Lord of Entertainment

Chapter 527: Face to Face, At Last!

(3rd Person POV)

In his office at the top of Hellfire HQ, Arthur sat at his ease while George came in to report the first day's box office for Avatar. And by the look of his vertically challenged friend, the dwarf could scarcely believe the numbers he'd carried up here himself.

Arthur chuckled. "Well, my vertically challenged friend? Aren't you going to give me that first-day report? What are you standing there gawping about?"

George came back to himself with a start. "I-I... here. Here's the report." He dragged in a breath and got it out in a shaking voice. "The first day's box office for our film is — is a staggering eighty-nine million dollars!"

Arthur put on a show of surprise. In truth he'd known well in advance that Avatar had pulled in a figure like that; he only wanted to watch George react, and found the whole thing enormously entertaining.

"Eighty-nine million," Arthur said, a thread of tease in it. "Hong Kong dollars?"

George missed the tone entirely and near choked. "It's in global dollars! Arthur — this is incredible!"

Arthur smiled. "It is, isn't it. Incredible."

George caught the calm on him then, and squinted. "You don't look even a little thrilled. What, are you too rich for your own good these days?"

"What are you talking about?" Arthur chuckled. "I'm thrilled. I just don't wear it on my face."

"Sure you are." George rolled his eyes, then pressed on. "Money like this — I never would've dreamed a film could earn so much in a single day. And by our analysis, the ticket sales are still climbing."

Arthur listened without a word, laughing quietly to himself, until at last he cut in. "You know what, George — do you want to see another world going out of its mind over our film?"

George paused. "What are you on about?"

Arthur only smiled. And then, through the True Dimension, he took George to the second world he had conquered.

They came out onto the rooftop of some building high over Eisen City.

"Wh-where are we, Arthur?" George turned in a circle. "You just — you touched my shoulder and we're here!"

Arthur looked at his friend for a moment. It was time, he decided, to let his most loyal friend in on the truth of him — that he was a Deity, that this whole world beneath their feet was his, and all the rest of it.

George listened to it and could not make his ears believe any of it. "You're — you're telling me you're a Deity? And this world we're standing on, the whole of it, is yours?"

"Yes," Arthur said. "That's exactly it."

Every part of George wanted to call it impossible. But his own eyes were not in the habit of lying to him.

Then Arthur brought him down into the city, and there it was already — a great billboard for Avatar, the film showing here as well, the crowds beneath it every bit as frantic and half-mad over it as those back home.

George was struck dumb. "This... this is incredible..."

"In this world," Arthur said, "Avatar has been playing a full week already. The whole of it has gone wild for the thing."

What he left out was that he had come to this second world and used his Devourer Ring to slip a week into its future, to a point where the film had already been out that long.

George looked at him and shook his head slowly. "You're something else, Arthur. Never in my life did I think I'd have a friend who was a god." He narrowed his eyes, plainly delighted underneath it. "Just how many more secrets are you keeping from me?"

Arthur laughed softly. "More than you'd ever guess."

"Yeah," George snorted. "Figured as much."

They talked a while longer, the way friends do — and in the end went to a cinema and watched Avatar together.

Back in the office at Hellfire HQ, the two of them returned and talked on a little more, until at last George took his leave.

Arthur watched his friend go. And as the door closed, the smile slid from his face, and his eyes went cold and level.

"It's about time."

Power welled up off him, vast and pressing, filling the room.

And with a single thought, he stepped forward through time — to the moment Solarus at last arrived in their solar system.

Out in the dark, aboard his Divine Ship, Solarus gazed down on the solar system and the world hanging near, and a broad smile spread across his face. "Heheh — it's finally time. Let me announce my coming properly. Hahaha! Lord Solarus has arrived!"

At his shoulder, Apollion smiled a thin, quiet smile.

Solarus spread his hands wide, drawing up the power of the sun itself, ready to rouse it and rain a flood of solar fire down upon the mortal world below.

"THIS IS THE PRICE OF DEFYING ME!"

But in the instant before the blow could fall, a voice rang out across the void.

A woman's voice, and a beautiful one. "IT WON'T WORK, SOLARUS!"

His attack broke apart against nothing. Not a spark of it reached Earth.

Solarus went still, the voice known to him. "That voice..."

Then a shape rose up out of the black — vast, a thing the size of a planet, plain to the naked eye — and set itself between the sun's fire and the world.

Mephista.

"Have you forgotten me so soon, Lord Solarus?" Fury rode every word of it.

Solarus's eyes went wide. "Mephista? The God of Beasts? Where did you come by Divine Power like this?"

"Where do you think," Mephista said. "From the followers I have in the mortal world you once ruled — and rule no longer."

His eyes chilled. "Is that so. No wonder, then." He gave a contemptuous snort. "Your strength is impressive. And it is nothing at all to me. I'll swat you from the sky like a fly."

He gathered up a crushing weight of Divine Power to bear down on her — but before it could land, two more stood at Mephista's side. Keanu. Kaiser.

Solarus's eyes flickered. "Two more deities?" Another snort. "No matter. Meager little gods, every one of you."

And as he drew back to strike again, one more voice cut across the dark — and this one was deeper, stranger, without edge or end to it.

"Solarus. You are far too weak to be playing at power."

Solarus froze, a chill running the length of him. He swept the void with his Divine Senses and found nothing at all.

"Who's there?" he snapped. "Wherever you are — show yourself! Or are you afraid?"

Then the voice came again, and it came from inside the ship, from the very heart of them. "Afraid? Who's afraid?"

Solarus, Apollion, and every deity-ranked being on the bridge turned their heads — and found a plain, unremarkable man seated at his ease in an empty chair. No. Not empty. That chair belonged to the Divine Ship's own captain, a being of no small power — save that the captain was simply gone now, wiped clean out of existence as though he had never drawn breath.

"Solarus," the man said. "I suppose this is where we meet for the very first time. For you, at least. Not for me — I've walked this moment before."

Solarus's eyes went wide. He had not so much as sensed the man sitting there. "Who are you?" And he was trembling.

Arthur shook his head. "Oh, come now. Aren't you the one who came all this way looking for me? I'm the man himself — the one you crossed the stars for. Arthur Pendragon."

Solarus, Apollion, and all the rest of them were struck to the core.

"Y-you're Arthur Pendragon?" Solarus breathed. "Impossible... how could you have grown this strong..."