“How?”
Glaistig Uaine pursed her lips. “I told you twice and alluded to it a third time. I do like threes as numbers go. There’s a significance in threes. Triads, triumvirates…”
He thought back. “Open my eyes.”
“Yes. I was starting to worry you’d injured your head in the fighting. I would hurry. The next demonstration will occur soon.”
Open my eyes.
His powers were defensive and offensive ones. Possibilities, still growing to full strength.
Scion was knocking down the barrier. To relinquish those defenses in the face of Scion’s imminent attack…
He did it, cast them all aside.
A leap of faith was nothing if he didn’t take it with nothing held back.
He felt powers stirring, manifesting. Three powers lost, he could only hope that one of the three new powers would be sufficient.
He prayed.
God, let me see. The agent never listens, but please, for all that is right and just in the world, let it give me the ability to see.
He felt the powers begin to take hold.
Something affecting his body. He cast it aside.
The barrier around them flickered. For an instant, the water and the sky around them were blue.
Another power, something offensive, in his fingertips. He banished it.
Flight, the ability to run. No.
Six powers lost and gained.
He’d dug deep while fighting Endbringers, while fighting Echidna, the Blasphemies, and other great threats, but it had been for something offensive. Something safe in its own way.
To dig so deep for something mental, it was scary.
Something he’d explored, but not like this.
He took a deep breath, murmured an indistinct prayer, and tried to empty his mind of all of the other needs and wishes and fears.
With the seventh power, he felt a sensory change.
He could see the passengers light up, taking form. Glimmers of images, shadows, scenes both Earthly and alien.
Glaistig Uaine was a mosaic, a stained glass window of three interlocking scenes, flowing into and through one another. Three spirits.
He could see how she reached out to them, how they flowed into and through her.
This was her.
What was he? What was his dream?
“Now,” she said, as if from very far away.
Nearby, a cape who had been wounded in the rig’s collapse died. He could see the images start to fade, to degrade, consumed from the edges like darkness might creep in around one’s peripheral vision as they lost consciousness.
He saw Glaistig Uaine claim them, banishing her creations and leaving only the framework around the images.
The framework took in the other cape, and it bloomed with a new life.
He felt his own power stir.
It emulated, copied. Grasping tendrils, reaching for Glaistig Uaine.
He saw her expression change, repressed anger.
No.
The living.
There weren’t many. Four that had been left behind, for whatever reason.
He used hydrokinesis to bring them closer.
The tendrils connected to the images surrounding them, abstract ideas, as though the agents had no identity or concept of their own beyond the memories they stored.
He felt his power grow, hurried to allow new powers to fall into place so he could fill them with reserves, tap them for energy. Tendrils connecting agents here and elsewhere.
They’d lose their abilities, be rendered weaker. They were dying anyways.
New powers fell quickly into place. They reached a greater capacity in less time.
Still standing at the edge of the ruined platform, Eidolon’s took in a deep breath for what felt like the first time in a decade. A weight had fallen from his shoulders.
Two powers, a third for this extra perception, the ability to tap others for energy.
He tapped into an erasure power he hadn’t had since he had fought Behemoth the first time. Destroying matter. No defense to penetrate, nothing to attack or avoid. Merely a vast area cut away.
Scion moved, but the affected area was as broad as a tennis court. The golden man lost a hand.
Thunder crashed as air rushed in to fill a space where even the oxygen molecules had been cut away.
Something to keep him still.
Another power was needed.
The power was a familiar one. One he’d used to curtail Leviathan’s movements in the Kyushu fight. He reached into another Earth and pulled the cliff faces into this world.
Scion blasted the cliff faces, but his golden light only affected the cliff on this earth. The moment he stopped, more emerged.
He stopped to strike again, this time obliterating the cliff faces on this Earth and the one in the other reality.
Eidolon struck out with the erasure power while Scion was still.
Thunder clapped.
Scion was gone.
No. Not gone. He had slipped into another Earth, avoiding the affected area as easily as someone might avoid a thrown stone by stepping to the right.
Glaistig Uaine approached Eidolon. She granted him the ability to fly.
He banished one power, felt another come back to him. He fed off two more of the injured capes.
He used the new power to shove himself and Glaistig Uaine into the next reality. He fixed his eyes on Scion, then lashed out, shoving part of the golden man into one reality. Scion reeled, then retaliated.
Glaistig Uaine created an obstruction, the tornado-mass of swirling blades and iron that emerged fast enough to absorb the beam’s impact.
Eidolon slashed with another reality push, and Scion disappeared.
Running.
Nearly as strong as I was in the beginning.
He nearly felt like himself.
■
May 1986, twenty-seven years ago
A strange place for this discussion.
The woman looked supremely at ease as she took a seat opposite David. The teenage girl who accompanied her was just as confident. Here and there in the little cafe, people gave them dirty looks.
The woman was black, dressed all in white, the girl wore a private school uniform and held a notebook and fountain pen.
They were tidy, prim. David felt underdressed, small.
“I admit to being a little confused,” David said.
“Understandable. You can call me Doctor.”
“No last name?”
“No need.”
He frowned.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I’m kind of bothered by the lack of a last name,” he said, “If you’ll pardon my saying so.”
“Pardon granted,” the Doctor said, smiling slightly. “Very polite.”
David frowned a little at that. “Somehow, I get the feeling you know everything about me, and I don’t know anything about you.”
“At this stage, very likely. But I’d still like to talk as if I didn’t know all of the details. You applied to the army, and you were turned down.”
David chewed his lip, looking across the cafe. It wasn’t a big town. How many of his father’s friends or acquaintances were here, possibly listening in?
“You aren’t surprised, but… you were still clearly disappointed, crushed.”
“Don’t,” he said. He stared down at the table, his lips pressed into a firm line.
“They aren’t listening, not really. They’re busier looking at a black woman in a town where black women are rare,” the Doctor said.
“Sorry,” David said, suddenly feeling embarrassed.
“Your town isn’t under your control. What is under your control is what happened last week.”
David clenched his jaw. Lines stood out on his throat as he looked out the window.
“You tried to take your life. The army, it was something you wanted?”
“I just- I know I’m not in any condition t
o fight, to do drills or any of that. But there’s other stuff I can do. Desk jobs.”
She nodded. “I can offer you better than a desk job.”
“Part of me thinks you stole a look at my records,” he said. “And now you’re here to make fun of me.”
“I don’t intend to make jokes at your expense, David. What does the other part of you think, if not that I’m an unscrupulous medical doctor with a bad sense of humor?”
“That if you told me your name, it’d be something sinister. Fire and brimstone. This sounds an awful lot like a deal with the devil.”
“I suppose it does. I’m only mortal, I confess.”
David frowned.
“I can’t make promises, David. Infernal, divine or otherwise. I can’t tell you that you’d be joining the army. Just the opposite. It would raise a number of questions.”
He glanced out the window again. He felt so ashamed of himself he couldn’t meet her eyes. “The army wasn’t the thing.”
“No?”
“I wanted to go do something of my own will. Take charge, take action. Stop living a life where everything is decided for me.”
“By joining the army?” the Doctor raised an eyebrow.
He laughed a little. “I know. Stupid.”
“You wanted independence. I can’t promise it. In fact, if this deal with the devil goes through, it might be something I demand from you. Your assistance, your aid. I need a soldier.”
He took his time thinking about it.
“I’ve thought it over, I get that there would be obligations. Yes. Please. I’ll do it.”
“I did outline the risks? The chances are slim at best.”
“Yes. Well, I obviously don’t put much stake in my own life, do I?”
“Apparently not. Good, come,” she said. “We’ll do this now.”
He nodded.
His hands were stiff to move as he brought them to his sides and unlocked the wheelchair’s wheels. The scars on his wrists were only part of it. The nerve damage from the seizures he’d had several times a day since birth were the rest.
He avoided the eyes of the people around him as the Doctor took hold of the wheelchair’s handles, guiding him to his destination.
■
June 24th, 2013, now
He was catching up. Scion continued to run.
A world without air. He held his breath.
A world of magma and smoke. Glaistig Uaine provided the protective shield.
More and more remote Earths, less habitable, less familiar. Earth Bet was a long, long way behind them.
A glimpse here, of Scion with his back turned. A glimpse of Scion, hand raised to attack.
Eidolon counterattacked with a distortion in space, while Glaistig Uaine provided a defense, moving them a distance away.
“Almost,” he said.
“Almost,” she said.
He remembered Weavers warning. He couldn’t trust this girl.
But he had to.
Every step of the way, his life had been decided for him. He’d been the disabled kid, carted everywhere by his mother and father, barely able to wipe his own ass. Careers denied him. Superheroics chosen for him. Then predestined events, the dissolution of his career in the triumvirate, the looming end of the world.
This was the closest he’d ever felt to being free, but still, there were obligations. He had a mission, he knew what to do.
Another attack. Glaistig Uaine coordinated with him on this one. Another attack, rending Scion. An attack that would have killed an ordinary man.
He could sense a degree of distress. Of concern. Not as dramatic as the disgust he’d felt from Scion before, but noticeable.
If Glaistig Uaine was going to betray him, it would be now.
“Are you going to stab me in the back, Faerie Queen?”
“Every time-” Glaistig Uaine spoke, stopping as they stepped into a lush Earth, “he uses his power, it costs him time.”
“Time.”
“He experiments, he plays, but he doesn’t yet abandon hope. I don’t abandon hope. The cycle could yet complete, by luck alone. He needs to find his reflection in the mirror. He lost his, like Peter lost his shadow, but another could appear.”
“This doesn’t answer my question.”
“You are so blind, High Priest. Deaf. He will not let himself run out of time. If he runs out, then he will stop playing, stop experimenting, and simply wait, bide his time in the hopes that another will come to act as his reflection.”
“That’s your goal?”
“It is.”
I believe you.
He redoubled his efforts, no longer worried about defending against a possible attack from just to his right. They passed from world to world as quickly as he could make portals between them. They drew closer… closer still.
And came face to face with Scion, mere inches in front of them.
He’d stopped, turned around.
Glaistig Uaine distanced herself from Eidolon, until she was to Scion’s left. Her body was tense, ready for an attack. Eidolon raised his hand, ready to attack.
Had Scion decided on a tactic that would cost him less time than he was losing by taking Eidolon’s repeated attacks?
He had.
Scion spoke for the second time.
Four words, barely audible.
It took time to sink in.
Eidolon let his hand drop to his side.
He turned the sounds around in his head, trying to convince himself of a different configuration, convince himself he had heard wrong.
But he hadn’t. It dawned on Eidolon. He has Contessa’s power.
How many years did it cost Scion to use it?
Not enough, he was convinced. Scion had defeated him.
Scion raised a hand, and Eidolon didn’t move. Glaistig Uaine was fleeing.
Scion fired the lethal blast.
27.y (Interlude, Addendum)
“ You needed worthy opponents.“
Arc 28: Cockroaches
28.01
“…Man, oh man, did you ever fuck the dog, here.”
Blaming me?
I’d failed. I’d taken on the world ending threat and come up short. Why had I even expected to be able to do anything? Arrogant.
But someone else responded to the accusation. “We did no such thing, Tattletale. Working with the knowledge we had, we put our best foot forward, as did the others. The fault does not lie with us.”
It was the Doctor, uncharacteristically irritated.
Well, Tattletale was good at getting a rise out of people.
“Do I need to repeat myself, Doctor? You wanted to take charge, you proposed this scenario? Great. Except you didn’t put your best foot forward. It fell apart as a result, and now we’re in a worse place than ever. The dog is fucked. Thoroughly. All available holes.”
“You don’t need to repeat yourself,” the Doctor said. “Please. Your meaning is clear.”
“Can you stop talking about fucking the dogs, now?” another young woman said. Rachel, I suspected.
“Let’s be honest, Doctor. This was a critical moment, maybe the most critical, and you held back your best cards. You could have evacuated most of the people there, and you didn’t.”
“If we had tried and failed, we might have lost the ability to easily move people between worlds. Do us both a favor, Tattletale, and stop pretending you’re a brilliant individual. You have access to a lot of information, but that doesn’t equate intelligence. An intelligent individual would recognize that they don’t have all of the facts.”
Oh hell.
I sat up, ready to intervene, and I felt something off. Enough that I gave up on stepping between them. I opened my eyes, but nobody was in my line of sight. My hand and lower body were intact.
“We’re sinking down to base insults? Trust me, I’m way better than you at that, Dr. Mengele. I get that you’re upset over losing Eidolon, but let’s not cross a line and become enemies. We can’t affor
d to add more conflict to the pile.”
Losing Eidolon?
Oh hell.
“I was merely stating the facts: namely that you don’t have all of the facts.” The Doctor sighed audibly. “I’d hoped you had something of import to share when you called me in.”
My body was intact, but it didn’t feel right. I experimented, tapping the thumb of my ‘new’ hand against the individual fingertips, then repeated the process, mimicking the movements with my other hand.
“You’ve already shown you have one group of soldiers you’ve been holding in reserve. I know you’ve got more. Weapons, soldiers, tools, tricks. You asked some of the best and brightest of humanity to go fight, as phase A in a series of plans you have in mind. You barely care. So you move on to plan B. That didn’t fucking work. So are you going to throw away more lives, to maybe stop Scion, now? On to plan C?”
I clenched my hands, then stretched my entire body. The sensations matched but it still felt out of sync in a way I couldn’t place.
The Doctor responded, her tone overly patient, “If we’d gone all out, an upset of some sort might have spoiled all plans at once. Then where would we stand?”
“If we’d gone all out from the outset, we might have stopped him.”
“Then answer this, Tattletale, are you telling me you didn’t have any idea about our plan B, plan C and all of the other contingencies, or are you telling me you knew, but you said nothing?”
There was a pause, Tattletale declining to respond.
I glanced around the room. It was dark, and there were curtains at the far end, drawn shut. There were four beds, but two of the four were empty.
A girl with banana yellow hair and feathers sticking out of her scalp sat on the bed that was to my left and across from me. She was sitting on the bed, over top of the covers, with only a folded blanket bunched around her feet. She wore a sky blue shirt, bright orange shorts and lime green eye shadow. Her body language wasn’t a hundredth as vibrant as her clothing.
She glanced at me, and I looked away, not wanting to look like I was staring.
I opened my mouth to speak to the yellow-haired girl, but Tattletale started speaking, and I shut my mouth to listen. I could tell she was in the next room, by the volume and direction of her voice. “…I had an idea, but I’d expected you to play your cards if worst came to worst.”
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