Zack kept reminding himself of the promise he'd made to himself. With immortal beings toying with his feeble, mortal ass, he also made sure
Zack kept reminding himself of the promise he'd made to himself. With immortal beings toying with his feeble, mortal ass, he also made sure to pity himself for being in such a situation.
Absurd, yes, but the truth often is.
Zack had promised himself he'd reach the pinnacle when their Sponsor finally offered him that power. The rest was a blur, thanks to the group tampering with his memories.
He stood on the sidelines during every mission. He'd noticed that the group's manipulations didn't work on monsters—creatures similar to them, who could shift emotional states with a simple flick of a switch. Zack began combining their technique with his mother's focusing and filtering method, slowly reclaiming fragments of locked memories.
As it turned out, one could only block a memory, not erase it—at least not once it was stored. But if the information was altered before it was stored, that was another matter entirely.
According to the memories Lux allowed Zack to keep, the body was a shell, the mind a controller, and the soul pure power.
However, according to what Zack managed to safeguard from countless memory wipes, the body was a cage that trapped energy. This meant that everything, from the smallest organism to the entire universe, could be classified as a "body." Since hearing this absurd analogy, Zack was confident that no memory wipe could ever fully erase it.
On the other hand, the mind was such a complex concept that no amount of memory implants had ever allowed him to retain a working definition.
The soul was simply power.
A power that could pull strings and reshape the very essence of a shell.
Everything that was, is, and shall be was thanks to "Sani".
Zack suspected the vague, almost absurd nature of sani was the reason the Soul Hunters never bothered much with the body or mind. After all, what was flesh to an immortal?
What was memory when nothing ever lasted?
Zack wanted to train before their Sponsor showed up. However, both physical and mental training were deemed pointless by the group. The best guidance they offered was to keep his will intact, his emotions on a tight leash, and never wander into the unknown.
This puzzle—one that was, in fact, a straightforward guide—kept Zack both baffled and entertained for months. Until one day, Psycho revealed the obvious.
"Desire…" he said, snapping his fingers, "is but a flick away, for those who are patient enough to wait for eternity."
"That makes no sense," Zack argued. "Why do you need a whole team, then?" He jabbed a finger into Psycho's chest, his fingernail digging deep enough to draw blood. "Isn't power all that you crave?"
Psycho smiled in reply, stepping forward.
Zack stood his ground, pushing harder, drawing more blood.
"Say I wish... you, not to be," Psycho whispered, tilting his head, his creepy smile widening. "While you, obviously... want to be."
He forced a step forward, forcing Zack's hand to dig deeper, cleaving open his chest.
"Now, the question is..."
Zack pulled away, horrified, as his hand came out with a wet thud, blood dripping down his forearm.
"...why would you step away from your own life?" Psycho leaned in, his gaping wound closing as invisible threads stitched his flesh back together.
"It's never the question of 'why', kid," echoed a hollow voice from the shadows.
Zack spun around, heart pounding, eyes darting across a room now losing all light.
No matter what he tried, Zack couldn't find the speaker.
"It's always the question of 'CAN' you."
"If," Psycho whispered directly into Zack's ear, making his heart lurch.
"If you can out-will your opponent... while keeping your own sanity."
Then he vanished into the dark again, just as the last color bled from the room.
"...Can you wish to 'be' longer than I wish you 'not to be'? That... is the question."
"That sounds familiar," Zack muttered, the realization pulling him out of Psycho's grip.
"Well, that's because he's the first mortal to figure it out!" Pinky said, skipping out of the shadows.
"So, so, so!" DJ Rizz rapped, spinning into the room like a living disco ball, while his presence drove away the lingering darkness.
His magic was weirder than the rest. The sun had already tucked in for the day, but the room now glowed with the brightness of a summer afternoon.
"How long can your will last with your soul intact?" Rizz freestyles. "A month? A year? Or all night long, yo! Don't sweat when I drop this twist, because some tiffs go on for centuries! You hear me, right?"
"Yeah..." Leader Lux said, his voice tight.
This was the first time Zack had ever seen the old man show fear. He knew he'd remember it. Some memories were too deep for even Lux to steal.
"The Soul King," Bazuka Barbie muttered, shuddering beside Lux.
"The ultimate being," Zack recalled, the memory arriving with little effort. "What about him?"
"He's supposedly been in a fight of wills... with a stranger... since the beginning of time."
"Until...?" Zack asked, amused and skeptical.
Yet, no one dared guess an answer.
"Another memory that won't be leaving," Zack murmured with narrowed eyes.
"No one would dare erase it either," said Psycho, clearly erasing the memory as he uttered it out loud.
Soul King: A name every sani user learns by default, and someone no one dares defy, not unless you want an everlasting fight.
As the days passed, Zack focused on the most crucial aspect of losing the battle of wills: emotions.
Triggering emotional responses had never been effective against stronger foes, so the group developed a workaround. Each member would tug on a different emotion, forcing their opponent to gravitate toward one of them. That attraction allowed the others to switch tactics and strike, depending on which monster they followed.
Emotions were always tricky; Anger could give you a boost in strength, but it could also make your style sloppy.
The technique was dangerous, subtle, and Zack only deciphered it because they'd used it on him not long ago.
His, or anyone's, typical desires lured them toward Pinky, not Bazuka.
While a tattooed, goth badass isn't everyone's first choice, a bubbly, airheaded damsel in distress is every man's weakness. A person's inner knight—encoded in their very being—compels them to help. And then, inevitably... fall hopelessly in love.
And yes, all of them were extremely old. Immortality being a thing, everyone—especially Pinky—had stopped aging ages ago.
The group maintained the emotional manipulation at all times, honing the passive skill through constant use. On more than one occasion, Zack watched the hottest man he'd ever seen flirt with Lux, despite not even being gay.
Zack cursed the skill under his breath and kept waiting, the plethora of unanswered questions multiplying by the minute.
He tried to remember all their unique abilities, but always forgot them after a good night's sleep. Once, he tried to keep a secret diary, always forgetting the kind of people he was surrounded by.
As punishment for keeping secrets, the group made him rip out the pages and post them online. Turning his private thoughts into a source of entertainment.
Privacy was a foreign concept to people who lived among the supernatural—if only they'd let Zack remember this little tidbit. The only thing Zack remembered clearly was one of Lux's sayings, "Broken souls are broken in more ways than one." And then, as if that explained everything, Lux ended with: "Want me to put you in a coma until our sponsor arrives?"
Zack didn't have to think twice before declining the kind yet horrifying offer.
———<>||<>——— End of Chapter Seven. ———<>||<>———