Jun 19th 2025:
I take a good look in the mirror and notice a grey strand amongst my brown hair. "I certainly didn't get my father's best genes" I remark to myself. My father always looked much younger than he actually was, but I'm the opposite. But how much of that is down to genes, or life choices? My father was always extremely vain and paranoid about aging, at least from what my mother has told me about him. I've usually been more accepting of aging. But things are different now. I wonder if it was life events that shaped my father's relationship with aging. I'd ask my mother, but she doesn't like talking about him unless she has to. I don't blame her one bit, given the kind of person my father is. And I certainly couldn't ask him, because the last time I saw him in person was during the Revolution, 18 years ago last month. When the rebels took control of the country, they imprisoned my father, who had served as leader of the ruling military junta for eight and a half years. The last time anyone has seen him was in the build-up to the 2021 General Election, and while his hair had gone grey, he still looked like a man in his thirties, not his sixties. Of course, everyone, excluding myself, thought him to have been dead. "We executed him after the Revolution" was the cry of the police and army. But I knew the Dark Lord wasn't going to let his anointed heir go down so easily.
If you trace my lineage, father to father, eventually you reach the Dark Lord Klazelc, the most powerful practitioner and inventor of dark magic to ever live. Other practitioners of dark magic have created spells, curses and potions, but only the Dark Lord could create an entire branch of magic out of them. To be fair, one needs to be connected to the divine to have the ability to create entire branches of magic, and there can really only be one Dark Lord.
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I'm distracted from my thoughts by her entry into my study. Shit. I forgot it's her birthday today. "Dad" she calls out. "Mom wants to know if you're going to spend all day up here or if you'll come down and join my birthday celebrations." I make my way over to where she's waiting and say "Of course I am Lucy, I'm just busy."
"With what, Dad? School finished three weeks ago, does Felonius expect his staff to continue working over the holidays?"
"No, it's... complicated"
"Dad, I'm not a baby anymore, as of today I'm an adult woman. I know all about your superhero escapades with your friends that you don't even speak to anymore."
Even she knew she had gone too far by bringing them up. "Dad, I didn't mean it like that."
"I know you didn't"
Still, it cuts deep. I still talk to Teddy and Sylvester every now and again, but Harry's too much of a wreck and the others were always more mutual friends, and we all agreed that there was no point trying to connect more after he died. My best friend. The hero of the Revolution, who turned the tide against my father and his dictatorship. The King prophesised by the gods to restore goodness after the reign of terror. The Anything, the most powerful being to ever exist in our universe. The guardian of our universe from harm and destruction. The connection between our universe and the central universe.
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"Dad, are you crying?" Lucy asks.
"Yes"
"It's okay Dad, I know it's tough for you to remember them. Remember him. I just got frustrated because I want to help you with whatever it is you're doing."
Even though I told myself that I'd always keep the more experimental magic away from my family to protect them, I allow Lucy to stay in my study. I show her what I'm working on, trying to translate a spell from an ancient spellbook.
"Is this what I think it is?"
"It is". The very spellbook created by the Dark Lord, containing every spell, curse and potion that existed when he crafted the book. Many of which he invented.
"How did you get it?"
"When the Revolution deposed your grandfather, The Anything found it in a filing cabinet. He knew what it was, and gave it to me to decipher."
"Did he use it?"
"Yes, he did". That was of course how my father was able to fake his death, in 2020 I managed to translate a cloning spell which showed how he did it.
Lucy looks at the page I'm currently translating.
"What does this one do?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out. It mentions time travel, but that can't be right. Time travel in the sense that sci-fi writers utilise it for isn't possible. Unless you're a deity, or you possess the Celestial Gem of Time, you can only view the past or future, not interact with it."
I work on a few paragraphs, then I realise what I've done. "Fuck"
"What is it, Dad?"
"This curse negates any insurance spells."
"Insurance spells?"
"Spells I use before I start translating to prevent anything from happening."
"So what's happened?"
"Someone from our world's history has been transported to the present day of another world to wreak havoc on it."
"Who?"
"Ilton the Conqueror"
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Lucy and I go down to greet the rest of the family, and inform them that I have to go on another adventure. She seems to sense that I intend on going alone, and she says "Dad, let me come with you. I can help." I don't doubt that, but I can't let her get hurt. I couldn't live with myself if she did. She's only 16, I rationalise to myself. But I was leading armies into battle at that age. "Okay, but what will we tell your mother? And should you go say goodbye to your friends? After all, they're here for you."
"They're here for Oscar, Dad". I look a bit confused at her statement, but she clarifies "Dad, Oscar's 15 and the captain of the school football team. He's slept with all of my friends. He's slept with most girls in both of our years." I don't express it to her, but I'm a bit shocked to hear about my eldest son's activities. I never took him for the womanising type. Lucy then laughs and says "I bet Oscar's thinking about how many of my friends he can sleep with in one night" I try to think of anything else to shift the conversation away from my son's sex life. Anything. Anything, Benjamin. Anything other than your son's sex life. Eventually Grace, my wife and mother of my children, comes in and asks what's going on.
Lucy explains everything about the curse in the spellbook and Grace just says to me "Honey, you don't need to explain any magic stuff to me anymore. After your father showed up on a stage 13 years after he was executed I learned that it's best not to ask about magic. You're the expert after all." She then turns to Lucy and says "Are you sure you want to go with him, baby? He can get a bit confusing whenever magic is involved." That wasn't a dig, that's 100% the truth, I forget that most people can't even use magic, let alone decipher spellbooks written in extinct languages. And even though you can learn some branches of magic, none of my kids wanted to. I get it, nobody wants their teacher to be their dad. But I'm hopeful about our youngest, Jake. He's only 2, but I can already tell he's inherited some genetic magic, namely foresight.
Grace says "Ben, it's okay. If you need to save the world again, go do it. And Lucy, good luck on your first superhero mission." She then leaves to tell the rest of the party that Lucy and I are leaving. We return to my study and I pinpoint which Earth Ilton has arrived on based on reports of what's going on. I find it, and I utter the spell that takes Lucy and I to this Earth, as far from Ilton as we can be there, to build a team of heroes to stop the Iron King....
