Work Text:
Part 1- Interrogation
Alex walked over to the broken off door lying on the ground. He knelt over, reached his arms out to grab the door and pulled it aside to reveal Tony underneath. Tony began to pull himself up out of the rubble to a standing position.
“You ok man?” Asked Alex.
Without a word, Tony began to walk across to the room to Liz who sat nursing her damaged hands. She looked up to Tony as he reached her side.
“What the hell was that?… How did you cast magic like that? I’ve never seen anything like that in my entire life,” Tony exclaimed.
Liz shied her gaze away from Tony nervously.
“Oh umm… well, I don’t really know, it’s just something I can do I guess,” Liz quietly stammered.
“You don’t know… come on you gotta teach me some of that,” Tony continued to pester.
Tony felt a firm hand rest on his shoulder. He turned around to see Alex standing behind him.
“Come on Tony leave her be… she needs some peace and quite to heal up,”
“Heal up?” questioned Tony as he turned to look at Liz.
He focused on Liz’s hands, noticing the extreme burning running up them.
“Holy crap are you ok?”
Tony knelt down and held his hands over Liz’s. A green glow began to emanate from his hands as he began to heal them.
“Yeah… I’m fine, just a little sore I guess,” Liz replied trying to keep her spirits up.
Alex looked on as Liz and Tony focused on healing. He turned his gaze to look at Mr. Morhan still cowering in the corner across the room. Alex stared him down with an unflinching gaze as he strode menacingly across to him. He reached out his hand and grabbed Mr Morhan by his collar.
“Arhh… p…please don’t hurt me,” Mr Morhan stammered.
“Alright it’s time I got some answer’s… you’re gonna answer my questions or I’ll make you regret it,” Alex threatened. “What did you do to my father.”
Mr. Morhan looked on at Alex, a growing confusion coming over him.
“Your father… I don’t even know who your fath…” replied Mr. Morhan before being cut off.
He let out a long pained scream as Alex slammed his foot down on to his knee. A loud cracking sound echoed throughout the room as his leg was left bending the wrong way. Mr. Morhan began to whimper as the pain slowly began to die down.
“Don’t bull shit me! I know that he disappeared while investigating something that you and that buddy Lance of yours were involved in.”
Charles glanced away from Alex as he thought about his words.
“Me and Lance?” he questioned quietly to himself.
“Now you better start talking unless you wanna lose the other leg,” ordered Alex.
“No please don’t. I have no idea what happened to your father, I’ve never even met the guy.”
Alex placed his leg on Mr. Morhan’s other knee and pushed down. He began to whimper as panic started to overcome him once again.
“n…no please stop just listen to me. I don’t know anything… but I know who might, and I can even help you find them.”
Alex stared daggers into Mr. Morhan as he slowly removed his boot from his leg.
“Start talking, now,” Demanded Alex.
“Attention, ten minutes until self-distrust,” blared out the mechanical female voice.
“In a moment, first, how about we make a deal huh?”
“A deal!” Alex yelled angrily as he once again placed his boot on Charles's leg.
“Hear me out….” Mr. Morhan calmly said. “Without that door in place, this room won’t be spared from the coming explosion. If I tell you what you want to know you have to promise that you won’t let any harm come to me.”
Alex grunted as he slowly began to put more pressure onto Mr. Morhan’s leg. He felt an unexpected touch on his shoulder, turning around to see Liz standing behind her being propped up by Tony.
“Alex, come on. We don’t really have any other options here,” Liz calmly stated.
Alex looked back to Mr. Morhan and began to clench his fists tightly. After a brief moment, he loosened his fists and let go of Mr. Morhan letting him fall to the ground. He landed on the ground with a thud letting out a brief pained grunt.
“Fine, tell us everything you know and I won’t hurt you,” Alex said, his eyes shut as he reconsidered his decision.
“Ha…good choice.”
“Start talking!” Alex demanded.
“hmm… very well… but to understand, I must first tell you a story, and to tell that story… I’ll have to go all the way back to the beginning…”
Part 2- The Origins Of Magic
“A long time ago, before Lemia split from the mainland before history was first recorded, the world was a very different place. In this world, there were two classes of beings. The first of these beings were the magical creatures, beasts, and animals who could manipulate the magical energy flowing through them to do incredible things, and the other, the non-magical creatures who lacked the abilities of their counterparts. Of these classes of beings, there were two who sat atop their respective food chains. For the magical creatures, there were the Elarans, peaceful beings whose mastery over magic and supreme intelligence allowed them to form great cities in the treetops. On the other side were the humans. They had incredible imaginations and with their intelligence and determination, they were able to spread across the land and make their dreams a reality. As years moved on, the humans began to grow jealous of the Elaran's magical ability. While they were able to become the dominant species of the planet, they knew that if they wanted, the Elaran's could easily wipe them out in an instant. Their jealousy continued to grow and fester into all-out hatred. It’s not known exactly how humanity first gained the powers of magic. Some say that a hunter found a dyeing Elaran and in a fit of rage cut out his heart and ate it taking his powers with him. Others say the first mage was the child of and Elaran and a human who fell in love and would meet in secret. Whatever the case was soon humanity had unlocked their magical ability’s and they started to spread throughout their race. With their newfound powers, the Elarans no longer had an advantage over humans. Their years of pent up aggression overflowed until they declared war against the Elarans. The peaceful Elarans stood no chance against the overwhelming numbers of the Humans and were soon brought to extinction. With their one rival destroyed you would think it would usher in a new era of peace, however it was quite the opposite. With no rival to fuel their desire for conquest, the humans began infighting and slaughtering each other in ever-increasingly brutal way. They used their new powers to burn forests and crumble mountains for their ever-growing plague on the land to spread. They whipped out thousands of unique and beautiful species off the map in the march of progress. A group of powerful magic users looked on at the destruction caused by humanity and realized that they could not be trusted with magic. They sore humanity for what it truly was deep down, a disgusting, destructive abomination that needed to be destroyed for the good of the world. These magic-users denounced their humanity, instead taking up the mantle of the fallen and proclaiming themselves the true heirs of the Elarans. These new Elarans formed a cult known as the Elaran society with the sole goal of destroying the human blight upon the world.”
Part 3- Answers
Liz stood leaning up against the wall, listening intently to Mr. Morhan's story.
“Wow…that’s just… wow,” Liz stammered.
Alex stroked his chin as he thought about what had been said.
“So I take it that you and Lance were members of the Elaran society and that that was what my dad was investigating before he disappeared,” said Alex.
“It would certainly seem that way,” replied Mr. Morhan
Alex reached out his arm once again grabbing Mr. Morhans collar and pulling him up.
“Alright so then who do I have to beat up to find out what happened to my dad?” Alex demanded.
“Ahh… Niske… our headquarters are there disguised as the office building for some tech company. If anyone would know what happened to your father it would be our leader, cobalt,” Mr. Morhan panicked.
“But why would you tell us this? Why would you sell them out so easily?” added Tony.
Mr. Morhan looked across to Tony, an evil grin spreading across his face.
“It doesn’t matter whether you know or not, if you choose to go there then that place will certainly be your grave.”
Alex let go of Mr. Morhan, sending him once again crashing down to the ground with a loud thud. He turned around and began to storm out of the room brimming with determination. Charles sat up to look across at Alex.
“What… where are you going? You promised that you would take me to safety if I helped you,” Mr. Morhan said confused.
“I said I wouldn’t harm you, not that id help you escape. You can rot here for all I care,” Alex said as he continued his walk out of the room.
Bip, Liz, and Tony followed in Alex lead out of the room. Charles looked on in horror as he was left behind. Without any warning, he suddenly began to let out a psychopathic laugh.
“Haha… fine leave me here, if you go to Niske it’ll be your grave,"
Charles continued to cackle as the group left the room, leaving him to his fate.