Black Light
Chapters
Chapter 01: Here come the Jiis
Chapter 02: Clap Your Hand
Chapter 03: Being You Being Me
Chapter 04: Panditji
Chapter 05: 360 Flip
Chapter 06: El Hombre Que Sabia
Chapter 07: Gaza City
Chapter 08: Kiki
As soon as Addam laid a finger on the purple, cross-shaped core, he knew it was well beyond a blessing that Zettar had been found unfit. Zettar was a coward, but he did not respect power as he should. Anyone could tell that putting Zettar in charge of anything would lead to shoddy management at best and selfish manoeuvres at worst. It was why Addam had been gifted Aletta and was in line for Heblin as well, though only the king's eyes' twinkle yet knew it.
But a Blade...?
No one was, could possibly be, so foolish as to think this Blade a trifle, a trinket. He towered over every Tornan royal present, every vertice of jawline identically aligned and every piece of armor menacingly formed.
His gaze traveled the entire room as a smile crept across his lips, but his focus remained on Addam throughout.
"Hi," he said, and wasn't he personable? "The name's Malos. Sounds like you could use a hand."
Addam was charmed in an instant, no matter the undertone. Perhaps he could handle this, after all.
Minoth had requested to meet with Addam somewhat recently, but with the all-important Aegis arriving to Alrest, Amalthus in tow, Addam had been too busy and Minoth too cagey. Addam, sport that he was, decided to combine errands and invited Minoth to return to Aletta with him and Malos. Once again, Minoth found himself with the impulse to self-isolate, to remove himself from these significant surroundings, but Addam insisted, so Minoth came.
"Well," said Minoth. "He's not like her at all, is he?"
"Like who?" Malos drawled. "Who're you supposed to be?"
Addam rushed to make introductions, but Malos and Minoth were already making their own.
"So what's the play, Prince?"
Malos, such an effective mirror, sat back in the rocking chair to watch old friends discuss strategy.
"I thought Malos might need some time to settle in. If we wait here awhile, then see where the other Aegis is, and make our move?"
"Taking your sweet old time, huh?"
Addam pursed his lips. "You forget that I know you, Minoth. Malos, too, deserves to be treated like a person."
Apparently, in Addam's book, being treated like a person entailed getting a tour of a farmhouse manor, being shown Armus for the petting, watching Minoth sort insects from bugs, eating plenty of good food, and more or less ignoring the whole bit about being an Aegis.
"Is he always like this?" Malos asked Minoth as he skipped another stone across Lake Sarleigh, effortlessly.
"Like what?"
"Generous. Stupid."
Minoth had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. "He's human. He likes you, Malos. He wants you to be happy. This, to him, is happiness."
"Doesn't he have a wife, or something? How come we've never seen her?"
"He...got around that."
Got around it. Malos made a quick query to check if he'd missed anything crucial about human relationships and society.
Oh, right. The man didn't get bitches, and didn't want them either.
"So what, we're like his dream come true? Feels a little icky, don't you think?"
But Addam was a perfect gentleman. He simply gave of what he had. Malos continued to be a person, and nothing more.
Eventually, they had to move on to bigger and bolder things: namely, answering to Amalthus's call and doing something about the Aegis of Light that was currently decimating Coeia.
"Will you talk to her, Malos?"
Malos's face became blank, at that idea. "...you think she'd let me try?"
He should have been so confident that he knew his counterpart's mind, but her displayed directive of wiping out each Titan, somewhat systematically, without once stopping to regather feedback herself, was alien to him.
A meeting with a mercenary Driver and her Blades gave Malos another chance to study humanity, and he ate it up eagerly.
Here was an example of a Blade most powerful, who'd committed acts of violence before but had seen reason to turn, or at least to pause, and would hold back from doing it again. If Jin could get attached to a human, why hadn't Mythra?
Well, but Mythra was an Aegis, and Aegises were obviously above that sort of thing. Malos himself saw a clear separation between his chest and the humans'.
How far above, though?
"You're his, you know."
"To humans, sure," Malos agreed, flippantly. "People will always associate me with Addam Origo, the bastard prince of Torna. That's their deal. Not my problem."
Minoth gave a heavy, measured swallow, but it didn't quite capture Malos's attention.
"I mean, you're his. You've fallen."
"Fallen?" Malos chuckled. "I'm no angel."
Everyone knew that, from Addam to Amalthus.
"Your judgement is permanently skewed, Malos. You can't act on your own anymore."
Now Malos scoffed, humorless; on the defensive, though he wouldn't believe it. "I'm not owned. The Master Blade bows to no man."
And it was true, Malos's visible drive was what powered them through many a draining battle. He didn't wait for Addam's orders, didn't respond slowly to admonition. Mythra appeared lethargic at times, though tetchy. For Malos, it was a pursuit alongside Addam, rather than under or behind him.
Yet, something crucial still lacked. Minoth knew.
"Do you still plan to destroy Mythra?"
"If that's what it takes."
"And whose will is that?"
Amalthus's, ostensibly. Addam's, begrudgingly.
Malos's...because he had nothing else to do.
When they woke, on the morning of the final battle, Addam had ready for Malos that soft smile of admiration and care. He had difficulty being genuine, knowing what was at stake, but little things still slipped through. Expressions of esteem, comparisons of Malos to Minoth, extra G to treat himself to noodles in town.
All among their party treated each other as equals. Malos knew it was his imposing stature that won him this status; that Addam was afraid of him, the person, not only his power.
Maybe Addam just longed for a universe in which Malos displayed the human sexuality that Minoth did, responding to intimate touches and accepting (hungering for) kisses as a form of contact.
But that wasn't Malos. Malos knew only devotion, and its deviant, jealousy.
He pulled Minoth aside, kissed him roughly in a perfect mime of this imaginary Malos that spoke with a human tongue, thought with a human mind.
He could see Addam watching, throat abob.
"I'm not anyone's anything," he ground out, into Minoth's ear. "But you're his. You're a dog."
It would absolutely break Malos not to be able to best Mythra. To have lost when not only was the entire world counting on him to win, but his partner's Driver had caused so much suffering to those humans and Blades he had most closely observed.
Amalthus was not there, was not present to be blighted, so Malos had to do the next best thing: eradicate Mythra from the face of the world.
She didn't have a Driver there with her, so she couldn't possibly stand as powerfully as he did, with Addam and Minoth both at his back.
But she could dodge his attacks just well enough to cause irreparable damage to the Tornan Titan, sinking it to the bottom of the Cloud Sea with her, where her resolve finally gave out.
Maybe humanity wasn't meant to survive, but wasn't there a more efficient way? One that entailed less suffering?
Not for Malos, who could never look his chosen partners in the face again. Not for Malos, who'd failed to rise above.
He took his sealing with silence, dignity.
"So now...it's just us, Minoth."
Addam had that desperate look on his face that mixed with the faintest amount of cunning; he meant to salvage this, to make an honorable ending out of an out-and-out tragedy.
Malos had been sunk to join his sister, entombed in the ancient Tornan vessel along with his sword because Addam could not bear to profane the Spirit Crucible with an instrument of darkness, even one he had known so well.
"You think we can just go on, with what we've done?"
Of course Addam hadn't been expecting that. His mouth worked impotently on several aborted attempts at a reply, but these were just as clumsy as their handling of the Aegis had been.
"Do you think I- had we-- Did we abuse his devotion?"
There was no awakening of a Blade that didn't do so, very nearly. Amalthus was two for two, and if he ever got his hands on the red-formed green core again, or Malos, for that matter, you could be sure no good things would come.
"It's not over, Addam."