33. Alive Again
Alive Again
Sapphire firelight washed over Dustin like a peaceful wave the moment he stepped through the vortex. No heat came with it though, just a feeling of turmoil that made his stomach twist.
The space he found himself in… was a bedroom?
But it wasn’t just a bedroom, it was the one him and Chris used to share, back when Dustin’s current room was Charlotte’s home office.
Everything was exactly as he remembered it; LEGOs spilled all over the floor like a crime scene, the rhythmic digital music of the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Sega game humming in the background, the bunkbeds…
oh man the bunkbeds! Identical in every way, except for the top bunk’s disheveled sheets, in sharp contrast to the pristine presentation of the bottom.
“Damn… I mean, dang,” Dustin corrected himself, remembering that he was carrying kid-Dustin on his back, “I thought this might get us out of here, but it looks like we just walked into another memory,”
“No, this is exactly where I needed you to come,” the kid hopped off, suddenly sounding… mature. Even with his squeaky voice, it was like he’d aged ten years, “this is where I’ve been hiding out. The only place that feels safe in all this bullshit,”
“Hiding out? What do you mean?”
The kid didn’t immediately reply. He just sat down, cross legged in front of the TV, staring at the pixelated White Ranger as he faced off against a purple goo monster.
Then, without warning, flames started licking at the edges of his little overalls.
Dustin immediately lurched forward, instinctively moving to douse the flames with something, but they consumed the boy’s body far too quickly.
Within seconds, the flames grew larger, changing in shape rapidly until they finally blew out…
leaving Chris, current 18 year old Chris, sitting in the kid’s place.
He was naked, thinning, hair unkempt…
But he was alive.
And Dustin could immediately sense the difference. This wasn’t a memory or a manifestation, and it damn sure wasn’t the emperor.
This was HIS Chris.
Not a word was spoken between them. They simply fell into each other, embracing so tight that it felt like they both might pop.
“It was you? The whole time? Why didn’t you just come find me?!” Dustin sobbed, his face full of Chris’s undyed roots as the words just spilled out.
“Any time I leave this place I turn into a fucking kid! The same shit happened to me during your Lotus Garden trial! One minute I was with the group, trying to yell out to you while you were drowning, and then I was a fucking kindergartener trapped in the water with you, screaming about wanting to go home!” Chris explained, his voice wavering as he tried to fight back his own tears.
Instead of letting them fall, he just buried his face in Dustin’s shoulder, “I knew you’d come for me though.
The second I told you to take the ring… I didn’t know how, but I knew you’d get here,”
“Wait… during my trial. That was you too?! I thought it was my like, ‘inner child’ or something?”
Chris chuckled. Utterly humorless. Just exhausted.
“Nah bro, all me. Even you can’t tell the younger versions of us apart,”
Dustin giggled weakly, finally loosening his grip enough to let his brother breathe.
“I’m so glad I found you. Every day since our fight I’ve been… it’s just been like…”
Dustin couldn’t even finish his sentence, the tears overwhelming him instantly. Chris pulled him back into another hug.
“You don’t even gotta say it bro. It was so God damn stupid, I was so God damn stupid. I was just so angry, I’ve always been so FUCKING angry. I completely lost my shit and I… I damn near killed you. If that shot would’ve connected I…”
“Y-yeah, I’d be dead,” Dustin stammered, “and I’m still kinda pissed at you for that, even if I’m happy to see your dumb ass alive,”
Chris laughed, more fully this time.
“Yeah, I just gotta take that one on the chin,” he admitted, “seriously though, I’m sorry Dustin. Not just for that, for like… everything man,”
“I know you are… but damn it’s good to hear you say it,” Dustin said, resting his forehead against Chris’s for a moment before pulling back and looking him in the eyes, “but I’m sorry too, y’know,”
Chris just blinked at him.
“For what though? What you said was right; you always take the fall for me, and my dumb ass decisions ruined everything for you. Your band, your freedom, all of it. Every fucking day it hurt like hell watching your spark go out because of some shit I did…”
“Yeah, you’re right. But that didn’t come out of nowhere, that’s the part I’ve always been missing.
I always wondered how you could be like that; self-absorbed, just blasting through life without even caring about anything around you.
But seeing all this?” Dustin gestured vaguely around them, “I think I finally get it. Get you, I mean,”
Chris’s shoulders slumped and his gaze dropped to the floor. Dustin gently raised his chin and made him look at him again.
“I’m sorry that I left you behind, Haruto,” Dustin’s lip quivered as Chris’s Japanese name found its way to the forefront of his mind, “I was so worried about keeping myself safe, about staying perfect so I wouldn’t be seen as…”
“Difficult,” Chris cut him off, eyes drifting again, “yeah, I get it. You wanted to be the golden child, and I wanted that for you! It’s not like I wanted mom and dad to hate you, I just… didn’t want them to hate me either,”
“You think they hated you?” Dustin shook his head, “bro, they love you! Why do you think they move heaven and earth to keep you happy?”
Chris scoffed, tears now streaming freely down his cheeks.
“They move heaven and earth because they’re scared that if they don’t, I’ll burn ‘em both down,”
Dustin’s heart seized in his chest. Everything he’d been through in this mindscape made him realize that he’d been a part of that pattern just as much as their parents.
But it was time for that pattern to unravel.
“I love you Chris,” was the only thing he could manage to say, “I love you, so much. I can’t imagine how it’s felt for you to live every day of your life feeling like a burden, and I’m sorry that I played a part in that,”
“And I’m sorry that I made my burden yours,” Chris sniffled, “I wanted to turn myself into someone that couldn’t be ignored, even you became the fuel for that fire.
I never wanted to hurt you bro, all I ever wanted was for us to shine in our own ways, but still be locked in together, tight as we used to be! I wanted us to be…”
“Same-same, but different,” Dustin interjected, sending both of them into a weird laugh-cry hybrid as they held onto each other.
As they finally pulled apart, Dustin noticed that Chris’s skin had regained some of its color, and he didn’t seem quite as fragile.
“I’m so fucking proud of you bro. I could see you while I was trapped in my own head, watching that fucker use my body like a meat puppet,” Chris shuddered, barely enough to notice, but Dustin caught it, “you’re fucking scary when you’re mad dude,”
“Only when it comes to you,” Dustin replied, placing a supportive hand on Chris’s shoulder, “there was no way I was just gonna let him take you and not do everything in my power to save you. Cradle to grave, right?”
Chris smiled, wide and beaming.
“Hell yeah, man. Cradle to grave,”
They locked hands in their elaborate childhood secret handshake (that Dustin remembered every convoluted step to, despite not having done it in years), and the moment they touched, the Fire Ring on Dustin’s finger began to pulse like a neon red heartbeat.
“I think it’s ready to come home, big brother,”
Chris looked down at the ring and took a deep breath.
“Let’s blow the roof off this motherfucker,”
Bailey had never been much of a fighter, so she was honestly surprising herself with the simple fact that she wasn’t fucking dead.
The seemingly endless army of stone soldiers just kept fucking coming.
No matter how many she ripped apart with her earth powers, no matter how many stone heads Chloe’s sword-arms sent rolling across the floor, they just wouldn’t stop.
Now, she found herself bracing against rough tree bark as she and Chloe tried to catch their breath.
“I hope they’re alright in there,” James said, his eyes closed as electric green light shined behind his eyelids.
He was focused on the wall of bark, vines and leaves he’d forced up through the floor, creating a box around the trio that was protecting them from the terracotta onslaught.
The soldiers pounded against the wood incessantly, but whenever they almost broke through, James somehow found the strength to reinforce it.
“I trust Dustin to get through to Chris,” Chloe said, breathing hard as she scanned the wall for any structural weaknesses, “and I trust Chris to let him for once,”
“I trust both of them too, but if they don’t hurry…”
Bailey couldn’t finish her sentence before the ground started violently rumbling.
The trio exchanged worried glances, and James allowed the bark to fall away just enough for them to peek through and see what was happening in the rest of the room.
Every terracotta warrior in the room was now slumped in place, as if whatever force was animating them had temporarily disconnected. Meanwhile, the sliding wall that led into the Lotus Garden was glowing red hot like it was gonna blow…
And blow it did.
With a spectacular blast of fire and flying rock, the wall exploded outward.
Any of the warriors caught in it was immediately reduced to rubble as Bailey shielded her eyes.
James finally let the wall recede, dropping to his knees from the sheer effort of holding it up.
Bailey wanted to rush to his side and help him stand, but her eyes were fixed on the newly detonated hole in the wall, where smoke was pouring through into the rest of the room.
A figure stepped through it, momentarily obscured by dust and cinders…
but the moment she saw the moonlight reflecting off bleached blonde hair, her stomach started doing gymnastics.
Her fingers twitched and her knees threatened to buckle from the sheer anticipation of the moment, not knowing whether her prayers had actually been answered, or if Qin Shi Huang and fate had conspired to play their cruelest trick yet.
But then she got the full measure of Chris; standing there in all his butt-naked, too-skinny glory, with a grin bigger than the day he bought Mortal Kombat: Deception at half price.
“Lights out, bitch!”
“CHRISTIAN!” Bailey screeched as she tore across the room like Lightning McQueen on uppers. She pulled him into a hug and started sobbing, one that was immediately joined by James, and then Chloe.
“I missed you guys too,” Chris said, voice warm, but somewhat muffled by the bodies embracing him.
“I never let myself believe you were gone baby. Not for a fucking second!” Bailey gripped even tighter, registering for half a second just how skinny he felt under her grip.
The last time she’d held him like this he was his usual muscular self…
so much was different now. But her love for him? That wasn’t different at all.
“I brought you candy,” James said, fishing around in his pocket as he pulled out the pack of warheads he’d been holding onto for weeks now. His eyes briefly drifted to Chris’s crotch, before darting back up to his face, cheeks glowing red, “I… guess I should’ve brought you pants though,”
Chris barked out a laugh yet made no effort to cover himself.
“Damn, didn’t even realize I made my dramatic entrance with my cock out,”
“Probably because you always have your cock out. Always walking around naked like someone wants to see that shit,”
At the sound of that familiar, dry voice, Bailey’s focus immediately went back to the hole in the wall, and she noticed Dustin standing there, leaning against the rubble confidently with a knowing nod.
“I mean… I kinda liked it when we were together,” Chloe admitted, barely above a whisper but loud enough to make everyone burst out laughing.
Their laughter was almost so loud, so genuine and carefree in that moment, that they almost didn’t hear the sharp crack of thunder outside…
But they did hear it.
And it shattered everything in an instant.
Before anyone could react, they were being forced to their knees by that sickening omnipresent pressure as the emperor’s voice bellowed through the rolling clouds.
“Impressive indeed, removing me from my vessel at the height of my power. It is to be commended, but it will not be enough to save you. On this plane I need no host. All of my scattered fragments are within reach, and I am finally free to reassemble them,”
The remaining terracotta warriors crumbled into piles of rock, but the remnants started rolling across the room, collecting themselves and fusing into a new whole; a much larger statue, towering at 10 feet tall with incredibly detailed features.
Bulky segmented armor plates took shape, followed by the dread inducing antlered helmet…
And then a bolt of white hot lightning struck straight through the roof and into the statue, lighting it up like a lightning rod.
And then another.
And another.
The strikes continued faster than Bailey could count them, and her blood felt like slurry in her veins as she realized what was happening…
That bastard had just built himself a new body, and with every strike of lightning, a different piece of his soul was finding its way home.
“W-what do we do?!” James stuttered, unable to pull himself up from the forced kneel.
No one had an answer; they were all completely transfixed by the horror unfolding in front of them…
Thankfully, fog rolled in, and soon Sima Yao was floating before them.
“He is in control of the Palace completely now. I tried my best to stand against him, and I will slow his progress as much as I can. But you must return to the physical plane at once!”
“And then what Sima?! Tell us what you need us to do!” Dustin yelled out over the roaring thunder. Sima looked back at them, pain and grief heavy in his eyes as he held out his hand, silently commanding a billowing cloud of fog to envelop them all.
“You must do the impossible; find the Heirloom Seal of the Realm… and brace yourselves for the battle of your lives,”