A Life Unlived

"So, what are we gonna do with the two human girls? They know way too much about us to have them just walking around." Nico asks. 

"We've already made plans to wipe their memories." Aster says, standing up now. I take my cue and sit back down, eager for the attention to be on someone else. "Now I want to make something very clear, this isn't Zero's fault and he's not on trial for anything. While he very tactfully left it out of his explanation, I was the one who told him he was allowed to go to his funeral, and York was with him the entire time. This wasn't some half-baked journey he went on without anyone's knowledge." I rub at the back of my neck a little awkwardly as Aster fixes his gaze on me. Why did I feel like I was being scolded? I just didn't want any of the other Reapers giving him shit for letting me go to my funeral.

A few of the Reapers nod a little at this, and I can tell it's taken some of the heat off of me. I'm sure a lot of them had assumed I'd just gone off without anyone knowing and fucked everything up. 

"So, what do you know about these guys?" Nico asks. "These Portal Hoppers. I've never heard of them." A few of the Reapers shake their heads in agreement, saying they'd never heard of them either. 

"Well, I could be wrong here." Aster begins. "But I'm pretty sure this is the same group who used to call themselves Travellers. Why the name change, I'm not sure." 

"Those jackasses?!" Finnegan says, scoffing. I guess he is in the top five oldest here, if anyone besides Aster would know about them, it'd probably be him. 

"Yes, I'm sure you remember them quite well." Aster says to him, nodding. 

"Yeah, I remember them being a huge pain in the ass. They were always trying to break in here and telling everyone bullshit lies about us. I remember they stole a few weapons from us." 

"And that, I think, may have been the time things shifted for them." Aster says. "Before they were just a group who had a couple urban legends and a few blindly devoted members. Eventually though they did come in contact with a few of us and even managed to steal weapons. So not only did they now have the visual proof amongst themselves of our existence, but they also now had physical proof. Weapons that can cut through time and space, and let you travel between worlds. 

I'm sure many new members were shown these weapons and their powers, to get them to devote themselves and believe in their cause. Which from what I remember, was to trap us all to stop humans from dying unnecessarily." 

"We don't kill humans." I say flatly. 

"You are very right." Aster nods. "But they don't seem to understand that. If we are all in fact captured, humans would continue to die, but their souls would remain trapped on earth and would fester, leaving a very unpleasant environment for the living humans. Now, this is the first I've heard from them in… Finnegan how long ago was it they stole your weapon?" Aster asks. 

"Six hundred years? It's been a while. God, I loved those daggers." He says wistfully. 

"My theory is they used those weapons six hundred years ago to go to a new world and build their numbers. Zero you mentioned they were shooting at you with strange guns, right?" I nod as he looks to me. "Right. I imagine they also used their time to develop some new weapons of their own before returning here to continue their work." 

"Jazzy did say they told her they've only been here for fifty years or so." I say, and Aster nods. "And that they already have Reapers from other worlds." 

"Seriously?" Nice sits forward. He was quickly spinning his shuriken between his fingers. His knee was bouncing up and down, and I could tell he was getting more and more worked up. "Do we know how many they have? Where are they? Anything?" 

Aster sighs and shakes his head. "We don't know nearly enough to gain the upper hand here. We're going to try and get a little more information out of the two human girls before we wipe their memories, but as of right now we're a bit in the dark." 

I glance around as the Reapers start talking to each other again, louder and more angrily now. 

"This is fucking bullshit."

"Let's hunt them down right now."

"We won't let them keep Henry." 

One thing was for sure, these Portal Chodes were officially on our radar. If it was our attention they had been after, mission success. 

We were all in this fight now.