Chapter 116: Avalanche of Lies

For many, the day before the tournament of scions, was just another day, but for Rob this was a day with no less value than a Super Bowl. He and his team of chef had an opportunity to make the professional event they catered unmatched in the realm of the culinary arts.

Due to the shelf life of food, preparation for an event like this would stop at the preparation of ingredients, desserts and anything that wouldn’t be ruined by sitting or being stored in freezers or fridges. For the team of chefs with access to spacial inventories that preserved food with the same level of freshness that was achieved the moment the food was completed, it practically meant for them the event had already started.

“Move, Move, Move people,” yelled Brianna beside Rob. Every chef in the kitchen was in the middle of constructing masterpieces of the highest quality within the realm and beyond. For them, this was no simple feat, as the culinary demands they needed to meet were both native and foreign. Dishes both considered to be fast food, and upscale eccentricities were being made at every station within the kitchen.

Regardless of the difficulty, however, Rob’s skills since becoming a culinary Cultivator had reached an entirely new level. He’d never used Propeller Palm Drones to cook directly, merely assist him in the gathering of ingredients, moving of equipment, or even things as simple as cleaning.

Now though, with the creation of his own additional hands made of his own purified water mana, Rob was able to cut and chop. Dice and mince. Butcher fine meats, and so much more.

He hadn’t liked not having a direct control of the drone based hands, feeling his own digits were unequaled within the kitchen. The sensation of the knife in his hand, the heat of the pans or pots, and the freshness of ingredients when hefted or prodded all lost in the process when using the drones, was not an issue for the purified water hands he now used.

Rob had become a literal blur of movements, finishing dishes that should normally require an entire team to finish, all completed solo and in a fraction of the time.

The glares he constantly received from his best friend and sous chef at his miraculous talents, were not lost on Rob. Brianna now wearing a rebreather of her own. She refused to be left behind in skill or quality, and seeing how much his cooking had improved only motivated her that much more to become a Cultivator.

“Someone get me some water boiling in this pot ASAP!”

Rob leaned over his partner's section of the large table where they worked, forming a large orb of water that floated above his hand by pulling the moisture from the air, and had a thought. Brianna frowned when Rob didn’t just drop the water into the pot.

Hmm… I wonder if I can…

“What are you doing now, showoff,” said Brianna watching Rob focus intently on the orb of water above his outstretched hand.

“Boiling water isn’t anything but liquid being affected by heat and motion right…,” said Rob trailing off as bubbles began to form within the water and steam rose from the orb.

“You have got to be sparking kidding me,” grumbled Brianna, and in only a few breaths Rob filled the entire pot with the orb, dropping it with a splash that managed to not spill a single drop.

“Never mind!” yelled Brianna.

…

Ash roamed the exterior of the coliseum built by her brother and his friends, as well as the rest of their siblings. She tried not to be annoyed that she was now included in the inner workings of her younger brother’s organization to any degree, but couldn’t help but be excited for what was to come.

Knowing that her youngest brother, and older sister were competing made Ash feel that her potential to win the tournament was slim, but there was a rumor going around that Arson was going to compete without the use of mana. She had no idea why he would go about one of the most dangerous competitions in the realms that way, but knew he did nothing without reason.

Should I compete without mana as well…?

Ash shook her head. She didn’t want to be snuffed out early in the competition, so ignored the thought completely. She and Arson walked different paths and she knew she needed to respect that, no matter how jealous of him she often felt in recent days.

Ash and Aura had been training relentlessly in their free time in preparation, and Ash could tell her younger sister’s combat abilities were soaring under the influence of Arson and his mother. She worried that even Aura was on the verge of completely eclipsing not only her internal and external power, but even in martial abilities, which Aura had always shown a talent for, even when she’d felt untouchable and rarely trained.

Even Auto had changed his mind and accepted his invitation to compete, as his best friend Xani and he were apparently building a suit of mechanical armor for him to wear that Ash knew would be problematic to overcome. Even as Ash played with her far more powerful purple and gold flames, she knew the event the next day would come with hurdles both unexpected and foreshadowed by her closest associates' actions in recent days.

“When did you begin to think of these people as your associates, Ash? You must be losing your edge,” whispered Ash to herself. Before she could become any more lost in thoughts, however, a familiar face drew her attention.

She strode over to the young man, who was reaching his prepubescent arm underneath a lavish table in search for something. Wanting to know what he was doing, Ash did her best to sneak up on her younger brother.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Alexander didn’t even look back to respond. He simply continued his search, grunting with the effort, Ash’s eyes widening at the sight of the mana stone empowered bomb he pulled free of the underside of the table, placing the item in a spacial bag at his side.

“Removing all the plasma and mana bombs I snuck inside here last night. What about you?” asked Alexander in response before striding off toward another nearby table.

“Okay… I’m just going for a walk and clearing my head. Why exactly are you doing this? You know it won’t be just Arson’s hard work you mess up if you destroy this place, we all had a hand in building it,” asked Ash with a question of her own.

“Yeah whatever, our brother didn’t kill our mom so I figured I might as well not try and ruin his reputation,” answered Alexander, bending down to retrieve another bomb.

“He didn’t, and how would you know that exactly?” Alexander sighed and pulled another bomb from under the table and placed it in the bag he dragged carelessly by his side. A bag Ash now worried was entirely filled with bombs and should probably be handled with far more care than it was currently being dealt with.

“Does it matter? I know he didn’t do it. Isn’t that all that matters?” Alexander continued to roam the exterior of the Coliseum, pulling bombs from both plain sight, as well as a few incredibly well thought-out positions.

“Matters to me, and probably the rest of our siblings,” said Ash. The words finally made Alexander stop and in the next instant Ash received a video within her Overlay.

“Watch that. Dad showed it to me this morning after I’d already planted all these. I thought he was ignoring me as always but instead he was trying to protect me from the truth, I guess,” said Alexander.

Ash froze in place and started the video. Her mother was shown meditating on a very familiar island that their family owned at the center of one of the many platforms within Maelstrom that served as oceans or lakes. A storm grew above her; the massive red and blue clouds in the sky spitting purple lightning all around her, freezing anything the bolts interacted with.

The video continued, and the camera view split to show the carnage caused by their mother's growing fury. The section of video still showing her face revealing a look of incensed rage that Ash had only seen a handful of times prior in her life, just before her mother did something without reason. Inner demons that Ash worried she too shared with her mother apparent on her facial features.

Before long her mother’s body lifted into the air, and Ash watched as the queen's body was pulled apart and joined the storm completely. The intensity of the storm and the realm wide damage grew. Many died, and many more were harmed by the bolts filled with enough energy to become the size of buildings. Anything touched either frozen or washed away in waves of power that disintegrated entire city blocks at some points.

The video neared its end, and a satellite view showed the storms weather patterns in the same way that weather forecasters showed the progression of storms across wide spans of land all at once before the screen split a final time, showing Arson rushing out of RaidCorps amusement park, trailed by his friends and siblings.

“Oh no…”

The storm was seen converging on a single point in a devastating show of power, aimed directly at all of her siblings and people she struggled not to think of as friends. People who had showed more loyalty to her than people she’d known her entire life and hadn’t tried to kill.

Knowing what happened next Ash shut off the video. Tears rolling down her face in a sudden flood. It took her a while to move, and even longer to once more find Alexander.

“You okay, little dude?” said Ash sniffling. She wanted to be strong for her brother in that moment, but his slight shake of his head made the tears she was barely able to keep down begin anew. She nodded, and pulled him into a hug, wrapping the boy up from behind, even as he struggled to pull another bomb free of its hiding place.

“Want to talk about it?”

“What is there to talk about, our mother wanted to kill someone she knew barely anything about rather than finding a way to be mentally stable or take care of us. Simple as that,” said Alexander softly, dropping another bomb in his bag.

“That doesn’t mean she didn’t love us, that doesn’t mean she didn’t love you…”

“Oh yeah, can you prove that?” said Alexander, glaring at Ash over his shoulder, tears filling his eyes.

“I guess not,” responded Ash, squeezing him more tightly after a moment of silence.

“Yeah that’s what I thought,” said Alexander, pulling himself free of Ash and continuing to move through the coliseum.

“Do you want help with the bombs,” offered Ash, and Alexander froze momentarily, before he shook his head once more.

“No, there are more bombs in here than workers, and if I want to get this done before they auto-detonate tomorrow I have a lot of work to do,” said Alexander, wiping his eyes before he continued down the hall, moving toward the elevator.

“You sure,” called Ash after her younger brother. The boy throwing a dismissive hand over his shoulder before he spoke up once more.

“Yeah I’m sure, tell my little brother to call me if you see him, will you? He has a security problem I need to talk to him about,” said Alexander, not waiting on a response before he stepped onto the elevator.

“Okay, buddy, will do!” The doors shut and the glass elevator showed Alexander ascend to the next floor, a series of bombs that needed to be dealt with far from being resolved waiting for him throughout every section of the building.

Sparks and embers, Momma… what have you done.

…

Draphen’s state of mind was all over the place. Not only had he been stuck in a form that made his state of mind even more uncontrollable than his normal transformation, he’d woken up inside a trial filled with armored robots so advanced that his humanoid form proved frail against the advanced weaponry being used.

Luckily for him Jade stepped in and pulled him out of the trial. After Jade explained what had occurred, Draphen worried that his youngest born son would soon take his first steps into the life of a cursed dragon, and the effects he’d barely escaped with his mind intact, would once again strip him of all his mental faculties and control of his dragon body.

Now, he prepared. He needed to be the imperial majesty that his realm layer expected from him during the next fortnight, during the tournament of scions, and his children needed him to show his support as their loving father.

It took Draphen much of the night to recover, which only proved how much of an ordeal he’d lived through, as Draphen hadn’t slept in season cycles, but had according to Jade, snored the entirety of the night away.

After he’d woken up he’d gone through his missed notifications, only to feel once more drained at the sight of the video detailing his wife’s death. He hadn’t wanted to share what had been found with anyone, but after receiving a call from one of Seneschal’s many operatives, he spoke with his son Alexander.

The video played on repeat in the corner of his vision, as certain details bothered Draphen. A single detail above all in fact. The end.

His son’s ability to absorb various energies seemed to be unmatched. By him, by Jade, and any of his other children, maybe even all of them combined.

Draphen wasn’t dimwitted, nor did he feel he had a genius level IQ as many around him believed him to have, but he was perceptive, and had an incredibly long memory.

A memory that pointed out to him that his wife’s ability to merge with storms had once filled her with fear as she believed that her mind became less a part of herself, her thoughts no longer her own as they merged with the elements of the storm she embodied. A storm that seemed to be completely absorbed by an ability used by his youngest child.

Draphen closed the video after most of the morning spent watching it play on repeat, and sighed heavily. His exhale long and hard, the king wished that the stresses of his life could be breathed away with simple meditation as he’d been able to do when he was young and unexperienced. Unfazed by problems outside the few hurdles brought in a single day.

He knew that he needed to prepare for foreign nationals and the political games of the powerful that he knew would be played the next day, as well as place bets on all of his children to win. Draphen felt he knew who would win, but also knew he’d been wrong before, and could and would inevitably be wrong again.

“You ready?”

Draphen turned to look at Jade. The woman he loved more than time and space, more than power and money. More than sensibility and reason, and nodded.

“Of course, I am, are you?

The nod was returned, and Draphen smiled as the two stepped hand in hand onto the balcony of Jade’s villa, and took flight after he wrapped her up in his arms.

“Unfortunately for me, I feel more balanced and settled than ever before, even if I’m afraid of what the realm will think of our union,” said Jade. Draphen kissed Jade and smiled a grand smile before he spoke once more.

“Embers to any and all who don’t support our happiness, my love. We only have one life, and ours begins today in full, and as long as you are happy, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”