As Adrian walked along the highway, he contemplated his plans for how to get to Europe fastest, so he could find the person he had sensed. He was following the trail of a disturbance in the makeup of space large enough to make a normal Ever look like a flea, and it gave him a strange thrill to know that whoever he was following were such a creature. And, she was in Europe somewhere, wandering near the Italian peninsula. So, here he was, walking along a highway outside of New York City, annoyed at how long it was taking him to make his way to the City. He was the most powerful Ever in history! He shouldn’t have to walk like a normal human, and it was degrading to his stature that every passing car spit mud at him, even if he blasted every piece with flames.
Wait… Why the hell am I walking?!
With an exasperated sigh, he slowed time down and walked over to a huge Hummer, reaching in the window and causing the driver to disintegrate into the air, absorbing his life through a trick he’d picked up in the Orient a long while back. Bringing time back to normal as he climbed in, he slammed on the gas and started driving at breakneck speeds, swerving around other cars easily and nearly running over some people who got in his way. Driving up to the airport and swerving onto the curb, he got out and walked into the terminal, grabbing some tickets from a passing tourist and walking to his new plane. He faintly heard and saw a security guard try to stop him through the haze of his own thoughts, and grew irritated, reaching out with his mind and re-working the man’s heart to a block of flesh that would explode in a few seconds, causing extreme agony before it gave him the merciful oblivion of death. He smiled faintly at his work of art and kept walking, hearing people screaming in terror as the security guard died in a blast of gore.
As he walked onto his new plane and got settled down, he wiped the event out of local memory, carefully reworking everything so that nobody suspected that he’d been part of anything. Leaning back with a faint smile, he slipped into a deep sleep, waiting for the eventual landing in Rome, from where he would hopefully find the presence he was searching for, and maybe some of the answers he seeked.
As he slept, he organized some things in his mind, his consciousness never released. Only his body had any need of sleep, and even that was minimal. He thought about his breakthroughs in Ever DNA and how his Brothers had seemed so different after only 300 years without him, their expressions reminding him of how much he had changed.
He moved from his musings on his Brothers to the troubling issue nagging his mind, like a piece of meat caught between his teeth. He felt as if he had lied to them, even though he hadn’t. He had just forgotten to tell them everything he had discovered…
What he hadn’t mentioned to his strangely fragmented older Brother(s) was that he had discovered much more about the Evers. They were in fact the original sentient species on earth. They had been inhibited by some unknown assailant and replaced by humans, and that was where the story should have ended. But he planned to restore the natural order to the planet, and bring back the supremacy of the Ever.
Well… Replaced wasn’t really the word, since all humans were actually just Evers who had been brought down to a baser level. He’d even written a paper about it, not that anyone was likely to read it. He didn’t often publish his findings, and when he did, it wasn’t a very easy thing to decipher them.
As the plane touched down in Rome, Adrian roused himself from his trance. Sitting up and walking off the plane, he didn’t notice the people behind him sighing in relief. They had all been troubled by thoughts they couldn’t understand and had figured out that it was their strange planemate who was the source. They were all happy to be rid of him, and none moved until he had been off the plane for a few minutes, all afraid of meeting him again.
Walking purposefully out of the airport, Adrian walked up to a car and spoke to the driver, telling him where to go and climbing into the backseat awkwardly. As the car hummed it’s way through the city, driven by a now mindless slave, Adrian watched the city go by, sensing for where to find the presence he had come all this way to meet. As the driver pulled up to the Coliseum, under the direction of Adrian of course, he let go of the controller and watched the car speed away. Smiling thinly, he turned to the giant dome before him, monument to an Empire who’s might had been secretly buttressed by that of far greater beings. Seeing the lack of guards, he decided for a less dramatic entrance and leaped over the edge, slowing time as he reached the inside and landing lightly. As he stood up straight again, he noticed a strange light flying at him and suddenly ducked backwards, bending at the knees to avoid the object, twisting his hips to pivot to the side.
As he watched it pass, he split time down to a speed reserved for only the most difficult times, where the merest breath took years. As he reached what he referred to as “Infancy” for his own reasons, time became so still that every second for everyone else was half a year for him. Standing up again, he saw that there were ten more of the objects flying at him and stepped around them, analyzing their components. They seemed to be highly acidic with organic ingredients. There was a metal dart at the core, seeming to radiate heat to fuse the venom into the new host. He estimated a human would die almost instantly from the poison alone, not to mention the blast effect that seemed to be embedded in the weapons. He grinned, noting down the ingredients to make his own version at a later time, when he was a little less busy.
Stepping past the darts, he saw the person who had thrown them in the middle of a backflip. She seemed ravishingly beautiful, her green hair floating like a cloud around her head, although she was little over five feet tall. As he walked over to her, he could sense she was an Ever, although her powers were masked and she was trying awfully hard not to let anyone see her. He decided to do his normal tricks and slowed himself down enough that she couldn’t surprise him, switching to a mode of speech that would make him seem to be moving at the same speed she was, talking slow and drawn out in a very practiced way.
As she began moving again, she seemed startled that her darts all flew through empty air. As he gently touched her shoulder, she spun and slashed out with a knife reflexively, her eyes going wide as he snatched the knife blade-first and tossed it into the air, catching it on the tip of his finger with a smile.
“I know you. Only that pompous fool Adrian would flaunt his powers so in a place such as this. Why are you here? You obviously found the inhibitor, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to control time so easily. Why do you need me?”
“I need you, Mother Nature, because you never had the inhibitor. I need to know where it came from. It’s vital that I find out.”
The woman laughed softly, “You are the first person to call me that since before this city fell to the barbarian hordes. Before that it was Ceres, and all sorts of other names.”
“I know. I’m not a moron. I’ve been following your path quite… Closely for a while now. Where are the others?” Adrian said quietly, slipping into normal time.
“Oh, them? Most of them are in time streams as remote and impossibly slow as yours. Asked Chronos to put them there. Probably all insane by now. Poor dears…” The woman spoke softly, as if weighed down by sadness.
“I can fix them you know… I found a way to reset the insanity gene in our DNA. I just need to figure out which one it is…” Adrian said softly.
“Oh, no, that won’t do. They’d reclaim the Earth again and eradicate the humans in a storm of hatred. Never were very human themselves I’m afraid. Oh no. Wouldn’t be wise to bring them back…” Her voice took on a light tone, as if she were talking about the weather.
“Then will you at least come with me? I could use another Ever to help in my work, and none are as skilled as you are with human and Ever genetics.” Adrian said, his eyes flashing a little. This woman might very well need his insanity inhibitor herself.
“Why yes, of course. I just gave you a new weapon and showed you my true form, dearie. Why wouldn’t I want to help? If I didn’t, you’d be dead already. And call me Demetria. I much prefer that name now, it fits me so well, don’t you think?.” She said quietly, wandering to the wall.
As he followed her, Adrian realized he was probably going to have a hard time with this woman. But he liked challenges. They were the spice of life. That… And curry…
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