Duncan III

Mother sent me to Fantasy Land. Coming in, the street looked like something from a theme park. I could recognise a barber shop quartet. This is where Felix has been for the past eighteen years?

I moved through the gates to another district an found myself in the American frontier of the 19th century.

Then I heard someone coming out from one of the houses. It was Felix. At first, I was ecstatic to see him. For the longest time, I was sure that was what I wanted—to merely see Felix again. To know he was fine.

Well, I got my wish, didn’t I?

I wasn’t sure what I was feeling right now, but it wasn’t good. I saw the Chainsaword in his hand and new girlfriends at his side and that was enough to ruin my day.

There was Felix and Dawn and me, and that was enough for me.

But Felix. He had never been good with the ladies. Felix would be the one who said things were fine if they were fine but was not able to talk about it with anyone but Dawn when things weren’t fine. Dawn was the only girl he had a chance with but even then, I'm sure she would have picked me. To think he’d pick up the kind of women only seen in fantasy in the time we were separated. My brother had become a literal anime protagonist.

But that didn’t stop the news from hurting me.

And that Chainsaword…

I imagined my reunion with Felix in a thousand different ways since we were separated. Countless ways of saying hello, the jokes I’d make, imagining how he’d laugh. But in every daydream, even after mother indicated he was the one who was wielding the Chainsaword, it never came up.

But it did. And everything was so much worse because of it.

I could see mother stepping out of a Dark portal of her own in the corner of my sight.

“Can you just leave me alone for a while?”

“I came here to console you. You see?" mother spoke slowly, "You saw it all yourself, and it is just as I told you, is it not?”

Through the window of the dome, I could see Felix, Glaze and Tank. The red oni appeared to be throwing some kind of fit.

“You don’t get it. You never will.”

“Oh, but I do. While you toiled away trying to find your dear brother," she explained to me as she watched the same scene through the window, "he quite simply... replaced you with some new companions."

Tank said something the evidently calmed Glaze down. I had come all this way for Felix, and Felix was just having a good time with his special sword, content to hang around his new companions, as if me and Dawn were just... nothing. Dawn is missing and in need of help right now.

He was always lazy, but this was absolutely unbelievable. How could he do this?

"Evidently, now he values them... far more than he does you. I know the pain of betrayal all too well, myself.”

I thought back to that story she told of how her husband Zeus kept seeing other women, even having many children with them and making her a cuckquean.

"I know of your past life. You were unseen, unnoticed, unwanted. That was how I felt married to Zeus. You're far better off without that wretched boy," she told me.

I was certain mother had ulterior motives. She was trying to manipulate me. Play me. I'm not stupid.

But she was also right. Felix clearly didn't care for me. I thought that, even if that was true, then at least he'd care about Dawn! But no, Felix was all about his new sword and new harem and new life. I would've never guessed it, but there was the evidence, right in front of me. Hanging around like it was not an urgent emergency to save the person who mattered most; the person I needed.

Mother leaned forward, putting one arm around me, "Now, think no more of him, and come with me.”

I clenched my fists to my sides. The display before me was intolerable.

"I'll help you find what you're searching for. Together, we can find her."

I'd go along with it for now. I'd help mother, and get out as soon as I got what I needed, as soon as I saved Dawn. If Felix wouldn't do it, I would prove myself to Dawn. I'd show her the I was worth it. She'd finally see that I was the one who was really dedicated to her.