Sounds of savage battle echoed in the chamber.

Claws ripped molten blood out of red skin. Flame burned fur to nothing, leaving patches of singed skin.

Gorren observed, cold expression betraying nothing of the storm inside.

Teeth sank into a red shoulder. Flaming fingers left angry welts on fur and skin.

Thrax all but clung to the apparatus with the commands. His eyes were full of terror as he moved them from the Master to the fight, but Gorren ignored him. The old mage leaned toward the glass until his forehead stood against it, his fingers splayed over its smooth surface.

“Come on…” He growled.

Argus slammed back-first against the wall. He whimpered, then gritted his teeth and charged back into the fray with a chittering cry.

Gorren pressed his fingers against the glass. H could see the energies change as they warred with each other, taking a new form, becoming…

The fire-child smashed against the floor with a cry of pain. She stood trembling for a moment, then snarled, put a hand down and forced herself to get up.

Gorren pressed harder. The cold pressure over his forehead became pain, but it was nothing before the forces trembling across all of his muscles, aching, screaming to be released.

A kick in the gut sent Argus staggering back. He closed his hands on his stomach, and whimpered piteously. He returned to fight a moment later, scattering blood behind himself.

Gorren felt his hands start to go numb. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t tremble, not a part that wasn‘t agonising. The glass started to warp under his fingers.

The energies came together like two rabid dogs searching to consume each other. They drew back, and changed, changed toward… toward…

A backhand blow sent the fire-child head snapping backward. She screamed as her blood sprayed in the air.

The glass started to smoke, hairline fractures radiating from his fingers. Gorren focused until his vision became tinted with red. A voice inside of him screamed.

A savage punch sent Argus reeling backward. He cradled his broken nose, screaming in his hands.

The energies clashed, drew back, and then… then he saw it!

Two halves! Two halves of something that could be whole! That ached and lusted and despaired to be whole!

Argus and the fire-child faced each other. They both profusely bled by a moltitude of wounds, and struggled to remain standing. Still, the furious light of their eyes was undimmed.

The glass warped like clay, cracks webbing their way through all of its surface.

Gorren felt like he was about to snap in half. All of his muscles screamed, his heart hammered in his chest, his mind was devoured by a single incoherent scream that asked, demanded, begged.

Two halves. But still… still they they seemed about to change. Still they looked ready to evolve further. He could see more, he could understand more. If only… if only…

Argus and the fire-child screamed, and charged at each other.

Gorren felt something snap.

“Stop!”

The glass exploded outward in a myriad of fragments, and he was running amidst the flying pieces. He felt shards cut his skin, but they were nothing, all of his very being but a mass of despair and mad urgency.

“Stop! Stop!”

The two opponents paused a moment before they could reach other. Their heads snapped toward him, and for a moment they were united in their hatred.

Gorren accepted it like it was divine judgement, almost with relief.

Then, he was upon them, and his magic ran its course.

Gorren sat in the silent chamber, hiding his face in his hands.

Two beds stood on front of him, close enough for him to reach for them if needed, but far enough so that his pain wasn’t further aroused by it.

Argus and the fire-child slumbered over them. The two were heavily bandaged. The fire-child’s left arm had been fixed with a splint, the same for her right leg. Argus’ nose was a bundle of dressing. His fur had burned away in multiple place, the skin underneath burned and singed. They slept deeply, but from time to time grimaces of pain contorted their features, and they whimpered.

Each sound made Gorren flinch like he had been hit.

“You must be a sucker for pain.”

Gorren lifted his eyes to gaze tiredly at whom had talked.

The dark figure of Nama seemed cut out of darkness as the Goddess stood beside him, the featureless mask that made for her face turned toward him.

“I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.” Gorren murmured. He felt too exhausted to protest about the intrusion. It wasn’t completely unexpected, not really. With one of her priest in there, Nama could very well come and go as she pleased.

The Goddess said nothing. Instead, she turned to look at the two small figures lying over the beds.

Gorren followed her gaze. There was a single block of pain, right where his heart was supposed to be, sending waves of agony through him with each beat. A fresh surge cam to him as he gazed upon those two, wound-littered little things.

For some time, the silence stretched unabated. For a disperate moment, Gorren almost hoped that it would remain like this forever.

Nama broke his hopes.

“It seems that even your drive has his limits.” The Goddess said.

Gorren would have wanted to bristle at the insinuation, to reply that, no, his determination to reach his ultimate objectives was unassailable. In that moment, he couldn’t muster the strenght to say it. Even so, it would have been just empty words and nothing else.

“I told you.” The Goddess continued, without turning. “Your lot is to make choices.” She paused for a moment. “Now you face one.”

Gorren felt a surge of anger, but it was tinted with tiredness, like an old horse kicking its last.

“It’s just…” He stumbled at his feet. Emotions, and hours passed to heal the two without pause had taken his toll over him, and he stumbled. The chamber spinned around him, before he managed to find a measure of steadiness.

More stumbling than walking, he reached the two beds.

Argus and the fire-child didn’t stir. Their sleeping features were twisted in grimaces of pain as Gorren took them in with feverish intensity. The desire to protect them, to keep them safe and for himself, the self-loathing for having put them in danger. That storm of emotions consumed him, flayed him alive, left him like a reef amidst a storm.

“Love. Possessive and relentless.” Nama said, at his side.

He hadn’t noticed the Goddess move, didn’t even felt the shift in the air, but he wasn’t surprised all the same.

“Do you realize that they aren’t those that you have lost?”

Gorren nodded sharply, without averting his gaze by the two sleeping ones.

“I know. It’s just that i…” Words refused to come out. His tongue felt like it was made of lead.

“You hope. For a new family.” Nama said, simply.

Gorren swallowed. That word felt like a burning coal over his heart. It seared him with promise and terrified him with the prospects of new losses.

And still, another storm raged against the first. Duty. The duty to fulfill his research, the duty to find revenge for the fallen, the duty to punish the culprits, the duty toward those that were lost, and had become his family once.

Wasn’t searching for another a betrayal of them, of their memory? Wasn’t it a betrayal of his own life?

Gorren felt trapped, without escape, without way out, without solution. He just stood there, tormented by guilt and hope and longing, feeling like his chest was about to burst.

“Hope is cruel.” The words of the Goddess sank into the darkness like stones into a pond.

Gorren took a stuttering breath. He grasped his hand to stop it from trembling, and turned to Nama.

The Goddess was already watching him, the featureless mask hiding her expression.

“This is your lot.” She repeated. There was no malice or pity in her voice, only a cold implacability. “You must choose.”

She turned, and Gorren did the same.

“You can cling to the past.” At her gesture, the darkness filling the chamber seemed to come alive. Rows of red eyes pierced the shadows, staring, waiting, judging. They coalesced into faces that Gorren recognized. Friends, colleagues, apprentices. Timothy’s face emerged from the darkness, pale and sallow. His apprentice’s features were wizened and sagged, those that he wore in his later days. He stared at him with unblinking eyes.

“You can cling to your ambition, at the exclusion of everything else.” Something stirred beyond the sea of faces. Gorren saw the outline of something mastodontic, heard gigantic steps that shook the earth, a roar that split the sky asunder.

“But that has a price.” With a gesture, Nama brought his attention away from the vision.

Argus and the fire-child slept soundly now, their grimaces gone, replaced by the expressions of those that sleep a dreamless sleep.

“Squeeze the life out of them. There’s great power in such a sacrifice. Even greater now.”

Gorren understood in a flash. “Of course.” He murmured. “The Crux in them is the same that lay in me. If i take it in myself…”

Nama nodded. “Your trasformation will be complete.”

“What is this?” Gorren asked, almost desperate now. “What has started in me with my entering into the Astral Realm? What have the creatures tried to stop?”

For a moment, it seemed like the Goddess wouldn’t answer.

Eventually, she did. “Ascension.” She simply said. “No mortal can walk the fount of all worlds.” She bowed her head, and said no more.

Gorren felt a knot of mixed feelings tighten his chest. He watched the two sleeping ones.

“And the other choice…”

Nama nodded again. “A promise of a promise. Nothing more.” She said. “The possibility that these two become your strenght, your world.”

Gorren watched them, his eyes gleaming feverishly.

“I felt… two halves.” He murmured. “Their fight was the battle of two pups fighting for one life. They seek for each other. They wished to…”

Nama nodded. “…To consume each other.” She completed. “Their lives are incomplete. Each of them holds a half of the whole. If one is to survive, the other must die and be devoured.”

Gorren felt a surge of furious denial. He threw his hands in the air, looking for a moment like he was about to attack something or someone. He slumped down instead, fury draining out of him.

“How?” He asked. “How it happened? How?” He almost laughed. “My doll, my pet. How they became like this? When it happened? How?”

Nama bowed her head, and didn’t answer.

“And then?” Gorren growled. “Am i just to see them wilt away? Where is the choice in this?” He felt cheated, robbed.

“There is one.”

Gorren turned to glance at her.

“I can show you.”

Gorren paused. His surprise turned to wild hope that in turn turned to suspicion.

“What is your price?” He hissed.

He could feel the smirk on her face, even with her mask on. “Free of change. You’re always a chosen of the Gods, aren’t you?” She shook her head. “But you won’t like the method.”

She fell silent, giving him time to think.

Gorren watched Argus and the fire-child, emotions and decisions warring inside of him.

“I give everything to my research.” He whispered eventually. “And everything for my vengeance.” He hesitated, then kneeled before the beds. “But these ones are free of blame and pure. Even if am to follow this road forever, it’s not their weight to carry.”

He paused for a moment, feeling the silent eyes of the dead on his back. “And, yes. Despite everything, i still hope that maybe i can… it couldn’t ever be the same, but it has not to be. Just… just…” His words got lost. He bowed his head, and stood silent.

After a moment, he got up. There was a new determination in his eyes.

“There are depths where humans shouldn’t sink.” He declared to the Goddess. “And if they do, they aren’t humans anymore. I cannot fall to such depths, or everything will be meaningless.”

“Why?” Once again, there was no evident emotion in the Goddess’ question. Only mild curiosity.

“A promise.” Gorren glanced at the darkness. But the faces were gone already. Nothing but shadow remained. “To myself, and others.”

He remained silent for a moment, mourning for what had been lost, and for a past that couldn’t ever be regained.

“What it must be done?” He asked, now decided.

Nama radiated amusement. “Of course.”

“You better be sure about his too.” Gorren said, and she paused. The old mage’s gaze was iron as he peered in the Goddess’ blank visage. “Once i see, i will learn. This is your only chance to put a debt on me.”

Nama faltered for a moment. Then, she chuckled.

“Gorren An-Tudok.” She said, and gestured for him to get close.

Gorren obeyed, but still held his head high.

While the Goddess worked what she promised, his eyes lit with understanding.

“Ah, i see. Of course.”