Arias’ eyes snapped open.

  “No…no no no!” He jumped up and threw his favorite blanket toward the wall. He hurriedly walked to the main chamber of the Library trying to find anyone that might be awake. But he was on his way to give Solomon a piece of his mind. Solomon knew better, the entire church was in peril and they brought the end of world in a jar to the church. Arias muttered to himself “yeah what better way to usher in eternal darkness than having nothing to fucking read…god damn it solomon” Arias finally made his way to Solomons preferred quarters and he knocked like he hadn’t collapsed from the exhaustion the day prior. The door creaked open to see Solomon's hazel eyes and red hair.

  “You Bastard! Where’s Howard!? Why did your dumbass think this was a good idea.” Arias was screaming in a whispered voice. Solomon opened the door the rest of the way and grabbed Arias by the collar and forced him to sit in Solomon's chair.

  “Arias, shut up. Calm down and I’ll explain” Solomon said with his teeth strained.

  “No! How’d we even get here? I know you have no idea how to fly my cruiser! Did you crash it? Is it scratched!? And all those wraiths, they now know where the hell to come, find the key to end, and the perfect place to destroy first! Great idea!!” Arias said as Solomon and him were rolling around arguing holding each other by the collars of their sleeping shirts.

  “You don’t understand. Hundreds of wraiths, and a portal opened and a giant black figure with a sphere shaped glass helmet filled with blue stuff showed up and he almost ran over us..”

  “Oh no…it’s true…the prophecy…it’s true” Arias said letting go of Solomon and Arias scooted to the wall where he held his face in his hands and he began to cry.

  “Prophecy? What the hell are you talking about?” Solomon pressed Arias for more information.

  “Where's howard….I can’t tell you if he’s here.”

  “He’s sleeping in the main library between some books…where he likes to sleep”

  Arias went and shut the door and got close to Solomon.

  “Sm’GlinCoop” Arias said in a whisper almost unrecognizable

  “Yeah Howard's real name right?”

  “No. Sm’glin’Coque is howard. That translates to the dark messiah. Sm’GlinCoop translates to "The Dark Omen.”

  “Dark Omen?”

  “In the third book from the books Ameila translated. Howard…Howard had an older brother…who was the dark omen, he was supposed to see to Howard absolution, or final form to end worlds. Galaxies…everything. However Howard's brother was much older than him…he was like our age ....late 20’s early 30’s when they put Howard in that jar ... .but they put his brother in a suit of the same blue substance.” Arias said.

  “That’s who was there then, it has to be” Solomon said.

  “That makes sense to me..no wonder he’s looking for howard. He’s trying to steal Howard.”

  Solomon and Arias exchanged looks, they both understood the weight of the situation and how dire it was. They had to find out to stop Howard's brother from plucking him away and doing god knows what.

  “I’ll just come out with what I know, It seems like keeping everything a secret isn’t going to be an option anymore…” Arias said as he began to Howards story.\

  “Howard was born on his planet to essentially destroy it…but 40 years before his birth his parents had a brother who was essentially the prerequisite to howards destruction of everything. His brother was skilled in what is considered space telekinetic psychosis, it’s where someone with the supernatural abilities begins to lose their grasp of things around them and begin to lose it. Howards brother is the embodiment of that. The government captured him when he was in his late 30’s or early 40’s and put him into a vat of the blue substance that never really had a name as far as I can tell. But it helped with his psychosis and telekinetic outbursts where he tore apart property and hurt people by dismantling buildings, throwing people or in some cases he was able to shoot energy from his eyes and cause wildfires and burn entire wild areas of his planet. But he had many tellings of how his parents would have another son and he would be more powerful than Sm’GlinCoop. And once Howard was born Howard and him would fly from city to city destroying everything in their way. Howard was able to levitate, cause mass dysphoria and have people kill each other, or he could destroy matter. He was a scary bastard and the blue substance they put him in only slowed him down, that’s why they created the little holding jar that compressed the liquid and made it more viscous, it made it to where they could pacify him. In the book they mention how if you read to Howard, or played music for him he would calm down and sleep. They imprisoned his brother. But once the never ending space war happened, Sugen was able to free Howards brother and they tried to have him be an ally but he quickly went back on that promise and went off.” Arias was winded from this explanation of trying to catch Solomon on all the intricacies.

  “The wraiths…why the church of Zona?” Solomon pressed further, apprehensive that Arias was telling the complete truth.

  “Yes yes, there is a rumor that the church of zona is actually a cult ran by someone called Emus who is eerily similar to Howard's brother description in the book…but I know no one’s ever seen Emus to confirm or deny that..but honestly…it sounds like you might have Solomon..” Arias pulled out his tablet and brought up the part of book about the history of Avenj and pulled up a picture of Sm’GlinCoop which was a 6 foot tall man, who had a rotten flesh face, green and putrid. Black void eyes, and he wore a black cloak and black pants and black shirt. Solomon stared at the picture for a long while and shook his head.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Yeah that’s him…he’s the Zombie fuck face that came with all the wraiths through that portal…”

  “Portal?” Arias asked again

  “This isn’t some fantasy where people can teleport, are you sure?” Arias asked skeptical

  “Yeah, just like a door from one place to another. I don’t know”

  ____________________

  A giant cloud of black smoke, like a dust storm on Sugen fell upon the Church the next morning. It made the air quality unbreathable and every monk had to wear a breathing mask that covered their entire face. They only used them if they went to planets with toxic fumes or gases and in dust storms. Lord Viaduct emerged from his study to find Arias, Solomon and Howard in the main hall geared up and talking about how they all felt uneasy.

  “What is the meaning of this? I demand an explanation for this instance!” Lord V said in his gravel tone. Solomon threw an energy whip at Lord V who caught it with surprising reflex for an old monk as himself.

  “The wraiths…they’re coming for Howard…we’ve prepared the other mercenaires and Monks…” Solomon said in a matter of fact tone.

  “This can’t be, we have a galaxy wide treaty that the church of the phoenix isn’t to be touched…” Lord V trying to explaining things away

  “And do tell Viaduct, what the fuck is a treaty, to galatic terrorists bent on destroying everything?” Arias growled. Red glowing portals began to outline the outer perimeter and inner courtyard and they opened up to what on the other side looked like flames and destruction, wraith after wraith began to float out and swarmed every hallway, landing pad. There's had to be 3 wraiths for every monk. The wraiths floated 5-10 feet above all the monks in the main courtyard and no monk uttered a sound or moved a muscle. In the main hallway of the entrance to the main library chamber where Lord v, Arias, Solomon and Howard were at a giant archway portal burned into their view. They examined what the other side of the portal, where whatever was coming through the other side was coming from. They saw a huge room with a giant chair, several giant canine looking creatures with short pointed ears, but dogs themselves were huge, as pig as a grazing animal you’d find on Sugen…They had the same red goggles fixed upon their eyes and they leaped through the portal. 5 of them leaped out into the hallway with horrible high pitched screams that completely destroyed the stained glass windows that were painted to show a visual of when the monks saved Sugen refugees that helped build Masart into the flourishing planet it became. Then not too long after, the same tall figure with the putrid green face, glass bowl helmet with blue substance waltzed into the hallway and the portal disappeared behind him. He waved his arm and the giant monsters all laid down on their legs and put their heads down.

  “Hello…Pupil Viaduct. I see you've aged horribly” the dark figure said in a deep voice that was loud and hard to hear at the same time.

  “W…who are you?” Lord V said, squinting at the figure.

  The dark figure waved his hands and all the torches and lanterns that were suffocated by flame from the dust storm immediately grew bright with flame and the entire hallway was lit as bright as if it were a hot summer day in the deserts of Masart’s southern reach.

  “It’s me! Emus, don’t you remember me. You’re the one who made an entire organization to thwart my plans and try to control the universe. Does pretending to be a harmless pinnacle knowledge act make your memory inept?” Emus said in a smart ass tone, not dissimilar to how Howard talks when he’s trying to make a joke.

  “Emus? You haven’t changed. I thought you…I thought you died. The monks threw you into Volcano on a planet somewhere in the big nothing…” Lord V trying to recall the information manuscript war of 60 years ago when Emus was destroying libraries of small planets.

  “That…that you did…kill me though? No. You actually helped me out a great deal.” Emus said, starting to cackle.

  “I landed in a telekinetic geosurge filled with spirits and energy from an old planet, even dating back before I could remember. Thousands of years worth of souls…just floating around in this fiery pit. So I founded what your book worms called “Church of Zone the Eternal Engulfed” which had a nice ring to it, so I guess you can keep it, not that it will matter what dead monks called the inevitable.” Emus walked back and forth staring down Arias, Solomon and Lord V.

  “I Imagine you know why I’m here, correct? My brother. We have some catching up to do.”

  “No chance in hell you’re getting to him” Solomon said pointing his energy rifle at Emus.

  Emus turned his head to Solomon and began to laugh as he waved his hand and the rifle violently clung to the ceiling with a powerful kinetic blast. Then Emus waved his other arm and Lord V’s Whip and Arias’ energy staff clung to the ceiling as well. Solomon let out a frustrated groan and waved his hands and threw Emus back with his own telekinetic power and their weapons fell from the ceiling. Solomon had these powers but he wasn’t powerful enough to do them in that capacity, so he fell down to his knees exhausted from the force he just expelled. Howard sitting on a bookshelf watching all of this happen began to silently panic.

  “Who is he…what does he want?” Howard began to panic and he quietly floated off through one of the broken windows. Without anyone noticing while Lord V cracked his whip cracking red goggles of the wraiths and releasing the enslaved souls to the afterlife and Arias was jumping through the air and off the wall destroying every pair of red goggles he could hit. Solomon, exhausted , leaned up against a pillar catching his breath. Emus stood up and immediately waved his hands and the Portals all appeared again and all the wraith floated back into the portals.

  “He’s not here anymore…” Emus said

  “I do not sense him anymore…where is he? Where is Coque?” Emus began to walk toward the bookshelf Howard had been sitting on. “Where…where!!” He began to throw books off the shelf and started throwing energy flames from his hands, burning the books he had thrown on the ground. Arias noticed the absence of Howard...but Arias felt this weird voice in the back of his head “Find me where you least expect me” and it was obviously howard. Emus looked at Lord V and cocked his head with his ridiculously large bowl attached to his.

  “When will you give up the ghost Viaduct? I’m ready to enslave you from the spirit plane. You’ll make a fine Servent Wraith for the Root tea I grow in engulfed” Emus then snapped his fingers and a portal appeared and he walked into it. As soon as emus and the wraiths all quickly disappeared, so did the black sandstorm. Arias pulled off his respirator first to breath fresh air. Arias fell to his knees and screamed. Arias looked over to Solomon and asked

  “If I was an all powerful baby with the key to universe ending power, where…where would you least expect to find me?”