Apollo lay there for a second, his nose buried in the costly, red fibers of the carpet. The silence of the space was absolute, and a tad bit disturbing. No wind, no rats, no dripping "juices". Just the sound of his own heartbeat thudding against the floor.
"Great start," he mumbled into the rug. "I'm sure the ancient primordial forces of the universe are trembling in their boots, or whatever fancy footwear they.. Um.. Wear."
He pushed himself up, wiping a smear of red blood from his face. The Internal Domain wasn't a place he had thought to see ever again. He was standing in a replica of the Luminara Great Hall, but something was definitely amiss. The towering statues of his ancestors had no faces- just featureless, blank marble that seemed to eerily watch over him.
If they could, I'm sure they would snigger at his pathetically dramatic display.
[Trial Initiated: Deletion of the False Self]
[Objective: Endure the Light]
An unnatural motion disturbed the air at the far end of the hall caught Apollo's attention. Out of the shadows stepped a small, slender figure. It was wearing the same white silks Apollo had worn at sixteen, dominating over him as his past self struggled to hold it up.
The boy in white looked at him with eyes full of tears and hope.
"Maybe if we wait just one more year," the phantom whispered barely audible, yet so damn clear, its voice a haunting echo of Apollo's own younger self, reflecting his deep rooted hunger for recognition. "Maybe Dad will look at us then. Like a father would look at his son."
Apollo felt a cold, sharp pang in his chest.
"Malice" that he had been nurturing was fighting to run wild.
He realized then that this wasn't a fight against a monster who he had to physically brawl. It was a fight against his own lingering desire to be "adequate" for people who had neglected him.
"Sorry, kid," Apollo said, his voice turning that grim dark tone again. "But I'm fresh out of patience. And I've got a review to write."
[Skill "Zero" activated]
He understood now, his skill "Zero" wasn't some all powerful, combat oriented skill. It let him spot flaws in ways others could never possibly perceive.
Although he hated to admit it, that damn fake was full of flaws. Not that he was full of flaws..
'I'm perfect god dammit! That's what mother used to say anyways..'
Through the lens of the skill, he could see the pathetic way the sixteen-year old fake was composed of insecurities, woven together for "dramatic effect". All it looked like to him was a loser on the verge of breaking down. It started to flicker.
'Wait damn it, that's me.. Was I really that ugly? God..'
He walked toward the phantom. The light flared, a blinding wall of gold meant to repel anyone "unworthy" caged around him. Any normal person would have been incinerated or crushed. But Apollo's eyes tracked the fractures in the light. He saw the places where the "divine" energy was spread thin, straining to maintain the illusion of perfection. It couldn't hide from him now.
"We just need to be better," the boy in white sobbed, the light around him pulsing violently like a dying star. "If we shine bright enough, they'll have to love us!"
"You're not waiting for a father," Apollo said, willing strength into his body, his voice echoing in the hollow hall. "You're waiting for permission to exist. And I'm the only one who can give you that". Because the truth is..
Not even he was sure if he had gotten past his torment for love..
"I- I just wanted to be loved.." Silently sobbing into the heavy white coat..
It was painful.
This wasn't some "failed product", this was a child wrongly deprived of familial relations.
Through the lens of the skill, the light didn't just have fractures- It had wounds.
He looked at the boy- At himself- Sobbing into that heavy, oversized coat. The silk was too big for him because it was never meant to fit a human; it was meant to fit a giant. The "flaw" wasn't in the child. The flaw was in the expectations haunting that coat.
The flaw-
The flaw was never in him..
"I know," Apollo whispered, the stone in his voice breaking into something softer. "I know you did. And it's not your fault that the only thing they valued was how bright you shined."
He stepped forward, the fractures in the light parting for him like glass under a diamond. He didn't use his power to destroy; he used it to see. And saw he did; the jagged, desperate edges of his own heart.
And for the first time, he didn't look away in shame.
"I swear.."
"S-swear what?"
"I swear to clean that filthy coat," Apollo whispered, silently watching out for places that were extra disgusting, as not to accidentally touch them, "When was the last time anyone washed this thing?"
The phantom froze, its sobbing hitching mid-breath. It looked up at Apollo, confusion momentarily overriding the grief in his tear filled eyes. "Clean... the coat?"
"Yeah," Apollo said, offering a hand that didn't tremble, that wouldn't tremble. "It's practically a biohazard at this point. I could fill in a risk assessment for practically everything about it.. No wonder the gods didn't want to touch us, they probably didn't want to come near that contaminated excuse of family heritage."
The phantom stared at the hand.. Mouth gaping open..
"Will it really be okay? T- to leave?"
"Of course, I swear that nothing they have to offer is worth more than the silence we've finally found."
"Unless we talk about the ridiculous amount of money they have.. That could practically buy anything in the world." Apollo added.
"But can we ever find peace?" The boy asked, unraveling the strings that held him tight.
"Of course, you can trust me, I'm you after all.. Now, let go. I'm ready to be a 'failed product' on my own terms."
A smile plastered across his innocent face as he reached for Apollo's hand, one that was long, long overdue.
"Let's go.." He said, tugging Apollo's hand. "Let's go home.. Our home.."
Setting off towards the entrance; his laugh was most illustrious; it was so natural that it made Apollo laugh as well, through all the pain he had to go through.. He closed his eyes.
Rest at last.
Peace at last.
When he opened his eyes, the child wrapped in the horrors of what shouldn't have been was gone, all that remained was the long lasting laughs that filled the empty halls of Luminara.
An eternal laughter of freedom.
Not from power, but of acceptance.
His hand felt strangely empty after the boy had gone. Living his final wish..
Of being loved, and accepted, for who he was.
Not what any useless Constellation saw of him, or his ignorant family.
It was good since Apollo didn't have the heart to tell the boy that the only home he currently had was in a trash bin.
The Great Hall didn't crumble, it just stopped being "Luminara", the eternal power it claimed to be. The gold paint, of years upon years of legacy and achievement, peeled away to reveal a deep, violet foundation. Apollo stood alone, but for the first time, the solitude doesn't feel like abandonment.
It feels like Tranquility.
[True Name Finalized: Prince of Nothing]
{Meaning: Sovereign of the Void. He who exists in the gap where Light and Dark fail to reach. Mending the past with acceptance. Leaving past Woes and Power.}
{Effect: Partial immunity to "Sponsor Influence." Apollo cannot be commanded by divine pressure}
[The Prince has claimed his Throne of Silence]
Apollo's eyes snapped open.
He was back in the mud. The lowest point in his life. The rain was still falling, but it didn't feel like an assault anymore, it was just.. water. Through his Observation, he saw the alleyway differently. He saw the "flaw" in the darkness where a figure was waiting.
"The kid got his peace," Apollo whispered, his voice sounding like shifting gravel. He stood up, and this time, he didn't trip. "Now it's my turn to get mine, by getting super-ultra rich. And maybe a sandwich. A sandwich would be great."
He didn't just feel lighter; he felt absent. When the rain hit his skin, it didn't soak in- it seemed to slide off as if he weren't entirely there.
He looked down at his status window.
[True Name: Prince of Nothing]
[Blessings: Zero- To perceive the flaws in a world too adamant to hide them, at the cost of ones' being temporarily]
[Obtained fragments: N/A]
[Personal Domain: The Sovereigns' Gap]
"The cost of one's being temporarily..." He repeated, the words feeling like a cold draft against his mind. 'What? Did the world want to see me gone forever or something?'
He looked down at his hand. It wasn't transparent, not yet, but the rain was definitely behaving strangely. The droplets didn't splash; they simply transitioned from the air to the mud, passing through the space his skin occupied as if he were a ghost.
He was becoming a literal gap in reality.
'Right. So the more I "Observe", the less I actually exist,' he summarized, a dry, nervous laugh bubbling up.
'It's a good thing I didn't have much practise of "being" to start with. The Luminaras already treated me like a ghost; I guess the gods just wanted to make it official.'
He shifted his gaze to the Obtained Fragments tab. It was a hollow, mocking "N/A".
He stared at the lack of fragments, by now, he would have been showered by fragments simply for being a Luminara and awakening.. That of course could never happen now, since he was kicked out and all.
Fragments are items that you can get from the outer realms of the World Tree, they stay permanently with you in a space called your inventory, or they are forged through an expert black smith- Which Luminara also have a monopoly on...
But as he looked at the silhouette in the darkness at the mouth of the alley, his "Zero" skill pulsed. He didn't just notice the man's physical flaws, he felt a faint, jagged resonance coming from the man's pocket.
A Fragment.
It wasn't a Solar Fragment. It was something else- something "lost" that the Scout had likely pocketed while on duty. Through the lens of Zero, the Fragment looked like a bleeding wound in the Scout's inventory.
He wasn't sure if the person was just being friendly by keeping his distance, or just straight up wanted to kill him..
'Well,' Apollo thought, his fingers twitching as he felt the urge within him yearn for that power. 'If the world isn't going to give me a head start, I suppose I'll just audit someone else's collection'
He didn't trip as he began to move. (Luckily)
He didn't even make a sound. The rain continued to fall through him, masking his footsteps as he closed the distance.
The Scout at the mouth of the alley was a mountain of a man, draped in the grey and gold mantle of the Citadel Border Guard. He stood with the relaxed arrogance of a predator in a cage full of mice. In his hand, a standard-issue solar lamp flickered, its artificial light searching for the "energy spike" that had brought him here.
But the light passed right through Apollo.
As he got closer, the "bleeding wound" in the man's pocket became clearer. It was a Fragment, but it felt wrong. It didn't pulse with the warm, rhythmic beat of the World Tree's Shards, ones that breathed their power, showcasing their past for all to see. It was cold. Sharp. It felt like the silence of a grave.
[Fragment Detected: "The Shard of a Forgotten Key"]
The Scout grumbled, spitting into the mud. "Just a power surge from the sewers. Waste of my damn time." He turned to leave, his hand brushing against the pocket containing the Fragment.
Apollo was mere inches away now. He could smell the man's cheap tobacco and the metallic scent of his polished armor. He felt the "cost" of his being, a numbness spreading from his fingertips, his vision blurring at the edges as the world tried to forget he was standing there.
'I'm fading,' he thought, but there was no panic. Just a cold, calculating clarity. 'If I'm going to disappear, I might as well take a souvenir.'
He reached out. His hand felt like a whisper of smoke..
[Skill has Been Active for longer than Prince of Nothing can handle]
[Shutting skill "Zero" down]
'Dammit'
The cold numbness in Apollo's fingertips was painstakingly present. It was like a wave of pins and needles slamming back into his nervous system. One second he was a whisper of smoke, the next, he had a damn cold. The wet, very solid teenager standing in the personal bubble of a man trained to kill.
The rain, which had been passing through him, suddenly splashed against his shoulders with the weight of lead.
The Scout froze.
The man didn't need a solar lamp to find a resonance spike anymore. He could feel the heat of a living body just inches from his spine.
"What the-" The Scout began to spin, his hand instinctively dropping toward the mace at his belt.
'Move or die, Apollo,' his internal voice hissed, no longer joking.
His hand was still inches from the Scout's pocket. Through the dying embers of his skill's vision, he saw the "flaw" one last time- not in the Scout, though he probably didn't need the skill to point a few, but in the Shard of a Forgotten Key itself. It wasn't just sitting in the pocket; it was vibrating, repelled by the gold-stitched lining of the Citadel uniform.
Apollo lunged.
And it seemed that the man was most definitely running late for work.. Because he forgot to fashion a belt.
Apollo could see through the man's selection of underwear that he was a fan of the "Silver Huntress", many were, she was quite a beauty, oh and the strongest human that isn't a Luminara..
The Scout's reaction was a blur of steel and indignation. As he spun, the lack of a belt became a structural catastrophe. The heavy weight of his Mace Shard and armored greaves began to win the battle against gravity, a flaw so mundane it almost made Apollo laugh.
Apollo didn't laugh- He didn't have the breath for it- but he didn't miss the opportunity either.
As the Scout's hand scrambled to keep his dignity and his weapon at the same time, the "Shard of a Forgotten Key" practically leapt toward Apollo's hand, seeking the void he now represented.
The moment his fingers brushed the cold, jagged edge of the Fragment, the world tilted.
[Fragment "Shard of a Forgotten Key" has been forcibly unlinked]
[Integrating with the Sovereign's Gap...]
A shock of absolute, biting frost raced up Apollo's arm, colliding with the pins and needles of his returning physical form. It wasn't the warm, nurturing hum of a Fragment; it was a silent scream.
"You little gutter rat!" the Scout roared. He abandoned the struggle with his armor, opting to swing a heavy, gauntleted fist at Apollo's head.
Under normal circumstances, that punch would have ended the story right there. But the Shard in Apollo's hand wasn't done.
As the gauntleted fist swung with enough force to shatter brick, a patch of violet shadow swirled where Apollo's face should have been, the Scout's fist didn't connect with bone; they passed through a pocket of non-existence. The sudden lack of resistance, combined with his sagging pants, sent the mountain of a man stumbling forward into the mud, his dignity and his armor clattering in unison, both equally falling as low..
Until his trousers slid and you could see the underwear entirely..
'His dignity fell lower.. Definitely' he remarked to himself
Apollo tumbled backward, his boots skidding in the slick mud.
He was gasping, his lungs burning with the sudden transition from "Nothing" to "Something." The Shard in his hand vanished, sinking into the dark, silent inventory of his soul.
"Who are you?" the Scout barked, struggling to pull up his trousers with one hand while keeping his solar lamp aimed at the boy who seemed to be made of shadows and bad timing. "Show your Mark! Only a high-tier thief has tech like that!"
Apollo didn't think to check the mark of the God of nothing, situated on his neck. As a child he always wanted a cool mark..
'I'm sure that me would be elated to hear that my mark is nothing.. Literally'
"Uhm," he sputtered out.. "Dunno?" He offered.
The Scout's face turned a shade of crimson rivaling the red carpet of Apollo's hallucinations. There he was, one of the Citadel's finest, standing in a muddy alleyway with his trousers around his ankles, his "Silver Huntress" loyalty on full display, being told "Dunno" by a kid who looked like he'd been dragged through a sewer backwards.
"Dunno?" the Scout bellowed, his voice cracking with a mixture of rage and sheer humiliation. "You just phased through a solid punch and unlinked a classified artifact! You're coming with me to the Inquisitors, you little-"
He tried to lunge, but the combination of mud and his lack of a belt turned the movement into a pathetic waddle.
[Skill Zero is safe to use; Will you use it?]
The Scout was currently a flurry of grunts and fumbling hands, trying to maintain his grip on a heavy mace while pulling up his greaves. He looked less like a predator and more like a very angry kitten that had been flipped onto its back.
'If I use it now, I might actually blink out of existence,' Apollo thought, his heart hammering against his ribs. 'But if I don't, I'm going to find out exactly how much "dignity" a Border Guard's mace can beat out of a person.'
He looked at the Scout's staggering form. It was quite fun seeing him try to come at him..
'Do it. Just a flicker.'
[Skill "Zero" activated]
The world drained of color instantly. The heavy, oppressive scent of trash and cheap tobacco vanished, replaced by that familiar, absolute silence. The Scout slowed to a crawl, his face frozen in a mid-shout of "- sewer rat!"
Apollo simply walked off, so what if he was a sewer rat, at least he still had his trousers on properly.