4- Infinity

The walls of the sanctum were a dark, steel green. Meglo-mobilizers and other machines ran like a marathon as Magnet approached a tall item with a rag cloth draped over, covering it completely. Infinity had no idea where this was going. He turned to his husband, who had the same aimless face as him. Magnet grinned revealing his buck teeth. "May I present, the last star-bender known to Carculis!" The midget metal-bender ripped the cloth off of the item, revealing a pod filled nearly to the top with plasma. Floating in the center was a star-bender pendant, a golden shooting star with it's glittering rays. Infinity hadn't seen one in years. He glanced at Ghoul, who seemed highly interested now. Infinity smiled at his kid's reaction. He felt bad for Ghoul since he had never seen a star-bender before, must be weird to find someone like you that isn't ENTIRLEY like you at the same time.

The pendant had different wires attached to it, these wires curled out to the top of the pod, shooting out and connecting to a meglo-moblizer. The device had a lot of data and flashing images on it. Every few seconds, numbers at the corner of the screen would read: 85% digitized, 86% digitized, 87%, 88%, 89%...

"Magnet what is all this?" The king finally spoke up while Magnet admired the pendant. He said without looking away, "The last star-bender known to Carculis. It will cost 300,000 chunts though."

"Why does it look like that?"

Magnet turned to face him. "You should know..."

"I don't, genuinely." Infinity wasn't sure if that pendant was even real...why was it in this vat?

"Wow, I truly thought you knew about the purification project." Magnet said quietly. "It was mandatory you knew, you're part of the monarchy!"

"Purification project," Ghoul repeated, stunned. "That sounds like cult shit."

"Language!" Unity snapped, striking his son firmly over the head, but not so hard it hurt.

"I have never heard of the purification project," Infinity claimed. "I don't remember ever being told about it."

Magnet shook his head reproachfully. "I see. Well, you can at least add that to the list of shitty things Paktor did."

"Language!" Unity snapped impulsively. He took it back when Magnet gave him the death glare.

The scientist sat by the meglo and kept an eye on the numbers of the screen as he explained everything.

"So, when the Xode Empire attacked, we know Finn was already executed by his own people. As he should, but sadly his family also had to pay as this kind of cross breeding was seen as gross and as inappropriate to the xodes as streaking in public. They kidnapped Virgo, his wife, and executed her and were soon after their child. We found the kid first though, and kept her hidden-"

"HER?!" Ghoul yelped, so intrigued with the story he was sat cross-legged on the floor. He turned to his parents, "You never mentioned that it was a girl!"

"That a PROBLEM?" Unity readied his hand to strike again. Ghoul immediately back-tracked.

"No! You guys just didn't say anything, so I was super set on it being a boy so I could share my room and we could play on my MMS 3 and-"

"No really!" Magnet exclaimed. "You all just keep talking, I wasn't saying anything important!"

"Sorry Magnet." All three said, even Infinity for some reason.

"We kept Finn and Virgo's child hidden along with other civilian benders, but we knew she was the main target the Empire would stop at nothing to hit. So, the army generals-" Magnet gestured to himself, "And the king met up and discussed what to do. Paktor told us you weren't there as you already made up your mind on what to do with the kid."

"And what exactly was my decision?" Infinity said, anger growing from his throat.

Magnet hesitated, then confessed. "He claimed you agreed we should hand the child over for execution."

There was a stunned silence, so Magnet continued, assuming they were all still listening.

"He wanted her gone as he believed if we gave the Xode Empire what they wanted, they would cease attack, and we could preserve whoever was left. Me, the other guard generals, King Atlas and prince Omnipotence all obviously went against killing a child. But he argued it was irrational that we would protect a single child over the whole population. I admit, when he said that, a small part of me agreed that it was unethical. But most of me and all the others stood firm that if we were going to protect the land, that should include the child that spent her life here, hybrid or not."

"Hybrid?" Ghoul echoed.

"Yes, the girl was a star bender like her mother, golden skin, pendant, everything. But she contained the ravenous black fire powers of a xode. I remember she had dark arms that were layered with purple veins that stretched out to here-" Magnet placed a hand on his shoulder. "Paktor claimed he was doing what was best... he said YOU were on his side. I won't sugar-coat this your majesty, everyone in that room lost a bit of respect for you."

Infinity was still frozen. He hadn't heard about any of this, not from his father, his friends, nobody said a damn word. Magnet continued.

"But it's okay! Now I know you didn't intentionally go out to kill a child and we're all good here! The king went out to bargain the child in exchange for the safety of his planet. But the emperor didn't want to bargain, just destroy. I have to hand it to Paktor, trying to reason with a blood-thirsty dictator? Respect. Anyway the xodes unleashed their final wave and Atlas unleashed his. I only heard after the last stand what happened with the kid. How Paktor was going to kill her anyway as her xode genes were 'an insult to bender kind.' I tried talking him out of it but he was as stubborn as those xodes. So I opted for an alternative. That's when the purification project came in. A few months after your coronation I went out of house-painting and began the project. It was basically the idea that we delete all of the child's memories and xode genes so she can restart her life as a full bender. I just never counted on how long it would take."

He glanced at the pod with the floating pendant. "Ten years and only on 90%."

Infinity suddenly had a wave of thoughts splashing over him.

So, lemme get this straight, you had NO idea about any of this? You should've been notified the day after your coronation! Or were you still too busy feeling sorry for yourself you pathetic monarch!

Infinity tried literally shaking the thought out of his head again. "No, no no."

Magnet nodded solemnly. "You can have the bender, but you'll need to wait a few more...months." He said glancing at the number again. It was frozen on 90%.

Infinity was completely overwhelmed by this. "Was this PRIVATE?"

"None of those meetings were ever disclosed to the public."

"That- how could he?!"

Magnet hopped off his seat and stretched his arm out to the king. "The chunts your highness."

"We need to talk more about this in private." Infinity said, trying to ignore the booming yelling in his head.

"There's a private room beside this one, follow me."

Unity took the kings hand. The voice died down a bit. "Do you want me to come?"

"Of course." Infinity said softly, he turned to his son, who was itching to get more details. "Ghoul you stay here."

"WHAT? WHY?" the prince squealed.

"This is...grown up stuff, stay here go on your mobilizer." In truth, the king desperately didn't want to his son to know even more horrors of his grandfather's reign.

"But now I'm actually interested in this star-bender stuff!" Ghoul gave his father wide, puppy-dog eyes, eyes Infinity hadn't seen in a while.

"STAY. HERE." The king ordered. Ghoul's face dropped into the moody teen frown Infinity has seen a lot of recently. He huffed and brought out his mobilizer. "Fucking lame."

"Language!" was the last thing the prince heard before the door was shut on him.

Nice, nothing spells 'family road-trip' like disappointing your son for the third time in two days.

"I thought this place would be quieter!" Infinity said walking in.

"Infinity this place is sound proof." Magnet replied.

Wow, sound proof yet I can STILL hear the dying gasps of all your failures.

"How could he do this? How could I do this? I can't remember when he..." Infinity trailed off...the last fight he had with his dad echoed so loudly, it was as if the former king was in front of him, badgering him.

"I AM THE KING!"

"But I should be out there!"

"Infinity, you are not a teen who thinks he can defy me-"

"You're right! I'm an adult and I KNOW I can defy you! It's the last stand out there! Magnet, Lucid, so many of my friends are out there fighting, what good am I if I can't help them!"

"You more useful as a breathing prince than a dead corpse to your friends. Please, my son stay here. Promise me you'll stay here."

"I won't."

"Infinity-"

"NO!"

"INFINITY! I AM THE KING! AND I AM GIVING YOU A DIRECT ORDER TO STAY. PUT."

"....yes your majesty."

"Please help Unity with the injured, I have a-meeting to attend."

"What meeting? Maybe I can help there?"

"NO! Just please, help Unity."

"...yes father."

Nice job your highness, if you hadn't been such a wimp and maybe pushed more to be at that meeting, you wouldn't be standing in front of a comatose child while your friend - to specify, DISABLED friend, because of YOU - talked about the traumas he induced while losing his powers, having to retire and then putting a child in a vat and erasing her memories! If you had said one more word, maybe your father would've changed his mind. But no, here we are, another big mistake that is somehow, once again, ALL YOUR FAULT-

CRAAASSSHH!!

Infinity opened his eyes to find Unity's arms around him, they were both on their knees on the cold floor. Unity and Magnet were looking at the door leading back to the sanctum, where the source of the awful crash had come from. Infinity let out a small cry. Pathetic, like a child. Unity held his face and looked him right in the eye. "Are you okay? It seemed you really wanted Magnet to shut up there."

"I was?" the king asked. He hadn't even heard himself, just those memories again.

"I did shut up by the way," Magnet added, "You still didn't seem content though."

"I'm sorry." Infinity whispered.

"It's fine. I'm fine. Are you fine?" The retired general asked.

The king nodded as his husband helped him to his feet. When the king looked down at their intertwined hands, he noticed Unity's were cut and bleeding, like nails had dug into them. He put two and two together in one second. "I did that." He stated, eyes glued to his husband's hands.

Unity looked confused before following his husband's gaze. He laughed it off. "It's fine, I had no choice. You were gonna rip out that handsome hair." He rubbed Infinity's hair tenderly.

"Guys!" Magnet called out to the two kings. "Can we check who just broke into my lab now or what?"

When the door opened, the vat was lying on the floor, plasma pasted everywhere. The glass of the vat was shattered and spilled out across the floor like puzzle pieces. Wires lay by the meglo, unconnected to the pendant...speaking of the pendant.

Both it and Ghoul were nowhere to be seen.