Until This World Ends

Ch9: Iteration 549

"Regis!" The whole world felt like it was shaking as the man boomed over him. "Regis!"

"It's Valentine." The younger man mumbled as he started to wake.

He looked up into the eyes of his tormentor. Seeing glimpses of 3 separate lifetimes where this man was his whole world softened his disgust of him abruptly. Not enough to forget that this Gareth, in this moment, did not know him as his right arm. "Why are you in my room?"

"This isn't your room. You were gifted a perfectly fine suite in the chapel, but insist on wallowing in this...filth." The man's beard wobbled in time to the throb in his temple. He was quite mad at the prince, yet again. "I'm used to you starting your shit as soon as I walk in. Instead, I get to hear about you chasing a young woman out of your room so you can sleep in after your depravity!"

Regis...yeah, Regis had no clue how to handle this man. Valentine would, but none of those options were likely to work. But the censored truth was surely strange enough to mollify the old bastard. "I passed out after barely more than kissing the woman. If she ran out of here, like I was the one who kicked her out, it's on her word. I talked to no one."

Gareth pinched the bridge of his nose, going over what Madame must have told him. "She didn't mention you coming down. But still, what am I to say to your parents? You know we're supposed to contact them today. Are you going to give me the same depths as usual?"

"I'd like to," Regis hissed in frustration. Being forced to answer to his father, when any commoner would be his own man at 19, pissed him off. "But there's bigger concerns than what they think. I don't think that woman was here to bed me, and I've no clue how to explain what's going on right now. But there's something in the catacombs that will verify what happened today."

The older man stared at the prince with one of those cold stares that screamed he wasn't about to put up with his shit. "You will not run amok amongst the countless dead. I will go with you after we speak to the king and queen."

"Fuck!" the younger man growled. The free space in his mind was vastly contorted. It left no room for the petty grievances of a family that didn't care. "They were already a noose around my neck."

"They're hardly restrictive, my prince." Gareth began his regular censure of the royals, something only a man of his rank could get away with.

"That's the problem, Gareth." The prince finally sat up, amused to note that he was still clothed. He didn't even need to put on shoes. "The way I'm going to upend this world is not something the undisciplined should undertake."

With that pronouncement, the young man was out the door. He left his elder to chase after his wake. For once, the prince was running full-tilt into a future.

But it was because he didn't have a choice.

None of them did.

The last iteration he remembered was the 549th. The Goddess had been promising him a life lived through all of humanity's lifespan. Instead, she woke him up in this latest life with only a handful of years to spare. When would demons once again ravage their world? There wasn't enough time to spare.

She set him up for failure and would expect the same sacrifices when all hope faded.

What made her think a young fool of a prince was the way to lead them forward? Why burden him, after a short life of hedonism, with the fate of the world? The searing rage with which he wanted his vengeance out of her flesh was no different than in any other abandoned life. He now felt lost in a sea of people who revered his position, even if they couldn't stand him. Valentine wasn't alone to process his rage. This time, Regis didn't have the space to let the silent end temper that anger.

Before long, Regis paced near the office of the high priest. A younger Father linked the temples together between King's Port and a place that wasn't currently called Asher's Heart. That was King's Seat, as it most always had been in each lifetime. Regis gritted his teeth through the long lecture his current father gave him. Shadowy versions of Valentine longed for the silence of his usual father. Not that the other man had no flaws, but they didn't lean towards nagging and indulgences. What did Rexius want from his son outside of a kingly visage? The true goal was to stay out of his father's way until his cold, dead grip slipped off the throne. The crown prince was a useless seed, not someone who usurped his father's authority.

Valentine needed to plan very carefully for this transformation. His reformed life would run ripshod over every one of the indulgences the king had created in his child's life to strive for their survival.

In fact, this very fool was the one who instigated the nation's premature fall in at least 54 lives. How much did Rexius deal them damage beyond that? He wasn't sure. That would be a search through records to see if he was a total buffoon raising another idiot beyond him.

That thought made the crown prince's head hurt.

Regis threw tantrums at meetings he instinctively felt were pointless without a real understanding of why. With Valentine, he now knew why they were hopeless. It wasn't a familial bond. The calls were meant to keep a son inline with his father's demands to stay ornamental for image's sake.

Oh, the crown prince had every intent to destroy that. What he had been wasn't worth saving at this point.

He suspected he'd have to go Oracle of the Goddess to correct everything. The headaches he remembered from the end of all things started to creep into his mind, poisoning his benign smile for his father and king. That Gareth's expression, off to the side, was as rigid spoke volumes about how bad the situation would become.

But his disgust with his family left him with no memory of a word Regis' father had said. There was no effort behind his own answers, either. The echo of Valentine wasn't sure what his father really wanted from him, out in this coastal city.
The surface lie was for Regis to prove himself. There was no rush to give him tasks.

Enough mindless beatific smiles towards his father, and the old king gave up on nagging the crown prince.

The young priest who held the conference open collapsed against a wall, shaking. Valentine curled his lip at the weakness the priest displayed. There had never been room for people to be that weak, in the end.

Regis was aware of the futility of humanity, with knowledge of how much more they could be. But it meant nothing if the world passed into its doom today.

He needed time, craved it, even. He couldn't face that long dark without knowing he strove with all his might to end this reoccurring depths.