Author's Note: We are halfway through the story. I'm sure many of you have questions, but here is the interlude that tells Warren/Mortar's tale from a few years prior.

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Interlude part I
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A traveling bard sat in one of the few relatively safe corners of the universe. Various beings drank and gambled away their troubles. Some knew the universe could end at any moment, some truly didn’t care.

He stroked against his string instrument, and chimed away:

“There once was a man from Paragon. There was a champion of virtue who knew freedom. There was one destined to bear the burden . . .”

***

Four years ago

Warren tried to not get involved in random gang disputes, as a hero, unless they went beyond a line that threatened to harm good, honest people. Lately, things had been getting more dangerous, and it was spreading beyond the boundaries of Paragon City.

He was walking into town from the house his friend and business partner had bought. It was the house they’d grown up in as orphans. Warren had felt a connection to that house, decades ago, before he’d learned that it would be where he was going to grow up, so he approved of the buy that Peter had made and celebrated through the night.

Now, it was time to check on a building again, one that Warren had been eyeing for days. No, this time he was bringing something, as silly as it might have seemed.

The flowers in his hand smelled wonderful. He hoped she would like them. He hoped she wasn’t allergic. Was it even possible for her to be allergic to anything? The scientist in him wanted to watch from a distance and takes notes to find out.

After setting them down by the door, along with a note saying hello, he knocked on the door and slipped away into the distance. Warren took one more look back at the flowers and door to see if anything had changed, but nothing.

He turned away and noticed someone was watching him. It was War Lagoon. There was a face he hadn’t seen in a minute.

“I never would have thought you had a cute side,” War Lagoon managed to tease with a serious tone and mostly straight face.

***

These had to be among the strangest gang members that Mortar Mage had ever fought. He took down two of them already; they were strong enough against his magic and gadgets. It was a fight that would have destroyed a school bus, and killed everyone on it, had Mortar not intervened. What he could not understand was why gangs who dressed alike would fight amongst themselves, especially in the open like this. It had to be counterproductive.

He followed two of them toward a building where they turned a corner into an alley. Mortar heard more grunts, screams, and sounds often affiliated with violence. Great, they ran into a corner to fight some more.

Or did they? Mortar stood at the entrance to the alley and found a woman standing there with raven black hair. Her outfit reminded him of a toy soldier, and he had seen her one other time.

Toyenna.

She spotted him, but gave no response of any kind. Toyenna walked to a door going into an adjacent building, and entered it.

Curious, he followed. Mortar got to the door when everything around him jolted, and a flash of light shot out of the entrance. He took a better look inside when everything calmed down. The light source looked like a portal. Toyenna walked into it. Again, Mortar followed.

Up? Left? Backward? Age? All of it became as much vague as it was child’s play while Mortar Mage found himself in a daze, shaking it off, and pushing himself off of the grated flooring while the blue luminescence behind him vanished.

The portal was gone. The room was cozy, but a little dark. There were hallways to the left and right.

Instinct, as dangerous as that was, told him he wanted to try right. So he quickly peeked the left first before glancing right. The right hallway was where he caught one more glimpse of Toyenna before she turned another corner.

Along the walls, there were blank panels where any reasonable designer would place windows. In the back of his mind, Mortar could hear a former friend and colleague asking if they at least had apples, and he could hear that same friend being smacked upside the head.

He made haste without making too much noise. Where this was, he did not know, but his gut told him it was important.

A few more corners came and went, and then Toyenna disappeared into a room where light flickered in a manner that made Mortar think of a blowtorch. It stopped, as did the final waves of the blowtorch’s sound, and there were voices. A man and a woman.

Mortar crept closer.

“I have brought a visitor,” said the woman. The hint of mechanism in her voice was so soft and subtle that most people would have missed it.

“Ah, you did?” the man said. “Is it him?”

“There is a ninety-nine-point—“

“Toyenna.”

“—a high probability that he is the one. He is hiding behind the wall as if playing a game. Do children grow the size of human adults?”

“Some do, but let’s not get into politics. You there! By the door, can you show yourself? I promise you we mean no harm.”

Mortar Mage entered the room. The man he found shared his short, brown, and wavy hair, as well as his nose and chin, though Mortar found himself glad that the man’s protective mask was up so that he could identify a gentleman with half of his likeness.

That was when Mortar brought down his hood. He left on his domino mask for the time being. He wasn’t in any danger, he didn’t think, but he wasn’t sure how much he could trust anyone here. The other man in the room tore the protective mask from his face and extended his arms to either side with an enthusiastic smile.

“Welcome home, son!”

***

The two of them talked as they strolled through the main hallway that circled this vessel. They were flying in space, but not mortal space.

“The eternal realm?” Warren asked.

“Correct,” said the man claiming to be his father. His name was Dexios. “The vast majority of us living here have a genetic distinction that lets us come and go as we please with this realm. Here, time as you know it is . . . different. There is a beginning, a definite end, but all else is the middle, flowing in every direction. It makes us look immortal where you come from, but it’s all a trick.”

“How long do you think has passed on Earth then since you were last there?”

“Hard to say. Since you were entrusted to a friend of ours? Too long. Twenty-four years.”

“If so long has passed, then how have you not aged? Do you take one breath here, and everyone I’ve known on Earth has had their last?”

Had their last. David, Peter, Jeff.

“Your friends are fine,” said Dexios. “A second here and now is still a second there and now, but it can also be a second there and almost any time, past or future. At least, that’s how best any of us can explain it. Time is tricky here, and going back to an earlier moment to find a person or place is as messy as it is dangerous. I’m ashamed to say this, but we waited too long to come find you. At the same time, I’m glad you’re safe from our own troubles here in the eternal realm. Or were. Being here has exposed you to a great risk.”

“I’m used to risking my life by now,” Warren stated.

“So I’ve noticed. Is that why you wear this interesting outfit? Toyenna has explained to me that your version of the mortal realm is one of the many variations where there are abilities beyond ‘normal human parameters,’ as she put it.”

“There are other versions of me?”

“It’s possible, though I can’t say for sure. You were born before your mother was given the same genetic distinction we have, so that makes you a ‘quarter god,’ practically mortal and highly susceptible to mortal rules of time. However, the other versions would all be copies made by an infinite number of decisions made in your very complicated realm, even at a specific starting point. Yours is close to being the center of everything, meaning that your version will have lasted most decisions made in the history of the mortal realm. Ah, let’s stop now, I never liked school, and I’m sure you can do without quite so much detail on the intricacies of why you’re you, and you can’t be replaced by your duplicates.”

“I appreciate that.”

“If you choose to become immortal and need the lecture for the exams Hades and Styx give you, then let me know, however.”

“There’s an exam?”

“Think of the written and behind-the-wheel exams for driving in your realm, but add loads of math and poetry to them, respectively. Styx really loves the one about the two planes leaving somewhere at the same time. The answer is always goldfish, but look luck guessing which kind.”

A door slid open, and there was a woman humming a melody to her bulging belly. Warren thought her golden blond hair was a state of perfection, and her overall beauty, both in looks and in voice, made him lose words he never thought he had.

She looked up at him and Dexios. Her eyes, blue as an ocean deep, were just like Warren’s. She smiled at him.

“It’s you. My dear son, you’ve come at last,” she said.

When she spoke, Warren recognized her face. In one room of the mansion where he had grown up, there were a number of busts depicting important members of the family who’d owned the building before the orphanage acquired it. It was his hiding place when Warren had had an anxiety or panic attack, or when he needed a place to cry, because none of the kids were allowed down there. Not even Peter knew about it until Warren pointed it out. All that time he’d spent down there allowed him to learn some of those faces. Hers was one of them.

Her name was listed beneath the bust, as all busts in that room had them, but Warren never learned those names, only their faces. Hers was Enid. She was born in 1887, but she looked not a day past thirty, if even that.

Warren said, “I still don’t understand. If you’re really my parents, then why did you give me up? What will you do when your new child is born?”

Enid replied, “We hoped we could bring you home sooner. There is a war out there. The gods and their ilk were always in unrest before all that happened recently, if ‘recently’ is a good word for it. I didn’t want you to see a war-torn realm, but I also didn’t want you to grow up in a time when you would have been sent into child labor like I saw in my day. We had a friend who admired the late twentieth century Earth, and asked that friend to take you in until this realm was ready for you. But it’s still not ready for anyone. The decision was a terrible one, but it was made with you in mind.”

“I’m not blaming you. I just wish you had at least found me sooner. It will be a while before I’m ready to call you Mom, or him Dad.”

“Twenty-four years, Warren. It must be frustrating to take this long to meet your parents.”

“To be fair, the adoption system isn’t much better these days.”

“Just as long as you aren’t setting any houses on fire that would take you. Would you like to know a secret?”

“What?”

“When your father works on his masterpieces, I fear he’ll set this whole ship on fire.”

***

“So, what are you working on?” Warren asked.

Dexios said, “Right now? A welding sculpture.”

“I thought there was a war going on?”

“There is, but art is always necessary. It’s magic for the heart and mind, because knowledge and love are the greatest forms of magic of all.”

“I find it odd that a god, or even a demigod, would use the word ‘magic.’”

“Why shouldn’t we? It’s one of the best words to come out of the mortal realm. Your mother is good with words. Astounding. She’s just as good with them as she is with curiosity. It’s why I fell for her. Ah, I still remember those days. It’s ironic that she and I not only fulfilled one of her favorite stories, but we inspired it.”

“What story is that?”

***

Toyenna entered the observation deck while Warren peered out the window into the spiraling lights in the distance. He had barely noticed her.

“Hello again, Warren,” she said.

Now she was a beauty that Warren truly wanted to know better. She stood by the sofa that he sat in.

“Hello,” Warren replied.

“I see you have visited us multiple times in the last seven days.”

“Can you blame me? A man needs to know where he comes from, and a man knows when he sees something he likes.”

“What is it you like?”

He brought a hand to her cheek. It felt so undeniably human. “For starters, you.”

“You are not repulsive to look at, yourself.”

Warren laughed, then turned back to the lights ahead. “Dexios tells me that if I stay a while, I will get to see your destination, but that I’ll be unable to return to the mortal realm as long as we’re there.”

“This is true.”

“And yet time doesn’t matter the same way here as it does where I’m from.”

“I come from the same realm as you, but I cannot find a good reply.”

“No need. I suppose I might understand better as I stick around. I’m going to have to, now. The fighting on Earth has become too dangerous to let it go on. I need to find out how and why the war here is spilling into the mortal realm.”

“That is why I allied myself with your father and his friends. They wish to end the war, but the bleeding into other realms has piqued his interest as a scientist.”

“You believe he is my father then?”

“Believe? I cannot say. That is not a word I am capable of applying to any case. You do share DNA with Dexios and Enid, according to my scans.”

“So I see.” He nodded.

His search for the last fourteen years had finally come to an end. The feeling was just there, but it was difficult to define or put words to. It was like spotting a falcon behind heavy clouds, and being unable to tell that it was, in fact, a falcon from far away.

Toyenna sat next to him, her posture too perfect to be human, but somehow just right for Warren. Never once did he think he would meet an android who would sit by its own free will.

Naturally, he had to ask about it.

“Do androids feel the need to sit or sleep?”

“Of course we do,” she said. “Exhaustion, energy conservation, and restoration are all part of our function.”

“What else is built in to your body?”

“I am unsure. I appear to be drawn to the protection of others. I once saw dying flowers outside the lab where I was brought to life. I spent days trying to keep them alive, but they did not make it past yesterday.”

“Ah. I am sorry. I will try to remember not to send flowers in the future?”

“Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“I think I enjoyed their care. Their time was short and sad, but I was . . . unknown . . . that to be a part of their time in the end. I tried asking Dexios and Enid about it, but they chose to let me explore the unknown. Warren, am I broken?”

***

He flipped a page, thinking that he finally figured out the last. There were even more symbols he hardly recognized. This was difficult without anyone telling him what each symbol was called or how it was supposed to sound.

“There you are,” came a lovely voice.

Warren pried his eyes from the odd book, and found Enid standing there. “Hi.”

“What are you reading, there?”

“I’m trying to learn the written language that Dexios uses. He said that the older gods all use it like a shorthand for notes and ideas these days, and I thought it was interesting enough to try learning it.”

She snorted. “I’ve been trying to figure that out for the better part of the last century. When did he give you that book?”

“He didn’t. I found it on the shelf of random reading materials three days ago. I think I’ve figured out fifteen of these symbols?”

“Fifteen? In three days?”

“I’ve been busy trying to stop a few fights on Earth, and proving someone’s theory wrong regarding a basic law of magic.”

“Your grades in school must have been something that would have made me proud.”

“Ah. I, uhh . . . no. I can’t say . . .” Warren cleared his throat.

“You know, we’re in a realm where time means as much as a loose carriage on a boat during a small storm. Just because you’re in your twenties doesn’t mean you’re too old for me to ground you.”

“Noted. Sorry, Mom.”

“Second of all— Wait, what did you just call me?”

It took Warren a second to realize that he actually did say it. It was a lot easier than he thought it would be. It was right, he decided.

“Mom.”

Moments passed before Enid spoke again. During that time, she practically hid her face by standing next to the main window and gazing out. A period of silence passed where her stunted breaths were visible.

“I sometimes wonder what it would be like, talking to my sisters again and gossiping about who-knows-what,” she said. “Especially Dawn; she was always the wisecrack.”

Warren said, “Was it hard to leave them behind, or watch them grow older?”

“I wish I could say. They were among the first to perish in this awful war. We blamed a friend of Dexios’s at first, until we learned that the portal was closed by another. Now all I can do is talk to them from here, and hope they’re at peace.”

“From here?”

“Yes. Has anyone told you this as of yet? We’re venturing to the temple that watches over the souls of the departed. Everyone you’ve known or loved passes through here before moving on to the next life. I wonder if it’s happened for them yet?”

He stood up slowly. The spiral of lights shone in different brightness from one formless light to the next, and each shone a variety of colors with redder and bluer hues further out from the center. The revelation was more than Warren had ever expected to hear. He rested a hand on the window and whispered at the spiral in the distance.

“Can you hear me, Pix?” He clenched his fist, and bumped his head on the glass.

“Who was Pix?” Enid asked.

“She was a friend, like a little sister to me. To everyone. We failed her.”

Enid put a hand on his shoulder. “Then all the more reason to come help us when we get to the temple.”

He weighed her words, and he knew right away that it meant something. It meant more than life or death.