Downfall And Rise Page 13

  “You don't like to admit them,” she said stubbornly. “It sounds like you either grew up with extremely high expectations or are just those super-humble hero types I've occasionally heard about in some of Earth's fairy tales.”

  “I wouldn't...”

  “Oh hush!” She interrupted. “In fact, look right there. See what you did?”

  The words over the pillar flicked again, and a new line was added:

  Knight of Humility (Continuous, Annoyingly Constant)

  “Wow,” I said. “So um, it updates in real time?”

  “It can once it begins creating the column. Alright, I said I'd stop there and you're pretty much done as is for Deeds. If you need to find a place to sit I can call up another stone, but go ahead and decide now, because I'm about to look at your Renown.”

  She was still stubbornly smiling through all of this, even as she kept speaking.

  “Look, I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable, but do you realize what a big deal this is for me? I have all the signs of multiple catastrophes on the horizon, each the biggest I've ever had to deal with, and no way of handling them on my own except for finding the help I need to save lives. Then suddenly, without me even having to look, the best candidate ever for becoming a Challenger walks right into my backyard. You can believe what you want about being here, but you have to be either an extremely fortunate coincide or a miracle from some heaven I haven't discovered yet.” She pointed back to the list. “You're already ranked as a Hero, here. Do you realize that? Most Challengers don't start out with anything in their lists, or at least nothing like this. They don't save any lives or protect people from abuse until after they get here. Then they find their courage, after we help them discover their powers. I don't care whether or not you know any magic or how to wield a weapon, we can teach that here, especially this early on. But I can only cross my fingers and look for people who have the potential to be heroes, and here you walk in with prior experience! I mean look at you right now! You're treating all these accomplishments as a casual day's work! Probably because you're still doing most of them!”

  I gave up on arguing at this point. Partly because I kept losing, and partly because, if I was honest, being praised by a beautiful, otherworldy woman felt nice.

  “Okay, fair enough,” I said with a smile. “And for what it's worth, I'm glad I make you happy.”

  “Pfft!” She smirked back at me. There was a twinkle in her eye there that wasn't there before. “Alright. Before you get weird again, we're going to check your Renown. It's just loading up now.”

  “Didn't you say Renown's less accurate than my Deeds? Won't your picture of me be even less clear? "

  "Normally? Sure. But since I have to work with Mr. Can't Remember How Many Damsels I Saved, this time I'm going to use what people say about you to fill in the blanks."

  I flinched as I finally comprehended what I was about to see.

  "Hey I really don't think seeing what people say about me will be as helpful as you think. "

  This time she looked at me without reading my face.

  "And I think you don't want to be embarrassed by finding out how many teenage princesses are in love with you," she said with a smirk. "But since it's finished loading, you're out of time to get weird about it and I can finally see what other people think of your heroics."

  She stopped looking at me and turned to the new letters rising from the blue stone. Her face looked like my sister's on Christmas day.

  I tried to calm down. This could just be a dream. Things are different in dreams.

  But the happy look dropped right off her face as soon as the first words rolled up.

  "Cripple-head?” She stuttered. "Wha-What?"

  She wore a startled expression now, like something had walked up to her and smacked her in the face, but she was too surprised to feel pain yet.

  “Why... what... but that sounds..."

  I sighed.

  "Since this is apparently important," I said, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. "I'll explain. About two years ago, I was injured in a sporting event, and something in my head broke. The doctors have been unable to fix it and now I have constant dizzy fits, headaches, and trouble maintaining my balance. Sudden movement causes me a lot of pain, and it's usually impossible for me to walk without a cane back on Earth. The only time I could walk at all without one was a few weeks ago, and I've deteriorated again since then."

  "But... why? " her head cocked to the side. “That still sounds so... "

  "Derogatory? Yes. That's the idea. "

  Her eyes widened a little in comprehension. "You got hurt and... they make fun of you for it?"

  "Yeah,” I replied. “Pretty much. "

  The look on her face changed again. Her eyes watered and she shook her head.

  "But...no," she said, her voice quivering. “No. You're a hero. Heroes get respect... even on Earth...you're a hero... so you're supposed to get respect."

  "I'm not a hero to those people," I said numbly. I didn't let myself think about what she just said. I knew I'd go somewhere dark if I did.

  "No," she said, half stubborn, half still-confused. "This shouldn't be at the very top. That's ridiculous. There can't be that many people that stupid, and that asinine, to disrespect you that way." Her voice grew firmer as she continued to speak. "That has to be a fluke. The next one should make more sense. Show me his other famous titles," she commanded.

  She waited for a second. This next title I could recognize.

  Retard.

  I actually hadn't heard that one in a while.

  "Famous titles!" The dark-skinned woman repeated with a shout. "Titles related to things he actually did!"

  She looked satisfied after shouting.

  "Sorry about that. I don't know why it's only showing what stupid people say about you, but I think I just filtered that all out. And don't let those idiots get to you," Stell said fiercely. "I'm in charge of over half a dozen planets and I can confirm that most people on every single one of them pay more attention to a person's actions than superficial things like their appearance or injuries." She lowered her head and muttered something angry under breath, her braids dancing about as she did so. "Alright. Here we go."

  Dumbf*ck

  "Huh," I noted casually. "It censors itself."

  "Six and a half hells!" Stell shrieked. Apparently she didn't. And she looked too angry to appreciate me pointing that out right now, so I refrained. "I thought I fixed this!"

  "No, your magic glowing rock is right. I get called that because I still fail the tests I take at school."

  But Stell's beautiful brown face just looked more baffled.

  "They expect you to take the same tests everyone else does with an unhealed head injury? And when you fail, they just make fun of you for it? What is wrong with these people? Why are they even making you go to school? Why are you not just granted retirement, like most of the other worlds do for people who have become injured after saving and changing as many lives as you have?"

  I shrugged. As much as I hated talking about this, it was nice to see someone react so well on my behalf.

  "The tests in my country are standardized, so they can't easily change them. And everyone has to take them. That's just the law. But they do give me extra time and allow me to retake some of them."

  "What good does that do?" She demanded. "You said you have trouble walking and keeping your balance. Does anyone at least make sure you don't fall and hurt your head during your world's stupid exams?"

  As she finished talking, the magical glowing rock answered her question for her.

  Easy Target.

  Stell's face turned blank for a moment.

  "Target," She said softly. "They don't just mock you, or deny you help when you need it... they actually try to hurt you or ruin your life further." She looked at me in disbelief. "That one's wrong though, right? Nobody's that wretched, right? To do something like that to an innocent person is what our worlds' monsters do."
<
br />   Pervert.

  "They don't think I'm innocent," I said quietly.

  Stell looked back the writing. Her eyes were so wide it looked two pairs of starry skies on her face.

  "I don't understand," she said for the hundredth time. "There's no Deed to match this with. Your Deeds say the opposite!" She said quickly. As her words became faster, her voice grew louder. "You protect women! Who lied and said you do the opposite!"

  I laughed bitterly, because I couldn't help it.

  "The first woman, the only one I remember 'saving?' She did." As Stell's jaw dropped, I went ahead and explained. "The guy I stood up to, the one leading the other two, was her boyfriend. When she woke up she said that there was no way he would have done anything to hurt her and that I had overreacted, and that I had done so because I liked her and was jealous. And everyone felt like I had ruined the party anyway, so they weren't willing to give me the benefit of the doubt."

  "But you didn't overreact," Stell said dumbly. She seemed almost shell-shocked. "Avalon's never been wrong about a person's Deeds. It wouldn't have noted anything if she wasn't in danger... cursed by the very person you protected... just how much stupid does your world have in it for this to happen? Just... How? How?"

  Her voice had gotten shrill near the end, and she took a deep breath to try and work herself back under control.

  "In all honesty, that particular incident probably exploded the way it did because I went up against the town hero."

  "The town hero?" She asked flatly.

  "Yeah, Chris Rhodes. Most popular guy in the history of the school."

  "He's literally called the town hero? And he drugs and tries to assault young girls?"

  "That's right." There was no sugar-coating that fact.

  "Why?" She almost screamed that word. “Why do people call him a hero?”

  "He's smart, good-looking, comes from the wealthiest family in town, and is probably the best football player the town has ever seen."

  "Okay," Stell said, after closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "Has he saved more people than you? Or helped people like you have?"

  I went ahead and thought about it. After a moment, I shook my head.

  "No, he hasn't really done any of that. People talk about him all the time, so they would have talked about it if he did something like save someone's life, or stand up to a bully, or help a third-world village."

  Stell had gotten quiet again. Her reaction had really surprised me. I hadn't seen someone this upset on my behalf in years, and normally the only people outraged at my treatment were all close friends and family.

  "Okay," she finally said. "Okay. So he's famous for his looks, wealth, and...his football. Right. I don't know what that is, so that must be important. Does that last one matter the most?"

  "Definitely," I replied. I couldn't pretend my little suburban town loved anything more than football.

  Heck even I used to really love football.

  "Fine, okay. You can probably help me make sense of this. Describe what football is."

  "Sure. It's a game where two teams of people throw a leather ball around and they try to stop each other from moving the ball a certain direction."

  Her dark face glared at me.

  "That's it?"

  "Pretty much."

  "Does anything else happen when you play?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Do your people play football to resolve a certain dispute? Does the winning team earn more food or wealth for their town?"

  "No, none of that. But if you win enough games, you get a big shiny cup at the end of the season that shows you beat everyone else. And if you play extremely well, some people will give you lots of money to play football somewhere else."

  "And that's all there is to it?"

  "That's it."

  She backed away from the glowing rock, grabbing and pulling her hair in frustration.

  "Not a single part of anything about this makes sense. You come to Avalon with the longest list of Deeds any Challenger has ever started with, Deeds that would at least earn you enough resources to retire permanently and receive all the treatment your injury needed, yet you have the nastiest Renown I've ever seen. There are heroes from at least two tragic legends that aren't misunderstood this badly. If you behaved any differently at all, I'd think that Avalon had finally gotten a Challenger's Deeds wrong, after thousands and thousands of years of never making a single mistake. The only thing that I'm really sure of is that you're telling the truth, based on what you've said, how you've acted, and all the time I've spent studying Challengers. But that means the community you live in is full of the stupidest people I've ever heard of, which doesn't make sense either, because your world's technology base is so high. Do you understand that? I know of communities right now that are just beginning their Bronze age, and they still sound less ignorant than the cretins you live with. Why are you so different? And why do they hate your being different so much?"

  "That's because of my parents, specifically my father. He raised me to be and act a certain way. He's... also the real reason I get so much hate."

  "But why would they-"

  Bad Seed.

  Pedophile's Son.

  Suspected Pedophile (Just like his Father).

  As if summoned by our conversation, those last three titles rose up to damn me all at once. Stell's eyes widened and watered at the same time, but I couldn't face them longer than a second.

  “I think I'm going to try and head home,” I said, turning for the stairs. I heard Stell huffing, like she was trying not to cry, behind me, but I didn't look back. I was halfway to the base of the stairs when I heard her call out.

  “Wes!”

  I wanted to ignore her, but found I couldn't. I turned to look at her.

  Two lines of clear water ran down her dark brown cheeks. “I'm sorry!” She called out. “I didn't mean to hurt you! Please don't leave for good!”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said numbly. Coming here wasn't something I could control anyway. I wasn't even sure climbing the stairs would wake me up.

  “And they're wrong about you!” She shouted fiercely, showing the most heat I've seen from her so far. “Whatever your father did, even if it's true, it doesn't define you! Your actions do!” She pointed to the Deeds side of the rock.

  “Your choices do! And you've chosen to be a hero on a daily basis! Please never change! And please come back here and keep being yourself! We won't take you for granted!”

  That actually made me feel better. I hadn't ever had a stranger fight for me this hard. Especially since I had lost the ability to fight for strangers myself.

  As if in answer to that thought, the ‘Deeds’ rock beeped again. Stell blinked away her tears and looked at. Then she cocked her head.

  “What does it say?” I asked, postponing the idea of leaving in a sad, hurt, huff.

  “Cock...Blocker?” She said slowly. “I can't figure that expression out. It's from one person. It looks like it's your first real negative Deed. Or at least the person felt negative about you doing it.” She looked back at me. “It looks the person gave it to you based on two occasions, one of which happened very recently... what happened? Did you kill two of a guy's roosters or something?”

  The whole thing had gotten weird so fast I couldn't think for a moment (and yes, that was on top of all the other weirdness I was going through right now). I hadn't ruined anyone's sexual encounters in years. In fact, the only person I've ever stopped, deliberately or otherwise, was…

  “Stell,” I asked. “Is there a way to see what times I um, earned that title, and whether it matches with any of my other Deeds?”

  “Sure,” Stell said , moving her finger through the floating words. “It looks like it came around the time you rescued those two princesses... are they related somehow?”

  I laughed darkly. “That means Chris Rhodes probably gave it to me. That's fine. I'll take it.”

  Stell looked even more confused.

  �
�That... doesn't make sense. How can it be related... did he attack those women with a chicken, and you cut its head off or something? And then you did a second time recently?” She cocked her head far to the side. “I know what a chicken is, but this still doesn't make sense... was it the same rooster? How were you able to cut its head off a second time? That sounds really gory,” she finally said. “Am I understanding this right? Because Deeds usually aren't this complicated.”

  “Honestly no, but I can't help but like that last interpretation.” I laughed again. I couldn't keep my former bad mood. People used to make me sad about my Dad all the time. But Stell was the first person, assuming this was all real, to inadvertently turn my mood around so fast.