Chương 2: 1-Truth Hurts

"You bloody want what?" Jenna asked. She could not believe what she had just heard. The entire Coven appeared behind its leader. Their placement, body stance, and facial expressions painted a very different picture in Jenna's powerful mind from the unity they intended to convey. Five minutes ago, many of them had been on the verge of open rebellion. Something had made them rethink their posture. It could only have been Dawn, that strange woman. Who was she? What did she want? Why did the Coven fear her so much?

She had certainly clobbered them as if they were a bunch of amateurs, but Jenna felt that there was more to it.

"Your help. I said I want your help," Necessity answered, putting Jenna out of her reverie. The Coven leader remained on the other side of the spatial rift. That was the only reason Jenna had not tried to hit Necessity.

"Can you believe this guy, or girl, or whatever it is—apart from an asshole?" she asked as she turned towards her friends. They all looked shocked at the exchange. No one had seen this coming.

"Do you think I am deceitful, Jenna?" Necessity asked in its infuriatingly calm tone, using Jenna's own voice.

"Of course you are, you conniving son of a bitch. The Imperials trusted you, and you almost drove them to extinction!" she screamed at him.

"I am deceitful. Trust me at your own peril," Necessity admitted.

"Yet, I do not lie. Not ever. I may not tell the whole truth, I may lead you to deceive yourself, but I never lie." Jenna knew that part was true. She had already noticed Necessity never told blatant lies—doing so probably counted as a Breach of Form for him.

"I am not interested in anything you have to say," Jenna said, turning her back on him.

"Turn away from this conversation, and you sentence the whole universe to death," Necessity answered as she walked away. Jenna froze in her tracks.

"It seems your interest has grown," Necessity smugly added.

"You have one minute," she said as she turned, seething.

"One minute…Well, let me see. I'll try to make this short," Necessity reflected. The bastard still had time to mock her even in the midst of a universal crisis.

"The Compendium is not an instrument of destruction," it began.

"It is a barrier. It keeps Limbo away. You want to keep the Icosahedron from returning, so we do not initiate a new cycle. Dawn, on the other hand, wants to destroy it."

"If she succeeds, she will free Limbo to attack our reality and wipe away our universe." A chorus of gasps greeted these revelations as the words sank into her friends' minds. Necessity went on, trying to make the most of his minute: "We would rather the Losers have it, since the Coven will wrest it back from you sooner or later."

"Dawn may actually have a chance at destroying it, and with it, the whole universe."

"Jenna, you are the only person who can track it through the Compendium copy in your head; Dawn can block any other more orthodox attempts," the Coven leader went on, droning in Jenna's own voice.

"So you are the only ones with a chance of getting it back. And yes, I will betray you and backstab you the first chance I get," Necessity finished.

"That is a given."

"I still have five seconds left," it exclaimed happily.

"Billy hates your omelets. He flushes them down the toilet when you are not looking," Necessity said. Then the rift disappeared. Jesus, Billy, could you just tell me you do not like them? she almost said. Then she stopped herself. She would not play Necessity's petty games.

"Give me a few seconds," she told her friends as she sat down in the Lotus position and plunged deep into her own mind. She glimpsed their worried faces as she began to shift her freebie points into cognition. This bunch had been through anything the world could throw at them. It took a lot to worry them. And yet, here they were. She visualized the Compendium within her, allowing her psyche to create an environment where she could communicate with it.

She opened her mind's eye and found herself inside a cluttered, dirty house. It seemed the Compendium was not overly concerned with personal hygiene. No. It is not like that. I am giving it these personality traits because my subconscious mind just hates him, Jenna thought. Well, he deserved it. He was not the most well-behaved tenant, after all. The Compendium was sitting on a couch, watching a football game on TV, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, and wearing sandals. It turned its polyhedral head towards Jenna.

"This is going to cost you," it warned before she had a chance to speak. This bastard was going to extort her for the chance to help him.

"Cut the crap. If the artifact is destroyed, you are going to become the only existing copy of it. Your existence will literally depend on me," Jenna answered.

"So don't try to bluff me. It is not going to work." The Compendium sighed, "You can't blame a fundamental force of the universe for trying." He took a swig from his beer can, then kept talking. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

"Dawn is blocking the signal that the Icosahedron emits. That signal is what Postulants detect. You, too, have learned to sense it." The Compendium switched channels using the remote in his right hand. The new channel showed the same game, but with the players on the floor in various stages of dismemberment.

"Much better, that's the spirit," it said approvingly.

"Necessity built twenty Aeons ago a black box mechanism inside the artifact," the Compendium went on.

"It records the dimensional coordinates of the Icosahedron at random intervals. Dawn does not know the mechanism exists. It triggered one hour ago," the Compendium said as it contemptuously threw a leaflet at Jenna, which he pulled from one of his pockets. The paper disintegrated as Jenna caught it in mid-air. As it did, dimensional coordinates appeared in her mind. She knew where she had to go.

"Bye," the Compendium said, as the visualization dissolved around Jenna. She opened her eyes and watched Billy's worried face near hers. She sighed.

"This was a beautiful month, wasn't it, Billy?"

"I can explain about the omelets," said a worried Billy.

"You dumbass," she said, smiling at him.

"We start running again. God knows when we will stop this time." Bob joined them as his elven weaponry shimmered into being around him.

"Let's do it, then," he said. It was hard to believe he had been a shy math teacher a few months ago.

"Do you need any help?" Alarel asked. She would go to hell and back for her, but Jenna knew her plate was already full. The Amazons had a whole world to oversee, and both Dignity and Humanity had their own responsibilities. This task fell to them.

"No, thank you, mother," Jenna answered as her eyes glazed, calculating possibilities.

"This will work better as a small team operation. We are only trying to track her. We are not going to confront her directly, not after the last beating she gave us."

"But why the hurry?" asked Eleon.

"Hasn't Necessity told you the Icosahedron is basically bugged? You can find her whenever you want. If we prepare, we have a better chance of beating her."

"No, Eleon, we can't," Jenna answered.

"She has been able to nullify the Icosahedron's main signal. If she ever finds out there is a secondary one, and we must assume she is smart enough to eventually catch on, we have lost her forever." Jenna shifted her freebies into perception, enhancing her sense of smell. She felt the lingering scents of everyone present. She had long ago learned to identify them, knowing the information could prove useful. There! A new one. Dawn's. She swore.

"What is the matter, Jenna?" Bob asked her.

"You'd be surprised at how much info I can get from smells," she explained.

"This bastard was cool as a cucumber when she beat us. Her adrenaline didn't even spike. I don't think her heart rate ever went above 80." Eleon whistled.

"Tough customer," he said.

"Enough chatter. I can track her now," Jenna curtly said.

"Let's go," she added as she headed outside. Alarel and Elariana hugged her quickly.

"Take care, daughter, we will wait for you," the elder elven woman told Jenna. Jenna enhanced Bob's mind as he cast Celestial Gate, empowering his magic and aiming it in the right direction. A rift tore through the air, revealing a different world beyond. They walked into it. The chill hit them as soon as they crossed. The rift sealed behind them. Belona had been tropical. This world was deep in winter. Their elven cloaks appeared protectively around them, shielding the Losers from the cold.

Jenna looked around her, taking in the lay of the land. The sun was not very different from Earth's, perhaps with a greener tinge. There was vegetation, not unlike the ones they knew, and some bird-like creatures fluttered around under the green sun. Jenna enhanced her vision and studied them. They behaved like birds, but seemed to be a type of evolved bat. They were standing near an asphalt road that hadn't been used for a long time.

It was in a clear state of disrepair, dotted with the metallic wrecks of vehicles similar to those used on their homeworld in the 1950s.

"It looks just like Chicago did after the dungeons went wild," Bob said.

"Most of those vehicles looked like they were crushed by something big."

"Bingo!" Jenna said, enhancing her sense of smell.

"Dawn was here, minutes ago. I think I can track her, but first things first," Jenna said, burying a dimensional beacon in the dirt near the road.

"This is a new plane—this beacon lets us return whenever we want."

"I am not entirely sure returning here is a good idea, Jenna," Billy said somberly as he pointed at something behind them. Jenna turned and immediately understood what Billy meant. Two titans were fighting miles away. They were big enough to be noticed, even at that distance. They were both Tribulations, one shaped as a giant wolf, the other as a serpent. Each blow created slight tremors that could be felt even at their location.

"This world is older than ours," Bob said in awe.

"This is what Earth is going to turn into if we ever give the Icosahedron back. Tribulations are going rampant without new Avatars to stop them. The death of a whole civilization."

"We should get moving before I lose the scent," Jenna said curtly, cutting off their reverie.

"She seems to be heading to the city a few miles east. If you can still call that a city, of course," she pointed to the half-standing ruins of what were once buildings.

"I wonder if this world still has living people." Jenna followed Dawn's scent, becoming worried as it grew progressively weaker.

"I am losing her. We shall just have to wait till the Icosahedron beacons a new location," she sighed.

"I hate having to deal with that bastard," she said, thinking of the copy inside her head. Suddenly, her senses picked up something new. A strange cacophony of smells, all of them weirdly alien and wrong. She enhanced her hearing and heard them coming from a mile down the road.

"Lie down and do not make a sound," she hissed.

"Incoming." The Losers dove into a ditch, using the environment to hide their presence. Billy swore as he saw what the newcomers looked like. A full cavalry force of centaurs armed with bows and spears, most of them ridden by blood-covered hags who were wielding wands and staves.

"Essentials are working together. They are part of a Tribulation Army, like the Sea of Chaos that attacked Babylon. They seem to be heading towards the place where those two Tribs are fighting. They must serve one of them," he said, turning to face Jenna.

"This place is about to become a war zone, Jenna."

"Let's move away from the main road," she said, guiding them through a narrow path among the bushes surrounding the traffic lanes. They all stopped as they came face to face with a trio of strangers: a young couple and their five-year-old daughter. They looked human, with a Nordic appearance. Their clothes were dirty and ragged, and the three looked exhausted and hungry. Suddenly, the mother's eyes lit up, taking in their elven weapons and armors. She seemed excited at their presence.

"We are powerful Experientials and are here to help you," Jenna said, knowing they probably would not understand English. Then the mother ran away towards the Tribulation army, screaming something in an unknown language and pointing at the Losers. The centaurs and their riders stopped, studying the new arrivals. Jenna gaped at her.

"She sold us. We were trying to help, and she bloody sold us out." The centaurs charged, hollering war cries while the hags riding them readied their magic. The father fled, taking the girl with him.

"Good," Bob said.

"I really want to hit someone," he added. Both Jenna and Billy looked at him.

"I am sorry. I guess I am spending too much time with Charlie Vaughn," he apologized.

"Should we run or fight?" Billy asked.

"Both," Jenna answered.

"We run through them."