Chapter 457 - Father and Son
"Good day, Mister Joyce." The Doctor said with a smile on his face as he stepped into the house, where Benjamin was already waiting on the livingroom couch. He didn't have a need for such immense medication anymore, so he luckily was free to walk around like this now.
"Good day, Doc." The old man replied with a smile, as the Doctor approached him to check up on his general health, wanting to just get right into this. He's been coming here every day for a little while now, so it was obvious he and everyone else would get used to it.
"Could you lift your shirt for a moment, please?" He asked, so Benjamin stood up and did just as asked, before the Doctor pressed the cold Stethoscope onto Benjamin's chest. "Now take a deep a breath as you can." The Doctor instructed, and Benjamin did just that, before breathing back out when he was prompted to. And after repeating this a few times, the Doctor just slowly nodded his head with a slight frown.
"Hmm, it seems like your Lung Volume might have gone down a little from before the operation… I expected something like that though, so no need to worry. You've been going on those walks like I told you to?" The Doctor asked with a smile, and Benjamin simply nodded his head in response.
"Yes I have, don't worry. It's a bit of a weird feeling… Since my balance is a bit off now, haha." Benjamin slightly laughed, and the Doctor just nodded his head with a light smile. "Don't worry, soon enough you can get a prosthetic and that won't be an issue anymore. Have you experienced any troubles since I've been here the last time?"
"Actually…" The old man said quietly, "My eyes have been hurting a little lately. Could you maybe take a look?" He asked, so the Doctor slowly nodded his head.
"I'm not an optometrist, but I can try and see if anything's wrong." The Doctor laughed lightly and then slowly took a small light out of his bag and held it in his hand while first taking a look at Benjamin's eyes without them.
"Hmm, they are slightly irritated, it seems. Now, please hold your hand over your left eye while I check on your right eye. Try to keep your right eye open, alright?" The Doctor asked, so Benjamin just slowly nodded before he quickly saw the bright light shining into his eye. It was a bit uncomfortable, but not that big a deal, although it seemed like the Doctor really wasn't happy with what he was seeing right now.
"There is a bit of a delayed reaction… And it's not reacting as quickly as I would like it to…" He muttered quietly, "Now please remove your hand from your eye, but keep your eye closed until I tell you to open it." The doctor said, and once Benjamin did as asked, and once he was told to open the eye, the Doctor seemed to just continue frowning.
"That doesn't look too good. Did you experience any change in your eyesight? Did things get blurrier than usual?" He asked, and Benjamin slowly shook his head. "Not as far as I'm aware, sorry. But is there a serious issue?"
Slowly, the doctor shook his head in response as he packed the light away. "It's not all that serious yet, but we should keep an eye on it. Your Iris' reaction strength and speed of closing and opening your pupil is a little too low. So just try and be careful around bright lights, if in any way possible." The Doctor warned, "This might be a delayed reaction to your medication. I'll bring a colleague with me in the next few days to take a closer look and check up on your eyes again. For now, should we keep going with the regular checkup?" He suggested, so Benjamin just slowly nodded his head, before they then did just that.
And soon after the doctor left, Tony, who had been in the kitchen the whole time, walked up to his father. "You didn't ask him about that color-changing thing?" He asked, and the old man simply shook his head. "I'm pretty sure it's not something that current medicine can actually explain. I just wanted to make sure its effect on my body isn't that bad."
"Dad, what actually is that…? Can't you just explain it to me?" Tony asked, before Benjamin sligthly sighed and looked down the hallway. "Are the kids around?" He inquired, and Tony shook his head. "Sophia and Benji went out to grab some ice-cream with Sean and Katy."
"Alright, then I'll try to explain it to you. Or rather… let me show you." The old man suggested, and walked up to the couch. "Turn on TV." Benjamin said loudly, and the TV flashed in a bit of a bright light and then turned on, playing the last channel that it was on. "Web-Search 'World of Magic First Trailer'." The old man said next, and quickly, the display changed and showed the search results, and Benjamin quickly made the television play the first result. For a little while, Benjamin just let the video play for a while, until the close-up frame of his face in his Demonic transformation appeared, and the old man stood right next to the television screen.
"Dad, what's this..? That's you, right?" Tony asked confusedly as he looked at the TV, before Benjamin just nodded his head and closed his eyes. He was soon met with a slight burning sensation in his eyes, but that soon subsided when the change took effect.
"It is." The old man said, as Tony managed to see two instances of the exact same pair of glowing, golden eyes in front of him. Well, Benjamin's might have been a light bit more pale in comparison, but nonetheless, these were surely the same thing. Soon, when he noticed that Tony noticed what Benjamin wanted him to, the old man closed his eyes and disabled the effect again.
"As you could just see, these things are something I acquired in the game." Benjamin said loudly, before he sat down on his armchair, motioning at the couch next to him to let Tony know to sit down on there. "Come, there's a lot we might need to speak about."
—
"Dad, no way, that's just impossible…" Tony said confusedly, before the old man just nodded his head. "Of course it is. And so is the mere existence of the capsule. If you think about it, that alone is proof enough, isn't it?"
"As I said, there's just no way… Magic? This just sounds ridiculous… Those are probably just some weird contact lenses, right?" Tony said as he stood up, seemingly getting quite angry right now, unsure whether Benjamin was playing a dumb prank, or if he was telling the truth. And then, Benjamin got an idea to show actual proof of this.
He focused on his inner self, on his very existence, and on the mana that he saw he had inside of him when he looked down at himself with his mana-sight last time. It was close to impossible to actually move it around like this, and it caused him quite strong discomfort, and when he actually tried to push it out through his palm, he just noticed that it was completely impossible.
And so, Benjamin had to take to some more extreme means, slowly standing up to get to the kitchen. He pulled open the kitchen drawer and took out a knife, placing the handle into his mouth while Tony looked at him confused. "Dad, what are you..?" He asked, and Benjamin just bit down onto the knife handle and cut into his palm with the blade.
"Holy shjt, what the f.u.c.k are you doing?" Tony yelled out, immediately pulling the knife out of Benjamin's mouth before trying to grab a towel, but Benjamin quickly stopped him from pressing onto the wound and held his hand forward with his palm up.
"Come on now, you're doing this all the time over there, you old geezer…" He muttered to himself, pressing his teeth together while concentrating on letting his mana out through the deep cut that he opened up in his skin. And blood was a good carrier of mana as well anyway, so that might have helped as well.
Either way, soon enough, Benjamin heard the sound of metal hitting the floor and quickly looked at Tony, who dropped the knife in his hand out of confusion as he stared at the air in front of him, which was waving around in response to the little bit of mana that the old man let out of his body.
He was feeling pretty dizzy after that little bit though, so he quickly stopped doing this and just started pressing the towel that Tony was holding against his palm with his fingers as if forming a fist around the cloth.
"So? Believe me now? That right there was what mana does when in the air." The old man said in a clear voice, and Tony just kept staring at Benjamin's hand confusedly.
"Then… Then everything you told me is the truth? I have siblings over there? Nephews and Nieces? Wait, but if you have that, then what about the kids? Do they have that 'mana' thing now too? It made your eyes bleed, so what if-"
"Don't worry, I think I'm a bit of a special case. At least I hope so… I'm going to let the others know to come here so I can check on their bodies and see if anything is wrong with them." Benjamin pointed out, and Tony raised his brows surprised.
"The others? As in, the other 'Originals' you told me about?" Tony asked, and the old man nodded his head. "Mhm. As far as I'm currently aware, the five of us are the only ones that could have such a strong connection to that place… We are the only ones that peaked, and we've spent such a long time there… I think that's a condition to let this kind of thing happen." Benjamin said in a clear voice, "Well, maybe Samuel might be a bit affected as well. I don't know how long he spent there." The old man sighed, and Tony looked at him confused.
"Samuel? Samuel Morgan? What does he have- Of course, he's the lead of that project… You think he did that all to you?" Tony asked quietly as he leaned against the kitchen counter, still trying to properly process all of this, and Benjamin nodded his head.
"I do. He's the one in control of every single god of that world… Well, nearly every single god. I think a son of mine might be a pretty good actor… Either way, from the moment that I found out that something was amiss, I haven't been able to contact him. Not through official, nor unofficial means." Benjamin explained, and soon, Tony raised his head from staring at the floor and looked at his father.
"Wait, did you just say that your son is a god?"