Runt [Whole story spoilers]

[evilChair]

Runt

'Isaah Umbra Dax, son of friend.' You can suffer more than what the Jade Light will give you. 'Your father, a great warrior, is gone. The infestation had taken him, and it had tried to take you with him, but we intervened and pulled you back from the cusp of death.
'He lies interred, with his honours and his blades; his Shawzin, too. He wears his helmet, even now.
'Do you mourn, Isaah Dax? Your father has been honoured with a state funeral and blessed with The Void's peace.
'Or is there ire in you? Has pointless death and grievous injury, and the low spirit of separation sparked the flame of vigilance and anger? For if you seek vengeance, I permit it, and if even a single spark of that desire is there, Isaah Dax, I shall fan it onto the finest fabrics until it burns like a second sun.' The dead are no good; the Jade Light will not glow for you.
There is a voice whose words can't be understood, but its meaning he feels, and the powerful intent behind them. He—he can't tell who he himself is and he is too weak to think about the voice—feels that the voice drives him. There is no will, just a sense of strength returning.
'We have severed what was infested, and replaced it, with a line of prisma to connect the old and the new. Call the honour a sort of Continuity if you wish.'

The Old War is long and Lua-days pass. Isaah of the Umbra line comes to. He is made of pain packed into the shape of flesh that can not move for the gilded binds and braces. But there is another, numb feeling in him, in the shape of a bolt in his head. Across days, it relays him an image of where the pain and the anger come from, and it is an evil, damp place.

That person comes again. Every day he comes and says the same thing in different ways, as if he is tutoring him, or culturing. Why does that word – culture – keep recurring? But still he feels like a pleasure barge cradled and tossed by the tide of a solar flare, one of those vessels where he served as honour-guard.

'You are better, Isaah Umbra Dax, son of friend, as if son of mine.' Watch what I'll use you for, step-runt.
Ballas waves his hand, and water shapes a mirror for Isaah to see himself in.
'Your skin is steel, the flesh beneath it like rock. You are ready to serve again with pride, both us, and your father's spirit. This is you, Dax.'
An oblong box floats into the middle of the room. He produces from it a long, slender blade with a vicious curve. The restraints snap open, and the blade's hilt enters Isaah's palms.
'This is your sword. And that—'
The blue man points up, the ceiling opens; Isaah sees the Earth. And then the Earth is falling to him: a globe, a land, a sea, a coast, a Tower, a lake, and the deathly cold, damp soil beneath it, and he is there, with his sword and his fury and his violence and his smashed foe to fight back for time unending.

'And that is you, Revenant.'

[(XBOX)UpgradeAcorn989]

well that was impresive!!