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Chapter 40: Retribution.
🕑 Added 2024-07-15 13:05:23 +0000 UTCChapter 40: Retribution.
All that booze had taken its toll.
I was currently unable to flow back into my body, not without losing consciousness once more and wasting the vigor I’d instilled into my new friends.
Even now, half-submerged in my own head-lake, the sweet syrupy amber tickled my core. Taking away the fear and the doubt. That, and making the anger burn hotter.
‘Ride the wave.’ I commanded. ‘Do not miss this chance. Fight! Subjugate! More leviathans to carry us forward!’
The first thing I did was send out all the weaker monsters under my control so that they could scatter and destroy any of their own kind they came across.
I would not have our base conquered right from under us while we were gone.
I ordered the robots to stay behind for this very reason, them not needing food or water to maintain themselves.
The second thing I did was to ride Dolce upwards.
Until we reached one of the entrances to his lair.
Normally, this kind of vertical ascension would have me screaming bloody murder off the top of my lungs.
With the help of alcohol, all I said was:
“Wheeeeee!”
I kept hollering all the way to the top.
Rising through imaginary sunshine and rainbows on my way to the edge of the waters.
Thunder Fist appeared again on the corners of my vision. His form was a beacon shining in the darkness. Impossibly proud of what I was about to do.
‘Remember Sully.’ He said in his stereotypically jovial manner. ‘Heroes don’t leave survivors!’
“Of course! I’d never leave any gnomes alive Thunder Fist!”
‘Who’re you talking to Sully?’
“Oh, hey buddy! I’m talking to my childhood icon. Thunder Fist. He’s right there!”
‘Are you sure? I’m not sensing anyone and I had to take over for your liver a while back. I think you could have died if I hadn’t. Honestly Sully, who drinks this much poison at once?’
“Nonsense! You don’t know anything about booze Buddy! I had a few drinks, that’s all. I’m perfectly healthy! I can stop anytime I want!”
‘You fought Slab and Dusty when they took the bottles. I don’t think your punches did anything, but you did attack them.’
“Pish-posh. They’re fineeee.”
No sooner had we finished our chat, than Dolce arrived at the edges of the upside-down sea.
I wasn’t so foolish as to enter, not with so many waiting below.
Instead, I ordered my own fog to expand. Past its current limits of 3 kilometres and the boost the new title gave.
Level Gained: +500 Maximum Psy. +12 Ability Points.
Ability Evolving: [Sense Thoughts] 10 has grown to [Sense Thoughts] 11
3, had become four with the title and now it became 5.
Level Gained: +500 Maximum Psy. +12 Ability Points.
Ability Evolving: [Sense Thoughts] 11 has grown to [Sense Thoughts] 12
Make that 6.
“Hellooo my slithery and slippery new friends!” I called out with enthusiasm. “Who among you would like to snack on some gnomes.”
A chorus of: ‘me! me! me! me! me!’ answered back at once.
All very happy to been invited to the picnic.
Three score sea serpents meandered into view and fell in with me.
All giggled on their way down and picked up my waiting troops with their own tendrils.
I felt no fear as we descended either.
The strong drink having taken away those hindering facets of myself.
Instead, we all came down with a resplendent flourish.
My outline radiating sparks of the purple and gold halo I emitted when my Psy overflowed. Half-illusion and half manifestation of power.
The people below me saw it clearly, unreal light shining down like a second sun. Scattering the darkness in its wake.
Behind the glare, they saw the jaws and the long needle-like fangs coming down towards them.
I couldn’t say who was the first to run.
Probably Borislav, but whatever.
The end result was the same.
Nearly a hundred little dots down below tried to scatter.
All their previous bravado and confidence drained away by a few scaly puppies coming down.
I might have been more annoyed if any had actually managed to outrun Dolce and his cousins, but thankfully the inherent difference in levels more than made up for my fellow human’s unfounded panic.
All were caught and all joined in on our crusade.
We, that is, myself and over 90 volunteers, surged like the coming tide then.
An army of righteous wrath descending on anything unfortunate enough to have survived my scouts.
The rest stayed behind, being too weak or too sickly to leave the safety of the Warehouse, even after my boost.
I think we had a break and that Monique was trying to talk me out of what she called…
“Complete and utter lunacy.”
Meh.
It didn’t work.
Dusty and Slab had my back, even though they’d previously made off with my remaining booze.
The details of the surrounding caverns and tunnels slipped past me. Water rushing through my fingers.
Oily colours washing off a canvas.
There might have been mushroom as big as trees or trees as big as mushrooms.
There might have been entire sections of wall plagued with bio-luminescent barnacles that shot out venomous stingers or they might tendrils attached to one great mass. I vaguely recall a conversation and an ultimatum.
Then it screamed.
Long and hard and without end.
I don’t think any of the other people with me realized it was even alive instead of a sound-based trap.
Its death was a mercy that brought me another few thousand Store Tokens and a ring of some kind.
I shrugged and put it in the Bag I’d gotten from Granny Golden.
My already beleaguered mind was inundated with new stimulations.
More creatures than ever before and more than a few coming in brand new flavours and dyes that splattered against the backdrop of my perceptions. They’d be painting a golden sun setting on a beach one second and a seedy alleyway laced with broken glass the next.
To my annoyance, the people I was so generously taking with me to train weren’t helping.
Far too many were complaining and bickering and doing other, smaller things to annoy me.
They whined and whimpered. Saying or thinking things like:
“I changed my mind!”
“Please let me down!”
“Please put us back!”
“I’ll do anything!”
‘I shouldn’t have raised my hand.’
‘I should have stayed put.’
‘Stupid! Stupid Stupid!’
‘I’m going to die here. This nutter will kill me and It’ll be my fault for going along.’
‘Please, if you’re listening, I’m sorry I didn’t pray more.’
“Please! I have a wife back home!”
“I have kids!”
“My wife is pregnant!”
Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.
By which I mean, my head prevailed.
I sent my memories to them.
Showing them the entirety of my thoughts, emotions and convictions. Holding nothing back.
The whining ceased for an instant, then redoubled as they tried to process my input.
We flew onwards for another couple of hours, a parade of wanton destruction that reduced all opposition to minions or meat.
There were people too, another dozen souls that we picked up in groups of two or three at a time. They were ragged and tired. Driven more by desperation than any cohesive survival strategy.
Alarmingly, every single one had lobbed projectiles at us before scurrying off. It took another speech to get them on board, after which they became as enraged and determined as those I’d already rescued.
I should have been happy about that. After all, I’d rescued another twelve people from almost certain death. However, it wasn’t the crushing victory I’d had in mind.
There were still more gnomes out there.
There had to be. I…we couldn’t afford to keep going around in circles, rushing down the larger tunnels like some fleshy freight train.
To make matters worse, my body was having a great deal of difficulty keeping up with my mind. The liquor in my veins was slowing me down now, instead of pushing me forward. Whatever signals I was still getting from my fellows was vanishing into the walls and the colours outside space. I couldn’t pin any specific one at any one time.
‘Focus.’ I repeated over and over again. ‘Focus on the chase. Focus on the victims. Focus on their needs and their growth. Focus Solomon.’
Level Gained: +500 Maximum Psy. +12 Ability Points.
Level Gained: +500 Maximum Psy. +12 Ability Points.
Ability Evolving: [Sense Thoughts] 12 has grown to [Sense Thoughts] 14
8 Kilometers now. Spreading in all directions. Zooming past crevices and vertical shafts with no more success than before.
Each order dragged me farther and farther from my corporeal form, so that I wasn’t weighed down by the sweet nectar’s more unfortunate side-effects.
Instead, I found myself swimming in lakes that were not my own.
Tracing my fingers over Dusty’s 22 years of life and Slab’s 21. Their love of music and knife throwing. Their mutual distaste for a person named Glossy. The way they raged impotently whenever she followed their father back from a hunt and received endless amounts of adoration.
I indulged in their happier memories, watching the hunters returning from their patrols with fresh kills draped over their shoulders. How their father had lifted then up on his arms as they giggled and wheezed. Their relentless training regiment that called for them to jump and run and trade blow after blow with rough stone swords and blunted bone axes. Dusty and Slab had both trained as hard if not harder than the rest. They’d been adored as the golden children of the clan and there wasn’t a single family that hadn’t lavished them with praise and affection.
Those very same people had looked on with suspicion when they reached their teenage years without any signs of awakening. Crust awoke into a warrior without issue, as did Gore and Finn and Glossy and all the other children that had been trying to catch up to the pair growing up.
Their gazes made Dusty and Slab feel small. Stained, in a way that couldn’t be washed out. It made their stomachs twist and their eyes turn downwards.
The shame became worse when they saw their friends going out to hunt under the supervision of their elders while they hung back with the lower caste children. The regulars that came from common stock. Dusty and Slab had both resolved to keep up their training. Even when in interfered with their new, menial duties. Even when it earned them scornful glares from the other menials and pitying gazes from the warriors and hunters.
I felt, rather than saw, how their own father had passed on one of his awakened weapons to Glossy. A two-handed battleaxe bigger than she was, that could part boulders as easily as scissors cut through hair.
I tasted their indignation when Glossy pushed them into one of the recently fertilized gardens they were tending to. How she sweetly whispered that they had finally found their place in the clan.
No one they told had believed them. Instead, they’d received chastisement for impeding her important training sessions.
Both of them wanted nothing less than to be useful. To be seen as people by their father, instead of wasted potential.
I swam lazily through a miasma of feelings to land on Borislav’s waters.
He was a man defined by fear, hunger and hate. His Thirty-one years on earth had been marred by these ideas, these all-consuming emotions. By the absolute grip they had on him.
They were all that kept him alive, after all.
Those without fear died when they failed to hide from the monsters. Standing still when the Soviets told them to. Not arming themselves when the government refuted the notion of monsters roaming the countryside. Not seeking refuge when they were assured that the monsters were all but beaten and that the worst was in the past. Not going to ground when told that help would arrive in time. Failing to prepare for looters and angry neighbours when the truth became self-evident.
Those who had never known hunger didn’t think to stow away their supplies until it was too late. They trusted that the bread lines would slow, they were always slow to a certain degree, and knew that a bare minimum would make it way down to them. When the looting started and the districts were ravaged from within, anyone with two braincells to rub together had long fled underground. Quite literally, in the case of his family.
Those lacking in hate gave up halfway through the dark years; when newly awakened Espers carved out their own kingdoms amidst the ruins of eastern Europe.
His two older brothers had not lacked for any of these traits, but they had died all the same. Andrei was skinned alive when he tried to rescue his wife from some warlord or other. He’d been forced to watch as his children were shackled to a pole and left out overnight beforehand, so his killer could be sure the message was received loud and clear by all those in attendance.
Alexi had stumbled when climbing a watchtower, falling to the hordes of jabbering maws waiting below. His killers had been big and round, almost cute in a way. With big, expressive eves and puffy tails covered with pink fur.
His sisters…
Borislav didn’t like to think about them. They were dead, or near enough to make no matter. Going back for them, trying to rescue them, would have meant his death, as well as theirs. He would not die like Andrei. That would make his passing all the worse.
It was his duty to live. To stay amongst the living so that some part of their memory may linger. If he died, their ghosts would die with him.
He was always tense, always watching closely, always ready to run. Running meant another day, another life. To stay was to join his family. To have to look them in the eyes and know their sacrifices had been for nothing. That there was nothing left of them and no one to remember who they’d been.
I drifted off for a few seconds. Coming back to myself and feeling the waves sweeping me backwards and forwards and back again.
This time, I reached Monique.
She was making breakfast today, since Kenny was out of town on another business trip. Jimmy and Ben were horsing around with Mr. Paws and Frankfurt, a pair of elderly rescue dogs from the local shelter. Mr. Paws tired easily due to his advanced age and Monique was dreading the day the vet informed them there was nothing more to be done.
She was also worried about the cracks in the pool, the new manager at her job, the wasp nest she’d found in the attic the night before and a thousand other little things.
She was so tired and irritated that she decided to call in sick to work so that she might take care of things around the house until Kenny got back. This decision freed up her children’s schedule as well as they no longer needed to rush for the bus.
Monique herself would drive them to school. After a small nap on the couch to clear her head.
She’d been woken early by her eldest, Jimmy, after an emergency broadcast came on all their phones.
Monique took one look at it. Froze in place, and bellowed like a rampaging elephant for her children’s attention. That night, her, her two sons, Mr. Paws, and Frankfurt slept in the fallout bunker beneath the lavish home. A relic of her very paranoid and very wealthy father-in-law. She surfaced the next day, wearing a thick and primitive anti-radiation suit. It was a humble assortment, little more than a hazmat suit covered in lead. Nevertheless, Monique stepped out in it, with a shovel in one hand and Frankfurt’s leash on the other. On her hips was the holster of a low-caliber handgun. The smallest weapon she could find amidst her husband’s family home.
She emerged from the bunker to find their home a burning ruin, leaking trails of blackened smoke that rose up into the clouds. The entire neighbourhood had suffered the same fate, flattened to the point where you couldn’t even tell if people had lived here days or eons ago.
A more dedicated search had her thanking her lucky stars. Against all odds, they had been the lucky ones. Out in the distance, craters could be seen strewn around the vicinity of the local air-force base. In those places, the heat and the resulting shockwave had ripped the earth open to create chasms that spewed molted rock. Miniature volcanoes springing up like weeds after being visited by an artificial sun.
Monique had taken this all in. Over the span of a dozen seconds at most. She whirled back to the shelter at once, determined to ration out the cans and stored water with a protracted stay in mind when Frankfurt started barking. She made to shush him, only to notice the target of his aggression. It was one of her neighbours, Mrs. Pellet, wearing the remains of a large blouse stained with ashes.
She was crawling towards her. An impressive feat for someone with no arms or legs. Or skin for that matter. Instead, she, no, it, wiggled her torso like a worm. Using whatever strength remained in the meat to bite and snap at the air.
Monique screamed and fired six shots, missing every single one. In her desperation, she’d let go of the leash. Frankfurt ran forward, savagely ripping into the monster. Green blood trailed down his fangs when he turned in Monique’s direction and she could swear that it was actively crawling over his fur and down his back, a half-living slug made up of viscera trying to envelop him.
Monique ran back down the bunker. Making sure to lock and bolt the door on her way down. It was another four months until they were forced to surface due to running out of water. Mr. Paws used the last vestiges of strength he’d had left to fight off the thing that Frankfurt had become. Monique and her boys had been forced to put him down themselves shortly thereafter.
Years later, Monique found herself struggling to breathe, struggling to sleep, struggling to keep anything down for long. She was tired of running. For herself, at least. She would have gladly given up months ago, if it weren’t for her children. Theirs was the light that woke her in the morning.
If they were gone, if anything had happened to them…
I landed on Charlie next.
His brain was whirlpool of violence. Almost literally, in fact.
His first memories were of him being kicked off the road by a whale of man. In one arm, he held a cane of polished wood with a steel handle at the end. In the other, he wielded an embraided handkerchief which he kept over his nose.
The man said something about wretches and gallows and kept walking with his escort. A beautiful young woman in a yellow gown followed meekly, with six burly men tagging along. They carried trunks between them, bringing them up the wide staircase that connected the front of the estate to the manor at the center.
None stopped to look at Charlie crying on the ground. Indeed, it was hard to say whether they noticed him at all.
That boy turned into a pre-pubescent teenager before long. An expert rat-catcher and a horrible dockworker. Not because he was lazy or stupid, but because he couldn’t fight off the older boys when they robbed him of his wages.
They stalked the alleys like vultures hovering above the surrounding farmlands. Eager to pounce on any shred of weakness for their own selfish gain.
All had found employment with Mr. Whitmer, threatening dockside shops and stalls with violence if they didn’t contribute to local entrepreneurs, as they tended to call themselves. Any that went too far and actually dared to extort someone of any means was swiftly hanged or had their right hands cut off and nailed to the bounty board in the square. These failed prospects would find themselves begging, if they were strong enough to compete for prime begging locations. Those that failed were either drafted into the menial army regiments for room and board or, um, recruited to work in the deepest, most dangerous sections of the mines.
Charlie saw it all. How the strong and stupid were crushed and spat out by the streets. How the strong and smart were hooked on all manner of powders and poultices early on to make them compliant and dependent. All to make a few more pennies for Mr. Whitmer and his lot.
Charlie learned to run and hide in those alleys. He learned that the guards were even more likely to take his pay than the older boys were and that asking for help earned him twice the beatings. Once from the actual guards and a follow-up from the older boys for having the nerve to get the guards involved.
Better of everyone, and himself, if he was never seen coming or going. It became almost like a game. Him climbing up chimneys and uneven masonry like a weasel while the older boys kicked empty bottles around filth and grime below. It did mean he earned the ire of the local seagulls, but that soon proved to be a different type of game. One that ended with roasted birds on the orphanage table more often than not.
It did get harder as time passed. His own body grew quickly over the following years, making him too heavy to climb over rooftops without the risk of them giving way from underneath him. While onlookers might not have batted an eye over a dirty child climbing walls, they certainly minded when a half-grown man did it. The seagulls and grown fearful of his new stature as well. Taking to the air long before he could deploy his makeshift net.
Fortunately, this all came with the benefits of a stout body. The older boys did try to intimidate him on occasion, but they had turned into clumsy fat drunkards and he was quick and nimble. More importantly, he had a big knife in his pockets at all times and a reputation for being merciless.
That notoriety kept him safe. Better yet, it kept all the younger kids back home safe as well. Charlie had made it plain that he would not take advantage of them the way he’d been taken advantage of. He helped tutor his adoptive siblings when he could, teaching them the best routes over rooftops and the best spots to goad seagulls into traps. He was determined to be more than where he’d come from. To be better than the rest.
Next, I saw Ryan playing in a field with Louise. The two couldn’t have been more than eight. Both were drenched in filth, mud clinging to their forms like fur on a bear. Neither seemed to care overmuch. Ryan pushed and Louise pushed back. Ryan fell backwards into another puddle but resolved to drag Louise down with him. The two were breathless and misty eyed. Both wishing that this moment never ended.
It did.
More abruptly than Louise could have imagined.
She was short, lacking the femininity and the curves that attracted other boys, with brown hair that always looked tangled and messy. Her face was plain, if not outright homely and the way she scowled and picked fights over insults, real or imagined, didn’t help matters.
Her family had been in decline for generations, ever since her great-grandfather had sold most of his lands in order to pay gambling debts. Her grandfather had continued this tradition by drinking himself to an early grave while beating the absolute snot out of all his children as well as his wife.
Her own father was solemn man. Quiet and not prone to anger or violence. Instead, he advocated for a simple life of simple means, taking steps to slowly accrue wealth from careful investments and savvy use of their remaining assets. Nowadays, they had a modest plot where they raised pigs, chickens and cattle, with a side-business breeding dogs for police departments around the state.
On the other hand, Jane was pretty. Very, very pretty. Having inherited the best features of both her parents. She was graceful and liked to sing. She had curves that would make the boys turn their heads and a soft mannerism that would enthrall them without effort. Better yet, her parents had brought a substantial fortune from South Korea and owned the company Ryan’s parents worked for.
Her parents were doting and permissive, wishing the closest thing to a normal childhood for their little angel. His parents were ambitious and determined to leave their own hardships far behind them.
Louise felt the push. Slowly, at first. An invitation that didn’t come. Plans that had been forgotten or cancelled altogether. Before she knew it, the boy she loved was nowhere to be found. He knew she cared for him and pushed anyway. Jane was beautiful and elegant and easily pleased with flattery and gentle words. He’d always been good at pleasing people with words.
I was ejected from those minds too, floating in the air and stumbling past brain after brain.
Helga and Clover were star crossed lovers. Her the lady of small bohemian city and him being little more than a circus act. She’d met with him once or twice, fueled by curiosity and later by genuine affection.
She’d been sentenced to be burned at the stake shortly thereafter, when she’d been unwise enough to confess her plant-controlling abilities to the local friar.
It was only through Mantis-man, Clover’s, heroism that they managed to flee, though not without leaving fifteen corpses in their wake. Her father had been on their heels ever since, determined to reclaim the family’s honor by any means necessary.
Kaito was the man with the huge beak of a nose. 20 years old and haggard from the 16-hour shifts at the munitions factory he worked at. He got up after 7 hours of sleep, ate breakfast at the cafeteria and then went to his post. His first break came after 6 hours and his second came after another 6 hours. All the while, a holographic fox danced near the roof, reminding the drones below to work hard for the glory of the eastern block.
He'd been foolish enough to co-sign a loan with a friend, thinking he’d get a share of the restaurant. His so-called friend disappeared and he was sentenced to wage-serfdom until such a time as the debt was fully paid. Counting interest, it should’ve only taken him a measly 93 years.
Prudence was a blonde, blue-eyes beauty from Florida. Having grown up in the Everglades refugee camp and later in the developing New Miami. At 23 years old, she could turn as many heads as she wanted simply by walking down the street, despite her foul mouth and inherent aggression. She usually let it out on the gym. Bringing weights up and down and up again while she fantasized about Thunder Fist and Turbine butchering their way through monsters.
She wanted that for herself. The power and the respect that came from being capable of overwhelming violence. The power to rip apart the monsters at her door. She’d consider guns and explosives, craving the notion of self mastery. Of being one of the few capable people around. She wanted to be her own master. To be admired. She wanted it more than anything in the world.
Olga had lived all her 21 years in ridiculous opulence. Her world had been an advanced utopia from the beginning and her family was among the top 1% among a populace that had begun to conquer planets outside the Sol system. She’s always dreamed of adventure, of climbing all the highest mountains of the world without the assistance of robots. She could’ve never foreseen her own kidnapping.
Simeon was 54, with a bald head and spots of grey hair poking from behind his ears. He had lived in Olga’s world as well. Choosing a far harsher life than that of his peers by working the land without the aid of robots.
Everyone else had called him weird for this choice.
Why work at all, instead of dedicating yourself to art and music and higher learning? Why slave away to grow food when machines grew it ten times faster with minimal impact to the environment?
Simeon persisted. Tilling his fields and driving his tractor around one of the few undeveloped fields of what used to be France. Happy, despite all the naysayers.
Esmeralda was 19 and short. With dark brown skin and a round, yet pretty face. She carried herself with confidence, her long black hair swaying with every step she took. Her big brown eyes were captivating to people and she had admirers everywhere she went.
Though they often left when exposed to her teasing. Whomever said words couldn’t hurt had never met her. She turned friends against each other and enemies into lovers with an ease that was disquieting to all who truly knew her. Her own grandmother had deigned to call her an evil child and warned that she’d face doom in she didn’t fix her ways.
As it happens, zombies and mutants don’t much care for words and Esmeralda outlived all her detractors by virtue of an athletic disposition, a go-getter attitude, and access to her dear daddy’s arsenal. Who said crime didn’t pay?
Colette was in her early thirties and already had five kids waiting for her back in Ryan’s plague-ridden world.
Agnes was in her early fifties and had lost all her boys to the zombies.
Old man Park was damn near eighty and had survived by virtue of his experiences in his nation’s intelligence services, using guerrilla tactics against the gnomes until they’d cornered him at a dead-end.
They, and the rest of my companions shared memories between ourselves. As I dove from mind to mind, I got a renewed sense of purpose. They knew who I was now and I knew who they were. Secrets were no longer a barrier and all were united by our common goals. Our sense of shared humanity. Our hatred for gnomes.
We were one. We were strong together.
They all knew what the future held. Everything I’d seen and everything I’d lived through. They knew how much each of them meant to me. They knew about what was coming. Anezka, still weak without her home world’s technology and Randall, so mighty he could scorch the very atoms that made up our disjointed beings.
They all saw what was coming. What they would bring. They saw my plans for them.
I would do to them, as I’d done to the doubters. I would show them who I was. Who they were. I was certain that would work. That it would bring them around.
If it didn’t….
Then I they knew what I was willing to do.
But not right away. Never right away. I would give them a chance to turn their lives around. Because I was a good person.
I was jolted awake then, spurred into action by a captured thought at the edges of my fog. The tunnel we now occupied was larger than most others, with clumps of gold sticking out from the walls much like the passage I’d travelled after running from Helga and Mantis-man.
Roughly 8 kilometres in front of us, was a bastion. A castle nestled above a river of glowing magma. Riders were patrolling the outskirts atop winged ants. Stonemasons were using telekinetic powers to raise clumps of lava into the air and add them to the exterior of the walls. Foot soldiers moved along carved bridges and high passes in nearby hills. Going to and fro in tight formations.
My smile could not have been any wider.
As luck would have it, Stuk was there.
Last of the three gnomish leaders out hunting for humans.
Better yet, there was more beer and liquor.
That, and lots of juicy gnomes.
We ended up rescuing a meager 20 or so people, bringing our total to 126 survivors if one included those still in the first safe zone.
Ryan, who had been avoiding me on account of the whole predestined treason thing, came to my side and suggested that we perform trials.
“Ryan. You are a genius.” I said ecstatically.
“I am?”
“Yes! It’s a way to provide closure to the victims. There are a lot of those. It will be fantastic for morale! That and we can show the new intakes what we’re all about.”
As luck would have it, the new guys were thrilled.
Crying and clinging to me and the rest of our band, thanking us for their deliverance.
The trials themselves went by quickly enough. We had no shortage of mind readers and the gnomes we caught had literally been eating the bodies of their victims when we fell upon them.
Monique and Ryan talked me down from my original suggestion, so we ended up settling on death by hanging. Helga used her admittedly impressive expertise with flora to make the nearby vines grow and twist themselves into nooses.
Afterwards, I gave the ring I got from Stuk to Dusty. Thanking her for having my back and telling her that she was very much prettier and braver than Glossy.
Everyone cheered.
I actually think they were happier now than they were after finding the Warehouse.
It was a lesson I took to heart. If people are sad, take them hunting. No one can resist slitting gnomes open.
We moved on quickly after that, intent on repeating the recent conquest.
We found another safe zone. One with were-rats instead of gnomes.
That was a bit of a disappointment, but it ended well nonetheless, as dozens of us parted ways to partake in food and drink. Real food and drink from the safe zone’s store. My treat, of course.
Kaito and Prudence were so thankful that they were crying.
“Come on now guys! No need to thank me!”
“My fingers!” Kaito replied. In a tone that wasn’t as jovial as I’d expected. “The book took my fingers!”
“I’m sure its nothing. See Prudence is already on it.”
I walked away. Leaving them to it.
I was in such a good mood that I even hugged Dolce. Cuddling with him for a few minutes and running my hand along his belly. He was so much bigger than me that I ended up sprinting from end to end while he hovered in place.
Meaning I managed to show my appreciation while also getting some cardio.
All while enjoying the best buzz I had ever known.
I loved my life!
I even loved those disquieting half-hisses half-slobbering gurgles he did when he was really happy.
‘I think I’ve treated you too harshly Dolce. No one who eats gnomes can be that bad. I love you.’
‘I love you too Sully! I’ll carry wherever you need to go! Whenever you need to get there!’
Ah yes. All was right and good in the maze.
Dusty and Slab did end up having a little bit of an argument with me later on because of how much I’d been drinking though. Strangely enough, I couldn’t quite make out their thoughts.
I giggled. Savouring the warmth in my chest. The way it permeated in my lungs and around my heart.
I would have collapsed into a loose heap twenty times over if it wasn’t for my usage of [Domination] on myself. But they didn’t need to know that. I still had work to do. I still needed to make peace with Randall and Anezka.
“Its fine.” I assured them. “I’m perfectly healthy. I got Buddy to take care of me. He can process the booze better than any liver. Isn’t that right Buddy?”
‘Uouoouugh.’
“Exactly. He’s got it covered.”
They looked at each other. And nodded.
Slab took the ring I’d given to his sister. It caused them to, vanish from the fog. I could see them, but I couldn’t feel their minds. Then Monique came from out of nowhere and opened a portal. No sooner had the aperture appeared, than Slab dove into it. Leaving me alone with his sister.
“Hey, we were still talki….”
Dusty rushed at me. Her long strides closing the distance in half a heartbeat. She reached out without a word, and kissed me.
Taking my lips into hers. She was soft. So soft and warm and beautiful.
That act, combined with the joy I was feeling, sent me over the edge. It had been so long, since someone had shown me such, intimate affection, that I’d forgotten how indescribably wonderful it felt.
I hugged her. Wrapping my arms around her slender form.
My eyes found hers once we separated. My mouth donning a satisfied grin.
“Ah, shoot. I think your brother’s gonna be upset.” I giggled.
“He won’t be.” Dusty assured me. Her voice gentle and sweet and alluring. It was a melody that drew me in. Sucking all my attention towards her full cherry-colored lips.
I snickered like an idiot. Feeling incredibly stupid for the way I was acting, yet so suffused with happiness that I couldn’t stop.
“Where did he even go?”
“Our friends went together. To take care of a small problem before it became a big problem. They didn’t want to bother you. They know how hard you’ve worked. They know you need a little break.”
She grabbed the sides of my head. My cheeks felt like two incandescent suns radiating endless amounts of heat. My heart was throbbing. Beating furiously within my chest, to the point where I feared it might burst out like an alien parasite.
“I am your break. I want you for your power, for your honor, for your dedication to humanity and to the common good. I want you because you will save my family and my world. I saw it with my own eyes. Lose yourself in me, Shepherd. Don’t worry about Slab. Don’t worry about the future. Worry about me.”
That, sounded so very tempting.
So much so that I chortled.
"Man, I'm so tired of this."
"Tired, of?"
"Of being helpless. Of being stupid. I know what this is. The ring hides Slab and the others. I’m literally the one who used [Insight] to make it better. It didn’t talk before I did my thing. So they’re up to something that they don’t want me to know. Randall’s way too strong. Even for you. But Anezka. She only becomes a problem when she gets her mitts on her Earth’s nano-tech. They saw the machines when I shared my memories. They know I can't override them. The robots are too advanced. Self-replicating, artificial beauties the size of a molecule and all that. They want to deal with Anezka now. Before she becomes a bigger issue. You're here to distract me."
I hiccupped.
Almost losing my balance, despite being propped up from above my own fishhooks.
"So that's why Coffin Sully wanted me to team up with you guys. He could deal with Randall, no problem. But Anezka, she got the jump on him. Turned him into the Sarcophagus. Had her mites eat him from the inside out. He needed someone to do the wet work.”
I spread my hands out. Swivelling on my heels.
“The others are too distracted. Too, damaged. They see me, hic, and hope things will work out. Not realizing that I still have limits. You, your brother, Charlie and Monique decided to take matters into your own hands. You think I'm weak. That I can't make the hard choices."
Dusty said nothing. Her face full of hurt, and her mind as open as a book.
I hiccupped again. Staggered backwards and drew another bottle from the ring. Taking a short sip before wiping my mouth with mine and Buddy's sleeve.
“You don’t realize, peace is a hard choice. See Mantis-man and Helga over there? They tried to mug me once. They wanted my pants.”
Dusty narrowed her eyes. “Is that so?”
“Hey! None of that now! We’re friends! I helped them and they know I did it for free. Because I (Gnome)ing wanted to. I’ve seen their futures. They won’t betray me.”
“And what did you see regarding Anezka?”
“I saw her torturing me. Torturing the other me. For a long time. But that hasn’t happened yet. There’s still a chance.”
“Is that so?” She arched an eyebrow.
“Very well. Show me.”
“Wha?”
“You’ve shared memories with me. I know what that ability is capable of. Show me one future where Anezka doesn’t try to enslave all of us and I’ll help you stop out teammates.”
I snorted.
“Like I need your help to stop them.”
Regardless, I did as she asked. Flushing torrents of Psy into the lake to summon visions of the future.
[Insight] Flared up. The many strands lighting up the darkness within me.
What I saw….
Sobered me up.
[Domination] strangling the joy and warmth from my veins in a fraction of an instant. Forcing me to focus. To face what was coming.
I saw many futures. Possibilities where I tried making peace. Where I showed everything to them. It never worked. Anezka's greed knew no bounds. The governor's greed knew no bounds. She was the only one from her Earth to survive. The only one to facilitate his rapacious plundering.
Meanwhile, Randall....
Was Randall.
Yet, my visions were not done. I saw more. Further. Much further.
"Ah. So that’s how it is.”
My eyes wandered upwards. Making me realize that I’d lost my footing at some point.
“What did you see?” Dusty asked, though she certainly knew some of it.
“She always tries to kill or capture me. Us. Nothing short of fully brainwashing her will make her stop. It is, a hilarious trolley problem. Not a life in exchange for 5, but a life in exchange for billions. I can't... I can't justify it. Ha ha. I'm allowing a murder to happen and my doing so will save entire galaxies from annihilation. Including Anezka's own, oddly enough. Haha.”
'It really was too (Gnome)ing funny. Is this what being a hero feels like? I'm saving lives, after all. I saw it. Why do I feel so (Gnome)ing dirty if I'm saving so many lives?'
Dusty’s posture lost some of the tension it had been holding. Her shoulders sagged as she let out a sigh.
However, my lake wasn’t done with me.
My sight grew more clouded. [Insight] firing in short consecutive bursts. I saw the end and the death. The Seeking Drake and the Cherub of Austin. The House that Hates and the Slasher of Veils. Granny Golden and the Orphan Maker. The Poison Swamp and the Burning Butcher.
Dusty was only half right. She couldn’t imagine the repercussions of these choices. Couldn’t fathom how much bigger our roles were. I still couldn’t and I’d just seen it.
With far more clarity than [Precognition] had ever had. There was no room for interpretation or argument.
I saw and I knew that a choice had to be made. One that couldn’t be put off.
Doing nothing would lead to the future being unchanged. To the same consequences.
Killing all those gnomes and were-rats hadn’t meant anything. This was the one shot we had at changing the future.
I sucked in a breath.
Before marshalling my resolve.
"You were right." I conceded. "I was weak and stupid. It has to be this way. I have to be the one to step up. There isn't anyone else."
"Shepherd?"
"Sully." I corrected. "You saved my life. More than once and you tried to fix my mistakes. You should call me Sully."
I grasped her hands tightly.
"Come on. Our teammates have their task, and we have ours. The entire Earth is at stake.”
Her eyes widened.
“Which one?”
I hesitated, wondering if she’d be capable of comprehending the scale of the events I’d witnessed. Before throwing caution to the wind and opening my new memories to her.
“All of them.”
______________________________________________________________________________
My mood was thoroughly soured by the time we found them.
All light died as we approached. Fires sputtering out into frail embers while telekinetic blasts shrivelled and died.
"Pathetic." I said, as the hostile tide of Psy imploded in the face of my [Suppression].
"Is this all you have, Randall? Is this all your conviction is worth?"
"Shut the (Gnome) up! You (Gnome)ing monster! You'll never take my mind!"
Dusty passed him by. Striking the soldier in the stomach and later in the chest. The poor man's ribs cracked in such a loud manner that the echoes muffled Pate and Walder's screams. Not that they lasted too long anyway.
In contrast, my own corner was rather boring. I walked forward and Randall retreated.
"I wish I could make this easier on you, Randall. I really do. But I still need you to live. You've incurred debts with your wanton slaughter. You have a responsibility to your world. To humanity as a whole. I'm here to collect."
"Stay back!" Randall threw out his hands. Willing forth a flaming fulmination that would surge outwards and cleanse the Labyrinth of all he saw as impure.
But I was still using [Suppression].
Nothing happened.
"This is not enough Randall. I have seen the future. I have seen your face on it. You are a third of the angel. Your sacrifice will fuel its apotheosis. I need you to be strong, Randall. Stronger than you were. Than what you currently believe to be your limits."
Randall stopped attacking. The fool had actually overused his abilities to the point where he was almost out of Psy. He was bawling, by the time I reached him.
My hands caressed the sides of his face. Almost, comforting, in the way they held him.
"You are like me, Randall. A Savant. A master of your Type and your Type alone. I need you to have Titles, Randall. I need you to push yourself to the very limits of your Type. I need you to torture your body until your mind learns to be humble. That is what is needed for the power. The power to defeat the old masters. The greedy species looking to cull the newcomers to the wider multiverse."
He cried harder.
"Only then will you be able to contribute towards the plan. Only then will you become the third head of the angel. Only then will I consume you. You will push, Randall. You will atone for your sins. You will be a hero. I promise you that much."
The bawling only intensified. Through it all, he never stopped to consider his part in all this. What his countless victims had felt as they seared and roasted beneath him. The absence of guilt made him come across as, childlike. Incapable.
That too, would have to change.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry it had to be this way."
My fingers trailed the length of his cheeks. All the way down to his throat.
"Suffer me now."
