Ch 17: The Sage of Memories

With everyone defeated by Grey and Alastor, Amy is captured and all hope seems lost. As Grey is about to do the unthinkable, Amy unleashes her power. Her past is revealed, but will her feelings reach?

            “Honestly Alexander, he hardly cares about any promise you may have once had. I’ve given him exactly what you tried and failed to. The bliss of ignorance.” said Alastor, approaching his defeated brother while dragging Scott across the ground by the collar. Tossing Scott on the ground beside Alexander, he continued, “His mind is no longer aware of the trivial matters of this imperfect world. Even though it was simply a test sample of the Nameless One’s essence that we implanted within him, he’s already surpassed my expectations. I had my doubts, but with his new rate of development I think he’ll suit my needs perfectly.” Meanwhile, Amy was crawling towards the scene, hiding herself behind whatever she could. In a state of panic at the dismal turn of events, she thought to herself, “Oh no, what do I do?! What can I do? Everyone tried their best, but while I sit here hiding, they’re all about to die, and Grey is… I have to think of something before it’s too late!” Then she heard Alastor say, “Ms. Grant, forgive me but I do so wonder what you think you’re doing crawling around on the ground over there…” Feeling the color drain from her face, she thought, “Oh great… Busted…” As Amy slowly got to her feet, Alastor continued, “Why don’t you come here and stand by me? After all, the show is almost over, and I wouldn’t want you to miss the final act.” Afraid of what he might do to her if she did not do as he wanted, Amy slowly made her way over to Alastor. Trembling with fear, she looked at Alexander and Scott sitting there, and then at Grey in his terrifying form. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Alastor turned to Alexander and said, “You put up a spectacular fight. Even after a year of allowing Serius to constantly feed on your own power, you’re still a formidable opponent dear brother. It would be a shame for the great Gabriel the Immortal to meet his end like this, wouldn’t it?” Stepping forward, as he moved slowly towards Alexander, Alastor continued, “You have lived in this world long enough to realize it haven’t you? Nothing will change. The differences between all beings, be they human or non-human, normal people or energists, the discrimination born from this very form of existence, all of it is ever-present. As the humans bicker between themselves, the residents of the original world have passed down their hatred for humanity generation after generation, and even without us they squabble with each other. This world itself is beyond hope, a mistake that cannot be rectified, only erased.” Stopping next to Alexander, Alastor removed a hand from his pocket and offered it to Alexander as he said, “Don’t you remember the work we started so long ago Alex? We can still realize our ideals… Join me. Let us realize The Second Truth, and create a paradise for all beings.”

            A moment of silence fell over the war-torn battlefield of the graveyard as Alastor stood before his brother, his hand offered, awaiting an answer to his invitation into Altera Veritas. Amy watched nervously, wondering whether Alexander would actually consider such an offer, as well as just what Alastor’s ultimate goal really was. Suddenly the silence was broken, as Alexander began laughing. It was weak laughter, no doubt hindered by the injury to his chest. Finally he stopped laughing and said, “Al, any paradise created by you would be as false and empty as the puppet you’ve become. Alastor Bastille, my beloved brother… is dead.” Alastor’s extended hand balled into a fist, and though Amy could not see his face, she noticed that for a brief moment Alastor’s body seemed to tremble with rage. Then he turned away from Alexander, a blank look on his face as he simply said, “Pity.” Walking back to stand beside Amy, he turned and looked at Alexander one more time saying, “Then may you join your beloved brother in the next world. Farewell, Gabriel the Immortal.” Grey, who had been standing still and silent a short distance from where Alexander and Scott sat, began moving towards them. Her eyes wide, her voice trembling, Amy said, “No… No… Please, no…” As Grey moved ever closer, with tears welling up in her eyes, Amy thought, “I can’t bear to see Grey… To see him like this anymore! Grey and the others… They’re all I have left! I did nothing but run when Dad needed help, I can’t stand here and do nothing!” She tried to rush towards Grey as she burst into tears and screamed, “No stop this! Grey you can’t!” Grabbing her by the wrist, Alastor held her back and said, “I cannot let you spoil the final act, now can I Ms. Grant? It’s as they say, the show must go on…” Struggling to pull her hand free, Amy screamed again and again for Grey to stop, but he continued forward and finally coming to a stop he raised the scythe up to strike. Then Amy screamed, “Let me go!” Subconsciously tapping into her abilities, Amy suddenly generated a small psychic barrier around her wrist and hand that expanded and forced Alastor’s hand to release her. Caught by surprise, Alastor said, “What?!” Freed, Amy rushed at Grey, who turned to her but was unable to do anything before she threw her arms around him and grabbed hold of him tightly as she shouted, “Please, no more!”

            In that moment, Amy’s surroundings faded and she found herself floating through darkness. Floating down, further and further, she felt strange as she thought, “Where am I? Wasn’t I… somewhere else just a few moments ago? I feel different. This feels like… a dream…” After a short while, she saw a faint light below her. She felt drawn to it, and struggled towards it, trying to swim through the darkness as though she were in water. She drew closer and closer, while the light itself seemed to become larger and larger. Suddenly the light shined brighter, and moments later her surroundings faded again. Now she was sitting upon a hillside amidst a grassy field, a small village in view. She could see two children rushing towards her up the hill. They looked about nine or ten years old, a girl and a boy. The girl had blue hair like her, and the boy’s was brown. The boy was kicking a ball along in front of him as they went, the girl carrying a large bucket. Looking at them, and this place, Amy thought, “This is… familiar. I feel like I’ve forgotten something… important…” As the children came up the hill, the girl ran right through Amy as though she were a ghost. Startled, Amy got up slowly, feeling like she had to follow them. Going up to the top of the hill, she found them playing soccer there. Looking at her closer, Amy saw the little girl had the same eyes as her, and as she realized it WAS her, she thought to herself, “It seems familiar, but… I can’t remember any of this for some reason. What’s going on?” Suddenly the ball bounced off the young Amy’s foot and rolled over to the other side of the hill, barely stopping at the edge instead of rolling off the steep edge. The boy and young Amy rushed over to get the ball. Nearing the ball, young Amy did not notice as the ground around the edge was starting to crumble, but then the boy shouted, “Wait!” He grabbed her arm just as the ground beneath her front foot crumbled away, the ball along with the edge of the cliff falling down the side of the hill. The boy pulled her back and they quickly moved away from the edge. The boy asked, “Are you ok?” Young Amy, tears in her eyes, stuttered, “Y-yes, t-thanks M-Matt…” Amy was stunned. Slowly, she walked over and looked at the boy’s eyes. They were red. Amy thought to herself. “That’s impossible…”

            Her surroundings faded back into the darkness, and floating downward through it she wondered, “Why am I seeing this? Is it real or a dream? Did that really happen?” Suddenly a rush of images overwhelmed her senses, like before in Celestis when she touched Grey and saw his memories. But this time she was seeing visions of her younger self, it was as if she was looking into her own memories, only she didn’t remember any of it. Taking it all in, she thought, “I can’t remember, but at the same time, I feel it. The familiarity… These are my… memories… All the holes in my memory, the things I had forgotten somehow!” Then a scene flashed before her eyes, her parents feverishly packing up Amy’s belongings in a bedroom she could only assume was some guest room. Amy was enthralled upon seeing her mother again, a beautiful woman with blue eyes and long red hair. Her younger self was there as well, talking to her parents. Amy couldn’t hear them, something told her it was important that she heard what they said, that she had to listen harder. Willing their voices to be louder, little by little it seemed to be working as she could hear her younger self say, “But… but… Why do we have to leave? I don’t wanna…!” Her father, pausing in his packing, said, “I’m sorry Amy. I know you may not understand, but it’s for your own good.” Young Amy, questioning him again, asked, “Daddy, we’ll come back sometime right? I, uh, I wanna be able to play with Matt and Scott again!” Quickly a frightened look crossed her father’s face, and he turned to his daughter saying, “Amy, listen to me! I don’t know how to say this, but you can’t ever see that Greyson boy again, understand? Promise me!” A shocked look fell over young Amy’s face, and as Amy herself heard this she too was shocked. Tears welling up in her eyes, young Amy started to cry as she said, “But Daddy… I… I really like him… Please… don’t say I can’t see him again, that’s not fair!” Her father, struggling to find the words to calm her, said, “I’m sorry Amy, but please, you have to promise me.” The young Amy, crying, kept shaking her head no, and her father tried simply putting his foot down and said, “For your own safety I forbid you to see that boy again Amy! That’s final!” Obviously concerned he was being too harsh, Amy’s mother said, “Dear, she’s only a child! Yelling at her won’t make her understand! Maybe we should just tell her the truth…” However young Amy, distraught, rushed out of the room crying, and as she sobbed she shouted, “I’m not gonna go, you can’t make me!”

            It was the piece of the puzzle that somehow made things slowly start to fall into place. Eight years ago she had come to Grey’s hometown. As a doctor, her father helped Grey recover from a serious illness, and she and Grey became friends. No, to her at least he had been more than friend. It rang through her mind again, her words to her parents that day, “But Daddy… I … I really like him…” It may have been eight years ago, it may have been the crush of a nine year old, but eight years later it was still there, hidden away, but not lost. Up until this point she’d denied her feelings, insisted to herself it was something else that drew her to him. She knew now though, and she whispered the truth to herself, saying, “I’m in love with Grey… I always have been…” Drifting through the darkness, Amy thought, “How could I have forgotten though? I still don’t understand that part. For that matter, where am I? Why have all these things I’ve forgotten started appearing before me? Wasn’t I just on a battlefield, trying to stop Grey from doing something? It’s like the moment I found myself here, I started to remember certain things, while at the same time I’ve been forgetting others…”

            Suddenly a chilling voice rang throughout the darkness, saying, “Are you enjoying Wonderland Ms. Grant?” Amy’s eyes went wide, and she felt a chill running through her body as she thought to herself, “That voice! I can’t remember but, I feel like it belongs to someone… dangerous…” Looking around, she could not see whoever it was that had spoken, and she slowly asked, “Who… who said that?” The cold voice rang out again, “Forgotten already, have you? Let me clear things up for you…” Her surroundings suddenly altering again, Amy fell upon the ground with a slight thump, and as she got to her hands and knees she looked around, her eyes widening at what she saw. In a room that seemed to go on forever into endless darkness, Grey was suspended a few inches above the solid black ground by thick black chains coming from above. He looked completely unconscious, hanging there with his body limp like a rag doll, and there standing beside him was the man she knew to be the owner of the chilling voice she’d heard. He said, “Remembering yet? I’ve pulled you from the spell, your memories should be returning.” Standing up, Amy indeed felt her memories returning. Fear gripping her body as she realized who he was, she slowly said, “You… You’re Alastor…” Alastor, looking over at Grey, said, “Correct.” Amy looked at Grey as well. Just as she was about to ask what he had done to him, Alastor said, “I must say I’m quite surprised Ms. Grant. It’s embarrassing to admit, but this is the second time today I’ve underestimated an opponent. From the information I received about you, I was completely under the assumption you were unable to use your powers. Yet not only did you manage to escape my grasp with them, you took hold of Grey and placed a barrier around the two of you, and used a makeshift version of your Persona ability to penetrate into his mind on top of it all, placing both of you into a deep meditative state on the outside world.” He turned to face Amy and began walking towards her as he continued, “Had it not been for my own connection with the Nameless One, who I’ve used to control Grey, I would have been completely powerless to do anything but watch. It would have been quite dangerous for me to leave you alone with him, let you realize the spell and use your powers to break free from it on your own. There’s no telling what kind of damage you could have caused…” As Alastor drew closer, Amy found herself looking back and forth from him and Grey as she thought to herself, “I have to do something! I’m here for a reason, I know it! This may be the only chance I have to save Grey! I can’t let Alastor stop me!”

            “Tell me what you’ve done to him…” Amy said quietly. Alastor paused in his stride and said, “Hmm? Do speak up Ms. Grant.” With all her courage, Amy shouted at him with a defiant look, “What have you done to Grey, you monster!?” Flashing a faint smile, Alastor replied, “What I’ve done is hardly any different from what Alexander has been doing for one year now. Are you familiar with the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’? Three years ago, when I first… I suppose you could say acquired Mr. Greyson, he was quite uncooperative as one might expect. However as much as he struggled, the trauma of losing his parents, combined with constant experiments and torture, eventually proved sufficient to get him to surrender himself to the Nameless One.” He turned back to look at Grey again as he continued, “In order to ensure he did not resist, I used the Nameless One’s powers to create a spell that would place Mr. Greyson’s mind in his own personal version of the Second Truth, the ideal world in which there will be no suffering, no inequality. He was given sweet ignorance, his memories of my torture, his kidnapping, his parent’s death all forgotten. He lived happily with his friends and family, in a world where worries about being born different no longer exist. Truly a paradise wouldn’t you say? It’s the same paradise that I have granted him now. However…” 

            Alastor paused momentarily, still standing there, staring at Grey as though he was deep in thought. Then he continued, “For reasons I cannot discern, in some capacity he is still somehow resisting, preventing the Nameless One’s essence from merging with him completely, just as he did last time. I can only assume it is because of that resistance that he was able to escape his paradise one year ago in Luminosa. The Nameless One’s essence remained, but was unable to regain any level of control until Grey experienced the deep mental trauma of his parent’s fate again. I truly cannot understand what it is that gives him the will to resist when his mind is not even aware of the situation…” As Alastor spoke, Amy felt a surge of hope as she realized what he could not. Confident she now knew what she had to do to save Grey, Amy said, “Someone like you could never understand, Alastor.” Turning to look at her, his faint smile gone, he replied, “Oh, is that so Ms. Grant?” A smile on her face, Amy said, “It has nothing to do with his mind! Grey’s heart is his power, a power you’ll never have!” And with that she yelled out to Grey, “Grey please, wake up! I’m here… I’m here for you now, and I always will be! No matter how sad and painful it is right now… We’ll get through it together! I love you Matthew Greyson, please come back to us!” Alastor stood there silently for a moment. Then, flashing his faint smile he started to say, “Did you honestly think-” Suddenly he paused, his eyes wide, and quickly turned to look at Grey. Hanging there, dangling above the ground from the chains that suspended him, Grey opened his eyes and mumbled, “Amy…?”

            Tears welling up in her eyes, Amy raced toward him shouting, “Grey!” As she grabbed hold of him, burying her face in his chest and sobbing, Grey said, “Amy, I’m sorry, I… I did something terrible again didn’t I?” Raising her head to smile at him, Amy said, “Everything’s ok, you’re back now…” Standing there staring at them, Alastor was absolutely dumbfounded, an actual look of shock on his face as he muttered, “This isn’t possible! Was it the power of the Sage of Memories?!” Then, a look of anger began to flow over his face, and he trembled with rage as he said, “I won’t accept this… All my plans, foiled by some lovesick, teenage girl?! I WON’T ALLOW THIS!” Raising a hand up, he created a sphere of dark energy and fired it at them both. Yet as the sphere sailed towards them, Grey broke free from his bonds, and grabbing hold of Amy with one arm he raised the other and unleashed a wave of energy from his other hand, shouting, “Ein Soph Aur!” Dissolving Alastor’s attack, Grey’s Ein Soph Aur sailed onward to strike against Alastor’s pressure barrier. Despite having blocked any serious damage, in his recklessness Alastor failed to create a barrier strong enough to withstand the blast, and was knocked away as his barrier was broken. Slowly getting to his feet, Alastor glared at Amy and Grey. Releasing Amy and stepping forward to face him, Grey glared back defiantly and said, “Looks like this is our victory Alastor! You ready to settle this?!” Struggling with himself for a moment, Alastor at last regained his composure and said, “Perhaps another time and place, Mr. Greyson. I daresay I’m at more than a little of a disadvantage here in your own mind.” He started to fade away as though he had been an illusion, but before completely disappearing, he added, “Just remember this, Mr. Greyson. This is far from over…”

Reviews

[Ryan Henderson]

Okay! I am back to reading and reviewing your writing! My apologies for not reading for so long, high school exams are coming up and I have ben stressed as heck and studying hard, but I am back to read and review this awesome, original book of yours! Enough chit chat, on with the review! :D

Okay, I really loved this chapter because of the high level of character interaction. I also loved the ending! Alastor's last words before dissolving left me thinking "Perfect. Freaking A+ for coming up with that!"

Oh, I cannot write this review without telling you my favorite part: “Ms. Grant, forgive me but I do so wonder what you think you’re doing crawling around on the ground over there…” Feeling the color drain from her face, she thought, “Oh great… Busted…”

I love how arrogant and somewhat cocky Alastor is, it makes him likeable, but also very hateable, seeing as he is the antagonist. Nonetheless, Alastor's character has indeed grown on me since I first picked up this book. I am impressed with your level of talent, for it surpasses that of most writers I have seen on writerscafe.

All in all, amazing chapter full of good character interaction, humor and some pretty awesome combat at the end there. Very nice job, keep writing!

[KeithKVH]

Good to see you again! This is quite a coincidence, I am myself just getting back to some of your work. I just finished a review for you when I noticed this. I truly appreciate your input, and am glad to hear what you liked. Glad you're liking Alastor, he's one of the characters I'm quite proud of.

Don't worry about taking time for your high school and stuff, I totally understand. I've also dropped off the map for a number of reasons. ;>.>