Chapter Twenty-eight: A Sealed Fate

Ethan seemed more angry than sad by Marry’s letter after he read it. He was so upset he stormed out of the mansion on his own. He came out of the mansion at his old neighborhood and walked straight to the park he had once spent an entire spring break at.

The park was covered with snow that was all the way up to his shins. Ethan sat down in the snow and simply pouted. There was nothing else he could do about what Marry did, but that didn’t mean he had to like it one bit.

He lay back in the snow and starred at the cloudy skies as the snow silently fell down to the earth. Despite the freezing weather outside Ethan didn’t feel cold; it was a perk of being dead. He could feel the cool snow on his hands, its soft powdery texture, but it didn’t give him chills or frost bite. Ethan closed his eyes and let himself fall asleep.

A light pounding sound, like heavy footsteps, woke Ethan from his dreamless slumber. He sat up and looked behind him to find a dark toned red eyed creature that heavily resembled a Triceratops. Ethan bolted to his feet as the dark spirit charged at him.

Ethan barley had enough time to dive out of the way. The dark spirit slammed down its feet when it missed Ethan and skid in the snow, turning its body to the side. As Ethan rolled back up to his feet the dark spirit’s tail smacked him across his chest sending him flying backwards.

The snow cushioned Ethan’s fall but he was sure a few of his ribs were broken. He got up wiping the blood from his mouth. Just breathing hurt. He made himself invisible and started running away from the dark spirit.

Within seconds he was soon tailed by it. Ethan cursed quietly to himself then created a false clone of him and both he and his clone ran in opposite directions. The creature kept tailing the real Ethan. He had nothing more to try except his mental magic.

He kept running while focusing on invading the creatures mind. His magic had no effect on the dark spirit. The creature was almost upon Ethan and he feared it was the end of him for good.

Ethan suddenly leapt out of the dark spirit’s path once more hoping to find a way to out maneuver it. The dark spirit stopped and slid through the snow, turning itself to its side, staring at Ethan the whole time. It began to charge at him once more when out of nowhere a scythe implanted itself into the dark spirit’s skull; it slumped down dead and began immediately turning into a thin shadowy smoke.

A girl with blonde hair tied tightly into a ponytail walked up to the former dark spirit and pulled out her scythe with no visible effort. She wasn’t overly pretty but she wasn’t unattractive either. She had a dark cloak that covered all of her up to her neck, there was even a hood on it but she didn’t have it up. The only way Ethan could tell the thing even had sleeves was because the girl’s hands came out of there ends otherwise it looked almost like a cloth made of shadows.

“You should be me careful those spirits are very dangerous, even for our kind.” The girl said.

Ethan had his eyes fixated on the scythe as he said, “Yeah thanks. I guess I owe you one huh?”

“Think nothing of it, this creature was merely in my way. I am returning to the mansion you would be wise to do the same.”

Ethan sensed a cool attitude coming from this girl, as well as something hard in her. This girl gave off a frightening aura about her, the kind that he felt if he too got in her way for any reason she wouldn’t hesitate to cut him down. But despite all this Ethan couldn’t help but keep his eyes on her scythe, it was the ultimate weapon for spirits.

As the girl slowly walked towards the mansion countless thoughts popped into Ethan’s head, he could finally get his revenge against Leo Alaster for ruining his life and killing him and his Dad. This was his golden opportunity and he watched as the girl walked up the mansion steps. It was decision time now; do or be utterly destroyed.

The girl got up the last step to the mansion and Ethan made his decision. He quickly chased after her while using his magic to get inside her head. The idea was simple, he made sure she wouldn’t notice anything he was doing and steal the scythe before she got into the mansion; then he would create the illusion of a scythe for everyone else to see once she opened the door.

When Ethan got up to the girl he carefully took the scythe out of her hand. Her grip on it wasn’t too tight and thanks to his magic she wouldn’t notice him stealing it but still Ethan felt his heart race at light speed, he was more nervous than he had ever been in his entire existence right there. He got the scythe and the girl opened the door to the mansion as Ethan made the scythe he stole invisible to everyone else and finished the illusional scythe.

He followed the girl into the mansion and let her shut the door. He then wasted no time and pulled out his amber crystal, teleported to floor 90 and rushed to his room. Inside he ran straight to his bedroom and pulled out the purple key with a Skelton on its end. Picario noticed Ethan and said ‘hello’ to him, but Ethan ignored him and rushed back out of the room as fast as he could.

As soon as Ethan was in the corridor of the rooms he teleported to floor 99 and rushed over to room 3; he put the key in the lock and it fit perfectly. Ethan unlocked the door and clutched the scythe even harder as he opened the door and walked inside. The first room inside was enormous and luxurious. Straight ahead were some grand stairs with regal carpeting that had a rich purple hue to it.

The floor was made of dark shades of blue, purple, and green mixed marble. Two paths lined both sides of the stairs each of them seemed to have an exquisite portrait of Leo in a fancy outfit from different time periods, all in the same pose of him smiling wolfishly and holding his hands behind his back. ‘Narcissist,’ Ethan thought to himself.

Within a few moments Leo appeared in front of Ethan from out of nowhere. He smiled at Ethan with that wolfish smile of his and said, “Hello, how nice that you finally came to see me.”

Ethan wasted no time and got straight to the point of things. “I know you were the cause of me and my dad’s death. Don’t bother denying it, instead tell me why?”

Leo never lost his smile as Ethan spoke and when Ethan was done Leo said, “I’m sure you also know that I have been the, shall I say indirect, cause of all the deaths of our family for many generations as well?”

“Yeah, that I knew as well, and I want answers for that too!”

“The answer is simple really. I have been recruiting a small battalion and what better people than my own grandchildren. I knew my bloodline was destined for great things, but I didn’t know what until I arrived here.

“Of course not everyone I tried recruiting even made it here, in fact most of our family members simply moved right past the mansion after dying. This was upsetting and made it so things would take a while, but good things to those who wait. Alas there were also other complications, like not all of us were suited to the task I had laid out for them and some went insane. However after a long while I was able to recruit a fair amount of us with some strength.

“In fact if your father had joined me then I would be able to move forward with my plans. I must say he alone would have made up more than my entire forces combined, with him at our side nothing could stop us. But he refused to join me knowing what you did. I spent years trying to recruit him until I realized a better way to get to him was to use you.

“At first my boy you were nothing more than bait to lure your father over to my side but your powers manifested as well. And though you’re not much in terms of power you would make up for with great battle support. Being able to lock down any Phantom or even numerous ones without even moving, in your own respects you’re almost as powerful as your father.

“Still even with you here the loss of your father is too great for me to move forward with our plans we will have to wait a little while long.”

“Is that your way of asking me to join you?”

“Indeed it is.”

“And what about this master plan of yours; what the hell is the point of any of this!?”

Leo turned around and raised his hands high above him. “My plan is this, this mansion and all the mansions around the world. This place is something of pure wonderment; the power of raw creation lies somewhere at the depths of this mansion and I will find it.

"Think about it, the power to become a god and the only one standing in our way is the caretaker, with him gone we can discover that power.”

Ethan clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white. Was this the reason for all his families suffering; the dreams of a mad man? Ethan couldn’t bare to listen to the crap Leo was saying any longer.

Using his mind magic Ethan Paralyzed Leo and then walked up to him raising the scythe high above his head. Ethan released his magic on Leo just as he swung the scythe. In a single blow he cut off Leo’s head, it fell to the floor and rolled away. His body fell over and Ethan took one last look at Leo’s face, it was filled with shock.

Ethan dropped the scythe and waked away as it clattered to the floor. Ethan knew his fate was sealed, soon enough the reaper would realize her scythe was stolen and he was the only person around when it went missing; but at that moment he didn’t care. Nothing mattered to him now, now he just wanted to go back to his room and relax, his family curse was gone for good.

When Ethan got back to his room he walked into the grass and laid down starring up at the blue sky Picario had in there that served as the ceiling. In moments the sky darkened and a dark figure manifested itself above Ethan. Ethan got up and started stepping back as the caretaker came to full form in front of Ethan. It had been so long since Ethan last saw the caretaker he had forgotten just how frightening he was.

“Ethan Alaster!” The caretaker’s voice boomed inside Ethan’s head. “You have broken one of the few rules that I have set down for your kind. For the obliteration of another phantom using a stolen scythe, I commend you to the same fate as the one you have struck down!”

Then the caretaker summoned a massive scythe from nowhere and swung it at Ethan. Ethan did nothing to avoid his fate.

Picario who was just on the other side of the room watched as his best friend, his brother, was cut in half by the caretaker. Picario screamed Ethan’s name at the top of his lungs and used his magic to fly over to him as fast as he could. By the time Picario had gotten there though Ethan had already disappeared; in less than a second all that he was, was gone for good.

The young Magus was in utter shock and was trembling with emotion. The roar of a dragon filled the room as Nessie soon charged after the caretaker. When she got in range, Nessie shot forth a blast of fire at the caretaker.

The flames seemed to have absolutely no effect on the caretaker as he floated there silent and unmoving. Nessie landed by Picario’s side and roared once more at the caretaker. With tears streaming down his face Picario looked up at the caretaker and in an angry voice said, “I swear on the holy bible itself that I will find a way to kill you one day Caretaker. You will pay for what you have done to my brother!”

The caretaker watched silently and unmoving as Picario opened up a mysterious portal in its size. Picario leapt onto the back of his dragon and the two of them went through the portal together. The mysterious portal instantly vanished when the boy and his dragon were gone.