As they stepped into the ruins Blanc began to flicker with the pale blue flame of his lineage. "Well, that's never happened before..." Blanc stated it flatly as he studied his fiery fingers. "...Anyway, let's go say hello."

"Hello." The word seemed to echo from the ruins around them.

"I said we have to go and say hello, because they should be done face to face." Blanc didn't even wait until he had finished before he started searching for the descent.

The chuckles of ethereal beings echoing around him, Scylla and Sophie wondering why he still seemed so detached, none of it meant anything to him in comparison to doing what he set out to do.

He didn't understand it himself, he had never really thought much about meeting true blue caps and had done so several times by chance without feeling anything or reacting the way he had.

"Hey, Sophie. Why isn't he bothered in the least?" Scylla asked as she watched him single-mindedly hunt about as the chuckling seemed to mock him.

"He doesn't care about the opinions of people, the orphanage tortured his ability to feel any kind of passion out of him."

"Right, sorry. I know it's horrible, but it's hard to keep the image of him as a victim in my head, with how powerful he is now."

"Hey, don't worry, he actually prefers it that way. Selfishly, I do too. It means I can always be the one that does remember."

"Sophie, don't take this the wrong way, but what exactly is the deal between you two? He seems like he's completely detached and you seem more than a little obsessed."

"I guess I am, not that I'm bothered, but the way he saw through me in an instant was utterly intoxicating. I can't stop thinking about how he looked at me in that meeting, like I was a broken doll, but rather than tell throw me a pity party he told me to burn it down."

"Yeah, that's not cute, that psychopath logic." Scylla winced, not at what she said, but at how accurate it was.

"Yeah, you don't go through torture with all your screws in place. I won't sit here and try to say we're both happy and healthy, but our kinds of crazy kind of work together and he makes me sit through the counselling Lydia gives us."

"Oh, wow, you really just came out and said it. Well, I guess it's good you have self-awareness..."

"Yeah and I have situational awareness and that conversation is absolutely ridiculous. Good and evil, crazy and sane, they're exactly the same. The only thing that changes is individual perspective. Just ones to zeros and zeros to ones."

"Okay, are you two the end boss in disguise?"

"Everything is just perspective and in the end it's all just self-interest. The people who raised me told me my existence was wrong, my choice was being evil or dead, so yeah I don't care if people think I'm an end boss anymore. At least I'm on the hero's team, isn't that a twist."

As he finished he stepped around the remains of a stone wall that once stood tall and strong, but now struggled to remain at the height of his waist. His footfall suddenly sounded hollow and echoey and knelt down to inspect the ground.

"Find something?"

"Yeah, more Carl mystery, looks sealed." As he spoke, he pulled his nanite bot from his armlet and made it smash the ground, revealing a spiralling staircase that descended into the depths.

He didn't say anything as he started descending, not even to make the others aware he was doing so.

"Hey! Don't leave your friends behind, blue caps should keep their friends close by!"

"Friends don't force friends to do stuff, if they want to come, they will."

Sophie simply laughed as the echo of his words reached her and Scylla, then she followed after him. "Something real sinister about being detached because he doesn't want to impose on anyone."

"Yeah, there really is." Scylla muttered it to herself as she followed, kind of wishing that Gillian was there to act as a buffer.

As they descended, they did so in more silence, interrupted by the echoes of their synchronised footsteps and the occasional wafting of flame as Blanc sporadically combusted.

"Hey Blanc, can you get those flames under control? I don't wanna get burned while we're sleeping."

"You mean while you're sleeping on me whilst I work? Yeah, I'll get right on that, it helps me focus."

Scylla just looked on in the state of objective observation she had chosen to adopt in an attempt to be open-minded about the situation. She wanted to understand the people she was getting close to, doing her best to ignore preconceived notions and accept them for who they are, but that needed to be balanced the other way as well.

Balancing was almost impossible however, their sociopathic self-interest based sense of morality was terrifying, but then he casually says one of the most romantic things she had ever heard.

It was twisted and volatile, being around them rubbed her in a way that made her feel like they were bad violinists using her as an instrument and it was leaving her frayed and being persistently haunted by the blue caps wasn't comforting her at all.

"Hey! Little Miss. Lycan, is looking kinda scared,you should comfort her you two!"

"No. I should have faith in my friends. Scylla's strong, she can handle this and if she needs help then she should have enough faith in us to ask for it."

"What the hell is this? Are they testing you Blanc?"

"No idea, if they are, I have no idea what their goal is."

"Hush little lantern! We want to see if you can light the hero's way!"

"We have torches now, he doesn't need a lantern, besides, he has fox-fire to light the way and Bashe mist to blot it out. The hero has everything he needs but experience and knowledge, knowledge that no one should have but you seem to."

"Awww! We had this planned for ages, but your such a buzzkill blue cap, try enjoying the game a bit more."

"Why the hell would I enjoy the game? It was fun back when I was a solo-player, but now my friends and the people I love and the people they love are in danger. There's nothing fun about that."

The voices continued to taunt and mock Blanc as he walked through unfazed and finally they came to a cavernous space at the bottom, one which was so devoid of light, that Blanc let his flames burn just so they had the means to see.

When they reached roughly the halfway point, the entire space was visible and it was clear that it was the end of the line.

"Well you finally reached us!" The final sentence was rife with joy, but the exact reason behind that joy made no sense to them, they had been mocking him and talking about Carl and the hero, but never said anything that really helped the three of them understand what they were trying to accomplish.

Regardless, Blanc got his wish and they found themselves instantly surrounded by dozens of blue caps.

"Hi, I'm Blanc and I came to learn more about us, I've had a feeling there is more to us than people think, more to this world than people think and I need to know if I'm going to help the hero."

The other two looked at him with no clue what he was trying to say, deciding it was best to just let him get on with it.

"You really are a no fun bluecap! Grr. Fine. You want to be all business, fine." The flames all merged into one and formed an almost human shaped marine-blue flame.

"So, the truth is their's only one of you, you just broke yourself into hundreds of pieces."

"Yeah, you got it. You're pretty special, you're the only bluecap hybrid I came together to make. I was asked by an old friend, Ishtar. She came to me about sixteen hundred years ago and said the hero would need a friend to light the way. I didn't really get it, but she was smart and we trusted her."

"So, what happened, something clearly went wrong. If it hadn't, I wouldn't have been sent somewhere that would break me."

"You guessed it, you know you're pretty smart, if you weren't such a buzzkill I'd be really proud."

"Wow, thanks Dad, you're a real good one."

"Calm down, I really am sorry. When I heard Ishtar's hero candidate got sent through time, I asked Cronus to ask the law of Infinity to help and it did. Unfortunately, I didn't have a link to the law of Nothingness so where you arrived was random."

"Wait, are you saying..."

"...That you and the hero were supposed to be raised together? Yep, according to Ishtar there was also supposed to be a pupper companion like your friend here, but she doesn't have the right kind of system, and a gnomey one as well."

"Well it sounds like we all found each other, but if she saw so much, how did things go wrong?"

"Think about it for one second really, really, really, hard."

Blanc done as instructed, sinking to the floor cross-legged and not standing to give his answer. "There was too many people trying to change the future and they all messed with each other's plans."

"Bingo! Typical immortals, they all thought their plan was best and did everything they could to make it the best they could, then in the end they just ruined it for everyone. I hate them all so much it hurts, though I guess Gaia is nice and Kyubi is a really caring fiancé."

"Well it seems I got my taste in immortals from you, they really are dumb as rocks."

"Hey! Rocks are pretty smart, they do their own thing, stay quiet and always try to be a part of one another." After speaking, Blue cap and Blanc seemed to stare at each other for a few seconds and then they both burst into laughter.

"So what happens next?" Blanc asked, trying to move forward and not get too attached to the dad that abandoned him.

"You make a choice. Believe it or not, I'm not immortal, just the accumulation of thought energy and spirit. Do you want a father for as long as I can exist, or all the power I can give you?"

"First, I want to know if I have a mother."

"Oh, of course. You do, she is currently in a realm untouched by time. Her name is Michelle, but it wouldn't be possible for anyone but a devoted conduit of the law of Infinity to free her. Her incarceration was the price of the favour, here take this..." Bluecap produced a copy of the contract and handed it over. "...When the time comes, you might negotiate her freedom, but whether or not you should is your decision. She wouldn't know anything, she isn't aware of what's happening, her understanding is medieval."

"Thank you, now I'll take the power please. Sorry, but I don't have any emotional link to you, but your power can help me keep everyone I care about alive and happy."

"Wow, no love at all for your old man. Well, I guess I can't blame you. I did sit back and watch you suffer in that orphanage just in case it was part of the plan."

"Sorry! But before you disappear, a proud wolf gives thanks for help, but why did you help us?"

"Oh that, like I said, Blanc and the hero were supposed to be friends with a pupper like you. I protected them in case the one was among them or would be born from one of them. It also gave me a good supply of intense thought energy to perpetuate my own existence."

Scylla growled, sensing the absence of the whole story, or unspoken feelings at the very least. "Sophie, we should go, there's something he isn't saying. Blanc, this is your only chance, whether you want to hear it here and now or not, you need to make sure everything is on the table."

"Yeah, she's right Blanc, you won't get a second chance. You're almost immortal, so you shouldn't do anything that might become an eternal regret."

"Understood, good point. I'll get the facts and be up in a bit."

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