Zil always had a soft side for geography- it certainly didn't lead to anything, but he loved studying about storms. From tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, to especially volcanos, he knew all about them. He kept it to himself, of course- no child would've ever found it 'cool' at those ages, so he boasted about his incredible ability to round up all Dormant the pigs and sheep at his parent's barn.
Nature was his second calling in a sense.
The moment he got Defined, however, something happened. His parents didn't eventually felt anything was off, but the warning bells were blaring in the distance, drowned by assumptions of puberty, and rebellion.
He stopped helping around the barn, and behind their massive grain sieve, layered with screens of dust and the waft of freshly cut and painted red wooden planks, he played around more with the scythe, almost waltzing with his newly found partner.
Of course, he would help whenever his parents asked him to escort his father out to the local political meetings, and helping his mother pick the tall, racoon inhabited apple tree.
Slowly, the square miles of wheat that allowed his town to prosper, slowly spawned in dead patches, patches where Zil had been found pacing in between, bending over and examining inhumane holes.
Only the scent of blood, that slowly encumbered the entire field, had his parents beg him for answers.
It wasn't just the smell: it was an evening where they saw Zil , his navy blue overalls completely drenched in blood. What was behind the door that greeted someone who had a sip of death, was the work he had littered and 'blessed' upon the field.
It was difficult to see at first, but eventually, the hesitant rays of evening sun finally illuminated his grisly canvas
Hundreds of farm animals' neck and stomach, completely slit through. Guts and what was the remains of the cud, and a pool of blood, was brought on a satin pillow, for his parents to witness.
Zil stood there, almost ecstatic and high on the rush, was fidgeting all around. His smile stretched across his face as if two people yanked on his mouth from both directions, completely unable to stand still.
His left hand clutched on an invisible handle, where certain purple shifts in hue below the 'handle' came into existence.
His parents, horrified, sent word to Zahl Academy, where Zil had already gotten an offer from. They sent in Professor Ash initially, but after he examined the amount of chaos Zil had ensued, Headmaster Lye himself came to visit him instead.
Zil soon became a student at Zahl Academy, with a trusted T.A always watching over him. He instantly became a celebrity- ruthlessly dismantling the competition, His aggression had allowed similar minded kids to join the clique he had never made. By the first semester, he had never lost a fight- even the Atlas Oris had never dared to duel him, even though Zil never made the conformation himself. It was almost as if his brain ran on auto-pilot, never knowing what he was doing himself.
17 Hours after the battle
11:30 AM
The nurses room
Zil's olive green hair that usually covered his face, now covered tens of stitches and his entire body, from his fractured skull, to his brutally broken femur, laid on the side, revealing a massive scar along his back, from his nape till his hips. He drifted from consciousness every now and then, unsure of himself if he should cry or seethe.
Albert stood across the hospital bed, looking down at the aftermath of his negligence.
"You were a prick, but even you didn't deserve what happened.." Albert lamented, trying to level with a battered , unconscious person.
He spun his head towards the iron doors. Lye walked in with an expression that haunted Albert to his very core.
He began shivering as he bowed down as far as he could, his voice came out with the unmistakable plea for life.
"I-
I'm sorry, Headmaster. Professor Ash told me not to step in whenever he-"
*pause*
Lye tapped him on his shoulder, relieving him of the explanation. Albert slowly stood upright, clutching his chest and not surprised at how hard his heart was thumping, to the point where he first heard the blood pumping before feeling it.
"Zil always had problems, Headmaster. I know you trusted me with the task of setting him straight, and I really think I was on the right track-"
"What he did that day- you know what it was?" Lye interrupted Albert, who was deathly scared he spoke out of turn.
"I don't." He breathed.
"It was a Partial Mobius- Not so different from your regular Mobius. It was really unique, the way he came to that conclusion without knowing anything about what it was.
The ground has so much Domain in it, it's almost as if the entire world is a Dormant Volcano- ready to erupt at a moments notice.
What this kid did was not spread out his Domain like how Heet had done it.
What Heet did was allow her Function to autonomously access her entire Range, giving her incredible speed and power at the moment.
What Zil did was much more egocentric and mostly unconsciously.
He dug deeper and deeper, and harnessed the ambient Domain that the ground had eaten up for centuries. "
Lye looked at the beaten up kid with a somewhat proud expression. He knew his Academy plan would've worked, and would've loved to tell Nicht to shove his opinions up his ass.
Albert simply nodded along, knowing that understanding a Mobius would take him years.
"What happened to December? Didn't he faint after the fight?" Albert asked, knowing that even if he was a Prime, December would've faced punishment like any ordinary student.
Lye twitched.
"He's out for a month."
Albert sighed, saddened even though this was expected.
"It sucks. He seemed like a-
Never mind.
I reckon first impressions do last. And my first impression of that bloke is just a much more academic Zil." Albert left that in the air, without any expectation of a response.
The two sat in silence. The scent of the anti-bacteria didn't help with the conversation's dying fire.
"Y'know.." Albert started, carefully choosing his next words.
"Something about the interaction with him and December doesn't sit right with me..."
Lye raised a brow, still frustrated on what he had done earlier this morning.
"Continue."
Albert, shifting his position as Lye came closer to him- an instinctive habit.
"They never met, yet I could feel the bloodlust Zil had when he first saw him. But it makes no sense...
Zil was brutal, yes. But he never, ever started fights on his own." Albert explained, while actively looking for times he did.
Lye placed his hand on his chin, gently moving it side-to-side, trying to make sense of this.
A long silence from him suddenly made something in Lye's head click.
His jaw subtly dropped, as his eyes mirrored the look of a man who found something he never should have.
Lye sat on the floor, crisscross again- it was like a switch that flicked in his body whenever he wanted to think.
Without even realizing, or maybe it was intentional, Lye laid out all of what was going on in his mind out loud, in the form of mutters.
"Too soon.
It's way too soon....
With Venus to Kela and now Zil....
And it all started with Ira's..."
Lye let out something between a laugh and a shiver, uncertain whether the rush he felt was epiphany or the horrors this implied.
"All the chess pieces began moving the way you want it, Aleph."