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Destiny's Destiny

Ch. 1 · Six-Oh-Five

Opening wide of the Realm War battlefield. Raizen stands alone in the left foreground with lightning on his arm; Veyron waits motionless on the right among broken banners. The three portals burn on the horizon.
  1. Narration: Four hundred years ago, the three realms broke open on one plain.
  2. Narration: General Raizen of the mortal armies was the only one who came to end it.
Yaldabaoth steps in front of Raizen and claims the fight. Veyron answers him from across the plain.
  1. Yaldabaoth: Stay behind me, general. A demon is still a thing of earth. Earth answers to me.
  2. Veyron: Little god. You are the smallest thing on this field.
Yaldabaoth charges Veyron. Veyron does not move his feet; his arm does the work, and the hand closes on the god's throat.
Yaldabaoth dies in one motion. Veyron drops him into the mud and keeps count out loud while Raizen watches.
  1. Veyron: One.
Satrisha steps in where Yaldabaoth fell. Veyron swats her out of the air without breaking stride and counts her as two.
  1. Satrisha Vale: Enough.
  2. Veyron: Two.
Both champions are down. Raizen stands alone and calls down the last of his lightning; Veyron walks toward him, unhurried.
  1. General Raizen: You want the world? Take it off me.
  2. Veyron: Gladly.
Raizen lets Veyron reach him and puts his palm on the demon's chest. The Thunder Rib Seal closes around Veyron in a single rib of lightning.
  1. General Raizen: Thunder Rib Seal.
  2. Narration: He spent every spark he had on one rib of thunder — and let the mountain take it.
Hard cut four hundred years forward. Zach's cramped Boulder flat at dawn, Zach asleep, the alarm about to go.
  1. Caption: Boulder, Colorado — 6:05 AM
  2. Narration: Zach. Twenty-nine. Four years out of the Army, still running their errands.
Zach surfaces and shuts the alarm off with his right hand.
  1. Narration: He has not slept past six in eleven years. The Army fixed that. Nothing since has unfixed it.
Zach cooks breakfast badly while his phone starts buzzing on the counter.
  1. Narration: The only person who calls before six is the man who signs his orders.
The eggs burn. Zach scrapes them onto a plate anyway and takes Jeff's call with the phone jammed against his ear.
  1. Jeff: Turn on the news.
Zach argues with Jeff on the phone and switches the TV on to end the argument.
  1. Zach: It's six in the morning, Jeff.
  2. Jeff: I know what time it is. Turn it up.
Zach stands in front of the TV with his breakfast forgotten. The screen shows a live downtown street and a tall figure standing behind a reporter.
  1. Narration: The eggs were burnt. The coffee was cold. It was, until 6:07, a perfectly ordinary Tuesday.
Cut into the live broadcast itself: Pearl Street, a reporter mid-sentence, a crowd behind her, and Timothy Jr. standing quietly at her shoulder.
  1. Boulder News Reporter: —we're live on Pearl Street, where witnesses say this man simply walked out of the crowd—
The reporter turns to the man behind her and asks his name. He looks down at her and smiles.
  1. Boulder News Reporter: Sir? Sir, can you tell us your name?
  2. Narration: The man on the screen is Timothy Jr. The FBI declared him dead three years ago.
Timothy Jr. lifts the reporter off her feet by the throat. The street breaks and runs.
  1. Downtown Crowd: RUN! Get back— RUN!
Timothy Jr. addresses the camera directly, then walks away down an emptied street. The feed keeps running.
  1. Timothy Jr.: Tell them I'm not angry. Tell them I'm grateful.
The Pentagon corridor has stopped working. Staff cluster under the wall screen; Zach walks in past them.
  1. Narration: The Pentagon, 7:40 AM. Nobody in this building is working.
  2. Pentagon Staff: Sir — have you seen it?
Zach sees the frozen frame on the wall screen and stops walking.
  1. Zach: Yeah. I've seen it.
Jeff's office. Jeff behind the desk, Kità against the wall, Zach in the doorway. The monitor wall behind Jeff still shows the Boulder feed.
  1. Narration: Jeff. Fifty-four. Runs the unit that does not appear on any budget.
  2. Jeff: Close the door, Zach.
  3. Narration: Kità. Thirty-one. Back eight months from somewhere she will not name.
Zach refuses the job before he hears it. Jeff slides a printout across the desk instead of arguing.
  1. Zach: Whatever this is, I'm not doing it.
  2. Jeff: Look at the photo first.
Zach picks up the printout and sees Timothy Jr.'s face on it.
  1. Narration: The still is from this morning. 6:07 AM. Forty minutes ago.
  2. Zach: Where did you get this?
Jeff confirms where the photo came from. Zach answers with the thing he has never said out loud.
  1. Jeff: Boulder P.D. pulled it off the live feed. That's Timothy Jr., walking around in daylight.
  2. Zach: No. I put a bullet in his head three years ago.
Zach's right palm lights up with the old lightning scar, white-gold from inside the skin. Jeff sees it and says the thing Zach has been dreading.
  1. Jeff: TJ is alive.

End of Chapter 1

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Chapter 2 · written, not drawn yet

Seven Names

Jeff's office, 8 AM: a file on the table, a roster of seven names, and a commander who will not take no.

about 24 pages · drawn in about 10 minutes · free for everyone after

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