Kismet’s Tale

      He hated the demifiends more than anything in his life. The day he learned of the gruesome fate that shall come. The day where they would die. He knew what he had wanted to do. He tried changing such fate. But the Kismet was not merciful, and the duty that they had for their people meant that they had to go.

Mavin saw how his parents died on their feet. Even though they took their best men with them. The numerous hordes of  the demifiends destroyed. His head went blank. His heart felt like there was a great darkness in it. For the next few years he worked on collecting the boons.

The boons are what you call the natural occurrences. Anomalies that are not strictly magical in nature, but are items and phenomenon that could strengthen the body. In the ‘memory’ he saw during that time on the hill. He recalled how these items could invigorate the body and strengthen the soul. His search for these items and anomalies led to his meeting with the Null and Magi.

The Null and Magi to Mavin Tomas was nothing more than a society of cultists and delusional supremacists. He had worked with some of them, to buy items, and make uses of these boons. There were about one hundred items and one hundred anomalies that he needed to find. These items were found everywhere and he had used the wealth of the Tomas Family to gather them. As for the anomalies, he went to these places, reached the anomalies, and branded his soul with them.

The more boons he collected. The stronger his flesh and soul becomes. He knew it was working and he knew that the ‘memories’ were right. That there was a war coming. That a great evil was coming from the eastern side of the world. His actions in the Imperial City when he first arrived are related to these memories. To Mavin, they were prophetic visions, and yet he could do nothing but let some of them pass.

However, there was a huge part of Mavin Tomas that believed he could still change. It was only later when he found Kohl and saw Maria that he truly believed. He did believe before saving Kohl, but nonetheless there was a part in his memories that made it clear to him what needed to be done.

He needed the right people.

The right individuals to do what he wanted to achieve.

So he didn’t hesitate to scour the Imperial City, turning it upside down, leaving no stone unturned. His actions before the war had called him a heartless man. He could recall Rose Bradley, on her knees, calling him a villain. Mavin didn’t hesitate to cripple people. There were those who held boons that they would only offer to people. But he couldn’t wait for Rene and Kristine to come at them and solve their problems.

He had a list he needed to cross.

Every person that needed help in those memories. He found them. He took the ‘boons’ they could offer him and moved to another. Rose Bradley was right that he didn’t treat them like people who were in trouble, but people that he needed to find and be done with.

Understanding them was hard. He didn’t have time. He simply didn’t have the luxury to wait for them. He might have been terrible at handling them,, but he needed the boons they possessed for a singular reason. To survive the war first.

With the seat of power rightfully belonging to him. He could have defended the Tomas Family and stayed as a ruler. But he couldn’t let it go that there was a chance for things to change. He needed to find that beacon of hope in the sea of fog.

He fought in the war without complaint. He took the heads of enemies. He found Kohl in a shell hole. Spent more years fighting and killing until he found the mud and dirt comfortable enough. When he was out of the shell hole, he roamed the provinces, telling those who died under the field of battle that their children died honorably. Then he would be called again, to use his rifle and abilities to shoot people dead. People who demanded that the war should continue and people who would start another war for the sake of those who died in the war. It was a ridiculous argument, a horrible justification to spend more money on a job. Though he understood their cause, he couldn’t agree with their methods. So he decided to rid them before they could do more harm.

Five years fighting a war. Two years of roaming around provinces and stray regions to find people who might do the Empire harm. If he had spent another year in that field. Mavin Tomas knew that he would have surely turned his heart into stone. It was a dangerous field that made the heart numb.

That’s why he couldn’t imagine what anyone would do if they get hold of the powers that they have. Those powers that were branded on the back of their left hand was dangerous. In the memory they were dangerous and the disasters that they could have done with such powers would endanger the world.

In the last events of those ‘memories’ he saw the chaos that would be brought by such powers. And how they could easily turn this world upside down. 

What would you do with such knowledge?

He knew that it was dangerous.

That they would be playing with the lives of others.

Mavin always wondered why he received those memories on the hill.

He thought that there was a reason for it.

In those ‘memories’ they played with the lives of others as if they were merely nothing more than paper cutouts. The Rene and Kristine he saw in those memories were deplorable people who only cared for a specific few. Those who didn’t have names were killed.

He had it in mind the moment he saw them to kill them.

These people who would crumble under the pressure and weight.

All for the sake of a damning love story that involved the lives of others.

There was a reason that he avoided the Crown Prince and the Ladies at the time he was in the Academy. He loathed their languid passiveness in those ‘memories’.

Rene and Kristine at least wanted to do something about it.

It was not right to be so hesitant when the lives of others.

Mavin Tomas was no saint. But even he understood that there was a need to choose so that they could stabilize the dying Empire in those ‘memories’. Their hesitancy causes the lives of others. All because they couldn’t communicate their words to one another like any decent human being would.

He hated those ‘memories’ and yet he knew that without these ‘memories’. The world could steer into that hell he saw.

However, to take care of it all within a limited span of time was impossible. He simply didn’t have the time and the attention to produce a result that would satisfy everyone. People were not easy to guess. There were many pieces that needed attention. It was the same as moving an entire beach within a single shovel and bucket.

One action could cause a reaction.

A reaction could cause an action that would move the world to the path of hell.

Kohl’s survival and reunion with Maria moved him.

At the same time he truly knew what he wanted to do.

Make sure that the treaty of Flost happens.

And find the one who holds the key to crippling the sources of power in this world indefinitely.

Mavin had tested Rene and Kristine if they had that power. When the Holmians arrived and when he was in the throne room, presenting the crystals to his majesty.

Mavin wondered how he could search for the key that would cripple the sources of power. He wanted to believe. That the person he saw in those memories would be stopped.

Viola Whitefall was the enemy.

Mavin had made sure that she didn’t have the mark.

That she wouldn’t get the mark. He kept her close so that if she ever had that mark. He would know what to do immediately.

The Imperator’s Mark was a brand that was said to have been awarded by God to defend the light of the world. It was the sign of power, the hint of divinity that made the Whitefall rule the continent before the Empire. The Empire itself was a place where such powers gathered.

After all, it was the place where the demifiends gather.

He already butchered the demifiends. And yet they would perpetually exist because of that vestige of power. The embers of magic and sorcery that was kept alive by a single mark. In those ‘memories’ those marks were the cause of suffering for the people of the Magnar-Azia continent.

The ending for the people that he knew was nothing more than bittersweet in those ‘memories’.

A desperate battle against a madwoman who held the power of the ‘bloom’ and the ‘mark’ on her left  hand. The suicidal attempt to take the madwoman’s life, and the ending where Lady Mildred of Anastasia would rise to hold the throne after no one other than her could support a nation devastated by war and battle.

Imperator Viola Whitefall wanted to rule the continent after her conquest of Turian and Champier. She was someone who had control of the Magi and the Null. Through that mark she conjured terrible storms and commanded legions of iron giants.

The Empire and Holmia dropped a sun on her. And yet her powers allowed her to survive.

It took the lives of many to end her life.

In those ‘memories’ he saw Viola Whitefall collapsing with his Vulcan-suit, and her dulled eyes staring. She held no hope. She held nothing but dullness on her face from the start until the end.

And yet it was no excuse for what she could do to the world.

Mavin Tomas felt surprised that she didn’t have the look on her face when they met. However, knowing she was going to be Viola Whitefall made it hard for him to ever grow fond of Natalya so easily. It was the same as keeping a dangerous beast that could easily kill him if she puts her mind and body into doing it.

And yet Mavin Tomas couldn’t find the heart to hate ‘Natalya Wilde’.

But seeing that mark on the back of her left hand changed things.

Mavin couldn’t hesitate the moment he saw that mark.

In those ‘memories’ the boons that Rene or Kristine would gather, will help in defeating the Imperator. Through those boons they would reach the ‘golden ending’. Mavin had single-mindedly gathered the boons for such a reason. So that when the day comes, he would find the ‘Imperator’s Mark’ and use the boons he had gathered on the mark.

Maybe it was simply a twisted fate, that during a great silence. He would find out that she held the mark. That he would use the blade that the Emperor had lent him to sever her hand and make use of the boons to cripple the strongest brand of the world, forever banishing such power from the hands of man.

All the boons that he gathered were for this day.

Mavin Tomas had placed the final nail in the coffin.

The force of power that broke the great silence would echo throughout the world. The vestiges of magic that had been slowly ceasing to exist would soon be dispersed.

Just like what the ‘memories’ told him.

He didn’t have time to think of anything.

He didn’t want to bet on the chances that she wouldn’t become an Imperator.

He had to destroy the mark before it could produce the disaster.

The snow fell as if to welcome the coldness of a world that had lost the vestiges of power.

Mavin Tomas looked down. His eyes met with Natalya Wilde who slowly stood while holding her severed left arm.

She pressed her forehead on his chest, then looked up with a hateful smile on her face.

She knelt on the dirt, then fainted.

Those who hunted with him came and asked who she was. Mavin told them to bring her back to the palace to be treated. They had many questions in their eyes as he said that, but they obeyed, knowing that Mavin Tomas had something that shook the very air.

Mavin Tomas had used the ‘boons’ exactly like how he saw it on the ‘memories’ to destroy the Mark of the Imperator. He had used the advantage the moment he saw the chance to do it.

And so, at the last moments of fall, he had struck the blow that mortally wounded the vestiges of powers. 

On the day of the 11th Month of the Year 1923, Mavin Tomas had struck a blow that had effectively crippled those who used such power, forcing them to accept a new world led only by the work of man and machine.

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