00020. The Ancient One wants to talk.

00020. The Ancient One wants to talk.

The Ancient One shook her head in pity and said, “Without a soul as a container your life force is slowly ebbing away. I can already see it, if nothing is done, you will die within a few weeks at most.”

Ezekiel laughed at her words and said, “For being The Ancient One, you sure don’t know much, do you? I will be gone by five, before my father gets home to take a shower.”

The Ancient One frowned at that and said, “You might be close to sixty in age and currently dying, but you should still show a little respect, young man. I have worked to keep this planet safe from threats for over nine hundred years.”

Ezekiel finally stopped typing as he rolled his eyes and said, “Alright granny, whatever you say.”

He started to save his work, before he shut off the computer. As he did that, The Ancient One frowned a little more and said, “You know I was going to try to help you, since you are not corrupted. But with your attitude, I think not.”

Ezekiel stood up on the desk and put the keyboard and mouse back in place before he jumped off the desk and landed on the floor. He walked closer and looked up at The Ancient One as he said, “Nothing you can do could help me anyways granny. You would just be wasting my time, like you are now. You said you came to check me out, are you finished or do I need to strip naked?”

The Ancient One stepped back and said, “No, but I want to meet your boss before I leave.”

Ezekiel let out a laugh as he said, “You made me lose another bet, old women. You wanna meet my boss? Then take us to the mirror dimension first.”

The Ancient One nodded and flicked her right hand, the area around them started to break like glass. After a moment they were both in the mirror dimension and The Ancient One said, “Now summon your boss for me.”

Ezekiel started to giggle, before his laughter became manic and he said, “I really wish you would have found us in a few years, it would have been more fun.”

“You would have been dead long before then, now summon your boss for me. Please.”

“You know, the boss isn’t gonna like this one bit. But I know you came here ready for a fight, so it would be a shame to let all that work go to waste wouldn’t it? How about you show me how well you can dance!”

Ezekiel’s body flickered for a moment before it disappeared, and a shield glimmered into life behind The Ancient One’s head where Ezekiel had just tried to punch her. The next second his body flickered, he reappeared in the air in front of her mid punch. She gently blocked the punch with her palm and then gripped his fist. She pulled him downwards and moved him into the path of her leg as she kicked him in the chest, which sent him flying away from her. As Ezekiel slammed into the wall of the mirror dimension, she watched the boy closely and noticed his life force was depleting even faster then before. Ezekiel recovered slowly and as he got up he started to laugh again as he said, “This body is so weak it makes me sick.”

The Ancient One shook her head and said, “You could beat a normal human with no training. But a trained combatant, even with your speed, you would lose. You also pack no power behind your attacks and with this amount of skill, I won’t need to cast a single spell to beat you.”

Ezekiel started to laugh menacingly and said, “You wanna bet?”

The Ancient One stepped back and put up her guard as she watched Ezekiel. The boy brought his hands together as he started to make signs, she wasn’t sure what they meant, but as he made them, the life force in his body began to move. Most of it started to gather in his chest area and started to spin at a rapid pace as he inhaled. When he finished, he said, “” A huge flame erupted from Ezekiel's mouth and sped towards The Ancient One.

“May the aegis of the intertwine to protect me!” A glowing orange shield bubble engulfed The Ancient One as she watched in fascination as the life force in the body of Ezekiel disappeared and turned into a giant flame spewing from his mouth. It didn’t last too long, less than fifteen seconds and the boy was spent. The last bits of his life force were about to fade away as he gasped for his last breath, he said, “I win,” as his body fell forward and disappeared into a puff of smoke.”

The Ancient One started in shock at what just happened, in all her years she had never once seen someone act so reckless with their own life. She just stood there, staring at the spot where Ezekiel just was.

The Ancient One examined Ezekiel for a while before she asked, “So you were a really good person in your last life or something?”

“I would like to think I was.”

“So why here, to this timeline? You seem to know what is coming and you aren’t planning to sit on the sidelines from what you have done so far.”

Ezekiel laughed at that before he said, “I didn’t pick this place first or even second. I picked my world first, I wanted to see my kids. But I was told that wouldn’t be allowed. So I picked somewhere else, but I was told I wouldn’t be able to affect the timeline much and I didn’t want to live my second life like an NPC bystander.”

“NPC?”

Ezekiel smiled and said, “It’s a term from video games, non-player character. If I went to that world, that’s how I would feel. You should really play some video games when you have some free time, I think you would enjoy it.”

The Ancient One just nodded for a moment before she asked. “So this was your next choice?”

Ezekiel shook his head and said, “No, he made me an offer, an already made timeline. I wouldn’t be able to change where I started, but he would give me powers I could use to shape the future of the timeline.”

The Ancient One frowned a little and said, “So you mostly came here because you gained powers?”

“No, I would have had powers in the other worlds I went to. I had another reason for coming here. But I doubt you would understand, it’s kinda childish.”

“Humor me.”

Ezekiel raised his head up at the ceiling with his eyes unfocused as he looked past it and he said, “After I was born, I was told that I was special, it was a miracle that I was even alive.”

His eyes became focused as he looked at The Ancient One and said, “During my mothers pregnancy, she did everything she could to have a miscarriage. Her personal beliefs, wouldn’t allow her to get an abortion and I was just a reminder of the worst night of her life. So she attempted to get rid of me in a way that wouldn’t affect her “soul.”

Ezekiel let out a sigh as he said, “Well nothing worked, I somehow survived everything she put in her body to kill me. But it wasn’t without a cost. I was a miracle baby, with more health issues than the average cancer patient ward. Luckily my mind was somehow spared and it was the one thing that kept me alive.”

Ezekiel shook his head as he said, “My mother was forced to give me up for adoption after I was born. Not like she wanted to keep me anyways, but after the doctors figured out what she had been doing to do to get rid of me. Well she was sentenced to a mental institution for her condition instead of prison. As for the man who donated the other half of my genes... He was in prison for what he did to my mother and some other women.”

Ezekiel sat down on the ground and started to examine his hands for a moment as he said, “You know, everyone loves a baby. Unless the baby needs to be hooked up to machines just to live. I didn’t even get to go to an orphanage, I had to stay under medical care for my body to function properly. I was lucky my mind worked though, otherwise they wouldn’t have kept the machines on.”

Ezekiel laughed and said, “Apparently if you aren’t considered brain dead, by law they had to keep you alive. Even a kid no one wanted. I spent the first part of my life till I was about six alone. Medical staff would see me everyday, I would be fed, cleaned and taking care of. But that was it, I had no true interactions with people.”

Ezekiel looked back up at The Ancient One and said, “While my mind did work, they still didn’t try to teach me anything. They treated me like a coma patient, except I had my own room and I was placed in a long term pediatric ward. I learned language by listening to people talk around me and the TV that they played kid shows on. I actually learned to read from watching Sesame Street.”

Ezekiel smiled at that, his eyes looking past The Ancient One and into an old memory, the edges of Ezekiel’s eyes glimmered a little and his voice broke slightly as he said, “Around six is when I made my first friend... His name was Sam... He introduced me to the world of comic books and he is the main reason I took the deal for this world.”