Rain-soaked and chilled to the bone, thirty-five-year-old Jade Curtiss, the feared Necromancer of Malkuth, made his way across the mountainous landscape. His eyes were clearly focused upon the entrance of what would seem, to most, and endless and continuous cavern, the large rocks splitting directly at the middle and causing the structure to widen as it got closer to the ground. The feeling from what lay within was beyond ominous, now to the extreme of purely horrific.
     The closer he neared his destination, the more Jade would bristle, his body’s way of trying to suppress the growing sensation that bubbled in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t like being here, not even the least, yet little choice did he have but to press onward in hopes of getting through his daunting task.
     Ever since Nebilim had passed away because of his seventh fonon experiment, he took it upon himself to be the sole guard of her resting place… or at least the resting place of her violent, heartless replica. Her creation was a mistake, as he had been selfish at the time he underwent the tests, Saphir diligently working at his side. The two of them together had pledged to revive their beloved teacher through the methods of fomicry, the heavy consumption of seventh fonons in order to create a desired subject. Thanks to Jade’s brilliant mind and Saphir’s expert mechanics, the experiment was a success and Professor Nebilim was reborn; both Jade and Saphir had been delighted in seeing the finished project… but soon they found out that it was much too early to be rejoicing.
     The two of them had nearly been obliterated by the masterful artes that Nebilim casted, one right after the other with little to no effort at all. It was at that point when Jade realized that what they had done was not only a breakthrough in scientific discovery, but a devastating mistake.
     Saphir, on the other hand, was thrilled at the replica’s tactful prowess, pledging to fix the minor ‘problems’ within her structure for reasons of his own. Jade had forbid any further research to be conducted on the project, but the other was quite reluctant to follow up on the orders, later rejecting the idea completely and running away with every last document of their tests, not to mention the Professor’s life data as well.
     That was the last Jade had seen of his companion, Saphir, until some twenty years later.
     Recalling the dreadful memories of his past, the Necromancer shuddered as he entered the resting place of his beloved Professor, immediately cringing upon the sight of the faded fonic glyph. The rings and lines were still there, but sections had worn off over the few years that had passed after Luke and his party had struck down the malevolent replica, banishing her back into the planetary arc for the rest of eternity. Dist, Saphir’s new name for himself, (though fully he said he had become the elegant and beautiful “Dist the Rose”. All of the other generals, and even the townspeople referred to him as “Dist the Reaper” instead. Even Jade had a different name for him than either one of those.) had been present at the time of Nebilim’s return from The Abyss, though the professor had effortlessly struck him down with a single blast, making the mechanical genius appear to be dead. (Jade and the others later found him to be quite alright, much to the colonel’s dismay.) Dist was later arrested in Grand Chokmah and put under 24/7 surveillance by the Malkuth military. Jade wanted to rest assured that he would never have to encounter Saphir again, mostly for the fact that the sight of his paled face would stir up the old memories once more.
     Unfortunately and predictably enough,… that was the exact reason he was out here in the middle of a vast snow land;
     Saphir was missing.
     … Again.
     After encountering him here last time, it was the first place that came to the Necromancer’s mind, and he was more than certain that he was correct; this was mot likely where Dist was hiding.
     Besides the roaring of the wind that caused a sharp whistle to ring throughout the cavern, his footsteps were all that he could hear as he moved deeper and deeper, breaching the first inner rings of the structure. Even though the remains of the withered glyph were still in tact, Jade sensed that another presence was prowling around the premises. Stopping in the middle of the old rune, his crimsons flickered around for any signs of slight movement, and in the bottom left corner of the area, he could have sworn that he saw something tall stir.
     “… You can come out, Dist.” Jade sighed and let his hand drift upwards toward the bulge of his forehead, digits betwixing between the surface of his skin and his golden mane. “I know you’re here.”
     As he expected, there was no reply at all.
     “Dist…”
     “…”
     “It’s obvious you’re here when you’ve left your armchair in plain sight… Saphir.”
The mentioned chair suddenly jerked, realizing that it was noticeable, as if it had almost forgotten to conceal itself at some point. It spun around absurdly for a few moments, almost in a maddening manner before it zipped off to the corner where the outlining of a man sat slumped against the cavern wall.
     “You’re as sharp as ever, Jade the Necromancer,” came the familiar, sneering voice from afar; a pair of intoxicating violets appeared to rest upon the colonel’s body in a mocking manner. “I see that I was right not to doubt your superb sight.”
     “Dist the Runny…” Jade tried to blink as casually as he could, letting his gloved digits slide into the insides of his military uniform. “It seems that I was correct in remembering how large your sense of idiocy is; you have no more brain cells than a rappig.”
     And the usual response…
     “ROSE!! WHY CAN’T YOU EVER GET IT RIGHT?!” Dist screamed at the top of his lungs and rose to his feet, his veins bulging forth from his forehead to the point where they appeared as if they were going to explode.
     The Necromancer continued to remain expressionless. All throughout the god-general’s outburst, he began to pace about the area, still looking for anything out of the ordinary. Upon further inspection, he noticed a pillow along with a pile of old linen bed sheets and rags laying not to far from where Dist stood. Jade frowned. The fact that these types of things were way out here meant Dist had temporarily ‘moved in’, surviving in the hollow abyss for at least five days. There were no traces of food anywhere, and that worried the colonel; no wonder Dist seemed so skinny.
     “Dist… have you been eating anything while you were out here?” he finally questioned as he turned to the god-general.
     “-N’T BELIEVE YOU WOULD GO TO SUCH EXTREMES-…! Huh? Food?” Dist paused in mid-rant. “Why?”
     “You’ve been out here for at least five days. Have you consumed any solids since you escaped from Grand Chokmah?”
     Knowing it was better not to lie to someone like Jade, Dist replied with a very cautious, “… No.” He was very careful now, not to mention worried as he sensed that Jade was up to something. The said colonel simply took a few steps closer. Eyes met in a silent clash, violet orbs rising up to melt into sweet claret, both men unblinking as Jade came to a complete stop in front of the mechanical genius.
     “J-Jade, why are you looking at me like that?” Dist cowered a bit under the mindful stare, looking quite terrified for himself. That look in the other’s eyes could only mean one thing, something that he tended to feel quite often as a small child: lots and lots of pain.
     Gloved fingers pushed up Dist’s black overcoat, brushing down the unmistakable rib bones in a sneaky manner that only the Necromancer could ever pull off. It seemed to Dist that what was going on was  undoubtedly...  
     “… EWW!!” The god-general shoved the man away from him suddenly, making a horrid face as he backed into the wall behind him. “GROSS, JADE!! QUIT MOLESTING ME!!”
     “I wasn’t.” Jade appeared more than calm.
     “You totally were!”
     “I was identifying the state of your abdomen; the fact I can clearly distinguish where your ribs are tells me that you’re suffering from malnutrition, Dist. You’ve been refusing the food the Malkuth Military has been providing you with, haven’t you?”
     “…”
     “That’s what I thought. You know, if you continue to neglect the food they give you, then you’ll end up even more shriveled than a prune… and that just wouldn’t look appropriate for a god-general,” Jade continued to muse out loud, intent of keeping Dist’s attention where it was now. The man could never do a very god job of sitting still when he wanted him to.
     The other glared harshly at him. “I refuse to eat that stuff because I know what you’ve done to it! If I even take a single bite from one of those pork ribs, I’ll die a horrid and wretched death by poison!””
     “Dist, I wish to provide you with the best of-”
     “DON’T TRY AND LIE TO ME!! I know what it is that you scheme of doing in the middle of the night; I can see that notorious smirk on your lips, the undying embers in your eyes! Those images haunt me while I lay dying in the cell that you’ve locked me up in! Jade, can you not see what you’ve made of me?! A frightened fool!” The mechanical god-general shook his fist in absolute rage, looking about ready to throw himself against the jagged rocks of the cavern in hopes of dissecting his life from his body. All in all, he looked pretty mad. Jade could only keep still as the man advanced into his territory and got right up into his face, grabbing him by the collar and attempting to lift him off his feet. He blinked.
     A death-defying glare was roaring up in Dist’s eyes, one that usually wasn’t there. “And what do you know, you continued to make fun of me even after you left for the Malkuth Military! I tried so hard to get your attention by attempting to revive Professor Nebilim, but even then, you pretended that I wasn’t there! Why, why does it have to be like this, Jade?!”
The questioned man sighed slightly in the other’s face, letting the small warmth of his exhalation brush away a few strands of snow white hair. “Saphir… You understand why I forbid further research on the resurrection of the Professor-”
     “But if I continued it, at least you would look at me, maybe think about me once in a while! All I wanted was for you to be happy, Jade, so I thought bringing back the Professor would bring a light into your eyes…” He would look away fore a moment. “It only seemed to darken them further…”
     “That it did…” Tilting his head up towards the endless ceiling of the abyss, Jade let a cold gust of air rustle his golden locks, easily tousling them with their frigid breath. He had to weave an arm around Dist to continue the habit of pushing up his glasses when he was thinking deeply.
     “You know…” Dist looked back up into his eyes as the necromancer spoke up again, “you always did seem to have a strange obsession with doing things that made no sense. Like, for instance, the time when you brought one of his Majesty’s rappigs to school and claimed it could count when it obviously couldn’t.”
     “But it could cou-”
     “I understand a lot of things, Saphir. Some of them just happen to be on a catastrophical scale; the issue that we faced with the miasma and lowering the Outer Lands is a prime example. I can learn artes that no other fonist could ever attain, and I can even read the minds of those around me when they try so desperately hard to hide it.
     Yet there is one thing that even I cannot understand; your continuous striving towards something and the thoughts that propel it. Tell me… You know what odds are against you in whatever quest you wander. Why bother trying?”
     After a dreaded moment of silence between the two high-ranked men, Dist’s digits began to shake and he was soon forced to release Jade’s now ruffled collar.
     “It’s been twenty-nine years,” the snow-haired god-general began, doing his best to keep his body from buckling, “twenty-nine years since I first laid eyes on you. I thought I could have, for once, someone I could talk to; someone I could grow up and share fond memories with, just like all the other children in Ketterburg. The Professor always thought you were so smart, the way you could snap your fingers and know the answer to an algebra problem at the mere age of six. I mean, you were so… so special. Brilliant. And then there was me, sitting at the back of the classroom with my toolbox and the rest of my tinkering equipment.”
     Dist began to back away at this point, though he stopped once he had made at least three feet between them. “Your sister, Nephry… she was the only one that was ever nice to me. When I got stuck, she tried to help me in whatever way she could. There would be times where I stood freezing in the snow while all the other children ran around in their warm coats, mittens, and boots… She would give her coat to me and tell me to go play with them. With the other children. You don’t know how much I longed to frolic out there with everyone else… but most of all, I wanted to watch you while you sat on the swing by yourself, furiously scribbling mad designs and mathematical problems out onto a piece of scratch paper. Perhaps I saw in you something I saw in myself, like a desire to find your missing piece. Haven’t you ever felt that no matter what you did, there was still something absent in your life?”
     “Well, I suppose if you p-”
     “But even when I did finally manage to work up the courage to confront you, you used me as your… your punching bag! When something wasn’t right, it was always ‘beat up Saphir’ or ‘shove Saphir off a hill’ or even ‘crack the ice while Saphir is skating on it’-”
     “Dist, you know that at the time, you were out of control with your momentum and if I didn’t stop yo-”
     “-And in the end, I never did have any real friends! The kind of friends that I could hang with after school released, the kind that were there for me when I had no one left to turn to. At least you had the Professor, Jade-”
     The Malkuth officer blinked when he looked into the violet orbs of the god-general, watching in mild astonishment as the crystalline drops began to slither down the pale cheeks and off the edge of Dist’s chin.
     “-but even after nearly thirty years, I still have no one at all!”

~End of Part One