Marvel: Incursio

Liam walked up the stairs. As he went up the stairs, an incredibly uncomfortable feeling crept over him, like he was being watched from all directions. He paused, glancing around, but saw no one. Keeping the feeling in the back of his mind, he continued going up.

'What the hell is this?' Liam thought as he reached the top of the stairs.

He walked closer to the entrance of the massive dome. Inside, he could see the enormous stone statues. All the statues surrounded a circular shape in the ground, with some sort of altar at the center of the room.

'Who are all these people?' Liam wondered. He had never seen these figures before.

The statues were around fifteen stories tall, and none of them looked even remotely similar to the others. All of the statues held different poses—some looked serious, while others seemed tired.

One of the statues, for example, held a sword that was stuck into the ground while leaning on it with a tired expression, while another had its sword raised into the air and looked like it was screaming something.

As he went deeper into the room, Liam's curiosity and confusion increased. 'And what exactly is this room?'

The ceiling caught his eye next, it was covered with paintings of the Tyrant and strange colors that surrounded it in every painting. Liam couldn't quite figure out exactly what the colors meant. The five colors surrounding Tyrant, shaped like teardrops, were green, yellow, red, purple, and a pure white.

'Five colors... What are they? And why are they around the Tyrant?' he pondered, staring up at the ceiling.

After walking deeper into the room, he took a closer look at each of the stone statues. All seemed normal until he inspected the last two statues. When he did, chills ran down his spine, and his hairs stood on end.

One of the statues had a pompadour hairstyle, while the other had a messier look. The statue with the pompadour had a sword resting on his shoulder while grinning wildly, whereas the statue with the messy hair had no weapon at all. Instead, he had his fist raised with a wide smile on his face.

Liam immediately recognized them.

'Bulat and Tatsumi.'

He approached their statues, a wave of realization hitting him.

'These statues... Are all of them past users of Incursio?'

On the ground in front of the statues was a stone plate, inscribed with more unfamiliar symbols. To the left of each inscription was a circle containing teardrop-shaped gaps. Bulat's plate displayed only two teardrops—green and yellow, leaving three empty gaps. Tatsumi's had four out of five: green, yellow, purple, and another green.

'Strange,' Liam thought, examining Tatsumi's plate. 'What do these colors represent?'

He moved to the next plate, noting it had no statue above it. Only green and yellow teardrops filled its circle, leaving three empty teardrop shapes.

'If Bulat came before Tatsumi, and Tatsumi before me, following the direction they were going into, this must be my plate.'

He frowned. 'But why do I only have two teardrops while Tatsumi had four?'

After inspecting his plate some more, he counted and numbered the total amount of statues, writing their colors down according to the number he assigned to them.

'There are 33 statues,' Liam counted. '26 male statues and seven female statues.'

'Most statues don't have more than two colors. A rare few display three, while only Tatsumi and one other—likely the twenty-fourth user—show four.'

After inspecting all the statues, Liam walked toward the center of the room. There, in the middle, stood a single altar-like structure with inscriptions on all sides.

As Liam crouched down to inspect the inscriptions, he noticed that the floor beneath him had the same colors as the ceiling, each one leading toward the central altar. While on top of the altar laid a simple white crystal ball.

He reached for the ball—but a pure white hand clamped down on his arm, stopping him. Liam immediately spun around. When he did, he saw only a wisp of white energy retreating towards a statue near Bulat's.

'The blurry figures... Are the statues themselves?'

Confused, Liam's mind raced. 'What exactly are these statues?'

'But how could any of that make sense?' He furrowed his brow.

'These people should be dead. And I remember from the anime—there's no Teigu that can revive the dead.'

The more Liam thought about it, the more perplexed he became. Although he had some guesses, his theories all felt incomplete.

'I could try again,' he reasoned. 'It's risky, but it might reveal something more.'

He reached out for the crystal ball again, but the same white hand stopped him once more. Feeling the hand, Liam kept reaching for the ball while turning his head around. This time, he could see a slightly blurry figure, although it was a lot clearer than when he encountered these figures before.

An elderly man smiled kindly at him. His expression radiated warmth, almost as if he were looking at his own grandson. Liam opened his mouth to speak, but the old man remained silent, even keeping his smile the same.

After Liam stopped reaching for the crystal ball, the man's figure began disappearing, starting from the bottom of his feet, moving upwards to his head, turning into a white mist that drifted back to the statue belonging to him.

'That confirms it,' Liam thought. 'The blurry figures from before were old Incursio users.'

'But why stop me? And what are they, really?'

He didn't know the answers.

The only thing he thought had a high chance of giving him answers was the scriptures, but deciphering them had proven difficult. Even when he believed he'd cracked a word, it always felt incomplete—like something important was missing.

After spending more time looking around the room and writing everything he saw down, he realized he couldn't learn anything new and decided to return to his own dimension.

'Naturally, I could have experimented more with the statues,' Liam thought as he stepped through a rift back into his room.

'But could and should are two different things.'

'For now, the figures seem peaceful. I'd like to keep it that way until I learn exactly what that room is and how it is relevant to me.' Liam thought.