Arc 35 - Fear

Lucifer was surprised by what happened. And so was the artificial angel.

“Who are you?” Lucifer asked.

He has never been surprised before by something like this. He can see the future, past and present at the same time, but he did not see this person snatching the artificial angel from him.

“The name is Nazar,” replied Nazar with a smile on his face.

However, the smile did not last long. He noticed something. He was in complete shock.

“Black wings… red eyes… blonde hair.” Nazar started trembling uncontrollably. ”You are L-L-L-Lucifer, r-r-right?”

(This is bad.)

Nazar started trembling even more. He slowly turned around the artificial angel and saw it nodding.

“I d-d-d-d-don’t… c-c-c-care about them. You can k-k-k-k-kill them all.”

Lucifer smiled.

“You are that human that this artificial angel mentioned, right?”

(Is… is this fear?)

“M-m-me?”

(Turn off emotions temporarily.)

Nazar’s trembling stopped and he looked calm again.

After that, Nazar sighed.

“I am sorry about my earlier. I was just a little shocked.” Nazar spoke in his calm tone. “I wanted to say, you can kill them if you want. I have no way of fighting you. I will be done in less than a second.” Nazar paused. “By the way, I am a big fan of yours.”

“...” Lucifer showed a puzzled look.

“Oh sorry, wrong universe. I meant the comic character named Lucifer.”

“So, you are that human boy, huh?”

“Yes.” Nazar paused. “So, what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see what this artificial angel was capable of,” Lucifer replied.

“Well, you cannot kill it.”

“And why is that?”

“If you kill it, then you will kill trillions of people… or was it trillion?”

“Anyway, I lost interest in that thing.” Lucifer’s face was ripped in half with a smile. “I am more interested in you.”

“I am not interested in dudes.” Nazar lowered his voice. “I am glad Aarin is not here to see this.”

“What makes you so powerful?”

“No idea,” Nazar said casually as he shrugged.

“Are you really human?”

“Well, my DNA is that of a human and parents were humans and I was born on Earth. So, yeah, I am human.” Nazar explained.

“Hmm... Your energies seem nothing like I have ever seen in angels or demons. I have not seen it anywhere else before. Not even in your counterparts from the multiverse.”

“...”

“You are the only anomaly in the multiverse.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, yet.” Lucifer paused. “But I am interested in you, so I will find out what you are.”

“Why would you that? Don’t have something better to do?”

The artificial angel just stood there not knowing what to do. It was listening to their conversation.

“When I first saw you, I thought you gave similar energy to a being known across the multiverse as the ‘Nameless One’, but now I know that I was wrong.”

“Nameless Once…?” Nazar muttered under his breath.

“You are an interesting being. I want to see what you become.”

There was a little silence between them.

“Anyway, who was that angel on Mars?” Lucifer asked.

Nazar’s shoulders jerked as he heard that name. He completely forgot about Aarin fighting against that artificial angel.

“Is she okay?”

“Oh, it's nothing. She just collapsed.” Lucifer said with a smile on his face.

Nazar let out a sigh of relief and then looked back.

The artificial angel did not see it coming, but Nazar had punched it so hard that it landed on planet Xiem’s surface.

As it landed, it destroyed a few buildings.

“What was that for?”

“She was a friend… more like an acquaintance and this guy hurt her. Plus, he attacked us without any warnings.”

“So, who is she?”

“Aarin. She is an emotion-based angel.”

“Oh?” Lucifer raised his eyebrows at that statement. “I heard they are pretty powerful.”

“Anyway, an angel cannot stay in the human realm for a long time. It will cause troubles.” Lucifer added.

“What kind of troubles?”

“Just by being here, the rules of the universe are being changed.”

“Then how did you…?”

“I am not an angel. I don’t have the same rules as them.”

“...”

“...”

There was an awkward silence at that moment.

(Has it been 5 minutes.)

“Actually, can you do something for me before you leave?”

Lucifer was surprised to hear that.

“Hmm?”

“Can you help that angel on Mars?”

“And why would I do that?” Lucifer said as he tilted his head a little.

During their conversation, Nazar did not make many movements and he did not change his expression a lot either.

“If you don’t then I will not allow you to learn more about me?”

Nazar was not sure what he was really saying.

“That’s not going to be a problem… but you have got guts to ask me something like that. So, yeah, I will help her.” Lucifer smiled and vanished into thin air.

When Lucifer left, Nazar was not expecting him to help her, but at least he got him away.

(Hmm… he actually rather a nice guy.) Nazar thought. (I was expecting him to be more villainous and he would kill me for snatching that angel from him, but he was rather a nice person.)

(Turn on emotions.)

Nazar flew towards planet Xiem. He went back to the dome-shaped room and the artificial angel was close-by too.

As soon as Nazar landed in the room, Kiet seemed a little better. He was not panicking.

“Thanks for the help.” He said without looking back.

As Kiet said, the artificial angel close-by started to vanish.

The pods opened and Aria opened her eyes.

Nazar quickly went close to her and smiled.

“Are you okay, Aria?” Nazar asked her.

“Nazar?” Aria said slowly. “I… I saw you in...”

“It’s okay. Don’t talk.”

Aria slowly got up. She was wearing a small light blue dress with white dots on it.

Upon seeing that Nazar said, “Blue hair, blue eyes and blue dress?”

Aria laughed slowly at that, but she looked like she was going to lose consciousness any second.

Nazar looked at Kiet, who was a little away.

“Oi, what’s wrong with her?”

“Don’t worry, it will be fixed after a day of rest.”

Nazar narrowed his eyebrow a little and said, “If she is not fixed by then, I will kill you.”

(Increase teleportation range.)

And just like that, Nazar vanished into thin air.

He found himself in his aunt’s house and slowly placed Aria’s body on the sofa in the living room.

And he left immediately.

He teleported to Mars, where Aarin was.

Aarin was standing out now and she was looking towards nothing.

Nazar appeared behind her and said, “Are you okay?”

This startled Aarin. She looked back and saw that Nazar was perfectly fine.

“Yeah, I am fine.”

“Anyway, why were you looking into nothingness? Couldn’t you just teleport to Earth?”

“L-Lucifer was here,” she said slowly as she looked towards the nothingness once more.

“Huh? He actually came?”

“What?”

“I met him a little while ago and asked him to help you.” Nazar paused. “So, did he help?”

“Yeah. My health is back to normal and… I am a universal level angel again.”

This shocked Nazar.

“What?”

She turned towards Nazar.

“I don’t know… but it seems like my powers have increased.” She said in an unsure tone.

She went closer to Nazar and hugged him.

“I need to go back.”

“Why did you hug me?”

Aarin laughed and said, “This is goodbye.”

“Good, good.”

“Take care of yourself.” She stopped hugging him and walked for a few meters. “Anyway, if you ever need help, don’t hesitate. Okay?”

Nazar sighed and said, “Okay.”

As just like that, a portal opened. Aarin walked through it and went back into her heaven.

Nazar went back to the moon.

Nazar found himself in the main lobby of the base on the moon.

- Is everything alright, master? -

The AI known as Solace said.

“Yes,” Nazar replied immediately but lowered his voice. “For now.”

Nazar walked past the centre of the lobby, which has a glass table that displays a hologram of Solace.

- Master, do you know what happened with your family? -

Upon hearing that words, Nazar turned his gaze towards Solace’s hologram.

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

- It seems your grandmother has passed away. -

Nazar was surprised to hear that.

“Grandmother? I don’t know anyone like...”

- Sara Jones has passed away. -

“Who is Sara Jones…?”

(Wait, that surname...)

“But… Emma said that...”

- You did not ask for any details. -

“Shit,” Nazar muttered.

Nazar left the base once again and found himself in his foster family’s home.

As soon as he went there, Emma was in the living room downstairs.

“Emma,” Nazar said out loud.

“Nazar? What is it?”

As he heard the voice, he entered the living room.

Emma was sitting on the sofa and was watching TV.

“Why did Mary go all the way to your grandmother’s house?”

As she heard that, she lowered her gaze.

“She… died.”

“When?”

“The same day the world fell apart.”

“Shit,” Nazar muttered under his breath.

“I… didn’t know about...”

She looked at Nazar. Her eyes looked teary.

“You know why that is?” She raised her voice. “Because you never even cared about these things. You never talked to us or visited them, so of course, you would not know about them. And she could not come here because of her illness.”

“... Sorry.”

“We only found out a few days ago. But as usual, you were never around.”

Nazar let out a deep sigh.

“... A lot happened.”

“Like what?” Emma turned her gaze towards the TV again. “Stop keeping secrets.”

The TV did not have anything besides the news. Even though it has been weeks since everything fell apart, most of the things are still as bad as they were since the attack of the undead and Zerathos.

With governments non-existent, nothing is getting better. Nazar has changed the objectives of Internal Order, but it looks like they have not done much since he departed.

“I am not going to keep secrets from you anymore,” Nazar said as he walked towards the sofa opposite Emma.

As he sat down, he said, “I was kidnapped.”

Emma chuckled upon hearing that.

“With your powers?”

“I am serious.” Nazar paused. “I was taken by aliens who outmatched me in power. I… I wanted to die, so I did not struggle a lot… but things didn't go that way.”

“...”

“They killed me over and over again for 1 week straight. I… lost count after 8542. After a while, I died completely for about a week and it was not a place of my liking. So, I resurrected but my cells were being blown up so I could not stay alive for longer.”

Upon hearing these words, Emma froze in shock.

“I was saved by Aarin, the angel you saw a few minutes ago. She saved me by bringing me to the base. She helped to heal me for a week straight and nothing changed. However, less than an hour ago, some mysterious person showed up and healed me completely.”

“Then when I came here with Aarin, I received a telepathic message from the ruler of one of the largest empires in the universe. He had created an artificial angel because he wanted to defeat an angel.” Nazar added. “I was no match for him and neither was Aarin. In this battle, I was taken to an alien planet called Xiem. In there I found out that Aria was taken by them to be used as part of their experiment.”

“While that was going on, the freaking Lucifer showed up. He was going to destroy the artificial angel, so I had no choice but to stop him from doing that because if that artificial angel was destroyed, trillions of people were going to die.”

As Nazar was telling her this, Emma listened silently.

“Then I had a little chat with Lucifer. I was scared that he might kill me, but he did not. Which is surprising. After that, I returned moon and in there the AI told me that she had died.”

Emma sat there silently try to take in everything he just said.

Nazar chuckled.

“See, this is why I keep everything to myself. You guys won’t believe these kinds of stuff.”

“...Is this really the truth? It’s kind of hard to believe, is it not?” Emma paused. “You told me that a demon was ruling over us and I believed it like an idiot. You said you have a friend that is an angel. And now you are telling me that you met the freaking Lucifer. The devil himself.”

“He is a fallen angel.” Nazar paused. “Here.”

He said that and he reached his hand towards Emma.

His eyes lit with blue energy.

“What are you doing?”

“I am going to show what I saw in the last few weeks.”

He got up and touched her forehead.

In his memories, he showed her what happened a few weeks ago with the undead and then later with his kidnapping.

Emma could not believe what she had seen.

“Do you believe me now?”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “Sorry. I… I thought you had a perfect life but this… this is anything but perfect.”

She got up and hugged him.

“Don’t worry. I am pretty used to death by now.”

“I am sorry.” Emma kept repeating this slowly as she started to cry.

“Come on now, don’t cry.”

Nazar said as he placed one of his hand on top of her head.

“Anyway, why are you not there with them?”

“Can you at least call them mom and dad?”

Nazar sighed and said, “I have a bad history with parents.”

She chuckled.

“As to why I am here is because I thought you might return soon. Plus, I don’t deal well with tragedy. And I am not sure that I will be able to handle all the sad faces.”

“Because you are a crybaby?”

“...Maybe.”

“What if I go with you?”

She looked up and said, “Really?”

“... I don’t want to run away anymore.” He said with a smile on his face.

“Okay.” She paused. “But under one condition, okay?”

“And what is that?”

“You will have to refer to them as mom and dad, okay?”

“You are asking the impossible.”

“Didn't you just say that you didn't want to run away anymore?”

“...Yes.”

“Then, this is where you should start.”

Nazar smiled and looked down at her.

“So, do you know the address?”

After he got the address, he was able to find the right coordinates and just like that, they both vanished into thin air.