning without shedding lives?

Because I would never stand on top of my comrades just to gain the victory that all of us hope for. Whether they were dead or alive I shall carry their bodies on top of a mountain for us to reach the clouds of victory.

Gilmos's way will never be my way and the way my siblings walked on shall never be a path for me.

I watched the video from the injector which immediately stung my ticker yet brought a smile on my lips.

Gilmos turned around when he heard my fast steps towards him. "Aecha-"

I lifted Gilmos from the ground and placed him on my shoulders with a big smile on my face.

"What are you doing? Put me down child!"

"I will never step on Gilmos-ssu's fancy clothing!" I declared.

I ran through the narrow metallic hallway with Gilmos reprimanding me. I found Dryp-ssu coming out of a room and when he saw Gilmos on my back, he pushed his bangs up to reveal his the tiny slits of eyes to determine if he was seeing things or it was his bangs playing tricks on him.

"Dryp-ssu, get on top of my back!" I laughed.

"Aecha, stop this nonsense!" Gilmos shouted with much shame to his tone of voice. "And Dryp, don't you dare..."

"Wait, wait, let me just get this picture!" Dryp cheered.

"Dryp!" Gilmos roared.

"Just one picture because Aecha can be such a comedian! Ha ha!"

https://youtu.be/RTWonF546Ss

Scion might be dead but I realized that he didn't come for the sake of saving me. He came because in his own little way and with the time he had left, he wanted to contribute something to rescue planet Aecha. He might be stolen from us by time but his words in the last video he made will remain within me and I shall live knowing that he died as a hero and carrying his name was an honor.

"Hello real Aecha! How is it being me? Awesome right? I gotta say your life here is boring. Mine is so much better you know? But it's okay; you can borrow my identity for as long as you like..." Scion looked even weaker than before. His eyes were droopy and he seemed to be out of breath after such a short statement. He looked at the lens with his deteriorating condition which only brought a hammer to break my ticker.

"I don't have much time...I'm sorry if I couldn't hold much longer. It would have been awesome to fight alongside you. We could have been legendary buddies!" after that excited statement, he gave a loud cough and squeezed a pillow in his arms while having the look of pain in his expression.

"Don't be sad for me okay? Don't you dare cry- Eh I can see you! Stop it, no crying allowed or else!" he scolded before laughing quietly.

He lied his head on top of the pillow he was holding before looking at the lens again with his chin resting on the pillow. "I think they are going to plant a new Ghazi tree...will you...will you visit it when it gives its first birth? You know, after you save planet Aecha? Eh? What's with that unsure face? You can do it! I wouldn't haul my ass all the way up here if I didn't believe you can! So do that one thing for me okay? Stop doubting yourself because a doubtful person has a doubtful victory and I never doubted you. You may not remember me but I'm one of the people you helped. Can't remember? Ha ha, I thought so. Don't think about it too much because if you can't remember me anymore that just meant that you already became a hero to many people."

He let out a long sigh and closed his eyes. He gave another long sigh before finally speaking, "I got to go now...No crying okay? Don't be extremely sad if someone dies, instead make that death meaningful," he stated before chuckling again. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes before saying his last statement.

"So...no crying," he whispered.

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A/N: I think this was an emotional chapter but what do you think? Anyway, Sevor and Slade above!