Alma 83 The Purge

I can't! I just can't do it anymore. What the hell am I watching?!

It never ended. Beautiful platters filled to the brim with food continued to flood the table at an ever-increasing rate. Was this what the Holy Pope had summoned him for? To feast endlessly?

The old man had consumed enough to have fed a family for a month in the span of an hour. Like a bottomless pit, he had consumed ceaselessly until Reed could stand it no longer.

"Enough, Your Holiness. Why have you summoned me? Surely, it wasn't for this… this grotesque luncheon, right?"

The Pope shook his head and frowned when he heard Reed's complaint and said, "Such is the price I pay for defying the natural order, my child. My insatiable hunger is a symptom of a curse I am under… I have been afflicted with it for ages as a result of trying to meddle with something…"

He sighed deeply and said, "Forgive me, children; Sometimes I forget that others might not know of my… unique affliction. It makes for quite an off-putting display, no? Alas, there is nothing I can do but endure…"

"A curse? Are you unable to dispel it even with the assistance of Anima?" said Reed. He'd never heard of something that couldn't be done with Anima. It didn't make sense at all.

The Pope gravely said, "No, not with my paltry abilities, child. Nor the help of the Four Sovereigns, even if they tried. The curse I have been punished with is a product of a… superior, transcendent power. I, the young fool that I was, tried to harness something for myself and paid the price for my actions."

"You will bear that curse until the day you die. A befitting punishment for someone as greedy as you," said Lu'um in an indifferent voice. "The Beggar's Curse was created for miscreants like you. For those who would dare to steal from Heaven."

"Is that why you look so… frail compared to the others?" said Reed. "Is the curse that powerful?"

He looked nothing like his counterparts in the slightest. The other elders were thousands of years old but they still looked relatively young for their age. Most of them looked between forty to fifty years of age and had lively, young eyes that still brimmed with life.

But the Pope... he looked wrong. Sickly and frail like someone who had been nearly starved to death. His pale, wrinkly skin, sunken cheekbones, and lifeless eyes made him seem like he really was thousands of years old. He, unlike his counterparts, looked like an ancient mummy.

The Pope nodded slowly and said, "Yes, that is correct. The curse drains my life-force without end. Even now, Anima only somewhat serves to hold back the effects of the curse. Had it not been for the Anima sustaining me, I would have died long, long ago…"

"What did you try to steal?"

"Something that had been entrusted to another person for safekeeping. I believed at the time that it should belong in the Holy Church's possession. No, I thought that it should have belonged in my possession. The moment I laid my hands on it… I learned a very painful lesson."

Someone like this is the Pope? Even after what he did? How did he manage that?

Reed stared at the decaying man and said, "Again, I ask — Why have you summoned me here?"

The Pope uttered a single word in response: "Salvation."

"You're going to have to be a little more descriptive than that if you want me to understand you," said Reed. "Your friends blabbered about the same thing too when I met them, but they never really explained themselves. I hope you'll help me out where they failed, Your Highness…"

"The Apostles have not been doing their job properly, it seems…" said the Pope with a dissatisfied grunt.

"Forgive them, my child, they are still young and as a result, prone to making mistakes. They are rowdy little troublemakers, but I assure you that their hearts are in the right place…" He snapped his fingers and said, "Let me show you our divine plan, our road to salvation."

The image of a titanic sphere made dull metal suddenly flashed on top of the dining table. It looked a little different than normal but Reed easily identified what it was almost instantly.

"The Reef? What about it? It's just an old, decommissioned super-weapon these days," said Reed in confusion.

The Pope laughed heartily and said, "Is that you think it is? A decommissioned weapon? Nonsense. It is much more than a piddling weapon — the Divine Furnace was created for a far greater purpose than to be a tool of war. Those blundering idiots in the North haven't the slightest idea of what it is truly capable of. I wager only a few know its true purpose, my child. With it, we will be able to—"

Anima suddenly raged like a typhoon in the room as Lu'um pondered on how she'd kill the old man. She was contemplating making his death as painful as imaginable — stripping a soul down into its constituent elements was considered a crime against nature itself.

Lu'um didn't care about that, though. What she wanted was to make him scream for mercy and forgiveness the whole way through the slow and methodical… disassembly of his existence.

The old bastard crossed the line once and now he wants to cross it again! Not only that, but he also wants to use the Divine Furnace for his own goals!

The audacity of this miserable insect…! I knew I should have exterminated these insolent meddlers a long time ago!

Reed quickly shouted, "Hey! Slow down! We aren't here to start a fight, alright?! You know that!"

Lu'um grit her teeth and said, "You don't understand! I knew that these bastards were up to no good, but I did not expect something on this level! I can't let him go!"

Lacrima howled, "She's right, boy! They've gone too far! There can be no compromise, no peaceful dialogue with these meddlers! The nerve of this wretched worm to even think of the idea!"

Shit! Shit! Shit! What do I do?! Oh, fuck! What would Velvund do in this situation? Think, Reed, think!

If Reed let things continue as they were, it'd probably start the beginning of the end — a premature beginning of what he was trying so desperately to avoid.

Reed quickly reigned in the Anima in the room to best of his ability and yelled, "Get the fuck out of here, old man!! Go now!!"

Lu'um clicked her tongue in annoyance and said, "Don't get in the way, Ka'an!" She tossed a massive chunk of Anima toward Reed and it hit him like a bomb. The blast of raw energy knocked him out of the room like a bullet as he crashed through the cathedral's walls.

Reed's vision blurred as he tumbled like rag-doll across the cathedral until he finally crashed. He groaned in pain as he tried to make sense of his surroundings and muttered under his breath, "Fuck's sake, she hits hard! Aargh…"

Violent explosions reverberated and tremors followed along after every numbing surge of Anima passed by. They were fighting and the sound of it, things were escalating.

Time was of the essence. Reed needed to act now if he was to salvage the situation before it got out of hand. If Lu'um killed the Pope, it'd likely be over for Astrid and Sebastian. Maybe they'd still have some use, but if the Twilight Children decided that they weren't useful as hostages anymore because of this...

"Boy! Don't do this! I know you care for your friends, but this takes precedence!"

Anima surged and Reed grit his teeth in preparation. He enveloped himself in it and clenched his fists. No doubt, he was about to enter the fucking shit-show of the century.

"Fuck that." He spat out a glob of spit and blood.

His legs tensed up like tightly wound coiled springs as he channeled Anima into them. Reed gathered as much Anima as he could and then... he released it all in one go.

Reed burst like a dam and turned into a blur when he let go of his control. He felt a hot, sharp pain like someone had stabbed his legs with a searing knife and let out a low groan in pain. The force had been too much for his body to handle — he had completely torn his hamstrings in the process but it was worth the pain.

In an instant, he had converted his Anima into pure speed and momentum. He barreled through the cathedral like an unstoppable force towards the source of the conflict.

I'm only going to have a single opportunity to do this! I can't fuck it up!

Reed focused and closed his eyes. He'd have to rely on his mind's eye in order to find amongst the chaos up ahead and end the fight… with a single move.

Chapter end