Madness whined his waist like some overzealously horny teenager trying to grind on a girl in the corner. Pain did his best to ignore him. If there was one thing the Oaths had learnt, it was that making sense of the things Madness did was a fool’s game. If you were about to get in a fight with him, focus on the fight with him.
Besides, Pain was already down one zero. But he was stronger now. The events of the portal madness that had happened, teleporting him to a world where no one felt pain yet was filled with nothing but violence and horror had done great things for him. He’d even gained two other skills. It was intriguing because he had not successfully increased the mastery of any skill at all. He had simply fought until he’d been pulled back to earth.
Then again, if what Inevitability had said was right, so had all the other Oaths. Language, an Oath not meant for combat had also been taken, eventually turning up dead. From what he knew, the only person who had been spared was Shield. But that wasn’t very surprising since she actually couldn’t go into portals.
That said, every piece of evidence pointed in one direction: Madness would’ve grown stronger too.
Then you better prepare yourself.
“If Pain loses,” Melmarc was saying, changing the rules that would kill Pain if he lost, “then he will have to tteach me how to be an Oath of Pain and keep his knowledge of me a secret from all the other Oaths that don’t know who I am.”
Pain didn’t see any problem with that. He already had plans of teaching the boy how to control his hold over pain before his most recent revelation. As for keeping his existence a secret, that was something Pain didn’t really agree with. Still, it was no skin off his bones. Every Oath had their secrets.
The strange man whose cup of hot liquid—Pain guessed it was liquid—still floating in the air, looked at him, then the creature called Veebee.
The creature, hovering in place, sighed. It was a human like expression the likes of which Pain had never thought he would ever see on such a being usually filled with so much hubris and overinflated sense of superiority.
It looked at him.
<> it asked. The man with the cup rolled his eyes. It looked as if he was tolerated the grammatical lexicon even if it annoyed him.
As for the updated rules, anything that did not get him killed was fine by him. He still had a lot to do in the world. There was the part about how breaking the agreement would lead him to die from pain, which was a curious thing since he’d spent so long living in pain, but he doubted that it would be a problem. Keeping secrets wasn’t so difficult for him. Even now, he was keeping the secret of the pain Madness was feeling in one of his hands.
Personally, he didn’t like the idea of facing the Oath while he was handicapped.
In the end, he nodded. “I’m fine with those rules.”
The man with the cup barely restrained and amused smile. “You kids may want to step aside,” he said, gesturing to Melmarc and Ark. Both boys turned, took one glance at Madness, and obeyed.
Ark, who’d been standing next to Pain, backed away very quickly.
<> Veebee asked.
Madness took an interesting stance. Knees bent slightly forward, he held his left hand straight and forward, palm facing Pain, then cocked his right hand back in a blow. His upper body assumed the stance of an archer drawing a bowstring back but without the bow.
Pain took a boxer’s stance, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Madness looked like he was about to unleash a ranged attack, so he had to be fast. And in the event that it was nothing more than a feint, Pain still had to be fast.
<> Veebee declared.
Pain moved quickly, bouncing forward. His eyes scanned Madness. He felt the pain in the Oath’s hand shift to his left leg, then to his right lung. It was a play on pain he had seen Madness use before, a trick he, too, was capable of. He didn’t truly expect to win, but he planned to put up a good fight. As long as he kept control of the distance between them, he could momentarily keep the battle in check.
Madness’ hand settled kindly on Pain’s shoulder. The bounce in his step was forced to a halt. Overwhelming force flattened his feet firmly on the ground and Madness looked into his eyes.
Pain saw nothing but understanding, kindness.
Pain saw sanity.
“Madness,” the massive Oath said kindly, “is a gift.”
In those simple words, Pain finally understood.
Madness was misjudged. It was not the horror that people thought it to be. Madness was the outcome of understanding. It was what you reached when you tried to understand why the sky was blue and why the earth was solid. It was the patience waiting at the end of why trees on the inside grow in rings. It was why fish ate fish and orangutans could ttake a liking to men. It was why birds flew and didn’t swim. It was why some people ran to the danger and some away from it. The hubris that led men to think that they were better than others simply because of the color of their skin. The madness of a fanatic that thought they’d seen God.
Madness was not seeing the pattern in the chaos of the world, it was discovering and truly understanding that you were a simple pattern in the chaos of the world. And to be Madness was to achieve this and still wield a sense of self-worth. To be Madness was to see the truth of the world, to see the madness of the world, and still demand that it move.
Thus, ultimately, to challenge Madness was, in and of itself, madness.
Pain understood it now.
Then his interface popped up.
[Warning!]
[The Oath of Madness has used an Oath skill on you.]
He almost laughed. The interface was a beat too late.
[You have been afflicted with an Oath skill]
The Oaths had no idea who Madness was.
It was the last thought in his mind before darkness took him.
[You have been afflicted with Oath skill Madness of the World]
…
“HOW?” Okoro barked, failing to hold himself back.
The nurse flinched away from him and Delet cocked a brow in warning.
“Mr. Okoro,” the vice principal said, voice as calm and almost soothing as it tended to be when he was losing his patience, “I would ask that you do not intimidate those who work under me.”
Okoro turned angry eyes on the man. It seemed he did not understand what was truly happening. If Pain had indeed torn his way into the young boy’s room and whisked him and his brother to only God knew where, they were in greater trouble than they thought. And by they, he meant the boys.
Pain was not the easiest Oath to work with. And with all the pain he was consistently going through, he sometimes made decisions from a place of pain.
“You do not understand,” he said to the vice principal, doing his best to control his emotion. “The boy’s benefactor is within none of his rights to do what he has just done.”
“And no one has disagreed with that,” Delet said. “However, I will remind you that this is Fallen High, not Fallen college. And you are beginning to overstep your boundaries.”
Okoro gritted his teeth, firmed his emotions, then buried them. He let out a calming breath before finally turning to the nurse.
He bowed in the way the Japanese are oft known to do. “My deepest apologies for raising my voice at you. It was unprofessional and unkind.”
The man looked a little worried for a moment, as if he was witnessing something that could get him killed.
“Oh, no sir,” he said quickly. “It’s fine. It’s not an—”
“Receive the apology like a gentleman, nurse Drew,” the vice principal interrupted, his voice allowing no arguments.
Nurse Drew stiffened in what could’ve easily been fear before he obeyed. “Apology accepted, sir,” he said to Okoro.
“Good,” Delet said simply. “You may take your leave.”
Nurse Drew executed one of the fastest speed-walks Okoro had ever seen in his life. He wondered if it was for fear of him or Delet.
“So,” Delet said, uncaring of the nurse, “can you tell me what it is that those above are keeping a secret from me that has you so panicked.”
“No,” Okoro answered. For all the vice principal’s mystery in abilities, he did not fear the man. Okoro had seen greater horrors in the world. “It is not my place to tell you.”
Delet maintained eye contact with him for only a moment before letting out a tired sigh.
They were currently standing in the vice principal’s office. It was quiet. The feint hum of an air conditioner blending with the distant noise of things happening outside the building. Sunlight filtered through half-closed blinds—why the man didn’t use a curtain was beyond Okoro—casting thin lines of light across the polished desk.
Standing in front of the desk, Delet was a composed man in a neatly pressed shirt, sleeves rolled just enough to emphasize that he had been working almost all day. His posture was straight yet tired, both hands folded over his chest.
Okoro stood an arm’s length away from him as they faced each other.
After a long moment of silence, Delet simply turned around and headed to his chair behind his table.
“Secrets do no organization any good,” he said, almost as if he was talking to himself. “It just corrupts it from within, allowing everything to fester.”
“Believe me, Delet,” Okoro said, unable to stop himself. “There are truths far more sinister than the secrets untold.”
“And greater evils lurking in the light than those in the shadows.” Delet gave him a disappointed look. “It is in the nature of men, Mr. Okoro, to justify their actions with wise sounding statements that counter the reigning idioms.”
“The reigning idioms are not always wrong,” Mr. Okoro countered.
“Perhaps,” Delet agreed, then turned his attention to the laptop on his table. “But when a man seeks to justify himself when he is not being questioned, it says a lot about the action he chooses to justify.” He paused before he sat down. “Or perhaps it is a lot about the man.”
Okoro’s mind went to the creature being hidden on school grounds and the Oaths governing the world, even though they refused to acknowledge that it was in fact what they were doing. His mind went to Mrs. Talwort and the dangers she knew she was putting the students in. Then it went to how he was aware of it doing nothing.
Perhaps it did say a lot about him.
“The video I requested is here,” Delet said, pulling Okoro from his thoughts. “I imagine you would like to see it.”
Okoro moved over to join Delet, more than curious to know how Pain had whisked the children away. When he got to the laptop, he found both boys standing, but they were not alone.
He moved his hand, placed a finger on the screen. “What is that?”
“Tar’arkna Lockwood has a registered familiar,” Delet said. “An odd looking salamander.” He squinted at the screen. “And that is not it. One moment, let’s go back.”
He rewound the tape, moving until only both brothers were in the room, sitting on the bed. They were both looking at the empty space in front of Melmarc.
“Showing him his interface,” Okoro deduced. “I wonder what levels of growth he went through in whatever happened to him in the portal. Perhaps we should schedule sessions with the therapist.”
Delet frowned a little. “Melmarc Lockwood is a bit of a red zone on the therapy department. The news of what happened with Doctor Donovan has spread among the staff.”
“The therapist from his admission interview?”
Delet nodded.
Okoro did not completely understand. “I was not implying anything telepathic. I meant traditional non-Gifted therapy. I guidance counselor, if you will.”
“The news has already spread,” Delet repeated. “What that means is that it will be difficult finding a skilled and unbiased therapist to do the work.”
“Get a third party.”
“That is an avenue we are looking at. Until then, let us watch.” Delet pressed play on the video.
They watched both boys continue with their conversations. It lasted for a short period of time before Okoro’s jaw dropped.
“A portal?” he asked confused, as the world broke somewhere next to the boys. Did one of them or both of them somehow have the power to create portals? What he was looking at didn’t look like a standard portal, though. Maybe one of them now had a portal ability.
“I would guess a portal ability,” Delet opined.
The opinion was viable until the portal spat something out. It bounced carelessly on the ground before coming to a stop in front of the boys. Delet and Okoro would’ve exchanged a look if they were not too eager to know what was happening next.
The creature got up to its feet. It was a chibi-like thing, with stubbed feet and hands. It stood for a moment, then looked up at Melmarc Lockwood. Melmarc looked down at it, his body language seeming to imply recognition.
Delet sat back and ran a hand down his face. “A [Faker] summoning a familiar. For fuck sake.”
Okoro understood the man’s reaction. The [Faker] class was not supposed to be capable of doing that. And in the even that they somehow copied the summoning ability of some other class, it never lasted.
“Let’s see what happens next,” he suggested. “There’s got to be more to it.”
It wasn’t long before Melmarc Lockwood picked up a call on his cell phone. While he spoke with whoever was on the other end of the call, the creature took its time hovering in the air.
“What the hell is up with these kids?” Delet blurted out as another portal appeared in the room just after Melmarc opened a window.
This one, however, was something that Okoro recognized. The portals of those with portal powers looked just like this, although smaller. He would’ve guessed it was how Pain had gotten into the room if he didn’t already know that the Oath had pushed his way in.
A large man stepped out of the portal wearing pink pajamas in the middle of the day.
“Any ideas who that is?” he asked Delet, seeing a touch of recognition on the boy’s face.
“Their father,” he answered as they watched the man pick the creature up and start walking over to the window.
Melmarc and Ark moved to intercept their father immediately, exchanging a few words. All in all, they were beginning to look like an interesting family.
“Let me just…” Delet pressed a button, fast forwarding the video. He slowed it back down when Pain rushed into the room. It led to an exchange between Mr. Lockwood and the Oath, which surprised Okoro.
One did not simply stand against an Oath. What was more interesting was the caution Pain was displaying in the presence of the man.
“Play it forward,” he requested. “We need to see how they got out.”
Delet did, and they went through the motions, watching until the very end. Once it was over, Okoro was left standing with folded arms while Delet pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger, massaging it.
“The Lockwoods,” he said, some level of annoyance in his voice.
Okoro shrugged. “On the bright side, we know that the boys are with their father.”
“Their father took them from school grounds without confirmation.”
Okoro paused. “The parents require permission to take their children away from school grounds?”
“They do not.” Delet sighed. “This is not a prison, Mr. Okoro. However, they have to inform the school of their collection of the children so that the school is aware of what has become of one of its students. This,” he gestured at laptop screen paused on an empty room, “is not how things are done.”
While Delet fumed over etiquettes and protocols, Okoro mulled over the texistence of a father that made the Oath of Pain wary.
Perhaps it was time to have a conversation with a father of a student.
A slow smile was taking cshape on his lips when Delet got a call on his landline. He answered it with a press of a button, putting it on speaker.
“Delet speaking,” he said.
“Uhm, sir,” a male voice said nervous.
“Yes,” Delet answered, “how may I assist you?”
“It’s the Lockwood brothers, sir?”
“What about them?”
“They’re back, sir.”