My Father

“Markus!!!” Ember’s desperate scream resonates with my soul. She made a fire explosion that hit the killer with so much intensity that he should be killed, if his signature didn’t stop that.

“You are forgetting who is the real problem here,” said Elvira picking a pebble from the destroyed arm of Markus and, with enough pressure, shot it at Ember, piercing her body.

Elvira’s body was terrible, she was bleeding from the mouth and one of her arms was twisted, but she was still strong enough to fight.

“We have to leave!” said Nikolay, but neither Agnes, Takai nor I wanted to do it.

The prince didn’t ask for consent, first he took Hiyoku away. But when he returned to Ember, Elvira got him off the ground and with a kick to the knee she broke his leg.

I looked all around, focusing on my friends and family but I knew that was not what I could do. Agnes tried an electric punch, but Elvira dispersed the power and threw her to the ground.

“Elvira has everything under control, what if we find a nicer place to perform my surgery, Fritzroy?”

After the flames went out around Amaru he was barely recognizable as a human, he looked like a walking charcoal. Unfortunately, there was no one to stop them and the two men leave, letting Elvira finish us off.

She approached Rita, who could not defend herself and I needed to stop being paralyzed and do something. So, I ran in front of her and punched Elvira’s face, but she didn’t even budge.

“Little Nina, what could you even do against me? You don’t even have any offensive powers. I’m a god, what are you?”

What was I? Who was I? At that moment this question didn’t even matter. I loved my family and I wanted to protect them. And then I remembered the blue light I saw with Takai against the Cyan Demon. I didn’t know where that came from, but if it came from me, then maybe…

The villain was ready to punch me, but an arm stopped her attack. A stone arm, just like Markus’s, but this one came from me.

“Stop hurting my family!”

More arms appeared, and with four punches at the same time the woman was thrown away.

“I love them! So just stop!” Fireballs came from my hands, and Elvira was too surprised to defend herself.

I felt the hearts of everyone around me and empathy threads connected us all, not made by Rita, but by me.

“I don’t know how you are doing this, but you can’t win against a god!” Elvira said, bloodied but returning to the fight.

The others were in no condition to fight, but having multiple eyes observing my enemy’s movements, connected with my mind made a big difference. Their help plus the power growth from Markus’s signature allowed me to keep an equal footing against the villain. There was one pair of eyes in particular that gave me a huge advantage.

I felt Agnes Stein scanning our enemy for weak points and, when I found the opening, I went for it.

First, I did a huge punch in her stomach, with the second hand I held her hair so she wouldn’t be thrown away and with the third, I punched her face.

“Sorry,” I truthfully said feeling bad from the bloody mess Elvira was becoming. She fell to the ground with her nose and skull broken from the punch.

I was not going to lose the opportunity and I kneeled over Elvira, looking at the purple orb in the middle of her chest. With my six arms I tried to grab it. If a Stanza power fused them, it made sense that another Stanza could remove it.

She screamed in pain as I pulled the Original Poem from her. Once it all came out, we had a moment of silence.

The purple parts of her body went away and even with all the injuries, Elvira looked like she was in peace.

“What a joke. The first day with my ‘invincible’ powers and I was killed…”

“You are not dead!” I protested.

“I think I’m… I feel my life going away, but that is okay. I just faced the consequences for my actions. Not that I regret doing anything, but I knew how many enemies I would.”

“I didn’t want to kill you…”

For some reason that made her laugh.

“Nina, you know how many people I killed. Isn’t the job of a Hero to stop the villains?”

“Stop doesn’t mean kill... and I don’t like you; you are a terrible person but… I don’t know if I heard this or if it is the connection with someone who did, but your parents were on the same cult of mine, right? I know how terrible mine was, so yours were probably terrible too.”

“And yet I’m the monster and you a cute Heroine,” she laughed. But then she stared at me with a serious look in her eyes. “But you are right about something: your father is terrible, the worst I’ve met. And his Stanza makes him immortal, you know what that means, right? You are the only one who can put an end to him.”

“I thought he was your ally,” I said, trying not to think about what she was asking of me.

“Allies… I’ve never had any. Not friends, nor family… my path was always solitary.”

“Hey, what is your full name again?” I asked.

“Elvira Erskeine… why?”

“Elvira Erskeine, I do not forgive you, but that doesn’t mean you have to die alone. I can be your family for these final instants.”

I took her hand and we stayed together silently until there was no more life in her.

In the direction of Markus Terracota’s body, I saw all my family, crying and in despair over his death. And worst of all was that my dad was responsible for all that. I tried to find him, but Amaru and the doctor were long gone. Floating around the Altar I could see the yellow and orange orbs, the purple was with me, and the cyan and green with the others. It didn’t take long for me to notice which of them was missing.

“He took the Original Poem of Fire…”

I didn’t want to see the body of Markus Terracota so I just waited until the others were ready to go, looking at the stone bad in the middle of the eight pillars in the Altar of The Poet.