Eclipse Transit

[Tom Marvolo Riddle]

I nodded, knowing in some ways, and hers…. his… well it’s goals were definitely amiable to my own cause. Or at least compatible. Though such actions always had some reason behind it, I imagine the rationales differed greatly from my own. Rightful ownership, ascension of knowledge, cleansing the world of the waste that brought about the situations of my youth, justice, all those things and more made a beginning for me.

“I’d be interested in hearing-“ I started only to be cut off by the noise of a rusty gate given sentient voice. It was something now human could produce in such equal measures of baritone and high octave. It sounded like word brought about in battle cry. It was pure reaction that I whipped about summoning my wand to my fingers and for it to respond, an action that I hadn’t done since dueling club in my fifth year before I had left my studies and ambitions consume me completely.

That feeling of green was back, with yew beckoning my fingers to embrace the power. It ran up my wrist as wind caught my face. Wheeling about and taking two steps I froze at the sight; my arm wand respectively hung half limp in the air even as an enchanted armor wailed forward. Only it wasn’t. It looked too complex to be simple body shielding.

A golem maybe or an intricately carved total? No, too modern.

It looked like those old science fiction movies the played on Friday nights back on the orphanage on the projector, only more intricate. The ones that always left me rolling my eyes at how the villains monologued… like well that was unfortunate. Just like I had shortly before a basalisk fang was shoved into my cover.

I shook myself mentally, that was something I’d have to avoid in the future.

Cocking my head, I gave it a long look before coming off my heels. No need to backpedal any more, it wasn’t rushing us unless it was incredibly slow… after all it didn’t seem urgent.

I glanced at the being who finally named himself, waited for a moment then after he had finished, I said, “I think perhaps it means that it itself is a hero. Or it wants to be one.” Which if true was unfortunate.

There was one thing that the world needed less of, any world, was heroes. Heroes implied equality with their own villains, a vicious cycle of attack and rebuttal that never ended. Survival led to recovery, recovery led to revenge, an ever growing cycle. What one really needed to do the change society was a martyr, one of your own making that was in fact not yourself. To galvanize the people into an overwhelming action of you own whims.

But I was not going to let those view become public any time soon, right now this was far more pressing. Two inhuman beings in such short time span. I was beginning to wonder if humanity might not have quite the presence that I had assumed from the way the nexus was laid out.

A thought then occurred to me, “Or perhaps… I’m Tom Riddle. Is your name Hero?” I said with careful a rhythm in my words.