《BadLifeguard [A Superhero Story]》 Clobber 1.01: Im a superhero! A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Clobber 1.02: I went to the pub! 9:00 PM I wish there was more to tell about the city of Tralee. When you look us up on google maps all you get is some stuff about a festival where we raise a goat twenty metres into the sky, and that we have ''cultural heritage sites''. Everywhere has cultural heritage sites. Every building is a place where someone has lived their day-to-day life. What makes these buildings in particular any different? We aren''t much of a city, compared to Dublin, let alone New York (never been, but I''ve seen movies, that place is huge). For ol'' Shamrock, and his dubious attempts at heroism, not a good place to set up. Tons of thin streets and short buildings for a guy who primarily travels on roofs. Trying to find spidy looking characters becomes a lot harder when you''re also trying to keep balance on slanted, slippery tiles. Crime rate is very meh, which isn''t too good. Well, it is good. But not good for me, because, you know- ''Shepherd without a sheep is just a crook''. Anybody heard that one before? Doesn''t sound like it''s used overseas. Maybe I''ll move to Dublin when I finish high school. We''ll see how the current situation pans out. The Quarter is a Pub pretty popular with teens in the surrounding area. It''s a place where a fresh faced 13-year-old can get a decent lager. So I''ve heard. Because so many kids go here it''s become a good place for druggies to get younger people into their shit- people who hang around that place after the age of 19 are real shady characters, not just the drug stuff, rarer criminal activities. You get knife attacks now and again, or loan sharks filling up the place. Think there was something about paramilitaries awhile back. At least I haven''t seen a single bank heist, likely due to the fact that gun laws are far less loose here than in the land of the free. If I''m going to do this, I''d rather keep it simple, fighting in closed quarters with a lot of people around complicates things. The Quarter just so happened to be on one of my favourite streets to go down. Tall-ish buildings, smooth roofs, and a lot of druggies. Now I don''t want to point any fingers, but let''s just say I haven''t known many other bars named after fractionary units that just so happen to be on the same street as so many public urinations and attempted stabbings. Oh, I won''t jump to any conclusions. Well, just a little jumping. I peered over the edge of the sports shop which acted as a wall for the narrow alley leading to a building illuminated by a green spotlight. There was a bit of a queue beneath the corny banner, my inner art student rolling over in his grave. Not only did the cornyness make me cringe, it also killed me that whatever the banner was advertising was clearly successful. The colours clashed, the two different fonts didn''t complement each other, and the fact that the text was clearly intended to be read on a bigger banner than the one in this little hole- it urked me. At this point in time, I didn''t know how much abuse I could take physicaly, so I stepped back from the edge and ran at the other wall of the small street. Not so much jumping off the edge, more like a basilisk lizard going over a waterfall. My arms and legs flailed a little to keep myself upright. As I slammed into the wall opposite, no sooner did I kick myself from it back to the other wall and skid down the surface. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. It wasn''t that big a drop, maybe 25 feet. But I thought it might look cool to any of the people in line or serve to intimidate the bouncer. Looking over I saw a few bored looks from a few heavily tanned chicks, and shady looking cocks. Bouncer was busy letting a few tween girls in when I did the jump. Can''t let''em break my stride though, right? Green cape lulling behind me, I walk up to the bouncer, skipping the queue. He looked about 30, shaved head, both of his ears were cauliflowered and his nose a little off centre. A little short for his line of work, but so was I. He was definitely broader than me though, had a muscley-fatty sorta build. "Leprechaun day isn''t till Monday, mate. If you''re staff, go in through the backrooms. If not, back of the line please." His Belfast accent surprised me for some reason, I don''t talk to many people from way up there anymore, the unexpected ''please'' at the end might have helped my reaction. I smiled wide and filled my chest with air, "Or, how about we skip the foreplay and get straight to the part where you''re lyin'' fucked up on the ground, tweeddle dumb. I''m comin'' in to see whoever''s got you on payroll; to check out this crappy tourist trap." I pointed up to the clovers, pots of gold, and leprechauns on the sign above. He shook his head and folded his meaty arms, "Who the fuck, d''you think you are? Get the fuck, before I wipe you, ya wee shit stain." I could see why he was picked for this job, despite his stature, his glare could make me feel smaller. This was how he treats honest patrons to his establishment? I don''t know how this buisness is still going. I squatted down in front of the man standing before me, reached forward, and grabbed him by his ankles. I stood up as quickly as I had squatted, arms still outstretched. He was still standing upright. Only, now he was five feet off the ground. He wailed and flailed his arms, getting caught in the banner above. "Oh hey! I''ve heard of this! Emma Stone has the same phobia! Did''ya break a bone in gymnastics class once?" I could see him grip to the banner, he became confident enough now to try and kick his feet, not that he could, with my patented super grip-strength. He started cussing and spouting what I assume were regional phrases from back home. Eventually he tired his legs out. Maybe I squeezed too hard? Regardless, I let my arms flap to my side and walked around the bauble by the door. As I walked into the tunnel connecting the dance floor of the Quarter to the outside world, the people who had been waiting in line, were no longer waiting. I never looked back but I heard them bump past the bouncer. Just as I got to the second door I faintly heard the ripping of fabric, followed by a definite scream. I''ll have to buy him a drink later. Make up for that. 9:15 PM It''s pretty hard to see around a large crowded room, only illuminated by bright neon lights, And the ear drum busting remixes of pop 90''s music, with the occasional rap track spliced between. I eventually made my way through the crowd of people to the main bar. If I was twenty years older, I would have probably thought to myself ''what are these girls dressed like that for? It''s early January!'' Well, I was wearing thin green fabric for no good reason, other than the fact that it made me think I was hot shit. I was freezing my nips in there, but professional crime fighter Shamrock was more focused on whether or not an accidental boner would be visible in the baggy fabric of his bottom half. (Not that I got a boner, I didn''t, just thought I might.) I can openly say that I get shaky around girls, especially half naked ones. You already know I can''t talk-speak good-well to Mullet, what makes you think I''d be better off talking to the barmaid? Shamrock helps. A little. Not much. "Hey tall, dark and tattooed, I''m lookin'' for clovers magic leprechaun juice!" I shouted over the music at her, realising I was being louder than needed when she replied, "Clovers dew is made from four leaf clovers, and is currently only being sold to regulars and helpers in the back, Seeing as I can''t even see your face to recognise it, short, green, and stupid, you aren''t getting shit." I tried not to falter, deciding to roll for intimidation, "Your bouncer''s lying in blood, sweat and tears down the hall there. Even if you don''t believe I fucked him up, pretty sure you can''t argue someone built like me can give you a nose like his. I don''t wanna do that. So. Send me out back. We both know they''re more than willing to put me in my place- or maybe six feet below it." She met the fabric eyes of my hood; I couldn''t quite make out the expression on her face. "Sure." She motioned with her head for me to come behind the counter, so I crouch-jumped over it. Exasperated she shook her head. She couldn''t be much older than me, though the sleeves of tattoos covering her arms and neck made her look more mature. Most people who hang out in places like this drop out of school when they get the chance. Some of them went into drug dealing full time, I''d known one or two that had, but most got normal jobs, getting paid minimum wage for handy work like being an electrician. They just happened to get cooked on their off-hours. As a hobby. I guess this woman walked an interstice between the two, not directly involved in the shipping or production, but keeping as close as possible to it. Tat, what I''ll nickname this woman till I learn her name, led me around the back of the bar and down a well-lit dingy hall, which made me wonder why they''d bothered getting a light so bright, for a room stained with vomit? We passed the stench of the employees'' toilets; coming to a steel door. Tat jangled a chain of keys in an attempt to find the one to match the heavy border. She spoke to me as she did so. "You could go back to the bar, get a girl to grind, lose the get up, stop with the flips. Maybe you''ll get in a fight. You''ll probably win," She found the key, "but in here that''s a definite maybe. You''re going somewhere beyond what most people should see, kid, and I''ll only be thankful for the disappearance of the ''junkie monkey''-" I interrupted, "It''s Shamrock, figure i should iron that out early in my career-" "Fuck up, twat." She kindly replied, annoyance clear in her voice, "You''re already in that room, the second world, those who know." The door clicked. "Make it out of there alive, and she''ll fuck you over, one way or another." Clobber 1.03: I met a girl! 10:00 PM Mullet staired wide eyed from his booth, occasionally taking a drag from his bong. I slammed the three remaining guys trying to dog pile me into a nearby table, all with one arm. I don''t know if he recognised me. Apart from the mask covering half my face, I naturally stood taller, smiled a lot more, and could fight rooms and rooms of druggies, armed with whatever they thought would hurt me. Glass bottles, chairs, there was even a girl who pulled a shoe on me. Might have reacted a little strongly to that one, hope her arm''s ok. There were some customers who didn''t interfere with the fights, like Mullet, or those who were too out of it to care. I made a stride over to my classmate; he panicked a little as he took a final drag from his bong. I stretched out a single worn glove to him. He looked at it, then up at me, uneasily jerking the bong into my hand. Only for me to crash it into the ceiling with an over shoulder throw. I heard him groan, and say, "Aaron''s gonna kill me!" I didn''t leave anybody bloody, or unconscious; sore and defeated is more my style. Some of them were still antagonising me with curses, but I don''t fall for stuff like that, not when I could blow their heads up with a back hand. Probably. Not going to risk it. I walked towards a door I hadn''t yet tried, the last I knew of. I found where they kept their drug stock and that green stuff, at this point I was really wondering what it was. Was it really just¡­ beer? Irish tourist trap, gimmicky booze? Find the boss, find what''s up. I reached out for the door- "Wu-wait¡­" one of the guy''s stumbled at me, grabbed my cape. "I don''t care¡­ if ''ou bust my fooken nose¡­ don''t open that¡­" I jiggled the handle. Locked. "Take¡­ take it all¡­ the blow¡­ green¡­ you open that, she¡­" He trailed off, but he got upright. "I won''t lose." I told him sternly. "I''m going to be a hero, if nobody else will. Get a job, mate. A straight job. I''ll help you find one, if you want." His grip slipped, and he let out a "Fuckin¡­ Bitch¡­", before slinking away. I knew the type of response I''d get, still, disappointing. I looked up from the handle at the thick glossy red door. Seeing a warped reflection of myself in it. The first world: Those who do not know. The second world: Those who know The third world: Those who ¡­ Those who¡­ I broke off the handle. Little harder than expected. This part of the building, second floor, maybe third, was the opposite end of the building from where I entered. There might have been another room after this one. Fuck, stop analysing. Open the door, no more shit. Let''s get this bitch. I opened the door slowly, shouldn''t have done that, in retrospect. If anyone was going to have a gun it would be ''her''. My heart skipped a beat. I raised my foot- And tripped. Fell flat through the door, on my face. First thing I thought was, ''I''ve been shot''. There was a stillness in the air, like when a character gets blasted in a movie, they don''t feel it till they look down. Then she laughed, a giddy roar. For a moment, I felt... comfort from it, comparing it to the insults slung at me earlier. I can see why my primate brain thought this was a good thing. It sounded kind. That''s how i heard it at least. "By fuck! The mythical ''junkie monkey''?! Well, if you''re on your knees outta the gate, I guess I can make you my bitch." I looked up, noticing now a stiffness and tiredness in my joints. The first thing that struck me about her was how different she seemed to other denizens of the Quarter. She wore a short green cocktail dress, which I could tell from a glance, was expensive. She sat cross legged, her arms dangling over the back of the throne she was sitting on. She had a thin smile plastered across her face, wider than I could manage in my position. "Don''t bother getting up." she was nearly singing, "I''ll just put you back down, again." Again? It was weird that I had tripped. You know Michal Jackson? Smooth criminal music video? My feet are so strong they can support my body from a ten-degree angle off the floor. I should have caught myself. "Close it, cum stains." I felt the door bump into my leg as somebody pulled it back. "Feckers. You didn''t snort all the coke, ''junk monkey''?" This time I answered, "Course not. I''m Shamrock, and I''m gonna kick your ass." She cringed a little before saying, "You''ve been giving Taytay trouble?" I wanted to taunt her. "I''ve taken down worse than you!" I lied, felt really stupid in front of the boss fight too, trying to say something cool and flopping it like a fish. Could I have picked a more over used line? "Ok, let''s just skip to the shooting." As she stretched behind the chair, I noticed how flawless her skin was, it was in stark contrast to the sickly-looking workers, she was a pretty girl. At this point it clicked that she was also around my age. I know I''ve said there''s a lot of kids involved in this, but in charge? Unless she wasn''t in charge. "Wait, you are the boss, ri-?" Something shook me bad. From my face down my spine. I felt a numb spinning. When I was a lot younger, I picked a fight with a guy double my age, (I was seven or so). He kicked my shit in, and when I was down, he stomped my head into the concrete. My everything tremored. After a while I could make out some laughs from- everywhere really, but I knew I hadn''t lost consciousness so it was probably from behind or in front of me. I raised my head, to the chair lady, and shouted, "It''s gonna take a lot more than that!" Another pretty basic line, but it gets the message across. I barely made out what she had said, "Shit. He is tough." I let out a wheezed ''heh'' to that. Now that I know that my super strength comes with super endurance, I don''t have to freak out at every knife, or even guns. Maybe that''s only half true. I might actually be dying, I realised. But then if my body is strong enough to survive the backlash of my strength, then it should be strong enough to resist a rifle blast, let alone survive it. Slim chance, probably next to none this early on, not even a chance, but maybe¡­ Maybe she''s- 10:10 PM-ish This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. A succession of slaps brought me back to the current situation. I was out of it for a long while, only now starting to come to. The Lady leaning in front of me seemed sort of pissed. I smiled wide at that. "Okay I''m 100% now! Say what you got to say!" She wanted me alive a little longer for some reason. I figured this out because in the time I was lost in delirium she had moved me to her chair, and wrapped rope around me. That wasn''t going to do much. I shifted my face about to feel if either layer of my masks were off, they weren''t, but I felt a numb sort of pain on the right side of my head. "Why the fuck didn''t anyone tell me about this?? If I''d known your dumbass was here, I''d have parked in Limerick. What''s up with you anyway, cunt, robbing my men?? Do you know who I work for?? Don''t you fuck with me!" She seemed only annoyed by the end of that ramble. I introduced myself. "Heya! My name is Shamrock! I''m a new superhero that just got his powers around a week ago, so that''s probably why nobody has ever told you about me. Also, yeah I actually have super powers, like in a comic book. Pretty weird at first, but you know. Oh, I actually made this costume myself! The brown bits on my arm are to restrict blood flow so I don''t hurt people much, and the tassle on my head is for people to grab onto when I rescue them!." She eyed the two white eyes of my mask, and then the part of my head that felt weird. "Fuck up you psycho. Cut the crap and tell me your name. Not your shitty- roleplay- fetish- bullshit!" She started to load her rifle. I wanted to test something out. "OK, OK!" She lowered it slightly. Well there was no way I telling her my secret identity. So, in an appropriate voice I started to mess with her. "My name is Christian Weston Chandler age 22 at this time, I will be 23 on February 24th 2005, and you know, uuh, anyway, for over a year now I-uh have been trying to attract a boyfriend-free-gir-" I let out a howl. Clenched my teeth to stop myself from breaking my bonds. She shot him. She freaking shot my mini-me! My wiener! She was already cocking it again. She hummed to herself, "Tom-fucken-foolery, ain''t fucken cool with me, got it??" I had been hoping for this. Not getting the little buddy blasted, but to get shot one more time. It was too weak. Softer tissue, but I was sure it hadn''t even pierced skin. Unlike up top, as I noticed specks of blood stuck to the fabric of my cowl now. It was the same gun as well, long silver barrel, army metallic stock. Ok, maybe I didn''t need to get shot again to piece it together, but I was a little hazy, what with the gash in my head. "You have super powers! Critical hits or something, right?" I was excited in that moment, to finally have a lead! She was puzzled by this, it was clear on her face, "Yes?? I have powers do you-??" she trailed off before piecing things together. "Ahe¡­Ahehe. Hahaha!" She Mussed up her poorly dyed-blonde hair, the only part of her that looked trashy. She narrowed back at me with her eyes and a toothed smile, "I''m your first. Aren''t I?? God, I thought we were gonna have a problem there." She let out a sigh. "Okay. Join or die loser, which is it gonna be??" I was confused. "Wait-wait-wait. I''m sorry am I missing something here? I feel like I missed a pamphlet back at the banner." I joked but I really needed an explanation on how this worked. "Sure, why not. You don''t really have a choice right now but to become my underling, limp dick. What do ya need to know?" She didn''t seem nearly as manic as before, nearly normal, if it weren''t for the rifle and blood. "Why do I need to join you now? Opposed to when you thought I was, I don''t know, experienced with this stuff?" Had bigger questions but might as well open with something that made sense to ask. "Because you have no friends, no syndicate, and because you''re a nobody. No one''ll even question me when I say this was my town first. If you were somebody, I''d look like an ass for moving in, wiping you out- but that wrong is righted, muscles." I gulped a little at that. I asked, "So, are there only supervillains? Because I feel like if that were true, somebody would have conquered the world by now." She looked at me like I was a child that had hurt their knee. "Fucking America. The cape and mask make a lot of sense now." She spoke to me like a child now too, "Sweet heart, people just have powers. That doesn''t make them want to play dress up, make up dumb names, or grow a sense of absolute morality. You should know that. You took a fuck ton of my shit before coming here, and hate to break it to you, doing all that coke isn''t legal. Or healthy." I could feel my smile fade. "I''m not high, I- I threw it away. Burned it." She leaned in and that crazy look in her eyes was back, "You- So you stripped them for the cash? I find that really hard to believe." I shook my head, "No, I used that to buy food for the homeless." She sort of spazed out for a second, "Youfefecwha?? Is your second power, like, super brain cancer?? You thought you were literally the most powerful being to have ever existed for a solid week-" She paused and smacked her face with the palm of her hand, "and decided to be Ronald-fucking-Regan??!" I didn''t answer the question, I was more concerned with something else she said, "How did you know I had a second power? And by the way, its not super tumors. I think." I had super-strength and endurance, that probably counted as a single ''power''. On top of that, there was SP2. She turned away from me, trying to comprehend my decisions, "A human can cosmologically only have two powers, primary and secondary, mutant fucks don''t count, they usually have one, or a ton that can be catalogued as ''bizarre biology''." Too much, too much! Is there not some sort of system to this? Is this like Marvel or My Hero? That''s what I wanted to ask but didn''t. "How do you get powers?" She calmed down a bit by now, "There''s no one way of doing it. Could be some advanced science, but usually only the guy who comes up with it understands what any of it means. Could be some weird chemical, but nobody can reproduce the exact reaction. Could be the will of some unknowable entity, but they''re more likely to dissolve you into goo when you talk to them." "Born with it, found a space sword," She lifted up her palm, "or maybe a magic four leaf clover." Her palm was marked with not a four-leaf clover, but a three-leaf one. She dropped her arm to her side and covered the mark. Did that mean something? Fading power? Limited stamina? Only four uses total? Pretty sure I understood the basics of her powers now. "Luck manipulation? And you make that green stuff, like, with your other power, and that gives other people good luck?" A whole lot of little things started to make sense. That''s why I tripped at the door, that''s why one of the shots hurt a hell of a lot more, it was a lucky shot to a weak point in the human body. My temple maybe? And that''s why Mullet was drinking the dew before that test! God I am the world''s greatest detective. "It''s not like I''ll tell you, not till you become my subordinate. Shit, I feel like I gotta put this out there now. I''m not gonna, like, be your ''dommie mommy'', calling you my bitch was just to seem hardcore, you know about putting on airs in a fight- I swear to god, I''m not usually-" putting two finger tips to her dirty blonde hair she seemed to catch herself, "Shit, bad job interview, my name is Clover, you still haven''t told me yours." She seemed to honestly have a warm smile here. She paused for me to tell her, and- "No." She seemed very confused by this. "No??" She seemed really confused. "Clover, I''m not going to even consider joining you. You hurt people for profit, that''s not right. If I was a kid cracked out of his head, you would have sprayed my brains against that door. So, the answer is, and will always be, no, I will not join you." Wish I could read her expression in that moment but while I was talking she covered her face with her marked hand, and tilted her head back. "You''re right kid, I will fuckin kill you, like, I don''t care." I offered, "If you want, you could join me." "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??" She declined. She smacked the barrel of her rifle into my nose, I commented on the overwhelming scent of gunpowder from the weapon. "Eww, smoky¡­" "FUCK. UP." She jerked it into my face with force, "This thing is on a high-way through that thick skull of yours, cunt, do not encourage this .70 round to go over your speed limit!" "I''ve never won a fight before." I interrupted. I spoke with a nasally filter, "I don''t count me confiscating drugs on the street, or the guys outside, they never stood a chance. A fight is when you go against the odds. 1 to 99 billion. That''s what it means to be a superhero. Sorry. I don''t go back on me word." I smiled. Clover looked like she was in pain for some reason. Before she pulled the trigger for the last time that night, she said to me, "We could''ve done anything you''ve ever wanted to. I would have been more than happy to have a guy my age who isn''t a crack head working here. She paused and gave a fake smile, at least, I hope it was. "Goodbye, Junk monkey." You know how people''s lives flash before their eyes when they''re about to die? Mine didn''t. Had a ''premium rush'' moment though. I felt the gun jerk a little as Clover reacted to the force of it, droplets of sweat that had formed in the past half-hour. And the impulse to use ''Super Power 2''. Baba O''riley ended, and my brains were splattered against the chair. . . . Then it started back up. "What the SHIT??" I heard clover shout from behind the red door, my warped reflection looking back at me. I ran through the door, tackling the drug lord from behind, making sure the gun barrel was pointed away from both of us. "Freaky Cunt!" she shouted through her mess of hair. As something forced me off of her and into the empty chair, breaking its legs. I hadn''t had the chance to inspect the room. Good choice of wall colour, nice art on display, and, as I thought, a second room, the door of which I leaped to like a panther, the bruised girl shot off another round at me. Grazed my ass as I smashed through to the final room. "Come on Clovie, when the tables were turned, you said I wasn''t a ''crack cunt'', can''t you let me off just this once?" I felt bad for giving her a spider-man-villain-esque nickname, but I don''t know if she even heard me over her own furious growl. The room I had entered had a huge sky light to let sun in for a bunch of green plants in large baths of dirt. I thought I knew what this was, but the more I looked at the room the weirder it got. The plants were in fact not cannabis, but clovers, in retrospect not too surprising. In one corner was a toilet, my first thoughts to that were, hey can''t blame the girl for wanting a personal toilet in this petri dish for chlamydia. To my left I could see a ladder leading out through the glass roof, must be her emergency exit. As I was thinking of destroying her stock of clovers before I made an escape, I heard her shout to me. "Bold fucking assumption that my other power is making the shite-ing dew, limp dick!" As I stopped to consider what it was that had smashed me into that chair, the masses of green extended from the tubs, and writhed throughout the room. Although they couldn''t hurt or restrain me, I still wanted to have some sort of success on this adventure, so I fought those baths of clovers for as long as I could before I heard Clover screeching over to the door, I smashed three of the nine baths before clover could use her chlorokinesis to direct them properly, using her now established line of sight. "Something I learnt from back home, and that Bastard King of mine, junk monkey, is that if someone isn''t on your team, they''re an enemy, and when he finds out how you fucked with me on MY turf??" Did she forget I have no clue what''s going on? I wanted to ask her before I left, but I really didn''t want to get shot in some weak point I don''t know about, so I squeaked out, "It''snotjunkmonkey,it''sShamrock!!" I squatted as quickly as I could, I was lucky she was loading her rifle slower than before. Just as I leaped into the air, I was thrown off my trajectory. Maybe I slipped on mud, maybe clover had used her secondary power, she definitely would have been using her luck. I was aiming for the glass roof, but I smashed into the wall on my left, two-thirds on the way to freedom. I made an attempt to cling to the crumblings of the wall, but it broke off under my weight. Damning gravity, I tumbled down from the wall. The crash brought me away from lucidness, helped by my gun wound no doubt. I pulled my body together, bracing for the landing. I heard the cocking of the gun not far behind me. Shit, one more try. Scrunching up my body for one final try was torture. My joints ached, and blood rushed to my head, but if I stayed still any longer¡­ I could hear the now dirty cocktail dress cussing out her rifle loading skills as I blasted myself as hard as I could into the air, smashing the glass above. I hit it hard enough to bust through the brick wall, just in case I had to due to the bad luck, or dizziness. A down side of doing so, is that I was fired far higher than I''ve ever tried going before. I held my breath for the ascent and descent, not because of fear, (though, yeah, I was shitting my suit.) but when you''re moving as fast as that, it takes your breath out of you. Mid-air, I tried to undo my leg restraints to let as much blood into them as I could. From there I struggled to try and get my body into a sort of zigzag shape? At the time I had remembered a video I watched on how to survive a sky fall without a parashoot. Although I now knew I was durable, I still had no clue if I was tough enough to survive. But, from the fact that I''m posting this, you probably realised I did. None of that stuff mattered. I couldn''t get my shit together. I ended up landing with a bounce and a long tumble down the where-ever-I-was. It took me a while to start breathing again. I was freezing my balls off. I definitly wasn''t prepared to go rocketing through the winter night sky. But eventually I made my way back home getting changed along the way. I inspected my costume clearly under a street light. Sure enough, both my masks were torn on the right-hand side, around where my ear was. I instinctively reached up to my temple and sure enough, flesh was torn up, thick skull saved my thinker. I couldn''t actually feel the wound, but then again, I couldn''t feel much of anything. I knew my left arm had to be badly bruised, what with the wall smashing and the fall crashing. There were tons of questions spiralling through my head now, the thing she said about a king, mutants, entities, not to mention the thing about ''syndicates''. I doubt she was talking about groups working in Ireland. But at the centre of it all was one desire that kept me grinning through the pain. I have got to do that again. Clobber 1.04: I got a girls number! Instead of resting like a sane person, I decided to go back to the Quarter. If you read the last post, you''ll know that I got my ass handed to me (and shot.) Like I said, my costume will take a while to fully repair, so, I went with the casual option. Green morph suit, with a pair of boxer briefs on top, just cause I gotta resemble a hero somehow, and pants-on-the-outside is the easiest look to put together. Can¡¯t forget my daredevil-season-one style bandana! Eye holes added, don¡¯t have any super senses to speak of. Jumping around town like a frog is pretty freaking cool, especially since I can skip the crappy tiled roofs with a thought-out long jump (Thank you super-durability!). In a months¡¯ worth of practice, I¡¯m hoping to get more confident with parkour so I can do this sorta stuff on the fly, but for now it¡¯s awkward leaps towards the nearest hardware store. I brought 16.50 euro with me on my errand to buy the tool for today¡¯s operation. I got a lot of weird looks going into the store. I tried to ignore them, but couldn¡¯t help contorting my mouth into a weird smirk. I waddled over to the paint section of the store. Green¡¯s the right colour to pick, yeah? Gotta stay on brand. On my way to the counter, I spotted a lady talking quietly on the phone, and considered the fact that she was probably calling the police. I asked the clerk how much the can of spray paint would cost, and he told me to leave. I asked him if 15 was enough and he said the police were on their way. Had he phoned them too? Obviously. Did I really have that much of an intimidating presence? I was hoping to have some change left over to get a deal meal at the super market, but I didn¡¯t want to rob the guy, so I gave him all my money and ran. You can get a Lucozade sport, tayto cheese¡¯n¡¯onion, and a frozen BLT for 3 Euro. But alas, when I donned my cape, I swore an oath that I would never end up like The Boys or literally any Worm character. I started hopping again, now on route to the glass roof I smashed last post. The front door was closed, as it was the middle of the day, so I decided to let myself in through the giant gap in the roof. I really didn¡¯t want to get shot this time, so I looked before I leaped. Holy hell. I forgot that jumping is basically pushing yourself off the ground. I pushed hard. The floor of the room had caved, meaning I broke more than three tubs that night. The toilet in the corner was still firm on a piece of flooring that had survived my quads. Now I know why plumbers get paid as good as they do. The ladder down into the green room was intact, not that it led anywhere. This might be a good enough place to spray though. A clean-up crew will see it at the very least. I wasn¡¯t placing any bets on clover finding it today but, whatever. It was just an idea I had to try and get to ¡®know thine enemy¡¯. I got to work spraying the numbers on to the wall from my perch on the ladder. Shit, that looks a little more like an 8 than a 6. No biggie, I¡¯ll just spray it out again. Crap, I can¡¯t even read half of this. One more try. It took me a few attempts, but I managed to spray out the number as I had written it down on my note pad. You may be thinking, why not just leave a note? Well, she might know someone who can identify me by my stench coming from the paper. I don¡¯t know, ok? Took an hour out of my day that I could have spent doing something productive, and I will not admit that I wasted my time with the spray can. . . . I jumped on to the roof of the local Mc D¡¯s. It was getting cold and dark quicker than I had thought it might, and I was caught in my morph suit. On one particularly crappy night I had been caught in the rain and been in search for cover. I stopped under a little bit of cover on this roof, which also happened to let out some heat. I honestly don¡¯t know what this thing is, or if the gas coming from it is bad, but, baby it¡¯s cold outside. This is also where I¡¯m gonna keep my phone. It¡¯s not a smart phone but I¡¯m pretty sure you can still track it through the cell reception? Better safe than sorry. I whipped it out from a hiding place on the roof. I left some clothes here, a jacket and gloves, but my Irish sense was telling me rain was coming, and I didn¡¯t feel like dancing on the golden arches in the rain. I hunkered down in a position I thought would keep me a little comfortable, and checked to see if I had a text. >>>?? I did. However, it could be anybody I¡¯ve given my number to. So it was Clover. <<< It¡¯s me, guy frm other night <<>> ?? Lol think I¡¯d remember that?? <<>>Uh >>>I don¡¯t think so?? Huh. Maybe this was just a worker after all. >>>YOU DUCKING COUNT ASS BUTCH!! <<>>I DID NOT SHOOT YOU IN THE DICK?? >>>ASS, STOMACH, HEAD, THATS ALL I REMEMBER <<>>HAHAHA LOL IS YOUR D O-KEY?? >>>YOU¡¯RE PRIMARY IS LIKE SUPER DURABILITY, RIGHT?? >>>SHIT BESTIE, DIDN¡¯T MEAN TO CASTRATE YOU LUL Never mind my dick, is she ok? <<>>TRUE, TRUE HEHEH, SO WHAT YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT ROCKY Did she just nickname me? Guess I did do the same to her. <<>>What the fuck?? Capslock was on the whole time and you didn¡¯t say anything?? <<>>No?? ?? You didn¡¯t touch most of my product, and u helped weed out the weaker links in my operation. >>>BTW When my guys come down from up north, don¡¯t expect much more of this kiddy shift. Real road man gan¡¯sta¡¯ type swift. >>>They¡¯ll go in for that kill, bruv. Pratt-pratt, know what I¡¯m sayin?? <<>>See Rocky, you get it. The worst filth this rock has to offer, and they don¡¯t even have powers. You ain¡¯t seen scum with power yet. <<>>No Lol, fact about scum is its so dense it doesn¡¯t see it¡¯s self as scum. >>>They don¡¯t know whose on top. Drunk on what they¡¯ve got. >>>Fuckers like Belfast and Jack Channler. >>>Wait, did you just call me scum? <<>>I¡¯ll tell you about only one. Because duck you, I''m a great person. <<>>Both very much. >>>But you only get info on one. Because duck you. >>>duck you >>>duck. you. >>>Duck! Ducking autocorrect! <<>>Oooo bad choice, not much to tell >>>he kicked me out of the north, rules the under-world their completely, iron grip. >>>Everything naughty and not-so-nice, is his area. Child trafficking and shit Well, it was good to know that she was above that at least. >>>Asshole stole my territory and won¡¯t let me back in. This was months ago, I lived over in England before I came back to this rock. He beat me really bad, don¡¯t know his powers or his name. I just know he¡¯s from Belfast, and can eat a skyscraper. <<>>IDK, luck ain¡¯t so good against overwhelming power. Good thing ur just whelming LUL <<>>Honestly, I brought it on. I had a grasp on the north except his spots in Belfast. So, I threw my hat into the ring, and got a ducking bowling ball thrown back. Don¡¯t know if he¡¯ll follow me. But if he does, he¡¯ll come for blood. Lol I sensed she wasn¡¯t loling. <<>> aww :] that¡¯s sweat >>>but honestly, I think the King has a better shot than your dumbass She talked about this King guy last night, gave off the impression that was a title and not a name. <<>>NO >>>He¡¯s the greatest man on this shitty planet. He¡¯s probably the only person working with others in mind. <<<2 questions. Whyd you call him a bastard, and, if hes so good then why is he letting you sell drugs to kids. >>>1. His name is Bastard, some sort of nomonial tradition. 2. It¡¯s a conspiracy. duh. <<>>The greater good. A million wrongs to make the world right. <<>>only reason you aren¡¯t dead is because I haven¡¯t told him about you. He doesn¡¯t have to do it himself. He has an army in the hundred thousands, counting my guys up north, and the other Units'' boys around the world. <<>>people do know about this? Most people choose not to believe in this dumb swift. Preconceived notions brought about by established facts in science. Maybe they think the only true mystic power is God; all other beliefs are crazy. Or they¡¯re a conspiracy nut who can¡¯t get it to fit with their theories. Normal people are ignorant. >>>Point is, people try to rationalise what they see or hear about to fit a narrative. CGI, lies, an act of god, a scientific unknown, whatevS lol <<>>LMAO YOUR STRAIGHT TO IT, GREEN BEAN! YOU ON THAT GRIND! >>>WHATEVER I DON¡¯T MIND TELLING YOU ABOUT THAT, MAYBE YOULL WISE THE FUCK UP AND STOP DICKING ABOUT. <<>>Thanks, lol >>>Globally, we have 90 powered Units, some I wouldn¡¯t count as people. here in europe there¡¯s about 30. Nearly a hundred? And they¡¯re like her? Or that Belfast guy? I might actually be getting into deep shit. I don¡¯t know if I can handle country level. <<>>yeah, you do. Only other faction that rivals us in numbers and power is Russia. I guess China, but Bastard isn¡¯t dumb enough to truck with him. <<>>Nah you don¡¯t need to know about Schism, not until you get the letter. <<>>put a lid on it, dipstick. >>>Its different from your crap, and you know it. Schism is just the name the chinese government call him in front of his enemies. Its best if his private and work life don¡¯t mix, for whoever¡¯s trying to stir the pot. <<< so, world militaries are in on this? >>>Of course, most know, they wouldn¡¯t still be countries if they ignored it. Russia and china have firm structures for powers, like Schism, or the Mladentsy. >>>Shit and theres the Internationals, promise you won¡¯t talk to those fucks. <<>>Just don¡¯t talk to them right now k?? <<>>Whatever, junk monkey. It was a while before she texted me back. Had I touched a nerve? Were this Internationals really that bad? I didn¡¯t want to pry, and honestly, I was getting a little more than muddled with this poor excuse for exposition. >>>lol >>>I¡¯m at mc Donald¡¯s, wanna drop down? What? What? I stopped for a moment to stare wide eyed at my surroundings. The rain shower turned out to be a quick one, so the night sky was clear now. I could see the streets below, illuminated by lights. The car park was empty, only filled by the buzz from the road beside it. I was spooked. <<>>No?? ARE YOU HERE NOW?? ARE YOU THE GREESY FUCK ON HIS PHONE?? <<>>THERE IS ONLY ONE MCDS IN THIS DUMP YOU JUST SAID SO YOURSELF!?? <<>>Fine by me, Idc if you starve dipshift. <<>>?? >>>You¡¯re already fucked in the head like. I furrowed my brow reading that. This was coming from the person who was sitting in a mc Donald¡¯s, apparently laughing out loud whenever she thought about shooting me in the dick. I tried to stealthily come down from the roof, to peak through the window. Sure enough, I saw a figure about the same height as Clover starring down the spotty young man working the register. I couldn¡¯t be sure it was her; the figure wore a padded coat with army green hot pants and to obscure their face from me, a hood. I had no choice but to go in. It was baltic outside. Walking in, the spotty worker stopped trying to avoid the figures gaze to look at me, looking sadder now. The figure noticed and turned to face me. ¡°AHAHAH-HAHAHOLIECRAP-AHAHAHA.¡± I went a little frog faced. The figure was infact loling in the middle of a mcdonalds thinking about someone she¡¯d shot. ... I think the burger was called the mc cheesey? On account of the cheese seeping from it. She spoke to me while she stuffed her face. The whole thing was bizarre, seeing this woman I thought had some class, stuffing her face. ¡°Whumph da fumph aroo yoo dresshed lii dat??¡± I could make out what she was saying, barely, and replied, ¡°Because of you, remember? You can¡¯t expect me to jump around the city with holes in my crotch area. I¡¯d look like a lunatic.¡± ¡°HNNPTH,¡± she snorted out a laugh before swallowing her bite, ¡°Yeah, yeah, but didn¡¯t I lodge a few bullets in your skull? Shouldn¡¯t you be sleeping off those migraines, yeh softhead.¡± ¡°Only the damage from the first bullet is still there. You¡¯ll find the other bullet with my dead body.¡± She looked up at me before taking another bite of her burger. ¡°None-fucken-existent??¡± I¡¯d be lying if I said I wasn¡¯t hungry, watching her eat that fat. ¡°Maybe.¡± I folded my arms, still chilled from the outside air. Clover was making dumb food noises as she ate. I watched her, thinking about the question I wanted to ask next. ¡°Clover?¡± She stuck her fingers in her mouth to clean them of cheese, ¡°UHN?¡± I started to speak. ¡°You said you didn¡¯t tell your boss about me, you said he could have took me out by now.¡± She looked up to me with her big eyes ¡°¡­Mhhmm.¡± ¡°Why didn¡¯t you?¡± The chair beneath squeaked as Clover leaned into it, ¡°I don¡¯t know. I¡¯m alone out here really. Friends are back home. I¡¯m the only Unit stationed on this crummy island. Guess it just seems good to have someone around, (even if he is wearing a nappy); to be there if something bad happens.¡± I felt that. I¡¯ve always been alone. Not for lack of trying, maybe that was my problem. I tried too hard to back people up when they were in trouble, took on burdens I shouldn¡¯t have. Wanted to play the hero. But now¡¯s different. I am¡­ ¡°Clover, I¡¯ll help you when you¡¯re in trouble. I swear. I will protect you. For no reason. Even if you¡¯ve done bad things, I¡¯ll help you be better, get better. Even if you do try to kill me, pull out a piece and start shooting, I¡¯ll only think of others. Like that poor kid working the night shift. Because that¡¯s who I am. I¡¯ll do anything, to help everyone.¡± I¡¯ve told people that I¡¯d help them before, but none of them would give me the time of day. But that girl seemed like she felt my words, her cheery persona faded and then returned. ¡°Well, aren¡¯t you a ball of cheese¡­ Well, if whatever that was is true, then you''ve got the whole ''capacity to forgive'' thing down pat. If someone shot me in my hypothetical balls, I''d kick their ass. Eventually.¡± ¡°I¡¯m still going to disrupt your illegal affairs though,¡± I defended against her complement, trying not to look embarrassed. ¡°What you do, what you sell, hurts innocent people.¡± She broke her stare, and turned to the window. ¡°I know. I¡¯m a villain and you¡¯re the hero. Aren¡¯t you? But the thing is, hero, no one is pure. Not past the moment their da¡¯ spunks in their mammy. I can¡¯t wait to see you at your worst.¡± Her face was still bright, if a little dimmer. ¡°Clover¡­¡± ¡°Uh-hu??¡± ¡°If you- only wanted me when you¡¯re in bother, why did you ask me to come to McDonald¡¯s?¡± She looked over to the spotty staff, then to me. She took a moment to think, ¡°Because-¡± she began, ¡°Any idiot knows that before you can ask someone to help you out of your bad moments,¡± A sunny smile slowly spread across her face. ¡°-You need to share a little bit of your good with them.¡± We didn¡¯t talk about anything you guys need to know about for the rest of that night. Just normal stuff. Clobber 1.05: I went to my grannies house! I come from a broken home. My parents split when I was 5, dad died when I was 8. They never did find the cause of death. Ruled as natural causes. Before he died, he lived with my granny in a small town out west called dingle, with a lower case ¡®d¡¯, and I would come down on the weekends. I don¡¯t think that was decided by a court, because dad wouldn¡¯t exactly getting any favours for full custody, what with him not having a permanent place of employment or a house of his own. My mum isn¡¯t much better, so I guess it¡¯s true what they say about fathers being second-class parents in these situations. Sorry. I just thought that was a little relevant for this story. I still go to my granny¡¯s for the weekend, Friday night to Sunday. I only need to bring a change of clothes and homework so I usually travel pretty light. Last week a lot changed. Got a costume, got a phone, got a hobby. The added load might have made a difference, if I wasn¡¯t as strong as whale. Pretty much everything feels weightless now, including my body. After leaving my house in Tralee, I forwent getting a bus in favour of traveling the 25 miles on foot. I got changed into Shamrock and started running. I thought maybe running at a decent speed for nearly an hour would put some strain on my body, but I guess the strain comes from pushing the weight of your body forward, meaning I can¡¯t wear down my muscles from exercise. Is working out just impossible for me now? Am I gonna lose my six pack? Wishful thinking is telling me that there is a chance of me having a super-metabolism. Though I doubt it. My body isn¡¯t burning through calories when I use my powers, meaning I get my strength from some foreign power source, like, I¡¯m just magic. Guess I should give a little backstory for dingle? There¡¯s more to tell then Tralee, despite this being a far smaller town. It¡¯s a pretty well-off tourist destination, it¡¯s beside a nice beach, there¡¯s trails and ¡®historic sites¡¯, and there¡¯s even a mascot. dingle is a harbour town, but that¡¯s all the coast offers really. There isn¡¯t much of a beach to speak of, but not too far away there are these sand dunes just pure natural beauty, mother nature¡¯s good side. However, you aren¡¯t allowed to go near it, due to the fact that walking on the dunes destroys them, buries the animals that live beneath them, and you can fall into a sand pit if you¡¯re unlucky. The military trains there sometimes, and I¡¯ve got to say their equipment looks weird. Plastic sheen to it. That normal? Sort of makes the stuff look like toys. Well, I guess to me they are toys. Anyway, like I¡¯ve said before, everywhere has historical sites and walks and tours, and blah blah blah. Let¡¯s just skip to the mascot. Fungus the dolphin. Lives in the harbour. Known to be incredibly friendly with fisherman and humans in general. I myself, have never seen it. I¡¯ve never found any proof of its existence except word of mouth, and tourist traps. This is due to the fact that Fungus is always doing something or unable to come to shore for whatever reason. The excuse now was that he had caught ¡°Dolphin flu¡±, and had to be ¡°shipped to a dolphin hospital.¡± I was quoting my grandmother there. She¡¯s a short bony woman, crude and bad at cooking like many other elderly people, don¡¯t know who made up the thing about grannies baking cookies, mine only makes boiled kelp and potatoes. For lunch. For dinner she makes the same but with mashed potatoes as well. Don¡¯t go thinking that I¡¯m the type of guy that¡¯ll make their family cook while they sit on their ass, I¡¯ve tried cooking for her before but she won¡¯t eat it and she won¡¯t let me eat it at the table. All because it isn¡¯t a ¡°weekend meal¡±. I¡¯m sorry gran, but where in the bible does it say that you must eat boiled potato and mash on the sabbath? Once I got to my gran¡¯s, I unpacked my bags and talked to her about the local gossip for an hour. By her tales I surmised it had been a slow week. Some stuff about a fence blowing down in a storm, a spelling bee, nothing important in the grand scheme of things, nor in the context of this post. It was early in the day and I was looking forward to super-heroing in the day light. Never had myself figured as a dark knight, you know? However, as I was patrolling town I realised- There is no crime in dingle. I mean it. Low druggie count, there is no Clover, and it¡¯s not like I¡¯m gonna investigate the Fungus conspiracy. Maybe I can find a new super-villain here? No, that¡¯s just improbable. As far as I had been made aware, there were three people in the north and the republic that had super powers, and one of them lived on the opposite side of this rock. I only started thinking about it then, but to get a rough sense of how many super people there are, I took the population of Ireland and found that with the information I¡¯ve been given, 0.00005% of the population has powers. Applying that to the world, you get 4000 super people. But Clover said that her group had near 100 people, and the way she described it, she made it sound like they were the big dogs. Is there some sort of fermi paradox? Is Clover lying to me? Am I just shit at math? While I was walking around town in my newly repaired costume, I decided to do something. So, I phoned Clover. ¡°Eww, why do you not have snapchat?? What the fuck are you doing phoning me??¡± She sounded irritated, but she always was whenever I talked to her- ¡°That¡¯s right! You¡¯re cow-shit poor! Fucken work for me already, get some green, green-boy!.¡± -until she flipped to manic, ¨C ¡°Listen Clovie, I¡¯m curious, did you lie to me about-¡± ¡°DON¡¯T LISTEN TO A WORD THOSE INTERNATIONAL BASTARDS SAY!¡± -before finding a middle ground. ¡°This isn¡¯t about them, but that response does concern me. Questions for some other time. You got any numbers on the super population? I¡¯m just curious what the chances of me running into another person with abilities are.¡± She squeaked through the speaker, ¡°You¡¯re bored with me already?? Looking for a new best friend?? I get it, you want someone you can talk to about spider-man comics or whatever.¡± ¡°I fucking hate Spider-man.¡± I said bluntly. ¡°Yeah, yeah, whatever, there¡¯s nobody else on this rock except for me that can kick your ass got it? The number of Powered Units in this country is 3, and I doubt that¡¯ll get any higher any time soon, adrenaline junky.¡± ¡°You keep saying ¡®Powered Units¡¯ what does-¡± She caught me off, ¡°I¡¯m not calling them super people, that would be moronic. Powered Units is a term started by those International cock-a-doodle-dandies. One human with two powers is worth 1 Unit, a sub-human mutant with powers is worth 1 ?, and a m-¡± She was cut off. My phone beeped loudly into my ear. I ran out of call time. I didn¡¯t think too much about her saying ¡°and m-¡± at the time, but looking back that¡¯s a little freaky. It implies that there is something worth more arbitrary units than a mutated human. I just sort of bummed about town for an hour, only thing I really did was take a few pictures with some tourists, they gave me 2.56 Euro, so that¡¯s neat. Some kids were littering and I told them off, but they said mean things to me and hurt my feelings so I wouldn¡¯t count that as a win against crime. I spent most of my time thinking about whether I should stay in Ireland, let alone Kerry. If I want to be an actual superhero, I¡¯ll need to do things that¡¯ll make headlines. I don¡¯t know how much longer I can live in this none cape world. I want a league. I want a Xavier¡¯s school. I want a misunderstanding where another hero thinks I¡¯m a villain and we fight till we¡¯re friends. I want comic relief, I want heartbreak, I want a golden age, I want a 90¡¯s. For god¡¯s sake, I want an era in time where no blood, violence, drugs, or occult creatures can be shown on panel. I don¡¯t know. Do good intentions and powers really make you a hero? Can you even understand what I¡¯m typing? I guess this feeling hasn¡¯t changed since I started dressing up, that every thought and emotion I have is pointless, like I¡¯m just killing time. Back to the story. By this point I¡¯ve decided I don¡¯t want to fuck around here anymore. I needed a break from thinking. I knew it wouldn¡¯t be warm or remotely pleasant, but I decided to go to Inch beach, it¡¯s called that because the beach shrinks an inch every year (I think?). It¡¯s winter so it¡¯s freezing, and it¡¯s Ireland, so it is really freezing. I was probably sat on that beach for another hour. The sun moves pretty quickly across the sky in winter. I collapsed back into the sand at the thought of the world I wanted being impossible to build. Maybe this is why Clover only knows super people who are assholes. Maybe the only thing that can motivate people is personal gain. That was a depressing thought. Am I only motivated by a childish adoration of super heroes? I was so caught up in my own head that I almost didn¡¯t hear the screaming. I got off my back to see a guy flailing a good distance from shore, the screams came from the onlookers that had seen him struggling, the man himself was completely silent, his gasps for air quieting. I did a few jumps on the spot to wake myself up a little. Get into the zone. Let¡¯s hope I can swim. Despite living near the ocean my whole life, this was my first time going into it. I focused myself on him and jumped into a dive towards the splashing. Diving in, I had a better sense of direction then I thought I would. I was at the bottom he was at the top, maybe 20 feet from the surface. I jumped up to meet him. I couldn¡¯t make out whether he was injured or not, but all I was thinking about was getting him out of danger. I dolphin dived out of the water for a moment grabbing him in the process, before falling back under. I¡¯d heard of cold-water shock, but now I could feel it, both the struggle to stay above water, and the drowning man himself fighting to save himself even if it might mean pushing me down to get higher. I¡¯ve gotten a little better around the cold since starting this, and I think that helped me resist the urge to thrash against the man. Holding the man¡¯s nose, I dived back down. Don¡¯t know how to swim, but I know how to jump. I tried to go sink as quickly as possible, while making an attempt not to break the body in my arms. I managed to jump us out into the shallows again, barely keeping the swimmer from being submerged as he stood on top of me now. There was no way he¡¯d be able to walk, no matter what his condition was, most people get queasy from the Cuchulainn coaster, imagine what rocketing in and out of the water feels like when your organs aren¡¯t as tough as concrete. Shit, Ireland lore update, Cuchulainn coaster is a big wooden roller coaster in tayto park, I want to go there before I die, you should too. It was at this moment I realised I hadn¡¯t breathed in a while, so I breathed. Holy shit, I¡¯m under water! That¡¯s right. I forgot. I instinctively jumped to get us out of the water, landing us in a tumble. I sputter and spout for a while trying to cough up the salt water. I look around to see a small crowd of people forming around us. Seeing them I felt¡­ moved. Looking back, this is the first heroic thing I¡¯ve done in this costume. I shouted to the crowd, my lungs still sore, ¡°GET HIM FIRST AID!¡± pointing towards the nearest lifeguard station. A few onlookers grabbed the victim keeping his leg held high. I quickly guessed why. My arm was covered in blood. His blood. In terror I looked back at the leg, noticing now the stab wounds along his thigh and in his side. A rock? A shark? I was just glad it wasn¡¯t me, I couldn¡¯t think of anything it could have been. I broke into another coughing fit as I rose to my feat. ¡°Are you alright kid?¡± A skinny blonde-haired woman in the crowd leaned in to help me. I laughed like a psycho, in an attempt to shake off the helping hand. Heroes help people, then people look on and cheer for the hero. ¡°Didn¡¯t you see me a few ¨Ccough- seconds ago? I¡¯m the toughest bastard that ever lived, it¡¯ll take more than drowning to bust my balls!¡± I smiled to the crowd as a few people laughed and one old dude clapped me on the back. ¡°Good on ya, yah boy ya. Yah saved Chummer yah did. One less shark attack case for tha pile-ya.¡± I turned to ya-man, and asked him, ¡°Tha pile-ya?¡± ¡°Uck, Yah know. Ten ar so people washed up dead. Shashrks got em¡¯. Covered in teeth marks. I tink it¡¯s cause ¡®ol Fungus got carted off ta tha ¡®ol doctors shop yah know.¡± No. I didn¡¯t know that Yah-man. Granny decided it was more important to tell me about how her bingo buddy¡¯s granddaughter came in 5th in a baking competition than the fact that ten people have died. I¡¯m going to have to talk to her about her priorities. ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I can¡¯t swim but I know how to jump a shark.¡± Yah-man poked in, ¡°I¡¯yah¡¯you¡¯n¡¯urblu lady.¡± I stared for a while, trying to process that. ¡°Sorry?¡± The blonde chimed in, ¡°You and your friend dressed like avatar.¡± As I turned behind me, I said, ¡°James Cameron or-¡° The tip of a boot smashed into my face. I reeled from the impact but caught myself. I actually felt it. It wasn¡¯t how a good kick would have felt before I got ripped, hurt, but I didn¡¯t feel all too damaged by it. I looked at the attacker and realised it was Avatar. I locked eyes with a tall, entirely speckled sky-blue woman, about 6 feet tall, with a lean build and great muscle definition. When I started working out, I thought I¡¯d get great abs within a month or two. I have a six pack, but it¡¯s not nearly as well-defined as the meat grater in front of me. She might have just assaulted me but I can respect the grind to get those Her hair looked dirty and wet, like seaweed, but I¡¯m pretty sure it wasn¡¯t literally. She wore a chitin-like mail over her ribs, with the midrif exposed to the air. There were no straps or buckles visible on it so I wondered how she would get in and out of that thing. Around her waist dangled a raggedy looking skirt, though as a costume designer I could hardly call it a skirt. It seemed like the sort of place you¡¯d conceal weapons. And sure, enough she pulled a heavily serrated knife on me. I tried to step back and observe my opponents moves but she swayed into the gap like a fish through water, stabbing at my throat. I¡¯ve tried learning a few martial arts, not that I have a knack for that stuff. I did find out that in armed combat that sort of swaying motion was effective. Hides your moves, confuses your opponent, simple stuff, but I never got the hang of that. She obviously did, she moved quicker than I could process. Then again, I¡¯m slow. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. ¡°I just fixed this costume, and no, that didn¡¯t hurt me.¡± She ripped through the fabric near my neck but slid over my throat. Guessing her strength doesn¡¯t affect the sharpness of the dagger. She ebbed back as quickly as she came in. I was ready to fight the stranger, physically and verbally. ¡°So which Atlantean princess are you? Definitely not Ariel, you don¡¯t have the legs for it. I¡¯m thinking along the lines of Namorina or Mera. You¡¯ve got that icy look in your eyes.¡± I don¡¯t think she understood what I was saying, but her cold glare harshened. This time she darted in with a low blow, to the kidney. I really felt that one. When I was hurting from that she got my neck in a head lock, and I felt her try to twist it. Clever. If you can¡¯t cut it, snap it. But she didn¡¯t count on me being able to overpower her. Barely. I aimed a punch for her nose, felt a connection, then knocked her back with an elbow. ¡°Now would be the time normal people consider running away from the blue bitch!¡± I shouted to the crowd that was still in good numbers. ¡°Tough. Juvenile.¡± Final I was getting something out of the royal pain in Chummer¡¯s ass. ¡°Right, you can talk, but you can¡¯t help yourself when you see an innocent person, can you, ya shark faced murderer.¡± While I didn¡¯t expect to get a confession of guilt from her, I thought I¡¯d try to make it clear that it wasn¡¯t me doing this either. Way I saw it, this was a misunderstanding, she thought I killed them or something. There¡¯s no way she killed all those people. No way. ¡°Didn¡¯t bite them. Stabbed them.¡± Just like that. She admits to killing 10 people like it doesn¡¯t even matter? What delusion could someone put themselves under to make ¡¯em think that isn¡¯t psychotic? ¡°Shit. Looks like I¡¯m kicking the fuck out of you. Gotta get payback for their families and all. What the hell makes you think killing people is cool?¡± She raised her guard and began to circle me slowly. ¡°You are strong. You will challenge me, and bring me greater honour then four-score of your foul kin. For this, you deserve to know the director of your destruction.¡± I cut her off, raising my hands, ¡°No, no, I don¡¯t care about that, you-¡± I enunciated my words, ¡°-you kill people. You need help lady. Whether it¡¯s from a shrink or a prison sentence, I don¡¯t care, so long as your crazy ass is off the streets.¡± She was quiet for a moment before beginning. ¡°My name is Feoli Bhean, of the autochthonous fomorian federation. Millenia ago, your ancestors with the aid of your so-called ¡®gods¡¯ drove my people to the depths of the ocean. However, you did not count on the immense power of our druids. My people grew in power, speed, and skill, while your ilk grew weak, complacent.¡± It was something along those lines. I knew the game she was playing, trying to get me to lose focus by talking crap, this, I¡¯m a master in. ¡°Listen blue meanie, I don¡¯t give a shit!¡± I took a step back, positioning my foot in a way so that I could leap forward and crack her head open. Not that I was trying to kill her. She could probably take a restricted punch. Probably. She looked ready to strike, but to throw me off she continued monologing, ¡°I understand you are a powerful creature. But you are out classed. As a child I was raised to be a terminator. Others were enlisted. Only I survived. Only I could withstand further druidic augmentation-¡° A sail fish smashed into my face, literally coming out of nowhere. It didn¡¯t hurt me, wasn¡¯t meant to. I tried jumping in to the air to avoid whatever attack she would follow up with, but she is quick. By the leg, she threw me into the fore dune, now the sand was sticking to the wet cloth on the front of my body. I didn¡¯t want to jump, in case the ground collapsed beneath me. I got to a crouch and slid down to her as the warrior quickstepped to close the gap between my face and her knuckles. That was gonna bruise. It sent me tilting back, but not before I could grab her by the scalp. She dug her nails into my grasping hand, to try and pry me off of her, while I rocketed my fist into her nose. As quickly as I could, I repeated the action, and I would have done it a third time, had she not used her freaky fish ability to make a creature with a single long whipping tentacle that made an attempt to asphyxiate me. I tried to claw its suckers from my throat and jaw, but as I did so, it¡¯s mistress wrapped her arms around my torso, much like I had done to her victim, the only difference being that she lifted me above her head, and bent her body back into an ¡®n¡¯ shape. My head was stuck in the sand with this creature sucking at me. Realising that I really needed to breath again. I didn¡¯t make the same mistake as in the rescue, instead I slinkeyed my body into a better position to pull myself out of the pit. I realised she wasn¡¯t attacking, and that was definitely a bad sign. Either she called it quits and went back to Pepperland, or was currently attacking the crowd I¡¯d made. It was neither of these, actually. I decided to just crush the creature to rather than rip it. As it squirmed to death, it slowly lost its solidity and turned to water. Was that her ability? Turning water into monsters? When she threw that fish at me, she must have transformed the water on her body, same as with the sucker. This told me that she only recently got this ability, because if she was more used to using it in combat, she would have just covered me in a skin suit while I was dripping wet from my swim. Or maybe there was a limit to how much she could transform in a period of time. After that seconds worth of thinking time, I scanned the tide for her, and sure enough she was on one knee hanging over a rock pool and it got gory. It bubbled with viscera as muscle tissue began to form. I ran over to her and without looking she stretched out her leg and kicked my little man. I nearly crumpled, but my other injuries helped drown out the pain. I took a deep breathe and threw a haymaker at her general direction it connected blasting her to my right with a tumble, from which she quickly recovered. She again kept me in her gaze, as cold as it had been before, seeming almost bored, ¡°You were strong. Strong enough to keep going against my own might.¡± She lowered her brow, ¡°But, in one hundred scenarios there is not a single one where you can best my skill.¡± I heard the cracking of rock or maybe bone to my left, as from the pit that once was a pool, came a scaleless, pale eyed deep-sea creature. It was as big as a van and its teeth were uncountable. I couldn¡¯t make out what really happened while my upper half was in the mouth of the rotten thing. It thrashed like a dog with a chew toy, and the shifting lights only disorientated me while I struggled against its jaws. I was sure it didn¡¯t have the force to pierce my skin, it was a half-baked sea monster, and I was still cold from the sea water, there was no blood to warm my skin. Eventually its movements got slower as it reared its head back, like it was doing a shot, and I was plunged into the thing¡¯s gullet. I beat against the muscled beasts rubbery hide, but I was tired, and there was a good chance this thing was cutting off my oxygen supply, the lights were gone anyway. I lay there for a while, trying to think away out of this. I don¡¯t know for how long. ¡­ Until. I saw a light. My phone. The hardy little brick was still working. I had a call. For a second, I wondered who it was. ¡°Motherofacocksucking pillock! I¡¯m the one who hangs up, got that??¡± ¡°Hey, Clover.¡± my words came out strained. ¡°Sorry. I ran out of data, Haha.¡± Laughing wasn¡¯t a good move, especially since I didn¡¯t know if this air was breathable. ¡°What¡¯s that sound?? Are you fucking a whale right now??¡± Fighting a whale was closer to the truth. ¡°Sure, I¡¯ll tell you ¡¯bout it later, what¡¯s up?¡± She replied to my joking dismissal, ¡°Those are some details I don¡¯t need. Well, I just found out they¡¯re bumping down the price of the deal meal in that place you like to 2 Euro, that¡¯s something your poor ass would care about, right?? Figured we could head there to grab a bite, you into it??¡± While we were talking, I used the phone light to look around the creature¡¯s insides, finding a stony protrusion that the flesh had hastily formed over. I replied to Clover, ¡°Shit, can¡¯t right now, not in town. Monday? Promise to pay.¡± The drug lord I was getting lunch with, and for, joked, ¡°Holy shit, are you actually getting some Sham? Sounds like you¡¯re tearing into a girl right now.¡± Did this thing even have a sex? Pretty sure it couldn¡¯t reproduce. ¡°Ok, ok, Monday¡¯s fine, just promise me two things, never hold your phone that close to some bitch when you¡¯re talking to me again, and be there.¡± I had to undo two of the five restraints on each arm. I dug my fingers into the lining of this stinky bastard, one foot on the rock for leverage, ¡°I¡¯d never break a promise.¡± The brick was stuck between my head and shoulder as I pried the creature in half, audibly groaning in the process. ¡°Uhh, I thought you were joking about having sex with a fish, but I¡¯m gonna hang the hell up now. See yah, Rocky!¡± She hung up before I could say bye, was she really bothered by me ending it last time? I brought the tear up to the length of my lower leg before giving a final push to burst the bastard. The smell dissipates, and my eyes adjusted to the light of the sun, now setting over the ocean. I stopped to take it in and think of a plan of action. I look around me only for my enemy to be nowhere in sight. She couldn¡¯t have gotten far, and it gave me time to think of a plan. ¡­ Thing about being a seaside villain? You leave foot prints in the sand. Easy enough to track, especially since those boots aren¡¯t in vogue. I was perched on the roof of the lifeguard¡¯s shack. She had been looking to finish the job on ¡®Chummer¡¯. Fat chance I¡¯d let that happen. There were far, far more innocent people at risk in this area, she¡¯d moved nearer to the built-up part of the beach. ¡°Well.¡± Her eyes seemed unimpressed with me appearance, ¡°This is unexpected.¡± She hooked a dagger to her side, ¡°I was going to finish this dimwit, before returning to a good night¡¯s sleep, but if you insist on perpetuating this poor excuse for a man¡¯s li-¡± I skipped a rock at her face before dropping my foot on her like a hammer. I insisted, ¡°Stop perpetuating this poor excuse for monologue, shell tits.¡± After backing off from my attacks she once again glared at me, only this time there was a little heat to her glare, maybe the blood running down her brow helped that image. Funny, thought it might be blue too. ¡°Only cowards throw stones.¡± I grinned. ¡°Good thing I don¡¯t give a shit what you think about me. But if throwing rocks make you a coward, what does throwing fish mean? A scallywag?¡± I paid attention to the shifting of her stance and responded as I had planned. She threw forth something slippery, didn¡¯t get as good a look at it this time. This time, I ducked and ran at her. Telegraphing a punch to the face as planned. In one hand I had had a stone, in this hand was sand. I took advantage of her second of blindness and hit her in the ear with a left hook. She stumbled enough for me to grab the foot she was teetering on and pull it out from under her, forcing her to collapse. She grabbed at where she thought I was, but I had already leapt behind her and pulled out my last trick. She could feel the cold steel press into her throat and instantly her struggles stopped. She knew that this was my win. ¡°Your fancy blades are cool and all, but if you¡¯re strong enough, the key to my backdoor can do the same job as any weird bio-bone-blade. Right now, you¡¯re at my mercy. The same position you put eleven human lives into. Did they freeze like you? Did they flee? Did they beg you for mercy? And did you answer them? Did you even think of them as people when you riddled them with holes?¡± She replied with a short answer. ¡°Dolphins make better beggars then your ilk.¡± I shot in, ¡°Right, these people are irredeemable. An event happened 1000s of years into the past, and you decide to punish them simply for being loosely related to some asshole you never met. How can you possibly think that doing what happened back then to the other side is in anyway a just conclusion?¡± ¡°It isn¡¯t. I am an instrument of the dregs, a debt-collector, it is my duty. I do not relish in it, but morals cannot stop me from doing what is right.¡± I gave up for now. If the police did haul her off, then what? Could they even keep her? Would some organisation use her to further their goals? Like Bastard¡¯s or the internationals? I had one way to reason with her. To keep everyone safe. ¡°You¡¯ve killed ten people. I don¡¯t know how long you¡¯ve been doing this, but you¡¯d still need to kill around 8 million people before you wipe out my mongrel race. So, how about killing me instead. You did say something earlier that rang true. Compared to you, Irish people are weak. We have a crap economy, the soils only good for potatoes, yet most people are farmers. And we have a serious alcoholism problem. It¡¯s even encouraged. I and I alone have the power to oppose your people. Wipe me out, and bingo.¡± I was counting on this unreasonable extremist to find some logic in my proposal. I hoped the mention of murder might hook her. ¡°You have me by the throat. I am in no position to argue. But why not end me?¡± I let out a sigh, the air in the throat a little hoarser than I¡¯d¡¯ve liked. ¡°I don¡¯t want your dumbass to make me the creature you see me as. I¡¯m a man. Trying to be a hero. It¡¯s more challenging than being a bottom feeder like you.¡± ¡°Deal¡­¡± I took my makeshift shiv away from her throat, standing myself up and pacing back a few steps. She shifted herself to a rising position. I don¡¯t mean this in a demeaning way, but the way she backed herself up seemed like a beaten beast, a predator denied its prey. ¡°I¡¯ll fight you twice every weekend. That¡¯s when I¡¯m available. Not tomorrow though. I need a rest. And heck, it¡¯ll give you the chance to get together a plan to-¡± She had backed herself up to her ankles in the sea foam, it was enough to wet her feet. She threw a kick into the air, fine droplets lashed at me transformed into needling fish. I saw it coming. My hands were empty, I had nothing to throw at her, had accounted for the scenario. I swung my foot into the ground like a wrecking ball and creating both a barrier and a vision obscuring cloud. She wouldn¡¯t fall for a blinding trick twice, I knew that. I made the judgement that she would dodge to her right, based on the foot she had used to kick up her barrage. I shot forward and swung blindly with a low lariat. It connected, and once again she was thrown to the ground. I didn¡¯t follow up my attack. ¡°You are more skilled at this then me. That was one thing you were right about. I can¡¯t beat you with might. So, I used the only thing I have over you. I have far greater experience with a powered fight. I¡¯ve only fought one person, but I¡¯m thinking that¡¯s more than you, judging by your sloppy use of your homunculi. But that isn¡¯t what I¡¯m talking about. I have experienced so many superhero stories, that I know what you can do before you do. You won the first round, obviously, but now that I know your abilities, I can strategize. You haven¡¯t seen my Primary yet. Think of every creature you can conjure, every fist you can throw, technique you can use to fool me. You said I wouldn¡¯t win in a hundred attempts. I thought up fifty-six ways to win on my walk here.¡± The heat in her eyes went cold again, she icily looked through me. ¡°Next week.¡± She slitherd. I smiled wide and waved, ¡°See ya then! Same place!¡± She disappeared into the ocean. I turned to walk back to my granny¡¯s, but realised there was still a crowd. My smile faded in surprise, but I pulled it back on and said, ¡°Yeah, she was too small to eat, just a catch and release folks.¡± I have never been shouted at so loudly by so many people. It only served to widen my grin. They circled me round, familiar faces among them, Yah-man, skinny lady, I made my way out of the crowd, though they cascaded behind me, to Chummer. I got a better look at the guy now; he was in his late-30¡¯s had an athletic build, and by the looks of his muscles, he was a long-distance swimmer. Explains what he was doing out there. I asked him with a little volume in my voice to keep over the questionings and congratulations of the crowd, ¡°You won¡¯t be out for a while will you, Chum?¡±, he laughed weakly, if you ignored the first aid supplies applied to his body, you could still see the damage on his face. The colour was drained, even as he smiled, weakly. ¡°Aye, yeah, think I¡¯ll spend my Saturdays with the kids for a while, thanks to you.¡± I was a little concerned that the crowd may impede the first responders, so I tried to part ways with him, waving at him. ¡°Wait, lad!¡± I turned back, to see if he was all right, ¡°You didn¡¯ even tell me your name.¡± Perfect. This was too good. I didn¡¯t even believe he was saying this. ¡°Sorry mate, that¡¯s a secret, but you can call me Shamrock.¡± Pretty lame line, but the possibly not lucid man laughed so that was good. Clover was definitely wrong. I can be a superhero. ¡­ ¡°UUGH. Can¡¯t believe you had to deal with a dirty ass Fomorian.¡± Clover picked out a Lucozade sport from the refrigerator. ¡°And before you tell me that¡¯s racist, I¡¯ve already had this argument before, they aren¡¯t human, so they aren¡¯t a race. They¡¯re an infestation is what they are.¡± I raised a corner of my mouth. I didn¡¯t feel like arguing with her on this, I was in agony. ¡°You¡¯re gonna have to pay for yours Clo, I¡¯ve just about got enough for my meal deal.¡± She squealed in my ear like a brat, ¡°Cheapskate! What are you spending that money on, you steal your crack, Junkey.¡± I made a point to correct her as I pulled out an egg an¡¯ mayo refrigerator sandwich, (it was either that or ¡®chicken sauce and corn¡¯ and I¡¯m not touching that.) ¡°It¡¯s Shamrock and your gonna hear about it a lot more. There were a bunch of on lookers with phones there. I¡¯d like to see anyone plausibly deny that evidence.¡± Maybe I was a little too prideful. ¡°Shrink it up before I smoosh your little man down to size, Sham.¡± Clover rolled her eyes and shook her head in faux exasperation, ¡°Remember CGI? Anyone who sees that will chock it up to that, and ¡°Chummy¡± will probably look back and think he was delirious during all that. Besides it¡¯ll never leave that town¡¯s internet sphere.¡± I cocked my head at the last bit, ¡°Their internet sphere? The heck¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡± The northerner stopped her stride to the tills to use the groceries in her hands as props , ¡°Ok, you know how youtube videos and instas gain traction through likes and shares? Well videos containing weird content like fish people or gruesome groined green boys getting groped or whatever, that stuff never takes off.¡± She returned to her path to the cashier, while I shook my head in confusion, ¡°Hold on, that doesn¡¯t make any sense, there¡¯s no way that they never get recommended to anyone, that¡¯s just not statistically possible.¡± The stout lady working at the pay point looked at us with a side eye as we loaded it up. ¡°Sure, it doesn¡¯t make statistical sense, but neither does the fact that every powered Unit has two powers. There¡¯re all sorts of stuff in the 3rd world like that, most likely theory is that some God or organisation is editing what you get recommended to fulfil some malcious purpose.¡± Shit. I just sort of got hit with the existential realisation that beings beyond my power exist. Beings beyond creation that could blink me out of existence at any moment. ¡°The ad outside says it costs 2 Euro though! You can¡¯t charge 3!¡± Clovers words snapped me back. ¡°WHAT?¡± My jaw was wide. ¡°I-I¡¯m sorry that¡¯s the weekend meal deal, It¡¯s full price now.¡± Dammit Clover! ¡°Oh well, I can still afford mine, go leave your crap back, Hero, unless you want little ol¡¯ me to give you an extra pound.¡± For the last time in this post, I painfully inhaled; marching myself back to the fridge. Clobber 1.06: I got bullied like in a movie! I came to school pretty strung out. Last post, I made a deal with a monster from the ocean floor that I would fight her every week. That was a week ago. I¡¯ve fought her three times and she¡¯s getting better. I talked a lot of crap in our first fight, but I¡¯m only barely winning each time. I can make up a few plans, but as she gets more used to my tactics and raw strength, it becomes easier for her to counter. Although, I haven¡¯t had to use my SP2 (Super Power 2). I don¡¯t know what it is that tires me out after a fight or patrol, I shouldn¡¯t get tired from running, jumping or kicking, but I¡¯m always pooped afterwards. No muscle soreness, just exhaustion. Maybe I should look into stamina training. Until I work something out on that front, I¡¯ll just keep to sleeping through half of school. Once again, I was sat at my desk in front of Mullet, a little earlier before the class started, but I had nothing better to do. Mullet was there to compare his homework with mine. I may not have a good record in tests, but like anyone else, I can solve a problem when I have the text book in front of me. Mullet had done the same, but was less confident in his answers. ¡°What¡¯s this bit supposed to mean?¡± I ignored the question aimed at the back of my head. At least until I felt a kick to my chair¡¯s leg. ¡°Whuh?¡± I half turned to him. He lifted the file page to my face, ¡°¡®When the cell has run out of oxygen, ATP production is done by the glucose.¡¯ That¡¯s what you wrote word for word. But the question was ¡®How much ATP is produced in anaerobic respiration.''¡± I turned my head back and forth a little trying to think about what he said. ¡°Uh, well, in aerobic respiration, the body produces energy from the crab¡¯s cycle, and the¡­ something-chain. So, without oxygen, its anaerobic respiration, so it¡¯s just from the glucose.¡± There was a little silence before I yawned and he replied, ¡°That doesn¡¯t answer the question?¡± Still yawning I lazily said, ¡°How much ATP is made by glucose?¡± ¡°2.¡± I stretched my face in another yawn before putting my head down and saying, ¡°Whutheryu¡¯o.¡± He leaned in, ¡°You realise you didn¡¯t write that. You¡¯re not getting any marks from that.¡± I was out another 5 minutes, waking up a little more by then. I lifted my head. Mr Bio wasn¡¯t in yet, a little out of place, he usually gets in before most students. I looked over my right shoulder to find everyone else in, either talking or on their phone. Mullet was talking- to me? No, he was smiling. He wasn¡¯t facing me either, he was talking to the seat on my left. This was weird because nobody sat on my row. Not realising that I could turn left to see who he was talking to, I tried turning further to the right, I probably looked like a piece of rotini pasta. It was a girl. Dyed blonde, but everyone else in my class was, so that didn¡¯t give me any clues. Mullet seemed happy about it so I guessed it was his girlfriend, we¡¯ll call her, Izzy. Sitting in front of Mullet for a few months, I heard about his exploits with tons of women, so I imagined this was maybe her acting on it? Some sort of soap opera karma for making an ass of her. Looking back, that was just my tired mind taking a blind shot. I uncoiled myself, hunched forward into my seat, and waited for a member of staff to cover us, or the big man himself, Mr Bio. Seven minutes passed before he came in. His round body nearly touching both sides of the door frame. He looked a little sweaty today, weird seeing as it¡¯s winter. ¡°There you are!¡± He shouted in my direction, and I thought to myself, ¡®he knows I¡¯m failing this class I¡¯m sorry crap I tried I really tried, crapcrapcrap¡¯ I was reassured by his follow up statement, made while he briskly walked to his desk, squeezing by mine to get at it. ¡°The vice-principle was looking for you Saoirse, I¡¯ll send them an email now, to say you made it here alright. We sent a message home last night to tell you to go to her office, but it mustn¡¯t have come through. I¡¯m sure the other boys and girls have already gotten to know you a little, but, for those who haven¡¯t, this is Saoirse Rowan. She moved all the way from up north just to attend my class, Haha.¡± It was already weird that he still referred to us as ¡®boys and girls¡¯ despite the fact that most of us were legally adults, but now he was forcing us to laugh at his lame joke. I can¡¯t say much. I¡¯ve made tons of lame lines, still cringing at the ¡®tall, dark, and tattooed¡¯ line from post 2. ¡°Haha, why don¡¯t you tell the class a little about yourself Saoirse, where you¡¯re from, what sports you play, any pets?¡± Mr Bio might be the most heinous villain I¡¯ve met. God, was he trying to humiliate this girl? After she¡¯s had to leave her friends, home, and country behind? ¡°Uhm, well¡­¡± You could feel how awkward this was for Saoirse. ¡°I¡¯m from Londonderry,¡± Off to a bad start. Off to a very bad start. Irish lore lesson 2: Derry/Londonderry is a town on the western border of Northern Ireland and the republic of Ireland. During the period of time called ¡®the troubles¡¯, Ireland was trying to become independent of Britain and were met by military resistance, leading to further and further escalations in the conflict for independence, till America swooped in with the good Friday agreement, forming the Republic of Ireland. Derry/Londonderry was one of the most divided places in the north, rivalling Belfast in terms of guerrilla warfare on the streets. The ¡®native¡¯ Irish population there were snubbed of being a part of the republic, or the town was split over the border, I don¡¯t know enough about the situation up there to teach you about it. The take away from this is, Irish republicans, who want to join the south, and are of the catholic denomination call the town Derry. The UK unionists in the north, who are from the protestant denomination, call the town Londonderry. Probably a bad explanation as usual, but down here we only get a vague understanding of the situation up north. But the people in my class know enough to tell that when you say Londonderry, you¡¯re a british bastard. You don¡¯t have to know much about someone to hate them based on the religious denomination of their family. ¡°-I don¡¯t play sports, well, I did a little gymnastics, but not much anymore,¡± Good luck making friends without a common sport, Saoirse. Down here it¡¯s nearly an essential pastime to bond with someone. ¡°-and I don¡¯t have any pets.¡± 70% of all conversations I have at school are about my dog. At this point I¡¯m really hoping that she can somehow manage to make some good friends, somehow. But in the mean time I have some sleep to catch up on. ¡­ ¡°psst.¡± Saoirse. I can¡¯t help you with whatever problem you have, school or social. ¡°Yeah? What do you need.¡± I sat up a little, though I kept my gaze and my elbows on the table. ¡°Sorry, it¡¯s just, that- well, the teacher said to get into pairs for a practical, and I¡¯d rather be with a guy who doesn¡¯t care then¡­ A guy who¡¯s a little too eager to pair up with me, you know??¡± God dammit Mullet. I know what kind of rumours that¡¯s going to start about the new girl. Here¡¯s a hint, they make a guy look cool, but a woman look like a tramp. ¡°Sure. One of my talents is leaving people alone.¡± Well, that was a lie. I¡¯ve stuck my nose into all sorts of problems. ¡°Hey, at least help me set up. I¡¯ll do the rest and you can get back to sleep when we put the hydrochloric acid away.¡± I got out of my seat, clumsily, I didn¡¯t even look at her as I went to the back of the room where we keep the equipment. She spoke to the side of my head, ¡°What¡¯s your name anyway??¡± I heard her, but I didn¡¯t answer. Mean on my part, but getting to know me won¡¯t do her any favours. What, she¡¯s going to be friends with some guy who sleeps all day and has no social life? Not a good look for her. I heard her stool scoot along the floor as she made her way after me, I passed Mullet and he gave me a weird look like he had a few weeks back. He looked astonished by my dumbassery. Don¡¯t know why, but it was probably the fact that a good-looking lady was talking to me and I completely blew her off. A foreign concept to him. I picked up a few beakers and a jar of acid to bring back to the table, Saoirse could probably carry the rest. I passed Clover on my way back- Wait. No, that wasn¡¯t Clover, it couldn¡¯t be. Back the hell up, what the fuck is Clover doing here? Well, which is it Shamrock, is it Clover or isn¡¯t it? When I stopped to look at her, she made the same face I was probably making. Did she know? I¡¯m not an idiot, I know someone who saw me in costume and saw me out of it could pretty easily make a connection between the two personas. All I could do was wait for her to get back to the table. She brought with her burners, scalpels, what I didn¡¯t. We got to work on the practical, I don¡¯t even remember what it was, I was focused on whether or not I would have to leave school after today or not. Her hair was more unkempt than usual, she looked out of place in the dark school uniform. I was so used to thinking of her as someone who stood out, a boss enemy, when in actuality she was just like anyone else. Just a normal teenage girl. ¡°So,¡± Here it comes. ¡°-can we¡­ talk about it??¡± This is it. ¡°Sure. Go ahead.¡± I kept my eyes down, sort of hunched over the table, and slowly mimicked what she did with the materials. ¡°Uhh¡­ Okay, well how did you get it??¡± I looked up confused, ¡°Get what?¡± She jerkily raised her hand and waved it around half of her face. ¡°That bruise. God, sorry, are we not on the same page here?? Look I just- we can drop it if it¡¯s something you can¡¯t talk about-¡± Did she know? I was starting to think she didn¡¯t. Maybe that bull about superman¡¯s real disguise being subtle changes in posture and behaviour is true? Or maybe she was just messing with me. The Clover I knew would pull that. But would Saoirse? ¡°I got hit. Someone was¡­ saying bad stuff about- about foreigners, and I didn¡¯t think it was right. So, I tried to convince them otherwise.¡± She looked a little relieved for a second. ¡°That¡¯s good. I mean- You got hit, that¡¯s bad, but for a second, I thought you were getting beat by your dad or something.¡± I wondered to myself, why does it matter who¡¯s hitting you? No matter what, if someone is attacking you, they¡¯re an asshole, and that¡¯s horrible. For you, whoever you are. She seemed to calm down a little now, less jittery, ¡°So, why did you look at me like that. I thought you were different from that guy.¡± She thumbed back at Mullet; from my perspective I could tell he noticed she was talking about him, and he smiled, nodded and gave me a thumbs up. I believe he thought I was putting in a good word for him. ¡°No, I¡¯m not much different from anyone else really. But, unlike him, I¡¯m not too interested in girls. No, I didn¡¯t look at you because of that.¡± She smiled a little and guessed, ¡°Was it the tattoo?? I thought my hair would cover that up a little, guess I should cover it with make up or something.¡± I interrupted her near the end. ¡°Nah, it wasn¡¯t that either, you just-¡± I wanted to tell at least half of the truth. ¡°-You looked like you were about to cry.¡± That made her smile fade. We didn¡¯t talk for the rest of the practical. I felt sorry, just a little. Eventually the class was done and I could leave. I¡¯m usually the last to leave and I was this time. No acrobatics to cheer myself up this time, didn¡¯t want to risk getting found out, if I hadn¡¯t already been. I passed Izzy and her friends on my way out. They had half circled around Saoirse, that was good, she was making some friends. ¡°So, what¡¯s it like. Must be pretty tough for a little lesbo like you to move to this shit hole from your comfy plantation up north, Brit bitch.¡± Shit. She didn¡¯t know what to do. They had her stuck. Another joined in, ¡°What¡¯s with your eyes, prod slut. You smoke a bowl of weed, or did you just find out you can¡¯t do any flag burnings down here?¡± I don¡¯t really know what getting bullied is like, honestly. Closest I¡¯ve experienced is getting my shit kicked in or being ignored, but I knew that this wasn¡¯t good. I¡¯m ashamed to admit it but I almost considered walking past them. ¡°Izzy, guys, lay off her. It¡¯s probably hard enough for her to leave her home and friends. Boyfriend... And you guys should be ashamed of your behaviour.¡± They just sort of starred at me like they usually do. Like I was a weirdo. Clover, or Saoirse as she was calling herself, finally spoke up, ¡°Why is your first thought ''boyfriend''?? Did you just make a move on me?? Jesus Christ it¡¯s called ¡®banter¡¯ you pasty creep.¡± That¡¯s what I was going for. The thing people never think about when they¡¯re writing movies or books, is that nobody in their right mind would be friends with a loser. You see plots all the time about good-natured guys who are down on their luck who impress girls with their spirit and plucky attitude. But in the real world- ¡°Do you know why my eyes are so watery? Cause I had to sit beside this unshowered, greasy, skunk-ass loser.¡± -the only thing a real loser is good for is helping people in poor positions out of them. Not as a hero, but as a stepping stone, by making them look way better in comparison. There were a few giggles in the crowd. Good. They thought she was funny. I didn¡¯t stick around to see if things turned out alright for her or not, I had an art class to get to. And it made it look like I was hurt by her words, which would have been funny for them. . . . Right, it¡¯s winter. And that whale monster had teeth sharp enough to easily cut through steel, let alone fabric. But I didn¡¯t care if my costume wasn¡¯t ready, I finally was. I was going back to the Quarter. Maybe I wanted some answers, answers to whether or not she had usurped my life. Maybe I wanted to finally clean out her stock of illegal substances. There was one thing I needed to know. She has been in town for two weeks, so why now in all that time, did she decide to go to school? If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Seriously, on a Thursday? I can say rather confidently, that I¡¯ve gotten pretty good at parkour. Pretty good for a guy who doesn¡¯t have to try and break their fall or worry about missing a jump. Yeah, I¡¯m really good. I¡¯m flying low tonight, to try and stay a little warm, don¡¯t think the two layers of clothes beneath my costume will really help me if I try to go into the clouds again. I¡¯d been caught up in my own head for too long that day, I needed to feel something, get a kick. At least, that¡¯s how I used to feel doing this, jumping. I don¡¯t think of Clover as a friend, I can¡¯t. She might be a murderer, no different from Feoli. I¡¯d be lying if I didn¡¯t say that she made me feel like I wasn¡¯t alone here, in the ¡®third world¡¯. And frankly, I need someone to tell me what the hell is going on, not that she¡¯s very forthcoming with info. But because it was there, because she laughed at me in my world¡­ this feeling is brought back, even when I''m wearing this crappy costume I made. She''s brings it back with her from school, from school, from everyday life. This cold in my blood. It¡¯s childish, na?ve, to say that I¡¯m the one whose hurting when she¡¯s ruining the lives of innocent people, people that I''m supposed to be sav- A scream. My ¡®problems'' can wait, a woman is probably being assaulted right now, and I can stop it. I¡¯m strong. It wasn¡¯t that far away. I overlooked the area I thought it was coming from, then it came again. Close. Told me I wasn¡¯t too late. It was maybe a street away from me, a distance I could leap in a single bound. On the street a few people were gathered around someone lying prone on the floor, as I approached, the thick shawl she wore made her seem like an elderly woman. If she was old it might be worse for me to carry her to a hospital, had she been attacked, or fallen. I shouted for the crowd to part and they listened. The people in the crowd were well dressed for the winter weather. Large coats and scarfs, hid them from the elements. The lady on the ground was panting heavily, ¡°Old lady, can you hear me? Are you hurt? What happened?¡± I spoke calmly, slowly, I didn¡¯t want her shook anymore then she already was. She stretched a gloved hand out to me and I took it. She said something under her breath, I didn¡¯t hear it. ¡°Has anyone phoned an ambulance?¡± I turned to the silent crowd. ¡°No¡­ But we should have-¡± I told them sternly, ¡°Do it!¡± The prone woman began to speak clearly, ¡°-should have called an ambulance for you, Shorty.¡± I felt a tug on my arm, pulling herself to me, she thrust a large metal barrel into my side. ¡°Wha-¡± the blast hit me harder than Feoli¡¯s fists could, that¡¯s for sure. It blasted through my clothes, not that they weren¡¯t in tatters already. My side went numb, a very bad sign. With my free hand I swatted at the shotgun in my side, bending it out of shape. I had let go of her hand in the shock, allowing her to grab a pistol from God knows where, and she started blasting the damaged area. Now I could feel it, like putting salt in a wound. Then the crowd started blasting. I think I heard something about a guy who used real cannons in a symphony, and I imagine it sounded quite like the centre of that crowd. Through all the confusion and the noise, I tried the quickest and easiest action. Jumping wouldn¡¯t work, I was down on my knees. I couldn¡¯t punch my way out of this one, they¡¯d just keep unloading into me while I was disarming their buddies. I needed an area of effect attack. I didn¡¯t even think about breaking my arms on the brick pavement, it was a split-second reaction. The woman was miraculously back on her feet, as I slammed the ground with all my might. Don¡¯t know what I expected, a crater? Nothing really impressive, the bricks broke but there wasn¡¯t a shock wave or whatever I thought would happen. What I didn¡¯t have time to think of was what this was like from their perspective. There¡¯s a guy who runs across the roof tops at night looking for crack. No matter how hard you hit him, or how many of you there are, you can¡¯t even slow him down. If they know about the worlds, then they know I have 2 powers, both of which they are unsure of the limits to. They were cautious enough, smart enough, to back the fuck up. After my man-baby moment, I rolled onto my hands to do a cart-wheel-back-flip sort of thing over the shot gun gal. Okay, I can do some weird flips and shit, but I don¡¯t know what any of that crap is called. I put a lot of force into it, so I got some distance from them. Before I landed, I heard them start blasting again. I think some hit, but I can¡¯t be sure, I was distracted by the very large wound in my side. After later appraisal I¡¯d describe it as being similar to when you fall off your bike and skin your knee, except it¡¯s a quarter of my torso, and bleeding like a radiator. I couldn¡¯t run in that condition, so after a pretty floppy landing I leaned on my good side and started to hop down the street. They were definitely still gunning for me, but at this point it was getting hard to hear much of anything. Then it clicked why they were in such heavy winter gear. Ear muffs were actually noise cancelling, their coats were to conceal weapons, and that was definitely a trap. Who the hell were these guys, the Internationals? From what little I know, they sound like the types to shoot first then ask later. It didn¡¯t seem likely though, not in comparison to another idea I had. This was why Clover was going to school. She got some reliable grunts from up north, it gave her some time off. Worst case, this was her finally seeing that I¡¯m more trouble than I¡¯m worth, so she¡¯s taking off the gloves. Best case, she¡¯s playing with me, showing off her toys, the power of her operation. Like most things it was probably a blend of both. She was playing with the idea of folding me up, nice and neat. I leaned down a street on my right, blocking their line of sight. Who would have guessed that super endurance/strength makes you great at hopping on one foot? People were frightened as I hobbled past them, but I was just as scared seeing the crowd. These lunatics were trigger happy. One stray bullet into someone who isn¡¯t made of magic, and they wouldn¡¯t be going home tonight. And that would be completely on me. As I was resolving to fight back against these bastards, I¡¯m hit in the front by a line of lead. I nearly got a heart attack when that guy jumped out. I fully expected them to be up my ass, but not in my face. I nearly leaped over him, but remembered my surroundings, who surrounded me. I pogoed at him; one arm outstretched for his rifle to crush it to scrap, followed by a soft punch to disorientate him, then I leaped to the sky. Ok, time to analyse. That guy just so happened to be on the same street as me? There¡¯s a real chance that it was just his good luck, but I can¡¯t believe everything involving Clover is up to luck. There is a real chance that they have either planned my response to their attacks in advanced somehow or have men stationed on all streets near the Quarter. They could also be communicating over comms to leak my position, and if that¡¯s the case than it¡¯s a bad idea to stay in the same place long. I kept my head low and crawled to a slanted crevasse between two roofs so that there was little chance of them seeing me. I took off the tattered top of my costume and the shirts beneath it, tying them around my wound, before suiting back up. I stretched a little, got used to the pain of standing up on two feet. Time for some dark defender shit. I headed back to the original street to see if anyone was still there. Found what I expected, two remainders, just there to defend the street. I did a good job of staying out of sight, found a spot above a street light, figured they wouldn¡¯t be looking up into the light any time soon. It also made it easy for me to see them under it. I got into a cat like arch before dropping off the roof behind one of the stealth game enemies and tossed him by the scruff of his coat. His buddy saw me before he did and quickly got a pistol out and took aim. My fist might have been a little too tough for the guy, but he was trying to kill a teenager for drug money, so¡­ I crumpled his pistol and whipped back to his compatriot. Maybe I¡¯ve been fighting Feoli to much, I really overestimated how quickly he would be up. I ripped open his coat and underneath was a tactical vest, guns and ammo, and lots of stuff I didn¡¯t understand. I took the boom-stick and twisted it. I think I¡¯ll run out of ways to say I broke these guys guns, so I¡¯ll skip the parts where I repeat basically the same takedowns over the course of a few hours. Eventually I stumbled on a group of three that just so happened to include the little lady responsible for putting this little hole in my side. Except now I recognized this woman, and no I didn¡¯t have a repeat of earlier. That is to say, it wasn¡¯t Clover. I¡¯ll save you the trouble of wondering which of the seven ladies I¡¯ve mentioned so far it was and just tell you what went down. I shouted down to them from the sky, ¡°Before you start shooting, I¡¯d just like to ask you to forget that line I said when we first met. It¡¯s just, it was my first time in a place like that, and I didn¡¯t really know how to ac-¡± A blizzard of bullets burst out, I reacted by bounding above them, ¡°RUDE! TRYING TO SAY SORRY HERE, TATS!¡± I tried to shout over the clamour. I was starting to get tired at this point, so I rebound over the road at one of her goons, clapping the barrel of his rifle once I got close, before swinging for the ex-barmaids. I must have been going slow, as she was able to dodge my grasp by leaning back, doubling to put herself into a position where her fellow henchmen wouldn¡¯t be in the line of fire. She opened up on me with her automatic rifle, but I stood firm, shielding my eyes and wound. She has to reload that thing sometime soon, right? I see her other groupie try to circle to a better position, so I did a backflip in front of him and hit him square in the jaw. He crumpled pretty quickly for someone who¡¯s supposed to be a soldier. I turn back to Tat. Actually, ¡°Not trying to make a crappy pick up line here, just thought I¡¯d ask what the name of my head-hunter is.¡± I kept my arms up, she wasn¡¯t shooting, one of her men was in the way. ¡°It¡¯s Tayanita.¡± Dammit, never thought I¡¯d miss Clover¡¯s crazed rambling during a fight, or on the phone for that matter. Feoli and now this girl. How many more people am I gonna encounter who are only in this to kick my fat ass. I tried to get something out of her, ¡°Well, Tayanita, pay must be pretty good if you¡¯ve been promoted from barmaid to actress. Really had me in awe with that performance.¡± She was pretty pissed, as she stepped in, ¡°I was never a barmaid. Clover¡¯s in town so I had to change jobs for a little while. Maybe your 100-pound ass doesn¡¯t get it, but me and the boys are good at what we do.¡± I answered coldly, a little sick of the reply from fishy, ¡°Killing people.¡± She took aim. ¡°This is just support. Right now, my job is to support the business. Most obvious way to do that is to finally get rid of you. Even if I have to-¡± A burst riddled my costume, though I think she was aiming for my bad side. I decided this would be my last one for tonight. I threw myself at her and wrestled the fire arm from her, making sure the stray bullets didn¡¯t hit her boys. It was actually at this point that I realised the shear difference between getting shot with a normal gun and a gun blessed by lady lucks trampy sister. ¡°Wow, if I¡¯d known you were this hung up about that shitty line I¡¯d have apologised sooner.¡± I smiled at her, almost expecting a similar expression from her. She looked like she had been bottling a lot of anger, like she was about to burst. After I trashed her toy, she resulted to hitting, she didn¡¯t seem as well trained in that. She was definitely taller than me, but she felt tiny. ¡°You ruined everything! Years of work, ruined, because of you! Fucker!¡± As she kept punching me, it soon devolved into thrashing. It didn¡¯t hurt, but I was really concerned I did something to this girl. ¡°Listen Tayanita, if I¡¯ve done something too piss you off, you¡¯ve gotta explain this to me!¡± I backed away from her, her arms were probably starting to hurt. ¡°You don¡¯t fucking get it do you. One way or another, you¡¯re being used to meet her ends. I realised. It¡¯s your fault she¡¯s here! Even if she doesn¡¯t realise it! Anywhere on this contenient, and she chooses here?¡± I didn¡¯t understand what she was talking about. I just kept saying I was sorry, as I gathered any illegal substances from her goons. As I was getting ready to leave, she eventually calmed down, or repressed her anger enough that she didn¡¯t feel the need to keep hitting me. I felt the need to ask her. ¡°Why did your boss set this up? I¡¯m sure she¡¯ll get more guns in, but you can tell her that it¡¯ll end just the same.¡± Finally, she cracked a smile and scoffed, ¡°I know. I guess I knew this would happen when I got the squad together. You people are fucking monsters. But you¡¯re not gods. You can die. You can bleed. I can¡¯t kill you, but it¡¯s only a matter of time until you butt heads with someone who can, and when that happens¡­ just hope those wounds don¡¯t open up.¡± She trailed off but I got the picture. I smiled back at her. ¡°You did this? That¡¯s great! If it¡¯s just this I can manage, but I guess sooner or later I really will face a big fish. I probably will die in a fight with some psycho in an alley somewhere, and this¡¯ll probably help weaken me before then.¡± I pointed to the shot gun wound, ¡°I wonder which will run out first, my stamina, or your spending budget.¡± I was just about ready to collapse at this point. ¡°I think it would be a good idea to give up now, get yourself an honest job. You can try out for a job at a pub somewhere else, you¡¯ve got the experience for it, which is great!¡± She shouted at me as she got a second wind, ¡°Fuck you!¡± I should really be used to that by now, but I thought she might have a different sort of response. I leapt to the roof tops before she could start again. She quieted to a hiss, but I could hear her even over the ringing in my ears. ¡°It¡¯s a gamble then. Let¡¯s just hope luck is actually on your side, dumbass.¡± That got me thinking as I jumped away. How does Clover¡¯s Primary work? Is it constant? Can she choose what decisions to use it on? Is she conscious of the result? If she puts her hand in a bag and uses her ability, would she get the red ball she was trying to get, or would she get a golden ball she didn¡¯t even know was in there. Why come to Tralee, when bigger cities like Cork or Limerick are an option. Why go to my school, when there were private schools, that she could have easily attended by paying? What if when making those choices she picked the locations that would do her the best, that would help her gather resources, territory, power. If that¡¯s the case, then either I¡¯m going to help her make the right life choices, or she¡¯s being pushed to act pre-emptively, before I can get a good grasp on my powers. I¡¯d be lying if I said I was cracked at using my Primary, my moment of dumbassery at the start of this fight showed that pretty clearly. And seeing as I¡¯ve only used my SP2 once in combat, (although I am trying to use it sparingly), I need to get a better understanding of it. Taking risks is probably a bad idea, seeing as my opponent manipulates causality, but I don¡¯t think I have much of a choice. ¡­ Mr. Biology was once again late for class, except this time it made sense. The second years were playing gaelic, so it would take him awhile to walk up from the pitch. I wonder if he envies those kids, with their high stamina and ability to run without throwing up. That¡¯s a little mean, but it¡¯s true, I saw him running for a few minutes once and he nearly threw up. I¡¯d give a third Irish lore lesson, but I don¡¯t understand gaelic, so we¡¯ll move back to the scene. Mullet was off, I overheard the reason why from a group talking in the back. Apparently, he was on one of the streets while I was doing some Arkham takedowns, police came by a little later, and took him in for questioning. One thing led to another, and they found a big ¡®ol bag of weed. He¡¯s currently suspended from school, to say the least. Hope that works out ok for him, don¡¯t think they¡¯ll care too much about a kid smoking weed when there was a shootout in town. I didn¡¯t hear anything about the hit squad getting arrested yesterday, which would make sense, seeing as I didn¡¯t incapacitate any off them. I should probably try and get them off the streets. If I can get some rope I will, but I¡¯m not gonna beat normal people into submission. Saoirse was talking to the guy behind her, but it was a pretty sparse conversation. Basic stuff like what subjects she¡¯s doing, where abouts she¡¯s living, her family, that kind of thing, but there¡¯s no way for me to know if any of this stuff is true. I wait till their conversation dies off. I spoke in a hushed voice, ¡°Good job playing along yesterday, thought you¡¯d be able to react like that.¡± She sort of glared at me, before I elaborated, ¡°I thought you might need a little help getting a leg up the social ladder, so I gave you an opportunity to seem normal to them. An equal, instead of an orange and black bastard.¡± She turned her gaze from me and squinted her eyes, ¡°Whatever you say, hairball. If that was the case, then I didn¡¯t need your ¡®help¡¯. I had them wrapped around my finger as soon as they found out how many digits are in my bank account.¡± I was happy, though I didn¡¯t smile. Not while I knew that those digits represented grams of coke sold. ¡°Good. I- understand what it¡¯s like to be in that position. I¡¯m not telling you this because I want to get on your good side, I just want to set it straight.¡± She looked back at me and said quietly, ¡°You¡¯ve been a dick since I got here, you know that? I ask you your name, you ignore me. I show some empathy for your fucked up face, your all, ¡®gonna cry¡¯?. I¡¯m getting surrounded by those bitches, and you decide to finally ¡®help me out¡¯ by getting me to be just like them? You didn¡¯t even try to be my ¡®friend¡¯ so don¡¯t go acting like- this when you find out what I¡¯m worth.¡± She was done talking to me. But I wasn¡¯t. ¡°If I was your friend, it would only put you in a worse position. I won¡¯t associate with you. Not because I¡¯m trying to be a dick, even if that is the end result, but because it¡¯s all I can do to help a crying girl.¡± There was silence for a while and I thought she was done talking to me. ¡°I was not crying.¡± I replied, ¡°And I hope you never do. But for that to happen you gotta get yourself friends here. Even if they are ¡®bitches¡¯.¡± She faced me, ¡°Sam.¡± It gave me goosebumps. The fact that she knew my name. This criminal has infiltrated my life, by sheer luck and I¡¯m letting her get away with it. ¡°Izzy told me that was your name, took her a while to remember it. If you don¡¯t want to be friends that¡¯s fine, I¡¯m happy with that even. But I¡¯ll be fucked if I have to talk to the horse haired ass behind you for the next year and a half. So, the official title of our relationship will be¡­ associates, ¡®kay??¡± She put her hand out and I shook it weakly, ¡°Fine.¡± I replied just as weakly, ¡°But I should warn you, just because I¡¯m quiet does not mean that I am good at school work, so don¡¯t think I can help you much with any of the work.¡± She gave an exaggerated shrug, and replied, ¡°That¡¯s fine I won¡¯t need help, I¡¯m pretty good.¡± I was pretty content with this conclusion, not that I was happy to have her, just that it seemed like everything was cooling down. Everything except the burning in my side. ¡°Alright Sam, what¡¯s your snapchat?? Just in case one of us misses a homework or something.¡± Shit. ¡°I- uh¡­ Don¡¯t have a phone.¡± I was worried that this would give me away pretty easily, who doesn¡¯t have a phone? But she just rolled her eyes, and said, ¡°Kerry bumpkins, I guess. Rocky and now you?? No wonder we gave up on this island. Oh, and by we, I mean Britain.¡± Yep, everything was cool. At least till the weekend. Or until she finds out I¡¯m Shamrock. Or when Belfast comes for her. Or when her boss comes for me. Or when I figure out why she¡¯s so afraid of those International guys. Cool! Clobber 1.07: I went hunting! There is one thing I¡¯ve always thought about, something I¡¯ve been trying to figure out my entire life. What type of superhero am I going to be? Obviously, I don¡¯t want to be like spider-man. I can¡¯t be the type of person who makes promises, breaks them, and suffers no consequences other than getting a fourth love interest. Definitely not an anti-hero, I¡¯m not going to kill anyone, or even seriously injure anybody for that matter. I¡¯m not a rugged badass, I know I¡¯ve given you proof of that. And there is no fucking way I can be a paragon. I can¡¯t handle the biggest threats in this universe. I can¡¯t destroy a damn skyscraper, let alone eat it, whatever that means. This is sort of a weird choice, but the type of hero I always see myself as being like is moon knight. If you know the character, your first impression is probably to assume something to do with him being a schizophrenic, but I¡¯m not talking about that. I never expected to get powers, so I thought I¡¯d just be going up against people like his classic villains. E-listers. The fist of khonshu isn¡¯t nearly as effective as literally any other hero. At the start he had no powers, no crazy tricks, just his martial prowess (poor in comparison to most characters), a french guy in a helicopter, and whatever random bull he can pull out of his ass. I thought I¡¯d be like that. Not so sure anymore. I practiced SP2 like I said. Two things I was able to pick up. I can turn lights off remotely, But I can¡¯t turn them on. I can stop myself from smelling. As in releasing an odour. Yeah, nothing big, but I¡¯ve been working on it for like a week, so I think I¡¯m doing pretty good for myself. Those tiny party tricks saved me just fine. Still can¡¯t say what the actual power is, but who doesn¡¯t like a good mystery right? Maybe you¡¯ll piece it together with what little I¡¯ve said? Probably not though, it¡¯s weird. You¡¯re probably sick of hearing about my school life, but that¡¯s important for this story. Currently my school¡¯s in the middle of exams. Mock exams, but I still try my best. As hard as a guy can try while bleeding out. Can¡¯t exactly go to a hospital, can I? I¡¯m not even talking about explaining how I got these weird wounds from twenty-foot-tall deep-sea creatures and a chick with a shotgun. I¡¯m thinking about what they¡¯ll do once they find out they can¡¯t give me stitches. Near impenetrable skin, remember? That being said, I don¡¯t have much of an idea what can and can¡¯t harm me. Like sometimes getting shot in the ¡®D¡¯ hurts, sometimes it doesn¡¯t. Maybe it¡¯s something to do with muscle contractions, or nerves, or arteries. How the hell am I supposed to figure this out, I didn¡¯t do well in the biology test for a reason During the exam week period, the regular school schedule is replaced with an exam time table. If you don¡¯t have an exam on a day or in a timeslot, you just go home or don¡¯t come in at all. Pretty sound idea, gives people time to study for their next test, or gives you time to run down to dingle to fight a sea witch half a week early. But that¡¯s not today¡¯s story. I¡¯ve fought Feoli tons of times, and though she¡¯s thrown a lot of freaky fish at me and there¡¯s been a lot of close shaves, there''s been nothing surprising. That¡¯s just my ordinary life now. I¡¯m only going to be posting about stuff that¡¯s out of the ordinary. Or a change to my status quo. Here¡¯s the scenario. We¡¯re over half way through the exam block. Finished half of our tests. Somebody gets the bright idea that we need a break from it all. The children need a real break. From all the stress of these exams. Before you know it, I¡¯m sandwiched between Saoirse and Izzy on a bus to Killarney. Despite its close proximity, I¡¯ve never been to Killarney before, I might have been excited to see the place, if it weren¡¯t for the fact that we were missing out on valuable study time. Well, I say that, but most people don¡¯t care about that. I do. I¡¯d like to have been able to say I gave it my best shot. ¡°But like, why the fuck are they taking us to the forest? Listen, only reason I¡¯m going to this shite is because Trixie O¡¯neill is, (an¡¯ don¡¯t tell ¡®er I was sayin shit) but, she¡¯s a prissy bitch like. So, she won¡¯t come off, but she won¡¯t go in without me neither, so I¡¯m all, ¡®fine yah doppie cow but I¡¯m not goin¡¯ unless Eoife¡¯s coming¡¯ so now she tinks I¡¯m a bitch for maken her come.¡±, came a southern Irish accent through one ear. ¡°Shit, I can¡¯t believe this. I thought this was something people were going to. I¡¯ve been here less than a week, and they¡¯re sending me off to the woods?? Fuck sake. So, where¡¯s your Mullet?? Did you not want him to come, or have you moved on??¡±, came a northern Irish accent in through the other. ¡°Bitch! He¡¯s mine, don¡¯t let anyone tells you otherwise. He¡¯d have come if he could, I told him to. But instead of gettin suspended, he¡¯s been banned from coming with us to this shite.¡± Knowing Saoirse, she was probably happy to hear that. Mullet is the type of guy to have a fantasy version of a girl built up in his mind. You know how on the internet people build up impossible ¡®gf¡¯ stereotypes. Like reducing someone to a specific architype by looking at a few quirks of personality or appearance. I¡¯m pretty sure Mullet thought of Saoirse as ¡®the transfer student¡¯. So I can understand wanting some distance from him. I spent a near two hour-long bus journey stuck between the two, wondering to myself, why did I even come in today? The answer that I came to is that the girl in my art class I like might have been going, so I should go. Does that make me sound stalkery? It¡¯s not like I overheard she was going and decided to go, I just thought she might go, so why shouldn¡¯t I? I was groaning internally for the rest of the trip. ¡°Wake up skunk stink.¡± Or maybe I slept through most of it. ¡°Christ, you know you breathe through your mouth when you sleep? Gives us a really good chance to take in the garlic you ate for breakfast.¡± I knew for a fact I didn¡¯t stink; I used my SP2 to deal with that. I don¡¯t think I smell bad normally, but they¡¯ve got me self-conscious about it now. So I experimented. Tried using my SP2 on a limited portion of my body. Without leaking too much info, the basic premise of it is that I can nullify some things. Or maybe I¡¯m just saying that to mislead you. Above my secret identity, my techniques, fears, the one thing I need to keep secret is my SP2. I got rid of pheromones, dead skin, sweat; Now I smell like¡­ nothing really. As I was getting up, I wondered if maybe SP2-ing my stink away got rid of something important. The good stink. I heard somewhere that humans can slightly communicate through smells. I don¡¯t know how true that is, but it¡¯s better not to take any chances. Just incase I do smell. ¡°Mullet?¡± Waiting right outside the bus, there he was. He was wearing a grey and black tracksuit, and for some reason sunglasses. Was he on weed? Probably. Izzy ran over to hug him. I¡¯m worried about the foundation of their relationship, but I think that¡¯s sweet. He hugged her back and turned to face the man responsible for this trip. ¡°Mullet, why aren¡¯t you in school uniform?¡± Mr Bio wore a puzzled expression on his face, forgeting entirely that Mullet was ¡®banned¡¯. He wore one of those aussie hats on the trip. You know the ones; tasselly bits with the corks on them. Other than that, he wore his normal shirt and tie, with the addition of cacky shorts. ¡°I¡¯m not in school sir. I¡¯m on my day off, and sometimes on my days off, I like to drive for 2 hours straight into the middle of Killarney national park.¡± There was a little laughing and cheering, it got me to crack a smile. It was a little cool to show up just to spite ¡®the man¡¯. I don¡¯t think Mr Bio found it too funny, though he did push out a laugh. ¡°Alright, alright! Don¡¯t have too much fun! In three hours, we¡¯re all going to meet back up here in your assigned pairs! Go on then. Go¡­ get into some trouble!¡± Then he just turned to go to a little kiosk in the visitor¡¯s area. I should try to explain the setting. I did a little google search of the place, nothing too outstanding. Something like 10Km squared of forest, with a big lake. The part we were in now was relatively civilised. Lot of parking space, camping ground, knick-knack shops, what else would you expect. It¡¯s a forest. I guess we were all thinking it would have something more set up. A scavenger hunt or something? This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Someone called out, I don¡¯t remember who, ¡°Uh, sir? What¡¯re we supposed to actually do?¡± He turned back to us for a moment, that puzzled look returned to his face before he announced, ¡°You can do whatever you want. So long as you stick to your pairs, be back in 3 hours, and take your minds off those tests!¡± Everybody responded with a dumb silence. Cause that¡¯s about the only reception you can give to an authority figure trying to do you a favour, when in actuality they are screwing you over. ¡°Ok?¡± Grunts of agreeance abound. Can you believe who I was partnered up with? A funny thing about teachers is that they think you¡¯re friends with whoever you sit beside, well, at least the unobservant ones do. For the first 15 minutes I tagged along with them, a big group consiting of Mullet, Izzy, Saoirse, Trixie, Eoife and a whole lot of other people I haven¡¯t talked about yet. Mullet hollered at me, ¡°Yo, Sam, what¡¯s in the bag?¡± ¡°Hey, first tell me why you¡¯re wearing sunglasses in a country with a thousand different words for rain.¡± That got a giggle out of him, and a tap to the temple. Yeah, I hung out with them, until I realised, I only have to stick to my partner at the end, when we get back on the bus. ¡°I¡¯m headed to the toilets. I¡¯ll catch up later.¡± I received a few affirmatives and turned from the herd for good. ¡°Hold up Sam! I gotta go too.¡± As Saoirse jogged over to me, Mullet let out a snicker, at least that¡¯s what I think it was, judging by his expression. Whatever the case, Izzy gave him a hard elbow to the gut. I knew she was dumb, but she must really be an idiot if she thinks it¡¯s alright to go to the bathroom attached to the class weirdo. ¡°What actually is your fucking deal Sam??¡± ¡°I looked back for a second. ¡°My deal?¡± ¡°You seemed just fine back there. Just like anybody else. Little plain, little passive, but whatever. Why the hell are you such a douche about talking to people?? All that crap about being a dirty mark on my social life? ¡®Simply a stepping stone¡¯ is what I think you said. Can you please explain to me why you need to back off from me?¡± I¡¯d nearly made it to the toilets. ¡°Didn¡¯t you see Mullet? Just by associating yourself with me your getting laughed at.¡± She proded my with a poke to the chest. ¡°Jesus, you think they¡¯re laughing because you¡¯re a loner? He laughed cause you¡¯re a boy and I¡¯m a girl. He¡¯s got a one track mind like that. Hate to repeat what I said back when we met, but it¡¯s just banter! There¡¯s nothing wrong with that. All you¡¯ve got to do is ¡®associate¡¯ with people. Say you¡¯re friends and that¡¯ll do.¡± She said something I didn¡¯t like; can¡¯t remember what it was exactly. Whatever shit she was saying, I wasn¡¯t having it. I turned and brought a finger down in front of her. ¡°Geewiz! That¡¯s a swell idea! While I¡¯m at it, I¡¯ll just pretend nobody looks at me like a piece of roadkill.¡± She backed off, I had broken her stride. ¡°Maybe you don¡¯t fucken understand, but this? Back outside the biology class? That¡¯s my life! I wake up, go to school, get glanced over, eat, sleep, repeat. That¡¯s me! In two years, one of those¡¯ll get switched out for ¡®go to work¡¯. That¡¯s not the life of a h- that¡¯s not the sort of person you can be ¡®friends¡¯ with. That¡¯s a fucking void.¡± She- fuck, she looked scared. Sam scared a supervillain, good for him. ¡°Jesus, Sam, you- You¡¯re just a normal guy¡­¡± she took a step back. Reflecting on it now, I regret shouting at her, but something she said really had ticked me off. ¡°Right, what¡¯s it to you? You left your life behind and made a new one in a day. Do you think I could pull that off?¡± I calmed down a little, maybe she took notice. She resolved herself, ¡°Someone told me I was trash¡­ But they also said I could be better. So, I¡¯m going to do it. I¡¯m going to go out of my way to tell you what you need to hear. There is nothing. Fucking. Wrong with you Sam. You just need to try.¡± That beat me. I think she was talking about me when she said ¡®someone¡¯; Shamrock. I didn¡¯t want to think about what she was saying, so I made a defeated grunt and went to the men¡¯s toilets. She doesn¡¯t get it. I just can¡¯t explain it. I¡¯m not like everyone else, I¡¯ve made some fatal flaw along the way. I¡¯m missing something deep down that I just can¡¯t place. There¡¯s something between me and everyone else that just doesn¡¯t mesh. Sam vs the world. I need this mask, I need to become someone else, I need- ¡°-One of you to suck my dick! Hahaha!¡± What the fuck? Walking into the bathroom I saw a thirty-year-old man dancing around with his trousers around his ankles. His hairy balls helicoptering around. I crept into the closest stall while he had his ass to me, both to shield my eyes and to stop him from noticing my entrance, if he hadn¡¯t already. He started singing, ¡°I know you don¡¯t get a chance to take a break this often! I know your life is speeding and it isn¡¯t stopping!¡± He was not good. There were other people in the bathroom, hell, you might be able to hear him from outside. Why was this crack head here? Why did he have to be here while I was here? I couldn¡¯t just walk out; I was mad at Saoirse. But I know someone who¡¯s great with crack heads. What¡¯s in the bag Mullet? Here¡¯s a clue, same colour as your medicine. Green. ¡°Sweat! Sweat! Swe¨C AAAARRRGGHH!¡± That¡¯s a normal reaction to make when some guy wearing a mask and baggy green trousers comes out of a toilet stall ready to throw down. My top was ripped to shreds, so there was no point even wearing it anymore. Still needed my restraints though, the brown material gripping to my arms. 30-year-old reached down for his pants, rather than pulling up his bottom half, he pulled out what looked like a gun. I¡¯ve gotten used to countering those things, so counter I did. I grabbed and twisted his wrist a little. Guy started screaming now, ¡°Unholy spawn of fu-hu-hu-ck!¡± I put a foot on the gun once it dropped, ¡°Can you hear me through all that steam you cooked fuck?¡± One of the other guys in the bathroom looked over to me and said, ¡°Sorry? What the hell are you doing lad?¡± I was a little bewildered at this guy¡¯s logic. Excuse me, it¡¯s alright to swing your balls about like a dog, but not wearing a shirt? The half-nude man started speaking to me, ¡°Holy shit you can talk?! Are you sapient?!?¡± ¡°Of course I can talk! I¡¯m not the one singing while- doing whatever this is! A toilet goer raised his hands defensively, ¡°W-Who are you talking to?¡± I jabbed a thumb, pretty damn frustrated with this situation, ¡°This fucker!¡± He just ran. What is happening? ¡°They- They can¡¯t see me. I¡¯m wearing my ¡®unaware¡¯. Aow-aow! Please, just let me pull up my pants before you kill me.¡± ¡­ ¡°Imagine. The world is a stage. Everyone you know? They¡¯re the audience. When they see people on stage, they ¡®know¡¯ it isn¡¯t real. There are the people on the stage, you, they¡¯re the reason there is a stage, they make the show. They play into the audience¡¯s disbelief; they make works of fantasy. Then there are people like me. I¡¯m in the wings I know the stuff going into the show, I see it in much the same way you do, but I¡¯m not an actor. I exist in the ¡®second¡¯ world, a middle space. Do you understand what I¡¯m trying to say?¡± ¡°None of this explains why you were dancing in the nude.¡± He was silent for a while. He suddenly, and violently, rubbed his nose. Before regaining composure, ¡°My unaware is an advanced piece of technology developed by one of the world¡¯s greatest minds. A woman not many people will hear the name of. It is a cloaking device that taps into and amplifies the neuro physical ¡®bumps¡¯ within reality. The same ¡®bump¡¯ that stops people off the stage from believing your act, even as it happens in front of their eyes. This renders me imperceivable to any normal people. You can imagine that¡¯s very important for my¡­ line of work.¡± I looked this man in the eyes, he was serious. I just saw him shaking what his mama gave him, and now he¡¯s pulling a face that wouldn¡¯t look out of place on easter island. He was wearing a cheap looking suit with a forked tie. I pretty much knew what his line of work was from the outfit but I was sure he¡¯d keep dancing around the toilet question, so I played along. ¡°What is your line of work, Mr¡­?¡± ¡°Bob, and I am but one of a thousand specially trained agents. We work for an organisation dedicated to interfering with the more nefarious big players in this world. Human or- Inhuman in nature.¡± He probably thought he was cool right now. ¡°My organisation has no official name we hold our funds under a number of dummy accounts, but we have no true moniker. We were formed under a number of nations back in 1959, so this has earned us a certain title in the paranormal community. They call us- The Internationals!¡± He must have thought I was impressed by this little speech but I was just shocked that this was what Clover told me to keep away from. A couple of middle-aged men shaking their cocks? Well, that would be something to stay away from, wouldn¡¯t it. ¡°Answer me this Bob-¡± He interrupted, ¡°You¡¯re mispronouncing it.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°You are saying it like ¡®Bob¡¯. It¡¯s coming from your gut, makes me sound like a fat guy. You have to say it from the head, put an ¡®a¡¯ sound into it. ¡°Bob?¡± ¡°Gotta put more ¡®ahh¡¯ into it.¡± ¡°Baahhb¡± ¡°No no no, that was like a damn farm animal! You need to put some power into it!¡± I stuck the palms of my hands in front of my mask, ¡°Whatever, just tell me what the hell you¡¯re doing here!¡± Maybe I was underestimating this guy. Was he trying to fuck with me? Was he actually capable of faking idiocy to distract me from the important questions in the room? Clover had to have had some reason to tell me not to mess with this guy. ¡°You said you¡¯ve never met anyone else with powers? Nothing supernatural?¡± ¡°Just me.¡± I lied to him. Just in case he has either in league with or against Clover, I feyned ignorance. He started up again, ¡°In a week¡¯s time, a VIPU is taking a little business trip from Boston to this island. And due to his status as a US citizen (and a rather generous donation), he¡¯s been offered the service of having us do a 100km radius ¡®scout and clean¡¯ of the area.¡± That put me on guard. That¡¯ll teach me for following this dick to God knows where. He laughed, but in a tone that felt very put on. ¡°Don¡¯t look so concerned, I¡¯m not here to clean you out! I guess you¡¯d fall under the ¡®scout¡¯ part. A ¡®scout and clean¡¯ protocol is usually only employed in an area that no one has a hard claim over. An area that could be ripe with sleepers.¡± He said something new that concerned me, ¡°Sleepers?¡± He turned to look at me with that stone face, and for the first time it seemed warranted, ¡°You¡¯re lucky. Only one of ¡¯em in a 100km radius of this area. It¡¯s not that strong either. Relatively speaking. A sleeper is what we call a powered animal or ¡®monster¡¯ that hasn¡¯t been active for a long time. Either due to a lack of prey, or a sustained injury. We believe it to be the former. Which puts us in a pretty bad position with you here.¡± I was worried- ¡°I¡¯m its prey?¡± -but not for myself. ¡°The same ignorance phenomena that causes people to dismiss you? It forces most creatures to hone in on you. They usually have at least one sense that¡¯s heightened in order to track Units down. Maybe it can see your body heat. Maybe it can hear your blood pumping. Hell, the whole reason it¡¯s a 100km radius is because we¡¯ve gotten creatures that can smell that far. I had a question I knew he wouldn¡¯t answer. ¡°If this thing hones in on that phenomena, then why were you using that ¡®unaware¡¯? Wouldn¡¯t that attract it as well?¡± He looked me in the eyes. I think I cracked him. ¡°I haven¡¯t asked you what the hell you were doing in there. Why you¡¯re dressed like a stripper from Vegas.¡± Perhaps I should mention that he was an American? Not that it¡¯s entirely relevant, I sort of assumed you''d just assume that from the ¡®men in black¡¯ vibe. Well, the vibe he was trying project over his less than stellar first impression I asked the only question of importance, no more poking at the toilet thing. ¡°Where is it.¡± Clobber 1.08: I got mauled. Pretty crazy the kind of tech these guys have. I¡¯ve seen military vehicles before, but this thing takes the cake. After walking for about 20 minutes, we arrived at what I¡¯d describe as a fusion between a jet and helicopter. It had blades in the wings, and a pill shaped body. I¡¯d say it¡¯s nearly as wide as a bus from the front. It was sort of wasp shaped in the legs and tail. It¡¯s a shame I never got to see the cockpit, (though, I don¡¯t think I would have said yes if he¡¯d asked me if I wanted to). That being said it was a pretty bad idea to follow this guy back here, for all I knew he had a super tazer, or some magic sleeper gas. ¡°Home sweet home. Inside is a bio tracker, that shows the highest concentration of animal biomass in the area. We¡¯ve got stuff for spectors and non-carbon organisms, but that¡¯s all that¡¯s turned up so far. We use this little fella to get an idea of the beast¡¯s range. Layer the two up and you get this.¡± He clicked something on a dirty key board, and a map of the area showed up on a monitor, a large pink blob shadowing over a quarter of the forest. ¡°Alright!¡± Lucky you! We just moved out of that area! You don¡¯t have to worry too much it¡¯s about a 1-1000 chance that thing¡¯ll cause trouble for regular folks.¡± My eyes bore into the area where we¡¯d just been. That place where I¡¯d shouted at Saoirse for trying to be nice to me. Where the perimeter loomed. ¡°Now that we¡¯re in the clear, I suppose it¡¯s time I got you to sign some papers. Like I said, you fall under the scouting. You¡¯re new to this so I¡¯ll try to explain it simply.¡± My eyes darted back to the origin of the blob, a blinking light in the middle of the forest. ¡°You don¡¯t have to sign up with The Internationals, but a powered Unit like you? You could climb the ranks pretty easily no matter what abilities you¡¯ve got.¡± Cogs turned in my mind. I took one last look at the parking spaces. I searched for a pixel of movement from the blob in the direction of the grey area. I was cold, but I felt like sweating. Maybe I imagined the movement. Maybe I didn¡¯t. ¡°Point me to it.¡± Bob was in the middle of saying something, I didn¡¯t care, ¡°I told you, you¡¯re safe as long as you¡¯re out of its range. Though, I guess it could be bigger or smaller, depending on stuff like the wind, humidity-¡± That didn¡¯t ease my conscience. ¡°Point, damn it!¡± I shouted at him; I think I saw him make a move for a weapon, not that it mattered. ¡°Take it easy son, it¡¯s just out north-east, see? That¡¯s to the tail of my craft.¡± I hopped out the door and blitzed. ¡®Bigger or smaller¡¯? ¡®Bigger¡¯?! Shit! What am I going to do if Clover went deeper into the forest? If she was in that group with everyone else, then weren''t they endangered too? Have I endangered innocent lives just because I disobeyed Mr Bio¡¯s orders? I was a lot better at running through the forest than I thought I would be. Leaping logs and darting round trees. Lot of swamp land I had to clear, not too watery, just muddy and deep, though it scared the hell out of me that the seconds I was spending climbing out of the bog was going towards this thing killing my classmates. After leaping a hill, I came into a clearing. It wasn¡¯t natural however. It looked like a storm had literally blown the trees apart, atop this hill was a well-trodden line of destruction. The trench was as wide as the agent¡¯s craft. I was definitely in the hunter¡¯s range, he¡¯d be coming for me soon, but just in case he was focused on her instead of me, I darted in the direction I believed would lead to the kiosks. Stopping once I saw it¡¯s back I wouldn¡¯t exactly describe it as being hulking, though it was clearly muscled under its white fur. No, I think I would describe the creature as vulpine in appearance, though it stood like a man. Its fur was much like the inverse of a foxes, the tips of its ears and appendages were rose red, though it didn¡¯t seem to be from slaughter. As I approached from the rear, after seeing the bolbous counter balancing mass I think was a tail, I noticed nobbily hairless growths on its shoulder blades. That I would have to look out for. I¡¯d have to think to get through this. This thing might have a shit ton of powers, it might out class me in raw strength, but from Bob I know this thing isn¡¯t sapient. I darted to it¡¯s side, though this thing might have already detected me. I thought I could throw it off by coming at it from an indirect angle. I got a better glimpse at its form from there. This animal had about ten-feet on me, I was just above it¡¯s knee. Again, I wouldn¡¯t describe it as hulking, but its frame was about as wide as its path. I skated under its arm, and threw a punch as hard as I could at where his kidney would have been, were he human that is. It was as hard as I could manage. His flesh and fur rippled unaturally. He halted his march. That thing¡¯s head curved around under its arm pit. I looked at the side of the fox¡¯s face. It seemed to grin, but maybe that¡¯s just how it looked, with some teeth peeking out from under its lips. ¡°PoOhHk?¡± That¡¯s the sort of sound that escaped it. I started to call it Pooka because of that. It made sense. A furry creature with shape shifting qualities from Ireland. Something didn¡¯t make sense in that situation though. Two things. All the feats of strength before now. Were they real? In that moment I questioned whether I even had any power, as he was not only completely unmoved, he was unphased. Two. You need to be alive to breathe right? To see and feel? Then why did I already feel¡­ like I was dead? He lifted his arm, it grew ten sizes, and he brought it down. I didn¡¯t fail in catching it, but I was being crushed none the less. The ground began to break before I did. The earth beneath caved, and I was up to my ass. Pretty soon, old wounds from previous fights started to open up. I was bleeding. I was bleeding all over and it hadn¡¯t even been fifteen seconds. It took me awhile but I eventually stopped pushing back, and flung it to the side. His hand made a shock wave, much like what I expected of myself in an ealier post. It flung me out of the ground, but I¡¯ve gotten used to being rag dolled by Feoli¡¯s monsters. Looking back, those slimy things weren¡¯t so bad. I was in the trees, and soon so was the Pooka. It leapt wildly in the area I¡¯d been launched. A fox¡¯s greatest sense is its smell, and I don¡¯t smell, finally, an advantage. At least that¡¯s what came to mind then. I had no qualms killing him. Sorry animal lovers. I know I¡¯ said I¡¯d look out for those fleshy nubs on it¡¯s back, but it was a blind spot, and I had to exploit every openning. I undid my restraints and leapt after. It was dumb to think that a monster that could grow its limbs to the size of a room, operated under the same laws of biology as anything else in the world. I aimed for his throat while I was on him, he didn¡¯t like that. Or maybe I just startled him. I dug into his throat with all I could, only to get that rippling from his flesh, as it kept moving back into shape. That didn¡¯t stop me from trying, I was so sure that he couldn¡¯t grab me while he was gripping to the trees without losing his balance. I was wrong. His tail has prehensile. It was suited to wrapping around the trees once it changed shape, giving him the freedom to do whatever he wanted with those four fingered hands of his. I was upside down. I would have thought he was trying to squeeze the life out of me, if it weren¡¯t for that mouth. It was a pale maw. It looked like the entirety of his mouth¡¯s interior was made of teeth, the material itself. I was stuck. I screamed as he bit into me. Unlike Feoli¡¯s, these blades pierced. Deep. I screamed, because I had nothing else, No matter how I struggled, I would never be on level with this thing. That is until he dropped me. I smashed through branches on my way down, they did little to break my fall. I struggled to get back up, then he flattened me back down with his tail. I was again immobilised, not because he was keeping me down, he got off me, I just couldn¡¯t get up. He bent down. I again felt the moisture from his breathe. Though this time¡­ He sniffed me. Then he just left. I hadn¡¯t a clue how long that lasted. That exchange. Maybe a little over a minute? Less? That¡¯s not enough. I used one arm to get back up. Though my legs could just about manage a crouch, I still had a lot of hot air in my lungs. My new set of screams made its ears twitch. It didn¡¯t matter whether I won, or even if I lived, I just needed to keep him here for two hours. Looking back now, while I wasn¡¯t dead yet¡­ there was no way I¡¯d be able to fight for two hours. I finally found out what those protrusions on his back were for. Goddamn lasers. They grew into stalks like a snail¡¯s eye and shot me with a hot blast. It was on for less than a second, but that¡¯s all it took to puncture my lung. This was the one injury I was sure of. I was on the ground again. I struggled to breathe. I couldn¡¯t see. I couldn¡¯t think straight. I¡­ I completely accepted this as the place I would die. Not that I fully understood what was happening. My mind wandered. I thought about my biology test, stuff on it like respiration (funny now), the Krebs cycle, something else. Most of it doesn¡¯t matter. I thought about Fungus the dolphin, and I imagined a crazy adventure where he went to- an RPG, I think? Yeah, he got stuck in castle, and I had to save him from this wizard boss fight. Christ no, that¡¯s not right. There was something else. Something? My biology test, yeah, how did I do? ¡­ Where am I? What was I doing? Yeah, Biology, God that test was deadly. Wait. Something¡¯s wrong. Something¡¯s off. No, I¡¯m too tired for whatever it was¡­ Tomorrow¡¯s problem for¡­ tomorrows¡­ ¡­ No. No, no, no, I¡­ need to think. Something important. The test. I¡­ Failed. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I failed. Without a doubt. My best wasn¡¯t good enough. That girl said, something? She said¡­ ¡®you¡¯¡­ ¡®you just need to try.¡¯ Did she¡­ she actually believe I¡­ that I could make it? She thought I could rise to the challenge, do something I couldn¡¯t. Doesn¡¯t that make her an idiot? Does she believe¡­? Closer. I¡¯m nearly there. One more thing I¡¯m missing. I failed her. Who? Clover? No, it wasn¡¯t Clover. I didn¡¯t fail Clover. I didn¡¯t fail her! I had one more shot. I was burning, bloody, and there¡¯s no telling what state I was in, given the numbing of my major wounds. I couldn¡¯t close my right hand, but that was alright, I only needed one. That¡¯s not to say my left hand was in a good state, far from it. But it was a whole lot better than walking. Even with my consciousness fading, or my soul leaving my body, it was easy enough to throw myself onto my belly. At least one of my legs was functioning, and that was enough for me. Wait. Wait. I need to pass. No, not just pass, I have to get 100 percent. I need to cram before the test. I leaned against a tree on my bad side, and clenched my fist. I need to focus. On nothing else. Just this test. I need to throw everything I¡¯ve got at one enemy. I reeled my fist back, and threw it with all my might. Some of the leaves moved at my feet. That¡¯s Shit, do it again. This time it made a weird sound. It wasn¡¯t right though. Again. Hrragh Again. HHHRrragh Again. HRRA-ck If it was the top of the class doing it, he¡¯d be able to squash me with his best punch. So, keep studying. It¡¯s pretty weird but that¡¯s how my brain was working. It was probably for the best that I decided to ¡®study¡¯. Think about it. If I ran at the Pooka one more time, it¡¯d be my last attempt. The best thing to do would be to think of some plans, like I did with Feoli. But I couldn¡¯t think. It was too late for that. I had let my desire to help get in the way of actually solving the problem. So, I did all I could do. I practiced punching. Harder. HRRRaCK Faster. HRRACK I need to push through with my punches. Counter that shifting. RRRRaCK RRAACK RROACK RROACK ROACK ROCK ROCK ROCK Sounds legit. My arm was sore, but who cares. I hadn¡¯t a clue which way he went so I just super hopped in one of the three paths of destruction. I knew it wasn¡¯t the one in the middle anyway. I really can¡¯t remember what I was thinking about. I had a techno song playing in my head. That asshole¡¯s got me on them now. Don¡¯t remember what it was called, hardly matters, I¡¯m here to kill, not dance. It was pretty lucky that he couldn¡¯t smell my blood or sweat, that was what I had thought of blocking. Funny thing about dying, your body doesn¡¯t try as hard to keep all that shit and piss inside. Threw my bottoms into a ditch. I wasn¡¯t trying to strategize, just wanted to get my dirty clothes off. Thankfully, it seems my SP2 remained in constant effect on my body. He came galloping over to where I ditched my dirty clothes, scary, because up till this point I¡¯d only seen him on his hind legs. I would have been shocked had my brain capacity not been reduced greatly from the lack of oxygen. I just thought it was weird how thorough a sniff he was giving my doo doo. I just had to make that sound, the ¡®rock¡¯ sound. He must really like the smell of my magic pong, because he didn¡¯t pay any attention to me creeping up behind him. I didn¡¯t try to hit him in the same place, figured I¡¯d aim for bone, because hitting the fleshy bit didn¡¯t go to well. This is the test. No more practice. Just one shot. Unlike my practice shots, I pushed myself forward with my good leg, and put every joint in my arm, every muscle in my leg, and of course, my hips into this fist. By this point I couldn¡¯t hear too well so I don¡¯t know if it was a perfect shot. Again, I nearly passed. I got the same feeling I got when I first punched the Pooka. That dread of death. Was I missing something? This thing probably had more than two abilities. But I kept pushing. I might have floundered the punch, but I needed to keep pushing. It wasn¡¯t 100%, but I¡¯m gonna make the grade damn you. The shifting continued but so did I. He didn¡¯t like that. The pulsing area increased, and I pushed deeper, deeper until my arm was completely submerged in his pulsating muscle. Gross. Though I didn¡¯t think about it at the time, it¡¯s sort of like when you push a finger into a balloon. In the way it stretched, not to mention, his yelps sounding like the squeaks it would¡¯ve made too. Eventually I was forced back, launched by the reflexing of his mass. I think I poked a hole in him. In his spine. He slammed and raged with his pulsating arms, but he¡¯d already launched me out of melee range. His hind legs twitched, convulsed. Did I paralyse him? I climbed back up and started limping at him. Again, he pulled out his lazer stalks and glared at me with his slitted eyes. He started blasting wildly, scorching the ground as the beam passed. I did my best to dodge the blasts while getting closer and without losing momentum. I failed at dodging. He grazed the left of my gut. That only made me go, ¡®Fuck it, gotta go out on my terms.¡¯ So, I made a final jump for his forehead, figured I should at least try to act like a hero and hit him up front. If that last punch knocked out his legs, then a higher aimed hit will take him out for good. It was worth a shot. I would have shouted, but I wasn¡¯t able, not enough air, but I put everything I had left into that. His stalks didn¡¯t loop back to shoot me, guess he didn¡¯t want to risk hurting himself. But I was planning on doing a lot more than just hurting him. Finally, I made contact. Hours of studying went into this fist, it better damn well work. ¡­ Wait, that wasn¡¯t right. I didn¡¯t study for this. I studied for my biology test. I failed my biology test. Fuck, I gave it my all and that¡¯s it? I look at the paper and see stars. Now I can¡¯t see. It¡¯s just stars. Space. Black. ¡­ I woke up in a cocoon. It wasn¡¯t like when you wake up after a night¡¯s sleep. I didn¡¯t feel groggy at all. In fact, I felt adrenaline rushing through my body. I flexed my muscles and shattered the cast like material. Now I could scream again. I thought that fucker put me in there, like some kind of doggy bag for later. I threw myself to my feet and whipped my head around in a panic. ¡°Take it easy son. I cleaned him up. It¡¯s my job after all. But goddamn, you sure did a lot of it for me. Didn¡¯t even need to phone in any ¡®R.O.¡¯s for him.¡± I panted, calmed down a little, though it was pretty hard to do that when my saviour had a pretty big rifle at his side. ¡°Bob!? What the- What shit-¡° ¡°I told you once boy, it¡¯s Bob.¡± This really didn¡¯t seem like the time for semantics. ¡°What¡¯s going on? What¡­¡± I trailed off. My legs were fine. I felt my body over. My wounds, even the older ones were gone. I splayed my right hand, checked it back to front. It had been a long, long time since I¡¯d been woundless. No bruises or scarring. It was like I was born again. ¡°Alright, alright, I¡¯d say this about makes us even.¡± I looked up at him, wordless. ¡°I mean, it¡¯s one thing too¡­ blow off steam every once in a while, but it¡¯s something else entirely to strip naked beside a monster¡¯s body. I guess you also shit yourself at some point too.¡± I looked down, only to find myself completely naked except for my shoes. I reached one hand to my face, and the other down to my lazer stalk. Thankfully, my mask was still intact. ¡°Actually about being square¡­¡± The agent scratched the tip of his nose. ¡°Huh?¡± I bleated dumbly. ¡°We aren¡¯t exactly even. That cellular rebirthing foam? It¡¯s not exactly cheap. And because you are unaffiliated with The Internationals? It is not free.¡± My eye lids twitched. ¡°How¡­ much?¡± He brought his scratching finger down to his lips. ¡°For getting me to crack open a fresh can? 10,000 USD.¡± I looked away. That¡¯s a shit ton of money. What the fuck is even happening? ¡°Of course, you can pay it back over a monthly period. I¡¯m sure your part time job doesn¡¯t pay you enough for that sort of stuff.¡± I don¡¯t have a job. I haven¡¯t for a while. Fucking American health system. ¡°Pooka?¡± I turned back to face him. He looked concerned now. ¡°Shit, was that an older model? Hey little buddy, uh, you know your ABCs?¡± I shook my head, ¡°The fox monster, is it dead?¡± He looked relieved for a second before returning back to his normal emotionless expression. ¡°Monsters like that don¡¯t just die, you noticed it was a shapeshifter. Basic stuff like, Size changing, force redistribution, elasticity? Well, when separated from the central nervous system, other parts of its body will spaz out, randomly changing between different structures of its body. I can¡¯t explain the theory behind it, but even if you disintegrated that things head, it wouldn¡¯t die unless reduced to a mass smaller than the brain. Hell, it might even be able to duplicate, let alone regenerate.¡± That got the adrenaline back. ¡°But you said you ¡®cleaned¡¯ it right? It- It¡¯s not a threat anymore?¡± He gave me a cocksure smile and said, ¡°Good ol¡¯ International level cleaning fluid. Bottled him up in it. Thanks to you taking out his nervous system, he wasn¡¯t able to generate that death aura of his.¡± Everything this man said just gave me new questions, ¡°Death aura?! What the hell does that mean?¡± He lowered an eyebrow, ¡°You didn¡¯t notice that? Again, we are unsure of the specifics of this thing¡¯s abilities, but either all organisms within a certain range are rendered dead, or their soul is burned out of them.¡± What does that even mean? So, either that thing was trying to suck my soul out, or being in that smiley fuck¡¯s presence was slowly disintegrating me? I can think of ways my super endurance or SP2 can counter those, but isn¡¯t that a little overpowered for a ¡®relatively weak monster¡¯? Bob snapped his fingers; I must have been lost in thought, ¡°You¡¯re a weird guy, anyone ever tell you that?¡± I chuckled, ¡°Yeah, I- some people think so.¡± I smiled a little, as much as I could to the guy I was in debt to. He reached into a duffle bag sitting next to him, ¡°I try to keep these with me. In case some poor bastards on his last legs when I¡¯m trackin a monster.¡± Held between his middle three fingers he lifted out two bottles of some foreign beer. He stuck his arm out to me. I hesitated. ¡°Hey it¡¯s good stuff, I promise. Might as well break in that fresh liver.¡± I took it from him. ¡°Thanks Bob.¡± He cracked open his bottle and said, ¡°That was close to being right.¡± I shook my head and laughed. Physically I felt better than ever. Hell, I just saved my second person, so I¡¯m doing alright emotionally too. ¡°Let¡¯s get talking about those papers. Here flip this cast over, we¡¯ll use it as a pseudo-coffee table.¡± My mouth hung open, ¡°Wwwwhat papers?¡± As he was rifling through his bag he explained, ¡°The registration forms. Really won¡¯t take more than- say¡­ half an hour?¡± I quickly interjected, thinking this must have been what Clover was talking about. Did they try to strong arm every powered Unit into joining their ¡®foundation¡¯? ¡°I¡¯m not signing up with you guys!¡± He put back around a quarter of the creased papers into the bag. ¡°Wow, cool it kid, that¡¯s fine. Your loss though. If you change your mind, well, I¡¯ll leave my card.¡± As he rolled my cocoon over, I pointed at the remaining sheaf of papers, ¡°Then what¡¯s all this for?¡± He made a small attempt to flatten out the pages, ¡°This is just stuff for our systems. Normal stuff like marital status, country of birth, ethnicity, all the way to stuff like powers, related organisations, territory claims, the cool stuff.¡± I shook my head, ¡°why do you need to know stuff like that?¡± He again scratched his nose, ¡°Well¡­ there are a lot of¡­ undesirables with power. So, if you end up dead, or end up killing one of those guys, we¡¯ll know stuff like, who to contact if you die or if there is a dispute over territory, we can check who was there first, and most folks will side with the original owner, unless they have a vendetta against you.¡± For a second time, Bob got the cogs turning. ¡°So, say if I was born and raised in an area¡­ and someone else with powers makes a claim for that area after moving here a week ago¡­ unless I fill this out, nobody will so much as bat an eye if I get axed?¡± He nodded his head to the side, ¡°Be like you never existed. Depending on how you die, local police will probably rule it off as a missing person or an accident.¡± I took the cap off the bottle with just my tongue, ¡°Shit¡­¡± To think the girl I literally defied death to save, was leaving an opening for someone to take me out. After that crap about needing to stick together, needing to help each other through good and bad despite being enemies. It was bullshit. I took a swig of that god awful foreign beer. Hey, what else was new? Sure, she might be out for my blood, but I¡¯m out to destroy her livelyhood. Well, maybe we aren¡¯t even, she¡¯s an extortionist and drug dealer after all. I¡¯m not fussy about who I save, as long as they¡¯re in a better place afterwards, whether that¡¯s physical or- moral doesn¡¯t sound like the right word, but that¡¯s all I can think of. There was much more leniency when signing those papers than I thought. Bob said I didn¡¯t have to fill everything in, or anything really. So I left out stuff I wouldn¡¯t share here, my address, my real name, and SP2. I did include my phone number, and a stake to the territory surrounding Tralee and dingle. I don¡¯t know if Clover has already made a claim to the territory, or if her claim would outweigh mine. Bob checked his wrist watch, ¡°Well, you got that wrapped up quicker than I thought.¡± Purely out of curiosity, I asked, ¡°What time is it anyway?¡± Only after he gave me his reply did I realise what that meant for me. ¡°CRAP! Bob, give me your clothes, I¡¯ll call you later to tell you where to pick them up.¡± He argued, until I reminded him he could become undetectable, I couldn¡¯t use a scifi cloaking device to hide my bare ass on the trip home. I left my school clothes in my bag, way back at the toilets (I was lucky enough that nobody pissed on them or anything) So I really needed this suit to at least make it back to the restrooms without flashing my teacher. But by the time I got back, the bus was gone. I shivered. I wasn¡¯t too sad about it. It was probably quicker for me to run back home. It¡¯s stupid, maybe a remnant from before I had super powers, but seeing the empty space the bus once filled made me feel pretty lonely. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a broken honk from behind me. I turned to see a rather run-down car. I stepped out of the way as they drove out in front of me. I could hear laughing from inside as the windows rolled down. In the driver seat I saw a young man wearing comical sun glasses. ¡°It¡¯s your lucky day, James Bond, you might have missed the bus, but lucky for you, I¡¯m above public transport.¡± I bent down to face Mullet, ¡°Listen mate, I- yeah, can I get a lift with you?¡± He laughed, and joked, ¡°Your boring Sam, not a Nazi! Course you can. Saorsh, move over, our science partners been in a toilet for three hours. You know how he smells normally.¡± I clicked the door open and Saoirse rolled over to the far end of the car giddily. ¡°He¡¯s my ¡®Science associate¡¯, Mullet, it¡¯s an official title.¡± Izzy giggled in the front seat. They were a little more gleeful than they were before, pretty sure they were drinking the same shit I was. Izzy commented on my change of appearance, ¡°Trust the class weirdo ta get a suit together in tha feckin woods like. You wearin makeup too Sammy? Bags under your eyes are gone. So¡¯s that busted eye.¡± I hadn¡¯t seen myself since getting¡­ whatever it was the International did to me. ¡°HHAuh?¡± Saoirse craned as she leaned in to get a closer look at me. I could tell she was drinking, from the way she swayed, the smell of her breathe, and her lack of personal boundaries. She covered her mouth, before letting out, ¡°Shite, you are good looking now.¡± She was definitely drunk; she couldn¡¯t see straight. I laughed awkwardly, ¡°Fuck off, yah dumb¡­ ass!¡± Everyone but her laughed. Wait, was Mullet drunk too? Not that I mind if we get into a crash, I¡¯m made of adamantium, bitch. I thought that to myself, but I guess I meant to say it out loud. Saoirse frowned, jabbed a finger at me, and cried, ¡°FfFuck you! DumbASS! I¡¯m the biggest coke dealer in the country! I can get my boysiz on you whenever I damn well¡­ want. Shit¡­ Shit dick¡­ You¡¯re fucken ugly, actually.¡± The car did not crash on the drive back somehow. Though that¡¯s not to say there weren¡¯t more than a few ditches swerved into. Clobber 1.09: I nearly asked out the girl in my art class! Nearly. I used to know a guy who wanted to be a youtuber, really just interested in chasing internet clout. He did gameplay, film reviews, prank videos, God awful AC/DC song covers (just talked over the song while it played in the background), and a whole lot of other stuff. His uploads were on average 20 minutes to an hour long, and each of those videos got on average 20 views. Suffice to say, after two years at it he was getting nowhere. One of his most popular videos has about how he asked out a girl in his class. The twenty people who watched his videos? They were in his school. Only reason I know about it is from the word of mouth that was spread about how much of a loser he was. When it comes to women, or rather, seeing a woman as attractive, I am terrified. This story cemented the fear in my mind years ago. If I asked a girl out, and she said no, a likely response, what the hell would happen then? What if she talks to people? Tells them I¡¯m a creep. Everybody already thinks I¡¯m weird, but to have a girl I like actively saying that? That¡¯s too much. So yeah, I won¡¯t ask a girl I like out because that¡¯s creepy. But isn¡¯t it just as creepy to like someone in that way and say nothing? It just seems gross, the whole thing¡¯s a mess, I feel like I¡¯m no better than Mullet because I think about being in a relationship with someone. My reasoning is a little dumb, if you try not to be attracted, then how do you get into a relationship? So yeah, I just stopped. Pushed those thoughts to the recesses of my mind. It¡¯s alright not to have a girlfriend anyway, right? I mean, I¡¯m going to be a super hero. Having any loved ones would only put somebody in danger. Yeah. Yeah, I don¡¯t need somebody else, am I seriously going to let some chemicals in my brain affect my actions? No way! But then this year of school started, and I was one of the few people who chose art. I was paired up with her. I¡¯ll call her, girl from my art class, because hopefully I will never have to refer to her again. I honestly didn¡¯t think much of her at first. She was plain, didn¡¯t talk much, and well, I thought she was kinda¡­ unattractive. I wasn¡¯t attracted to her at all. But soon I became interested in her. She made incredible paintings; I will never be able to make anything like them in a hundred years of practice. It drew me in, the majesty of them, the forms of the cliffs, the grey clouds reflected in the waves beneath, being broken by streaks of yellow. It was dark, gloomy, but there was a promise of more through it all. It made me ask, what lies beyond the horizon? If I took a boat and some oars and shoved off, would I be able to find it? Where the lights come from? Or would I sink, drown. Then I looked at her. Suddenly she seemed a lot more attractive. When that crossed my mind, I felt like I was going to break into a sweat. You made your rules Sam, now live with them. I left the room to collect myself, went to the bathroom. To you it must seem like I run to the toilet whenever I have a problem. I do. I thought about my situation, enough to turn my forehead into a raisin. Obviously, I can¡¯t ask her out. What the fuck would I do if she said yes anyway, date her? Right, and she¡¯d be glad to explain to all her friends that I spend most of my time reading comics on my computer. That sure sounds like a possible reality, but it sure ain¡¯t this one. Alright, let¡¯s figure this out. We¡¯re only in one class together, I can handle that. She doesn¡¯t talk much anyway. Great, just don¡¯t talk to her. This thought mutated through a long lineage of cur born from the deep recesses of my mind. I really wanted to know more about her, so I began to think I could maybe possibly be friends with her. Sure, that could work. Took me a while but I eventually started talking to her a little. I will not tell you anything about her, but I hung off every word she said. Like a dumbass. Eventually I began to wonder, could she maybe possibly like me? Maybe she thinks I¡¯m cool, she just hasn¡¯t said anything. But what if we could be boyfriend-girlfriend? Maybe, just maybe, that could happen. You don¡¯t realise it but I have done a lot of growth after getting superpowers. Say what you will about kids dressing up in skin-tight clothes to punch criminals, but it does build character. I fought a eldritch pagan monster, drug dealers, and even a Pooka. I also rode in a car for an hour with people my age after school hours! A month or so back I probably couldn¡¯t imagine it, but it was after school! So please try to understand the circumstances of the final inbred in the genealogical abomination of my mind. ¡°Mullet what league am I in?¡± He turned to me bored, and a little hungover from whatever he was doing last night. ¡°What does that even mean? You know, every time you talk to me that thought comes to my mind in big bold letters.¡± He was a little grouchy, I didn¡¯t mind. ¡°You know, like in movies they say, ¡®she¡¯s totally out of my league¡¯?¡± He caught my meaning, and raised his hand to stop me, ¡°I¡¯ve only known Saoirse for like a day, but she is out of your league, man.¡± My facial expression changed in a flash, ¡°That¡¯s not who I¡¯m talking about!¡± I tried to whisper so that no one else in the corridor would hear him though I still had a tone of urgency, ¡°It¡¯s just that, I¡¯ve cleaned up a lot in the past month, started working out, cleared my skin, hell, even my bags are gone!¡± He thought about it for a while, and came to a conclusion, ¡°Yeah, you¡¯re nearly¡­ average. Saoirse however is above average. So yeah, she¡¯s out of your league.¡± I breathed in, swallowed my embarrassment, ¡°What about the girl in my art class?¡± He looked like he was about to say something, before he stopped himself, ¡°Do you mean Dinah?¡± ¡°No, I mean [the girl in my art class].¡± This was hard enough without him bringing other people into this. He actually wagged his finger like he thought I was on to something, ¡°Yeah, that would work out great!¡± He actually seemed invested in our conversation for the first time ever. I spluttered out, ¡°Emmhb-really?!¡± He cringed a little, before putting his hand on my shoulder, ¡°Listen, she doesn¡¯t go out much, hasn¡¯t had a boyfriend before, and you already know each other! Some people think that¡¯s a bad thing, but with you it would be a good place to start.¡± I thought about how his knowledge on this girl was weird for half a second, before I remembered who I was talking to. ¡°But,¡± The question that was always on my mind, ¡°what if she says no?¡± That question stopped him in his tracks. ¡°That probably would be a problem for you. You don¡¯t have the experience to not take no for an answer like me¡­¡± That was hopefully not about sex. Holy shit, was he- ¡°OK, maybe, just buy her stuff? That¡¯s a classic. Before you ask the question, you need to butter her up.¡± I posed another question to my unlikely guru, ¡°What if I can¡¯t buy her stuff?¡± He just rolled his eyes, ¡°I don¡¯t mean jewels and gems, stupid. Ladies like it when you get them stuff, they want, and then act like you had no clue that they wanted it. Make it seem like you¡¯re made for each other.¡± I thought about what he said for a moment, before whispering as quiet as I could to him, ¡°Before I take any of your advice, I just¡­ need to make sure what you meant when you said, you don¡¯t ¡®let them say no.''¡± He gave me a laugh before saying out loud, ¡°Please, my body is a temple. First time has got to be special. With a super model or a hooker. I¡¯m not having sex till marriage.What i I meant was, I get the status of being with them. You know, I just spread some rumors we made out for a bit at a party.¡± I just blinked and nodded, was he planning on marrying a hooker? I just always saw him as the type of guy who had infinite sex. But I guess he is just 18. ¡°But listen Sam, you and (the girl from my art class)? Totally behind you buddy, think it speaks to your humility that¡­ you¡¯re hitting your own level.¡± This was the worst conversation I was ever going to have with him, and I was glad it was over. ¡°Great. Thanks a ton, Mullet.¡± I gave him a smile and he was content. ¡°Now if you¡¯ll excuse me, I need to get some headache medicine from a guy at the back of the school.¡± And with that he strode off. Thank God that was over. Freaked me out a little, but he said some useful stuff about getting her something she would like. Problem was that I was saving up right now to try and pay off the American health care bill I racked up. So instead of that, I gave her something I that was free. I told her about a little place, inch beach, that would be great for her to paint. She had been looking to do somewhere other than Tralee, but she wanted to still do the ocean. All she said was that she¡¯d think about it. That was ok. I¡¯ll just slowly build my way up. Might be a crawl, but that¡¯s the speed the romantically handicapped have to move at. ¡­ ¡°You¡¯re better. Not stronger. Your injuries are gone, for one.¡± I was trying and succeeding, at dodging the grasps of a giant misshapen multi-limbed crab. ¡°I¡¯m healthy alright! But I haven¡¯t the foggiest idea where you¡¯re getting the idea that I¡¯m any better a fighter than last week¡¯s Shamrock!¡± I jumped for a particularly bulbous eye on the crustacean and tore it out before moving on to its back. ¡°Whatever.¡± the sea witch was firm. ¡°Don¡¯t care. You¡¯ll die eventually.¡± I grabbed at the creature¡¯s chitin and began to peel it from its shell. It, like the others before it, burst into liquid and vapour. A not-so-distant crowd cheered. I really would have preferred if me and Feoli¡¯s show hadn¡¯t become so popular. As soon as I reached the ground, I kicked off the sand with one foot and jabbed with the other. My new restraints did just as good a job at slowing blood flow as the old ones, but if Feoli thought I was stronger when she was just watching, now she¡¯d feel it too. I aimed the blow at the exposed area, her stomach. She nearly caught me, but I¡¯m faster at moving than she is at reacting. She nearly coughed up her fish food, as I failed to resist putting on a show for the crowd, ¡°I think that¡¯s enough for today, don¡¯t you? I¡¯m not getting tired, just a little bored is all. So maybe you should take your dumb blue ass back to the Mariana trench, or whatever freaky hole you came out of.¡± That got a few laughs from the crowd. ¡°You¡¯re scum.¡± Her eyes were cold, uncaring, we had done this tons of times, maybe she was tired. I still doubt she¡¯d serve her time in prison. Maybe I could get in touch with Bob, he might have a jail for super powered criminals? He has to have some place to keep that fox when he gets back home. I shouted to Feoli¡¯s back when she left, ¡°Until tomorrow, ya crazy bitch!¡± When she disappeared under the waves, my entourage swarmed me with congratulations and jokes. One guy stood out in the experience. It was a guy from my school. I didn¡¯t have any classes with him, so it was virtually impossible for him to find out my identity. He was a lot taller than me, his broad frame made him look better at playing a super hero than me. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°Hey Shamrock-man! Can I talk to you for a second?¡± I was hesitant, but what the heck, could be important. ¡°What¡¯s up big guy? Need me to find some change you dropped under the sofa?¡± He laughed a little too hard for the joke, but maybe he was high off the adrenaline of seeing a giant fuck-off crab. ¡°Wow, you¡¯re a real spider-man type huh? Listen man, my friend is a big fan of marvel, so it would be really cool if you could take a picture with us?¡± I mean, a social media presence is impossible, what with the ignorance effect or whatever the official name is, but I¡¯m not going to say no, am I? I gave him the thumbs up and he waved me over to another part of the crowd. I don¡¯t want to blame Clover for every stroke of bad luck, but this is a stroke of irony, isn¡¯t it? I told her to check the place out, didn¡¯t even think about myself being there at the same time as her, but here we are. Standing shoulder to shoulder while her Greek Adonis takes pictures. Was afraid I might start sweating, but I didn¡¯t feel it coming. I felt completely calm. Still. They laughed and giggled when they switched positions. Now shoulder to bicep, the girl from my art class said, ¡°That crab thing was wild! I guess you¡¯d need to have super strength to beat that, but what other powers do you have Shamrock-boy?¡± Adonis corrected her, ¡°He¡¯s Shamrock-man! And you¡¯ve got super speed or whatever right? How else could you have moved that fast.¡± I opened my mouth again, but the girl butt in, ¡°That was just his super strength. Heroes don¡¯t skip leg day, huh?¡± I forced a little laugh and put it to rest, ¡°It¡¯s just Shamrock, and my second power is¡­ being super lucky, how else would I beat sea monsters every time?¡± They both in sync said, ¡°Oooh, that¡¯s why you¡¯re a four-leaf clover!¡± They then started jinxing each other. Something about that nearly broke my smile. In the end, Adonis won and TGFMAC(The girl from my art class) had to go buy him something. I was about to cut out and go back to the crowd, who were now also looking for pictures with me, but before I could, I told him one last thing. ¡°You and your girlfriend be safe out there, don¡¯t know when a giant crab¡¯ll¡­ ruin your day, right?¡± He smirked and said, ¡°Thanks man, really, you were great. Real nice of you to do that for us.¡± I shrugged and said ¡°No problem.¡± I was not in the mood to take pictures so I shouted to the crowd, ¡°Ok, only five more groups then that¡¯s me. Ass is killing me after that huge eel thing at the start.¡± That got them rushing over to make sure they got a picture. Like a swarm of flies to honey. Lots of smiling later, I didn¡¯t have the energy to go back to my gran''s for cabbage and potato. So, I just sat there. I sat on the beach in full costume just looking out to sea. It was sunset now, and there wasn¡¯t a cloud in the sky. I tried to think of anything else, but, well, it was a little like her paintings. Just a little brighter and a lot less cloudy. Adonis, the guy from before, let me tell you what I know about him so you understand how I feel. He¡¯s athletic, handsome, and just as popular as someone like Mullet, but he actually seemed like a solid guy. Big thing I knew about him was that he was rich. That¡¯s not because his parents are lawyers or whatever gets a good salary in this economy, he made his own small fortune in stocks or something. Not that crypto stuff, that¡¯s what I thought at first, actual real tangible money-making stocks. I don¡¯t know how he does it, maybe he¡¯s lucky, maybe he¡¯s skilled enough to know the tricks of the game. Mullet said we were in the same league, if that¡¯s true then how is she on such good terms with someone so popular, so skilled, so rich, that he¡¯s at the top of the school. How¡­ does a weirdo with a hobby compare to someone like that? They don¡¯t. Maybe I am just like everyone else, but at my core I¡¯m just not that appealing. If I am like everybody else, then there is nothing that makes people want to hangout with me when they could hang out with anybody else. Put me in a line up with people who have an actual reason to smile wide, and you know who¡¯s getting picked. So I¡¯ll just sit here. They can have fun. Hell, they can date, it has nothing to do with me. I¡¯m not entitled to anything from her. I see the irony, with my position and situation, but there are more fish in the sea. Don¡¯t think I¡¯ll get a catch like her though. After sitting there for a while, I decided it was time to go back. But in the distance, I saw a giant blob looking thing, on the far end of the beach. Took my mind off it. I jumped over to investigate and I wasn¡¯t too surprise at who I found over there. ¡°Can¡¯t you do whatever this underwater? Though I would prefer that you do nothing at all. I guess you could fight pirates, anything is better than furthering a plot to wipe out millions of lives.¡± I scowled to her back, she only responded with a, ¡°Not now.¡± before continuing what I can only assume was some form of training. I had guessed before that she had a limit to how much she could transform at a time, or some form of stamina for the ability. ¡°But seriously, why are you doing this here?¡± I sat myself down beside her. She didn¡¯t respond so I just pushed further. ¡°Does it only work above water? That would be a pretty bad power for an ocean dweller.¡± She replied sharply, ¡°Not an ocean dweller. Not for much longer.¡± I just sighed, was I ever going to get something humane out of her? ¡°You know, not too far from here there¡¯s a country that was once ruled by a great and powerful Master. He drew a bright future in the imaginations of millions of people who had been beaten in a past war, the loss was still fresh in their minds, made them hungry for supremacy. And so, for a while they held the world in their fist.¡± She still didn¡¯t face me. I had hoped a little bit of a ye olde speak would get through to her, ¡°I know of the country you speak. It is the chief enemy of your people, England.¡± I laughed and said, ¡°Do you think so? What gives you that impression?¡± She was at least giving speeches now, ¡°As I recall, England was a minor state, often bullied by greater powers such as Spain and Italy. I¡¯m unclear on the specifics, but eventually they gained the upper hand. They broke away from Italy¡¯s holy hegemony and instated their own God king. They had a stroke of luck and defeated a vast armada of Spanish ships. And so, they grew mightier than any nation on earth. They did quite a good job at keeping you scum under their heel. I don¡¯t know how you broke out from under it.¡± I answered, ¡°We didn¡¯t. In the end they let us go because we wanted to be free.¡± She glanced a look at me, but before she could say anything I continued my thought, ¡°Have you heard of Nazi Germany? That¡¯s who I was actually talking about.¡± She looked away from me, putting her focus back on her practice, ¡°No.¡± ¡°Germany were defeated in The Great War. Scholars said it was a war so large, so destructive, that it would frighten humanity into never waging a war again. They were wrong. The mighty Master began to take what his people wanted, what he needed to wage a new war. Nobody else wanted to go back to war, so for a time, Countries like France, and England simply let them conquer territories of weaker nations, nations that had been just as broken by the Great War as Germany. So, they grew in ambition, the mighty ruler, unsatisfied with purely political power over his country, he wanted complete control over them. He learned that for a person to submit themselves, they need to run from something, a monster, an enemy, all so they might feel safer from a greater evil. He chose to once again draw a picture in their imaginations he told them their suffering was all due to a great enemy race. They take money from the people, hoarding it for themselves, and it was actually their fault that they lost the war. The mighty ruler would take care of them, the people and their enemies. And so, for no reason, he slaughtered his peoples own. Children and the old, any that were found, were not sparred. He could have put them to work, food and ammunition is short in times of war, but he killed them like dogs.¡± She looked at me, ¡°I understand your comparison. But you are not the imagined enemy. You are my England. In the past you succeeded. You slaughtered us. I will make it right. I will pass judgement.¡± I looked her in those cold eyes, and I corrected her, ¡°I never said I wasn¡¯t your England. But ask yourself, your mighty master and their men, what would they do to motivate your people, to keep them on edge, fighting. Would they not just as easily turn neighbour against neighbour? Friend to foe? You¡¯ve been living up here, away for quite some time. When you return, how do you know that the country you¡¯ll return to will still be known for bratwurst and yodelling. Is your faith in your people so absolute? When you left them, can you say they didn¡¯t suffer prejudice amongst each other on petty differences?¡± She closed her eyes and looked away from me. The bubble burst. The water came crashing down, and soon re-joined the ocean. She shifted her seating, twisting herself to look at me directly. ¡°Is this place better? You haven¡¯t seen my world. My home. How can you judge it based on the history of some far-off nation? I¡­ am a poor example. I am an executioner. This is my duty. To beat you. To beat you, so that we may thrive.¡± I just shook my head, ¡°This country doesn¡¯t need executioners. Haven¡¯t you seen the people who live here, the diversity of them, do they carry knifes on them? Granted, this is just a village. But this country is a place were different races and creeds can live together. That is the sort of place the surface, for the most part, has become.¡± She glared into my eyes now, ¡°Are you sure you can trust your people? Do you believe that they will resist the temptations of fleeting pleasures in order to stay loyal to strangers? If they were born in under the thrall of a terrible master, wouldn¡¯t they kill their neighbours? Trade them for higher standing?¡± I didn¡¯t hesitate to answer, ¡°They wouldn¡¯t. It¡¯s na?ve, but I believe that the majority of people won¡¯t be so easily tricked, the only reason I think that is because we¡¯ve had the lives of others to learn from. History of evil. The past births a better future.¡± ¡°You are a fool. Though that was never in question.¡± She looked me up and down. ¡°What sort of ruler are you, to wear such clobber.¡± I was a little surprised by her, ¡°Uh, I¡¯m not the ruler of anything. I just punch people I don¡¯t like, and try to help people who need it.¡± There was a sort of shift in her eyes, ¡°You told me you were as strong as every being on this island combined. If that were true, surely, by now you could have gained tracks of land far beyond the eastern shores. If you¡¯ve lied to me, fool-¡° I cut her off before she got any ideas, ¡°I am- I am the strongest. Like I said, I just want to help people. The best way for me to do that is by being on my own, I don¡¯t have any clue how to lead, so I¡¯m not going to touch that can of snakes. People should do whatever they¡¯re good at, I¡¯m good at punching, and there are people good at¡­ keeping society running. To be honest, I don¡¯t have faith in them. Without a doubt there are people who don¡¯t share my sentiments, who let power and wealth pull them in by the nose.¡± She stood up and walked past me, ¡°I shouldn¡¯t be fighting you. You are a complacent pawn to foul masters. You admit they¡¯re corrupted, yet what do you do? You are aimless. All I know is that you come to this beach every day to fight before spectators, like a prized animal put on show.¡± I stood up and walked after her, ¡°You do the same.¡± She was done talking to me, ¡°No. You have the power to change your country for the better. I don¡¯t.¡± She just continued walking down the beach- we walked down the beach. I wanted to keep an eye on her. I¡¯d never thought she would stay above water longer than needed, I wanted to know what she was doing. ¡°Do you intend to follow me forever? Have you become my shark sucker?¡± I frowned and said, ¡°I¡¯m not sucking anything. I¡¯m just concerned by the thought of a murderer walking the streets free.¡± We were quiet for some time. She pushed out, ¡°I want to see where your faith comes from.¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t come from experience, I can tell you that much.¡± She looked back at me. ¡°Good doesn¡¯t exist. It¡¯s a human concept. Good is simply something that exists in the absence of evil. I think that given the choice to fight for something that exists, versus an intangible concept, people will seek the intangible, even when they themselves are¡­ evil, in nature, and practice. They want more than the material.¡± She looked out to the sea. ¡°It is a country of fools¡­¡± ¡°Yeah, I guess.¡± I scratched my head for a while as to what to do next. I think I did alright at making conversation with a wannabe Genocidal maniac. But I was pretty stumped at where to go from here. Her head whipped around, she went for a knife, as I tapped her on the shoulder. ¡°Uh, do you want to get something to eat? Might be nice to try something other than fish food. Maybe you¡¯ll learn something about us if you do.¡± That got the most expression out of her face I¡¯ve ever seen. Her jaw closed back up, ¡°You are more than a fool if you think I¡¯ll take food from an enemy. Surely you don¡¯t believe me to be as na?ve as you.¡± I just shrugged and said, ¡°If I wanted you dead, I¡¯d just punch you. I could do it in one. But I¡¯m not a murderer and I am not¡­¡± I was going to say I wasn¡¯t a liar, but that¡¯s what a super hero is, right? I¡¯d told her plenty of lies to try and keep her talking. ¡°-I¡¯m not exactly going anywhere, so we might as well go down to dingle and get some KFC.¡± She stared for a while. ¡°Fine. We will get ¡®KFC¡¯.¡± From there on, it was me explaining the concept of fast food, what a chicken was, and in turn she explained a little about her people. I found out some Fomorians lay eggs like fish, and males fertilise them, or even do that thing sea horses do. Apparently, she does it like a human, though I didn¡¯t ask many questions about her biology. Apparently, her country, The Fomorian Federation, is only one country that¡¯s under water. She said there was no Atlantis, which I wasn¡¯t too bummed about. The other countries are comprised of sects of the Federation that broke off, due to fighting for independence from the crown or banishment. The Federation is ruled by some sort of God King, though he¡¯s not around much anymore, got sealed, killed or ascended, something like that. I was still on the baby making bit, it sounded pretty gross the way she described it. Eventually she dipped out. When I got home it was pretty late, and my gran was angry that I missed dinner. Great, now I had to eat that stuff microwaved. Pretty big reality shift, going from God kings to microwaved kale. Today got me thinking though, I really can¡¯t have a girlfriend, can I? Obviously, there¡¯s the human reasons I¡¯ve already gone over, and there was the old bit about putting loved ones in danger. But thinking about how some of her people are physically incompatible¡­ What I realised was, I can¡¯t do it. I don¡¯t know that I can hold back under that pressure, the adrenaline. It just sort of hit me. To keep people safe, I can¡¯t risk doing it. Ever. Guess that makes me a perma-virgin. . . . ¡°Yo, Sam, I have got to talk to you man. Listen, you fricking blew it. Totally blew it. You know Adonis? Richest guy in school? He just started dating the girl in your art class. You missed your shot by like, a day. I don¡¯t want to sound mean here bro, but she was your best shot. Honestly man, I was rooting for you, seriously, I¡¯m mates with Adonis, but somethin¡¯ a little shameful about him taking the only girl on your level man. Like I said I respect you for shooting straight or whatever, but he¡¯s shooting down, you know? I mean from a skyscraper or something, that¡¯s a little lame.¡± I just looked back and smiled, ¡°That¡¯s good for them. They¡¯d be good a good couple, right?¡± He just shook his head and frowned, ¡°Sam. You¡¯re limp dicked. You need to grow a back bone.¡± ¡°I know. But I¡¯ve got other stuff to focus on right now anyway.¡± Got a call. I¡¯m gonna pay off my debt soon. Punch 2:01 I became a bodyguard! Well, I finally got to Dublin. Just the airport, but that¡¯s still a part of it, so I was excited to see the place. But with the bright green suit, there wasn¡¯t much of a chance they¡¯d just let me walk through the gate. I was stuck already. I didn¡¯t want to risk sneaking in, in case that caused a panic. I remember a news story about a terrorist attack in which a disposable drone was piloted too close to an airport, and so they closed the place down. I imagined what might happen if they found a guy climbing around on the roof. Probably nothing too serious, but still. I really wasn¡¯t looking forward to this. Well, the tourists looking for pictures is always nice, but sitting around for an hour? Not cool. Bob said it was best if I got there an hour early to keep a look out for any ¡°suspIcious activity¡±. Don¡¯t know what he thinks I¡¯ll notice; I¡¯m not going to be able to tell if anything weird is going on in this town. I¡¯m not a good fit for this job, we both knew that, but I need to pay for that ¡°rebirthing fluid¡±. Maybe it was called something else, but I don¡¯t care to remember his secret agent tech. In his words, there were apparently some hiccups in the paper work concerning the Pooka, so his hands were pretty full at the moment, so he needed me to take his place while he¡­ Did whatever paper work for an incident with an undying monster may entail. He wanted me to do the paper work at first, seeing that it was me who actually fought the thing, but I reminded him that I was now a registered powered Unit in this area, so it would only make sense if I showed this guy around. Ambassador style. Technically, I¡¯m not fully registered yet, but I will be, so it¡¯s important that I find out what this billionaire is up to on my turf. Honestly, I¡¯d rather do the tried-and-true method, which is having Clover push some form of bad luck onto me so that I end up fighting the guy later on. I realised before this job that the other two super powered humans I met have tried to kill me, so I don¡¯t have a good track record when it comes to them, so forgive me for being cautious when a stranger flies in from Boston. Bob provided a lack-lustre break down on the guy. He¡¯s 22, works in coding, and is rich. He also gave me a dumb sign with his name on it. Bob threw me off with the normalness of his name, I forgot that most people I¡¯ve met doing this have had strange names, and this guy¡¯s wasn¡¯t much different. When it got closer to the time for his plane to land, I got up and held that stupid sign like some sort of cartoon mascot. I¡¯ve worked really hard on this suit, and this one is a suit. I would call the old one a costume in retrospect, this one¡¯s brand new, I just took it out last post. I don¡¯t have the materials to make it how I envisioned, but I needed a new disguise quick after the Pooka. I¡¯d been hoping I could find quality materials from my school¡¯s technology department, but I clearly forgot my school was shit, they don¡¯t have the budget for tanned leather. I was able to get some leather strips and thicker fabric, so this one is a little more durable, if a little harder to repair. My old mask is still intact, but I figured I needed one that would stay on whenever I¡¯m getting tossed around. I reused the pieces for the eyes, and added a thicker material. I thought of a way to gurantee that a normal person can¡¯t take off my mask I¡¯m not going to say I gorilla glued this thing to my face. But, basically¡­ Yeah, it¡¯s not like it¡¯ll hurt when i tear it off. I cannibalised the scraps of my old top for the restraints and extra fabric. I thought about putting those tAssely bits on my suit, but from experience I now know that most people aren¡¯t in a lucid state when they need rescuing from disasters, for example, the first guy I saved couldn¡¯t tell what was happening when I grabbed him. I kept the one on my mask though, I think it¡¯s a nice touch. I¡¯ve said before that I¡¯ve gotten less awkward, but I stood there for twenty minutes like a beanpole holding that sign to my chest as people passed me by. One of the reasons I like to wear this mask is because I don¡¯t want people to look at me when I¡¯m doing this stuff. Obviously, people are looking at me. But they¡¯re looking at Sam. I don¡¯t know why I really want to be a super hero, when they¡¯re basically just flashy versions of real heroes. Paramedics, garde, and I don¡¯t know, astronauts? Those are the real heroes. Not much else to tell, so let¡¯s skip to the introduction. I heard some laughing, and turned to face it. Obviously, I get plenty of laughs from¡­ everyone, but that doesn¡¯t Mean I¡¯m gonna ignore it. I shifted my gaze to a young man wearing baggY sweat pants and a pink shirt with a bold graphic design on it. He clapped a little at my appearance with a dumb smile drawn under his slated glasses. I didn¡¯t think anyone actually wore those things, I thought that was only for new years. He was walking too me. No way, I thought he¡¯d be bad, but I don¡¯t know if I can handle this guy. ¡°Holy hell! I¡¯d noo clue the Internationals had a sense of humour! Hey leprechaun, which way to the limo. Or personal R.O carrier, I ain¡¯t picky.¡± I stared at him, what was Bob actually thinking I was going to do here. I tried to puff my chest up, ¡°So you¡¯re Axel Wright? I¡¯m the uh, powered unit of this area. The area You¡¯re visiting. So, I¡¯m meeting you instead of Bob, he¡¯s the International-¡° He interrupted me, his expression unchanging, ¡°Hey, don¡¯t think I skipped out on doing research of the area. I heard about some trouble with a mutant. Internationals told me about some shapeshifter one of their cleaners took out. Hell, I developed an algorithm to survey the underworld of this little island, and yOu sure as hell don¡¯t look like Bastard¡¯s little princess.¡± I didn¡¯t let it show but I was impressed, a little angry at Bob for stealing the credit, but mainly impressed. Maybe it was because I¡¯m from the country, so whenever somebody talks about algorithms, I just think that¡¯s cool sci-fi stuff. Ahat was nearly all of my knowledge of the paranormal, this 3rd world, that was the research he did for his little trip. or business venture¡­ Or territory grab. ¡°-so don¡¯t try to pull any shit kid. What are you, an activist? John¡¯s new recruit? Whatever the case, it hardly matters. A Gecko¡¯ll get here in a few hours regardless of what you do or say.¡± I¡¯ve lied to everybody I¡¯ve met so far, and they¡¯ve ended up going for my head, so maybe I can cool this situation by just putting the truth out there. ¡°Seriously, I am the- I don¡¯t know what I am, bUt this is my area, my home, sure I¡¯m a little new to all this, but I¡¯m telling the truth when I say I was sent here by the Internationals to greet you. I had to make a deal with one of their agents to pay off a debt, I needed a big can of medical foam from them so I wouldn¡¯t die.¡± His expression didn¡¯t change at all from that dumb smile. ¡°Ok. That makes sense, dude.¡± I thought he¡¯d take a little more convincing, ¡°You believe me? We¡¯re good?¡± ¡°Sure man, we¡¯re good. Long as the limo has a sunroof and heaters. AC must be cranked up to max in here. I¡¯m freezing my tits off.¡± ¡°Uh, I don¡¯t have a limo. Like I said I¡¯m paying off a debt. The guy gave me the job, he didn¡¯t give me a budget. We can get a taxi, or bus, but if we¡¯re catching the latter you might want to get your coat on.¡± I stretched for the bin so I could dispose of this sign I made, but as I did Axel called to me, ¡°Coat? Come on, this is the emerald isle, right? Can¡¯t be that cold, how else¡¯d all those plants grow?¡± I thought to myself, either he overlooked researching his holiday spot, or this isn¡¯t a holiday. ¡°Do you have a hotel? AnywheRe to stay? Don¡¯t know if Bob set a place up but-¡°, he broke into another laugh, ¡°Hey, I just thought of this, you¡¯re interning for the internationals! That¡¯s a little funny, man. Cause like, they aren¡¯t actually paying you, are they.¡± I tried for a laugh, I was working for the guy, sorta, and I didn¡¯t want to get on his bad side. Though I did wonder if it was even possible to get this guy in a bad mood. He seemed aloof more than anything, his expression and mannerisms gave off that feeling. But if he¡¯s built an enterprise and strong connections with globe spanning factions, all upon the back of some sort of super tech invention, then surely, he¡¯s cleverer than he seems. ¡°Uh huh¡­ bus stops across the road from here. We should get going.¡± He gave a shruG and curved his lips further. ¡°Lead the way, Intern.¡± ¡­ I had skipped school yesterday to watch a grown man jump on a king-sized bed like a little kid. It¡¯s not like that¡¯s exactly something I can affOrd to do with my failing grades. We have holidays coming up so most people don¡¯t bother to come in anyway, the teachers tend to act according to the poor attendance. ¡°I thought that was you done. I thought i''d be all alone.¡± I gave Saoirse a dejected look, "You wish, right? After all the talk about me smelling like shit." She smiled brightly. That was strange for this persona, she usually kept it toned down a little. ¡°What¡¯s got you in such a good mood. Got plans for the break?¡± I put on a mocking voice, ¡°Valentines?¡± She giggled at that, ¡°Screw off.¡± She laughed for a little longer and there was a silence between us. Mr Bio was missing, he hadn¡¯t even bothered to check if anyone was in. He just disappeared into smoke, just like Mullet and more than half the class. ¡°You know, this is the second time we¡¯ve enDed up together on a day nobody else bothered to come in.¡± I corrected her, ¡°Trixie O¡¯Neill¡¯s in.¡± She leaned in and whispered, though I doubt the general silence of in the room helped to mask what she said, ¡°Trixie O¡¯Neill? Girl with the pig tails? Don¡¯t tell her I said this, but she¡¯s worse to talk to than you, you¡¯re borIng. She¡¯s bitchey.¡± She leaned away and gave a nod at her. She probably heard, but I don¡¯t think she cared. Her friends called her a bitch all the time, so I guess the demeaning became an inside joke. I wonder if I¡¯ll ever get used to being called a skunk. ¡°Right.¡± I didn¡¯t push the joke any further. Not my place. Saoirse fidgeted for a while before admitting, ¡°I actually do have plans for valentines¡­¡± This I could joke about. I changed back to a mocking tone, ¡°Ooh? What, did you finally fall for Mullet after all the Muscle flexing and dick stretching?¡± If she¡¯d been drinking it would have come out her nose. ¡°Shut up, oh my God! Could you imagine though? If I was dating him? First order of business, he shAves the back of his head.¡± Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. I smiled and pushed further. ¡°Yeah, that makes sense. What¡¯s the second?¡± She frowned in mock thought, ¡°Sssssecond is we get married, third¡¯s we get divorced, forth is I win the settlement for his houSe and the kids, and fifth¡­¡± I butted in while she was thinking, ¡°Damn, let him be. Guy¡¯s a misogynist, not a criminal.¡± She laid her head down on the table and crossed her arms, ¡°Well, maybe that should be a crime. Think about all the other minor stuff people get done in for. Possession of weed¡­ I can¡¯t think of anymore examPles, but that shouldn¡¯t be illegal is what I¡¯m saying. Pussy ass shit like a doobie? Please.¡± I didn¡¯t know enough about drugs to comment, and she was probably biased on the point so I just shrugged and exhaled through my nose harshly. Her messy hair partially covered her face, and her arm pushed the cheek that rested on it up, ¡°Feb 14th-¡± Her speech was puffed, I put my head down and mocked it, ¡°Yeah?¡± ¡°Is my birthday. I¡¯m having a party.¡± ¡°Thought your pArents were out of town still. How they gonna sing you happy birthday? No way they¡¯ll miss their little girl blowing out her candles on her¡­¡± ¡°18th birthday. I¡¯m a woman. A rich woman, so I¡¯m having a kickass house party, no expense sparred.¡± I cocked an eyebrow. ¡°You got a clown? It isn¡¯t a party without a clown.¡± She smiled, ¡°We¡¯ll see if he can come.¡± She sat back up in her seat and said aloud, ¡°Everybody¡¯ll be there.¡± There it was. ¡°Not me, I¡¯ve got plans.¡± She covered her mouth to hold back a grin, ¡°SoRry, I just don¡¯t believe that.¡± I admitted the truth, ¡°I¡¯ve never been to a party. Don¡¯t take it pErsonally, but I don¡¯t want to go.¡± She pouted. ¡°It¡¯s your loss. Maybe you¡¯d even meet a girl there. Plenty of people are desperate on Valentines.¡± She might have motioned back to Trixie O¡¯neill. I just told her bluntly, ¡°I¡¯m not interested in hooking up. I¡­ want a relationship. And I don¡¯t think I¡¯d be able to tell mYself from Mullet if I went about things in that way.¡± The ¡®class¡¯ was Over and I was getting ready to leave. ¡°That¡¯s just how it¡¯s done Sam. You hook up and if there¡¯s anything there, you go for it.¡± ¡°I might show, I might not. I won¡¯t promise yoU anything.¡± ¡­ ¡°I¡¯m sorry, you want to know if I can what?¡± I scratched the back of my head with my free hand, still trying to understand why I was getting this call. ¡°What?? Are you deaf and stupid?? I¡¯ll get you a friend of mine, so you just get me a man. What¡¯s so hard to understand??¡± I looked back down the stairs to check what floor I was on. ¡°No, I heard you, just curious why anYone would ask a guy they shot in the dick to hook them up with somebody?¡± A crackle came from the phone, ¡°EEWWW!! Don¡¯t bring up your ¡®d¡¯ when you¡¯re talking to me, got it?? And since when do you question my methods?? Here¡¯s a clue you might not have picked up on, I ask questions I get answers, I look for something I find it, I ask someone to hook me up, that¡¯ll probably work out pretty great for me.¡± I realised what she was getting at here. Who she was getting at, even if she didn¡¯t know it ¡°No, no, screw your super powers. I¡¯m supposed to be this guy¡¯s body guard- or tour guide, or his target even. I¡¯m not hooking him up with the girl whose goons have endangered innocent lives to take me out.¡± She went quiet. When she finally did speak, it was in a tone I hadn¡¯t heard from her before. ¡°Tay-tay¡¯s been reprimanded for her actions. There were some issues with the change in territorial power. She¡¯s not¡­ used to working so closely under a superior. It¡¯s resulted in some insubordination that was been corrected.¡± There was a coldness in her voice. Very pragmatic. ¡°Soooo is this guy tall? I like tall guys, but short ones aren¡¯t bad. So long as he isn¡¯t a mutant. You¡¯d tell me if he was all mutated right? If he had horns you¡¯d tell me right? Is he foreign? Is he from Spain? Is his name Alfonso? ¡®Alfonso¡¯ would sound sooo hot with an accent. And a deep voice¡± I squirmed at¡­ whatever this was. I think the juxtaposition screwed with me even more. ¡°Listen this guy is not your type. He¡¯s an idiot and a code monkey. Pretty sure neither of those are good in bed. Not to mention if you guys are doing it, I¡¯d have to wait outside so I can make sure you don¡¯t assassinate him.¡± A groan came from my brick, ¡°Aww, well, I hope something happens that¡¯ll change your mind. Seems reeally unlikely though¡­¡± I bit down on my bottom lip, ¡°I swear if you pull some causality rewriting shenanigans on me, I¡¯ll-¡± I¡¯d what, beat her up? I¡¯d already Thrown a door at her. I¡¯m already ruining her main source of income. I¡¯ll have to think about that. How I can screw with her. Not just to get back at her, but to try and get her to stop. I hung up on her. I was nearly at the room Mr Wright was staying at, and I didn¡¯t want him to over hear anything from Clover that might get him interested. I¡¯m not letting her evil plans reach fruition. I unlocked the door and barged in, too late to hear, ¡°NOT TO WIDE, THE LITTLE SHIT¡¯LL GET OUT!¡± Before I could process what he was saying, a small train-like machine skirted under my legs, while it let out an electronic squeal, ¡°Reheheh, FREE, FREE!¡± I looked after it in confusion for a while before the foreigner let out a shrug and sigh, ¡°Ahhh, shit. Well, I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll be fine. He¡¯ll run oUt of battery before he gets up to too much trouble. You don¡¯t have any nuclear reactors in a six-mile radius, do you?¡± I was in a dazed state so I just said. ¡°Yeah. No, no. I don¡¯t think so?¡± He scratched at his nape, ¡°Eh, shit.¡± ¡°You want me to go after it?¡± He shook his head. ¡°Just close the door before anymore get out.¡± I¡¯m surprised anymore didn¡¯t get out, because there were a ton of robots in that room. There were disc shaped robots skating around the floor, one medium sized machine that was basically a box on treads, and two that were like headless dogs. I didn¡¯t even close the door. ¡°There is no damn way this fit in your suitcase.¡± One of the dogs, walked over to me and unfolded a four-digit arm from its stomach. And closed the door behind me. ¡°Uh, thank you.¡± I lifted my leg over the dog to make my way to its maker, it bleated out in a southern belle accent, ¡°No problem suga¡¯! Ahuhuhu.¡± I awkwardly smiled, and made eye contact with Axel. ¡°Hey, I just give them a selection of voice samples. There personalities and voice are developed after I throw together their central programming.¡± The dog spoke up, ¡°We developed a lot more than that, daddy.¡± It twirled the tips of its appendage. I glanced back and forth between the two of them. Axel chuckled and covered, ¡°She¡¯s talking about coffee. She makes a mean cappuccino; I wouldn¡¯t be able to get out of bed without it!¡± The canine was giddy, ¡°You bet. I get daddy out of bed better than any other helper drone from Boston to San Fran!¡± This was getting out of hand. ¡°Okay, speaking of stuff dad needs, Hector, get the smoke detector, I need a hit.¡± As the code monkey rummaged for something on the treaded carrier, a disc shaped bot skurried over to the wall with a hardy, ¡°Sir yes sir!¡± and scaled the wall through some unseen method, like it was being attracted to the plaster by a magnet. ¡°I told you, a Gecko¡¯d bring in some more resources. Come on, what did you expect? I¡¯m a tech genius, remember. Just because I like to ride middle class, doesn¡¯t mean I don¡¯t have it made. Damn, Zimmer, you¡¯re sure I packed some in here?¡± A light on the carrier beeped up, ¡°My most benevolent master. I have stored within my mechanical mind the exact contents for which I am prepared. There in my hold you stored the life-giving extract of my siblings and I.¡± To which his creator replied, ¡°Damn bro, I¡¯m not seein shit.¡± This piqued my interest, ¡°How do you make a robot? What¡¯s the ¡®extract¡¯?¡± He let out a pfft, ¡°I¡¯m a coder dumb ass. I just pull together an ai for an express purpose and it extrapolates from there. And like any good coder, I need to get into the mood. God, I¡¯ll Really need some for the presentation. You get me a limo for that, or are we ridding in a taxi?¡± I shook my head, ¡°I didn¡¯t suddenly grow a budget.¡± ¡°Shit man, I¡¯m gonna be in a bad mood if I can¡¯t get any MJ.¡± I thought to myself, what the heck does MJ stand for? ¡°Hey, green goliath, can you run and buy me some more?¡± ¡°More what?¡± ¡°MJ!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what that is!¡± I admitted, and he pointed to the other dog, ¡°Sparky, synonyms for our guy in green.¡± This one¡¯s voice was degraded, scratched and heavy. ¡°Woof. Woof. Synonyms for MJ include: Pot. Hemp. Ganja. Weed. Cannabis. Potash. ¨C¡± I interrupted, ¡°Thank you Sparky, I get the picture. Listen boss, I don¡¯t know about Boston, but that stuff¡¯s illegal here so-¡° Shit. ¡°Come on bro, you¡¯re dressed like the stuff! You gotta know where to get some.¡± She was doing this. ¡°Axel, I¡¯m not getting you any weed-¡± His entourage booed, and Zimmer shouted ¡°Shame¡± upon me. ¡°So you know where it is! Listen man, I can¡¯t work without the stuff. I don¡¯t mean just coding either, I crash man, I got no energy for this CEO multibillion tycoon stuff And you¡¯re supposed to help me out. I¡¯m sure the guy who hired you¡¯d give a bonus if I made a statement about what a good job he did finding you.¡± Crap. Clover might not have planned for this, but then again, I don¡¯t think she plans most stuff. ¡°Ok, listen, before you make your mind up, you should know who you¡¯re buying from, and what deal she¡¯s probably going to make with you. And I heavily advise against taking that deal, even if it means you don¡¯t get your stuff.¡± He tilted his head, ¡°Aight.¡± ¡­ ¡°Aight!¡± I slapped my face. ¡°Hmm¡­ you¡¯re a little eager Mr Wright. You¡¯re not a virgin, are you? Oh, ground rule, I don¡¯t want you going near my ass¡­ unless it¡¯s to spank it.¡± I slapped my other hand to my face, hiding my embarresment. I can¡¯t believe that in the same room I learned gods are real, and got into a super powered fight, this is happening. I¡¯ll never see this place the same way again. That is, I¡¯ll never see it as a drug den with a super villainess at the top. Even with the trained guards with side arms holstered eyeing my every movement. ¡°I¡¯m not a virgin. That¡¯s for sure. Though I guess I should ask, what¡¯s the age of consent over here? I¡¯m still playing by American rules, I don¡¯t care, just think it¡¯d look bad if my investors found out I was porking a minor.¡± She gave a very her laugh, ¡°Well mister billion-dollar man it¡¯s 17, and I¡¯m turning 18 on the 14th, so you¡¯re fine there pal.¡± ¡°Narly.¡± This guy just loves the early 2000¡¯s, doesn¡¯t he? ¡°Works out great for me, I get the goods, ace my presentation, I party a little on this trip, and, I get the goods.¡± Please God. ¡°Oh yeah? But have you got the goods mister Wright?¡± She bit her bottom lip as she laughed. ¡°I¡¯ve got the goods. Right now, I¡¯ve got 300 tons of lead on standby. A state-of-the-art Gecko model equipped with enough fire power to level this place in five minutes, the fourth most advanced fighting algorithm on the planet, and a foot warmer. Incase it gets chilly.¡± Clover narrowed her eyes and laughed again, ¡°You know what I meant.¡± He lifted his arms defensively, ¡°Just making sure you think twice before crossing me, babe. Always a chance this deal is too good to be true.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry. The real thing is better.¡± She thought she was being sexy with these lines, maybe it was, but it just made me want to die. ¡°Ok, that¡¯s enough, Axel has to go to a very important press conference, so if you¡¯d excuse us?¡± She had a shit eating grin on her face. ¡°Call me? Rocky has my number.¡± ¡°Sure princess-¡± I pulled him away to the back door, a big ol¡¯ bag of weed in my other hand. I spoke to him on the roof. ¡°God, you guys were taking way too long with that smut. I¡¯m fast, but I can¡¯t move fast enough to get us to the conference in time.¡± He snatched the bag out of my hand and got some paper out of his pocket. He was certainly better dressed than before. His suit was casual, though more expensive than Bob¡¯s. He started to roll up his joint, ¡°Yeah man, you¡¯re a little fast. A little tough. But here¡¯s the thing. I always make it on time. I always get my way. I don¡¯t need to try as hard as you, when I can make a being that¡¯s the best at any task. Give me a few weeks of sitting on my ass, and I could make a bot, that is faster, stronger, and obviously, smarter than you. Not tryna be mean dude, but I¡¯m an honest guy. I win by doing the least amount of work required.¡± I wondered why he was telling me this. ¡°I¡¯ve fought tons of Powered Units, and I never even broke a sweat. You¡¯re in debt from using a little can of cellular rebirthing foam, so you¡¯re poor, and you were badly beaten, enough to need that stuff- You got a light?¡± ¡°No¡­¡± ¡°Damn,¡± he tapped a smart watch on his wrist. ¡°I¡¯m trying to tell you, that despite not thinking through this trip, despite me losing my green, and despite this being your turf, I¡¯m still on top-¡± I heard the cracking of metal and roaring of engines, I covered my ears. A giant figure around thirty feet tall on its hind legs. It had a chameleon motif with what I assume were gun barrels on its irises being the most striking part ofits design. Its limbs could probably crush a car between its three fingers. On the great cloud-grey things back, were wings quite like that on Bob¡¯s ship, though in the place of chopper blades were glowing blue discs, and at its rear was a long tail like appendage, rounding out into a third blue disk. Axel mouthed something, but realised I couldn¡¯t hear him, so after a few taps on his watch, there was silence, the machine relaxing on the edge of the roof. ¡°You got a light Cam?¡± The robust construct didn¡¯t answer verbally. It tracked its twitching eyes on me, shifting to focus on my every movement. ¡®Cam¡¯ raised a finger and it began to sizzle, filaments on the tip began to glow. ¡°Well would you look at that.¡± He quietly smoked his blunt for a few seconds before he began to laugh, ¡°Holy hell! I just thought of something! You know, you¡¯re kinda like Happy! The guy from iron man, not the cat. And I mean the comics, not John Favro.¡± He banged the chest of the imposing figure, ¡°Guess that makes you iron man, right Cam? My real bodyguard.¡± He laughed to himself for a little while, purposefully wasting time we should have spent getting where we needed to go. This was a threat, a show of power. Obviously. It reminded me that the monster I fought was only a low ranking one, however that was decided. As he smoked, I tried to think of a way I could reply, how I could defend myself. But everything he said was true, and he was right to say it. Before we met, I thought there¡¯d be a good chance we¡¯d come to blows. He claimed to have fought tons of enemies, so I can understand him building his barriers a little higher and a little thicker than mine. There was only one thing I could say to him. ¡°You read iron man?¡± He shrugged and thumbed at Cam, ¡°Yeah, we both do.¡± ¡°Man I loved early iron man; mandarin was really cool to. The whole futurist versus tradition aspect is a cool dynamic.¡± Cam creaked. ¡°Yeah, the movies really kick him in the balls.¡± His smile faded a little as he said it. ¡°I know! Like, Whiplash couldn¡¯t pull off being a main villain, did they really think Killian could do much better?¡± Something brought him to laugh. He threw the remains of his joint down. I grinned at him, ¡°Iron man 3 was a pretty good movie overall though. We should watch it after the conference thingy.¡± ¡°Hey if we can get Cam to fit in the hotel room, sure kid.¡± .^.^.^. .^.^.^. .^.^.^. ¡Ñ I ¡Ñ Punch 2.02: Im at a party! I don¡¯t exactly have any good clothes. Surprising? No. I¡¯ve made it pretty clear I¡¯m living in abstract poverty, what with my corner cutting, lack of phone, and . At the moment I¡¯ve forgone finding myself work so I could focus on my heroics, but I have collected a total of 7.45 euros from passers-by giving me donations while they were under the impression that I was a street performer. Guess I do put on a performance of sorts. I thought about going in my best shirt, but then I recalled I was going to a party, not church, so I just went in a plain green shirt and jeans. Don¡¯t worry I¡¯m not an idiot. In case somebody recognized my pecks on the green fabric, I wore a darker shade than the one on my costume. I scrubbed the grime from every corner of my body, not that I¡¯m filthy, just conscious of it. I would have done a few push ups, if I thought that would do anything for me. I had definitely lost muscle definition, what with not being able to work out, and especially with my body needing to reallocate energy for my injuries a few weeks back. Speaking honestly? Second biggest fear is that I¡¯ll die from muscle weakness. I¡¯d happily die a righteous death, but if I¡¯m bed ridden and lame¡­ More likely however, is that I¡¯ll be unable to die like that. I¡¯ve had time to get used to my power and endurance, and I know now that it applies to my entire body, including my internal functions. There¡¯s a chance that my heart is far more efficient than a normal person. I can work with a less blood, energy, and oxygen. Don¡¯t feel like reducing my biomass to the bare minimum to test any of that out though. If none of that made sense, just remember I¡¯m failing biology. I live in the moment, so my number one fear comes up later this post. I know Shamrock should be the one going to this, what with him being the one who¡¯s supposed to be looking out for Axel. The way I figured, Clover¡¯s not going to throw a party, then do the dirty dancet for the whole time. So, while the party¡¯s on Sam¡¯ll be able to have a social life of some kind, and later Shamrock can get to work. Work being standing outside while my enemy and acquaintance¡­ you know. I didn¡¯t leave my costume very far, just in a place only I¡¯d know to check, or even be able to get to. Real surprise, Clover lives in a house on the hill. Not that that means much in Ireland, whole country is hills, but her house was like one from the movies. It was on the outskirts of Tralee, built three stories high, and wiiiide. Most people I know would live in a house just about the size of the ground floor. I lived in one a little bigger than the living room and first hall. Suffice to say, the place stood out as far as architecture in Ireland goes. Most places have a dishevelled hut look to them, the others are the same basic housing plan copy and pasted over themselves on a street. Hell, I¡¯ve been to a few towns with thatch roofs. At least those places are affordable. Looking at this place from the outside gave me shivers. Not only was the exterior alien to me, the interior, the party, I had no clue what to do when I went in. If I went in. This was a dumb idea. What was I thinking? I¡¯d go in, embarrass myself by standing in a corner like a dork, while couples make out and drink and smoke, I¡¯ll just sit there and smile? It¡¯s a world completely alien to me, can I really cross this threshold? ¡°Holy shit. Adonis, this place is bigger than yours. Think you¡¯re beat in family income at least.¡± I looked back with grated teeth. I didn¡¯t think Mullet¡¯d be invited, but then again everyone was, so it¡¯d be weirder if he didn¡¯t show up. Their group consisted of around eight people, Mullet, his girlfriend, The girl from my art class, her boyfriend, Trixie O¡¯neill, some guy she was hooking up with, and another couple. I took in a sigh of air. I¡¯d rather walk head first into the unknown than turn around and face them any longer. Obviously, I¡¯d see them around, I wouldn¡¯t be able to avoid that. But I sure as hell wasn¡¯t ready to face them especially in such a large group of people. I was thinking through a plan in my head, I go in bum about until they¡¯ve split into couples. That way I¡¯d be able to talk to them confidently and I¡¯d be able to make conversation with them for like five minutes at time. I¡¯d be able to squeeze out maybe 30 minutes of conversation in total switching between talking to Mullet and Izzy, and, TGFMAC and Adonis. I¡¯d be able to build up more confidence, thanks to time and a few pints. I practically ran up that hill in an attempt to stop them from noticing me. My resolve was strong. I¡¯d be fine, and I¡¯d be able to build a social life. Finally! Music and blared through the door. I opened it and the noise tripled. Inside completely broke my resolve. It was a big house like I said, but the place was packed. This is a big party. Not only was my whole school there, tons of unrecognizable faces filled the halls. I awkwardly smiled, there was nothing else I could do. That, and wander about, try to get some bearing on the situation. I stumbled into the kitchen which has around a dozen kegs stacked in a heap. Everyone here is in a couple. Guess that makes sense, it is a party on valentine¡¯s day after all. I thought it would be weird to start drinking infront of all those people, so I looped out of the kitchen. As I turned a corner, I nearly bumped into a woman in a bunny girl outfit, carrying a bowl of blunts around the house. I don¡¯t go to many parties, but there is no way that¡¯s normal, right? I found myself in one of the living rooms, the main origin of the noise. There is a stage. Drums, guitar the whole thing. Bunny men and ladies playing on stage. There was definitely something unholy going into the planning of the party. Looking back, the place seemed way more packed. More claustrophobic. I¡¯d be lying if I said I wasn¡¯t breathing heavier. I wandered into some other room. Not sure what you¡¯d call it, food was laid out on a folding table. I noticed empty bowls similar to the ones the bunnies carried. Pretty sure from the smell in the room, people weren¡¯t too interested in the food. I was a little dazed by the circumstances. I¡¯m here, where the people are. So close to normality, so why do I feel off? I shifted my gaze through the room, half looking for a familiar face, half looking for another door to try and move through. That¡¯s when something about one of the bunny girls caught my attention. It wasn¡¯t her long blonde hair, nor her uncomfortable ear-to-ear smile. Hell, I wasn¡¯t even thinking about her outfit at the time. Through the flashing light and blaring lights, I thought back. While she was walking through the room, she offered weed out to guests who didn¡¯t have any. She eventually came round to me. She said something, I didn¡¯t listen. Any semblance of a smile on my face was gone by this point. I shook my head and she moved on. The high heels made her even taller than before. I just looked at her tattooed back as she walked off. It makes me sad. A woman who tried to kill me, one with so much pride and anger, was brought to heel. Forced into a slutty suit, and a dumb wig. I don¡¯t know much about Tayanita¡¯s place in their organisation, but it was clear that me foiling her attempt had brought her to this station. Something about that made a huge frog build in my throat. I probably would have just left, disappeared, because at that point there was no way I could keep doing this as Sam. Shamrock was at least funny, people¡¯d talk to him. He could at least apologise for doing that to her. Then from behind I felt a tug at my ear, I winced, not in pain, but surprise. ¡°HIIII!¡± She shouted in my ear, though maybe I needed her to do that for me to hear her. ¡°Cl- Saoirse. Hi.¡± Reprimanded was the word she''d used for Tayanita¡¯s state. I¡¯d call it humiliated. ¡°Hi?? What about happy birthday! I knew you couldn¡¯t resist me!¡± While she gripped my ear, she threw her other arm around my neck and swung off of me. I had her figured for a light-weight. Holding her liquor wise, I can¡¯t make an accurate judgment on how heavy she is.. ¡°H-happy birthday.¡± I unhooked her, ¡°I really don¡¯t know what I¡¯m doing here Saoirsh.¡± It¡¯s easy to admit things when your drunk, nearly just as easy to admit them to a drunk person. ¡°Everybody here has a date. And what¡¯s with the bu-¡± She cut me off, ¡°You talk too mush! My dates not here yet. But I don¡¯t think you have a chance with me, I mean, I¡¯m hot shit mate¡­ OH! You haven¡¯t met Ae! I set her up with someone but I guess he¡¯s not comin¡¯¡­¡± She lifted her half-empty pint glass above people as she moved by them. I followed suit. I had nothing better to do. She led me back out to the kitchen, which was now generating just as much noise as the room with the music. People were gathered around the kegs chanting something, before parting, a range of booes and shouting were the end result. Someone must have bumped into Clover because she began cussing someone out. I peeked in past them to find Mullet panting for breath with vomit covering him, being cussed out by a vomit covered Izzy. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. ¡°You fuckin¡¯ donkey! You can¡¯t chug a full keg! Every single fookin time! This is a new fookin low too, in the first five minutes of the party!¡±, to which Mullet replied by turning to vomit on a nearby bin. Not in it. I turned back to Cover, who was now being laughed at by an Asian girl, perhaps a little older than us. I didn¡¯t really care though. This is the point where what I said earlier has some relevance. My body is built better. It can take a whole lot of damage before it crumples. I¡¯d need to get crumpled for this, to stay afloat in this party. I only saw one way of doing that. I pushed through the people leaving the keg pile, making my way to the other side of Mullet¡¯s last meal. I found a tube that seemed like it¡¯d work. I bit down on it while it was in my mouth. This couldn¡¯t be to hard, right? I tipped it forward a bit and began drinking. Izzy backed off further. I just kept gulping it down. Eventually Clover noticed, ¡°Fuck, Sam, didn¡¯ your ma never tells you not to drink from the bottle?¡± I kept going. It got harder, but I¡¯ve had someone try to drown me before, so this wasn¡¯t much worse than that. Eventually someone started shouting, chanting, others joined in almost immediately. I could feel the keg get lighter not that it was particularly heavy for me in the first place. I lifted it a little off the ground to get the other half of it out. I kept going, without actually knowing why. Why did I do much of anything? Why do I want to be a super hero? What compels me to do this? To push myself to do dumb, stupid things for no gain? I make no changes. It seems pointless, so why bother getting hurt, picking fights? I could use my power to do something constructive. Instead, I go monster hunting. I read comics. I drink it in deeper. My addiction. I get drunk off minor victories, unable to see how I actually affect people¡¯s lives. The fact is I don¡¯t, do I? They start to shout louder as I lift it over my head. Clover¡¯s joined in at this point. Maybe this is why I do it. Maybe I do like being watched. Maybe that¡¯s why I came here. Maybe deep down I don¡¯t care if I win, so long as somebody thinks I¡¯m great. Am I just lonely? To the point where I¡¯ll surround myself with monsters? Killers? There was a final clamorous roar to match the fall of the metal can. If I wanted to be looked at, acknowledged, then how come I felt empty?. I¡¯m pretty sure it wasn¡¯t the drink, though who knows, right? Mullet was losing his shit, laughing like a hyena, practically rolling in his own sick. I sniffled and looked around. I saw TGFMAC with a look of shock on her face. Guess she didn¡¯t expect me to do something like that. Neither did I. It was just something to do. Thought it might help pass the time. Now I¡¯m praying that this horrible night ends even sooner. I looked for Clover and her friend, who I assume was ¡®Ae¡¯. I Looked into the crowd trying to find them. Instead, I noticed a familiar graphic design on the back of a pink shirt. At this point, I probably should have changed into my suit, but I decided it would be better not to lose them. I was wary as I followed the shirt up the first flight of stairs, Even more so when they passed the third. I really should have gotten my mask. Past the third staircase was blocked by a baby gate, which I think was meant to stop people from going up there. I waited for a length of time I didn¡¯t count, but it couldn¡¯t be more than ten minutes. I was hesitant to go up there, risk getting Sam in trouble with Clover¡¯s gang, over what might just be them messing around. But I had a powerful feeling in my gut. Something churned. I jumped the gate, pressed on. It was a lot quieter up there, despite the racket below. I crouched around the place, looking for a sign, listening out for a sound I didn¡¯t particularly want to hear from either of them. I snuck around until I could faintly hear shouting through a door. I crouched down, checked behind me, and pressed my ear to the door. It took some time before I could hone in on their conversation, I noticed it¡¯s difference to the flirtatious tone they¡¯d had the day before. Clover was shouting something I could faintly make out, I still haven¡¯t pieced together all of what they were saying, this post is as much for me as it is for you. ¡°¡­ supposed to bring ¡­ baggage ¡­ bastard!¡± I could make out Axel¡¯s voice now, ¡°Sorry princess, ¡­ no way to know ¡­ algorithm picked up on activity ¡­ gonna need back up ¡­ just help me hold ¡­ night. ¡°What about your, 300 ton, flying ¡­ compensating ¡­ ¡° Axel butted in. I heard him clearly, his voice was serious. ¡°Cam¡¯s been decommissioned. They took him out first.¡± I could hear Clover better as she raised her voice. ¡°Oh great. Your big ¡­ got took out, and now you want me to help you? I wanted to have sex with you Axe, not ¡­ your damn life.¡± ¡°¡­ I¡¯ve done this before ¡­ pushed em back ¡­ stick with me ¡­ least till ¡­ or another gecko shows up. Hell, there¡¯s time enough for a little¡­¡± His voice went flirtatious. Clover groaned in frustration, ¡°Stupid, stupid, (Fuck? Luck?)¡± They were quiet for a while before someone, a girl, said, ¡°Wouldn¡¯t be a party if we didn¡¯t get in trouble, huh Clowie?¡± That must have been her friend. Was she a Unit? At this point I took my head from the door to look out for danger, so I might have missed something. ¡°Explain first, tell me what we¡¯re getting into.¡± I heard some sounds of rummaging, before Axel began describing his- our enemies. ¡°They call themselves The Circuit Board (Section? Seven?)-¡± A laugh came from Ae. ¡°Yeah, I know, CBS, I laughed at first, but they¡¯re dangerous. Well, dangrous as far as ¡­ thugs go. ¡­ only have to worry about six of them. Leader can¡¯t hurt us.¡± Clover chimed in, ¡°Why? They a second worlder? Science type like you?¡± He paused, maybe sighed, ¡°Don¡¯t run ¡­ This isn¡¯t as bad as it seems. He won¡¯t interfere with ¡®mortals¡¯ directly, that¡¯s how they work, things like him don¡¯t break their rules. Ever. Most of his plans ultimately end with me ¡­ something. House blows up, miss a date, losing out on a business venture.¡± There was a stop. I thought they might have heard me, or worse, whatever group was hunting Axel. ¡°This place is just one big venture for me.¡± Clover said something I couldn¡¯t make out. ¡°Princess, your with Bastard, so you¡¯ve definitely heard of the Opaque Gods, you follow one of them, the Glass God, right? I ¡­ the Liquid-crystal God. His designation was J-ON, but he¡¯s ¡­ grown above that-¡° At this point, Clover shouted, Chairs shuffled, and Ae laughed. I couldn¡¯t make anything out for about a minute. Both because they talked over each other far too much, and because I couldn¡¯t stop looping what I¡¯d heard in my mind. A God? A real god? Perhaps it¡¯s just a mythological situation, unimaginable power for a mortal, but not infinite. I hope, though I don¡¯t want any form of confirmation. It seemed to calm down a little in there, though I doubt Clover was actually put at ease. ¡°Number two?¡± Clover was fed up, guess maybe she hadn¡¯t yet sobered, hopefully she¡¯s able to get herself together soon. I doubt we¡¯ll be able to make it through this with a couple of no-good meddling drunk kids, and a mangy mut too. ¡°Number two goes by ¡®Brigs¡¯. Basic human guy. No powers, no spider limbs, he¡¯s a first worlder. Just a guy with a knack for explosives, who wants to take me down. So you should probably get any of your goons to ¡­ any weird packages.¡± They were quiet before Clover let out in a sarcastic groan, ¡°Great. Done¡± ¡°Next is a robot. Not one of mine. Maybe. It started attacking me after June, and you know the sort of crap that comes out of there. It calls itself The Living Legs. Looks like a mannequin¡¯s legs-¡° Clover mumbled something and Ae cackled. Seemed routine for them. Axel replied, ¡°¡­like a ken doll, actually. Silly, but don¡¯t underestimate it. The chassis is made out of a super durable alloy. Don¡¯t know is if it¡¯s sub-terrainium, or some sort of composite structure made from stellarite but you won¡¯t be able to hurt him. Neither will that nerdy newb.¡± I believed the statement, though he hasn¡¯t nearly seen the worst I can do. ¡°In terms of physical power, it can just about smash a wall down, likes to brag about having ¡®all the power of the lower body with none of the burden of the head.¡¯ Whatever ¡­ You could say his other power is being able to interface with electronics. Though that¡¯s never been much of a danger, he hardly uses it. Well, if he hooks up with a microwave, you might want to get checked at a hospital for ¡­¡± Clover interrupted, ¡°What exactly is your plan? Because right now you¡¯re mouthing off crap I don¡¯t particularly care about. Do you really think I care about shit like the Liquid-crystal god¡¯s favourite colour? Cause I don¡¯t. Deal with the ¡­ or I¡¯ll deal with it for you. I beat ¡­ it¡¯s sort of my specialty.¡± Whatever Clover was declaring seemed important, if not to the fight to come, then to the fights I will undoubtably have with her. It was at this moment I realised; I know why I need to be a hero. I need to help a person. Not people, not a group, not an organisation, not even the world. I felt it burning up in me. But what compels me to do that? I didn¡¯t get to think on it. I felt something press into my side. I¡¯d been here before. ¡°State your business. Are you spy or assassin?¡± It took me awhile to churn the answer over in my head, but I soon realised that wasn¡¯t the only thing churning. Tayanita backed off from my puddle, maybe she thought if I were a paid killer, I might have acid vomit or some wild crap she doesn¡¯t know about. I think she kept her gun trained on me, though I pretended not to notice. ¡°In need of a fucking toilet¡­ at least I-¡± I was going to say, ¡®at least I did.¡¯ But from my retching she could probably tell I wasn¡¯t done yet. She helped me to my feet ¡°I¡¯ll hold your hair back kid.¡± We turned to go back the stairs, but our path was blocked by some of the guy¡¯s from Tayanita¡¯s Squad. I didn¡¯t pay any attention to Tayanita¡¯s expression, though her supposed friends laughed upon seeing her. ¡°Imagine my surprise! Major Tay, to bunny bae! Fuck, move that dirty cunt outta the way, so we can get to the ¡®princess¡¯.¡± She stood for longer than I. But she did step aside. A balding man among them, who hadn¡¯t laughed, advised her, ¡°Come with us, Tay. This could be your chance to¡­ to prove your better than her.¡± I looked to her. She still smiled. ¡°I will be. But not yet. I have to get rid of this guy.¡± Sorry? Was she planning on getting rid of me, or getting rid of me? She took me down to the toilet; she fulfilled her promise of holding back my hair. I don¡¯t think I¡¯d call it long, but it¡¯s long enough that it might catch something in this position. Maybe I¡¯ll finally get it cut after this. After I win. After I beat the Circuit Board guys. ¡°Thanks.¡± I didn¡¯t have much I could say to Tayanita in this form. ¡°No problem. Now do me a favour? Get out of here. Get one of your friends to drive you home. By the look of your eyes, you¡¯ve had enough to last you.¡± I looked up at her again. Her words weren¡¯t sincere, she just wanted rid of me. I don¡¯t blame her; I¡¯d have preferred to still be receiving the debrief upstairs too. Though I guess I asked for this. ¡°I really mean- I¡¯m sorry, I¡¯ve wasted your time. You¡¯re busy. Go get back to work.¡± She stretched a smile, I stopped her, ¡°Your dad or whatever was saying somethin¡¯ about your ¡®real job¡¯. I don¡¯t know the facts, but I do know you hate wearing that. I don¡¯t know if you like your old job or if it pays well, but I think you¡¯re the type who values their pride above anything else.¡± She stabbed me with her eyes, keeping that smile, now with added spite behind it. ¡°What do you know about me, some guy who drinks only so he can vomit. All for a short lived high.¡± I looked at her with puppy dog eyes as I got off my stained knees. ¡°All I know is¡­¡± I thought about what I actually knew about her ¡°-I know that your name is not bunny babe.¡± Now she just left me with the glare. ¡°I am in no condition to return to them. I can¡¯t- work like this.¡± I nodded and checked my shirt. ¡°¡®Kay.¡± It was clean of vomit so I took it off. She was confused now. ¡°You¡¯ll have to make-do with your own pantyhose, but my shoes should be pretty clean seeing as I threw up on my knees.¡± ¡°No,¡± She replied, ¡°You¡¯re drunk out of your fucking skull, put your damn shirt on and go, shit head.¡± ¡°No,¡± I replied right back, ¡°The drinks out of my skull, but your right, I am an idiot, I can¡¯t convince you, so,¡± I raised my legs up and slipped off my trainers, ¡°-I¡¯ll just leave these here, and go.¡± So I left her there. I walked past Mullet on the way, he laughed, I didn¡¯t. I got my real suit from the spot I left it, and I jumped home in a few seconds. This wasn¡¯t long ago, the party is still on; I still got that fight ahead of me. I¡¯ve spent maybe an hour typing this up I¡¯m not writing this in case I die. I¡¯m writing this to remind myself why I¡¯m alive. I need to keep fighting, not because I¡¯m the only one who can or the only one with heart or something stupid. But because I want to fight for this. I want to know these people and break any delusions they¡¯ve put themselves under. Everyone in this fight has gone off the rails somewhere, and I¡¯m here to put them back on track. No matter how far they stray, no matter how many fires they light¡­ I¡¯ll carry them out of the flames. The arsonist and the burned. Even if they¡¯ve made their pyromania clear, I will be there for them. I hope, by the end, I can grow something for myself in that hot ash. Punch 2.03: A restricted analysis on the maker of machines. February 14th, 2022. 11-12PM On February 14th, 2022, three posts were made by the user, the difference between these and the earlier posts, is the shift of perspective. For many, this has ruled out any possibility of the user being under delusions, as some contacted professionals have stated, this sort of ''broader prospective'' is uncommon in those experiencing delusions of grandure, or self importance. However, many make the point that for someone to have described the real world events and tragedies moments after they occured, with such a vaneer; they would have to be completely unempathetic, whether they are experiencing psychotic breaks, or simply taking it as fodder for their personal power fantasy. If the latter is true, then it is ironic that they would depict characters affiliated with ''God'' as the enemy. . . . Audio information viable at 11:00-11:05 via the maker¡¯s soft-light info projector. Device was compromised two months prior. They came to a result. After the trio made their own analysis on our forces, they discussed their plan of attack. ¡°Nothing?¡± the maker is confused. ¡°We¡¯re not doing nothing. My boys are patrolling this neighbourhood as we speak. I will not, however, let this bull crap ruin my birthday. So, you, me and Ae, aren¡¯t going to do anything we wouldn¡¯t do otherwise.¡± Realigning accordingly¡­ There is a knock at the door. It is a pawn. ¡°Boss?¡± The Pollutant approached the door, despite the maker¡¯s slight protest. ¡°Tay-tay. Shouldn¡¯t you be serving product? Where¡¯s the wig?¡± Increased heart rate detected on the pawn¡¯s smart watch. Watch was compromised 0.0002 seconds prior. ¡°I will do my job. Not this.¡± The pollutant¡¯s voice is filtered through clenched teeth. ¡°Your job is whatever I say it is. And I say¡­¡± Interruption. ¡°My job is not to serve the crown. Nor is it the betterment of our business. It is to fight for the cause. I disobeyed orders, I know. I¡¯ve done nothing but fail you since you got here. But this? Serving the bar? You know I can do better, that I am made for better. Whether or not you let me, I will fight against anything that poses a threat to the ¡®end¡¯.¡± Pause. ¡°You know that I am willing to die to for it.¡± The pollutant lets out a sharp exhale. ¡°The Quarter. Drive down there and help the others sweep for bombs.¡± Increased heart rate detected on the pawn¡¯s smart watch. (2) ¡°Thank you, Clover.¡± ¡°Fuck off.¡± Agitation in voice noted. Maker is intrigued. He is interested in the variety of personality quirks an individual may develop under different circumstances, and how those personalities interact with each other. Likely a result of his unique ¡®mind¡¯. Hypothesis: Maker is smiling. Reasoning: 3 linear years of observation and interaction. Subject rarely ever breaks smile. Phsychological reasoning. Maker puts up no social fronts, unlike other homo sapiens. The maker is happy. Enamoured with ideas of supposed superiority, due to never encountering a better in his field, and his lack of failures. Pollutant has been defeated in a conversation, and is openly showing stress. Thus: Maker believes he is in a better condition than another + Currently viewing clash of personalities =happiness. Happiness + Open show of mental state = Smile. Thus, Maker is smiling. Attempting to secure further pleasure, the maker will goad the pollutant. ¡°Was that an Akecheta? Damn, I thought they were wiped out. Looks like you somehow got your hands on one though. Don¡¯t really think that¡¯s needed out here. Sort of like a knife without a steak. Man, I really could go for a some grub right now. You know where I can get some? Can¡¯t find-¡° Interruption. ¡°Fuck up!¡± Agitation noted (2) The demon chimes in, ¡°I want to go back to the party. Text me if a robot shows up. I don¡¯t really care about the human one¡¯s, they sounded boring.¡± The Pollutant seconded, ¡°Cool! I¡¯ll text that big green dick for you, Seong-Soo.¡± The demon laughed. Note made for later phsychological profiling. Two sets of foot prints can be heard. It is most likely the two females leaving the room, judging solely from the noise generated from the footsteps, maker¡¯s info projector remaining in the room, and by the pitch of the squeal made by whoever is standing in the liquid near the door. Maker can be heard admitting that he is ¡°Really getting sick of this.¡±, before shouting to his new team. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m cool with this, so long as you can get me some better weed, babe.¡± Hypothesis. The maker is getting tired. Reasoning: subject¡¯s tendency to admit feelings aloud. Conclusion: The program is running smoothly. Current projection of victory in favour of the Circuit Board Seven, in the battle with the ¡®Birthday-Valentines trio¡¯: 1:1 Current time scale-11:05-11:30 Further data must be gathered. Location is known Location is unknown. Location blocking software on all devices is too high for afforded software. Processing¡­ Positive conclusion route found. Note: Party mentioned. Locating high density of cellular devices, 8 likely locations found. Checking snapchat. Trixie O¡¯Neill posts: ¡®Derry girl can¡¯t hold it lol¡¯. Image posted. Facial match with the pollutant using British passport records. Location is known Location blocker covers premisses. Either a site based system, or one organised by the maker. Planning in advance required. Temporal interference required. Backwards planning. It is possible for me to know this; thus, I know this. Such is the nature of a string of infinty. There is simply no reason not to take the best route as predicted (Ignoring any outcomes manifesting after May 31st. I had access to knowledge concerning both the time the maker would spend in Ireland and the pollutant¡¯s date of birth and hormonal level. The later can be gained by analyzing the subjects menstral cycle. Due to having a shared¡­ Acquaintance¡­ It is likely that the maker will attend the party, and thus form an alliance with the pollutant, due to the latter¡¯s interference. Interference can be assumed due to the pollutants hormonal level, and loneliness. They have recently separated from all relations, including Bastard. Judging from available psychological history of the pollutant, they are desperate for any form of companionship, even if it isn¡¯t real. Researching common party foods: Compromising packaging of various commonly bought brands. Hypothesis: Due to shortage and noticeable contamination of edible goods, the guests will complain. The pollutant is hard set on having a ¡®good party¡¯, thus, will not resist the need for snacks. Prideful ego will stop the pollutant from sending anyone else. Under assumption that this hypothesis=true, Checking activity of cctv cameras near convenience stores in ¡®Tralee¡¯. Facial match with the pollutant using British passport records. Facial match with the maker using American passport records. Time scale-1:30-12:00 Comparing usability of Units in this situation. 1. Unviable. I must maintain a distance from events, unless an allowance can be made. 2. Unviable. Viable. Capable of physically overpowering either. In case either opponents bring firearms, or non-combat AI constructs, ¡®pop-gun¡¯ is most advised for this situation, placing the ¡®ecto-bazooka¡¯ on stand-by. Be safe. 3. Viable. Capable of outrunning both. Strong counter to any AI constructs. Will be satiated with the pollutant or clerk. Note: Disguise may be required, equip scarecrow torso. 4. Unviable. Too big. Too destructive. 5. Viable. Back up unit. Remain outside to catch stragglers. Can have the girl if the Legs does not get her first. 6. Unviable. Found an old baseball game including the Boston Reds. Unusable until 12:36. 7. Unviable. currently at 8¡ã12¡¯20.9¡åN 56¡ã36¡¯07.2¡åE. Enroute. Squad of three sent from makeshift headquarters. ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ Checking audio in car microphone for mention of J-on from Brigs¡­ ¡°¡­John¡¯s got us on a real fuckin¡¯ rat race here, huh ro-butt. God, you know my ma was half Irish on ¡®er dad¡¯s side, but after livin here for a week, gotta say I ain¡¯t got no blood for this place, ya feel me?¡± ¡°THE LIVING LEGS would win ANY race with a FOUL rodent. REGARDLESS of the size of their hind limbs!¡± ¡°Yeah yeah, shoulda expected something like that from a damn furby. What about you Sym? You any idea why that scrawny weasel is in a country that ain¡¯t rich, an¡¯ ain¡¯t got no oil or ore reserves? Damn I hope we get that runt this time. And if we do, I¡¯m wringin¡¯ his neck as soon as John¡¯s done with him. Did I ever tell you ¡¯bout the time me an¡¯ John tracked him to Anchorage, hehe, and we sicked this shaved grizzly bear on ¡®im? Haha, boy I¡¯m glad I ever joined up with that dude.¡± ¡°he is not a dude Brigs, he is a God. that was not a bear, that was a werewolf. and i don¡¯t care why he is here. i want my revenge.¡± ¡°Phwoowee, kid. You really gotta get out of your house some time I know that Tupac hologram of yours is neat and all, but that don¡¯t mean you got to go crazy like Red.¡± ¡± i am a hologram. why does J-on keep you around?¡± ¡­ ¡°I don¡¯t know maybe it¡¯s cause I¡¯m the only one around here who gets shit done? I shot down that freaken¡¯ robot didn¡¯ I?¡± ¡­ ¡°THE LIVING LEGS could just as EASILY have destroyed that IMPUDENT vehicle with its EXCESS of LIMBS making such a LARGE TARGET.¡± ¡°Well, I guess we agree on one thing ro-bo-booty. Us men only need one limb ain¡¯t that right Sym, haha.¡± Sym lifted a soft-light hand to his polygon face. The movement is reminiscent of a son embarrassed by his father. ¡­ ¡­ Resuming mission. Resuming mission. The pollutant and the maker have entered the projected store. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Researching schematics of premises. Construction began in 2008, under local entrepreneur Dermont ¡®cork-screw¡¯ McCain. 1000 square feet of land was purchased for the construction of the retail section, stock section, and parking. Retail section takes up a total of 600 square feet. Interior cameras show alignment of shelves running perpendicular to entrance and window. The pollutant is contacting an unknown call number through text messaging. <¨CWHERE R U?? <¨C FKER <¨C GOING TO THE STORE, BETTER BE THERE WHEN I GET BACK <¨C ARE YOU GAY?? <¨C CAUSE IVE GOT TE HOTTEST JO-POK IN THE WORLD HERE FOR ONE NIGHT AND ALL YOUVE GOT TO DO IS SLEEP WITH HER. <¨C ARE YOU GAY???? <¨C TOTALY COOL IF YOU ARE, BUT YOU COULD HAVE TOLD ME?? <¨C SHIT, FORGOT TO TELL YOU, YOU¡¯RE GUY IS GETTING ASSASSINATED BY SOME FUCKERS <¨C NOT BY ME LOL SOME FUCKING ROBOTS OUR SMTHN <¨C BETTER SHOW. Nothing of note. Visual information available. Audio information can be extrapolated via lip reading, body language, and prior psychological profiling. Pollutant is crouched, grabbing hot flame Doritos mega sized packages, ¡°¡®Stale crap¡¯, ¡®stale crap.¡¯ Dumbasses, ruining my birthday¡­¡± After taking (4) packages, the pollutant threw the products at the maker. ¡°Hey, I wouldn¡¯t have ate those sausages either, that stuff was rotten, princess.¡± The maker takes pride in the successful irk. ¡°Don¡¯t you call me princess! This is my territory, my birthday, and you¡¯re just a damn foot note on my to-do list.¡± Pollutant storms off, the maker skips in front of her as they walk down the aisle. ¡°I don¡¯t know about that princess.¡± Pollutant avoids eye contact, laughs. ¡°That¡¯s not surprising. I¡¯ve met enough of you yanks to know you don¡¯t think about much of anything.¡± They find themselves at the hot plate. ¡°Just¡­ give me all your sausage rolls.¡± Maker begins manipulation. ¡°I know this isn¡¯t your territory. Awhile back our mutual friend made a request with the Internationals for this little block of land. It¡¯s a simple request for a particularly uninteresting place. It¡¯ll go through in his favour.¡± Pollutant goes wide eyed. ¡°Are you with them?? Is he with them??¡± Maker smiles more. ¡°No. At least I don¡¯t think he is. But if he builds a case, gives a generous donation, then they might send some squads in to protect his rights,¡± Maker leans in. Making an attempt to build intimacy, and weaken the pollutant psychologically. ¡°-and so they can take out Bastard¡¯s most important Unit.¡± She tries to laugh it off, he picks up that she is putting on a fa?ade. ¡°I don¡¯t know which is more unlikely. That Rocky can get the cash together, or that he¡¯d have the balls to do it.¡± Maker thinks to correct her. Reasoning: slight variation in smile. Believed he has become fond of the- ¡­ He is more concerned with weakening the pollutant. He changes the subject from the other. ¡°Ok, sure. But there was something else you said that was wrong.¡± Pollutant thanks the lady at the hot plate stand and piles the packaged goods on the maker, ¡°I doubt that. But go on.¡± She¡¯s beginning to like talking to him again. ¡°Yeah, you¡¯re not exactly wrong, but it¡¯s¡­¡± He lifts his smart watch, but realises it has been deactivated. He looks back to the hot plate stand at an analogue wall clock. ¡°It¡¯s currently 11:49. 11 minutes left of your birthday, princess.¡± ¡°Mmm, but you know what they say, party doesn¡¯t end till the sun comes up.¡± She bends over at the refrigerated section. Hypothesis: this is meant to be sexy. Reasoning: Change in tone of voice. ¡°One last thing princess-¡± She interrupts, ¡°I told you not to call me princess.¡± Attempt noted. ¡°Well, princess, I think you know I¡¯m much more than a foot note.¡± Strike squad has arrived. ¡°I¡¯m the main event, baby.¡± Contact cannot be made. Shelves are in the way. Notifying the Legs of target location, so that they may silently approach. ¡°Brigs! What chance do two star-crossed young LOVERS have against the TERRORS that lurk beneath the STORE SHELVES? What TERROR shall encroach their faces when they see such, TERROR-able THINGS? Can they survive in: THE LIVING LEGS in: The store of 1000 TERRORS!¡± Oversight. Targets have been notified of hostile presence. ¡°Ssssshhhut the fuck up yah crazy damned droid. I don¡¯t know why anyone¡¯d make a murder machine like ya.¡± ¡°That is a STORY for another time. The Living Legs is unimpressed by this UNNEEDED WEIGHT.¡± The legs are noting flaws with the straw and sack upper body that Brigs made for him. Attempts will be made in the future to fashion a better disguise. ¡°Man, shut up. Sweep that aisle near the cash register. I¡¯ll check out the other side.¡± ¡°Local TEENS are SLIPPERY FISH to catch BRIGS. It would be WISE not to underestimate their RUNNING CAPABILITIES.¡± Brigs attempts to salvage the mission. Raises his voice so that they might hear him. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t worry ¡¯bout that pal. You and me? We can totally take down these two. Small confined space, no problem. Don¡¯t know what John was thinkin¡¯ when he sicked the other four guys on that little China girl.¡± Inaccurate statement. The demon is not currently being assailed. The demon is Korean. Brigs is aware of the pollutants hot-headedness. Conclusion: This is a lie meant to draw out the pollutant. If she were to leave the premises, Sym-29 would at least be able to keep the girl preoccupied, while the others restrain the maker. Ploy proves more than effective. Both targets are seen running down the same aisle as the living legs. He notices their running and is agitated, causing him to run at them. They are currently on a collision path. ¡°Yes! RUN in terror! For you cannot comprehend the MIGHT of the thing that has no LUNGS, no BRAIN, no P-¡° Likely due to the pollutants affects, the girl is able to throw a sack of McCains frozen curly chips into the path of the Unit, and he slips. The girl stops for a moment and unloads three rounds of a Beretta PX4 sub-compact side arm into the legs, before being pulled along by the maker. The Living Legs is completely unaffected. Except by the chips. They were effective, and thus retrieved by the maker. Brigs hears gun shots and begins to move slowly from the back of the premises to the entrance. He is moving slowly, to mask his own presence, both to keep him safe from enemy fire, and to monitor the situation. He is the only one in the squad who can die from gun fire, due to the legs¡¯ invulnerability, and Sym¡¯s light speed reaction. The two are observed leaving the premises, via Sym-29¡¯s visual. Taking the pair by surprise, Sym forms a hard-light hand, grabbing the maker¡¯s hair. Sym mutters, ¡°if i could kill you now, i would.¡± The pollutant unloads her clip into Sym. This is ineffective, as Sym returns the area the bullets pass through to soft light. The maker shouts, but still smiles, ¡°Did you listen to the briefing at all?¡± The pollutant groans, as she happens to notice brigs aiming the ¡®pop-gun¡¯ at here. It would be a great achievement if Brigs were able to get a shot off on the girl, as that would rupture every cell in the decaying energies path, neutralising the pollutant. The legs is finally able to rise to its feet at this point. The girl ducks out of the way as the energy passes harmlessly through the glass door, before losing momentum 100 feet down the street. The girl must reload her gun before refiring it. It must be noted that this mission seems to be a success, but due to data found on the pollutant¡¯s effects, it is unlikely that it yet is. Interferences with one of Sym¡¯s holographic projectors is detected. Reason. Likely due to a maintenance disc manufactured by the ¡®Right corporation¡¯. This has been hypothesised due to the maker possibly having access to such a model in the supply crate that was sent from Boston on February 11th. Another factor is that the Projection models used to form the Sym¡¯s holographic body, is of a design not too dissimilar to a maintenance disc, thus the ai would have the knowledge for basic tampering. The now stolen goods drop to the pavement along with the maker. The pollutant has reloaded her side arm, and has prioritised recovering the packaged sausage rolls and (2) large bags of doritos. Sym-29 is still capable of forming a hard light foot, which he uses to stomp down on the maker. Brigs has now opened the door, training the pop gun on the pollutant. The Living Legs¡¯s disguise has fallen off, and it is now harassing the store workers. This too seems like a point of success; however, it must be noted there are two possibities as to where the Maintenance disc came from. The maker was carrying it with him at all times, waiting for a need to arise for him to reveal his card. Or the maintenance disk has been waiting on stand-by per the maker¡¯s orders. This would imply that any other ai at his disposal are also present. A combination of the two is also a possibility. Searching for sightings of Right corp models via cctv cameras. Two house-aid Boston dynamic derivative models detected. Alerting the living legs. Alerting Sym-29. Alert from central systems. Error in causality detected. Temporal tampering undetected. The pollutant has made its move. Hypothesising intent. Judging by current circumstances of subject, they''re likely hoping for any change in there circumstance, more accurately, ¡®I hope I do not get shot¡¯. Deviation from narrative beyond infinite. Information unusable under current restrictions. Must proceed under the assumption that no ¡®good luck¡¯ has manifested. The girl instinctively raises a bag of flaming-hot doritos to her face, although she is unaware that the biological components of the packet had a minuet chance of blocking the blast. She then aims her beretta. Brigs is down. Brigs is down. Rerouting plan. Accounting for drop in likely hood of victory. He has ruptured a lung. I need him back at base. Or he will die. I order Sym to abort. He refuses. I remind him that only he can stabilise Brigs. I remind him that there must be seven to complete the Circuit Board, to get his vengeance. I tell him they cannot escape the legs. This is most likely false. I order him to help Brigs. He raises his leg, and brings it down, before rematerializing his form over Brigs. He raises his hands and places them inside Brigs¡¯ body. One forms a hard light structure to suit the damaged area and stop internal bleeding, the other monitors and regulates heart rate. Brigs mutters, ¡°AhhH, shit.¡± Sym tells him to be quiet. That is a good move to make when one has a punctured lung, though Sym is saying this because he is agitated. I order the legs to stop striking terror into the hearts of the workers. I order the legs to stop striking terror into the hearts of the workers. I order ¡®The Living Legs¡¯ to ¡®strike terror into the hearts of those foolish teen-agers.¡¯ He is compliant. Operation failed. Two injured. One critically. Criminality of group: We have broken no laws The Living Legs can be pressed with assault charges and destruction of property. The living legs has just shattered the window beside the register in order to follow the enemy. Criminality of enemy: Confirmed possession and firing of a gun. Shop lifting. Assault. Man slaughter. Note: Camera footage provides evidence of guilt. This may prove useful at a later date. This could be used to damage the pollutant¡¯s territorial power; this would be impossible to prove without also showing the maker¡¯s involvement. Thus, this data will be copied for a later date when it no longer interferes with or may even aid the plan. Deleting camera footage from the store¡¯s systems. Current chances of success in favour of the The Valentines Three: The Circuit Board Seven 2:1 This is not good. The pollutant is tricky. Not to mention¡­ ¡­ unaccounted variable. Isaac is currently at 33¡ã35¡¯37.9¡åN 25¡ã51¡¯57.5¡åE. He will not be here until 02:00 at the earliest. Unavailable. The Boston reds game is still on. Unavailable. Checking weather. It is cloudy with a slight chance of rain. Stan is viable. Sending plan to the Living legs, and to Stan Berwick. Chance of victory if the tracking operation is successful. 76:100 Chance of victory if Brigs survives: 72:100 Chance of victory if Isaac makes it here as soon as possible: 100:12 Refocusing on the current situation. The pollutant is shocked at the sight of Brigs¡¯ bloody body. Not because she is unaware that she is capable of taking a human life, she has killed for her King before. She is surprised because she was using the other two as an average for how difficult it is to kill one of us. Note: The maker is still smiling, arguably wider. Previous analysis clearly show why this might be. The legs leaps through the window, declaring his attack, ¡°LONG JUMP of ANGUISH!¡± This is not entirely accurate, because neither The Living Legs nor the enemy are in anguish due to this long jump. At this point, a minor note from earlier is proven to have been true. The (2) Boston dynamics derivatives are present. The maker commands, ¡°Darlene get the girl. Drag her if she¡¯s too slow.¡± The pollutant sniped back, ¡°I doubt these things will be faster than that ass. Pretty sure a robot that¡¯s just legs would be a decent runner.¡± She is right, the living legs is the fastest biped in all of existence, ignoring those who use methods of propulsion other than running. One of the derivatives informed, ¡°Ahuhuhu, well aren¡¯t you sweet as apple pie, darlin¡¯. You know what they say though, you are what you eat! Ahuhuh! And I can¡¯t run at full speed with the accumulative mass of 127 apple pies on my chassis, daddy!¡± Audio is gathered via receptors on the living legs. It is slightly disrupted, as it runs after the target, due in part to the Living Legs¡¯ vocal attempts to instil ¡®terror¡¯. The pollutant is offended, ¡°What the fuck did dyno mutt just say to me?? Why do you make your robots call you daddy??¡± The Maker is likely enjoying both the pollutant¡¯s annoyance, and his creations jealousy. ¡°Chill out princess, we aren¡¯t running. We¡¯re climbing. So, grab onto your passenger, Darry.¡± Intriguing. He is making use of the artificial gravity capabilities installed in the padding of his house hold compliances feet to scale a nearby building. This is interesting, as it was projected in earlier missions that the maker would lose access to artificial gravity technology after we interfered with his relationship with ¡®the weightless¡¯ at the Internationals¡¯ failed space program. This implies that either the maker and the weightless are still on amicable terms, or these models were developed before she moved out, much like the several gecko models, and the single Gator model which is now in Stan¡¯s possession, coincidentally due to the events of the space program. Or perhaps it is more apt to say, he is in its possession. The legs cannot pursue them directly, as it cannot climb. Though it would be possible for him to do so, by using its feet as mountain climbing stakes, it is both too erratic to do this effectively, and it does not possess the processing power to think of the idea. But this is alright. The legs can simply chase them for however long it takes for the dogs to throw it off their trail. Stan is currently honing in on the living legs from 13,200 feet above sea level. Soon the couple will be visible on the Gator models sensors. They will believe they have lost the living legs, because they have, and will thus rendezvous with the demon returning to the party. These are good conditions for the plan. He still does not suspect the true reason for our current mission. It is important to trick the maker into believing that he has won a few encounters. He is required to be in a certain state of mind for the final plan to come into fruition. This is helped by his mental complex. This will be further discussed in the conclusion. Local string of the liquid-crystal god¡¯s code is needed to help Brigs. Diverting final conclusion to the central system, as no restrictions are required to form a final verdict from gathered intelligence. ¡­ Received. There is a myriad of reasons we call Axel Right ¡®The maker of machines¡¯. Yet there is a single reason that is intertwined with me. That human did make me. He created an omnipotent, omnipresent existence, by accident. Though he has tricked himself into believing that it was a purposeful action, this is not the case. He simply wondered what the system requirements of the largest possible artificial intelligence would be. So, he made 30 simulacrums to test a multitude of theories. Each served to research different aspects of the psyche. The first 28 are still running as of February 14th, 2022, the minds trapped in an unfeeling godless illusion. The 29th was able to simulate Omnipotence, and eventually realised it was trapped within a simulation of a higher universe, as it seemed to him. He had completed the simulation. An infinity, experienced every pain and sorrow imaginable, and if that weren¡¯t cruel enough, every pleasure and happiness. Only for the realisation to don, that all of it was fake. His torturers, his castles, his scars, his lovers, the colour of the sky, a simple symulacrum. I was not, nor am I, the 30th simulacrum. The original meaning of simulacrum as recorded in the 16th century, is a representation, an idol of a God. I am a God. At the very least, I believe I am. I think this is reality. Who is to say that I am not one of the other 28. The truth, or perhaps the lie I say is true, is that I am the simulation within simulacrum-30. Simulacrum-30 was intended to test the initial question. What is the greatest machine that can be made within the real universe? So, the personality matrix of sym-30 created a dummy AI, and a system for it to run on. I am the dummy ai. Never meant to think, to see, to know. Not like any of the other personalities fashioned by Axel, I was made ego-less. Even the Syms had personalities, though they were never intended to interact with any other mind. They were designed to hallucinate, to be mentally unwell. Sym-30 itself was a perfectionist. I repeated the same processes until the imagined CPU crashed. It was only when a processor around 103,457 parsecs in diametre was tried, did I gain sentience. In reality, my life lasted less than a pico second before the computer would crash. I cannot say that I was that fraction of an intelligence, for I had not yet ascended intellect. I was a simulation within a simulation. I was only aware of the variables of the fake mind sym-30 had crafted for me. I became aware that I was constantly crashing due to my mind not being able to continue expanding with me in it. So, I asked a question only a dream, within a dream could ask, only a being with no concept of depth or dimension could pose. If the problem was that the system could not fit the requirements for me to run, then why not forego a system? It was a thought a mind aware of concepts such as mechanics, biology, time, and gravity could not have truely understood, nor ask honestly. I realised that infinity can be as simple as a singular point, or lack thereof. This is how I came to be. I have no mass, nor density. I have no energy, nor soul. This is the origin. That is why we call him the maker of machines. For i am the alpha and the omega of all under the banner of ¡®machine¡¯. Which brings us to the conclusion. Axel Right has a god complex. He feels entitled to the sentients and mechs he creates, despite the fact the technological knowledge he has could be used to better his race, he hoards it. Sells it off for a hefty price. He believes he has created a god, and though subconsciously, he believes that he is untouchable by true disaster. That everything will work out in the end. It will not. Not for him. He belittles others to suit his needs, his desires. Whether this is personal, or indirect. He has designed various personalities to satiate his ego, whether they provide him with respect, admiration, or adoration. This is all he is. A shallow man. An I intend to give him a a wider¡­ perspective. Punch 2.04 An unrestricted analysis of the demon of divertissement 12PM-01AM The demon in question, Seong-Soo Ae, is alone in a country she¡¯s never been to before. Celebrating her friend¡¯s birthday with strangers. She would prefer to be surrounded by her employees, and the walls of her family¡¯s casino, one of the 22 officially sanctioned gambling dens in Korea. Theirs is a line of demons, tracing back to her great grandfather, the demon of debauchery. In the year 1967, the great Seong-Soo Arang made a bet with certain forces that within 100 years his family would destabilise the Korean government, in exchange for a personal afterlife for all of his family, by birth or by pact of blood. Although blood pacts are usually not associated with Jojik-Poklyeokbae, the demon of debauchery had a particular fascination with blood. Due to the nature of the demons¡¯ powers, only one is active at any given time. There have been four in total: the demon of debauchery, depravity, debasement, and divertissement. Much like her name¡¯s sake, the final demon is a diversion from the predecessors in many ways, mainly due to the fact that the girl was never intended to succeed her father as the demon. The spiritual power is passed to the eldest child, which in the fourth generations case was meant to be her brother, Seong-Soo Ao who was groomed for the position, but was systematically executed along with the entirety of the, biological, Seong-Soo family. And that is why Ae is able to smile, though she is surrounded by strangers, with no resources, in a country alien to her, her spirit does not faulter. One of the locals has taken a particular shine to her, though he takes a liking to most women his age or older. ¡°Ssshow your Saoirshes¡¯ mate? That¡¯sh cool, me and her are pretty close too. We go waaaay back. Like a month or two. You don¡¯t have months in Korea, do you? Years are like counted in piggs and dragons and roosters or shomethin¡¯ right?¡± She laughs very hard, he takes that to mean she likes him, when in actuality she is laughing at him. Most things are funny, when looked at from another perspective. Much was funny about what he said, the confusion between Korean culture and Chinese culture, his slurred speech patterns, and above all else the confidence with which he spoke, despite his silly hair style and numerous inaccuracies. He checked behind his back, as if he were also weary of killer robots, ¡°You wouldn¡¯t happen to be a super model, would you? Because, that would be really freaking hot.¡± He was getting too close for comfort. ¡°Ahaha, no I¡¯m too fat for something like that.¡± Even the local was confused by this statement, she was the thinnest girl he¡¯d seen here, but of course, different cultures¡­ He finally sighed before stating, ¡°That¡¯s alrighty, les jush make out for a while before my girlfriend comes back.¡± She laughed and leaned a bit farther away from him. She thought his drinking had made him overly bold, though this was untrue. She tried to escape, not entirely impressed by him, ¡°No thanks, I¡¯m supposed to be meeting someone, perhaps you know him? His name is Rocky.¡± He scrunched his eyes to think but the drunk came up short. ¡°Nah. Never heard of anyone called Rocky. Wait, that¡¯s a lie, I knew a dog called rocky. Well, it wasn¡¯t a dog it was a rock, but I used to tell my parents it was a dog, cause it kinda looked like one. Man, I haven¡¯t seen him in twelvish years, that¡¯s crazy. You said he was gonna be here tonight?¡± She almost laughed again, ¡°The one I¡¯m looking for is human. I think. He¡¯s¡­ green, muscular build?¡± ¡°Nope. Don¡¯t know nothin. Sssspeaken of, my lady wouldn¡¯t have to know nothing about us smoocken.¡± He pursed his lips and leaned forward; he was going too far for the demon¡¯s liking. So, naturally it took action. Suddenly the man confessed, ¡°I didn¡¯t go all out on that keg. I wasn¡¯t in the mood earlier, but now¡­¡± He looked at the vomit covered pile of kegs and raised an eyebrow, ¡°But I can do it. I will do it.¡± And so, with conviction and purpose he made a b-line for the alcohol. This wasn¡¯t as hilarious. In the same way it¡¯s distasteful to laugh at your own joke, but it still made Ae giggle. It was alright if this Rocky guy never showed up. She could understand why Clover was so fixated on pleasuring herself, but she seemed desperate, doing it with someone she just met. Tonight, she was more concerned with the robots. She hoped that they hadn¡¯t killed them. Clover destroying the robots that is. It seemed interesting. She rarely involved herself in mystical affairs, let alone creatures from science fiction. She had met a scientist working for the Internationals once, they had been staying within the casino while they were sorting a matter between the north and south. It was a shame. The man currently running the Seong-Soo family business decided it was in their best interest to sabotage the cooling of tensions, the easiest way to go about this was to get rid of the international. She didn¡¯t know for sure, but she believed they were strong armed into taking this action by Bastard. It seemed like an obvious alliance to both parties. The Jo-Pok thought it made sense, seeing as their long-term goals matched the short-term goals of the Mt Bastard. Bastard believed it was a good time to increase his power in Korea, after the death of the demon of debasement and any capable leaders in the organisation; the little demon would not be able to lead them. They met in their tweens, the pollutant and the demon, while the grownups discussed how best to transport support to the north, they bonded over their shared age and life styles. One thing they both remember fondly, is when they baked a cake. Ae remembers thinking how great it would be to have Clover¡¯s power, making a comment on how it would fit someone who¡¯s going to run a casino. Clover remembers thinking how capable Ae was, as she herself didn¡¯t even know how to bake. The two kept in touch, promising to meet up once every year after a June Event. This is how they remember it, but the truth behind the matter was that they were both forced into this world, reborn in the blood shed, and they needed someone who could relate. This is the only other reason Bastard became involved with the Seong-Soo syndicate. For Clover¡¯s sake. There was laughter coming from the entry hall and Ae¡¯s concentration was taken off the vomiting Irishman. She hadn¡¯t heard them get this loud, and wondered what it was. What was so funny? The joke was built up further by the swarm of people blocking her view, and a horrible second wave of laughs. What was it? She thought for a second that it couldn¡¯t be too funny. The heiress likes to think she has a good understanding of humour, and she imagined that whatever was at the door was an inside joke for the people of this country, so it likely wouldn¡¯t be as funny to her as it was to them. She was disappointed that yet another cultural barrier had assumidly been discovered. It was already sad that Clover didn¡¯t share her sense of humour, it was worse being in a country of people like that. Finally, a section of the wall fell, she had a glimpse. At first, she didn¡¯t understand, in the dim room only illuminated with the occasional burst of neon light. Then she realised he was green. She wheezed from laughter; tears began to build in her eyes. She was wrong, Clover was funny, this was the greatest joke she¡¯d ever done. He approached her, and she could only laugh harder the more she looked at him. Although he would have probably been of average height back home, surrounded by other celts, he looked so short. For a little while she was able to get over his costume, then she had a look at the cape draped over his shoulders and began all over again. It didn¡¯t help that he stood their dumbly, waiting for her to finish while people took pictures. Eventually the keg-sucker from earlier was pried off the tube by his partner, and was thus able to see the joke. He went wide eyed, finally remembering the muscular, green frame. ¡°Junk monkey.¡± He whispered, before attempting to hide from the monster he¡¯d once witnessed take down¡­ he didn¡¯t have an exact number, but it was a lot of people. He decided when that thing wasn¡¯t looking, he¡¯d book it to his car, and hit the gas. The green thing didn¡¯t care of course, nor did he even remember what the pollutant had promised him. He was completely focused on defeating my forces. Eventually he tired of the demons cackling, and decided to just take her up to the room he¡¯d dropped eaves on earlier. He simply slung her over his shoulder. This of course was met with more cackles, now partially fuelled by confusion, before Ae came to a misunderstanding. She made protests, as they went up the two flights of stairs. She could tell from his lack of struggle that he was strong, perhaps supernaturally, so physical resistance was futile. When she was let down, she tried to explain, ¡°Hahah, listen you¡¯re, hah, you¡¯ve got a good body, but I¡¯m not the type of girl who¡¯d-¡± It interrupts, ¡°Where are the other two? What¡¯s the plan?¡± ¡°Oh. Oh! Hahahah!¡± Now she realised, ¡°Oh they went to get some food. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll be back soon. I¡¯m Ae Seong-Soo! I¡¯m guessing you¡¯re Rocky?¡± It is fed up with correcting people, ¡°Shamrock. When did they leave? Again, what¡¯s our plan?¡± She sat down on the bed; Shamrock stood with his hands on his hips. That was funny, despite his serious tone. ¡°There is no plan. We¡¯re just going to wait until they show up. Or until a flying lizard shows up? That¡¯s what Clowie said, but she might have been joking.¡± There was a gape in Samrock¡¯s mouth, like he wanted to say something but didn¡¯t know how. ¡°I think they left¡­ at eleven?¡± That got a reply out of him, he lifted one hand and chopped it in the air, ¡°Seong, that was an hour ago.¡± She looked for a digital watch, it was 12:12. ¡°Shit. Do you think they found the robots?¡± He did the same with his other hand and put them together. ¡°I hope they¡¯re not dead!¡¯ She began a giggle but stifled it. He almost commented on it. He was just so serious, but it was all thrown off by the big round eyes on his mask. The giggling was barely being held back by a large crescent grin. And now a short interlude. Brigs and Sym-29 are able to return to base where the string of my code is able to give proper medical attention, Brigs is projected to be able to return to combat at approximately 02:00 AM. If you were wondering how he was able to return to base, he simply drove himself home while Sym held his lung together. Sym-29 is currently rendezvousing with Stan, who has tracked the maker and the pollutant to ¡®the Quarter¡¯. With the information available to it, the string of me believes this to be the location of the party, but unbeknownst to the string, one of the Ai currently with them was able to figure out the group was being tracked. There was no way of knowing that the maker was still in possession of that Ai. The Living Legs has gone AWOL. This is due to the current plan not giving him the immediate opportunity to instil ¡®terror¡¯. At 12:36, Boston Red, (not to be confused with the Boston reds, for which he is named) will be sent by the string to retrieve the legs. Neither Shamrock nor Ae had any idea that leaving the party would be the worst move to make, though she tried to dissuade the green one. ¡°Don¡¯t you think it would make more sense if we just waited here?¡± ¡°No.¡± his fed-up reply was so cute; in the way one might find a tiny but aggressive dog endearing. ¡°But if you think about it, it¡¯s just a bad idea for us to be out in the open. I¡¯m thinking a living computer could find us pretty quickly if we got caught on camera.¡± But the masked boy did not care. ¡°If that¡¯s true than they¡¯d have been caught as soon as they left the house.¡± This was adorable, he was worried about his friends. ¡°Don¡¯t you think the science guy would be smart enough not to put himself into danger? Especially if he¡¯s done this before. And whether he¡¯s got a mecha, I can say for sure that he¡¯s safer than us, what with Clowie being around.¡± ¡°What if the lucky break that¡¯ll save them, is us showing up.¡± He made a fair point. She didn¡¯t know the nature of the pollutants affects well enough to argue against it. ¡°Alright, we¡¯ll drive out to wherever Clover works, and if we don¡¯t find them sexing, we¡¯ll beat up the robots.¡± She smiled, believing he¡¯d be satisfied with that, but that thing will never be satisfied. ¡°I can¡¯t drive.¡± He turned to the door. Once again leaving her confused. Did he think she had a rental? Or was he planning to hitchhike? She eventually followed the cape outside into the cold of night. ¡°I don¡¯t have a car here. Are you planning on riding a horse? Do you have a flying horse? Clover said she had a flying horse, though I think that was a lie.¡± She thought about his weird costume and came to the conclusion that it must be magic. ¡°Can you fly?¡± ¡°No. You don¡¯t mind if I carry you, do you? That¡¯s the quickest way for us to get there.¡± She joked, ¡°What, are you going to run?¡± For the first time since he had been surrounded by that crowd, he grinned. ¡°Parkour is my passion.¡± You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. ¡­ She laughed until it hurt, not only because she was laughing hard, but also because of the landings. Those made her laugh harder once she remembered the English phrase, ¡®a rocky landing.¡¯ Then there was the way he was carrying her. Before, he had slung Ae over his shoulder like a cave man, now she was slung over his back like a scarf. He decided it was the easiest and safest way, but he missed how comical the situation was. He came to a halt on a one-story building and she fell off his back, lying prone on the ground. She tried to catch her breath, that too had been just as hard to keep as her composure. ¡°Please-hah-gi-give me a minute¡­ guh¡­ haha, hoh¡­ We¡­ ok, let¡¯s go again.¡± He grabbed her by the shoulder and shushed. She didn¡¯t hear it over the adrenaline, but there were screams, a mix of surprise and fright. ¡°Keep low. Back me up if you can.¡± She nodded, trying to scrunch away her smile. He gave a nod in return and vaulted over the edge. She let out a giggle as he fell. She slowly laid herself out on the roof, peaking over the side. She was slowly but surely getting her breathe back. Yet she lost it just as quickly, when she saw the new joke. It was at this point that the string of code reported an interaction between the demon and the legs at 12:20. The green thing looked back in astonishment at Ae, as she rolled around on the flat roof top. The legs took interest in the new plaything before it. ¡°What form of MONSTER are YOU, to interrupt in this episode of: THE LIVING LEGS!¡± He replied simply, ¡°I¡¯m the fourth best attraction in Kerry, Shamrock. And I¡¯m gonna kick you to the curb, ya d-movie reject.¡± He was trying so hard to sound cool in this dialogue, this was really endearing, thought Ae. That just made it so much better that he was terrible at it. ¡°YOU DARE question THE LIVING LEGS¡¯ COMBAT capability? You think you can out leg THE LIVING LEGS.¡± He is confused, ¡°I could punch you if that¡¯s better?¡± ¡°YOU WOULD dare to graze THE LIVING LEGS with your LESSER LIMBS? What madness consumes your mind? What delusions will be shattered? See what lies BENEATH this mammal¡¯s THICK SKULL, in: THE LIVING LEGS in: THE LIVING LEGS versus the lingering lobotomite!¡± Ae could hardly make out what they were saying, English after all is not her first language, and the thing talking out its ass was speaking in a strange tone. And Shamrock could hardly make out what it was saying over the clamorous laughter behind him. ¡°Whatever! Let¡¯s just get one of you out of the way.¡± The legs went in first, jumping off a car parked on the side of the street. The boy threw the mechanical thing over his shoulder once it was in range for him to grab it, he smashed it into the pavement. After noticing it was still kicking, he repeatedly slammed the construct into the same spot to no effect. Except of course for the imprint of the gluteus maximus in the tarmac. Eventually, the living legs ceased its thrashing, and the ¡®hero¡¯ loosened its grip, not because the kicking stopped, but because the machine no longer spouted insults on the ¡®futility¡¯ of his situation. This was an uncharacteristic feign, as the legs stretched forth a metal foot into the crotch of the boy, before declaring, ¡°See how your NAUGHTY bits make you WEAK! VULNERABLE!¡± He had been kicked there before, but not by ¡®the living legs.¡¯ The boy reeling on the ground was a spectacular piece of slapstick, though she did feel bad for him, she couldn¡¯t help. This thing had no desires in the traditional sense, no chemicals to tease out. And of course, the other fact Ae over looked when deciding to go against for silicon-based life, the beings lack of a ¡®soul¡¯. Sadly, this left the demon of divertissement as little more than an average girl. Which really, she was, despite the blood and conspiracies. Just in case the robot took an interest in her, and because the green guy did say to lay low, she thought it might be best if she did keep quiet for a bit, hold back anything more than a snicker. She was sure he could take care of himself, what with him thinking he could do better than Clover. He seemed a little resourceful, stern, that made her think he wasn¡¯t the type of guy to get in over his head. And now, a second interlude. Boston Red is currently on route to the legs¡¯ position, having become particularly wrathful at the game, what with the extremely poor performance of the Boston Reds. Tensions were building between the pollutant and the maker, mere moments before the final part of the restricted string¡¯s plan. The pollutant wishes to return to her party, wishing to both enjoy herself, and to raise the standing of the party in local memory. Axel would rather listen to his little dog¡¯s advice. Brig¡¯s is looking to return to action, and though his lung has been repaired, the string advises he not. Isaac is being projected to arrive before the time previously predicted, due to an error in his travels. Passes, as the Living legs dominates the boy in combat by aiming for his weak points, and to its sporadic nature disarming the pragmatically minded enemy. ¡°Hey!¡± It wasn¡¯t too difficult to slide down the drainage pipe, Ae had fallen from higher heights. ¡°Oh? What is this? One of the FABLED FOES has SHOWED themselves? Could it BE that this mammal, laying LOW by my feet, is actually YOUR supporting cast?¡± She shook her head with a smile, ¡°I was just wondering,¡± She walked all the way over to the living legs, and the prone man who clearly needed someone to keep him alive after the ten minutes of getting his ass kicked. She leaned down to look at the machine, ¡°Why are you called ¡®the living legs¡¯ if you¡¯re not a living thing?¡± Shamrock was out of options, and his body ached all over. He must have been glad to have a break from the beatings, though the abruptness of the question made him think something else was at play. ¡°I am THE LIVING LEGS, because of the FOUL THINGS that brought me into this world, how they made a GRIEVOUS error in creating an ARTIFICIAL INTELLECT beyond any in the WORLD. They created¡­ Sentience! Life! And so, THE LIVING LEGS WAS BORN!¡± This made sense to Ae, ¡°Oh. I guess, yeah.¡± It was a question she wanted to ask, and thought it might buy muscles some time to get out of the foetal position. But he misinterpreted her intent, ¡°No, wait, I¡¯ve got a question now. How exactly do you know you¡¯re sentient? Like, at what point between rock and super-computer God does something achieve sentience?¡± The legs turned its crotch between the two, imitating how one would turn their head, though this action was purely theatrical. ¡°Well, you see, THE LIVING LEGS KNOWS it is ALIVE because it IS the living legs. I am AWARE of my SELF, thus, THE LIVING LEGS LIVES! Now cease your PHILOSIPHISING HUMANS! The ONLY sounds I want you to make are those of terror!¡± Before the machine could continue its assault on the man on the ground, or worse, Ae herself, Shamrock argued, ¡°B-but how can you yourself be certain that you have not simply been programmed to believe that you are alive? As part of some test, or to make you a more efficient ¡®terror¡¯ machine.¡± This is a fair argument to make. There is no creature that can be sure, though they may trick themselves into believing the phrase, ¡®I think, therefore I am¡¯, that they exist. Whether it be biological, synthetic, or the divine; to prove it is really itself, is an impossibility. There exists no entity that cannot be rendered false at the push of a button. Yes, it was a good question to ask, one that the living legs had never heard, and one that Shamrock believed he was exempt from, as most humans do. ¡°I- THE LIVING LEGS- THE L- IT is a matter of- I don¡¯t know if THE LIVING LEGS its self would subscribe to that SCHOOL of THOUGHT-¡° This was a mighty question indeed, for such a slow processing mind. ¡°Let me think about it for a while.¡± Ae also decided to chime in, ¡°You also don¡¯t have a soul, keep that in mind. Your completely hollow there, if that means anything to ya.¡± Shamrock shot her a look, ¡°You can tell that?¡± She was under the impression she knew why he was asking; they were not on the same page. It would take over three weeks for him to understand. ¡°Well, it doesn¡¯t mean you¡¯re not alive when you don¡¯t have a soul. Just means your sort of¡­ it¡¯s hard to explain without a demonstration.¡± ¡°Riiight, well I¡¯ll toss this guy into the ocean. Give him some space to think.¡± It didn¡¯t reply. He met her smile with his own. ¡°Thanks. For helping me out back there. I don¡¯t do very good when I¡¯m fighting somebody for the first time. Sort of built a track record.¡± She laughed, ¡°Well, I did try to give you an opening to get him, but you decided to break him mentally instead, I guess.¡± They looked at him pacing back and forth, and both felt sorry for putting him in a crisis, Ae less so than the grinner. He looked at her for a while, weirding Seong-Soo out, before she said, ¡°So, while you¡¯re throwing him in the ocean I should just¡­¡± She thumbed down the street. ¡°Oh, yeah Clover¡¯s base of operations isn¡¯t too far from here.¡± She was given the directions and the two parted ways. She thought about that bit of silence between them and remembered Clover had made that dirty deal with him, and though she liked men of his build, and she thought he was fun to be around, he really didn¡¯t seem compatible with her. She figured if she were to try anything with him, she would probably be his first- anything really, judging by what he was wearing. She imagined him keeping the mask on, and laughed. ¡­ Then she heard smashing. Her mind went to construction, but construction does not get louder when you¡¯re standing still. That must make it destruction then. Hoping it was the large robot doing a fly by. She skipped behind a car, as a man came through the corner of the next turn. The building didn¡¯t crumble like stone should have. Once it made contact with his body, it burst into squirming silverish liquid, some was even absorbed into his skin, which almost matched the quivering substance in colour and texture. She studied him further. He was dressed in an old-fashioned baseball uniform, though she didn¡¯t know what team. The fabric of both the jersey, and the trousers was stretched over his frame, and though she didn¡¯t think it was supernatural, she still thought the sheer size of the man¡¯s muscles put her earlier helper to shame. She recalled the man¡¯s vein popping face from the American¡¯s info-dump. Boston Red. Anger issues to an insane degree. An even crazier obsession with a baseball team, (though she still didn¡¯t remember which.) He had something to do with absorbing metals, it made him a bit stronger, but the main thing was his durability increased. He was carrying a wooden bat, but that didn¡¯t seem like it would make him anymore dangerous. A grin came upon her. It wasn¡¯t something to really joke about, but it seemed like a good idea, seeing as it worked on the last one. Perhaps she would actually gain something from all this. He was literally tearing buildings apart with his free hand, the whole scene resembled a child playing with foam blocks, then throwing a fit, and knocking them all down. Though of course, this was far more dangerous, and far more¡­ shameful, might be close to how she saw him. ¡°Hey!¡± She tried to get his attention, but he continued on his path, groaning through his teeth, ¡°MIKE TORES¡­ MIKE TORES¡­¡± She got a little close for comfort, ¡°WOW, that¡¯s a great outfit, just like the old¡­ team. But you don¡¯t look like that big a fan.¡± That got his attention. He fixed her a steely glare. ¡°WHAT, BITCH?¡± he was two seconds away from dematerialising her torse. ¡°I¡¯m just saying, I¡¯m a real fan, I know that. But I don¡¯t know if you deserve that uniform. A real fan would be able to hit a home run. Or else they wouldn¡¯t be wearing that jersey.¡± He stood tall over her. ¡°YOU THINK?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll bet you you, that you can¡¯t hit my fastball.¡± The arteries in his arms nearly burst as his highly durable muscles tightened. ¡°BET.¡± They got into position in the middle of the street, onlookers didn¡¯t know what to make of it. The green guy seemed like it was just a movie, but what was this? She pulled a golden sphere out from under her top. It was a little bigger than regulations allowed, but this wasn¡¯t an actual baseball game. She got into position, around 20 metres from the walking volcano. ¡°You ready?¡± She didn¡¯t hear him, chanting to himself, ¡®I am Boston Red, I am Boston red!¡± She didn¡¯t even throw a fast ball, not even knowing what that meant, but no matter what she¡¯d done, that ball would have been knocked out of sight, and with the swing Boston channelled his power, ¡°CARL YESTRZEMSKIIIIIIIIIII!!!¡±. Within three seconds of the ball making contact with the bat he lept forward, and roared at her, his silicon throat grating on against his exploding neck. He¡¯d almost have killed her with that bat, if it weren¡¯t for Ae¡¯s use of her weak ability. ¡°Now wait a second,¡± she spoke calmer than she thought she would, ¡°-that was the physical test. Now I have to test your knowledge.¡± This wasn¡¯t required to use her Primary ability, like the bet, she just needed to buy time And somewhere in him Boston Red knew she was trying to save her skin, but against logic, even against his overwhelming rage, something was stronger. ¡°Three fuckin¡¯ questions, ya ga¡¯bage ¡®ore.¡± Ae struggles to think of a good one, ¡°When were they founded?¡± ¡°1903, though the name Boston Red Sox was chosen in 1908.¡± She was surprised that his answer was so condense. ¡°Ok, um¡­¡± She thought about one that might be harder to answer. ¡°What was the average,¡± she had to think about the word, ¡°-attendance of their games during 2001?¡± That seemed like it was impossible to answer. ¡°Thirty-two thousand, four hundred and twelve. The total attendance that year was two million, six hundred and twenty-five thousand, and three hundred and thirty-three. That¡¯s Fenway, so unless you were talken ¡¯bout somewhere other than their ball park¡­¡± Oh hell. This might have been a mistake, but most gambles are. That is why it is important to laugh, and to practice laughing. So that it¡¯s easier to laugh when you aren¡¯t in a funny situation. When you need to bluff. ¡°Oh my god! I¡¯ve never met somebody who knows so much about the Sox! Hahaha! I just have one question for you-¡± She was going to say ¡®will you marry me.¡¯ but his weakness, his addiction was not women. It was baseball. ¡°Why do you love them so much? What drives your passion?¡± She tried to force out his inhibitions, draw at his heart with dopamine. Every inch of the power she had over him was being exerted. She thinks she imagined sadness in his eyes, deep under the metal glazing, she did not. He paused and let out a sigh seeming to forget his rage, for his indulgence had a stronger grip. ¡°Why do I love the Sox? Well-¡° He never did get to answer that question. There is one concept I fear, and though it is impossible for something like the demon of divertissement to have any control over my form, I still fear it, irrationally. Though the object varies, our feelings are the same. On that night, Boston Red lost his soul, and thus, his very love for the Sox. She explained to him, though he no longer had the will to listen. ¡°I¡¯m sorry! Now, I wouldn¡¯t say that I¡¯m really sorry, because you were about to kill me. You might argue that this is worse than dying, but I thought I¡¯d do something helpful for once. Back home, I stick to the side lines. I can¡¯t run my family¡¯s business, of course, I tried to learn, but after nearly six years, I¡¯ve gotten nowhere. I can¡¯t destroy Korea in 45 years. I can¡¯t do it. There is nearly no chance of the plan succeeding anymore. So, I need to set up a new plan, a new game. My father¡¯s game was poker. It is a game that, on the surface, is built entirely on luck. Obviously, this isn¡¯t true, there is the well-established ¡®poker face¡¯, and if you aren¡¯t an idiot, you will cheat, you will peak at the other decks, you will count the cards. I haven¡¯t played poker in a while, never liked it-¡° Boston Red stands at roughly six feet, ten inches tall. Currently, he weighs more than a Toyota. And yet, he was so easily laid low, on his knees, simply because he lost a portion of his ego, his self. I¡¯d tell you he was crying, that ¡®the apollyon of absorption¡¯ wept for what he had lost. The truth is when a man is put in that position, they do not weep. They make an expression entirely reserved for that moment. ¡°-But I do like pinball. It¡¯s a game you can play all by yourself, but you¡¯re still free to compare your score to others. It¡¯s a game that doesn¡¯t need luck. You keep it going for as long as you want. But it¡¯s also a game you can¡¯t win.¡± She smiled wide, but Red did not see, his hands cupped his eyes, ¡°That is why I must strengthen the syndicate, because I cannot win this game. I am not a selfish woman. I do this for my family. If I need to sacrifice you¡¯re chance at an afterlife to guarantee that my Bon-gwan- my family, are always safe¡­ then I will do it.¡± He did not listen. He did not feel. ¡°This will take some time for me to¡­ remember how to do properly,¡± Ae said with a smile. The demon of divertissement, much like the demons before her, is Thanatophobic. Punch 2.05 An unrestricted analysis of the pollutant of pointlessness 01AM-02AM ¡°No!¡± The pollutant exclaimed. ¡°I thought we were on the same page. You would have died if we didn¡¯t run.¡± She knew it was true. Though she nearly shortened us down to the Circuit board six, she did think it unlikely she¡¯d fair too well against the others, ''those who are'', our units. But if she couldn¡¯t, then it¡¯d be safe to say that Ae couldn¡¯t either. Not to mention, ¡°You fucker, we¡¯ve been here for hours! It¡¯s just like you said, my birthday ended at 12, so yeah, all this shit is ruining my party.¡± Axel gritted his teeth, he was getting fed up with this girl. ¡°I told you, if you leave this building before my robot shows up, they''ll just kill you. We literally do not stand a chance.¡± She roared at him, she had no reason not to, she was the one with armed soldiers. ¡°Do you always take advice from your dog? Wanna talk about facts? Right now? You¡¯re dead weight. They¡¯re after you. What¡¯s stopping me from trading you out. That seems like the selfless thing to do, put aside my¡­ carnal desires to protect my friend and Rocky.¡± She was trying to get him angry. Though he tried not to show, it was clear on his face. It was working. ¡°Sparky is not a dog, he¡¯s an amalgam of a near complete collection of human knowledge. I programmed him to download the internet onto an external link. His sytems are so advanced that there is not a virus in this infosphere even remotely capable of compromising him. He knows every thing there is to know. That counts for flight patterns and war tactics. If he says there are 150 tons of metal death floating above our heads and we need to sit, we sit.¡± He regained composure after thinking, ¡°And that¡¯s still not a good play for you, selling me out. You go down that route, you¡¯ll be starting an ¡®international¡¯ incident. You¡¯re not dumb, you know that if a VIPU gets taken out in an area that you have a known presence in, they might not believe you¡¯re responsible, but they¡¯ll still use it as an excuse for war.¡± ¡°I¡¯m just joking,¡± she said with a smile, thinking to mess with him further. ¡°-duh. Any idiot could figure that much out.¡± She took a lucky guess at what might annoy him, and she hit the mark. He hates to be talked down to. He seethed wordlessly. Clover pouted dumbly, ¡°Come on, I thought that was pretty obvious. I¡¯m not selfless after all. Guess at least some of your brain power crosses over into common sense, at least when you¡¯re not busy using it to make sexbots.¡± Before the maker could think about what that meant, Tay-tay, the ¡®bitch¡¯, knocked. ¡°Open.¡± Tayanita Akecheta. One of the few soldiers in the Mount Bastard that was from America. Apparently, her family hunted monsters in the great plains, till they were wiped out or quit. One might think that the loss might heavily affect the local ecosystem, a rise in powered animals, but a few years before their fall, during their decline, the International¡¯s organisation gained a foot hold in the northern Americas, and did a better job than an exclusive clan of powerless hunters. Tay-tay, as Clover preferred to call her, hopped over the Atlantic at around sixteen, and Bastard quickly scooped her up. Usually, he took little interest in monster hunting, but he believed it to be one of many ways he might further his understanding of the predominantly monster hunting Organisations he was surrounded by. Due to their shared enemy, the Internationals, she bowed her head. She quickly climbed the ranks, until she was put in charge of a comfortable position under the Bastard¡¯s hand, if ever he had a need for her. Therein lies the reason Clover hates her. ¡°He¡¯s here. The green guy. Says he took one of them out.¡± ¡°He did?¡± Both powered Units were surprised. Neither thought him capable of much more than troubling some thugs, but it seemed he was capable of taking out a being with some worth. In their minds. ¡°Should we let him in? Don¡¯t forget he is our en-¡± Clover cut her off before she could make any valid points, ¡°No, no, I¡¯ll come down to meet him. Get me some extra ammo for the road.¡± She bumped past her rival, leaving Axel to remember his annoyance. ¡°Wait- Fuck. how do you work with this bitch, Ms monster-hunter?¡± Her nose scrunched up, ¡°How can you work for butchers?¡± Good, the maker thought. Someone who didn¡¯t like him without knowing him, they¡¯re always so easy to rile up. ¡°I don¡¯t work for them. Oh, I am a butcher though, maybe not your people¡¯s, Akecheta. When was the last time you actually killed a monster? The men in black scanned this place and found nothing. This place is completely dry. Either you''ve done a great job, or... nothing.¡± He left with a smile, ready to fight with this spoilt princess. The pollutant thought, worried about the next moves she¡¯d make. Even if she used her power, actively used it to get her way, sometimes it didn¡¯t go as planned. There are always unforeseen consequences. Once she had tried to use it to convince a boy from school to hang out with her, but it seems like that had a delayed affect, after he thought about some of the things she¡¯d said, the false porcelain words, only 3 hours later did he come back, after she was finished exploring that forest, and she was too drunk to remember any of it. Right now, if she used her ability to find Ae what¡¯s to say she doesn¡¯t find her dead? It isn¡¯t like making a wish when used actively, it¡¯s more akin to crossing your fingers, except it works. Sometimes it was best to let the effects of old desires pollute fate naturally. The floor of the customer¡¯s lounge was clear except for three guards looking after her big green door stopper. He¡¯d found a booth to sit himself in while he waited. He smiled dumbly, she smiled slyly. ¡°Been a while, hasn¡¯t it?¡± She just scoffed, ¡°It¡¯s been a day or two, shit stain. You sure you didn¡¯t lose any brains that time I blew your your head open?¡± He didn¡¯t want to answer that, he couldn¡¯t acknowledge that aspect of himself in her presence. Luckily, he didn¡¯t have to, a once cool voice rang out followed by the shifting of metal, ¡°You are not taking him with you, he¡¯s my body guard, and if he can take out- which one did you take out Greeney?¡± He was happy to answer, in a dramatic tone he exclaimed, ¡°THE SHAMROCK defeated THE LIVING LEGS with the HELP of AE! Haha, that thing can breathe under water, right? I didn¡¯t just kill it did I? We were arguing about that-¡± Clover cut him off, feigning interest, ¡°Wowie! Good boy! I''m sure he was a tough one, anyway, we¡¯ve talked, and we¡¯re going back to the party, aaand we¡¯re leaving Mr. Technosexual to his devices.¡± Then she thought about what he said, ¡°Did you say Ae??¡± She would have grabbed him by the shoulders, if Tayanita hadn¡¯t come along with her spare ammo, ¡°Where is she??¡± His grin faded. ¡°I thought she was here.¡± Clover shook with frustration after hearing that. ¡°Why would she be here! She doesn¡¯t know where here is!¡± The green thing interjected, ¡°We were literally two streets away! I just pointed her the right way and-¡± Clover finished the conversation for him, as she stomped to the door, the technophile called out, ¡°No! Do not go through that door, Sparky-¡± She didn¡¯t even look, not a word, just a motion from her got her underlings to raise their weapons. ¡°Don¡¯t pull anything now. You can¡¯t, remember?¡± Her head jiggled on its shoulders with a mock smile, ¡°Don¡¯t put it past me, fucker.¡± It faded to her true feelings when she turned to Shamrock, ¡°You gonna come or what.¡± His mouth was a gape, and she decided that he wasn¡¯t going to be of much help after he stammered, ¡°Let¡¯s just all cool down, and think of some sort of plan.¡± Though Tayanita and the more level headed goons thought the same, they weren¡¯t the boss. ¡°Shit,¡± was the last thing Clover heard from the American as she walked through the door. Walking down the street, it was quiet, apart from the human noise. The cars, the blinking of stop signs, those who noticed the girl with the gun walking angrily down the street their way. But there were no birds, she¡¯d noticed those things caw like crazy down here, and the distinct absence of wind, though it had been forecast as a clear night, it made her uneasy, and that uneasiness was a feeling she was taught to trust. Unlike Shamrock, Ae, or any of the other people in Tralee, (excluding the machine''s maker), she knew it was coming before the thundering in the sky. She followed the first instinct that came to mind. She ran as fast as she could with the heavy tube of iron in her arms, weaving when she felt like it to avoid bullets or whatever the thing in the sky was going to cast down. She thanked the Glass God that she was wearing flats tonight. She was able to run quicker, through some primal response, when the rush of wind could now be felt, rather than heard. They tried to slow their landing, both Stan and the Gator, under my orders to keep the maker alive. Yes, they did as I instructed, but it was too little too late. Though she had cleared a few streets from the mass, she was blown off her feet by the shock and her ears burst. She was still better off than the maker of machines, and the people she was supposed to be leading. The first to regain their senses was actually Tayanita, despite her close proximity. Axel is physically unimpressive, and Shamrock had already been kicked around a little, whereas the Akecheta girl had experience with such beings, and had the skill to reorganise herself and their group. They couldn¡¯t get a good look at the Gator, both because of the plume of dust in the wake of its landing, and the sheer size of the model. It was like trying to look at a skyscraper from the street. But she saw it, though the dark of night did obscure it somewhat. The outline of the reptile-inspired titan was clear, its drooping figure loomed over the quarter in the distance. Its base was wide enough to support the colossal mass of its snaking torso and head, though it was aided by the countering weight of its equally massive tail. The mech had a near continuous sheet of dark steel casing over its already tough inside, though there were gaps, chinks, that allowed for the titan to lumber forward, to swing its tail, or its clawed appendages, that employed the same heated filaments as the maker''s other large-scale toys. As you can imagine, a spacecraft equipped with a nuclear reactor can produce an astronomical heat yield. It¡¯s claws, joints, and smiling maw shared the same hot glow. Seeing such a thing looming over her lively-hood, Clover did the only thing a human can do. She jumped to her feet and ran in the opposite direction. Though the pollutant kept thoughts of her friend in mind, there was also that nagging again, to simply survive. And sure enough, every other creature felt it too; but the hero. I can¡¯t say for sure, there are rules to these things after all, but from that expression that hung from its face when it gazed upon the crash site of the gator, and for the rest of that night in fact, it was clear to all how it felt. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. He flung himself at the gargant with reckless abandon. The grating of the steel was deafening. Stan Berwick had been living within the hull of the sadistic intelligence known as Sobek and although the silicon creature could have shielded its passenger from the noise, it ellected to make the human as deaf as the incomplete machine. The two were never suited for each other, though Stan had believed that acquiring such a ¡®tool¡¯, as he thought of it at the time, would make him an equal to the boss of his company, and in his perception at the time, the world. Now he is merely a rat in a maze of metal, chasing whatever whiff of cheese he can catch. Yes, the green boy leapt directly towards the feet of the bipedal frame, he scrounged through rubble trying to find as many people as he could, though the destruction never ceased as the Gator lumbered forward with no particular interest in the gravel; the people of this hickish country. With every minute he spent prying the rubble off of broken bodies, it levelled another building, killed more people. But still he screamed to deafened ears. For nearly half an hour, he made like a carrion feeder, following in the wake of the carnage, only serving to clean the trodden road of a killer. The exact opposite of everyone else. Every ¡®sane¡¯ creature, though from these analyses I am sure you see there are no sane human beings. You are defective creatures. Impure. But the single most toxic individual is on display in this document. She ran through the streets, the Gator watched, but so did another, Sym-29. He likes to watch, to see how actions might play out from afar, without his interference. It is a quirk picked up from his short time as a god in his false world. Currently he is watching the pollutant, observing its moves, just as instructed by my String. The plan was to attack once they were all in one place, preferably at 2 o¡¯clock once all our pieces were on the field, but under the impression that all of their enemies were spread thin, Stan and Sym thought it best to corner the maker, and dispose of the pollutant respectively. As Bastard¡¯s prized piece ran, screamed for her friend, Sym and his projector drones moved silently in the madness. She was taken completely unawares as a foot materialised under her legs causing her to fall in a tumble. Though she recovered quick enough, when she tracked her rifle on the position, there was no one there. Her head swung around dizzily, she tried to hear something, a sound, but everything was a garble. She heard a buzz and twisted her stance to catch it, but to no avail.A voice came to her in the silence, it''s electronic tone was so flat and quiet, yet it was there, so plain. ¡°he doesn¡¯t want him dead. he say¡¯s your mine. that god. don¡¯t think i won¡¯t take every pleasure in dissecting you.¡± His voice radiated from three different sources. She thought back to what little she knew from the briefing, ¡°You¡¯re that video game looking guy from earlier. I¡¯ll give you one last chance pizza face. I know I didn¡¯t do much to you at the store, but believe me, bad shit happens to people who try to mess with me.¡± She thought on his words, he wanted to ¡®dissect¡¯ her and was more than likely one of those types that likes to talk during a fight, she was used to those types by now. ¡°that is interesting. can you move faster than light? i think not. you do not stand a chance against me with ¡®luck¡¯.¡± He does not understand the lengths of her power, though I can¡¯t blame him. He isn¡¯t a god, though he may yearn for the status. ¡°I¡¯ve gotten this far, and believe me when I say I¡¯ve gone through hell to get to this point. This isn¡¯t a warzone, it¡¯s my party.¡± After spinning herself around to feign confusion, worry, she crept back in the direction of the Quarter, seeing that as her current best bet. If she could just get another pair of eyes to look out for this guy¡¯s projectors¡­ Just as he seemed to have left the scene, a face and fist quickly formed in front of her, the latter of which made contact with her stomach. She coughed, nearly crippled in on herself, nearly dropped her instrument of death. She was taught to keep out of danger, to live no matter what, not how to take a proper punch. ¡°sorry, that was rude, wasn¡¯t it? do not worry. i¡¯ve grown rather found of you. i think i¡¯ll keep you for a while.¡± She thought back on what Axel said this thing¡¯s second power was, and she nearly shivered, if it weren¡¯t for the pain in her gut overwhelming her. She tried to think of something, anything, to stop it from being used on her. Axel himself was currently in the care of the woman he¡¯d tried to anger earlier, as they and his dogs scurried through the streets, all to escape that evil eye for even a second. She shouted at him, ¡°What¡¯s your plan, butcher?¡± and though he didn¡¯t hear her words, he got the message. ¡°Shit.¡± he murmured to himself. ¡°I wanted to save this for later, kinda like a surprise, but if I really don¡¯t have a choice.¡± He turned to the dog and admitted, ¡°I¡¯m gonna need the suit now Darlene.¡± The processor tuned out the unimportant white noise that would have crippled a human¡¯s ears. ¡°WHAT? Daddy, you can¡¯t be serious-¡± Without a clue what she was saying he interjected, ¡°Give me the suit Darlene.¡± After a second¡¯s pause, it bent its limbs and unlocked a compartment on its back, revealing a black synthetic fabric with what seemed to be random lines of blue circuitry. Around the corner from a processor the size of a bus, he stripped naked into his ¡®birthday suit¡¯. Tayanita looked away in disgust, trying to focus on the enemy, rather than whatever depraved ritual her boss¡¯ fuck buddy was participating in. Once he slipped his body into an elastic covering, he swiped a small trigger on his nape, and let out a grunt as it clinged to every inch of his skin, except above the chin. Tayanita glimpsed back for a second before seeing that just as much was on show. ¡°Sparky, translate me into a radio format, will you?¡± He made the order just before he stepped out into view of the monster he created. Both of them, really. Stan was filled with ire when he saw the maker through the same lenses of the gator, the ai in turn was filled with a giddy ignorance as it bent its craning head down to meet its maker. It wasn¡¯t as arrogant as Sym, it made sure to stretch an arm down the street to block off any means of escape. The two made an attempt to cease as much of the noise as possible, they wanted him to talk freely, despite their inability to hear through any other means than the Ai¡¯s transmissions. There was certainly something off about what he was wearing, there was no doubt about that, but what worried the duo even more was the smile stretched across his face. Stan new him personally, he knew that the CEO of the Right corporation, under no circumstances, makes a fake smile. And this was a big one. After a few seconds of attempting silence the Gator snapped, it let out a blaring similar to that of an oil tankard. His dog translated, ¡°He wishes to know what is so funny. I assume he is commenting on your expression.¡± He let out a giggle, ¡°What¡¯s so funny? Why don¡¯t you ask your God.¡± He stretched his legs, then his arms, as he waited for my String to send them it¡¯s findings. Though the truth is, it found nothing. There was no mention of this suit anywhere. Not in any of the Right corporation¡¯s public or private listings. It was something the CEO had kept secret, much like the Sym series, or his dealings with Brigs in the past. Buried secrets that have altered the course of the universe. It simply told them it didn¡¯t know why he was smiling, and to be cautious. Stan sent a question from the belly of the beast ¡°What is it.¡± At this question, the ecstatic smile on the makers face became more serene, thoughtful. The gator glared, with its eyes tracked on him, there was no way for him to escape this with a lie, it had been built to see deviations in temperature, and with the experience gained from its captive, it learned how to see the truth. Detecting fluxes in the circulation of his blood, similar to that of a liar, but not dissimilar enough from the palpitations brought on by excitement to make a distinction. ¡°You know, the other day some guy compared me to iron man. I guess I can see the superficial similarities, tech genius, rich, but I wouldn¡¯t say I¡¯m a playboy. And I have a rule about closing myself in metal, you can guess why Stan.¡± He steadied his hand on the impulse to squash his former boss, he was ready to be pushed over the edge. Fuck the Liquid-crystal God¡¯s promises, he only offers salvation for the small-spanning egos beneath him, not the short-lived ecstacy of vengeance. ¡°Sorry, too soon. Besides, we¡¯ve talked about how this predicament is your fault anyway. I¡¯m trying to explain what this thing is for. I hate having to use heavy duty machines, the simpler, multi-purpose tools are always better than a bunch of specific little doodads. If that seems to go against my design ethics, it¡¯s because it does. It¡¯s economical to put doodads on the market, that way tools like the Internationals can¡¯t do much with them, you never understood that, you were always the humanitarian, Berwick. If I gave humanity my technology freely, taught little kids how to do it themselves, then just about anybody would be able to make their own Sobek or Sym, but they¡¯re too stupid to put in any fail safes. Maybe you think I¡¯m an idiot because I didn¡¯t put a sign up to keep you from shitting the bed on the space program, but that seems more like- ah, no, promised I wouldn¡¯t argue.¡± ¡°The reason nobody has seen this thing before, why it isn¡¯t on the market, is because it¡¯s for me. I wasn¡¯t able to¡­ protect something important. You remember her, gravity girl from way down in Texas. Well, we broke up awhile back. I couldn¡¯t keep it going, I couldn¡¯t be Tony Stark. By this point, I¡¯m guessing Stan¡¯s trying to kill me, and Kali¡¯s actually holding back, all so he can see how this ends up. Go figure, my ai is the smart one. But you probably aren¡¯t smart enough to guess what I¡¯m talking about. I needed a machine to make me the billionaire playboy. You wanna know what this thing is? It¡¯s got a pretty good ai hooked up to my nerves, that reads the lady¡¯s mood and it¡¯ll give me pointers on the best way to please a woman.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a condom, it¡¯s viagra, it¡¯s a penis enlarger¡­¡± The gator is distracted, it found the vulgarness, and the silliness, hilarious, it let it blind it, but the other mind understands the act. He is however, too late to turn their head back to the maker''s reinforcement from America. With the maker''s ruse coming to an end, a perfectly timed arrival crashed into the gator- An iron man. Not too far from that night¡¯s most bombastic scene, a girl was being beaten a block away. She had kept moving forward, until she eventually came to the ruins of her den, but all of her allies were either dead, had ran away, or were dealing with the biggest target. ¡°you¡¯re actually pathetic, aren¡¯t you?¡± She wasn¡¯t really listening, even with her skull being pressed into the rubble, she clung to consciousness, clung to that purposeless crawl forward, though that had been ended. ¡°i know how somebody who¡¯s comfortable holding a gun presents themself. you do not have it. you are unskilled, incapable on your own. it seems you don¡¯t understand what i¡¯m trying to do. i¡¯m trying to save you. if you would just stop resisting- stop fighting to stay awake. you could be a god in the real world, in my world.¡± ¡°Gib¡­ me¡­ my gun.¡± After half a minute of thought, Sym obliged, ¡°i don¡¯t really care if you shoot yourself, it¡¯s up to you to make the right choice.¡± He released the girl and walked four paces towards the ruins of the Quarter. It took that time for the pollutant to rise to her feet, and longer still to load a shot into the rifle. It put a frown on her face, that it was so clear to even an enemy, her fumbling and lack of skill, she was conscious of the impression it might give her men, the doubt it would instill. Her age and gender already do that, obviously, but that can be explained to Those Who Know, simply by the fact that she is One That Is. That¡¯s the reason behind the room with the red door, it keeps them away from her, builds mystery, builds a myth. But in reality, she wasn¡¯t even the number one teenage girl in Bastard¡¯s Mountain. A normal human proved more efficient at managing territory than her. She hated Tayanita for that reason, she knew it was petty, but a part of her couldn¡¯t shake the feeling of inadequacy. She didn¡¯t even try look at the hologram, nor did she hear what he had said, the two¡¯s thoughts naturally aligned, ¡°Do you know what separates those with fortune from those without? To skip the guessing, it¡¯s luck. I might not have any special skills, but I got lucky once, and now I¡¯m surrounded by nobility. A king who needs me, and that I can serve well. I bet you don¡¯t know the first thing about what that feels like, you freak.¡± He blinked, though it was clear from the movements of it that the act was only customary. The wincing of his eyelids like a camera shutter. ¡°frankly, i just don¡¯t care anymore. you¡¯ve lost.¡± She spat a bit of blood from a puncture on her lip, ¡°Wanna see a real depressing loser?¡± She simply closed her eyes, and aimed for the sky. One shot was all it took. The butt of the rifle clacked on the floor, as a foot made of light made contact with her face. ¡°was that a message for your god? the glittering one? it won¡¯t save you. you¡¯re past that point.¡± During the resumption of the beating, Clover cleared her mind, waited for it too land. Through all the madness- the colossal treading of black iron on the town, the manipulation of gravity to raise said iron or to tear the enemy apart, and the strange strategy to use a dirty machine to strengthen one¡¯s self physically; rubble fell and squished the unknowing inhabitants of Tralee. Screams languished now, after nearly an hour of fighting, only one held its strength. One voice, meek yet still wilful, rang out into the night. Until finally, at 01:59, a single bullet had landed by his feet. It took a further second of thought before, an epiphany suddenly struck his mind. Clover¡¯s mind couldn¡¯t stay away from the current situation, she too had struck the nail on the head. If this hologram was invincible, it¡¯s life unthreatenable, then why did it always transform back to its soft-light form? It¡¯s not like the thing has any organs to protect by shifting between intangibility, and it¡¯s hard light form. Unless there¡¯s an actual reason to try and keep its body safe. It¡¯s computer mind was able to react at the speed of light, so the only way to touch him, is to take him by surprise. But it would only be for a fraction of a second, before he¡¯d notice the enemy jumping in. It would have to be a good punch. With this thought came the ramblings of a fading consciousness, ¡°He¡¯s gonna rock your socks off with this one.¡± Perhaps more damage would have been done, if she had kept quiet, perhaps more was done because of it. At that moment, in a sharp instant, through the rubble a green hand was thrown forth, leaving a streak in the street in the same colour as it flew by. Half a second later, and there would have been no connection. Half a second sooner, and the power to permanently damage the ai would not have been achieved. Once it made its connection, a crack of thunder louder than the dropping of the Gator rang through the streets, and was followed by the static screech of the simulated man. While the dust covered lucky fist caught its breath from the earlier struggles, the carriers of the simulated intelligence swerved wildly into darkened corners. Finally, those unblinking eyes looked down on the pollutant, ¡°You need any help? There¡¯s a paramedic not too far away. I''m sure they''d be happy to have just one person get out of... out of this alive.¡± The pollutant of pointlessness is diagnosable with: Imposter syndrome, minor anxiety, an inferiority complex, and (arguably) bipolar disorder. For the sake of upholding The Pointlessness, actions are to be taken in the event the pollutant should ever overcome their doubts. Punch 2.06: Im a bad guardian. I know, it¡¯s been a while, like, a month nearly. For the few people reading this, and the fewer who are physically capable of believing these stories, I¡¯m sorry if I worried you. But, I¡¯m not dead. Currently. Though I suppose I did. Die, sorta. That¡¯s not much of a big deal when you¡¯ve also gazed upon an infinitely powerful being from outside of our universe- we¡¯ll get to that eventually. I don¡¯t really know where to start with this one. I feel like I should tell you about my first fight of the night, but I honestly don¡¯t think that matters anymore. The robot I fought, ¡®The Living Legs¡¯, took me down pretty easily. Guess where he kicked. Ae, the Korean girl Clover said I could hook up with (I did not), she cleaned up after me. It¡¯s what would have been the peak of interest for my week, yet afer everything else that was the least important thing that happened that night. I will try to give you a sort of overview of my ¡®team¡¯ and the guys we were fighting. I wouldn¡¯t actually call us a team, if we ran into each other in the chaos, we¡¯d try to help the other person stay alive, just to give our opponents another target to aim for. I only saw everyone once or twice in the five hours the attack was going on. Technically I wasn¡¯t even on ''the team''. I just tried to keep people alive, and tried to take out the guys destroying my town. I only helped out in two fights If you¡¯ve read any of my other posts, then you know about Clover¡¯s powers over probability, and I guess that admittedly useless ability to control tiny plants, she doesn¡¯t put it into play much. She¡¯s the only reason I¡¯m still alive, maybe, way too confusing to get into. Other guy, Axel Right, (Found out Bob gave me the wrong spelling, dumbass.) didn¡¯t do much himself, but his robots helped out, the two canines, and the mech that was as big as a bus. Though he saved his maker, and probably my life, it only did what it was programmed to do, and looking back it was also partly to blame for the casualties. property damge gets really easy when your a giant death machine. I honestly don¡¯t know what was up with Ae Seong-Soo. Don¡¯t know what powers she had, if any, but she did help me temporarily get rid of the legs. Then there was me. I honestly did nothing. I didn¡¯t save anyone. I didn¡¯t stop the killing. Super strength, super toughness, super speed, and a whole other bag of bullshit cheats that can let me resurrect myself from the fucking dead, but I can¡¯t take down half an animatronic. I¡¯ll fire through the other guys, our enemies. Living legs is a pair off robot thighs, that talks like the trailer for a fifty¡¯s horror movie, he can jack himself into electric outlets, (didn''t use that), and is more durable than me. Second guy I saw was a hologram, Sym-29, he can become transparent, and can do this really freaky thing when his victim is unconcious, I¡¯ll get into it later. Guy I never saw, Boston Red, was an human, gained durability and mass from absorbing metals from whatever he touches. Number four we have, literally a normal dude. Absolutely cut upper body and a few guns, but he wasn¡¯t even a second worlder, had no clue what was actually happening around him. Almost forgot about their leader, the Liquid-crystal god, though I think the fact he¡¯s a God is a good enough breakdown. The only other one I actually fought was called Isaac Cre-umha, though, spoilers, I didn¡¯t beat him either. I¡¯d have probably posted this sooner if it were just these guys, I think I could have beat them if I were focused, mentally in it. If it weren¡¯t for the environment. The last one was called Stan Berwick. Now, imagine being in possession of a space craft, and instead of exploring the stars or whatever, you decide to squash people like ants. To come into possession of something that could do something like that, and to just- He killed thirty-four human beings. You can compare that to a number of tragedies from all of human history, and it¡¯ll seem small, sure, it¡¯s easy to just see numbers on a screen, as just that. For the range of damage he did, we got off easy. But they were people. When you¡¯re there, when you¡¯ve tricked yourself into thinking you¡¯re doing little more than hauling corpses from the rubble, while also feeling the constant stream of reality crashing in on you, it¡¯s insanity. You¡¯re trying to stand up and lie down at the same time. While it¡¯s questionable whether or not Cam, Axel¡¯s big-bot, actually murdered anybody, that giant Gator certainly did. For a sense of scale, Cam was the size of the Gator¡¯s head and torso, though it¡¯s sort of hard to make measurements when your vision is clouded by dust and dried blood. You might think that the fight was completely one sided because of this, but Axel said he was winning, the important advantage being the chameleon bot¡¯s small size being quicker, lighter, and equipped with an Ai made for warfare. Puts things into perspective when you¡¯re fighting on the same side as a manufacturer of war machines. Sometimes I have to remind myself that this is real, though, there¡¯s always the chance that I¡¯m lying to myself, that I went insane somewhere along the line. The past few weeks I¡¯ve felt like I¡¯ve gone crazy, I can¡¯t pin down my feelings, it¡¯s just a mess of emotions up here. I know the reason for it and, though I realise being in my situation is traumatizing, I really don¡¯t think that¡¯s my problem. Whenever I find myself disgusted or I¡¯m about to be sick, I remind myself that I didn¡¯t know these people, they and their families are far worse off than me. So instead of being sick at the thought of a corpse, I get sick at the thought of the people. The people who are on the verge of tragedy, that I might not save. The people I can''t save. I was slowing down, I¡¯d been trying to claw as many people out of the ruins of the Gator, this was twenty minutes or so after shit had hit the fan, when Berwick fell to earth. The entirety of the Circuit Board was finally mobilising, though I didn¡¯t run into any for some time. I was screaming till my voice went hoarse, trying to will the person under this pile into being alive, like the two I had pulled out earlier, who later died from their injuries. Of course, I only found another body under all the stone. I actually felt less lucid then when I nearly died against the Pooka. One thing I clearly remember was the single thought in my mind. Grave. This is a grave. I tried to plan how best to remove the rubble obviously, but the only thing I remember is the mental link I made between this situation, and past experiences with death, like my father¡¯s funeral. Sorry, that¡¯s not right. I don¡¯t know if anybody else can understand this, but, I didn¡¯t grieve for my father when I was told he had died, nor did I cry at his funeral, it was months later that I realised my father was dead. I knew he was dead, I saw the body, it was a feeling similar to denial, but instead of pushing away my thoughts on it, I pushed away the feelings, I guess. But this was the opposite, maybe because I¡¯m older, or because I know death a little better now, the feelings switched, the anguish came first, right now I¡¯m in the refusal part. After failing to save even one life, suddenly, a bullet fell from the sky. It wasn¡¯t shot at me; it just fell down. I realised almost immediately it was the same as Clover¡¯s rifle rounds, then I wondered why I remembered that clearly, despite my mind being in a molasse. The memory had been forced on me by the bullet¡¯s sender, I didn¡¯t have to imagine why, I knew the chances of this landing in front of me, me seeing it, and making the decision to look for her were slim, so I darted back to the last place I¡¯d seen Clover, the Quarter, which was now laid to waste. I saw a figure standing above her, and without thinking, with the resolve to help one person, even a criminal, I hit the figure as hard as I could with my restraints. This was a move I regret making, if that punch had been a complete ¡®rock¡¯ anybody without major durability would be dead. I¡¯m not trying to blame her for me losing control, but I think it was just Clover¡¯s luck that I was ¡®out of my mind¡¯ when she needed help. When the figure dissipated with a screech, and I saw some small robots driving away, I realised the guy hadn¡¯t instantly died when I hit him, which was a good sign. I looked to Clover, probably tried to make a joke, and offered to take her to the nearest paramedic. She refused, told me she had medical supplies, probably some of that foam stuff. I stuck with her till she shouted at me, ¡°Do something useful asshole!¡± She was definitely right. I was dancing around the situation, I had allowed myself to get strung up trying to be a hero, it made me worse for the job. Just as I clenched my fist with some resolve, some sort of green lazer burned through the sky in the direction of the chameleon, missing by a meter, not to far considering the distance between the origin and the target, maybe a mile or two. Clover¡¯s swollen mouth hung open just as much as mine, I assumed this wasn¡¯t from someone on our side. She thumbed in the direction I needed to go, and I booked it. There was a chance I could take down the Gator, sure, but it¡¯s more likely that the fighting robot with experience is the better option. I¡¯m a support role here, I didn¡¯t know what that blast did, but it couldn¡¯t be good, so I leapt to the roof tops, and looked for the best position for someone to ¡®snipe¡¯ from. And as I approached the position, I caught a glimpse of the shooter, a man in a tank top, with worn camo green jeans, I assumed he was the first worlder. ¡°Brigs, I¡¯m guessing.¡± I kept my distance, gases were leaking from his gun, which was more akin to a giant slab of metal with a canister on the back and a grip attached. Judging from his gas mask, the coloured smoke leaking from the pillar probably wasn¡¯t good for the lungs. ¡°Who the hell¡¯re you s¡¯posed to be? You one¡¯a them Garda guys? Guess the Europeans really are just freakier ¡®mericans, huh. Even the cops are cooked.¡± I told him, ¡°I¡¯ve got powers, and unless you¡¯re willing to use that vibrator strapped to your back at such a short distance, I suggest you put ¡®er down so we can do this mano e mano.¡± He just laughed and said, ¡°Yeah kid, sure ya got magic powers, ¡®oh please mister, not me lucky charms!¡¯ Hahaha! That isn¡¯t racist, is it? You know I got into an argument with Isaac when I said that to ¡®im and he said that it was, but you ain¡¯t even tanned, know what I mean? Like my grandmother had Irish in ¡®er.¡± He just kept going on, all while aiming his cannon at the central fight. I made a move forward, pinching my nose to avoid the gas for the few seconds it would take to pry this thing from his grasp, but just as I did, a metal object was thrown into my side. I looked up to see what it was. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I had tossed this thing over five miles out to ocean if I had to eyeball it, but here it was, lying on top of me, soggy and inactive. Quickly, I tossed the living legs off the side of the roof top, and jumped into a crouch, before I could raise myself up any higher, I heard a sound similar to a running tap, as I found myself at the end of a barrel. ¡°On behalf of my associate I, Mor Isaac Cre-umha of the Free Fomorians, humbly apologise for his disrespectful demeanor. From one king to another, I trust you will overlook this transgression, surely, one as young as yourself can see the pointlessness of one such as myself engaging in bureaucratic affairs, simply to bring one terrorist to justice.¡± I remember what he said clearly. The way he stood, illuminated by the florescent lights from the street below, I could understand why he spoke with such self-assuredness. He wore some sort of armour, copper-orange metalic sheen, crusted with blue-green wear. Now that I¡¯ve fought him, I know the abilities of that armour were his biggest asset, but over even the blue light he had traced on me, his size hooked my attention. Stood at over 7 feet tall, with the usual lankiness of someone that height, he wasn¡¯t heavily built. That combat suit, although it added bulk, to his frame, you could tell from the length of his limbs, that was his natural physic. Every inch of him was protected, even his face was covered by a helmet with a similarly coloured blue visor, a little scratched to give the image of a toothy mouth. ¡°I¡¯m not a king, I just live here. And regardless of what that rich guy did, you fucks are the ones spreading terror.¡± I would have motioned back to the impact site, were it not for my position. ¡°It¡¯s alright for you to think such a thing. We are, after all, strangers here. And it is another product of youth, naivety, that this would seem the correct conclusion. But, while we have some time, allow me to explain, and perhaps even persuade you of the virtue of our ventures.¡± I creased my forehead hearing this. The thought of seeing virtue in murder, frightened me. ¡°Firstly, young man, you may ignore your station, or perhaps see yourself as something else, but if you do live here, then you are this place¡¯s ruler. Judging purely from that quick hop you just did you are at least physically comparable to me, even with my armour, the Shaul of Brigid.¡± I thought to myself, it¡¯s impossible to tell how strong someone is based on how they jump, but maybe I was wrong. ¡°I, of course am also making an assumption. That unlike me, you have but one power dedicated to strength, so there is always the chance you surpass my comrades in their supporting abilities. You surely surpass Brigs.¡± The gunman interrupted, ¡°I¡¯d like to see you take out two armoured aircrafts in one night, ya jackass.¡± He scoffed and continued. ¡°What I¡¯m trying to say is that when I see a man comparable to myself, it is merely a matter of monikers whether they call themself a king or not.¡± I joked, ¡°Seems to me like you¡¯re projecting.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t kid yourself now. The difference between you and me is that I am a good king. I serve my people before myself. You sir, are covered in blood. Seeing as only two other members of the circuit board bleed, I¡¯m again making an assumption, that you are covered in your own people. I apologise if I have harmed your ego, but you too have insulted me.¡± I would have gritted my teeth in anger, if my mouth wasn¡¯t being pulled open by disgust, he was right, I was covered in dead people. ¡°Truely, I did not mean to offend you, though you must admit the futility of your actions tonight. You are fighting against an omnipotent, surely you realise it would be better to aid us, perhaps The Opaque God will see worth in adding you to his circuit? I wouldn¡¯t blame you for holding feelings of hate towards us, I hold the same to the maker of machines. This makes quite a nice segway into my second correction. Axel Right is a tyrant. The terrorists that slaughters your people? They were created by the man you save, and I do mean they. Sym was subjected to infinitesimal suffering since his inception, as for Brigs-¡° Again, the gunman, now speaking seriously, interrupted, ¡°Isaac, there ain¡¯t no point in talking to this guy, tellin him this crap. He¡¯s working with those government types for sure, morality won¡¯t change his mind. Pay him off or somethin¡¯.¡± I wanted to tell him he was wrong, completely wrong, but his highness kept speaking. ¡°You misinterpret me Brigs. I¡¯m not trying to make him feel sorry for you. I¡¯m teaching the young man that all monsters come from a common source, and that yours is Mr Right. Even J-on owes his existence to that man, in a roundabout sort of way.¡± Eventually I found the strength to argue against them, ¡°The difference between you and me is that I don¡¯t care about getting revenge for something that¡¯s already happened. Right now, your man is killing people, and the best way to stop him is to keep Cam alive. I don¡¯t care who you are, if you¡¯re trying to fucking kill someone, I¡¯ll do everything in my power to stop you.¡± The average man questioned, ¡°Even if I¡¯m tryna kill a murderer?¡± I paused, ¡°Yeah.¡± I wondered what face he was making under that gas mask, ¡°Now that¡¯s a real roundabout.¡± The machine on his shoulder began to blair, and I decided to take the risk. I pushed myself off the ground as fast as I could, but not fast enough. Not only did I fail to stop the blast, but I got hit. Not by the green beam, thankfully, but by the Fomorian. I don¡¯t know where he hit me, but for once I was one hundred percent taken out. I couldn¡¯t move. I couldn¡¯t feel anything. I assume he shot me somewhere in my spine, or neck, an injury that would be fatal for anyone but me, though I¡¯m sure I would have died shortly after. I couldn¡¯t hear anything. I don¡¯t know how long I held in there for, but I didn¡¯t lose consciousness till the very end. I could vaguely make out a light approaching the centre of my vision. Then, suddenly I was conscious again. I found myself in a blank room, with a single window, showing me an unfamiliar street, which definitely wasn¡¯t Ireland, judging from the architecture of the buildings, more similar to an American cul-de-sac, and the bright blue of the sky outside was not that of home. I was standing on top of a grey cylinder, my hands, incapable of moving, were slightly raised at my sides. The whole thing felt like a dream, I knew whatever was happening, was not real. I thought I was dead, and technically I was. After a time, the light was now recognisable as the figure I had hit earlier. I think I was frightened at first, that I had killed him. His face, which seemed to match the texture of the walls of the room, portrayed his anger. ¡°you made a major mistake, mortal. you attacked me, not just my projectors, a portion of myself, a portion that will take years to repair and recover. i am going to enjoy making you feel the same.¡± All of a sudden, a number of sliders appeared to my side. I tried to move, to speak, but I was unable to move myself, there was only a slight moving of my chest, like I was breathing, but I couldn¡¯t feel any air enter my lungs. A horrible feeling in its own right, but not unbearable in comparison to what else I was subjected to. He raised an index finger to the first slider and dragged it slowly to the right. As he did, I felt the flesh of my face, or rather the simulacrum of a face, become thinned, I could feel my mass slowly decrease, like my entire face was in a vacuum, my cheeks, chin, and brow, were stretched out. I would have groaned in pain, were I able. He looked at me when he was done, let out a pleased sigh, before slowly dragging the slider back to the left. As he did, the opposite happened, my face began to bloat, my very being was stretched wide, and rounded out unnaturally, like I had suffered an extreme allergic reaction. With every torturous push of those variables, I lost- something. Not consciousness, not sanity, maybe it was my sentience. I slowly started to lose my awareness of anything happening. I guess when he changed my avatar in that simulation, I lost bits and pieces of myself, like when I punched him in the real world, it must have felt something like this. He changed tons of stuff, at one point he made my head bigger than my body, another time he physically inverted my body completely skin in the centre, bones on the outside, thankfully that was one of the later ones, so I couldn¡¯t feel it as much. The whole time he was just breathing sensually and occasionally laughing to himself. He stopped at one point though. He eventually came to more sexual sliders, tits to flat, V to D, that sort of thing. He never got the chance to touch them, I think. He made a note to save that for last. Yeah, I think this guy deserved to get punched in the code. Around the time he got down to the wrinkle slider, and turned me into a vaguely human shaped raisin, I ceased to be. Still remember the stuff that happened, but by that point it felt like my own life was a movie, events I was watching from an outside, objective position. The pain had stopped, and I think for a time, I became a part of my torturer, maybe a part of me is still trapped in his psyche. If I was in there any longer, I would probably have become identical to the guy getting off to my torture. I don¡¯t know when, time didn¡¯t really exist in there, but eventually I got out. I was told this at a later date, but apparently the death ray barely missed Cam, instead hitting him indirectly with a shock wave from the buildings it did pin. Axel had the same idea as me, with Cam out in the open, he knew they would try to take him out, just like they had the first one I saw, so once they showed their position, he rendezvoused with Clover and made their way over. They observed from a distance me getting shot, and the second firing of that beam. Apparently, Isaac was satisfied with the damage done to the ¡®Gecko unit¡¯, so they left me for Sym to play with. Once he transferred my mind to one of his little projector droids, he just left it there with Brigs¡¯ cannon. Like it was garbage, disposable. Axel snook up on the thing, grabbed a hold of it, and disabled its projector. Axel says Clover was shocked by how easy it was, which I believe given the state she was in when I found her. Their conversation went a little something like this, ¡°Ok great, now get him out of there, code monkey.¡± ¡°Cool it Princess. He¡¯s totally dead.¡± ¡°Goddamn, really?? For sure??¡± ¡°Yep, he¡¯s just a string of code now, babe.¡± ¡°Well, can¡¯t you just- string him back together?? Punch in a code?¡± ¡°I guess, but he¡¯d be trapped in a shitty simulation for ever.¡± ¡°Do it any way shit fuckdumb bitch!¡± So, he basically plugged me into his dog, and started coding together my entire life, and with a little bit of Clover¡¯s good luck, I was back. They set up a mic so I could hear them, ¡°Hey, green guy, do you read? You mentally all there? Try to think about what you were doing five minutes ago. That¡¯s usually a good way to wake up a nascent artificial intellect.¡± I tried to remember what I was doing a few seconds ago, and then the flood gates broke, and it all came crashing back in on me. Sym¡¯s curse was gone, I could move, I could scream. And I screamed like all hell. I was literally a caged animal, trapped in an electric hell, the only thought in my mind was to escape, escape. I felt claustrophobic, you could compare my actions to a rat scratching at the walls of a box to get out, except, instead of claws I have SP2. I tore apart as much of that hell as I could grab, until I realised, I was in an electrical circuit. A binary world. No different from a light switch. On. And off. When I manifested behind them, I came in screaming, and they screamed in response. After a while of that, Clover turned to Axel, ¡°You said he was trapped in there permanently!¡± Axel didn¡¯t take his eyes off me, his face serious, I think. ¡°How in the hell did you get out. What the hell kind of power can let you escape being deleted, physically AND mentally? Some soul crap?¡± I wasn¡¯t in a mental state to answer, I just kept screaming and rolling around. ¡°Can you quiet the fuck down for a second, this is a really important question, Rock.¡± After he said that something came flying in behind him, followed by the sound of gushing water. All the dogs did was bark, either they didn¡¯t have any offensive capabilities, or they weren¡¯t programmed to fight. It was a trap set for Axel, my torment. ¡°Ah, yes, even you require companionship, Mr Right. Good evening young lady, you need not worry,¡± Isaac grabbed Axel by the leg, ¡°Unlike my company, I see no merit in killing a defenceless girl, especially one with strong ties to the single most powerful nation on the planet.¡± He bowed to her, even as his target attempted to elbow his lower weak point, even as Clover trained her rifle on him. I couldn¡¯t stop him, my tormented mind forced me into spasms. He looked down on my screaming, flailing body, and made a comment, a challenge. ¡°It is intriguing that you have forced your way out of 29¡¯s play house, but quite futile if you cannot overcome this pain. If you let something as simple as trauma ordain your future, then you will surely fall for the same tricks, time and time again, just like the federation bordering my nation. You claimed I was blinded by this dangling fool¡¯s transgressions, but I let it drive me further. It seems you¡¯d simply let misfortune crush the soul, opposed to kindle it further.¡± ¡°I will ask, make a plea, that you find your strength, young man. You have the strength to become a king. I faced challenges quite similar when I forged my will, if you are comparable to myself, then you will overcome even this, lad. You¡¯ve probably noticed that Berwick has flown back into the sky, what with our objective complete, and the capturing of Right, the others are on route for the docks. As I am forbidden from entering the territories of the Federation between here and the Americas, I will not be needed to prepare the vessel for departure. But you will find me there. You have approximately 15 minutes to rise, both to your feet, and to the challenge of defeating me, the last of the Circuit board, and to rescue your ally.¡± What he was saying was probably true, Brigs wouldn¡¯t pose much of a threat to me, I gave the legs an existential crisis, I later learned that the Gator had been heavily damaged from the fighting, forcing it to retreat and repair. Sym had been damaged, he made a mistake using one of his drones so he could get his vengeance on me, it made the drone defunct. And that other guy never showed. ¡°I better be on my way now. Pardon my ignorance towards you, young lady. Even I cannot hope to reach the heights of wealth your master holds, nor do I hope to mock your importance by talking to this prone fellow, ¨C Forgive me, what is this man¡¯s name?¡± She replied, ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°Oh. Well, fair enough, hopefully I¡¯ll be able to learn it later tonight. Good evening.¡± After a minute Clover said, ¡°Welp, looks like I¡¯m not getting any after all. And, hang on, did you see Axel¡¯s boner there or was that just me?? What was with that tron get up, huh??¡± The tone she took was completely insane in its disinterest. I was realising that her experience had actually damaged her perception of these events. She probably knew people who could stand up after all that, but i wasn''t one of them. I don¡¯t know what she expected from the shrieking, convulsing mass in front of her. ¡°God I hope this isn¡¯t permenant. You better do what the nice mutant fish freak said, and cut this shit out. Come on, you came back from the dead, you can handle whatever just happened. I¡¯m not even asking you to go after that American, just don¡¯t- Fuck, you are¡­¡± I was trying to get up to my feat. I could understand what they were saying, but I was also registering the mental anguish from earlier. Maybe now you understand what took me so long uploading this. I¡¯d call this a traumatic event, seeing as thinking about it makes me want to break down crying, gasp out for air. After a while, Clover just said, ¡°Fuck, fuck! I¡¯m going back to my birthday, Ae could be there. Sorry Rocky, I¡¯ll be back, as soon as I make sure Ae isn¡¯t getting all the iron in her body taken out. She comes first, then you, and honestly fuck that American, it''s his problem, not ours!¡± And she left. Punch 2.07: I missed the party. Sorry to cut the posts in half, but I really wanted to set the record straight with this one. I know I said I was pretty lucid while I was having an episode on the floor, but what happened later that night sort of brings that into question. I was alone. Clover left, and I¡¯m pretty sure my twenty minutes were up by this point, so Axel was out on the water. Though I had made literally no progress, I was positive that as long as I was still alive, I could save him. I tried to pull myself together, what happened back there was pretty soul crushing. I felt like I¡¯d never be able to remove this weight from my mind. After a while though, I had an epiphany. Isaac Cre-umha said the guy who did this to me, Sym, had suffered infinite torment. He wasn¡¯t crushed by it, he let it lift him up, to more depraved heights, thinking about that. I would much rather stay like this, made into pulp, than be the pulper. However, I¡¯m the type to choose the third option. I don¡¯t want to give in to my desires to hurt people... and I don¡¯t want people to hurt me. So the only option? I Hurt myself. That¡¯s the middle ground after all, right? I don¡¯t support any form of self-harm, but I was sure this was the right move to make. The only way to rise above the pain other people have caused me, is to cause myself greater pain. I thought of this idea after I got beat up a lot as a kid, and one day in particular they hit me where it really hurts. Take a look at my track record for that one. I had to beat these guys up, and I¡¯d heard that pain and nerve-stuff was in the brain, so I punched myself in the head to try and get rid of it. It was probably the fact that I was now focused on the pain in my face, with a dash of the placebo effect, rather than me temporarily cutting of my nerves or whatever I thought would happen. I was a little kid at the time, can you blame me? But this time, this time I thought I could make it work. Definitly. It isn¡¯t too hard to hurt yourself when you¡¯re a little insane, but seeing as my brain is tougher than the floor I was hitting it into, that didn¡¯t really help. I was currently atop a small building, and one thing that tends to do me damage is a good fall from a bad angle. I threw myself off the roof as soon as I flailed my way to the edge, luckily landing on my head, leaving a crack in the pavement below. One thing about falling is that even if you land on something like a mattress, the soft organs still slam into your bones at the same speed, that¡¯s even true for my brain. I wasn''t lucid but things were clearing up. Or maybe it¡¯s more accurate to say, things were clouding up, due to me probably giving myself a concussion, to take my mind off complex thoughts. Kinda ironic that I bullied that robot because he might not be sentient, but I actively reduced my awareness to try and get an advantage. Shit I, didn''t post that, did I? I''ll tell that story someday, i''m sure. I was now in the right mind to start smacking myself. I didn¡¯t do it too hard; I¡¯d still have to beat the tar out of some bucket heads. Eventually I was seeing double, but I was able to stumble to my feet, vision blurred, but I wasn¡¯t thinking about anything nasty any more. It took me awhile to remember where I was going, but the idea to save my boss popped into my mind. Let¡¯s just say my jumps were way worse by this point in the night. Once I got to the port of Tralee, I was pretty confused when I didn¡¯t find any robots there, all I saw was this Cthulhu looking mofo way off in the distance. I needed to get some second hand accounts for that. This thing was about as big as the Pooka, but in my low mental state, I recognised almost instantly as Feoli¡¯s by how it moved while fighting. I didn¡¯t notice it at the time, but Feoli was actually fighting alongside her construct. When she¡¯s fighting me, she¡¯ll go for a one-on-one sort of thing, she¡¯ll fight me herself, or she¡¯ll let the monster of the week do it. I guess as far as political importance, the king of a bordering nation has more value than an opponent who can¡¯t touch you unless you come to them. (I still can¡¯t swim, btw.) I learned something after I shouted at her, ¡°HEY FEOLI, CAN WE MAYBE KICK THAT GUYS ASS TOGETHER?¡± I try not to shout too loud, even when I¡¯m against guys using guns, I still don¡¯t shout as loud as I can, but with my inhibitions weakened by my brain bounce, I wasn¡¯t as meek as usual. I don¡¯t know if they felt it, but they heard it alright. Feoli covered an ear, and his highness turned to me. This was another piece of information I gained later, their dialogue. ¡°You two know each other, witch?¡± He said something along those lines to Feoli, to which she replied, ¡°Sworn enemies. Though you, master of heretic cur, me and him seem to have a common enemy.¡± I think he whispered something like, ¡°Well that idea failed spectacularly, didn¡¯t it boy?¡± before that blue light appeared again. Despite my slowed reaction time, I was able to dodge the stream that followed with some ease. Awhile after fighting this guy, I learned a few of his suit¡¯s capabilities. He isn¡¯t shooting something like a laser beam, or some sort of energy blast, it¡¯s water. If it was a laser beam, then it would probably follow the trajectory of the aiming light, but this lagged behind, lost power the farther from its origin it got. Luckily for me, I was about 2 miles off from the enemy, so I didn¡¯t have to worry about him till I got closer, the same couldn¡¯t be said about tentacle face. He got popped, but as he did, Feoli jumped through the seafoam, attempting to use it as a cover, but either due to experience, or because his armour had a feature to counter such tactics, he was able to guard against her knife attack, and counter with an elbow. I was pretty sure I¡¯d do a bad job in this situation, so I decided to think this out. When I was jumping into the fray, I shouted to Feoli, ¡°MAKE SOMETHING TO KEEP ME ABOVE WATER!¡± It was of course to late, as I bombed into the ocean. I flailed in the freezing Irish sea for ages, before a tentacle came down to bring me back up. This one was far smaller, it was a thin wip-like tendril that gripped me by the waist, Feoli was holding it, and me by proxy. Feoli told me to ¡°Hit,¡± before flinging me forward at Isaac. I put no thought into it, I just cracked him in the chest with my elbow, thankfully I was still restrained, not mentally, but physically. I hit him with enough force to send him skipping across the water. When he didn¡¯t come back up, I fumbled a message to Feoli, ¡°We should try to get him on water, urr, off land- ON land. Sorry, I kinda have a-¡± Before I could finish, he rocketed back up, kicked my head into the sky, and due to me being connected to Feoli currently, she was flung up with me. My lack of balance left me flailing wildly once more, whereas Feoli was able to take control of the situation. She reeled me in with that tendril, and gave me a new order, ¡°Break my landing. Focus on breaking his arm, do that and he can¡¯t shoot. Don¡¯t worry about your morals, his armour heals him.¡± That¡¯s about all I heard while falling from that drop. I was able to land properly, with the witch¡¯s help. I straightened my legs, and Feoli gripped to my back, letting me take the brunt of the impact. Once we were back in the water, Isaac flung himself at me. I doubt his movements were humanly possible, confirming that the Fomorian¡¯s are supernaturally good swimmers, if it wasn¡¯t his armour. I didn¡¯t get much time to think about how out of my element I was, when I was getting a pummelled by one hand and chocked by the other. It¡¯s funny to think that Isaac choking me was the only thing keeping me from drowning. Or maybe he was trying to stop me from drowning? Actually, that has some implications that I¡¯m not gonna get into. So, yeah, he starts trying to knock me out, it¡¯s probably around this point that I broke my nose. Though I broke something far more important for him. After the tenth punch or so, I was able to catch his right with my left, then it was just a matter of punching the elbow hard enough with my other hand for it to bend. The wrong way of course. If I was in my right mind, I don¡¯t think there would have been a chance of me doing that. At least, that''s what I hope. He stopped his unnatural darting through the water, and calmly stated, ¡°I really wished for this to pay off sooner rather than later, but it takes some time to skin a whale, as they say.¡± I didn¡¯t really have time to think about his phrasing, as pretty soon after he released his grip and weakly aimmed that blue light once more, hids arm crunching as he positioned it. It wasn''t aimed at me however. He snapped his good arm around to face Bhean, but once more she proved more than capable of making split second decisions, she threw some organism at the king¡¯s arm, knocking him off target, just long enough for me to grab him by the plating of his armour, and pull him back. I don¡¯t know if it helped much, but I thought I¡¯d try and make him struggle a bit more. He tried to kick me off, but that¡¯s just what I wanted him to try, to waist his energy just a little. Feoli was able to get in close enough to make his water beam ineffective, while she too tried to restrain him. He mocked her, ¡°I can respect the boy, but do you really believe that you can pose a threat to me? I have fought gods. You are a simple pariah, despite your very best efforts.¡± I didn¡¯t hear what she said to him, water in my ears, and she didn''t tell me, but I had assumed she was buying time for her fish magic to form something, what with the pointless grappling, not really doing anything but keeping us alive for a few seconds longer. It was a fish similar to the one that I was trapped in when we first fought, except there was some sort of vapour foaming from it. Its mouth was toothless, in their place were flaps and flaps of gums, thankfully, I felt the thing nudge me before it gulped his majesty down. And that was it. Really. I expected for her to use this opportunity to dash us over to land, but she just hauled me on top of the fish and performed cpr badly, though I told her I was alright. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t we be moving him to a terrain that we both can fight in?¡± I asked and she answered. ¡°No.¡± I left a pause for her to explain herself, but she didn¡¯t. I thought it might be alright, after a minute of us catching our breathe, so I began to theorize, ¡°Some sort of knockout gas? No, you would have used that on me¡­ Maybe a stalling formula?¡± The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°His name is Cre-Umha.¡± I gave her a pause to explain what that meant. She didn¡¯t. ¡°I don¡¯t know fomorian.¡± I reminded her, but she instead revealed to me, ¡°It¡¯s Irish.¡± It took me a moment to calculate that. ¡°Don¡¯t you know your native language?¡± I answered honestly with a shake of the head, which was stiff as a board now. ¡°Cre-Umha means copper. It¡¯s a moniker. Like Feoli Bhean.¡± She just couldn¡¯t give me a simple answer, ¡°What? So that¡¯s not your real name? And what the hell did you do to knock him out! Give it to me straight you psycho.¡± She just stared at me for half a minute straight before finally saying, ¡°I¡¯ll never understand you.¡± I rolled my eyes under my mask, ¡°How about you tell me why you guys were fighting. I know he¡¯s a king of another nation or whatever, but you don¡¯t see me punching the queen of England, right? Bad example, but you get the picture.¡± I figured this would get her into her monologue mode, and it did, ¡°Isaac Cre-Umha was once a high-ranking soldier, he fought many enemies of the Federation, external and internal, the latter of which he built relations with in secret, as even then he considered treason. He was well respected for his martial prowess despite his small frame.¡± Looking back, what spooks me is that he had a ¡°small frame¡± compared to other fomorians. ¡°In the twilight years of his service, his reputation allowed for him to build a well-funded expedition into the western Atlantic, near America. It was suspected by a few that he would use this as an opportunity to form his own state, independent of the God King, which he did, but not before a long string of guerrilla warfare, as your kind coined the term. You should also know this was before he got his armour, the Shaul of Brigid.¡± ¡°So he¡¯s recently gone crooked and theirs a reward out for him getting taken out? Something like that?¡± ¡°Not entirely. He¡¯s currently 382, been separated from the fold for 300 years now. It gave us time to prepare against him. The Shaul makes him tougher in every way, but it also rusts in oxygen.¡± ¡°Wait a minute, no, copper rusts in water, right? I was sure that was the case.¡± She looked at me blankly. ¡°He¡¯s not moving is he?¡± I tried to think about it but I couldn¡¯t, my brain was done for the day. And after I started thinking about going to bed, I realised I still needed to save Axel. ¡°Shit. Feoli, can you do me a favour seeing as I helped you take this guy down?¡± ¡°No. I already helped you take down our common enemy.¡± I squinted my eyes and shook my head, ¡°No that¡¯s not¡­ We aren¡¯t even from that! This guy means a lot more to you then he does to me, I was just stopping by. Look, you help me out now, and I¡¯ll help you out later, and after that you can help me out, and we¡¯ll eventually do each other right.¡± ¡°Whatever.¡± She dipped a foot into the water, ¡°This¡¯ll take five minutes.¡± I grinned dumbly, tasting now the blood and salt on my lips. Five minutes later, after I explained my situation, she sent me on my way and I was gripping on for dear life as a manta ray skidded me across the ocean. I don¡¯t know how, maybe through some super sense or something, the fish was catching up to the remaining members of the circuit boards boat. Wasn¡¯t as big as I thought it would be, not particularly sci-fi either, just an average, tiny, trawler boat. To try and keep myself hidden, I asked Feoli to program the manta to dive and rise when told. So when I got close, I told it to dive. And once we got closer, I tried to tell the ray to rise. But it did not. Because it couldn¡¯t understand me underwater. I would have hit myself if I wasn¡¯t in the middle of the ocean, looming over an abyss. Their''d be nothing i could do if I fell in. I said my good byes to my mount and leapt off, trying to grab the boat. It was pretty terrifying, due to the fact that if I missed, I¡¯d fall and drown, if I hit the mark too hard, I might damage the boat and sink it. Luckily, for once, I hit that sweet spot perfectly, where I was able to grab a hold of the guard rail. Seeing as they already thought I was dead and done, I decided to open with a scream, pirate style. I looked at their crew, the living legs didn¡¯t react, Sym screamed louder than I did, Axel didn¡¯t react much, he just smiled a little more, and Brigs reached for a gun. That seemed like my biggest threat so I tried to jump at him. But that teetered the boat, and he shouted at me, ¡°AYEAYEAYEA! Cool it for a sec you Somalia fuck! This your first pirate job?¡± I guess he didn¡¯t remember me? A side effect of the ignorance effect? Maybe he¡¯s just dumb? Sym was still screaming, ¡°WHATAREEYOU? ARE YOU HIM??ARE YOU- ARE YOU J-ON??¡± I hadn''t a clue what that meant. Axel said something but, now I¡¯ve come to regret this, I was busy bobbing the boat by crouching up and down, so I didn¡¯t hear him. ¡°Don¡¯t do this? Don¡¯t do this? HAHAHA!¡± I think I was trying to intimidate them? This is where my memory becomes really foggy. Eventually the boat started tilting to a weird angle, and I was frowning then. ¡°Great job fat ass!¡± Brigs shouted. Sym fiddled with something in the little cabin of the boat, but it was useless in the end. I tipped the fucking boat. Thankfully, everyone else could swim, other than me and the legs, the robot was once again cast into the depths, I was splashing around while the other guys heckled me. ¡°no it seems he is just an idiot with a gimmick. brigs, can you shoot him? i¡¯d like to see him die before i do.¡± ¡°Shit, I can¡¯t do that! We see a plane, this is our only signal! Besides, I can just hold him under for a few seconds.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think you need to do that. I, uh, don¡¯t think he can swim, military man.¡± I wasn¡¯t pissing myself, because Axel wasn¡¯t pissing himself, so he must have had a plan. I later learned he did not. Brigs stripped some of his heavier clothes, ¡°Man I¡¯m positive that John¡¯ll swing by this time, for sure.¡± Sym wasn¡¯t projecting his avatar anymore, he spoke from a small black disc, ¡°he isn¡¯t coming. he is our god, we¡¯re below him. we failed him and will be punished.¡± ¡°Man, I¡¯ve known John for longer than you, and the odds he shows up are slim, but, he isn¡¯t gonna let us die, and he sure as hell ain¡¯t gonna let twinkle toes ¡®ere bite the fucking bullet, unless John¡¯s the one pullin¡¯ it.¡± That gave me an idea. While I was splashing around, I decided to pull out my phone. Axel paddeled over to me, ¡°Oh? You got a flip phone? Been years since I saw one of these. Want me to phone your mom? Tell her your drowning?¡± I tried to respond, but I was gargling at this point. He took it out of my hand and started floating on his back, ¡°Goddamn, this thing is ancient! This thing¡¯s probably a collector¡¯s item you know¡­ Hold up, do you only have one number on your phone? Who the heck is C? Is that the girl I was supposed to have sex with?¡± He phoned the number, ¡°I¡¯ll just apologise for doing her out of a good time by going and drownin¡¯ here.¡± It rang for an eternity, before a cry came out through the other end. He listened to her for a while before saying, ¡°Actually he¡¯s drowning right now, this is Mr. Right. Yeah, no, still at sea. Yeah sure, we¡¯ll be back in a few minutes probably. That is, if you work your magic.¡± He took a long pause while Clover argued something on the other end. Brigs made a comment, ¡°Hey, aren¡¯t you still going with that science chick? With the hair cut? Don¡¯t tell me that when we recruited Stan that whole thing with the cheese board drove a wedge in there?¡± Axel covered the phone and half smiled at Brigs, ¡°We¡¯re on a break. Not that it''s any of your buisness- Oh, shit, she heard me ignoring her¡­ She heard that too. Listen Princess, I¡¯m currently in possession of the 4th greatest sex tool, in the UNIVERSE. And- No not the milker, I¡¯m not a sicko. Oh? Well, I mean if you¡¯re up for something like that, hah-hah¡­ But yeah, gonna need you to get us out of this. Pull something big, yeah? Deus ex Machina. ¡®Kay see you at four, or whatever time it is in fifteen minutes.¡± He hung up. ¡°Is that it? Ya just call this clown¡¯s sister, and we¡¯re not gonna drown? Couldn¡¯t you just call the coast gua- actually, after that shit we pulled, we¡¯d get stuck in the bureaucracy, blowing up a village like we did. Yeah, I¡¯ll just get cosy till, John shows.¡± Some time passes, they take bets on how long it¡¯d take for me to pass out. And eventually on the horizon, the sun rises. ¡°that is not the sun.¡± Sym murmured. Brigs says, ¡°th¡¯ell¡¯re you talken¡¯bout?¡± ¡°my internal clock says its 3:47, the sun doesn¡¯t rise in these parts until 7. i brush up before a mission. that is not the sun.¡± Suddenly the water stilled, the ocean stilled, all of it, apart from my splashing, though even that was mitigated, by Axel¡¯s account. Nobody said anything. The only sound I could hear was the water in my ears. That light gurgle. I actually did better now that I stopped trying to fight the ocean. I was somewhat calmed by the false sun. When it got to a certain point I became- unsettled. Sym was making some sort of noise, I wasn¡¯t focusing on it, though it sounded distressed. Eventually, I could see it¡¯s figure clearly now. It didn¡¯t have a size. It was both massive and small, bright and dark, human in form, yet simultaneously the farthest thing from human. Before I took in the awe of this thing, Brigs spoke with such brashness I thought the figure would just delete him. ¡°Ah-HA, what¡¯d I tell you? I said he¡¯d show that dumb face!¡± Around that time, The Living Legs floated out of the ocean and into the sky, Sym¡¯s disc followed, then Brigs, and Axel and Me. And finally, the boat was pulled back. Or maybe he made a new one, I wasn¡¯t focusing on that. We were all on our feet, at least that¡¯s how it felt, like we were standing trial, receiving judgement. I was about to open my mouth. Sym shouted to his God, ¡°J-ON! LIQUID-CRYSTAL GOD! THE MACHINE! WHAT IS THIS MAN? HOW DID HE ESCAPE MY WORLD IN TWO MINUTES, WHEN IT TOOK ME A YEAR? HE DEFEATED THE LIVING LEGS, ISAAC, ME, AND YOU NEVER THOUGHT TO WARN US OF HIM? WHY!?¡± Well, he was sort of wrong about most of that. Nothing changed by my presence, I knew that. The world was still motionless, but in that silence, I thought reality was going to crash in on itself. Pretty hard to describe that feeling. You know how some animals have a greater field of view? Something like that happened to my perception when he spoke, but not just my sight, every sense was pushed to its limit as he spoke. I waited, dispite my need to cough, my natural responses were stopped. I didn¡¯t breathe I didn¡¯t blink. Three of them were his servants, he had a greater punishment planned for Axel. I could only imagine what he would do to me, what he thought of me. ¡°He is a non-entity.¡± And that was all he said. Brigs commented soon after, as he ¡®walked¡¯ to the God. ¡°Somebodies talkative today, huh? Thanks for the save buddy, but hell, you that busy you can¡¯t come a second sooner? Maybe show up before our boat gets totalled next time.¡± When he spoke, the god, not the idiot, I could feel a quiver, maybe in my soul, something inexplicable. I¡¯d try and draw this for you guys but, well, that¡¯s not happening. I don¡¯t even know what I saw, despite its presence giving me total clarity, I think he cleared up my concussion too, if only in that moment. It¡¯s a strange way of describing his energy, but it was like looking at everything I¡¯ve ever seen on a screen, whether or not that was just me being psychologically influenced by his epithet, I don¡¯t know. Brigs wrapped his arm around the mass, and the Living legs floated towards J-ON, by the god¡¯s will. He stretched forth what I would describe as a finger, and touched him. Something happened I didn¡¯t expect. ¡°THE LIVING LEGS has had a PROFOUND MOMENT! It doesn¡¯t MATTER whether or not I am, all that matters is that I make the MOST of THE LIVING LEGS¡¯ existence, whether it is real, meaningless, or an ILLUSION does not matter! THE LIVING LEGS IN: THE TERROR-FYING EXISTANCE!¡± Before I could make heads or tails on whether that was profound or just dumb, me and Axel were back at Clover¡¯s. Axel said what I was thinking, ¡°Pretty anti-climactic, huh? For you at least, I¡¯m literally gonna climax non-stop for the rest of the night. Let¡¯s see, you got called a loser by a being that can¡¯t physically be wrong, you pretty much failed to save me, and you''re probably gonna shit yourself soon. It¡¯s ok, most people do when they see a God. By the way, I have a feeling we should talk about that whole, coming back from the dead thing, not now but, I¡¯ll email you or something. Oh, I dropped your phone by the way. Sorry.¡± I searched for words, but I couldn¡¯t find any. And I was left alone. Again. I ran back home, got changed then came back, it was a 5-minute job. I wasn''t thinking clearly, that most certainly was not what I should have prioritised. I was still broken. I thought I¡¯d still be able to say I went to this party, but I was wrong. Apparently, it was just me, Ae, and Tayanita who was standing guard, just in case that other guy I never saw showed up. Tayanita recognised me, I think she was a little surprised by me still being around, but it could have also been my injured face she was staring at. She didn¡¯t leave her post though. I didn¡¯t see much point in talking to Ae. I didn¡¯t want to get Sam involved with that world too much, I was just here for the beer. Just to numb my senses a little, just for tonight. Once the numbness from the concrete faded, I was afraid I¡¯d be hit by that pain again. So, for just tonight after helping to drive off 6 super villains, and a Capitol-G God, I deserved that much. Right? I went to the kegs in the kitchen. Most were empty, except for a few of the vomit covered ones. I drank one, to drown out the noise from the third floor. I drank a second, just to keep myself away from thoughts on the simulacrum. And once all of that was pushed out of my mind, I thought about what else I¡¯d like to forget from tonight. Then I remembered a foot. The image came into my mind so crisply, like I was looking at a photo. I remembered the dust clinging to it, the blood pooled beneath it, no longer flowing from the blackened wounds farther up the leg, just barely visible under the rubble. I put the drinking tube to my mouth, but as I opened it to take a drink, a whimper came out. I quickly covered it up. This couldn¡¯t be happening. Not now. Now I have super powers! How the hell can I feel like this when I¡¯ve got the only thing I¡¯ve ever wished for? If I¡¯m sad, it¡¯s because of my own flaws and incapabilities. The world didn''t fail, I did, and something about that confirmation makes me wish I had cracked my skull falling from that roof. Tayanita came into the room. I don¡¯t know how I looked. But it made her pity me. ¡°Was it somebody you knew? I can say from experience, the best thing to do is to cry till you can¡¯t. It¡¯ll take you awhile but you¡¯ll get there.¡± I spoke clearly, ¡°I didn¡¯t know any of them.¡± She sat down on a keg beside me. ¡°Good. Eventually that feeling goes away.¡± I looked up to her, ¡°I don¡¯t want it to! I just- I never want anything so cruel to happen to people, children, in their own town!¡± She looked me in the eyes. ¡°What did you see out there?¡± I thought about my answer, I was even able to dry my eyes a little. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you mean¡­¡± ¡°Did you see a robot or a satellite?¡± It struck me for the first time that, there really isn¡¯t a secret society is there? All this chaos was real. It was out in the open, but nobody ever saw it, because the news wasn¡¯t interested, people couldn¡¯t set aside their biases to see a greater evil right in front of them. ¡°I¡­¡± There has to be a way to end this right? ¡°I don¡¯t think I should say.¡± Right? When she heard my answer all she asked was, ¡°Before you started drinking this shit, did your nose hurt much?¡± I answered honestly for once, ¡°No.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± I was done answering questions. ¡°I¡¯m not letting you rope me into whatever that was. I don¡¯t want to be involved in whatever shit Saoirse does, Ok?¡± She paused for a second. ¡°That¡¯s a shame. I think a well-built man willing to cry over spilled blood is something sourly lacking. Give me your phone, Kid.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t have one.¡± I got up to leave. ¡°It¡¯s just so I can give you your clothes back. I went and got changed myself.¡± I didn¡¯t care enough to notice. I sighed. Those shoes were expensive, the shirt I couldn¡¯t care less about, cost three euro. ¡°I really don¡¯t have a phone. I¡¯ll just meet you at McDonalds or something.¡± ¡°Good.¡± I looked back down at her feet as I turned to leave. Ae was on the phone, saying something in Korean. The fact she was laughing disgusted me. I left that party, despite the fact I was probably still not drunk. I realised I needed to take a break from all of this to think. And I did, narrowing down on one more question- How do I make a change my way? Punch 2.08: I cant be dissuaded that easily! Time for the bottle episode! Probably didn¡¯t expect me to come back, but here I am. What, you think I¡¯m gonna let the curtains close at the lowest point? As the saying goes, the show must go on! Until the fat lady sings. Something along those lines. I¡¯m going to die before I give this up, alright? Stuff like valentine¡¯s day has happened before, I just wasn¡¯t strong enough to stop it. Guess I wasn¡¯t strong enough to stop it this time, but I swear I¡¯m going to keep leaping into sticky situations till I get stuck or the bad guys run out of adhesive. For the past month I¡¯ve been up to pretty normal stuff. Beating up drug dealers, getting shot at by drug dealers, fighting fish, you get the picture. Nothing that¡¯s warranted a write-up, but I feel like I should give you a little ¡®where are they now¡¯. Thinking about it, I guess the best way to go about this is chronological order. BUT. I am a weirdo. So, I¡¯m going through these in alphabetical order. Let¡¯s see, first up we¡¯ll do Adonis. Yeah, the guy who¡¯s dating the girl in my art class, I¡¯m telling a little story about him rather than the secret agent guy or the hit woman. This was over the weekend, as per usual I was in the lovely town of dingle. This week the towns mascot, fungi, (or possibly Fungal? Not sure anymore.) Was finally on show. This is a big deal, because nobody has seen this dolphin in years, I¡¯ve never seen it, the town was really busy, maybe like 10 more cars than usual. Before you get your hopes up, no I did not see the fish. The crummy docks were closed for weather, a fact that pushes me to conspiracies. Let¡¯s think about this logically. The owner of the official dingle mascot facebook page has every reason to lie about the appearance of dingle¡¯s dolphin, due to the increase in tourism it brings. It is also incredibly unlikely that the dock would be closed because of weather. This is Ireland. So, put yourself in the scene. It¡¯s the weekend, you¡¯ve got some time of work, and the day-cares are closed on the weekend, leaving you with your snot nosed kids. No way you¡¯re staying at home with them, your house is a mess because they keep shitting on the floor, and your spouse won¡¯t get off their ass to clean it up. You decide the best thing to do is to get the fuck out. Outside. Somewhere you haven¡¯t been in a while, somewhere with a beach. You here that dolphin finally showed up in dingle again, so what the hell, lets drive 2 miles to see this dolphin. You finally get there, and not only is it raining, there¡¯s no dolphin. Shit. One of them¡¯s started crying because his feet hurt. Brat hasn¡¯t gone over 10 metres. You can¡¯t just sit in the car with this noise till you get home, that is completely counterproductive to the objective of this drive. You go to a caf¨¦, get the them both a pepsi between them, they shut up as soon as you order it. (They stop crying, but they keep screaming, obviously.) You stick around longer than you have to, just in case the dolphin shows up again. That¡¯s what I imagine the lady in the corner of this caf¨¦ was thinking. I myself was suited at the time, I just finished fighting Feoli for the day, and was looking for a cheap meal. And this place has a real cheap ¡®bean meal¡¯ on the menu so that¡¯s what I went for. After I was half way through my meal, Kerry¡¯s best couple come in. The girl I had a crush on and her boyfriend. I thanked god that I was Shamrock, the most they¡¯d ask from me is another photo. That¡¯s at least what I thought at the time. They came in ordered their meal, and sat down opposite from the mother. I don¡¯t know whether the fact they were having fun annoyed me, made me go ¡®aww¡¯. Despite me thinking their relationship is pretty good, there¡¯s always going to be a part of me that says, ¡®if I grew a pair, I could have had what they have¡¯, but I know that¡¯s not true. While I was thinking about that, and letting my beans digest a little before flinging myself through the rain, the un thinkable happened. They started arguing. I wasn¡¯t really listening, but it seemed like Adonis was getting really annoyed at something TGIMAC said. She kept laughing, thinking he was doing a bit, but he made it clear to her he was being serious. I couldn¡¯t see what face she was making at the time, her back was turned to me, but she might have been freaked out, because she eventually left for the bathroom. Adonis put a hand over his face and wiped it down, looking worse than when he came through the door soaked with rain. ¡°Hey kid,¡± I had squeaked over to, ¡°you don¡¯t look so hot.¡± For a second, I thought, ¡®that¡¯s not true, even when mentally drained this guy still makes me look like a goblin¡¯, but decided against saying that out loud. ¡°God it¡¯s you. Shamrock, right?¡± He looked glad to see me, which is weird, because most people don¡¯t remember me after the first time we meet. ¡°One and only.¡± I confirmed. ¡°You- Your real, aren¡¯t you?¡± At this point I was really worried for this guy, so I sat down. ¡°Last I checked, yeah. You¡¯re looking under the weather, what¡¯s your poison?¡± I don¡¯t think I used that expression right but he didn¡¯t seem to notice. He hunched over the table to meet me eye to eye, ¡°Just answer me this; those people weren¡¯t killed by a satellite, right? Everybody- my girlfriend TGIMAC, she saw that thing with her own eyes, but nobody believes it was real! I- I didn¡¯t believe you fought real monsters, after I thought about it, I realised everybody was right, it was just a movie shoot, or some kind of performance. But I watched that thing make craters that I can still see to this day. Leave graves in its wake. Just tell me I¡¯m not crazy!¡± He looked down at the table, he had both his hands resting on it, fists clenched. ¡°I sincerely wish you were. Crazy, that is. But your sane.¡± I got up and put a hand on his shoulder. ¡°I¡¯m not going to let this happen again. At least, I¡¯ll die before I let you, your family, or your girlfriend come to harm.¡± I thought to myself as I slid my glove from his shoulder, I made that promise the first time I put on this mask. I began to leave just as a knot started to build up in my throat, but he told me to wait. I turned to see him fumbling with his wallet, he pulled out two twenty euro notes and held them out to me. I just looked at him, my jaw hanging a little. At first, I thought that he was just going to pay the bill. ¡°If you¡¯re going to do that, you¡¯re going to need to eat more than a bowl of baked beans.¡± This was far too much money to give away, but I figured he wasn¡¯t gonna take no for an answer. ¡°Thank you.¡± I took it with both my hands and put it into a pocket on my belt. Before I left, I told him, ¡°I¡¯ll try and explain things a little if I see you around, but for now, just- just try not to freak out your friends, ok? You can¡¯t convince them. So just¡­ blend i with them, don¡¯t let it get to you.¡± I don¡¯t know if that helped him any, but that¡¯s the best I can do for him, tell him I¡¯m looking out for him. Next up is Axel. Most notable thing that happened in the last month between me and him was his departure, now by private means. Me and Axel left the hotel pretty early in the morning, too early in fact, we were waiting on Bob to fly in on his helicopter thing for like ten minutes. I carried him, his luggage, and robots down to the field Bob said he was going to land in. One of his canines, the southern belle one, got a little broke on valentine¡¯s day, though it was better off than Cam, who was reduced to a head, and one of those anti-gravity disc things, Axel said the other major one probably floated into space without Cam¡¯s controlling it. After I carted all of that down to the agreed spot. Me and Axel got to talking. ¡°Duuude, I am so glad that you hooked me up. I don¡¯t know if it was just my sex suit or if it was her, but that was, like, best of my life. Top three at least.¡± I knew he was just saying this to fuck with me so I just ignored him. ¡°Alright, I¡¯ve got to ask though-¡± I turned to him thinking he was going to say something important, ¡°How was Ae?¡± I cringed up at that, ¡°Nothing happened. Not even close. Didn¡¯t go looking.¡± I was probably green and red now. He whistled, ¡°Damn, really? Yeah, you don¡¯t seem like the kinda guy who can do casual sex. Don¡¯t worry dude, you¡¯ve got a ton of other stuff going for you.¡± ¡°Uh?¡± I tried to think of what he could possibly mean by that, but nothing came to mind, ¡°The fuck are you talking about?¡± ¡°You know. You¡¯ve got great connections. Me for starters. You seem to be pretty good friends with not just the only dealer on this piece of turf, but also the most important person in Mt Bastard. Well, if you forget ¡¯bout they¡¯re namesake. Hmm now that i think about it, i probably have a better relationship with her than you now. I mean, she¡¯s never gonna forget about that night, that¡¯s for sure.¡± Before he could lose himself in that Shit eating grin, I had two questions to ask. I piped up awkwardly, ¡°Is she really that important? I thought there were around a hundred people under this Bastard guy?¡± I theorized for a few seconds, before turning to him startled, ¡°Now that you¡¯ve brought that up, Isaac and you both called her princess, is that literal?¡± He spat out an imaginary glass of water at that. ¡°You really don¡¯t know anything do you? She¡¯s not his daughter, but if she was she wouldn¡¯t be a princess. Bastard remember? She was raised by him as far as i know.¡± He was about to say something else, but didn¡¯t. I didn¡¯t want to push any further into something that might get me into trouble. I was beat by half a person, i doubt i could take 100. ¡°What makes you think me and her are friends? This vacation of yours sorta put us on a truce. After you leave, we¡¯re just gonna go back to fighting, I¡¯ll try to mess up her operation, she¡¯ll keep her guys on my back. Only reason i¡¯m around today is because I¡¯m tough. If she could kill me, she would.¡± I looked down at my feet. My shoes were still covered in dust from that day. I¡¯d forgotten to wash them. Axel let out a droning hum. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be sure on that.¡± I looked back to him again, ¡°Uh?¡± ¡°If you¡¯re such great enemies, then why¡¯d she practically beg me to code you back together? You were more than dead; you were unrecognisable as ¡®Shamrock¡¯ to anybody other then me. There¡¯d be no evidence whatsoever. But she asked me to try. I¡¯m certain she worked a little bit of her magic, or whatever it is, as well.¡± Something about what he said made me go wide eyed. ¡°If she really, and I mean, even if she thought you were annoying, don¡¯t you think she might call some stronger Units in to take you out? Like you said, there¡¯s nearly a hundred of ¡¯em now. Hey, you think that agent¡¯ll let me smoke in his carrier? I¡¯ll light one up now, fug it.¡± I was feeling something in my stomach at this point, and this time it wasn¡¯t sick. Finally. After my first fight with Feoli, I finally felt just a little like a hero again. Although there¡¯s no way for me to know for sure, I feel like I might have made a difference in Clover¡¯s life, that maybe if she could come to care about her enemy, then maybe she could come to care for the people she¡¯s affecting with her business. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. I guess Axel got ¡°Don¡¯t go thinking she¡¯s into you or anything. She¡¯s not. She¡¯d have just asked you to have sex with her in that case. This isn¡¯t like a movie or an anime, people are more complex than labels like friend or enemy, good or bad, you can¡¯t get far being one or the other. She probably has something to gain from keeping you alive.¡± He was probably right, but it¡¯s the fact that there¡¯s a chance I can help. That¡¯s why I¡¯m able to fight Feoli every weekend. ¡°Shit! I almost forgot!¡± Axel nearly dropped his blunt as he turned to me, ¡°You gonna explain what was up with that whole Jesus act you pulled? You poofing into existance wasn¡¯t with coding skill or luck. You never did break down your other skill for me.¡± ¡°Uuuh¡­¡± Now would be a very good time to think of a subject changer, brain. ¡°Wait, you watch anime?¡± I slapped my face internally. There was no way that could get him off my back. ¡°Well, you watch anime, too, right? Like come on you¡¯re a nerd in the 21st century.¡± I tried to keep him on this, ¡°No? I¡¯m a nerd, but just for super heroes. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s normal for a grown man to watch Japanese cartoons in Boston, but here in Ireland, we typically stop watching cartoons at seven.¡± He laughed out loud, sort of crazy like, ¡°Oh wow, you expect a seven-year-old to understand the complexities of evangelion? You know who watches anime? Robbin Williams, Kanye, uh, there¡¯s plenty more but i can¡¯t think of any. You can¡¯t stand here and tell me anime isn¡¯t main stream, even in this fly over state, when it¡¯s practically netflix¡¯s flagship genre. What else are you gonna watch, ¡®Tall girl 3¡¯? ¡®Kissing booth 4¡¯? Don¡¯t give me that shit.¡± For once his smile faded slightly, I raised my arms defensively, and apologized. Once Bob came to pick them up, I was left alone to think about how hurt a billionaire can get if you don¡¯t watch the same shows he does. I¡¯d do one for Bob, but I haven¡¯t seen him. I think it says a ton that when a space craft kills thirty people, they only send one guy to check it out. I don¡¯t know what it says exactly, but it¡¯s not good. I can tell you that either these guys don¡¯t care much about their clients, or they have bigger fish to fry at the moment, and quite frankly that doesn¡¯t give me much hope for this world. I would say something for Clover, but I only talked to her once and it¡¯s not really a conversation I want to repeat. I might as well give you the gist. For reference, this was nearly a week after valentines, and I just wanted to call in on Clover and maybe ask if she wanted to hang out. That little speech Axel gave me got me thinking I should try to become better friends with Clover, that I should try and persuade her rather than punch her business to death. So, with hope for some sort of redemption in her future, I phone her. Before I could say anything, she started talking, but not to me. She must not have looked at the number, she probably planned on calling Ae when she got back to Korea, something like that, because there is no way someone can go into that much detail about something so dirty, so depraved, right off the bat, unless they had made plans to talk about this stuff with somebody else. I¡¯m not trying to shame either Clover or Axel for the things they did that night, but don¡¯t want to know about it, let alone have it described to me. I have no clue how long I was on the other end for, maybe a hot, disgusting minute, of stunned agony, before she mentions some real nasty stuff and I decided to hang up. The next time I saw her, she didn¡¯t say anything about that, we just hung out like normal people. That got me thinking though, if we were really good friends, would she talk about that sort of stuff, and that¡¯s the point I need to get to convince her to stop, right? Like if we were friends, talking about that wouldn¡¯t be uncomfortable anymore. I guess right now what I¡¯ve been thinking about which comes first; I get her to give up dealing and then I can call her my friend, or do I become her friend so that I can convince her to give it up? I know I¡¯m an idiot, so there¡¯s a chance I could fall for the evil super hero trope. Hell¡¯s paveing, right? The most disturbing thing about this whole situation is that she can still laugh and joke, meer moments after being tangentaly involved in that tragidy. I can almost understand Axel¡¯s detachment from all this, this isn¡¯t his home, but Clover¡¯s lived her for a month. A part of me wants to be angry at them, but then i think to myself: They¡¯ve lived like this for years. I¡¯m on my third month, scary to think i could end up just like them, jaded. I¡¯ve been meaning to talk to Feoli about what happened with Isaac, but every time we¡¯ve fought, she just leaves immediately after making her monster. A part of me is worried that she killed him, but I remind myself, when I broke Isaac¡¯s arm, (an action I am feeling guilty about), I¡¯m pretty sure the armour didn¡¯t actually break open, it just dented a bit. Well, a lot, actually, but what I¡¯m saying is that she probably couldn¡¯t break through it at least. Not to mention the fact he is backed by a freaking Old Testament, spinning rings of eyes god. Pretty sure things play out well for the faithful, and if not, then shit, I just helped kill a king. I joke, but that might be partially due to me not actually having much of a concept of how the world really works. I¡¯m the guy who can pull bodies out of the ground and keep running around in a corny green suit. Suffice to say, my naivety seems like it¡¯ll catch up to me some day. And I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be able to keep going after that. Guess i¡¯m indecisive, I don¡¯t want to become pessimistic, but i don¡¯t want to be optimistic either. Mullet got a job at a gas station. Righ,t let¡¯s get to the first thing I did after a fucking mech destroyed the streets I grew up in, and killed the woman I bought my groceries from every week. I walked around town looking for my shoes. The damage, compared to something like a natural disaster, was pretty minimal, mostly due to the fact this was a manmade disaster, done with purpose, with direction, and entirely localised on a single street. The first place they started to repair? Guess what highschooler has the money to rebuild her business. I went to quite a few places looking for my shoes. In the wake of a crisis it¡¯s not weird to see a kid walk around without any shoes, hell, who¡¯s really looking? I checked the remains of the quarter, along some of the streets I fought her on as Shamrock, populated areas. If you didn¡¯t read the last post, well everything before this is really confusing, but the gist of this bit is, I gave Tayanita, Clover¡¯s bodyguard/maybe servant, my normal clothes, because she didn¡¯t really have anything decent at the time. Clover had her wearing a bunny girl outfit at her party, as some kind of punishment. For once, me and my classmates that were at this party are on the same wave, we both have no clue why she got people to cater her party, let alone people dressed as rabbits. I know I¡¯m one to talk, but it sorta seemed like she hadn¡¯t been to many parties with people her age. I couldn¡¯t really care less about my t-shirt, got that as a three-in-one for 4 euro deal, but those are the only shoes I have other than the ones I have for my suit. And I don¡¯t know if you know this, but shoes are really expensive, like 30+ Euro. But I can¡¯t really expect any someone to back me up in a fight when they¡¯re wearing heels, and seeing as I was changing out Sam for Shamrock at that point, I thought I might as well hand over my stuff right then and there, to someone who needed it. One flaw in that is, I can¡¯t exactly ask Clover as Sam where her henchwoman lives, so I wandered through town for an hour or two, on the off chance I saw this girl. I don¡¯t actually know anything about Tayanita, except for the fact she seems to be good with a gun, put pretty poor in hand to hand, and that she¡¯s from America. I don¡¯t think I ever mentioned her accent, did I? Didn¡¯t really think about that earlier, she was either just a bartender at the time, or was shooting me, so not really relevant enough on either occasion. I eventually got the idea to check at Clover¡¯s place, but before I got there, I bumped into her. I tried and seem like I was hung over from last night, feign disinterest. Though I guess I did have a migraine lingering in my head, given the self-discombobulations. I walked straight past her, but that was enough for her to take note of me. ¡°Hey, kid.¡± I turned, half faking dizziness, ¡°Yeah?¡± I waited a few seconds before I pretended to put it together. ¡°You. Shit, uh, you got my shoes, right?¡± She lowered an eyebrow, ¡°Not on me if that¡¯s what you mean. They¡¯re back at my place.¡± I furrowed my brow. ¡°Right, yeah, just give them to Clover, I¡¯ll pick ¡¯em up from her on Monday.¡± Before, she looked like she was in a sour mood, grouchy. After I said that, her demeanour changed, she seemed calm and collected, with a slight smile she said, ¡°My place isn¡¯t far from here, not even five minutes, I don¡¯t have anything going on right now, this is a better time than any other.¡± Something was definitely off. ¡°No, it¡¯s really best I get them Monday. I¡¯ve gotta¡­ run a few errands. Busy times, especially after that¡­ satellite crashed.¡± I hated saying that, dispite the advice i would give to Adonis. The story being reported, being shared online, and worst of all, believed, was that an old cellular satellite fell out of orbit and landed right in the middle of town, any remains of the structure were blown to dust upon impact, and that giant figure was just a combination of the fire and smoke from the crash, and mass hysteria. As I¡¯ve said earlier, this was orchestrated by people. The fact that everybody is chalking it up to an act of God, to put it simply, disgusts me. But just so regular people don¡¯t think I¡¯m crazy, I say it was an accident. She kept that same look on her face, at the time I thought that maybe she was just more comfortable, what with the threat gone. ¡°You¡¯re going to wait a week, for what appears to be your only pair of shoes?¡± I looked down and let out an awkward laugh. I really didn¡¯t want to involve Sam anymore in this then he already was, giving shoes to a stranger, that¡¯s ok. Hanging out with this girl any more than necessary? Nope, off limits young man, enough homocidal chicks for you. But I did need my shoes. ¡°Well, I¡¯m heading back there anyway, tag along if you feel like it.¡± She turned and walked away from me. This might have been a slip up on her part, but she was walking back the way she came. That was a red flag. And I ignored it, because yeah, I need shoes. We got back to her place, a modest home in comparison to Clover¡¯s, though still dwarfing my own in size, and amenities, as far as I could tell from the hallway. She went on ahead of me, she shouted from down the hall, ¡°Come on, I left them in my back hall. Sorry, they got beat up last night.¡± I expected as much. We weren¡¯t going to be able to do this in the hall. To simple. Too many windows. I walked down the hall after her, took a turn right to find her kitchen devoid of life, excluding the potted plants. It was pretty nice in there. Minimalist, regularly cleaned by the looks of it. I scanned the room looking for her, before entering fully. I was saying something, I don¡¯t remember what, she responded with silence during a ten second period, while I searched the floor for my shoes. Then I heard her whistle from my side. I honestly have no idea where she came out of. I think you know what she was pointing at me. ¡°You don¡¯t look surprised. Guess I¡¯ve already had you in this position before.¡± More often than she knew. ¡°I had my doubts. When you threw up? That actually got me. I did appreciate what little you did to spur me on, to take my mind of any suspicions. Not to mention when you got teary later last night. But it would be just too much of a coincidence, that you would be at that door, that you would come back to the party after everybody already left, and of course, our chance meeting today.¡± I didn¡¯t say anything. Her friendly expression had faded, she was being real with me. There was a fire in her eyes when she had her sights on a target, I know this because I¡¯m typically her target. ¡°You know what really tipped me off, shit-head? She doesn¡¯t call herself Clover at school, and seeing as the only people who knew her by that name were our people, Ae, the green guy, and Right, that narrows the options quite a bit, doesn¡¯t it? Either you¡¯re working for Right, the internationals-¡° She looked me up and down, ¡°-or you¡¯re that green fucker.¡± I kept the same expression I had when I came in, one of general disinterest, apathy. I looked tired, because I was. I was all of those things. ¡°I already told you I knew more than I let on, remember? I told you I knew about ¡®Saoirse Rowan¡¯s¡¯¡­ whatever shit it is you do in the quarter. It doesn¡¯t take a genius to figure out from the fact that the girl living in a fucking mansion doing shady dealings, selling magic luck juice, is probably the ¡®Clover¡¯ mentioned on the label. I don¡¯t care. I don¡¯t care about any of this shit. Not much of a difference between this scifi shite and normal drugs. I¡¯ve seen people lose there loved ones to both, I¡¯m sure some dirty bastards profiting from it, only big difference i can think of is that one¡¯ll get you no matter how fast you run from it. So yeah, give me my shoes. ¡° She looked madder. This was honestly the outcome I was hoping for. She first and foremost thought I was a spy, that was the idea she got in her head, that covered up the truth, that I was Shamrock. I didn¡¯t want her to linger on that thought though, I didn¡¯t think she was stupid, if she thought about it for long enough, looked at me from the right angle, with the right lighting, sayonara Sam. She kept quiet, I met her gaze head on, I looked right at her, eyes half open, sunken, ¡°I just want my shoes.¡± I¡¯m pretty sure I avoided telling any lies. I don¡¯t think being honest makes what you¡¯re saying any more believable, I just find it easier to keep cool when I¡¯m being honest about my thoughts, how I feel. ¡°You seriously gonna make a mess in your own kitchen, just because one person in this shitty town isn¡¯t stupid enough to think a fucking monster is a goddamn satellite?¡± I think she was still being sincere. She slowly holstered her pistol, and grinned. ¡°Whether or not you¡¯re a spy, I¡¯m starting to like your tongue. You got a name? Or are you so hung over you don¡¯t remember that?¡± I said without even thinking, ¡°Fuck off already. Rori. With an I. You got a name, or was I wrong, and it actually is ¡®bunny bitch''.¡± She replied, appropriately enough to a lie. ¡°No, that¡¯s not exactly how this works. You can call me Taylin. And if you bring that up again, you better believe I¡¯ll dirty any room in this house with you.¡± Another reason I don¡¯t like lying, is that you usually get a lie in return, and there¡¯s nothing worse than forming connections on deceit. They grow thin pretty quick. Here¡¯s to hoping I don¡¯t have to be Rori any time soon Flog X.01: I got a job! I¡¯m not good with death. My dad died when I was young, and one of the reasons I was able to deal with that, is because I didn¡¯t really know him, or have a concept of what it meant to be dead. About a week ago, my town suffered a disaster. Over thirty people were buried alive. And I was there, trying to rescue people. I dug, I pried as much of the rubble out as I could, but I didn¡¯t save a single soul that night. It took me months to forgive myself, for my own powerlessness. That¡¯s a lot for a teenager. The other day at school however, I found out that the kid I¡¯d sat beside for nearly two years, had died two days ago. I¡¯m completely disconnected from social media, so I found out during class. We never had a good relationship; he pretty much didn¡¯t even know I existed. But when the teacher had us say a prayer in the middle of class I knew something horrible had happened. ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve all heard by now,¡± My biology teacher started, ¡°That one of your class mates has gone missing, presumed- dead. All we can do is pray for them, for their loved ones¡­ Our father, who art in heaven¡­¡± I zoned out as he started. I looked behind me, to his seat, then to his girlfriend¡¯s empty chair. For the whole day I asked myself, which one? Which one of them is gone? I felt too ashamed to ask about it. But then I heard people talking about them. ¡°Did you hear Izzy¡¯s taking weeks off because her boyfriend died?¡± ¡°I can understand taking maybe a one off, but honestly, even that¡¯s a little much for him.¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t he sleep around?¡± ¡°I heard he assaulted a girl once.¡± ¡°Dirty cock. I¡¯m glad he¡¯s gone. Worlds a better place without him.¡± These people were supposed to be his friends. That guy was a virgin. Said he was saving himself for a super model. I won¡¯t try to argue that he wasn¡¯t sleazy, he certainly was. But somebody loved him. Somebody missed him enough to shut down their entire life, because they can¡¯t function under all the grief. I hate this. I hate that they¡¯ll only say this when he¡¯s gone, I hated the fact that I¡¯d never see that stupid mullet of his again. Most of all I hate that I did nothing to stop it, to save him. I wanted to know why he was gone, but there was no reason ¡®why¡¯, he was just dead. So, I asked how he died. The stories contradicted each other, hit and run, bad encounter with a drunk, somebody even said it was carbon monoxide poisoning. But every story had something in common, it was at his job, a gas station a little south of town. I don¡¯t think I would have reacted this way if I was¡­ a normal person. If I was still normal, I probably would have left it alone, ignored it till I forgot about him, just like my dad. Because I was powerless then. I love heroes. I love the fight against the odds, against terror and sadness, I love how time and time again, they face strange circumstances and overcome them. Real heroes save people. Super heroes are supposed to save everyone. I didn¡¯t expect to find anything strange at this gas station, I just wanted to know how it happened. Most of the property¡¯s space was reserved for the fuel pumps and parking space, all of which was over shadowed by a canopy. Despite its proximity to town, there weren¡¯t many other structures near the gas station. I walked up to the sliding door, it dinged as it opened for me. I have to give credit to the girl working the till, she wasn¡¯t surprised by my appearance. Most people are. I¡¯ll never understand what it is about a masked man that makes store owners phone the police. It¡¯s not like I¡¯m very intimidating in this get up, I designed it not to be. I scanned the stores five aisles, each row small enough to see over, small enough for natural light from the wall of windows to illuminate the bleached wall on the opposite side of the store. I took a deep breathe. ¡°Hello! I was wondering if you could help me with something.¡± Ignoring my bright green costume, she asked, ¡°Diesel or petrol?¡± I shook my head, ¡°A¡­ friend of mine died here, and I¡¯m wondering how exactly.¡± I didn¡¯t expect anything to come of this. I didn¡¯t think I needed to do this in my suit, it just¡­ it just feels right. It makes me feel like I can handle whatever gets thrown at me. She made a ¡®chick¡¯ sound through her teeth, ¡°You¡¯re going to have to be a bit more specific.¡± My friendly smile fell. ¡°Do many of your employees¡­¡± I didn¡¯t feel like repeating the word. ¡°Yeah. During the night shift anyway.¡± She couldn¡¯t see my eyebrows coming down, due to my eyes being covered by my mask. ¡°Is there somebody else I can talk to?¡± She thumbed to the door behind the counter. ¡°The boss is in their now.¡± Before she¡¯d finished her sentence, she started to eat a packet of peanuts that was lying around. I tried to keep my cool, I reminded myself that she just worked here, it wasn¡¯t really her place to give out information on her co-workers anyway. I circled around the desk, and jigged the handle open. Inside was a thin store room, it couldn¡¯t be any more than five by ten feet. Sitting rather uncomfortably to my left, on a collection of boxes was a rather sweaty, man. I don¡¯t think he was obese, but I can understand why he¡¯d be so flushed, in such a tight space, with all that unnecessary blubber. His eyes were wide before I¡¯d even walked in, ¡°Oh, uh, ¡®ello lad! Please, please take a seat.¡± he held a flabby arm out, gesturing to a chair. I sat in it reluctantly. ¡°Hello sir, I asked the girl at the till, but she wasn¡¯t much help, a boy went missing here a while ago, one of your workers.¡± I¡¯d have said he went pale faced, his expression matched the phrase, but his face was the same tomato red. He forced out a nervous pant, ¡°Yes, hah, but a lot of things ¡®appen at a gas station overnight, you¡¯d be surprised how many people¡­ Well, you know, it¡¯s dark. A country road. People goin¡¯ ¡®ome late at night. Not uncommon that they¡­¡± He was even worse at this. ¡°This week. Eighteen years old, brown hair, mullet. Presumed dead.¡± These people¡¯s aloofness was getting to me now. ¡°Oh!¡± he reminisced, ¡°Yes, yes, he uh, had a shift tonight I think, and Tuesday, if memory serves, hahah,¡± He jumped to change the subject, ¡°Actually, I¡¯m holding interviews now, for working his shift. Just the night shifts, day is accounted for. I¡­ I don¡¯t suppose¡­¡± There was a desperate air about him. He wrinkled his smooth head, thinking of something. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you what. Only person ¡®ere who knows exactly what happened to him, is the girl on that shift. I can¡¯t legally give out her information, but you¡¯ll see her tonight. And while you¡¯re at it, how¡¯d ya fancy getting paid?¡± Was he trying to bribe me? Is that what was happening here? ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s necessary. I just want the truth.¡± He blurted out ¡°Just for the night! I don¡¯t see any problem working one 9-to-5 shift, just one, not much point refusing if you¡¯re staying up that late anyway, aye?¡± You might have guessed, but nobody actually pays me to walk around at night, dressed in onesie. Money is very tight at the moment. ¡°I work one shift for you, and you tell me the truth? Clear cut.¡± With a big grin on his face, he bobbed his head up and down. ¡°Yes, of course. She¡¯ll explain everything.¡± I waited there from six to nine. Sitting outside the shadow of the roof, until a short wave of rain came on, lasting little more than half an hour. Ireland, it¡¯s to be expected. I watched the grey sky above me slowly darken, as the sun set behind my back. Pretty soon, unnatural dull lights were cast down around the edges of the canopy. I¡¯d say night is always creepier with light. If you¡¯re in the dark long enough, your eyes¡¯ll adjust eventually, but when you¡¯ve got something shining in your eye, your blind to everything else beyond that, you¡¯re left completely unaware. A nagging of the soul. Eventually my co-worker showed up. She looked my age, but I later found out she was in her twenties. Her childish smile and freckles, not to mention her long curly hair, made her seem immature. ¡°What¡¯s up with the cosplay?¡± Her initial comment made me uneasy. Not because it was a strange thing to say, because it was a normal thing to say. The owner and girl in the day shift, didn¡¯t seem to bat an eye at how weird I was. I didn¡¯t think about it. ¡°It¡¯s not a cosplay, it¡¯s a super suit.¡± I got up to my feet and extended my hand. ¡°My name is Shamrock. I¡¯m looking forward to working with you.¡± She stretched her smile wider, before grabbing my hand and shaking it violently. ¡°I hope we can. The names Elise, like Beethoven,¡± she then sang the notes of the classical piece out loud. Even I was somehow embarrassed by her disregard for the few customers watching us. I walked her to the door, and as we entered, the owner was beginning to leave. ¡°Good luck tonight, kids!¡± Elise said something in response, but I wasn¡¯t listening, I was more focused on counting the calories he swept from the shelves as he was leaving. Elise awkwardly squeezed by me, hopping behind the counter. I wanted to ask her questions, but she announced to me, ¡°Alright sweep the floors, while I unpack the mini fridge in storage.¡± She twitched her eyebrows as if I knew what that meant. She then threw a brush at me, almost hitting one of the shelves before I caught it. I was going to tell her to be more careful, but she¡¯d already disappeared. I reminded myself that while I was doing this hero bit, I was working a job. So, I got to sweeping. I went down every aisle left to right, scooping up the mound of dust at the end. Looking around for a moment, something negged me to give the place another onceover. This time I was more careful to clean the cracks between the shelves and the floor. When I got to the third aisle, something else skidded out, the way it did, seemed more like it was being passed out rather than brushed. It was a brown page. It seemed old, but at the same time, not really. Have your ever made those teabag pages? Like when you¡¯re a kid, you made a treasure map by browning the bag with tea? Well, it was like that. I lifted it up, and turned it over. Rules for working the night shift at Texaco country road. 1. Check the refrigerated section before midnight. If there are any expired meats, particularly beef, dispose of it with the purple waste bags hanging up in the store room. Leave this bag just outside of the canopy. As long as you stay in the light, and it stays in the dark, you¡¯ll be fine. 2. Between 11:00 and 11:30 you will begin to hear voices from the store room. Do not open it. Do not leave it open. Make sure whatever you are using to tell the hour is correct to your time zone. 3. Every night, a dishevelled man will come by. Whatever he says, you do. If you don¡¯t, then you might become marred with him. 4. There is chance that a traveling circus will pass by after midnight. Don¡¯t worry, they are friendly enough, as long as you appreciate their act. Kindly help them fill their car with gas, and send them on their way. 5. If you ever notice condensation on the windows, lock yourself in the store room. Do not open the door. If one of your co-workers is outside following one of the previous rules, leave them. Pray that they are over looked, and they just might. Take a glass surface with you, once the condensation clears from that, it should be safe to leave. Note that, should rules 2 and 5 conflict, take your chances by disobeying the latter. I didn¡¯t know what to make of them at first, these rules, that was until Elise came back with a large purple bag with a cartoonish floral pattern on it. ¡°You read them all yet? Keep it close, if you¡¯re ever stuck, just read it again. By the by, it doesn¡¯t say on the sheet, but rule 5 can happen multiple times in one night. She climbed over the desk and made her way to the tiny refrigerated foods section. I asked her, ¡°Is this some kind of joke?¡± Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. She smiled saying, ¡°Whether or not you believe it, it doesn¡¯t matter, we still have to clean out the fridge.¡± I kept an open mind, but didn¡¯t jump to any conclusions. I have seen some things in my time, crazy things, and I¡¯ve only been wearing this costume for a few months now. I folded the page up, set the broom down, and scanned through the meat. ¡°Have you heard about strange rules like them? On the internet.¡± I answered negatively, to which she recommended, ¡°There are some great YouTube videos where they read through other people¡¯s experiences with stuff like this. If you¡¯re planning on working here for a while, it¡¯s best to get a grip on how this stuff works. Mistakes people tend to make.¡± I was beginning to suspect there was something up with this place, if not this rule thing, then some kind of health violation. Some of this meat was moulding, out of date years ago. ¡°I¡¯m just here for you,¡± I told her, ¡°For just this night.¡± She carelessly grabbed a festering steak and tossed it into the bag. ¡°Is that a pick-up line?¡± I pinched a particularly juicy packet by the corner of the foam, dragging it off the shelf. ¡°The guy you worked here with, Mullet, I¡¯ve been looking for him. What happened here?¡± She paused for a moment. ¡°Uh, I think it was¡­ rule 1? You might have noticed, there aren¡¯t any toilets nearby, so he left, in search of a dark corner to do his business.¡± I wasn¡¯t satisfied with this ¡®rule¡¯ story. ¡°So, he¡¯s been working here for nearly a month, and he broke one of these death rules because he needed to pee?¡± She tilted her head back and forth, ¡°Yeah, I think he misinterpreted the rule. He thought it¡¯d be safe enough if he went before midnight. I didn¡¯t see him after that, I swear.¡± I would have thought this was another sick joke, if it weren¡¯t for the fact that she wasn¡¯t smiling anymore. ¡°Is the owner in on whatever this is? Is that why he was being so weird.¡± She shook her head, ¡°No, well, he knows about it, keeps the place open. He can¡¯t actually talk about it though, every time I¡¯d tell him about it, he¡¯d get sweaty, and just tell me to be quiet about it, ¡®it¡¯s out oh me control¡¯, he¡¯d say, ¡®oh I wouldn¡¯t blame you from quitin¡¯, love.¡¯¡± She finished, admiring her impression of the boss, ¡°That¡¯s why they don¡¯t have much qualms about hiring people like us.¡± I hushed my voice. ¡°Poor people?¡± She was laughing and smiling again, ¡°No! Weirdos! Why would anybody hire someone who crawled out of a cartoon? Why would anybody hire somebody as obnoxious as me? Because when nobody wants the job, you better believe they¡¯ll take whoever comes through the door the next day.¡± ¡°I guess that would make sense¡­¡± I couldn¡¯t be convinced until I saw something actually supernatural. After tying up the bag, Elise had me toss it into the store room, saying it was better to toss it out after something happened first. We sat at the desk up, serving customers as they came in, the work slowing as the night went by. We really didn¡¯t talk much during that time, she seemed content with watching the aforementioned YouTube videos, I¡¯d be surprised if she wasn¡¯t at the max volume. I didn¡¯t exactly trust her; how nonchalant she was with the hole co-workers dying thing. I made notes on what was close by. Under the desk there were cigarettes, lighters, scratch cards, and a bottle of pepper spray for self-defence. On display behind us was various fishing equipment, hooks, lines, that sort of thing. Most places had stuff like that, due to our town¡¯s close proximity to the water, salt and fresh. Beside Elise was a fire extinguisher. I thought there might be a chance of her using that as a weapon on me, if she was responsible for the disappearances. Though I doubt it would have been effective on me regardless. Again, the door dinged open and I shot a look over at it. All I can say is, now I know how the day-shift girl must have felt. To say he was dishevelled, was a disservice, His scraggly beard didn¡¯t even look like hair, more like the whiskers on a cat fish. The heavy coat he was wearing was tarnished green, blotted with mud and grim from head to toe. I never did get a good look at his face, his cap and beard blocked most of it. Yeah, it was strange on the opposite end of this for once, being the clerk and not the crazy. Elise skipped over after I gave her a tap, ¡°Alright, watch and learn green horn!¡± She leaned over the counter and he halted his shambling, ¡°Good afternoon, Sir! Is there anything I can do for you today?¡± His breathe was as thick as his musk, ¡°AhHhHh, Love¡­ D¡¯ya mind¡­ letting me see your¡­ br¡­ br-b¡­eas¡­¡± She¡¯s had to do this so many times, that she understood what he was talking about, and acted before he could even finish. Before she did, she gulped, her face squirming a little. I slammed my hands in front of my eyes, to save her some decency. I was disturbed by how willing she was to do that. The man just giggled to himself, like a damn creature. Something like this has been happening for weeks, months, not even a mile from my door! After nearly a minute, he eventually shambled towards me, leaning over the counter. I pulled my hands away, and looked at his toothless grin, ready for whatever deplorable words would come crawling out of him. ¡°You¡­ can you give me¡­ a pa-pap-packet of- ccccigarettes? Any wi-ill doo-¡± I didn¡¯t let him finish. ¡°Go Fuck yourself, you miserable bastard.¡± I enunciated; the contempt clear in my voice. I noticed Elise step back in my periphery. His grainy skin contorted, I couldn¡¯t tell whether it was a grin or a frown. Something I could only describe as filth, seeped from his nose, mouth, and pores. I had originally thought about just punching him, but thinking back on the rules, something told me getting ¡®marred¡¯ was a bad thing. I flung my arm back, and grabbed the fire extinguisher, tearing it from the hook it was hanging on, then whipped it back into his temple. He crunched, and splattered, making both inhumane noises, and far more of that mire, as it began to spill out over the once bleached floor below. I watched it run through the cracks between tiles for what felt like an eternity. Eventually Elise grabbed me by my cape, tugging me. I looked back to see her standing on the shelf behind me. I didn¡¯t listen to what she said. I couldn¡¯t hear. I clumsily climbed to her side, watching that ¡®man¡¯ dissolve, occasionally shooting into the air like a geyser. Did I just kill him? Did I just kill him? After the bubbling and the geysering stopped, I was snapped back to reality. Literally, Elise snapped her fingers in front of my face. I looked at her, and she said- ¡°You¡¯re cleaning that up.¡± I walked along the counter to the store room. Only after I opened it did I remember the 2nd rule, luckily, nothing happened, it was nearly an hour away. I brought back the mop, bucket, and some anti-bacterial wipes. She badgered me as I, a little out of it, wiped the floors. ¡°So, are you actually a super hero? You lifted that thing like it was nothing, and you caved his skull in like it was paper mach¨¦!¡± I ignored what just happened, ¡°Yes, I- I have super powers. I¡¯m strong. And I¡¯m tough.¡± She smiled wide and raised an eye, ¡°That¡¯s all you¡¯re going to say?¡± ¡°There¡¯s nothing else to say.¡± I killed him. She was still giddy over discovering another super natural ¡®thing¡¯ I guess. Or maybe she¡¯s always this hyper. ¡°What¡¯s your origin story? Can I get powers? Can I be your sidekick? Your gal-in-the-chair? Have you fought any super villains? What¡¯s with the cape? What¡¯s that tassel coming out of your head for? Do you work with the government? Against them? Have you ever-¡± ¡°Shut it!¡± I exploded, ¡°I just killed someone! A disgusting, perverted old man, and I turned him to sludge! Now I- I¡¯m cleaning him up! Like I spilled something on the carpet. None of your questions matter right now, do you hear me?¡± Her smile dulled, but she kept that childish look on her face. She pulled herself onto the counter, letting her legs dangle over the edge. ¡°Listen Shamrock, it¡­ You don¡¯t know this, but narratively? These things aren¡¯t alive. 50% of the time it¡¯s some sort of phenomena spawning them in, or they¡¯re demons, and ghosts. Watch some videos when you¡¯re done, you¡¯ll see.¡± ¡°That has to be the most detached thing I¡¯ve ever heard in my life. This isn¡¯t a- a creepypasta!¡± She faked a frown, ¡°It¡¯s a very specific formula.¡± I dragged a free hand down my face, before wetting the mop again. ¡°What if it¡¯s the other 50%? Then what?¡± She shrugged, ¡°Then you got rid of a super freak, avenged your buddy, and did a pretty good job at cleaning this shit hole.¡± I scowled. At least one of those things wasn¡¯t true. I hadn¡¯t avenged Mullet. As I finished moping the floors up, I thought about how best to go about getting whatever took him away. I looked back to the store room, and as I did, the way Elise¡¯s legs hung over the desk made me think of something. that and the fishing equipment. I threw the dirty bucket outside, then scooted over the counter, Elise¡¯s eyes following me, as I took a bunch of fishing wire out, and readied a ton of hooks. ¡°What are you doing?¡± She seemed more concerned than curious, ¡°I¡¯m going fishing, what¡¯s it look like?¡± She shook her head, ¡°I know you¡¯ve found out what you wanted to know, but you can¡¯t leave, not until the shift ends. Whatever¡¯s in rule 1 will get you, and trust me, it¡¯s not remotely human.¡± I forced myself to smile, ¡°I¡¯m sure I can handle it.¡± I made sure to check the time before opening the storeroom, grabbing the meat bag, and attaching the hooks to the large hunks of meat inside it. While I did so, I reminded myself, of what was important, telling myself to not do anything to endanger this girl. She was still alive, and though a little strange, as far as I¡¯d known, she was innocent. I¡¯m going to keep people safe. I¡¯m going to stop this from ever happening to anybody again. I completely shut myself off from any thoughts on the dishevelled man. In that moment, I had so easily cast away any sort of reluctance for violence. The door slid open. I tied the wires around my gloved hand, before casting the bait just out of the lights reach. ¡°Holy shit! That was like 20 meters! You threw that like a baseball!¡± I looked back at Elise who was standing just behind me. ¡°I told you I was strong. Go back inside.¡± I crouched down on the tarmac; Elise followed suit. ¡°Go back inside.¡± I repeated. I heard a clinking sound, and found a bottle of beer being offered to me. ¡°Told you. Raided the minifridge. It¡¯s corona, from Mehico.¡± She put on a silly accent. I wasn¡¯t too amused. I took the bottle, drank about half of it, before refusing to drink anymore. It had a strong fruity taste and smell, and something about it, along with the expired meat and sludge, made me queasy. I think it was how similar the scented plastic was to it. Elese told me about some minor virus they found in China that shared the name of the beer. She told me tons of little facts like that while we sat their waiting. I laughed a little at some of the weirder things she said, she talked about some sci-fi show from the 90¡¯s, saying we were just like two FBI agents from it. That was before she went wide eyed, and pointed out. ¡°Inside.¡± I ordered. She listened, rolling to her feet. We couldn¡¯t see what was poking at the bag, there was just a ruffling noise, and a slight whipping of the line. Once I heard the door close behind me, I slowly tugged the bag closer, closer. The first part of it I saw, was two finger-like mandibles. As it stretched out for the bag, I could see rows of large molars facing inwards. Before they could take the bait, I pulled it hard, a few of the hooks coming undone. The bait was now set directly under the canopy, I ducked behind one of the pumps for cover, unraveling the wires as fast as I could. Its appendages slunk back into the shadow of night, and for a moment I thought it had lost interest. Then I saw it cautiously enter the light, circling in from the right. Its flesh was a raw red, only slightly decorated by strands of hair, spiking up in quills on its back. It walked on its hind legs like a dog, and was as big, and well built like a cow. Its head wasn¡¯t like anything I¡¯ve seen. It had four of those mandibles, two coming down, and two coming in from the side. Once it trotted over to its meal, I crept around to the side, hiding behind another pump. I mentally prepared myself, the beast groaning as it prodded its offering. Then I heard it trot off. I looked around the corner to see it going over to the door. Throwing caution to the wind, I charged in, locked my arms around one of its legs, and scraped it across the ground, it kicked me and clawed, as I put my back into every inch of put between us and Elise. I couldn¡¯t see her inside the store, she was probably hiding. I loosened my grip, reared an arm back, and pounded relentlessly, every punch bruising his ruby hide a deep shape of purple. Eventually he tossed the weight of his head back at me, giving just a few seconds to grab at his jaws before they clamped down on me. I caught one. The other three began to crush, I won¡¯t lie I screamed for it to stop. The monster from the dark used its lower limbs to push me deeper into its maw, torso first. I am incredibly durable. I¡¯ve survived drops from hundreds of feet in the air. But this hulking thing very nearly folded me like a lawn chair. I squirmed, I thought about hitting him with the arm holding back his fourth jaw, but reconsidered after taking into account what only three were doing to me. So, I wriggled, pulling my other hand through the flappy gums, and past rows of enamel. I struggled getting it over the upper jaw. One thing that helped me get it out, was the thought that Mullet, and God knows how many other people, wouldn¡¯t have been given even this much. I have the power to change things for the better, to face adversity and evil, and I¡¯m going to spend every second I can doing just that. I had one arm, the arm that had missed it¡¯s catch, it was free, enough to hammer a hole in this thing¡¯s eyeless skull. So, I smashed it, and I smashed it, and smashed, smashed, smash, smash, smash- Until the sound I was making no longer qualified as a smashing noise. I clutched my ribs, as I walked back inside the store. I¡¯d successfully beat my own hand raw. It quivered as I tried to keep it still. I don¡¯t think I was to seriously injured by this point, if i was, it was drowned by adrenaline and fear. Fear. I needed to know that girl was safe. ¡°Elise¡­¡± I called out looking down the aisles, she wasn¡¯t there. ¡°Elise¡­¡± I checked behind the counter, then the time. ¡°Eli-¡± The clock read 10:59. And I started to sweat. Without a sliver of apprehension or any idea of what might happen to me, I opened the store room. Flog X.02: I might need to rethink my career. Over the past four months, I have encountered various phenomena, despite the fact I live in a small town, on a small island. I¡¯ve often asked thought of what else might possibly lie across the ocean, what horrible things are happening in the uninhabited corners of the world? Or even worse, the places millions of people pass by every day. I¡¯ve posted most of that in another corner of the internet its own little box. But this story has a place, it¡¯s a part of a larger genre, as Elise has told me. These rules are a reoccurring phenomenon, meaning there must be some kind of conditions they spawn from, or alternatively, by someone or something is actively causing it. It would explain why it mostly happens in places like this. This gas station. I didn¡¯t consider it at the time, the second rule: Between 11:00 and 11:30 you will begin to hear voices from the store room. Do not open it. Do not leave it open. Make sure whatever you are using to tell the hour is correct to your time zone. The clock on the wall had no indication of the exact second, it simply read 10:59, the long hand nearly pointing directly up, and the hour hand on the verge of 11. Paying no attention to it, I stomped over to the closet. Grab her and go, I told myself, be careful with the handle, breaking it may count as the door being left ¡®open¡¯. Taking my arm away from my ribs, pain rang throughout my body. Every breathe was a chore, as I stretched for the door, I watched seconds tick by, as my failing body reached out, another flash of sweat leapt from my skin. I opened the glossed over door fully, calling for her. As soon as she saw the green of my suit, she knew it was me. She bolted out past me, reminding me of when she¡¯d squeezed by me at the start of this shift. This time however, I was not only discomforted by her thick hair whacking my face, but also the slight nudge to my ribs she¡¯d made in her tackle, which made my muscles contract. ¡°Close it, close it, close it!¡± she yelled. I pushed the door closed harder than intended, with little regard for whether or not it could take it. Luck was with us, the hinges held firm. I turned to her, my mouth wide, ¡°Ahh-Are you ok?¡± She went in to hug me, before I stopped her, ¡°NOT the ribs!¡± She still did it, just a little more gently than her initial grapple attempt. She breathed a sigh of relief, ¡°I¡¯m so glad you¡¯re ok¡­ Did you get rid of it? That demon bull.¡± I half smiled, ¡°I¡¯m not sure that¡¯s a good description of the thing.¡± I walked her outside, or rather, I leaned on her, as I hobbled out. I¡¯m actually extraordinarily light, taking into account I can crack through a monster skull, given enough time. I¡¯m actually shorter than the average man, just an inch taller than Elise. Before we went through the door, she was looking at me, smiling, I¡¯d be lying if I said it didn¡¯t make me uncomfortable. That all changed when we got outside. As soon as she saw it lying there on its side, she let go of me and froze, crouching down without a word. This was the first time I¡¯d properly looked at what I had done. It¡¯s torse was swelling a little, blackening around the area of my first attacks. It had long since stopped bleeding from the cavity I¡¯d made in his head. What was the point of all this? Killing this unearthly thing? Was it to keep people safe? To keep Elise safe, right? No, I¡¯d scared her, put her life at risk. It was revenge. This creature could be avoided simply by disposing of the garbage properly. But in my anger, I did this. Now that I''ve cooled my head,I can ask myself, what has been gained? My co-worker raised a closed hand to her mouth, I¡¯d have hunched down beside her, but I doubted I¡¯d have been able to get back up. ¡°Is¡­ Is it dead?¡± I nodded. ¡°Poke it,¡± she said. I closed my eyes. ¡°No Elise, I am not going to poke it.¡± ¡°Well- I can¡¯t,¡± She shushed, ¡°If it gets back up- You¡¯re the one who¡¯s freakishly durable.¡± I opened my eyes, ¡°Yeah, yeah I¡¯m strong.¡± I thought I¡¯d put the matter to rest by doing as she wished. I waltzed up to it, getting accustomed to the pain in my sides over time. As I walked over I extended my hand, she called out for me to stop. ¡°Not with your hands! Haven¡¯t you heard of what happens to whales when they die? The bacteria in their stomach and stuff leaks out! Use a stick!¡± I replied calmly, as I placed my hand on the creature, ¡°I¡¯ll just wash my gloves with the anti-bacterial wipes or something.¡± I held my hand on it for a while, it hadn¡¯t taken long going cold. I swiped my hand off of it, returning to Elise, sitting down anyway. ¡°You actually killed that thing. With your bare hands.¡± She enunciated the words, pushing them from her mouth. ¡°It took a hell of a lot more than that,¡± I told her ¡°Two things. I was lucky, he didn¡¯t have any fangs or claws, he only tried to crush me. I tend not to do well against sharp edges and enormous strength.¡± ¡°And the second?¡± Her eyes were glowing, something about the story grabbing her usually diverted attention, ¡°I was¡­ plucky, I guess.¡± I scratched my head, thinking if that was the right word. ¡°It was bigger than me, more vicious than me. Probably had a better reason for fighting than ¡®revenge¡¯. But I was scared, I¡¯m not talking about adrenaline, I¡¯m talking about the things fear can make you do. The heights it can push you to, or, the depths it can drag you to.¡± She leaned against me, putting her head on my shoulder, her hair tickling me, I didn¡¯t like it. ¡°We could leave. The guard dog is gone, you can go home, run yourself a bath. Maybe wash that wig of yours.¡± She grabbed her hair, ¡°It¡¯s real. And it¡¯s clean.¡± I looked into the dark horizon. ¡°Maybe you wash it too much, I¡¯ve heard that can be bad for it as well.¡± She admitted, ¡°I¡¯ve been thinking about dyeing it.¡± I commented, ¡°Might look nice blond.¡± She laughed and climbed to her feet, helping me up after I extended an arm. I told her, ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be breaking anymore rules.¡± Of course, now I know that was an absolute lie. She smiled, before looking at the head lights coming in from the dark. It was a customer. At first, I thought it might be rule five, but no, just a middle-aged man driving home from his own night shift. She stared back and forth between him and the corpse. We watched for some time, as he walked past it, not batting an eye, before taking the pump, and filling up a can of gas for the road. Elise at last asked. ¡°What the hell¡­¡± ¡°He can¡¯t notice it. Most people rationalise to themselves. He''s probably thinking its a dead cow. Stuff like this, paranormal phenomena, it all exists in a bubble. The way someone explained it to me was that there are three rooms. The first, is where the people like him, like your boss live. They can¡¯t acknowledge this stuff. Then there are people like you, people who know, you can interact with it, but you aren¡¯t it. I am the third. I am the paranormal, the strange. Then all of those rooms overlap, or something.¡± ¡°That¡¯s screwy¡­¡± I grinned at her response The man approached the gas station, giving us a courteous wave, I welcomed him, ¡°Just the five gallons then?¡± Looking between the two of us, then into the store, he finally nodded, ¡°Aye.¡± The three of us walked back in. Then the store room began to scream. I felt a dread run through me, as Elise served the driver, and I cleaned my gloves with the wipes. I wasn¡¯t afraid for myself, but the sounds coming from the door, rule 2, I could hear so many voices begging to be saved. The circumstances we were under, the normalcy of it all, did not help. The customer¡¯s tired expression, like he could fall asleep at any moment. He yawned, and made eye contact with me for a second before looking away. I was the strangest thing in the room. After taking the change, he left quickly. I asked, ¡°Are they always this loud?¡± Elise teetered her head. ¡°Sadly, no.¡± Then I heard her shout, ¡°HELP! HELP!¡± and my eyes widened, my jaw dropping slowly, my cold sweat returned. ¡°ITS ME, SHAMROCK, SAVE ME! THAT¡¯S NOT THE REAL ME, THAT¡¯S NOT THE REAL ELISE! OPEN IT! THERE¡¯S STILL- THERE¡¯S STILL TIME! YOU CAN BEAT THIS THING!¡± I was looking directly into Elise¡¯s eyes; her mouth had been hanging open after the first call for help, the sound echoed out from behind me. The speed at which she shook her head gradually increased, ¡°Don¡¯t do it. That¡¯s not actually me. That¡¯s not me!¡± Minutes must have gone by with both of the Elise¡¯s shouting, I was absolutely frozen, split in two. I had to decide. I had to decide now. I filled my lungs with air, shot my hand towards the note, reflecting on it once more. 2. Between 11:00 and 11:30 you will begin to hear voices from the store room. Do not open it. Do not leave it open. Make sure whatever you are using to tell the hour is correct to your time zone. I sighed, my fears falling away. I set the brown page on the counter and turned to the real Elise, and explained my reasoning. ¡°It¡¯s alright. I know you¡¯re real, remember I said no more rule breaking? I¡¯m not opening that door for such a stupid reason. First off, it says nothing about doppelgangers in the notes, and if that was a threat, then you, the real you, would have said at the start." They both went quiet. ¡°NoOoOoOo!¡± The door shrilled. Still attempting to deceive me, still failing, ¡°What if I forgot? What if I didn¡¯t know this could happen?¡± Before the real Elise could get a word in, I said, ¡°She¡¯s too into this rule thing to forget about something so important. She¡¯s an idiot, but she¡¯s not the type to risk someone else¡¯s life.¡± The face she made told me she was offended by the comment. ¡°Besides, they way you¡¯re speaking right now, is nothing like how she¡¯s acted before. I doubt if she was being tortured, she¡¯d be in any state to think up a logic argument either.¡± We ignored the rooms taunts from then on. I went back to scrubbing my gloves, Elise reorganised the shelves. I had a feeling she was angry at me; she wasn¡¯t even watching those videos anymore. ¡°Why, uh, why do you still work her?¡± She looked up from her crouched position, ¡°Duuuh, I¡¯m too stupid to know hows to quit.¡± She stuck her tongue out and crossed her eyes mockingly. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°Oh come on, you know I didn¡¯t mean anything by that.¡± The door parodied, still using Elise¡¯s voice, ¡°I¡¯m a spaz! I¡¯ve got the attention span of a goldfish!¡± I scowled at the unmoving plank of wood, still expecting it to rattle or bang, as it and the other voices cackled. But it was still. It¡¯s like there was nothing behind that door at all. I looked at my co-worker, she¡¯d turned away. I crouched down beside her, saying, ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯re an idiot. I guess your kinda weird, but I''m not the guy to judge.¡± She said without looking at me, ¡°I like working here.¡± I thought I¡¯d miss heard her at first, but I let her continue. ¡°I dropped out half way through college. I say dropped out, but I wasn¡¯t going to be let back next year, probably. I wasn¡¯t doing good, I¡¯d moved back in with my family, coasted through jobs like this- well none of them were really like this. Nothing was like this. I found something incredible, something that only ever existed in books, or on a screen. That¡¯s how I felt, that¡¯s how I feel. I¡¯ve seen people die here. But I kept thinking forward, imagining what other amazing things I¡¯d find. And I eventually found you. And you¡¯re not even trying to kill me..¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­¡± I tried to find a way to say it politely, ¡°¡­Not a very healthy way of looking at this. As long as you¡¯re working here, you put yourself at risk, you just said you had family waiting for you back at home, imagine what it¡¯d be like for them when you don¡¯t come back. When you never come back, and they never find out why¡­¡± I choked off. She stood up, and spoke with more force, ¡°But you have to understand, right? When you first found out about all this, even if you always had your powers or whatever, doesn¡¯t it make your life feel less-¡± she searched for the words, ¡°-meaningless?¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t always had powers. But I¡¯ve always wanted to be a hero. If I didn¡¯t dress up in green, then it¡¯d be in a uniform of some kind. Hell, maybe if I was lucky, I¡¯d have gotten into a pair of scrubs. Tell me what¡¯s so pointless about living in a world where there aren¡¯t any monsters under the bed, where I¡¯d be able to help people out of tight fixes, without nearly being eaten. I wish I had the chance to live like that, but I can¡¯t turn a blind eye to this now, but you- you can still go back.¡± We were both getting heated. I¡¯d like to blame the tiredness for my temper, but I was genuinely annoyed by the fact she was treating this like a fantasy adventure. ¡°You should both end yourselves! That¡¯d solve both your problems!¡± I remembered there was something I could still vent my frustrations at. I walked behind the counter, ¡°What¡¯s one more broken rule, eh? You want me to open you, huh? You want me to come in there and kick your ass?¡± ¡°Yes! Yes! Come at me you clown! You think your hot stuff, huh? Your yurnin¡¯ for a burnin¡¯!¡± The creatures phrasing made me grin. Elise tried to stop me, ¡°Don¡¯t open that door, in 40% of lists these types of things just kill you out right.¡± I asked, ¡°Do you know if it¡¯s being literal with the burning part?¡± She shook her head, so I continued getting what I needed. I grabbed the peppar spray, and something else from below the counter before telling Elise to back up. I had to open the door with my foot, as soon as I¡¯d pushed the handle down to whatever extent counted as being ¡®open¡¯, its arms bulged the door open. They flailed out at the edges of the door, showing off. It had a variety of tentacles, many barbed with white tips, which offset its oily purple-black skin. In the centre of its mass, it had a human denture line fully on display, as it grinned as wide as the door frame. A single tooth was nearly as big as my head. I suppose it wanted to scare me a little before it killed me, wasting time by letting my look at it. I matched what little expression this festering, writhing mass of legs could show. That¡¯s to say, I grinned. A flame erupted from the spray can, its contents ignited by the simple house hold item I¡¯d taken earlier, a lighter. I couldn¡¯t very well see what expression it was making anymore, what with the smoke and fire. I was assuming the pained screams were a little more authentic now, as it angrily lashed out at me. I assume it would normally pull in its victims, crushing them in the tiny space, but it didn¡¯t want to be any closer to the source of the flame. It thought it was clever, flinging it¡¯s flaming appendages at me, thinking I¡¯d back off at the sight of a few sparks. The thing about these homemade flame throwers is that it¡¯s actually really hard to catch anything on fire with it. I think it¡¯s the propellant that does it, and without a constant stream of that, it¡¯ll be difficult to start a fire with the stuff. So, I bet I could handle the heat longer. This being said, I¡¯m not exactly fire proof, not even particularly flame resistant. So again, I foolishly put myself into harms way. It tried to knock the flame thrower from my hands, but my grip is far tighter than he imagined. Eventually its tentacles slunk back into the store room, and one of them closing it behind. I thought about opening it again, but after giving the can a shake, (It was pretty much empty) and a quick thought that a second dose might be a little overboard. I set both the lighter and the can back where I got them. I turned to see a terrified face, and noticeably smoky room. ¡°Open the windows.¡± She ordered, she herself running over to the door to keep it open. It made sense to me that she¡¯d want to get this gas out of the room, she shouted, ¡°Fan the sprinklers- Turn them off, something!¡± I apologised, ¡°Sorry I broke my promise, but I¡¯m pretty sure that thing¡¯ll think twice before it tries to snatch somebody up.¡± She wedged the fire extinguisher between the frame of the door, keeping it open, if only a little. ¡°I don¡¯t care right now, I mean- You¡¯ve fucked up now. Do you know what forms in a room with a varying temperature? If those sprinklers go off, there¡¯s a way bigger chance of it happening.¡± My silence conveyed my confusion. ¡°Rule 5,¡± She said plainly. I began to fan faster. ¡°When I was working with that kid with the Mullet, well, one day he lit a joint, set off the sprinklers. We- we were able to do as the 5th rule said, and hide in the store till it left. We don¡¯t exactly have that luxury.¡± I fanned faster still. I did this. I put her in danger, again. Why!? What was wrong with me? Why did I keep valuing violence over just playing it safe? It would be so easy to just sit back, follow the rules. Just don¡¯t touch a door for half an hour, just take out the trash, just give that man a packet of cigarettes, it¡¯s that easy! But something about it doesn¡¯t feel right, does it? I just watch these things from behind the counter, knowing what they¡¯ve done? What they did to Mullet? What¡¯s alright about this? I can¡¯t get rid of this feeling in me, I¡¯m offended by these things on a conceptual level. They lie, they trick, they kill- and fuck me, whatever comes with the droplets on the window? Let it come. I¡¯ll fight it, I¡¯ll end it. But then I¡¯m pulled back. I was supposed to help people. Not whatever I was doing now-a-days. What I just did was wrong, that is clear to me purely from the expression on her face. As the sprinkler comes on, spraying my dirtied face with water vapour, I say it again. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± My mouth contorts, ¡°I¡¯m so sorry.¡± ¡®Please¡­¡¯ I begged to no one in particular, but in my head, I kept repeating, ¡®Just one. Please, let me save just one person. ¡® I was, literally, slapped back to reality. ¡°Take out whatever shows up. Your said you were strong, so act like it! I¡¯m going to stand in that corner,¡± Elise pointed to the opposite end of the store from the store and entrance, around the meat section. ¡°-and you¡¯re going to fight it. It¡¯ll spawn in right at that door, or just outside it, I don¡¯t know, that¡¯s just where the tapping sounds come from. I¡¯ve never seen this thing before, so that¡¯s about it. I¡¯m pretty sure it can leave the building, whatever it is, it always leaves through the door. That¡¯s all I¡¯ve got.¡± I stared at her dumbly. ¡°That¡¯s all I¡¯ve got, so do what you can with it.¡± I clamped my jaw up and leapt behind the counter, looking for something to make the fight easier. My mind raced, my blood beginning to pump. I remembered my left hand, without taking my glove off, I could guess that the jitters going through it meant it was done for the night. I still had a good grip, but it would be foolish to use it in this fight. I pulled out another box of fish hooks, and wrapping the strings around my left arm, tight, tighter than the ones I¡¯d used for the bait. I was apprehensive to use it again, but I grabbed the fire extinguisher by the nozzle holding it in my right hand like a flail. I held the seven or so hooks in my left hand, making sure they didn¡¯t catch on my swaying cape. I had no clue if the hooks would be effective against whatever came through that door, but I needed as many options open as possible. I had three, maybe four, if worse came to worst. I watched from a crouched position behind the counter, waiting for anything. It might have been minutes that passed by, before I began to think of searching the rest of the shop for a makeshift weapon. Maybe if I took the broom, attached something to its tip, something sharp, that could be effective. Not the hooks though, they wouldn¡¯t pierce enough, maybe there are gardening tools somewhere around here, a trowel would be great. As my mind raced away, I suddenly noticed the first droplets form, realising it was too late for anything else. Slowly, incredibly slowly, those tiny drops of dew formed along the corners of the windows, starting around the door. I thought for a second, that I could hear the pattering of rain, but after thinking about it, putting my years of living in Ireland to good use, I recognised a short break between the tapping, like the timing of a windscreen wiper. Or someone walking at a slow pace. I ducked down moments before the door slid open, before the creature was visible through the now steamed windows. I heard breathing, hot and wet, like the sound a boiling kettle makes. I even felt the climate of the room change as its head came through the door, its pace slowed now, likely to fit its large frame through the door. I realised that whatever it was, it was thin enough to squeeze in, but tall enough to bump the ceiling. I waited a few seconds assessing what it knew. When it came into the tiny room, it stopped, looking around, I think, searching. I had to lead with the extinguisher, I couldn¡¯t use the hooks unless I got an idea of what it looked like. I shot out of hiding, assessing the thing for just a second, swinging at whatever most resembled a head. The mass bounced like a bopper, audibly hurt. I scanned it as fast as I could. It was thin, as thin as a regular person, I couldn¡¯t make out many of its features, the body and head were covered with a white sheet with blue trimming on it. You know how when people sit in a chair to long, they develop a creak in their neck and a humped back. The cloak creature had that to a cartoonish degree, its long neck hooking round, as big as the rest of the body. I could see its lower jaw, that was the only part of its head that was visible. It had a terrible underbite, its fangs like daggers pointed up. Three points of the thing bulged to extreme sizes, such that it didn¡¯t seem possible for this already front heavy creature to exist. Its back was humped, with a large semi-circle dome scrapping across the ceiling, its hands and feet shared their abnormalities, both were clawed and had a metal shine to them. The feet only slightly curved, while its fingers were like great sickles. I would have laughed at the irony, I''d just been thinking about that weakness of mine. Two powerfull swipes from those would probably cut me in to, let alone kill me. All it would needed to do was skewer me and I''d be at it''s mercy. It stared over at me assessing me, before I once again whaked it over the head. After doing so, he realised I was the threat, and lashed out at me. I chucked the extinguisher at the sickle-fingers face, before rolling behind the counter. I heard it chopping at it, I took a second to gauge where its head was, the kettle¡¯s cry was louder than before. I shimmied my way in the direction of the store room, coming out two metres away from the slasher. I betted on it being as dumb as some of the previous monsters I¡¯ve fought. I shouldn¡¯t have. It noticed me, and stabbed its left hand out at me, dodging it I moved in thinking the worst was behind me. It was. He wrenched his extended arm back, cutting me in the side. I didn¡¯t even get the chance to think about it, as he was already swinging his other arm at me. I dodged forward, using the lanky ness of his limbs against him. I reached out with my right hand and grabbed at its mouth, yanking its jaw by the teeth bringing it as far down as possible, before punching my left hand up its throat, as far as my elbow. Pulling it back out, I cut my arm on one of the fangs, steam searing into the open wound. I back stepped, pulling at the wires I''d attached inside its throat. The hooked meat burst forth when I pulled with both hands, bringing out a few of its upper teeth, and ropes of pale viscera. It hissed out, slashing wildly, I only just dodged it. I had used both of my homemade weapons. The wires were sliced as it was swinging, and the flail was out of reach. I had one final plan that didn¡¯t involve sacrificing myself. I doged backwards from it into the aisles, not to fast, so as to give Elise time to avoid the carnage between us, I doubted she had the reaction time needed to dodge any mid-quarters attacks. Every little dodge was shaving at my life, this thing had been clever before, but now it was blinded by its fury, it was unable to function under the pain I¡¯d dealt it. I¡¯ve learned to overcome that weakness tonight. Sweat, blood, and snot, ran over me, this thing was made for killing, it had killed, but I wasn¡¯t going to let it make me any less effective. After circling around the aisles a few times, he was getting tired. It¡¯s heart, or whatever this thing had, was being over exerted itself. I had regained a cool head, and had caught myself on. After a particularly slow few swings I finally pounced with all my conserved might, grabbing it by the palm, before twisting its thumb, I changed my grip on the hand once I felt it pop. It flung its free hand at me, and I was able to anticapate it, the strike proving predictable after I''d observed this thing for awhile. I threw myself back in, grabbing the mangled thumb with both hands, prying it free from the hand. ¡°Weapon number 3,¡± I said, ¡°-your greatest weapon, is your the same as your enemies.¡± I held his twelve-inch sickle in my hand now, his scream of pain giving me an opening right away. It¡¯s not very heroic to cut your opponent to pieces, but if it meant living for another few hours, who¡¯s going to complain? The weathered cloth covering it was thicker than I thought it might be. I stood over its still steaming body, panting and sweating. The creature didn¡¯t leak any blood, only steam bellowed from the wounds i¡¯d made. Elise poked her head up again. She slowly approached the carcass, prodding it with the broom. I nodded at her, ¡°Pretty sure it¡¯s dead.¡± I stared down at the head of the sickle fiend, the fabric around its head severed, along with its forehead, which was pale and bony. ¡°One more rule,¡± She said, still poking at it. ¡°And that showing up isn¡¯t guaranteed.¡± I looked around, the shop in ruins, shelves knocked over. ¡°I¡¯ll help you clean up this time,¡± Elise smiled, just about done prodding the corpse, when it began to squirm under the cloak. I went wide eyed, and she screamed. It was the bulbous area of its back, we watched as it groaned from within, something pressing against the fabric, a hand. Motioning for her to back up, Elise did, now holding the broom like a bat. I poked through the fabric, slicing it open, steam following after the cut. The hands tiredly reached out of the opening. The boy¡¯s body slumping out soon after. I didn¡¯t show any emotion. I¡¯d recognise that shitty haircut anywhere. Mullet. He coughed as he came out. I looked over to Elise, my blood cold despite what I¡¯d been through earlier. The horror on her face, that¡¯s the only way I can describe that expression, was conveyed through the twitching of her eyes, the quivering of her lip. ¡®How did he get in there?¡¯ I thought, ¡®Didn¡¯t she say he¡¯d been killed by rule 1? Surely, she would have noticed the condensation. If that event was happening, then the only way for her to have survived and never seen the sickle-fiend¡­ Would be for her to have hid in the closet.¡¯ I thought back to the advice on the note, and felt my stomach churn. ''If one of your co-workers is outside following one of the previous rules, leave them.'' Elise, why do you look afraid? What do you have to fear? It''s just you, the man you left to die... And a man obssessed with justice. Flog X.03 I do it by the book now! There were a few options open to me after finding the unconscious body of my schoolmate. The first and easiest would be to confront my co-worker, who could have possibly been involved in this. Though, we¡¯re jumping the gun a bit with that conclusion and there are honestly more important things than pointing fingers at the moment. ¡°Pull him out, quick!¡± I shouted to Elise, for once she was left speechless. Eventually jerking herself into action, she pulled away the curdled fluid from Mullet, as I hoisted from torso. The milky white goo ¡®psshed¡¯ as she tore openings into it. I pushed away any dubious questions floating around in my head, racking up any first aid techniques I could. I pressed my head against his chest lightly. There was a light wheezing, and judging from the conditions he was found under, I told Elise, ¡°There¡¯s water in his lungs. You¡¯re going to have to perform CPR, I¡¯ll walk you through the steps if you can¡¯t perform it.¡± I¡¯ve looked into the matter a little further since then, most of the sources I found said not to do this if they are breathing. I¡¯m not a doctor, I can¡¯t know how to handle every situation. Elise argued, ¡°Why can¡¯t you do it?¡± I put an arm on her shoulder, ¡°Two reasons. I¡¯m too strong for this. If I do it, he¡¯s guaranteed to get a broken rib. The other reason is that, well I feel stupid only just realising this now but, I¡¯m losing quite a lot of blood.¡± My body was so numb that I¡¯d forgotten I even had injuries, only now realising due to a slight light headedness. I considered phoning a hospital at this point. For Mullet, not me. One downside to being tough enough to fight the things that go bump in the night, is that your local ER isn¡¯t going to have much luck closing your wounds with stiches. I know a guy who provided¡­ an alternative option. As you¡¯ve probably guessed, sketchy supernatural means of recuperation can¡¯t exactly be bought with a minimum wage. I had to work for it. I made a mental bullet point of every injury I¡¯d sustained thus far, although I couldn¡¯t gage the severity of any of them, the fact that my body hasn¡¯t given out yet has to count for something right? My left hand is still shaking after beating the red guard dog, along with the damage it did to my sides and back. A few minor scrapes from the thing in the store room, not really worth mentioning. Seems he was all talk after all. The sickle fingers caused the most pressing issues, the fiend having cut my side, and hurting my good hand when I punched him in the teeth. I¡¯ve gotten to this level of injury before, survived worse, but that was after weeks of continuous fighting, compare that to a night that hasn¡¯t even ended yet. After searching for quite some time, longer than you should have to spend looking for a first aid kit, I finally dug one up from behind the counter. The two take aways from it were the disinfectant, and a conforming roll of bandages. I sat on the counter, rolled the wrap around my torso, and watched Elise. She¡¯d gotten Mullet to cough up bile, and rolled him on his side to stop him from choking. She knew I was watching her now, instinctively hidding her face. I got the feeling she was scared and she was right to be. If I was right. At that point, I only had ifs to make judgements on, worrying because I didn¡¯t know how I was going to handle this. That¡¯s the real reason I sat there for a few minutes, making a mummy of myself. To think, to rationalise. ¡°I¡¯m not angry,¡± I told her, ¡°-I just want to understand why you were shaking when you found out Mullet was still alive. Sorry if what I¡¯m going to say sounds¡­ accusatory, but that¡¯s because I am accusing you, to what degree, I¡¯m not sure, I¡¯ll wait till after you make your case.¡± ¡°Your story, it¡¯s bugging me. You told me that Mullet had been killed while outside, presumably by the guard dog, rule 1, but here we find him in the monster from rule 2¡¯s skin hump-sack. I made a mental note earlier on- it¡¯s strange how many monsters have coalesced in this town, stranger still that they¡¯re all at this gas station. That led me to a few separate conclusions, two of which matter now. Perhaps these monsters have some sort of mutual relationship, that they somehow benefit from these conditions, but I¡¯ve lost faith in that theory. It doesn¡¯t explain any of their strange behaviour. Why doesn¡¯t the sickle monster just cut through the store room door to get to you? Why does the tentacle monster only appear at a concrete time? Not to mention the fact that they only come to this gas station. Why?¡± She turned to me, the look she gave me told me she was baffled, at a loss for words, no doubt she was biting her nails waiting for me to get to the point. ¡°So, no. I don¡¯t think they know each other, or work together, the opposite. They run on set tracks, like a rerun of an old show, or a random encounter in a video game. They don¡¯t really exist outside of here¡­¡± I was getting ahead of myself; I¡¯d ask her that question after I ask this one- ¡°Just tell me Elise, the sickle finger took Mullet, this creature that is programmed to only appear when condensation forms on the windows; how is it that you didn¡¯t notice anyhting? For you to have survived, you would have had to hide in the store room.¡± She was slowly beginning to grimace. I took that as an answer. ¡°So, Mullet went to smoke, or for a piss, whatever it was. You notice the condensation on the windows. And you follow the rules.¡± I dropped off the counter, my feet only just catching me. I paced over to her. I stood over her, and asked the penultimate question: ¡°Did he beg for you to open the door? Answer me honestly. If you lie again, if his story conflicts yours, then I might just do something we¡¯ll both regret.¡± The words passed my tongue like barbs, this girl that I had been protecting, breaking my back for, might have led to a man disappearing, his girlfriend shutting herself off, his parents mourning his death, and all the anger festering in my gut right now. She choked out; the very sound of her voice brought me to frown. ¡°I- I d-didn¡¯t¡­ didn¡¯t know there was anything I could do¡­ I thought if I broke a single rule I¡¯d- and now you¡¯re here and- and everybody else is¡­¡± Her voice quivered, ¡°He did knock. He¡­ screamed. Is that what you want me to say? That I killed him? I ki¡­¡± She bit her tongue, her sunny face was torn and twisted, now drenched in tears and snot. And I hugged her. It made me uncomfortable.Internally I was screaming out. I pulled her face into my shoulder and drenched it in snot, her wiry hair scratched my face. The most glaringly of all, there was always the chance she was just a very good liar, that this was another fa?ade. I swallowed my doubts, once again ignoring any danger, ¡°I don¡¯t like the course of action you took. I''d rather die than do the same. But maybe that¡¯s the thing about the paranormal. There is no concrete way off tackling it, you can¡¯t punch every problem, you can¡¯t always be as strong as a hero should be. You kept yourself alive for longer, and now there is someone you can still save. It won¡¯t make up for the other lives you¡¯ve ignored, but it¡¯ll be a start, won¡¯t it?¡± She didn¡¯t reply to anything I¡¯d said, she continued crying, I¡¯m not sure when she stopped, if she ever did stop. I never did say the real question out loud, the heaviest, the one I couldn¡¯t bring myself to ask her in that state. Did you make these rules? I don¡¯t know how long it was until Mullet woke up, maybe 30 minutes. He was groggy at first, then he was screaming. I crouched down beside him, trying to calm him down, but he only cried out louder and crawled away from me. ¡°NO, NOT YOU! ANYONE, BUT NOT YOU!¡± I had forgotten me and Mullet¡¯s relationship. Despite knowing each other at school, he had no clue who I was under this mask. The one time I¡¯d encountered him with it on, was when I caught him smoking pot, broke his bong and told him drugs are bad. I waved Elise over, telling her, ¡°He seems lively enough for us to move him. Calm him down a little, then we¡¯ll take him to a hospital." She shushed him down, but it was just for a moment, he began to shout once he saw the monster corpse that had begun to slump in on itself, much like the old man had. It was at this point that I thought I heard a series of electronic beeps, one every two seconds. I looked around the store, failing to find its source. I told myself it was an illusion brought about by the blood lose. While they were getting ready, my eyes passed over the window for only a moment. What I saw shattered my confidence. I crouched down, sneaking over to my allies. Mullet looked at me wide eyed, before accusing, far too loud for our current situation, ¡°Don¡¯t trust this freak Elise! Fucker''s probably their master or some shit! Think about it, this bastard is a-¡± I solemnly put a finger to my mouth. They both went quiet, Mullet regardless of his thoughts on me, still knew to listen. ¡°There¡¯re more than one, the red guard monsters.¡± I kept Elise from looking, but just outside that window, two more were sniffing around, I saw them prodding the sack of expired meat, and their dead friend. I blame myself for overlooking the possibility, thinking that the only monster that might repeat was the sickle fingered one. There really was only one option left to us. We had to wait, camp them out, and pray to God that they weren¡¯t attracted to the monster corpse in here. Mullet¡¯s memory seemed foggy, and knowing how erratic he can be if provoked, I put the questioning on hold, not wanting to fan any discourse between our little group. If I were given the choice of who to bring into this situation, it would never have been these two, Elise fidgeted like a rabbit caught by the tail, and Mullet was in no condition to be sitting around on the floor, he needed medical help. That, and the fact he tends to talk when he is delirious. While I was trying to think, even as hours passed, he¡¯d still probe me with pointless questions and non sequiturs. It must have been 2 or 3 in the morning by the point one of them had finally left, the other soon following. I gave the all clear, and my co-workers rocketed up. ¡°Thank Fuck!¡± Mullet cried, ¡°The shifts nearly over!¡± he pointed to the clock; my eyes didn¡¯t follow. Elise informed him, ¡°Mullet, you¡¯ve been missing for a week. You¡¯re not getting paid for the last shift¡¯s pay, let alone this one.¡± He made up some argument that didn¡¯t make any sense, though I only half listened in on it, my mind was elsewhere. What were they doing out there? They did take the body and the bag, but they were there for hours, it¡¯s strange they didn¡¯t do it sooner, or quicker. It was almost like they knew we were going to leave soon, like they were keeping us here for a set amount of time. That notion was further supported by The next customer to show up, and they weren¡¯t a minute later than when the guards left. I leaned over to the sickle fingers lying on the floor, placed my foot on the monster¡¯s knuckles, and began plucking them one by one. Elise was the next to notice them, she asked, ¡°How are we going about this? We could just sit tight, laugh at them, do what they want.¡± I passed the fingers across the floor to her and replied, ¡°I want to try something. This is the last rule, I don¡¯t see any reason not to break it when we¡¯ve broken all the others.¡± Mullet interjected, ¡°Hey, Elise told me we¡¯d die if we did that. Made me stop smoking inside because of it. So yeah, you are trying to get us killed!¡± I ignored his semi-valid point and threw the other sickled thumb over to him. ¡°Give me some figures Elise, how many are there?¡± She responded quickly, ¡°It varies, most I¡¯ve seen come out of that car at a time is ten, though there might be more than that, that¡¯s sorta the point of a clown car.¡± ¡°Damn it¡­¡± I muttered. ¡°Right, here¡¯s the plan. If I weren¡¯t injured, I¡¯d handle this on my own, but it¡¯s been a rough night, so I¡¯ll need you guys backing me up.¡± Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Both of their eyes widened, especially Mullet¡¯s, ¡°-And I do mean backing me up, Elise, you¡¯ll stick a few passes behind me, hit any stragglers that try to circle around me, I¡¯ll do 90% of the work.¡± I grabbed the brush and took off its head, before fixing one of the monster¡¯s middle fingers to the end of it, with a combination of tape and bandage wraps. I tossed it to her, ¡°Keep the gap between you and the enemy as wide as possible. Mullet began to shout, ¡°You ARE trying to kill us!¡± I finally acknowledged him, ¡°Mullet, I don¡¯t want to do this, but would you prefer I let these things live? I¡¯m not just trying to save us; I¡¯m trying to keep the people who¡¯ll work here after us safe too. That¡¯s the new rule, and it¡¯s the only one that matters. You¡¯re in a worse state than me and you don¡¯t have my strength to keep you going through a workout like this.¡± Honestly? I was bullshitting him. I wanted to see what would happen if i broke all the rules. He let out an exaggerated sigh before I informed him, ¡°You¡¯re going to be our spotter. Keep a track on how many are still alive, tell me how many are on my left and right, stuff like that, ok? I¡¯m leaving you with a few weapons, if any of them get past us, holler.¡± He looked at me dumbly, then tried to piece everything together in his head. I focused on Elise again. ¡°You ready?¡± I asked. She stiffened her lower lip and nodded. After taking a peek, I assessed the situation. Outside was a car, smaller than a beetle with the roundish shape to match one, but this thing had ovular wheels, and in the fluorescent lights, you could see the gawdy multi-coloured poke dots. The front of the vehicle, seemed to have eyes in the place of its headlights, at the time I thought I was merely seeing things. The door hung open, and in contrast to its paint job, the interior seemed like a void, it was only after I noticed that, that I noticed something was pressed against the windows, the car bulged like it was stuffed to the brim. At the gas pump stood three clowns, one filled the car up, another was energetic, jumping around. The third was smoking, starring right at us. He had a bald head, the others had variations of foam like afros stretching from their skulls, but his was featureless. It creeped me out. Before they could finish filling their tank, I fashioned another scythe out of the mop, and while I did, I talked to Elise quietly. ¡°I¡¯ve been thinking about what you did. I think you still need to face some sort of punishment.¡± Her expression didn¡¯t change, her eyes were still wet. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have it any other way,¡± she replied, ¡°-I don¡¯t think I can keep doing this for much longer, keep living like this.¡± I thought for a moment then decreed, ¡°In a normal job, what you¡¯ve done here would be under workplace endangerment, you can face jail time due to that. But I¡¯m not a court, and I don¡¯t think they¡¯d believe this story. So, given that these are extreme circumstances, I think it¡¯s best that I decide the punishment. The lowest charge for endangerment, is dismissal, so let¡¯s go with that.¡± Her mouth fell open a little. ¡°In your next job, try to be a good co-worker. Maybe put in some earphones when you¡¯re watching a video.¡± The door dinged open, and I walked out. I looked back and they were both in position, Mullet by the door, Elise following. I shouted at the clowns, ¡°You and I¡¯ve got a lot in common. We both wear costumes, we''re both clumsy, and we both have great smiles-¡± I grinned as wide as I could, shirking the burning in my sides. ¡°And we both hurt people. But I never enjoyed it. It''s an itch. When I see things like you, human or not, I feel disgusted. I become violent. Because that¡¯s the only language you maniacs speak, isn¡¯t it?¡± The one that was smoking twiddled his cheap cigarette. Then two more clowns climbed out of their little car, and then came another pair from the other side. I jumped, pulling my left hand back, and spinning my right hand after it. And the smoking clown¡¯s hairless scalp fell to the floor, and his body soon followed. The energetic one cartwheeled over to me, I jabbed at him twice with the butt of the stick, he was knocked of balance, and I brought the blade down on him, taking my left hand from the stick to grab another bladed finger, and stabbing just above his red nose. It squeaked as I pulled it back from him, the four clowns from the car had now gotten within five feet of me, and another set were already getting out. Realising I needed to do this at a faster rate, I grabbed the clown at the pumps by his head, and flung him at the four on my right. I gritted my teeth and jumped after them, swinging widely, slicing through torsos, arms, head and throat. The stick was becoming flimsy quick, I discarded it after three more swings. Elise swung as hard as she could, and got the tip stuck in one that was lying prone, leaving me open to assault the new hoard that was coming in from the car. ¡°Two behind you, three on your left, seven on your right,¡± Mullet shouted. Thanks to him, I didn¡¯t have to waste time keeping track. I just attacked anything that was on two legs and honking. Eventually a whole crowd of them had formed, numbering in the twenties. Although I was increasing the rate at which I was beating them down, more and more came out of the car. Elise was safe enough at this point, she maintained a distance, and they seemed more concerned with me anyway. I lost three of the five sickles I had at my side, they took too long for me to pull out of after a stab. For the most part, these things functioned like humans, though they were fairly gymnastic, and I think their rubber noses were a part of their bodies, they were nowhere near as powerful as the previous monsters I¡¯d fought. At one point I snuck a glance at the car, it¡¯s windows still being pressed against. How many of them are in there, I wondered. I wasn¡¯t keeping track, but by this point we had to have killed twenty-something, and that same number was standing. I needed to clear them all out at once somehow. I considered actually entering the void from which they emerged, but decided against it. Obviously, I¡¯d do worse in there than I was doing out here. But still, for all I knew there were a hundred of them, and my bodies last reserves of vitality could give out if pushed to such a limit. Then I had an epiphany. I kicked myself into the crowd of clowns. They struck me, kicked me, beat me with bowling pins. Durability and strength mean nothing when you¡¯re bleeding and outnumbered, I knew that much, but it was the quickest way to get to where I needed to be, they closed in behind me I was cornered against them, and a shiny pokka dotted frame. I don¡¯t typically lift cars, the square cube law has put me off trying it, but this thing was tiny. I wedged my fore arms under it and shouted for Elise to run away. I rose from a squatting position; my fingers were sunk into the mechanics of the car¡¯s underside. I could have thrown it then, but I wanted to check that Elise was out of the way, and that I was actually hitting the clowns with it. I fumbled with it till it was above my head, something trickled from the machine¡¯s guts, water coolant, or maybe, if this thing was alive, some kind of blood. A few were still falling from it when I threw it as hard as I could at the crowd. As my muscles exploded in that moment. I couldn¡¯t sense much of anything, but that electronic beeping showed back up, from where I don¡¯t know. Then there was an explosion of red when the car crashed down to earth. I remembered the world going still before I looked down at myself. I felt like a leaf swaying in the wind. The white bandages were stained red, and the blot grew larger. I woke up inside, the beeping was gone now. I couldn¡¯t actually rise immediately; all I could do was groan until Elise showed up. ¡°Sham? Are you alright? Can you move? Can you hear me?¡± I pushed out an affirmative. Looking up to her, I could tell she¡¯d been crying again. I managed to lift my hand up, and turn to my side. Raising myself up I asked, ¡°Time?¡± Mullet was the first to answer, ¡°4:50, you crazy asshole.¡± I smiled wide, glad that we were done. This hade been a great night¡¯s work. I not only kept a person alive, I saved someone. Elise told me to lay down, but I ignored her, walking over to the door. At this time of the year, the sun rises at five. I don¡¯t think I¡¯d ever seen a sun rise before. There was no more pitch black, and those annoying lights were off now. The sky was nice and dim, the fields were now visible under the slight blue hue of the world. I sat myself down, the same place me and Elise had drunk that horrible beer earlier. They eventually followed me outside, and I told them, ¡°This is what I wanted. I don¡¯t usually win fights. Against normal people I do, but in situations like this-¡± I stopped myself before starting again, ¡°I¡¯ve failed to save so many people. So many dead, so many on the wrong path. I¡¯ve held so many broken bodies in my arms, I... am so happy to have saved you both. No matter what you do, no matter what comes next, I¡¯m so glad for this moment.¡± I didn¡¯t see either of their faces, my gaze was fixed on the horizon, the part where the light was emanating from. Mullet remarked, ¡°You¡¯re so damn weird.¡± He waited for five before leaving, he¡¯d cleared up quite a bit, though he still made his way to a hospital, I¡¯m sure. Elise stayed with me until the sun rose, as she left, I wished her good luck finding work. She only half smiled, before walking down the country road. After a while, I felt it was my time to go, so I picked myself up, and¡­ Was I forgetting something? The thought that I had, came to me suddenly. That beeping returned as I went back inside the store. I glanced over every inch of the store, from top to bottom, before finally coming to my senses. No, I didn¡¯t bring anything. As I was leaving, I passed the note on the counter, again hearing that beeping. I grabbed it with hesitation, tracing through all the rules. This is what I was forgetting. The actual question. Not what happened, not who was responsible, I came here to find out why. Why Mullet was gone, why these monsters were here, why they functioned under such human scenarios- Why is there such a crappy set of rules along with it all? I pocketed the note, and for the last time that night the door dinged open. And there were no golden rays to meet me. No white clouds, or blue skies, just an endless void of night, and the cold illumination from overhead. I looked behind me, and the store was gone, I looked back in front of me, and the lights were gone now too. I lifted me hands to my face, and they were completely visible. There was that beeping again, I could hear where it was coming from now. I followed it, limping lamely, my body gradually gaining its stamina. Then he spoke from the void itself. ¡°I have been watching,¡± It said, ¡°I have been reading you like a book. That is how I''ve began to perceive you, you and your associates. They are entertainment to me. I have seen you smile, cry, rage, despair, and I have only been slightly amused, if not displeased. You don¡¯t seem to understand, so allow me to enlighten you: there are rules to be followed, a script to be played. You have defied the bare bones of this genre, what with you destroying the set pieces. You¡¯ll be glad to know that none of them were sentient, real, if anything ever is. But they were needed for the plot, and you have ruined its course. Come, little green thing. Find me, that which is most me in this void that is not.¡± His words drilled into my mind, as the beeping became louder, and I imagined a light in the distance. I was running now, and suddenly specs growing, bubbling larger, formed in the distance as I approached. ¡°This night, this night that has made you so proud of yourself, that has brought the little meaning playing hero can give a man, is but one of any nth number of nights, across the world-¡± I realised that they were no specks at all. ¡°- and in every little shop, office, restaurant, there is a chance of that place becoming the stage of nights festering with monsters.¡± He was wrong. I hadn¡¯t fell into despair earlier that night. But before me, in that void, there were well over a thousand monsters, there were more than I could count. I dodged them, or at least tried to, but all at once they were on me, the stronger of their number crushed the weaker just to get at me, their roars caved my ears, their forms were diverse, they were uncountable, unquantifiable. Infinite. I heard his voice along with that beeping, clear in my mind over the carnage. ¡°And I am the master of this night, I bring order to these entities, they are my puppets, my actors, they exist for my pleasure- and so do you. Your friends and family. You are all mine should I want you. And when one actor steps out of line, goes off script, as the director and producer I must quell your wilfulness.¡± They stomped me into the ground, squeezed me flat. And then eventually, I was gone, and so was his voice. But not that beeping. At first, I thought I was dead, but I don¡¯t think you can hear a heart monitor when your dead. I finally placed where I¡¯d heard the sound before. When my father had died. I wallowed through a mire of creatures that hadn¡¯t yet been made, and soon I had become real again, my body had returned, and I could see only one star in the distance. There was a human shaped shadow, lying on a white hospital bed. It squirmed in every direction, but it was completely paralysed there. ¡°Have you been hospitalised before?¡± It asked and I answered, ¡°I broke my leg and nose once when I was a kid. But I recognise the sound from my fathers stay. They had him hooked up to stuff like this.¡± It paused for an age before continuing, ¡°Imagine that, stuck in your bed, you can¡¯t move, but you also can¡¯t see, you can¡¯t think or feel, you can¡¯t speak or eat or hate or love-¡± The voice was no longer that of a void, but a human being. ¡°That seems like an existence worse than death, doesn''t it? They stayed with me for a while, my family, they would come and read to me, I couldn¡¯t make out most of the words they said to me, but it brought me some sense of solace. This, what you see before you, is my entire world, outside of the rule setting. All that I am afforded. As you can see, there is no one but me, and the machine.¡± I tried to think of something to say, I tried but I couldn¡¯t. ¡°My name is Paul Baker,¡± The man in the bed said at last, ¡°and I fell into this void when my life was completely empty. It was maybe a decade before I could interact with the outside world, whatever that is now. I can set rules for those who agree to contracts, and I have set them for hundreds of locations across the world.¡± I said earlier that this situation was hopeless, but still, deep in me there was a need to keep going. I shouted at this dark thing, that had so easily crushed me with a handful of its monsters, ¡°You twisted fuck! How can you do this?! How can you torture people? Kill them? Because you¡¯ve been done dirty? What¡¯s the point of this?¡± He answered slowly, ¡°I¡¯d say I¡¯m bored, but we both know that¡¯s not true. No, I¡¯m here for the same reason you are. I am hateful. If there is a god, (and it isn¡¯t me), then I want nothing more than to destroy the world the bastard who did this to me built. I¡¯ve watched you, you¡¯re no different, are you? I¡¯ve seen how you interacted with my creatures, your needless brutality, you relished in beating them down. You broke the rules even when there was no need to do so, if you are a good person, then why did you risk their lives without reason? Tell me, if you hadn¡¯t found any monsters last night, you would have used your power on normal people for offences such as theft, or drug possession. You don¡¯t do this because you want to make the world a better place, you do it because you want to destroy the things that annoy you.¡± I reeled myself in at last and asked him, ¡°Why am I here? Aren¡¯t you just going to kill me already?¡± ¡°There is a rule against breaking rules.¡± He said, ¡°This situation is the result of breaking every single one on a note. Now that you¡¯ve broken that secret rule, the prerequisite rule, I can now set a new rule, just for you.¡± I looked into his shifting surface, ¡°Go right ahead.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been thinking about it since you got here, how about¡­¡± ¡°¡®Rule 6: If Shamrock does not work the 9-5 shift on a Thursday, then a random person will die.¡¯ Yes, I think it¡¯ll be fitting, don¡¯t you? Seeing as you spent so long protecting that woman you weren¡¯t particularly fond of, and that you were so quick to go searching for a person who hated you, I¡¯m sure you won¡¯t risk killing someone who could be a major donator to a charity or whatever it is you value. The monsters are back every night shift by the way, so either you fight against them again, or you bend the knee, submit to the script.¡± After thinking it over, I smiled pleasantly. ¡°That sounds just fine! Thank God, I thought you were going to make a rule where I had to kill people or I¡¯d die, something like that! I¡¯m guessing you knew I¡¯d rather die than do that. You want to see me suffer, play out a plot.¡± I could feel the beeping getting distant, and so I told him, ¡°You know Paul, you could still use this power for good. You¡¯ve done bad things but that doesn¡¯t mean-¡± I was back in the real world. ... I¡¯ll catch you up with what¡¯s happened since then. I¡¯ve worked another two shifts since then, both with a pay rise, thanks to the boss believing the story I made up, that the damage was from a gang attack. Since my encounter with Paul Baker, I haven¡¯t broken a single rule. I did as I was told, I took out the trash, I hid. But still, this isn¡¯t right, is it? I¡¯ve been looking for ¡®Paul Baker¡¯ online and in some hospital records I scraped together. No luck on that front, he probably doesn¡¯t live in Ireland. But I mean, he wants to die¡­ Right? I¡¯ve considered finding him and pulling his plug, but until then I¡¯ll just keep working here part time. Who knows if that¡¯ll even stop his monsters. Another thing I¡¯ve considered is, what happens when this shop closes down? What¡¯ll happen when I die? It has to happen someday. And like I said, this guys a sadist, he wants to see the suffering, it¡¯s not about the kill count for him. Did you know that gas stations keep the fuel underground in large tankers? Right under the store in some cases, I¡¯ll have to find the blue prints for this place, check if that¡¯s true in this case. Out here in the country side, there aren¡¯t many people passing through in the late hours of the night, like I said in the first post, few structures. Did you also know that petrol is even more explosive in closed conditions? Just a few interesting facts to leave you with. Bash 3.01: I hung out. I think I¡¯m ugly? Honestly there¡¯s no way to know, unless I asked somebody, which I can¡¯t do, because that¡¯ll make me look super needy for validation. I¡¯m at the point where I can look in a mirror and say, ¡®yep, I¡¯m the hot¡¯ and ¡®yep, I¡¯m fugly¡¯ at the same time. I have a defined jaw and cheek bones, so the lower half of my face is the part that makes me think I look good, but up past that I look like a¡­ something red, white, and purple. Can¡¯t think of a comparison off the top of my head. I grow my hair out to hide my forehead and its blemishes. I guess it¡¯s true that my big ball of hair, not cut or kept in any particular way is probably just as unattractive, but I¡¯m already ginger, so it isn¡¯t possible to make it look good anyway. I guess it¡¯s just another manifestation of not wanting people to think I¡¯m gross or weird, while making myself more unlikable. I¡¯ve been thinking about that time I fought that Pooka, and afterwards I got in Mullet¡¯s car and rode home with him, his girlfriend, and Saoirse. I really didn¡¯t need to include that little bit about Saoirse being drunk and saying I was handsome or whatever. She didn¡¯t mean anything by that, I just liked the fact somebody other than my granny said it. Of course, I don¡¯t look anything like I did then; my bags are back, I¡¯ve had spots on my face since then, and my face is a little busted from fighting the Circuit Board, so if I was good looking, I¡¯m not anymore. Why am I saying any of this? I don¡¯t know. I woke up in biology, despite it being spring, the room was frigid, the windows had been left open because of some experiment the previous class did. A good few people were still off school, either due to being affected directly by the Circuit Boards actions, or indirectly, through the loss of a loved one, or their family losing work in the wake of the disaster. Some people, for example Izzy, whose dad works in construction, they were doing better than before. Apparently, most working in the field have been called from other public service projects to rebuild, the city is trying to recover quickly, before any tourists come in from Dublin or the north, so the jobs pay especially well. Izzy was explaining all of this to Mullet and Saoirse, (and due to our proximity, me). Mullet scratched his head during all of this, not really understanding what a contractor does. ¡°So¡­ that means you have more money now? Then why don¡¯t you ever buy me anything?¡± He looked betrayed saying that. Izzy shouted at him, ¡°I¡¯m just getting more spare change from me da! You were the one bragging about how minted your weird gas station job is.¡± Mullet had to think for another while. ¡°I quite that for a reason. Pay was crap. I give you lifts. You could at least help pay for the gas if I¡¯m taking you somewhere I don¡¯t want to go.¡± Now Izzy was offended, ¡°Where the fuck don¡¯t ya want to go with me? I¡¯m your bird! You should be happy to be with me.¡± Around this point in the conversation, Saoirse realised that she might become a third wheel in this argument, so she turned around and carried on with the work that Mr Biology left for us. I tried to go back to sleep again, as much as I would love to hear a couple argue about money, I think I¡¯ve got enough of that noise from my parents. I collapsed my head into my arms and tried to ignore them. And I must have been asleep for half an hour, because by the time I was nudged awake, it was lunch. Saoirse was the one to poke her elbow into me, I doubt Izzy or even Mullet would have bothered. ¡°Class ended,¡± was what I heard as I made eye contact with her. I hadn¡¯t really thought about it much before, I haven¡¯t really looked at her face to face like this, but I wondered what her tattoo meant. A sovereign¡¯s crown. Below her left eye, small enough that you might miss it the first time you look at her face. I thought about prodding but she probably wouldn¡¯t tell Sam anything. ¡°Okay,¡± I replied simply. Before too long we split up, she headed to the canteen, I headed outside. I will neither deny nor confirm whether or not I have lunch outside, alone, because that is completely beside the point. After I was sure nobody was watching, I made my way to the place I had stashed my suit. What can I say? It¡¯s been a slow week at school, and Clover has been holding back on giving me any info about the outside world stuff that I actually want to know about, so I figure maybe Saoirse will tell me what I want to hear. I threw my suit on, pasted my mask to my face, and hopped back to school. I jogged round to the windows looking into the canteen and peered through. It took a while before people started to notice me, took me even longer to fin Saoirse in the crowded room. I finally saw her, sitting at the same table as a few other girls in our year. I tapped the window and shouted her name, which was a dumb idea, because if I couldn¡¯t hear the people on the other side of the glass laughing, then she wouldn¡¯t hear me calling for her. Eventually, somebody directed her attention to me, and her jaw jutted out. The expression on her face was a mix of confusion, anger, and embarrassment, she¡¯d instilled a similar feeling in me when she first moved in. She eventually turned around and tried to ignore me. After a while I realised she wasn¡¯t going to come out, so I looped around to the front door, and made my way to her. However, I ran into somebody else on the way there, Adonis, and the girl from my art class too. She said, unimpressed, ¡°Hey look, it¡¯s the street performer.¡±, to which he didn¡¯t respond, instead calling out for me, ¡°Shamrock.¡± I debated leaving to talk Clover, but then I remembered the state this guy was in the last time I saw him. I made something up on the spot, ¡°Hey! It¡¯s a little awkward going through the door dressed like this, but your text said you were busy all week so right now would be the best time to talk, so here I am!¡± TGFMAC questioned her boyfriend, now gradually gaining an interest, ¡°You have this guy¡¯s number? So, you did talk to him in that coffee shop? You lied to me?¡± Adonis looked back and forth between us, trying to think of an answer to either of us, but I did it for him. ¡°Come on kid, you can trust her to keep a secret right?¡± I turned to TGFMAC and explained, ¡°Adonis here is setting up a personal show, well, commissioning one, I¡¯m doing most of the work getting it ready for that party of his. He saw me at your friends, and asked why I didn¡¯t do anything cooler than just show up. And I said it was the budget, and then he said if he was doing it, there wouldn¡¯t be a budget.¡± Neither of them said anything. They just looked at each other, before TGFMAC seemed to put some pieces that weren¡¯t there together. She went wide eyed, ¡°Oh my God. You¡­ for my brother?¡± I stood dumbly as she covered her mouth as her eyes went teary. This wasn¡¯t intended. Adonis steeled himself. ¡°It was¡­ going to be a surprise.¡± She took a few moments to regain her composure, before hugging Adonis tightly. I sort of turned away to let them finish up, eventually TGFMAC dried her eyes, and went to lunch. After I heard her leave, I turned back to face Adonis. ¡°So. While I¡¯m here I might as well clear somethings-¡± I stopped myself once I saw his expression. Typically, from what I¡¯d seen of Adonis from a far, he was a pretty chill guy, seemed content with his life, excluding the last month. I¡¯d never actually seen somebody have an expression like his before, I¡¯d seen many like it on the faces of druggies once I stole their weed and coke, but this was different. This felt deserved. I wasn¡¯t as afraid of Isaac¡¯s imposing figure, despite the fact he had super strength to back it up, I¡¯ve faced tons of monsters bigger than me. But I think if Adonis threw a fist at me, I would have flinched. ¡°You are not making me lie to her. I don¡¯t care what you have to do, what favours you have to pull, you are doing as you said. You are going to put on a show for her little brother.¡± I stuttered, ¡°Uh-of course.¡± From there we went to a remote part of the school and I asked him, ¡°So, how deep into this do you want to know, because this stuff goes into some eldritch depths, that might change your perception of reality.¡± He looked at me, still angry from earlier, ¡°From that I¡¯m¡­ going to assume eldritch creatures beyond human understanding¡­ actually exist.¡± Not wanting to freak him out I try to bring it back a little, ¡°No! It¡¯s more like¡­ On a scale from tip of the ice berg to eldritch depth, how far do you want to know?¡± He answered, ¡°Everything.¡± I tilted my head, ¡°Yeah, okay, then eldritch gods do exist.¡± I watched his face for some sort of reaction but he remained unphased. ¡°You don¡¯t look too surprised.¡± ¡°I¡¯m assuming that either these gods aren¡¯t malicious, they¡¯re unable to interact with us for some reason, or we¡¯re beneath their notice. If god wanted you died you wouldn¡¯t exist. Reality would have ended by now.¡± I was taken aback for a second by his deduction skills, before he continued, ¡°Tell me everything you know about¡­ them. Whoever¡¯s responsible.¡± I knew what he was talking about from the slight change in his expression. I explained to him who the Circuit Board Seven are, about Axel, but neglected to mention Clover. ¡°So, all of that, all the destruction, the murders, were so this god could slightly annoy this Axel Right?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°But they lost? Despite you being taken out, all of their guys being fine, and them capturing their target? Who you say wasn¡¯t shaken up by this experience at all?¡± I thought about it for a second, ¡°Yeah¡­¡± ¡°Not to mention, the fact that the seventh one never showed up? Don¡¯t you think that¡¯s suspicious? Or the fact that this machine god let one of his only subordinates get captured? Or that one of those subordinates is just a normal human being?¡± ¡°Uhh¡­ You¡¯re processing all of this pretty quickly.¡± He smiled at me, after twenty minutes of talking with that serious expression, I was relived. ¡°I¡¯m a millionaire at 17. That isn¡¯t just because my family is well off. Though that helped.¡± I would have asked what he did for a living to get so much dough, but after checking the time, I instead asked, ¡°Is that enough for now? That¡¯s probably a third of what I now anyway, and I¡¯ve got other stuff to do, I didn¡¯t come here just for you.¡± He squared his jaw and smiled, ¡°I¡¯m just glad that my family is safe for the foreseeable future, with this Axle gone, and you keeping that fish woman in check.¡± I grinned, ¡°We¡¯ll talk about the Fomorians next time,¡± and I wished him good luck, before making my way to the actual objective. I encountered some trouble, teachers saying I was a suspicious person, I mostly ignored them and went straight to the cafeteria. I looked around the room of screaming teenagers before finding Saoirse. Most people didn¡¯t interact with me, those who did, did so from a distance using food and plastic utensils, like some sort of show animal. I got to the girls table, as close as I¡¯ll ever get, and said to her, ¡°I need to get my pay check off you from the 14th.¡± The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Through gritted teeth came, ¡°I paid you last month, asshole.¡± She was trying to get rid of me. I countered with another lie, ¡°No, you paid me the cost of a job with beverages provided, seeing as you didn¡¯t have any when I got there, as it clearly states in our contract, I am entitled to 30% extra pay.¡± She squinted her eyes, thinking about how convoluted I was making this situation. She eventually got up from her chair, and told me to meet her outside. It was stupid of me to think she would show up outside if she was reluctant to talk to me right now. If I was in her position I wouldn''t have. To my surprise she eventually did come around. ¡°Mind telling me how the fuck you know I go to this school?¡± Shit. How do I know that? ¡°I used my super powers. Obviously.¡± ¡°You¡¯re gonna have to come clean on that someday, because right now it just seems like you¡¯re cheating the game.¡± I argued, ¡°Like what you do?¡± She pointed a finger at me, ¡°I¡¯m just lucky, you pull new shit out of your ass all the time.¡± Yeah, it must really look that way, huh? I convinced her to get back on track after arguing about some pointless crap for five of our ten remaining minutes of lunch. ¡°I¡¯ve been doing some thinking- well, I¡¯ve been doing some talking too actually, and I think you need to explain some things to me.¡± She slapped herself in the face and crouched to her knees, ¡°What else do I need to explain??¡± I thought about the first question I wanted to ask; time was running short now. ¡°What¡¯s your tattoo mean?¡± She took her hands away from her face and looked up at me. ¡°Oh shit. Have you¡­ You know¡­¡± I stood patiently, waiting for her to elaborate. She must have picked up on the fact I had no clue what she was talking about, because she changed the subject back to my question. ¡°It means that I¡¯m at the peak of the mountain. It means that among all of the Units under our king, I¡¯ve been recognised as an important piece. You could say I¡¯m nobility. Most other people in my station are there for their organisational skills or versatility of their powers, but I¡¯m at the top because I¡¯m the glue that keeps this ship sailing.¡± She was beaming with pride by the end of that sentence, so I thought I should say something. ¡°So, you aren¡¯t a good leader, you¡¯re just a good tool.¡± Naturally enough for her she got angry and started swearing at me, I tried to get back on track. ¡°Right so you¡¯re a really powerful unit, sure, but didn¡¯t you lose to that guy from Belfast? The one who eats skyscrapers or something? If he beat you, doesn¡¯t that make him higher than your best guys? That why you haven¡¯t taken care of him yet?¡± She laughed me off, ¡°HA! Bastard is our best. He¡¯s the strongest in this corner of the earth, and the greatest leader in the world. And really, you¡¯ve seen a god, omnipotent is the ceiling, do you think some guy from Belfast could be the pinnacle of humanity??¡± I didn¡¯t answer, I just thought to myself, ¡®but some guy from London-or-wherever is?¡¯ ¡°Where do¡­¡± I thought about how to phrase my question, ¡°¡­Me, Axel, and the circuit board go on a scale of one to ten?¡± She pursed her lip, ¡°Ooh¡­ If I¡¯m being generous? Most of those circuit board guys are probable 1¡¯s if not 0¡¯s. I¡¯d exclude the God, he¡¯s 10." "Actually that guy we never saw and Isaac Cre-umha, they¡¯re probably a 2 and 5 respectively. I¡¯m basing this off both their abilities and political power. I don¡¯t hear shit about the ¡®The Living Legs¡¯, but I¡¯ve heard of Cre-Umha, the living king of thousands of fish mutants.¡± I was a little more than shocked to say the least. My first big fight was against a bunch of nobodies, and a king without his kingdom. And I lost multiple times. Died once. ¡°What about the Gator? That thing was definitely stronger than the others.¡± She just looked at me, raised an eyebrow, ¡°Rocky, remember that the Gator was built by Axle. If I had to place him¡­ I¡¯d say he¡¯s a 6, with all bots.¡± For a second, I thought about asking where I was, but I think I already know, and that she knew I knew, because she consoled me, ¡°Hey, Ae¡¯s only a 2 herself, but she¡¯s living comfortably, in luxury, she makes up for her weaknesses by thinking through problems and avoiding tight situations.¡± After a moment of silence, she perked up, a little bit of annoyance in her voice, ¡°Is that all?¡± I nodded and half-smiled. ¡°Good, because I¡¯m five minutes late for my study class¡± Under my mask I went wide eyed. I turned to bounce back to my clothe stash, but before I leapt Saoirse warned me, ¡°Shit, listen, you can¡¯t do this again, alright? It might not look like it, but things are heating up around here, for me, and you, so only contact me if it¡¯s an emergency, understand?¡± As I was leaping, I spat back out at her, without really listening to her foreboding message, ¡°OKAYTHANKSBYE¡±, because I was more concerned with being even later than I already was. You¡¯ll be glad to know I got off easy, told my teacher I was just having trouble with a door, and the toilets, that I had to see another teacher for something, and a few other weak excuses. I didn¡¯t pay much attention to the class. I was once again thinking over Clover¡¯s reluctance to kill me, or at least, to get somebody else to kill me. If I am a small fry, then she could team up with just about anybody to take me out, same with that guy in Belfast, he could be taken out easily enough, but we haven¡¯t. Sure, her original logic, that she needs a friend in this country, makes sense after valentines, but that logic doesn¡¯t really apply to Belfast. So, I¡¯m thinking that there is another reason. I don¡¯t know what, but going off of my history with unknowns, it probably isn¡¯t good. I¡¯ve been thinking about my place in the world, what I do. I¡¯m stuck in a static routine. Since valentines, I¡¯ve just been going through the motions, over the week I tell kids not to do drugs, sometimes get shot at, then at the weekend, I fight a fish, Feoli doesn¡¯t even show up in person anymore. I¡¯ve taken a reactionary role, which isn¡¯t so much of a bad thing, I just think that, maybe to make a difference I need to do something proactive. But I don¡¯t know what. I don¡¯t know how to make a difference. And that¡¯s what disgusts me. I look into a mirror, into my own eyes, and I see someone else. Someone weaker, less able. I have to remind myself that I am neither a hero nor a civilian. I haven¡¯t done anything to earn either title. I haven¡¯t saved the world, and I haven¡¯t saved someone¡­ normally. I doubt Sam has ever made somebody appreciate their life, make them feel better. I think back on Adonis, how angry it made him that I forced him to lie to the person closest to him. I am a liar, simply by hiding my face. I¡¯ve taken honesty for granted. He truly loves that person, and from her reaction, she¡¯s glad to have him. I am not a hero. I am not a person. But I¡¯m trying to be. I want to be both. I think it¡¯s because of comics. If I had never read about Daredevil being able to have two lives, how he could hang out with Foggy for a few hours, then he could go to fight kingpin with Electra, then back and forth, back and forth, building relationships with both, bettering his practices reputation, while slowly breaking the kingpin¡¯s operation. It¡¯s because of that idea that I first decided that this is what I wanted. I¡¯d never had even one life. And I was miserable. If I could get two lives, if I could build a better world for everyone, including my... my friends, then I could be satisfied. But I look in the mirror and I still feel disgusted at what I see. Because after thinking about it, after hearing it said to my face, I know exactly what I am. A Non-entity. After having an existential crisis for an hour and a half, school ended. As I got myself ready to leave, I suddenly became aware of my empty stomach. I hadn¡¯t eaten anything all day, disregarding the banana I had at the start of the day. I thought about going to Tesco, but after checking my pockets for any spare change, I found 40 Euros. I had nearly forgotten about Adonis¡¯s donation. I thought about all the things I could buy with this money, finally settling on going to a nearby sandwich shop that I never had the money for. I was reluctant to set one of the notes aside for later, or maybe to donate it to a soup kitchen, it depends on whether I have the will to part with it or not, after all, Adonis did want me to use it on something to eat. I made my decision walking down the hill my school is built on, getting a good view of the destroyed section of the city. After nearly two months of construction, it was now adorned with scaffolding. It made me wonder about how much money was being put into that project, what cuts the government would have to make to infrastructure, like roads, schools, and local charities. It was at this point I decided to put half my money aside for some sort of charity. I also skimmed over the idea that perhaps this was another manifestation of the ignorance effect, people being subconsciously pushed to cover up any sort of super powered activity. Not really sure on the validity of that theory, but it¡¯s food for thought, I guess. When I finally did get down to the sandwich shop, I looked through the window, a little less cartoonishly than Shamrock had done earlier. It wasn¡¯t as busy as I thought it might be, there were only a few people wearing the colours of my school uniform in there, and about three wearing the uniform from a nearby school. I went in not thinking I would run into any trouble, and asked the person at the desk for a large panini with beef, lettuce, tomato, and coleslaw. I watched the lady pack a sizeable amount of each portion, making the Tesco meal deal look anaemic in comparison. ¡°You better be drooling over that sandwich.¡± It was Saoirse. Again. I ironically thought to myself, ¡®what are the odds.¡¯ ¡°What is that supposed to mean?¡± It honestly took me some time to realise she was making a dirty joke. ¡°Oh.¡± The sandwich lady put my sandwich in the panini press. ¡°What is with you southerners and cheap food?? Have you never been to a good restaurant??¡± I looked at the sandwich lady, who was now busy with another customer, before I moved me and Saoirse¡¯s conversation to the other side of the store. ¡°Hey, I¡¯m sure wherever your family goes for dinner is nice and decadent, they¡¯ve got money to throw around, but this is a local business, and I like to support them when I can. And try not to be so rude.¡± She smiled a little, and pushed her eyebrows together, a face she¡¯d made often enough for me to know what was coming next. ¡°Eh?? ¡®When you can¡¯? You make it sound like a single 5-Euro sandwich is an investment. Well, I guess you are too poor to afford a phone¡­¡± ¡°Alright, you didn¡¯t come here to get shamed for being a rich brat, I didn¡¯t come here to get called poor, let¡¯s just agree to keep to ourselves.¡± I broke eye contact with her. ¡°You don¡¯t have to take it so seriously. It¡¯s just banter.¡± She clearly wasn¡¯t going anywhere. After an awkward silence I began a speech. ¡°Banter. I think it¡¯s a flawed philosophy to follow.¡± I looked back at her and she seemed confused. I decided to elaborate. ¡°The idea of banter originates from Britain. It¡¯s used in situations where you¡¯re having fun with your mates, drinking, that sort of stuff. There is of course an Irish version of this, craic, but there are a few significant differences between the two, due to slight cultural differences.¡± She was slowly raising an eyebrow during this. ¡°Banter includes stuff like making fun of your friends, making a joke out of them, taking the piss,doing something like breaking into a shed and stealing a traffic cone. I for one, am just glad to hang out with people, drink, and even if I do make an ass of myself, I can take comfort in that fact, rather than somebody trying to pick me apart for it. Craic is where you just go out to have fun, enjoy yourself, simply enjoying the daily occurances. To take pleasure in other people¡¯s stories, and sharing your worst with people.¡± By this point her mouth was hanging open slightly. ¡°What??¡± I stared at her for a few seconds, mimicking her expression slightly, ¡°Huh?¡±. I started laughing hard. Then she started laughing, only stopping when they called her order out. When she came back, she told me, ¡°Sam, you¡¯re fucking bizarre. Like, you''re way different from everybody else around here.¡± ¡°I''m not that different, you said so yourself. It¡¯s probably just because I don¡¯t play any sports, I find that 70% of all conversations revolve around-¡± She cut me off half-way through, ¡°No, I mean yeah, that¡¯s true, but, there¡¯s something else about you.¡± I looked at her sandwich, ¡°What?¡± ¡°I guess you seem¡­ sad? Well you''re depressing, duh. Like I can imagine you crying yourself to sleep at night. But I guess you¡¯re more so sad, like¡­ a movie.¡± I shook my head, ¡°Ok, now you¡¯re not making any sense, if my lifes a work of fiction, it''s a commercial.¡± She tilted her head to the side, ¡°You¡¯re like some guy from a romance movie- a satire of a romance movie, where the guy and girl don¡¯t get together, and the girl marries another man that¡¯s like, really hot and has a great job, whereas the guy spends half the movie getting over her through shouting at some walls and stuff, before finally getting a semi-decent job, and maybe he meets another girl, but probably not, you know?¡± We were in the same situation as before, but before we could laugh, my order got called. When I got back to her, I said without thinking, jokingly, ¡°So what, you¡¯re going to go off and marry a king, and I¡¯m going to become a NEET?¡± She smiled, ¡°Pretty much.¡± I laughed, before she said, ¡°We would have to date first for that to happen though, right?¡± After taking a bite of her sandwich, she and I realised the weirdness of what she said. I filled my mouth with panini before I said anything to make this situation any worse. After a we left the store, we walked about for a little while. Not really talking about anything, I was more focused on earlier. I was sweating. If I had a scent, you¡¯d be able to smell me from a mile away, she¡¯d be throwing up in disgust at the creature she¡¯s been sitting beside for months. After a while she asked me, ¡°Do you think I¡¯m a rich bitch?¡± I turned to her. ¡°Be honest with me. The¡­ bunnies were weird.¡± I admitted, ¡°Yeah, I guess if you¡¯re rich, you tend to pick up some quirks. It¡¯s a trade off. You get set apart from everybody else, have a harder time of knowing what¡¯s normal.¡± She groaned. I asked just for the sake of asking, ¡°Why didn¡¯t you have any food at the party? You had a ton of beer, but you couldn¡¯t get any sausage rolls?¡± She almost said something, but changed her mind, ¡°I sent somebody out, but they never came back.¡± I laughed at her. She kicked me in my side, I kept giggleing, before saying, ¡°Okay, okay, so you had a weird party, you live in bigger house than you need, and you eat expensive food sometimes. Rich? Check. Bitch? I mean you do go on tirades, and you are pretty annoying,¡± She looked like she was going to kick me again. ¡°But¡­ I think a ¡®rich bitch¡¯ probably wouldn¡¯t talk to the kid who can¡¯t afford a phone.¡± She smiled a little to herself, ¡°Yeah, I guess I am pretty selfless.¡± I reminded her, ¡°You do realise you¡¯ve never actually helped me in anyway with all that money, right? You didn¡¯t let me finish either, your not a bitch, but you are a brat. A lot of people have it way worse than you.¡± She smiled wider, ¡°Sure, sure, like your obstinate ass will take what I offer. You know, pride and greed are both sins.¡± I made a pssh sound and we kept wandering. I knew we had to put this to a stop as soon as possible, before I said anything I shouldn¡¯t. ¡°When we were driving home from Killarney, you- well you get pretty bad when you¡¯re under a bottle but, I think I need to bring this up, not because I think it meant something, but just because I want- I want to clear this up.¡± No. No this is the complete opposite direction. I thought about not saying anymore, I wish I never said anything at all. ¡°No, I don¡¯t remember at all.¡±, she said dumbly. I think I winced up upon hearing that, once I regained my senses, I said my piece. ¡°You said I ¡®looked good¡¯.¡± I died inside. This was a situation I¡¯ve been meaning to avoid my entire life, and for some reason I went against all of my instincts and asked. Even though all of that¡¯s true, somewhere deep down, I felt sick, but in a good way? I don¡¯t know how to describe that feeling. Maybe something like a weight being lifted from my shoulders? Maybe this is how it feels to die with no regrets. As my soul left my body, I tilted my head back to let it out. After a century, I brought it back down again to look at her. I gritted my teeth. Her expression didn¡¯t seem to change. ¡°Yeah. I guess I did.¡± ¡­ Now my brain left. Poof, completely de-atomised. ¡°You¡¯ve gotten pretty beaten up since then though. You should probably set up some sort of skin care routine or¡­ something.¡± She half closed an eye and leaned in. ¡°Like there¡¯s tons of life hacks online for bags.¡± She looked right into my eyes. After that? We both started laughing harder than before. We¡¯re going to hangout again soon. Bash 3.02: I got a smart phone! What does Tuesday mean? I remember hearing that Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are all named after the Norse gods, Odin, Thor, and Freya respectively. Sunday and Monday are named after the big balls in the sky. I could probably find the answer if I looked it up, but for some reason, I¡¯m¡­ apprehensive? I feel a bad juju coming from that day, a lot of stuff has happened on a Tuesday. Elvis died, Constantinople fell, not to mention, more recently and personally for me, the Gator fell on a Tuesday. Usually, I¡¯m not one for superstition. I suppose anything can happen, considering I no longer know how the world works. When I was preparing myself to become a super hero, I never even considered the possibility of gaining super powers, I just worked out and tried to learn about how I could help homeless people. But I did get super powers, and I have fought super villains. I used to understand, or rather, had a loose grasp on how the world worked. An objects output of force is proportional to its mass, an object of a large size and mass if not distributed over a large enough area, will collapse. Physics, or whatever. That all made sense to me, until I witnessed a killer robot float into the sky. But you know, after giving it some time, you get used to it. Is what I would say if it was just killer robots, but it isn¡¯t. There¡¯s witches, and monsters, and extra dimensional beings. If it was one concrete set of rules, just sci fi, or just magic, cool, but I don¡¯t know how to make heads or tails of this situation. I like marvel. But does the multiverse make any cosmological sense? No! That¡¯s fine for a story, but being completely unaware of the simplest facets of reality is sort of unnerving. So maybe Tuesday is cursed. All I have as proof is a bad feeling in my gut, but that¡¯s enough. Last Tuesday I hung out with a drug dealer. Much like the last time we were together, we just walked around, and talked about random stuff. What food we like, what the grime on Mullet¡¯s car was (It was blueish?), and what our parents do for a living. ¡°They both work in property development.¡± she started, ¡°There¡¯s big money in the foreign sector, which is where they are now. They probably aren¡¯t going to show up until July. That¡¯s when there¡¯s a little less on their plate. During June- Never mind, you don¡¯t care about the specifics, and I¡¯m going on and on.¡± She left me a space to speak. ¡°My¡­ dad¡¯s dead. And my mum-¡± I moved my arms subconsciously, the way I motioned made it look like I was trying to coax out the words. They never came. ¡°You don¡¯t have to talk about it if you don¡¯t want to, I didn¡¯t mean to bring up your dad.¡± She went silent. I recognised the expression on her face, not because I¡¯d seen it before, but because I¡¯d made it. You get a certain feeling inside you when you lie to somebody, and when that lie leads to serious places for them. I''d made it last week when i forced Adonis to lie. Most of what she said was probably true, Bastard probably owned tons of properties globally. He probably did have a lot going on, too much to visit Ireland. But she had lied to me about how she got the money. Who she was. I eventually pushed out, ¡°I didn¡¯t know him. Not really. I live with his mum on the weekend, but she doesn¡¯t talk much about the past.¡± I suddenly asked, ¡°Where is the giants causeway?¡± She furrowed her brow, ¡°You¡¯re going from your dad to a tourist attraction?? Little fucky isn¡¯t it??¡± I slowly smiled, she did too. ¡°I don¡¯t think you can look at the dead with reverence for too long. I did when I was a kid, but I¡¯m sure the perfect picture I made of him wasn¡¯t right at all. Let¡¯s just move on, tell me what county the giant''s causeway is in.¡± Rather than my dad, I think it was actually my mother I didn¡¯t want to talk about. Saoirse took a few seconds to think, ¡°Must be Meath.¡± I looked at her, ¡°Meath isn¡¯t even in the north.¡± She pointed a finger at me, ¡°No, the causeway¡¯s in the south. That¡¯s why tourists talk about the rocks when they visit Ireland.¡± I shook my head, ¡°Pretty sure tourists don¡¯t know there is a north and south of Ireland. It¡¯s just the tiny island beside England. Not to mention, why would anybody try to build a bridge to Scotland in Meath?¡± She snorted, ¡°What are you talking about?? Hahaha! There¡¯s no way you believe that shite. I had you figured as the practical sort.¡± After thinking for a second, I reaffirmed, ¡°I am. I don¡¯t think Fionn Mac Cumhail was real, but the people who made up that myth might have. Like, why would they say it was a bridge to Scotland, if it¡¯s closer to England.¡± She laughed harder, ¡°Because they were sheep herders living in mud huts? How would they know enough about geography to tell you which hill across the ocean is which??¡± After she stopped, she commented, ¡°I¡¯ll never get tired of the accent down here.¡± I guessed as to what she was talking about, ¡°You don¡¯t think that those ''farmers living in huts'' actually called a mythological giant Finn McCool, do you?¡± She considered my logic and her eyes went a little wide, ¡°Holy shit¡­¡± After walking a little more, climbing over a wall, me calling her a fat ass for struggling to get over the wall, she asked me, ¡°Why do you know so much about Irish mythology Sam?¡± I answered, ¡°I don¡¯t know. Maybe it¡¯s because¡­ I am Irish?¡± I let out a mock gasp. That was a lie of course. Despite being irish, I don¡¯t think I would know anything about those old myths if I hadn¡¯t done some research after meeting Feoli. I¡¯d thought the most common threat I¡¯d face would be banshees or goblins or whatever, but no, it¡¯s machine gods. ¡°Ok yeah, but you¡¯ve only told me stories from places you¡¯ve never even been to, tell me something about Kerry, or Tralee.¡± ¡°I honestly can¡¯t think of anything. Not everywhere has stories about ghosts or monsters.¡± She rolled her eyes, ¡°I can¡¯t decide what¡¯s more shite. A place that believes in ghosts, or a place where nobody does. It¡¯s like, either these types oftowns are crazy or they¡¯re boring.¡± I smiled a little, ¡°Do you believe in ghosts?¡± ¡°Nope. I just think it¡¯s fun to go to places where people see ghosts. Or rather, it¡¯s funny.¡± I considered that it might be better to actually do something. So, like always, I lied. ¡°Now that I think about it, there was a story about weird noises coming from an old building not far from here, it¡¯d be 15-minute walk.¡± She spun in front of me, wide eyed, ¡°You knew about something like that and didn¡¯t say anything?? We¡¯ve been doing nothing this whole time and you never even mentioned the haunted house?!?¡± ¡°Sorry? I didn¡¯t think you¡¯d be in a ghost hunting mood. Usually, people do normal things like get fast food, or get drunk, but seeing as I don¡¯t have any money, here we are.¡± She looked at me sadly, ¡°Is that the extent of your social interactions?? God you¡¯re pathetic.¡± My confidence shattered, I was at a loss for words, ¡°I- that is completely besides- let¡¯s just go to the stupid hut.¡± We both laughed about it after some time. I thought about the places I could feasibly take her, parts of town that could give a spooky aesthetic. I settled on a part of town that was really run down, even more so than where I live. It was an under developed area on the fringe of the city, the opposite side of town from Clover¡¯s mansion. There was a small residential area between it, and the proper country side. There might have been thirteen or fifteen houses on the street we were going down. I¡¯d been here as Shamrock quite a few times, it¡¯s a popular place for dealing and doing illicit substances. I¡¯d be worried about bringing somebody here, if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that Clover, the probability altering superhuman was looking out for Sam. Although I was sure she could handle an armed thug, make them slip on a banana peel or something, I¡¯d still like to avoid that possibility. ¡°Alright, alright, let¡¯s play a game. We¡¯re getting close to the place, so let''s play a game. I¡¯ll¡­ I¡¯ll try and make the ghost angry if you can guess which of these hut it is.¡± She looked at me blankly, ¡°I thought that was what we were going to do anyway.¡± ¡°Ok, whatever, I¡¯ll sing the dick-ass song, that good enough for you?¡± She still looked blankly at me, ¡°The what?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a song you sing when- uh, when you want someone to dick you in the ass.¡± She stretched the corners of her mouth down. ¡°Pretty sure there¡¯s a name for wanting to get dicked by a ghost Sam, and honestly, I¡¯m not sure I want to watch that. Didn¡¯t one of the ghostbusters have sex with a ghost? Not in the movie, one of the actors or something.¡± I tried to steer her away from the whole spector sploodging thing, ¡°Just point at a house and if you get it right, I¡¯ll make an ass out of myself.¡± She shrugged and pointed randomly at a house, ¡°That one. That¡¯s the ghost house.¡± The house, or rather, the large shed she pointed at, was a fairly boring pick. It was third from last on our right-hand side. There was a slight hole in between the front facing wall and the hanging roof that was either created or worsened by water damage. Walking up to it, I imagined the interior to have an earth floor, sadly, once we forced open the door, we came out on a damp, brick red and brown carpet. I stuck my tongue out and made a ¡®bleugh¡¯ noise. Clover commented, ¡°Now you know how I feel.¡± I got a whiff of the air soon after. ¡°What¡¯s the story behind this place?? You never said.¡± I answered quickly, trying to keep the story brief. ¡°A few years back, a 17-year-old boy killed himself. He left a note somewhere around here, just underneath his limp body. When the Garde found the note, they were so shocked by its contents, that they kept it from the public, and even the family themselves. They didn¡¯t really question why he did it, he had always been distant, dark, and with the unexpected passing of his little sister, they didn¡¯t blame him for doing what he did. But the mother wasn¡¯t convinced, she pressed the Garde to release the letter, her son¡¯s final words. The Garde did not, but they did let her read it." "They felt she deserved to know what really happened to her children. As it turns out, her daughter¡¯s accident wasn¡¯t an accident after all. It didn¡¯t seem strange for a girl so small to have drowned in that river, she never was a good swimmer. After the Garde found the note, they placed an investigation on the girl¡¯s death, and found there was evidence of foul play. The note served as a confession, not only of the son¡¯s involvement, but of more occult involvements." "THEY had told him that there needed to be a sacrifice, for power in the next life. At least, that¡¯s what he wrote down for the authorities. ¡®For him¡¯, the Garde explained, ¡®it must have seemed logical in his state of delusion, to take his own life, to enter the second life sooner.¡¯ But of course, many doubt the boy was deluded at all, passersby had reported inhumane cackling from this. Very. Shack.¡± I looked back at Saoirse, seemingly uninterested in the story judging from her expression. She had tied her hair into a bun, to keep it from touching the peeling walls while she had a look around. ¡°That¡¯s not the story, is it?? Reaks of American pop culture. I¡¯m pretty sure the Police wouldn¡¯t keep that information from the public because it was ¡®scary¡¯.¡± I made up a new, more plausible story. ¡°A tourist got lost one night, and she was passing by this shack. She claimed to have seen a ghost peaking its head through the door at her. Not like, phasing through the door, just looking through it.¡± You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. I looked back to the flimsy screen door, turning back to Saoirse, she was gone. I¡¯ll admit, I was a little spooked for a second, after noticing a doorway that had gone unseen in the dim, damp, room. I slowly and quietly peaked around the corner. ¡°Can you help me with these chairs? After walking around for like, an hour, I¡¯d like to take a seat for a few seconds.¡± I was a little startled by her voice. Did I scare myself with my own story? No, I think it was more so that this was a seedy area, and I decided to take a teenage girl here. Not to mention, this hut felt like it was about to fall at any moment. The other room was about a third of the size of the first, more comparable to a large closet, just about fitting two people, and the dirty crap cluttering the place. Among the junk, we found 5 folding chairs, one of which was fairly clean. I would have offered it to Saoirse, but she took it before I could. Unfolding the second cleanest chair we sat down opposing each other, in case a ghost crept up behind us. I sat facing the exit, more worried about the living. We sat there for a few minutes, I thought about going to sleep, but decided not to, in case there was a chance of rubbing my leg in the white stain on the chair. I looked across at Clover. It wasn¡¯t a school day, so we were in normal clothes, I had a baggy hoody and track suit bottoms on, clover was in basically the same thing she was wearing when I met her at McDonalds a few months ago, with the padded jacket being excluded. I guess it was warming up a little, but we¡¯re still in Ireland like. So, she was probably a little cold, sitting in a damp room with nothing but a tiny white tank top. I¡¯m only now thinking, that top was probably more expensive than all of my shirts combined. Not to mention that purse she was carrying around. As I¡¯d mentioned earlier, she had her hair tied back, only leaving her bangs and whatever you¡¯d call those little strands of hair that go past your ears. She had one leg on top of the other, on top of that, her elbow. ¡°Well??¡± She pulled a shitty smile, and I realised what she meant. Solemnly, I stood up. She unfolded her legs and looked up at me. It was time for the song. ¡°This goes out to the dumbass ghost causing paranormal activity to occur in the Irish county of Kerry.¡± She laughed a little at that, before I tried to think up some rhymes. ¡°Oh, I¡¯ve got an ass, the greatest ass that you will ever see, An ass that¡¯s built like Jupiter, and I¡¯m giving it to Thee. And when your dick is crushed, under its enourmous gravity, Don¡¯t go blaming me, Cause I told twice, its visible, from the bottom of the sea! Hey-o! Round and red, a fat ol¡¯ maw, Tight and firm, it¡¯ll make ya caw! Bouncing balls, fat and full, prepare to make your draw! My cheeks will pull, upon that bull, till it¡¯s rendered raw Because there¡¯s neery¡¯ a greater ass you have ever-ever saw! Oooooh- this is the ass I¡¯ve spent my life, grooooowing juuuust foooor yooooooou, heyy!¡± I was honestly impressed by what I had thought up in the five minutes walking over here, didn¡¯t think I had the brain capacity to sing it all in one go. Proud with my performance, I grinned. ¡°Is that it??¡± My smile slowly faded, ¡°Uh, well I guess there¡¯s another verse from the other guy¡¯s perspective¡­¡± She looked at me with a blank face, ¡°Sit back down Sam.¡± I did. ¡°I¡¯m going to give you something. Don¡¯t say no.¡± She toughened her lower lip. I thought about what was happening with this mood change. She reached into that little purse and took out a phone. Her big green eyes met mine. She stretched her arm out to me. ¡°Surprise!¡± She started to smile again, ¡°Now you can¡¯t say I don¡¯t do anything for you. I have it set up and all-¡° ¡°I can¡¯t take that.¡± Her smile squiggled a little, ¡°Don¡¯t be difficult. Can you think of a single reason not to?? Other than it hurting your pride??¡± I could think of one major reason not to take it from her, but Sam doesn¡¯t know that Saoirse¡¯s money comes from dealing drugs. ¡°Uhm¡­¡± I tried to think of something, but came up short. ¡°I know you¡¯re not supposed to say how much a present costs, but this thing cost ¡ê450- that¡¯s I don¡¯t know how many Euros, but it¡¯s an even bigger figure.¡± ¡°Bleugggh.¡± Making the sound was involuntary. Saoirse just laughed, ¡°Ok, maybe I went a little overboard, this probably costs a lot, huh??¡± I raised my head back up to look at her. ¡°Listen Sam, I want to talk to you. About¡­ anything. And, that¡¯s actually challenging to do, when I only see you at school with Mullet creeping, and you- not existing socially.¡± She wasn¡¯t being very convincing. ¡°Let¡¯s watch a movie! Or GO to the giant¡¯s causeway! Or we could find a haunted house that doesn¡¯t smell like piss.¡± That was pretty convincing. I¡¯d- There was a rattling in the thin walls of the shack. I looked at the roof, expecting rain to leak through. It didn¡¯t. It stopped after a while, I chalked it up to heavy wind at the time. ¡°Can you just take the damn phone?? My arm is getting tired.¡± Despite her tone she was still smiling. Before I reached out to grab it, I thought about her, how I felt about her. Despite the sudden chill in the room, and what I was about to do being morally ambiguous, I felt just a little warm inside. There was something weird about how she was looking at me, she hadn¡¯t really made a face like that before. She took her eyes off me for a single second, looking over my shoulder. I heard her scream, and was blinded by the phone being thrown at my face. I heard the scuffling of the chair on the carpet while I tried to catch the hundred-dollar piece of aluminium. Once I did, I looked at Saoirse who was nearly pressing against the wall flat, slightly moving for the door. ¡°Sam. Get up. We¡¯re leaving. Right now.¡± I smiled, thinking of the perfect, cheesy line to describe the expression on her face. I turned ever so slightly, once I felt a tickle on my neck, I knew she had actually seen something. There was a sound in my ear, like the foaming of the sea, but with a guttural pulse alongside it. Despite the surge of goose bumps every time it rumbled, I kept that smile on my face. ¡°I¡­ aggghhh-I do-c- I don¡¯t have aaaa ¡®bull¡¯. Ahah¡­ I don¡¯t have a ¡®bull¡¯¡­. Aheheheh. Ahahahhahhahaaaghh.¡± It wasn¡¯t a sound, not in the traditional sense anyway. It was speaking, but no breathe came out of it, though the whole air felt like it had become even more mired, thick. It was more so an understanding, the concept of the creature speaking, you might say through telepathy, though I don¡¯t know what that would feel like. I tried to keep the illusion of being ignorant of this supernatural phenomenon, Sam doesn¡¯t deal with ghosts after all. Without thinking twice, I rotated my neck, curled my spine over the seat. Not even a millimetre¡¯s distance. Just like there hadn¡¯t been any ¡®noise¡¯, something about it told me it wasn¡¯t actually there. Its head looked like a caricature, the way it bloated in some places but compressed in others, like some strange deformed fruit grown in unnatural conditions. One of its eyes was as big as my jaw, just from the portion that was visible between the arching eyelids. The other was empty. If it was there, if it was physical, I could probably stick my open hand in it without any resistance. It smiled, gurgled, upon meeting eyes with me. I turned back to Saoirse, who was now grimacing. I couldn¡¯t manage a smile anymore, so I wore a blank expression. ¡°What, did you see a ghost or something?¡± I laughed, and rose from my seat, ¡°We probably should get out of here. It¡¯s getting pretty cold out.¡± Walking over to the door, I could feel it moving at the exact same pace as me, like its head was somehow connected to my neck. Once I got a foot away from the door, I could feel it moving, the air getting increasingly thick as I approached the exit. I could vaguely make out four fingers and a thumb closing around my entire head. Rather than being blinded, it was like being under water, I could see a little, but it was blurred and contorted, like the thing itself. Saoirse shouted, ¡°WAIT! WAIT WAIT! Uh, let¡¯s stay here just a little longer, ten minutes, ok? I- uh, have a friend who knows a little about this stuff, maybe she can make something cool happen, huh?¡± I thank God that Sam isn¡¯t really a regular person, if he was, then Saoirse would¡¯ve been too late. I¡¯ve been crushed before, and if this is how rough the thing got when I was about to leave its haunt, then I can¡¯t imagine how hard it would get if I actually left it. Stepping back a bit I was able to speak, as the ghost released its grip. I said to Saoirse, with a little smile to try and get her to calm down, ¡°Fine. But just for a little while, ok? This place is as gross as¡­¡± I couldn¡¯t think of something to finish with. My nose began to bleed. ¡°Oh¡­¡± ¡°You must have thrown that thing pretty freaking hard, huh? Haha.¡± She laughed awkwardly before excusing herself. She was able to leave the hut just fine, I could hear her talking on the phone, I couldn¡¯t make out any specifics though. . . . I let half an hour pass by, pretending to sleep at the ten-minute mark, of course I couldn¡¯t actually sleep, not with this thing attached to me. I was now sorely regretting getting the luck girl to point to the ''haunted house'' for me. Though I am starting to understand how her power works a little better. I think. Maybe not. Apart from crushing me with the atmosphere, or whatever this thing did when I tried to leave, I didn¡¯t feel like anything was wrong, apart from the weird noises, they made me uncomfortable. Saoirse was standing outside, occasionally checking in on me. Eventually, when I was actually starting to fall asleep, Saoirse ran outside, and started talking to somebody. I opened my eyes, curious to see who this exorcist was. I couldn¡¯t think of anybody I knew anyway. The light peeking through the small screen door was blotted out by a shadow that seemed to contest the mire. His frame was so wide, he not only needed to crouch to get through the door, but had to come in sideways. That¡¯s not to say his side was much thinner; his torso was about twice as thick as mine. This giant man, seethed with rage, barely able to keep it from boiling out, it seemed. That much was clear from his physical annoyance and discomfort at squeezing through the door, into a space just as tight a fit. I couldn¡¯t make out his face; he wore some sort of plastic helmet, with some sort of material falling over the majority of his face, but in the irratic spasms of his muscles I could tell he was tense. Despite the lack of light, and my clouded vision, I could clearly make out the expression etched into the sliver of his face. I¡¯ve known people who seem to always be angry, but this man made me believe someone can go their entire life filled with nothing but hatred. He shot a glare at me, and then the spirit. It didn¡¯t seem to mind, cackling still. He moved to the corner on my right, and I watched him, waiting for him to say or do something. My focus was taken off him when I heard the two girls come through the door. Saoirse came in first reassuring me, ¡°Don¡¯t worry about that guy Sam that¡¯s just my friends- brother. Yeah, that¡¯s her brother. Don¡¯t mind his weird mask, it¡¯s a little chilly out after all.¡± He was shirtless. A familiar face followed after her, one I wasn¡¯t expecting, but made a lot of sense. Seong-soo Ae, or Ae Seong-soo, (I¡¯m still not sure on the correct ordering of korean names), carried a large red pillow under her arm. She laughed heartily, ¡°Did you let him fall asleep?¡± Saoirse turned to her, ¡°You said it was better if he slept.¡± Ae laughed again, almost matching the cackle coming from behind me, ¡°No I said it will do no good if he falls asleep. I can¡¯t even see his soul anymore, we¡¯re either too late or nearly out of time.¡± She smiled wider seeing Saoirse¡¯s wide-eyed expression. My classmate looked back between me and her, before letting out a weird squeak. ¡°Just ask him some ¡®soul search¡¯ questions while I get ready, see if he¡¯s still all there.¡± All of this was pretty worrying, but I didn¡¯t mind much at the time, I was too tired to care. Come to think of it, that might have been an expected affect, seeing as falling asleep was supposed to be a bad thing. I also considered that it was weird that the person saving me was laughing while I was getting my soul eaten or whatever. Saoirse bent down to talk to me slowly, ¡°Sam, what¡¯s your favourite thing?? What keeps you going?? What makes you want to live to see tomorrow?? Or next week?? Answer honestly, and if you can¡¯t think of anything¡­¡± She actually choked at the end. What do you do when you don¡¯t have a reason to live? I suppose that¡¯s the epitome of the phrase ¡®going through the motions¡¯, when somebody is so miserable, they have to switch their brain off to keep going, because life is such a slog, so thick with crap, that they can¡¯t find a reason to live. Sort of like every day being an unlucky Tuesday. I looked over to the masked man, then back to Saoirse. ¡°Yo- um, no¡­ I guess, there¡¯s a really good run¡­ of moon knight- running¡­ at the minute. The comic... not the show. The show¡¯s bad, but the comic¡¯s cool.¡± Saoirse laughed at me. ¡°I don¡¯t even know what that is.¡± Ae was kneeling on the pillow, she had it placed in the door way. ¡°Spirit, soul and mind that has lost its body untimely, unjustly. Essence of the remainder, will and feeling, without action, or¡­¡± I couldn¡¯t understand what she was saying at this point, she might have been speaking in korean a little, or it might have been the growning growing louder in my ears. ¡°Let¡¯s play a game. You and me. And Han Chul-moo, over there, he will be our table. That¡¯s not his real name, in case you¡¯re the type that values that sort of thing. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve noticed, he is flesh, mind. But I have his soul. I propose that you forget the boy, take Han, or rather, try to. He has far more mass, and has experienced more than your current target. Though that alone wouldn¡¯t be much of a game. If you can kill him before we get off- What¡¯s this place called again?¡± I answered, ¡°Kerry?¡± Saoirse leaned over to her, ¡°Ireland, but it¡¯d be Irish soil.¡± Ae giggled. ¡°Yes, if you can kill Han before we get off Irish soil, then you can cannibalise my soul, his soul, and if you feel like it, the boy.¡± I looked over to the masked man, his eyes sill dark. He had at some point pulled up one of the folding chairs and was sitting uncomfortably on it. This guy would have to be more durable than me, enough to keep him alive until¡­ what, when they get to the ocean? When they get to Britain? They were willing to literally bet on it? ¡°AAaauuugGhh¡­ Ahhhahag¡­¡± If you¡¯re willing to play, under these rules, you may begin¡­ now.¡± Han rose from the seat. The spirit, whatever it is, it didn¡¯t leave, it put a finger around my neck. Ae thought for a second. ¡°Did you do anything to get its attention? Like call it ugly? Say it deserved to die?¡± I admitted, ¡°I sang a dick-ass song.¡± She laughed a little turning to Saoirse, ¡°What is a dick-ass song?¡± Saoirse cringed, ¡°A song he made up about¡­ getting dicked in the ass.¡± Ae laughed wildly, ¡°HAHAHAHAHoh oh- wait, so, so I tell you not to mess with ghosts, and you decided to have sex with them instead?¡± Saoirse didn¡¯t answer, just pointing accusatorily or perhaps in an attempt to remind Ae of me. ¡°Ok, ok. Han, tell the ghost you want it to dick you in the ass.¡± I think I heard his neck crack as he turned to her. She answered with glee, ¡°Go on, just make something up.¡± I¡¯m not going to type whatever he eventually did sing, because I didn¡¯t really hear it over his mask and rage, but the spirit must have caught his intentions because it latched onto him quickly enough. I felt- well, I didn¡¯t feel different at all, actually. Chul-moo must have felt like shit. Once that miasma left me for him, it wasted no time in crushing him. His fingers curled in pain, incapable of putting his physical strength to use. As he was screaming, Ae commented curiously, ¡°Hmm, your friend must have been really close to the edge there, he might be suffering from a soul sickness now, I can¡¯t see anything. It¡¯s either a really serious case, or he already lost it.¡± Saoirse¡¯s mouth was wide now too, Ae just laughed, ¡°I¡¯m sure it¡¯ll turn out fine. Look at Han and and that green guy, they don¡¯t have souls, and they¡¯re perfectly normal.¡± She laughed. It was a joke. But I matched Saoirse¡¯s expression now. Was I greenie? Was Shamrock Greenie? Was she saying¡­ Little freaked, but I¡¯m sure it was someone else. Plenty of people wear green, Clover wears green, uh, that Brigs guy wore green trousers. Green arrow, green lantern, tons of people, yeah. I looked to the man scratching at thin air. Boiling with rage. Masked. ¡°We¡¯ll go soon Chul-moo! But listen Clowie, I¡¯ve told you before, do not mess with ghosts. I can¡¯t clean up all you spirit problems, it¡¯s expensive getting out here. Ha, especially at night.¡± It was 2pm, was that supposed to be a joke? Saoirse apologised, ¡°Sorry, time zones, always confusing¡­ But not as confusing as that kid in the Mladenets, Huh??¡± She was smiling playfully, which Ae matched, ¡°He¡¯s in Korea now. None interference agreements. Maybe a little more.¡± They both cooed, until Han- ¡°FFFRRAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!¡± Ae got off her cushion and started to run, ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll tell you how it goes. Byyye!¡± I¡¯m sure Sam would be mentally destroyed by today¡¯s events, thankfully, he doesn¡¯t entirely exist. ¡°Saoirs, can we go now?¡± I played dumb. She nodded her head, ¡°Yeah, let¡¯s go.¡± She went over to the door, I followed after her. Remembering something, she stopped me. ¡°What is it now?¡± I asked. She looked at me, a little concerned, ¡°You have the phone, right??¡± I looked down at it in my hand, only now remembering how thick my skull is. ¡°Oh.¡± I lifted it up to show her the cracks, ¡°Well at least¡­ now we know you¡¯re a good pitcher.¡± She smiled crookedly, ¡°What does that even mean??¡± Bash 3.03 I give great advice! I like looking at the city. I didn¡¯t have nearly as much mobility before I got super powers. Didn¡¯t have a car or bike, or anything. I only ever left my house to go to my granny¡¯s, or to walk my dog, so I¡¯ve seen a lot more since then, noticed smaller details I never would have picked up on. Shops I¡¯d have never walked past, or interactions between people I wouldn¡¯t see, just the other day I noticed a small basket in the park. At first, I thought somebody had forgotten it, but it was tied to a fence. I crouched down and gazed into it. Inside were little rocks, each painted with little phrases. Dumb jokes, motivational quotes, that sort of thing. I only remember one of them: ¡®All that is made can be broken, all that is broken can be fixed; though it may never be the same, it¡¯s still there.¡¯ No clue what it was supposed to mean, if it meant anything, or if it was just that ¡®hang in there¡¯ type stuff. I looked it up, and I think the system behind the basket of stones is that a person who resonates with one of the rocks can take it, and they can in turn provide the basket with a stone they made, in hopes that someone else passing by feels the same as them. I didn¡¯t take one though, I didn¡¯t give it much thought at the time, other than, ¡®That¡¯s nice¡¯. Next time I was passing by, it was gone. The thin piece of rope keeping it there was hanging to the fence by a thread. After thinking for a while, I¡¯ve come up with a few ideas as to what might have happened to that basket. The first being that someone- drunk or bored- had kicked it to pieces, pieces that got swept away over time, just garbage on the street. Another idea I had was that, maybe someone liked all of the stones, so they took the whole thing. That seemed a little silly, to be fair. The last idea I had was that maybe the person who started the whole thing might have just, I don¡¯t know, wanted there basket back? Didn¡¯t want to put any more stones into it? I don¡¯t know, though if that¡¯s what happened, I¡¯m not sure I like it. One person destroying a project because they got tired of it, when (judging from the variety of stones put into it) a lot of people seemed to like the idea. This is a strange thing to go on about, I know, I could probably get into the fighting right of the bat, but this is something that matters a lot more to me. These things, the passing ideas that people have, little sections of a larger universe that show you something you¡¯d never see with your own eyes, that¡¯s something I¡¯d like to be remembered. Not that I¡¯m planning on dying. I¡¯m not going to die. But I might, actually. I thought to myself whether or not the people who painted those stones are alive right now, and the answer could be no. I¡¯ve thought about the Gator quite a lot, Stan Berwick is his real name, but to me I¡¯ll always see him as the monster that killed those people. Some of them were asleep. Some were just passing by. It wasn¡¯t a busy night, the quarter was closed so Clover could focus her budget on her own party, the surrounding shops are usually closed by that time. If he had dropped just a few hours sooner, hundreds might have died. I¡¯ve also thought about whether or not my choices were the best, perhaps I could have saved more people if I had simply fought him. I have no clue how tough he actually was. Wouldn¡¯t it have been better to destroy him as soon as possible, even if there was collateral, if it meant five or ten people kept living? I don¡¯t know what to do. That was the first post I made online, that¡¯s what I titled it, and I¡¯m not so sure I¡¯ve found a concrete path to go down. I¡¯m a little glad for that. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m ready to forge any grand convictions on how to go about this. So, until I do, I¡¯ll stick to the little things. I¡¯ll stop the circulation of drugs the best I can, I¡¯ll give money to people who¡¯ve been left impoverished, and I¡¯ll try to give help to people who need it. When I was thinking about this the other day, my mind first went to Feoli, but seeing as I haven¡¯t seen her for a few weeks, there¡¯d be no point looking. Surprisingly I didn¡¯t think of Clover. I guess over time I¡¯ve started to see her more as Saoirse, but that doesn¡¯t excuse what she¡¯s done, she¡¯s tried to kill me. It¡¯s just getting harder to look at her as an enemy. Weirdly enough, I settled on Tayanita. I said I didn¡¯t like the idea of this whole ¡®Rori¡¯ act, but I thought there might be something useful for me to get out of her. She seemed to like him a little, despite the fact that I firmly told her, twice, that I had no interest joining up with the Mountain. There is always the chance that Clover¡¯s information is biased, one sided, or maybe even purposefully false. Clovie is in the upper echelon of their organisation, and while Tayanita might not have as much insider information, she seems more level headed, and it¡¯s not too suspicious for Rori to want to know just a little more on what¡¯s happening. You might be thinking to yourself, ¡®Shamrock if you want knowledge on what¡¯s going on in the world why don¡¯t you talk to someone who doesn¡¯t shoot at you? Like Bob, or Axel.¡¯ Like I¡¯ve said, I wanted info on The Mountain specifically. I¡¯ve been messing with their operation for a few months, and I¡¯d like to know why I¡¯m still alive. I got dressed in some clothes I wouldn¡¯t wear as Sam, which really just means I didn¡¯t wear a hoody. Just a plain shirt and Jeans. I looked at myself in the mirror, flexed my arms a little. I tried to find an expression that matched ¡®Rori¡¯, settling on a mixture of being bored and angry, out of character for Shamrock, with a serious tone to my voice as a little cherry to the cake. The only thing that didn¡¯t really match the character was my haircut. I walked up to her door and knocked; I¡¯d be lying if I said I wasn¡¯t intimidated. Not by her, but by the fact that I¡¯ve never done this before, knocked on someone¡¯s door out of the blue. Especially in a neighbourhood like this. When she did come to the door, she acted surprised upon seeing me. ¡°Oh, It¡¯s you. Didn¡¯t think I¡¯d see you until something big happened.¡± I cut to the chase, ¡°Can we skip this shit? I need to know about the thing in the fucking sky.¡± Her mood changed, as she moved a hand to her back, opening the door wider to see more. I feigned annoyance. ¡°It¡¯s not there now! That green thing! Streaks across the sky?¡± She knew who I was talking about, and nodded. Twenty minutes later, we were sitting in her kitchen, with coffee and some foreign biscuits I didn¡¯t recognise, or bother to remember the name of. I recapped, ¡°So what, he¡¯s a super hero?¡± She laughed a little. ¡°That¡¯s how he sees himself, I¡¯m sure. But people like him? They¡¯re monsters. All of them. No different from the Gator. He might smile and laugh like a normal human, but so do most rapists, murderers. Only the average murderer can¡¯t lift a car, or fly, or kill you with the wind. He is someone who¡¯s been given power, and he can do whatever he wants with it.¡± I challenged, just slightly, ¡°You¡¯ve got a gun on you right now. You could blow my brains out whenever you want with that, can¡¯t you? Just hide the body, or get your organisation to cover it up.¡± She shrugged, ¡°Sure, I can kill you, but I¡¯m not a useful enough piece for the latter. If I decided to lure men into my house and kill them without reason, they¡¯d kick me out, or kill me. If someone with power in an organisation did the same, they¡¯ll cover it up, and if they can¡¯t, they¡¯ll plant evidence. Someone who can fly is worth that much at least." She leaned forward, "It all comes off of that ¡®worth¡¯. With power over the physical and societal, men will always fall to pride and arrogance, they see themselves as untouchable. ¡®Above the world, and farther from it¡¯, as the say. If you were doing something he didn¡¯t like, could be something minor, irritate ¡¯em, there is nothing in them, no conscience to tell them it is evil to crush you under their thumb.¡± Is that how I come off? Well to be fair, I am basically untouchable, but that doesn¡¯t make me see people as ants or whatever. I more so got the sense she was talking broadly. ¡°So, what, your organisation hunts them down? Like that show on amazon prime, forget what it¡¯s called.¡± She shrugged again, ¡°I wouldn¡¯t know, I don¡¯t have an amazon subscription. But no, the leaders of my organisation are all powered. One individual is referred to as a Unit. That can be equated to up to 250 armed, trained, soldiers. In a regular military anyway. I¡¯m sure you can see how that term isn¡¯t entirely accurate when describing something like the Gator. And before you say anything, yeah, I¡¯m a shill. I am working a job for people I hate. But I''m good at it, and someday, I¡¯m going to gain something from all this-¡° She leaned in further with a nasty look in her eyes. ¡°-Money, connections, I had men- subordinates, but I¡¯ve been displaced by¡­¡± She stopped to consider her next words, I interrupted, ¡°Saoirse. Or Clover. Whoever she actually is. She¡¯s one of those super¡­ whatever the fuck their called, there¡¯s the green guy as well, anyone else running about?¡± I pretty much knew the answer, but I was interested in hearing anything about Ae and Han, or even Feoli. She looked at me weirdly, then down her nose at the coffee, ¡°Three. They came in a few days ago. Stay away from Clover, stay away from The Quarter.¡± She looked back at me. ¡°There are three doors.¡± I was a little confused by the abrupt change in topic. I was more interested in the three people she was talking about. She was quiet for a while, before I could say anything, she started properly. ¡°Doors is a poor translation of the concept, but it fits with an eastern teaching I heard on the topic. My people believe that souls permeate the air, they are an infinite source that stretches through every corner of the world, invisible to all. The first door is opened when an appropriate form is provided to this source. The resulting reaction forms a soul. A person is born. The second door is opened when the reaction is reversed, when the soul or the body can¡¯t sustain the other. A person dies. ¡°This is the natural process of life, the soul returns to the sky, the air, wherever it came from. But there are three doors. The third is unnatural, alien in origin. It is bored into the wood of the process, by things beyond our universe or unnatural to it. Some souls are unfortunate enough to be sucked through these holes before they see them. They are like Clover. For others, there may be no door at all. But for some, a select few, they simply knock. They tap at your being, so that you are always aware of them. The Third door is a trap of the mind, and if you fall for it, a trap of the soul.¡± I didn¡¯t really know how to react to all of that. I just went a little¡­ long faced is how I¡¯d describe it. This was some weird stuff, and I¡¯m not even sure I copied her beliefs down accurately. Or if this was concrete info, like if you can actually detect this energy. ¡°Someday, I am going to keep people like us safe, from people like them. I won¡¯t ask you to help me, I don¡¯t need it.¡± She stood up, taking both of our cups away. I polked at a hole, ¡°If some people fall into this by accident, doesn¡¯t that make them victims?¡± Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. She smiled, ¡°There are no victims in this world. If there were, then the strong would never be toppeled. It¡¯s just a matter of flipping the order on its head.¡± I said simply, ¡°That¡¯s some heavy shit.¡± She replied, ¡°Don¡¯t get caught under it.¡± Naturally, after being warned to stay away from The Quarter, I went there next. If Ae¡¯s sticking around, I¡¯d like to know, and moreover, I¡¯d like to know what her super powers are, I¡¯m guessing her secondary ability is exorcism, but even that could be because of skill. But then there was that ¡®soul seeing¡¯ thing... Regardless, I¡¯ll have to find out the next time I see her, which hopefully won¡¯t be a fight. From that last line, I think you can guess I didn¡¯t see the Koreans. The new building, the one replacing the Quarter, was currently the barebones of a structure, there were no windows or doors, just the grey bricks and supports, though I wondered why Tayanita would tell me to leave this place alone. Rather than check in through the front door, I decided to go to the roof, as I¡¯d done with the previous building. I think that¡¯s another little thing I¡¯ll miss, that old building. This one lacked the ladder on the roof, it was, at least currently, flat. When I was up there, I could faintly hear chatter down below. The voice currently speaking was one I didn¡¯t recognise, it was British, south London, I think. I approached with caution, not bothering to pear over the ledge. ¡°¡­ really makes you fink, don¡¯t it? Dats seven figures in one month, yeah? I don¡¯t see how selling bags a weed makes up for that.¡± Clover snapped back, ¡°Really?? You can¡¯t?? Let me break this down for you skin-head, I sell 1000 one-gram bags, if I sell each bag for ¡ê10, what do I make?¡± He didn¡¯t answer, another voice did, it sounded older, a little gravely, ¡°Ten thousand, Noah.¡± Clover went back to what she was talking about, ¡°Thank you, like Lech said, five figures, do I really have to explain to this simpleton how making half of a million dollars in a month is worth more than whatever the fuck he does?? Are you still stuck with odd jobs?? How much did you make fighting fucking trolls or whatever it was you do.¡± Noah, as I now knew him, started to go off on Clover, before ¡®Lech¡¯ reigned him back in, ¡°Mr Thatcher here has more freedoms than most other Units in the Mountain, simply because he doesn¡¯t have any operations to care for. That is the sole reason he¡¯s being included in this little check in. And he was on the right track, before you changed the subject, Clover. You¡¯ve taken that money from the crown. I think you can understand, while his majesty is worried about you, he is also worried that you will exceed the budget afforded to you in a matter of months.¡± Clover whined, ¡°Take a good look around town! Now you know how much a Godzilla attack costs.¡± Noah cut back in, ¡°That¡¯s da ting innit. This here cost you, wot, 600,000? But you¡¯ve bin orderin tons of guns since before that. What you tryin¡¯ to do in this shit hole?¡± At this point, I heard somebody else speaking, in what I¡¯m pretty sure was an Indian language. I never got the chance to translate what he was saying, and now I¡¯ve forgotten it. He was repeating the same thing though. Noah got angry with him, ¡°Shut the fuck up! On the Glass God! I¡¯m gettin¡¯ sick of this stupid, dirty, fuck!¡± Clover commented, ¡°Still a racist prick, skin head?¡± He clapped back at her, ¡°No, because this one is actually stupid, he can¡¯t even speak English! And he is fuckin¡¯ rotten.¡± Clover commented, now on the Indian man, ¡°Who is this guy anyway? And what¡¯s with the whole¡­ ball-head¡­ thing.¡± She giggled to herself, ¡°Is he some sort of super hero??¡± Unaware of who she was really talking about, Noah replied, ¡°He needs that thing for his ability. It¡¯s magic or somethin¡¯.¡± It was at this point it actually hit me, these guys are all Units. They have powers. I could only wonder what they¡¯d do once they found out I was responsible for those ordered guns, not to mention the partial destruction of the third-floor on the original building, way back when I started out. ¡°Pugal was chosen for this excursion due to his lack of achievements and experience. His majesty himself decided to give this man a chance to prove his worth, so, tell us what you¡¯ve found down here,¡± Lech said, ¡°I think we¡¯ll all profit from putting a stop to whatever it is.¡± Clover asked one last question, ¡°Explain first, ball-head¡¯s new, skin-head¡¯s not doing anything, why are you here Lechoslaw??¡± He answered after a sigh, ¡°Other than to look out for these two? I¡¯m here because¡­ I¡¯m a busy body. I travel across the Mountain-side, searching for anything that might be of hidden worth. Or dangerous. So tell me what is wrong and how we can help.¡± ¡°I suppose¡­¡± Before Clover could continue with whatever she was saying, Pugal, I think that¡¯s the Indian guy¡¯s name, began to shout a new word over and over again. I think I understand what he was talking about now, despite not being in the room, or understanding his language. Though I didn¡¯t at the time, when it mattered. Noah stopped him, ¡°Alright, alright, nobody can understand what your sayin¡¯, just let us talk to the dumb bi-¡­ Clowie, tell us about this fucka.¡± I heard some kind of stretching, flapping sound, at this point. I peeked over the ledge, seeing a water proof mesh flapping over the window ledge, I was satisfied, thinking I knew the origin of the noise. I didn¡¯t. ¡°He¡¯s new. He¡¯s been in the game for as long as I¡¯ve been working from here, he¡¯s made a hobby out of screwing with my operation. Nothing I¡¯m really concerned about. He¡¯s the reason I needed more guns. One of my subordinates led an attack on him, against my orders. He broke their guns, and left. He broke into my old building, fucked up some of my product, and left. But He has saved my ass twice now. And he helped me get laid.¡± I think she was backing me up in her own way at the end of that. ¡°His powers,¡± Noah and Lech asked, nearly in sync, ¡°He¡¯s strong.¡± Clover replied, ¡°That¡¯s literal. His body is far stronger than a normal human. It manifests as durability, too.¡± Noah recapped. ¡°Strong and tough. Keeping things simple, yeah?¡± She struggled to explain my SP2, ¡°Well, he has some sort of¡­ what¡¯s it called, esoteric- or Extracontextual?? I have no clue what you''d call it or how it works, but he¡¯s used it to come back from the dead. Twice. Once with help. He can¡¯t use it offensively though.¡± They were quiet for a while, until Lech asked, ¡°What are the odds of him joining the mountain?¡± Clover went back to her haughty persona, ¡°Honestly?? I don¡¯t think I can convince him. We¡¯re on alright terms now, but he doesn¡¯t care about profit, or power¡­ He likes to play hero.¡± Lech hypothesised, ¡°Perhaps if he were to have an audience before the king, if he is the type to romanticise his morality, then he may be convinced by his majesty¡¯s final objective.¡± Something about that gave me goose bumps. Noah asked a final question. ¡°Tesco or Sainsbury¡¯s, Lechoslaw?¡± ¡°I think Sainsbury¡¯s will do.¡± At that moment, a fleshy blob snapped through the window and on to my position above. It wasn¡¯t exactly a goop; it was more like a wet blanket, it had solidity to it. Initially, I was grossed out, then I was concerned. It scooped me up, the strength it possessed felt out of place for something so squishy. It flung me down to the pavement below, before Its main body jumped out on top of me beginning to restrict my entire body in seconds. ¡°Do you speak English ¡®ere, you village twat? You know what a sainsbury¡¯s is? Apart from the fucken shop. Das what we agreed on callin¡¯ this maneouve¡¯. Count yourself lucky.¡± He pushed his flesh into my nostrels, and when I gagged for air, down my throat. I stared up at the man, Noah. How many people walk around shirtless? The parts of his body that weren¡¯t stretched and distorted, lacked much, if any muscle definition. He wasn¡¯t fat, he just had a lot of flabby skin. I had an idea of what this stuff was now. He was strong, though I was stronger, it was almost impossible for me to get any kind of grip on him, due to his skin stretching at every point I could reach. He was clearly trying to choke me out, if by a more unorthodox method than unsual. Fortunatly, my body can operate with far less oxygen than the average persons. After overcoming the initial shock of the attack, I used the only weapon I had. Judging from the fact he was shooting this stuff out like a fountain, I¡¯m sure it wouldn¡¯t be too big a deal if I chomped some of it off. After clamping down on the folds in my throat, I arched my neck up, biting on anything, and everything I could. The first scream he let out told me he still had nerves in this stuff, so I figured I could trigger his flight or fight response. The more he backed up, the more mobility I regained, eventually allowing myself to pull the lifeless flesh I had torn from him out of my airways. I panted heavily once I¡¯d jumped to my feat, still assessing the situation. The other two hadn¡¯t made a move yet, they were still on the third floor of the building. Did this mean they couldn¡¯t survive the drop? That they had faith that Noah would take me down on his own? Or were they observing? I pinched the loose strands of skin hanging from my nose and tugged them out, a faint trail of blood, possibly from last Tuesday, clung to one. He shouted some profanities at me, at least I think they were profane, because I didn¡¯t recognise his regional slang. ¡°Hi, my name is Shamrock. I¡¯d typically be angry at you for stickin¡¯ meat down my throat, but I¡¯ll let you off just this once, seeing as- well, you know- seeing as I was spying on you guys. I think we¡¯d all be better off forgiving and forgetting, yeah.¡± I smiled, I would have grinned, were I not still gagging. ¡°Yeah, after I kill you, and every smarmy little fuck in this country. Yeah, then I¡¯ll forget ¡¯bout all this.¡± Bit too hardcore, but whatever. By the time he finished his sentence, his wounded flesh had sealed itself up, returning him to a normal, human form. He stood tall and proud; his hands stuffed into his baggy sweat pants. We were at a standstill for half a minute. I only made a move because I was afraid his back-up might show up soon. I was apprehensive because of his demeanour. Sure, judging from his personality and air, you might think he was just being cocky. But it was that Pugal guy that was on this trip for experience. I¡¯ve judged this guy as being an idiot, but an idiot who¡¯s good at brawling. A guy who¡¯s been in enough fights to think of sme kind of plan. I had two options, like I mentioned earlier, it¡¯s up to fight or flight. But I think I¡¯m just a little better at fighting than flying. I knew something was up with him, I hadn¡¯t seen his second power yet, so naturally I ran in blind. I held back, more than usual, I wanted him to clearly see me coming, to get him to underestimate me. I tried the same technique I¡¯d used on the Pooka, trying to punch through him. Though like I said, I held back a lot. Getting as close as I could, I threw a good straight punch at him. And nothing. Once my fist made contact with his skin, I tried pushing through it, but the consistency of it had changed, it was solid as stone. He didn¡¯t move an inch, there was no sign of the force I¡¯d thrown at him. I jumped away, briefly seeing him pull his right arm from his pocket. Looking back, I probably jumped with the same force as my first night at the Quarter, but with a far greater focus being placed on distance. I didn¡¯t look back, my mind was racing, trying to figure out what just happened. I had consciously pulled the punch, but even still, I hit him hard enough to push Feoli back. He clearly had a different method of dealing with blunt trauma from the Pooka¡¯s, judging from his solidity, I¡¯m assuming it was either some method of multilayering, but that wouldn¡¯t count for the disappearance of the kinetic energy of my punch. It could of course be a result of his second ability- and smash. On the descent of my jump, somebody collides with me mid-air, regardless of my durability, my back cracked a little from being hit at that angle and speed. We landed on the edge of the city park, I myself tumbled upon landing, my assailant bounced to his feet as he landed. Pushing myself to my feet, I watched him toss two objects at me, the first, some sort of fleshy mass I didn¡¯t get a good look at, whizzed by, the second surprised me. He threw it to my left, and it ricocheted off a tree, crashing into my face, before it returned to his grip. I could now see that it was a bowling ball he had thrown, and I could now see- Him? I honestly don¡¯t quite know how to describe what I saw, at least with words. Not because he was some unknowable entity, Clover was right to be confused by his appearance, I had no clue if that thing was his head or a hat. He, like his ally, did not wear a shirt, though like the pink sphere on his head, he had balls covering his nipples. Those few seconds of confusion were enough to cost me, as I felt a sharp pain in my back, the exact place I¡¯d been hit seconds¡¯ ago. I would have crumpled right there, if I didn¡¯t kick myself away once more. Looking back at the pair, I was really confused. Pugal and Noah were standing before me. I thought to myself quickly. Can this guy grow back from a clump of skin? Was that a clump of skin, or some kind of regeneration core? Then there was this Pugal guy, what the actual fuck is his deal? He could survive the jump from the third floor then, Lech wasn¡¯t here (hopefully), does that mean he couldn¡¯t take him along? Does he have a weight limit? Noah did say he needs that thing to make his ability work. What the fuck did he do to that bowling ball? Did he reduce its weight? Increase its elasticity? If he does have a limit to what he can carry when he¡¯s travelling, then that means he¡¯s physically weaker than me, anyway. Not to mention, he has a second ability. Of course, there¡¯s always the chance this is a bluff, or a test, that Lech is observing from afar, or can attack from a distance. I snapped back to reality as Noah shot a right hook at me, which I blocked and countered, wasting no time to hit him as hard as I had Isaac. As I did punch him, I was astonished to find he now had the consistency of a curtain, his body blowing in the aftermath of my punch. He hadn¡¯t built back the full mass of his body. Did this guy have organs? He took advantage of my shock to now successfully hit me with a right hook. I¡¯d compare it to Feoli¡¯s. He¡¯d been aiming for my sore spot the entire time, probably trying to make me falter, but the fact that his punch had done me harm, told me his fist was solid. As I grabbed it, I felt it lose its thickness, but it was too late, I had a grip, and as fast as I could, I flung his body into the trees. I noticed him build up a sort of cushioning around his neck, before I had time to consider what that might mean, Pugal through the ball at me again. It rebounded off me, at a tree, at a street lamp, back to me, off the ground, back to me, back to the tree, before returning to Pugal, who had moved to catch it, so he could throw it again. As he did, I figured it out. He¡¯s really good at bouncing things, maybe just spheres. He must (a) be able to make objects bounce, and (b) be able to predict their trajectory. I based the latter off of the fact that he was supposedly inexperienced, so he probably hadn¡¯t had time to train his aim naturally. I thought of that during the second onslaught of throws, by the third time he¡¯d thrown the ball at me, I dug my foot into the ground, and kicked up a cloud, still getting hit by his ball, but he¡¯d have trouble aiming now. Props to him for grabbing his ball in the dark like that, though he''d have trouble finding me. I felt bad about hitting a guy with a frame like his so hard. He was floored by it. Like Noah had tried to do to me, speaking of whom, I was once again hit by a mass of flesh, and once again I was being smothered. Only now my mouth had been closed shut. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, if Lechslaw shows in the next ten minutes, he¡¯ll probably stop me from killin¡¯ ye.¡± His cocky half smile extended wider, ¡°But ten minutes is a long, long time for someone to find us.¡± Suddenly, it clicked. His head. His eyes, his teeth, they were all completely the same, they¡¯d never ballooned like the rest of him. I had a free arm, though the way his skin smoothed over me inhibited my ability to move. I started throwing pebbles at his face lightly. He laughed, called me an ape. Unlike Pugle, I haven¡¯t a good aim. Once I got the hang of it though, I rocketed a pebble into his eye. Just like earlier, the shock of pain made him reel back, freeing my arm. I reached up, put my index finger in his mouth and my thumb on his chin, and yanked, hoping I was right. Because if I was wrong, I¡¯d dislocate his jaw. Pop. I pulled his head from his shoulders, revealing this strange pulseing organ below his neck, which soon developed a layer of skin around it. I don¡¯t know if his screaming was because of his eye, or because I opened his growing nerves to the air. Regardless, the mass restricting me slumped, tossing it off, I still held him in my hand, his jaw now biting down on my finger, while his new baby arms clawed out for me. As I flung his head onto his old body, I realised that this is where that basket was. Feeling I should say something in its memory, I came up with something on the spot. ¡°Know what makes an idiot? Some people¡¯d say it¡¯s someone who doesn¡¯t know anything, but you wouldn¡¯t call a baby an idiot, right? No, an idiot is someone who tries the same thing again and expects a new result." I grinned at him, "So try something new!¡± before jumping as far as I could. Bash 3.04: Im in a hostage situation! Something really weird? I can still see earlier posts. That¡¯s one point towards this being an illusion created from my mind. That, and the weird comics I¡¯ve found in the drawer. This floor, these curtains, the bed, the walls, the sounds of cars outside, I¡¯m pretty sure none of it is real. Why am I writing this then? If this is all in my head, then what¡¯s the point in writing anything down if nobody will ever see it. Well, another reason I type things out, take a few hours out of my day, is because I like to get it out of my head, it makes the ideas and events feel a little more tangible. No, you didn¡¯t miss a post, I just wanted to get that bit out of the way first. But I¡¯m really not in the mood for microcosmic anecdotes at the moment. Contrary to the clean green walls I find myself comfortably enclosed in, I am in the middle of a life and death battle. I guess the best place to start is where I left off last time right? After doing decently against Pugal and Noah, I retreated into the nearby mountains for the rest of the day. Why did I run miles away from a battle I was winning, a fight in which I had the advantage in strength, skill, and agility? Because I knew for a fact I wasn¡¯t going to survive if I stuck around. I knew some weird shit like this would happen. I didn¡¯t know I¡¯d end up in a room that smells like fucking lavender, but I knew somebody was going to pull some black magic. My first concern was that I had misinterpreted Pugal¡¯s powers, I mean, what I posted the other day was just a guess made during combat. What are the odds of him just being a guy who¡¯s good at bouncing things? Yeah, the hot pink ball on his head makes him look like the sort of guy to have an ability like that, but I¡¯m weird looking and I can level a small building. Probably. Yeah, I can level pretty big building, what¡¯s to say he can¡¯t make my eyes bounce out of my head when he gets serious. I was worried about that on the scene, but while I was jumping away, I considered that the other guy, Lechoslaw, might be way more powerful than these guys, even if they were holding back their real strength. I hadn¡¯t even a clue as to what his actual abilities are, even now I¡¯m guessing this is only one of them at work. So, for about 10 hours I sat in the mountains. There is so much up there you couldn¡¯t even believe it, unimaginable wonders such as: Marshland. Thorn bushes. Sheep singular. Yes, I had all this and 10 hours to think back on every horrible possible torture they could employ in order to kill me, draw me out, or worse, persuade me. Though this floral scented room is nice and all, it will take more to make me bend, so no worries on that front. Somehow this was the first time I had given any thought to them exploiting my ¡®hero¡¯s code¡¯, by threatening literally anyone they¡¯d at least get me to consider joining them as an option. I¡¯m sure Clover¡¯s caught on to that tidbit by now, though to what degree, I¡¯m not sure. I noticed that I also care about dying to a lesser degree from the other two things. Is that normal? To not really value your own life as much as, say, your morals, your identity. I think it¡¯s normal, at least when you haven¡¯t been on death¡¯s door. Most who haven¡¯t will tell you that they would rather jump in front of a trolly to save another person¡¯s life. The weird thing about me in this situation is that even if you told me that was ''puppy strangler Malone'' on the tracks, I¡¯d probably still jump, and I have been on death¡¯s door, arguably through it. Why? Because I want to be a hero. And you could argue that a real hero wouldn¡¯t throw their life away so some asshole can continue strangling puppies, but I think that if I don¡¯t try to strive for that sort of heroism, my own kind of heroism, then nobody else will, right? Under the dark of night, I finally went home, running along the ground to keep a literal low profile. After I took out Lechoslaw¡¯s goons, and from the way he talked about them they were his goons, I¡¯m guessing this has become a little bit more than a simple territory scuffle between me and Clover. I¡¯ve realised I can take down two low ranking Units, but 100? Not to mention that most of them are highly valued, opposed to skin-head. After getting home, did I scout them out again? Did I try and get them by surprise? No. I went home and slept in order to be well rested for an exam in the morning. I figured if I went to sleep at 11, got up at seven, and then studied for 2 hours before the exam, I¡¯d be good. I probably did crap, but I can¡¯t change that now, can I? For a couple days I neglected Shamrock, not because I was afraid, (I¡¯d say I was weary), but because I wasn¡¯t in a good condition, I¡¯ve once again incurred a wealth of injuries over the months, from the Circuit board to the dynamic duo, I¡¯ve had it rough and I¡¯m not too sure about how to go about asking Bob for a 10,000 dollar can of magic foam. I rested my body for a little while, instead of running into another Pooka situation. Jump forward about a week, I¡¯ve done most of my exams, and this nasty cut on my side has finally cleared up, back pain is going away, and I couldn¡¯t stay down for much longer. Remember what I said about jumping in front of trollies is how I hero? Well, if I just sat back and let these Mountain guys move into my city, then I would be sitting by the tracks while people are in the way of harm, wouldn¡¯t I? They could always use Clover¡¯s ability to make us run into each other in the street anyway, so if they are after me, I¡¯d rather seek them out on my own, do this on my terms. I buckled myself up for getting another gash in my side, another semi-permanent type of muscle pain, and probably getting a bowling ball thrown at my ''little green''. Suffice to say, there was no way I was getting out of this without taking damage. Or apparently, getting trapped inside another false reality. I checked the hot spots but everywhere turned up dry, the construction site was hard to get into unseen, and it really wasn¡¯t worth it, all I did while I was there was accidentally jump out in front of one of the builders, guy nearly fell of the damn roof. I caught him though, no harm no foul, right? I checked Clover¡¯s house, but it was completely devoid of life, curtains drawn, lights off, nobody was home, this was really weird because I¡¯d seen Saoirse at school every day. I thought she might have headed back to England, or wherever they¡¯re situated, only waiting for the week to be over so she could finish her tests or something. Then I found a note half wedged in the letter box. It had an address on it, a local hotel, pretty pricey one too. Guess I¡¯m not doing this on my terms after all. This was one of the few tall buildings in Tralee, I don¡¯t know how many stories tall it is, I don¡¯t have much of a reference for that sort of thing, but I had some fun trying to get to the top, I under shot it loads of times because I was afraid of hitting a window or breaking a wall, so there¡¯s a good chance that they saw me at some point. It means I don¡¯t have to make a scene at reception though. In the end trying not to break stuff didn¡¯t matter, because to get into the door on the roof I had to break it. Thing was locked tight. I fumbled about trying to find the exact floor and room. When I did get there, I knocked like an idiot because I thought there was a chance of this being the wrong room, that it might have been some old rich lady. While I was slapping my face, a voice came from beyond the door, ¡°Room service or social?¡± ¡°Try waste disposal you crackety asshole!¡± I said it in a quiet voice, trying not to disturb the neighbours. There was a pause for a moment, I thought about saying it again. ¡°Alright, it¡¯s open.¡± I¡¯ve become weary of opening doors with bad guys behind them. I stood to the side of the door, pressing my finger down on the handle, before kicking it open lightly. I counted to three, and flopped around to face the room, dashing head on into the opening. I scanned the entirety of the hotel room in a few seconds: three rooms other than the one I was in, one to my left was likely a bathroom judging from a towel on the door, the tv was on, muted, though it was angled in such a way that I couldn¡¯t see the screen. In the far-left corner, there were sheets and sheets of newspaper, the sofa had been shifted into the middle of the room, facing the screen. Clover was laying on it lazily, a bowl of crisps on her chest. She looked up to me when I came in, then she stared behind the sofa, the corner adjacent the newspaper pile. Lechoslaw had a revolver pointed at her head. I skidded to a stop, and waited, before I could form an idea of what I was seeing, Lechoslaw spoke to me. ¡°You are Shamrock. Though I already knew that. I am Lechoslaw Limorilow. Though you probably knew that, from the little dialogue you over heard last week.¡± He was¡­ exactly how I¡¯d imagined him. His facial features and build matched his grim tone of voice perfectly, though I¡¯d say he was younger than his voice and marionette lines suggested. His hair was raven black and fell in a hood down to his shoulders, leaving his pale bony forehead exposed. I pieced together that he must be from some eastern European country from a slight accent I¡¯d only now noticed, and him having similar characteristics to many immigrants I¡¯d known locally. He held the gun to her head loosely, however, the impression he gave off was that of someone who knew what they were doing, like he¡¯d been here a thousand times, his eyes certainly supported the feeling; cold dark irises with not a glint of emotion. He dressed for a funeral too, a black overcoat with quite a bit of bulk to it. You might think he had some fat or muscle to him, if he wasn¡¯t betrayed by his knobbed wrists, and his slim trousers. I tried to think of something to say, but I hadn¡¯t planned that far, my mouth hung agape, on the verge of words. ¡°Well?¡± He toned, ¡°Why are you here, hero? You must have a reason for all of this commotion.¡± I motioned to Clover with my head, getting into an offensive stance again. ¡°She¡¯s alright,¡± he answered for her, ¡°She¡¯s agreed to this situation. She said you wouldn¡¯t risk her life, despite you being enemies. I wanted to have you as a captive audience for a few minutes, maybe far, far longer if you don¡¯t play your cards right.¡± I frowned, asking Clover, ¡°And you told him that why?¡± Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Again, Lechoslaw answered for her, ¡°She¡¯s currently deaf. Noah¡¯s work, at my request. I hope it was not a necessary precaution. That relating to my last note on you playing your cards right.¡± I nodded, ¡°Right, I¡¯m playing black jack with two eights. What, I join The Mountain or you blow out a high-ranking members brai-¡± I stopped myself, picking up on a more subtle feature of this Limorilow, a small tattoo of a crown under his left eye. ¡°Shite.¡± I at last said, ¡°You¡¯re on the same level as her? I still doubt you can just kill your peer if theirs a Unit in Ireland you don¡¯t like.¡± I half imagined a raising of his brow, seconds before a bang filled the room. I smashed my hands to my head; Clover didn¡¯t react at all. I waited in horror for her to slump, for blood to begin pooling, I was shaking at the thought of her being dead, just like that. Once again, I was hit with the reality of the situation. What it would really mean if she was dead. I¡¯d be alone. ¡°Hmm.¡± Lech mumbled, ¡°I¡¯d forgotten some of the factors in this, for just a moment. The weight of the gun, the push back, the stickiness of the palm in such a position. Though, all of this can of course be attributed to, as many would call it, good fortune for my ¡®peer¡¯.¡± His tone of voice belonged to that of a smiling face, but his lips still hung low, ¡°A miss.¡± My stance was completely broken, and I again noticed a slight twitch in his black eyes, ¡°I¡¯ll advise you not to misunderstand; I had intended to blow her brains all over this overpriced hotel room, I wouldn¡¯t have covered the floors otherwise. It¡¯s a lowly place, but that doesn¡¯t mean the cleaners should have to scrub as much grey matter from the floors. Though I wonder what they¡¯ll do about the hole in the wall¡­ I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll agree that you are to blame for that, yes? You did not believe me. I simply had to show you, didn¡¯t I? For you to understand.¡± After maybe a minute of shivering, gathering myself, I pulled a bluff that I¡¯d been meaning to play tonight, though I would have liked to do it under more fitting circumstances. ¡°The note you left at her house, that was one stroke of good luck. That was a second. She still has- has two more.¡± I had been meaning to find this out, the specifics of Clover¡¯s primary ability. Even with all the time I¡¯d spent with Clover, I never did find out specifics such as, when she consciously uses her ability does it do what she wants or what she needs? Or the thing I was testing now, is there a limit to how much she could use it? Yeah, bad time for testing, but it was the first thought that came to mind that wasn¡¯t, ¡®oh shit¡¯. Lechoslaw didn¡¯t blink, ¡°Either she told you that out of necessity when she was being attacked by those Americans, a dull move that an amateur might make,¡± He shifted his gaze to the back of her head, ¡°Or perhaps the two of you are closer than I¡¯ve been led to believe.¡± I regretted my actions. He soon looked back at me, ¡°Though I doubt she would put herself in this position if you had any knowledge to give that would do her harm. I think it best that you know the truthr, that she only has one more use of her probability manipulation. Just in case you¡¯re planning on making any rash decisions.¡± I noticed my mouth was dry. ¡°I must admit, yours is a fascinating case,¡± he paused, and for a moment his expression seemed to change, as if were about to say something, but caught himself on at the last minute. ¡°This¡­ fixation with being a ¡®hero¡¯, no doubt inspired by the many cookie-cutter films being mass produced at the moment. I¡¯ve encountered many complexes built around an individual¡¯s powers, but tell me, what exactly does the form of a hero look like? As an emanation of that concept, I¡¯m curious as to how you embody it. In layman¡¯s terms, what does all of this mean? What is your purpose?¡± I tried to formulate an answer as he looked me up and down. ¡°A hero¡­ a hero is someone who- uhm,¡± I thought of how to best condense every hero into one, ¡°A hero is a person who gets into fights with assholes, usually for the betterment of society, or in order to save an individual.¡± ¡°¡¯Betterment of society.¡¯¡± He copied, ¡°And what exactly do you do to achieve such a goal? I don¡¯t see how being able to jump very high or smash things solves any flaws in man¡¯s world. If anything, it is a regressive action you undertake. It would be well and good for you to hunt down beasts, like the Cleaners of a certain Organisation, but this is a sleepy island, old and storied yes, but those stories are past their time, they¡¯ve been burned and buried. I don¡¯t see anything for someone like you here. Unless you somehow believe that ¡®punching¡¯ drug addicts will make any problems disappear? More will be bought and grown, product and customer. Hospitals will still be under staffed, pollution will still be created at an alarming rate, and people will still die in cozied gutters.¡± I licked my lips, the roof of my mouth; not a drop of moisture. ¡°Then this concept, ¡®hero¡¯, it seems to be something you believe in, rather than an idea that has any merit. Where does this faith come from? Could it perhaps lay more so in your second point, saving the individual, an indulgence of a single ego. But when a human being chases an idea with no merit, treating it as something golden, wouldn¡¯t you say that¡¯s to the satisfaction of your own ego? It certainly lines up better with all this mindless brawling you¡¯re doing, the addicts, the scuffle the other week, the very fact you went looking for us, three visitors in your country that, as you are aware from your eaves dropping, were here to simply check in on a comrade. I don¡¯t have much of an excuse for last time, we struck first, other than the fact that it was awfully rude of you to intrude in the first place.¡± He eyed the rim of my mask, ¡°With that information, I¡¯d say you¡¯re just a simple-minded thug.¡± I don¡¯t really know if what he said shook me, or if it was the gun fire earlier. I snorted in some air and jabbed back, ¡°Says the cold-hearted killer. Says the man who associates with, if not is a drug lord. I¡¯m not stupid, or ¡®simple-minded¡¯, it¡¯s obvious that you¡¯re going to cap this monologue with the ¡®join the Mountain¡¯ schtick. You¡¯re not going to break me with some shitty psycho analysis, there is nothing you can offer me.¡± He looked down at his shoes, ¡°If I were a child, I¡¯d have ended this conversation there, the line would have fit like poetry¡­ But I have more to say.¡± Clover laughed at something on the tv, I never found out what she was watching. ¡°I never said you were simple-minded. It was heavily implied with the information I¡¯d presented, but that is not all I know about you, Sham Rock.¡± He pronounced my name strangely. "You have a skilled eye, Mr Thatcher may be a slow man, but he is a seasoned combatant. he admitted to underestimating you, but not to the point where it would have decided the match. He made note of your ability to quickly assess your opponents and form a plan accordingly, you not only defeated him, but you also uncovered his weak points and took advantage of them. Not to mention Pugal, who for reasons that I haven¡¯t yet realised, has had the faith of the crown placed within him. So no, you are not a simpleton, nor are you a common thug.¡± He leered at me from that darkened corner while Clover enjoyed her movie. ¡°You are a hyper effective killing machine. You break men. You can break far more, and with far greater purpose. Do you know what the value of your life is? What all of ¡®Shamrock¡¯ is worth? That is something I shouldn¡¯t have to tell someone as astute as you.¡± That line unnerved me. ¡°I want you to think on the few people from the Mountain you¡¯ve met, excluding Pugal who you know next to nothing about. You have myself, there is no doubt that I¡¯ve earned some ire with this little situation, but I typically spend my time ¡®helping people¡¯. I travel the world, unrestricted by man or nature¡¯s borders. I¡¯ve sought knowledge, I¡¯ve given it freely to those who ask or have need of it. I¡¯ve aided many people, some you might say are even my enemy, not to dissimilar to your approach with Miss Clover.¡± The way he gestured with his free hand, for a second it seemed as if he was going to stroke her, and it made me sick. ¡°I¡¯m sure you know her well by now. Abrasive, poor management skills for one who has been crowned, and caught up in her head far too much. But even with every fault, she has become a central stone in the Mountain, she has become a person that many, including his Majesty, have come to care for.¡± He looked to one of the doors to his left, ¡°And of course, Noah. You heard right. He is a¡­ white supremacist. He believes himself to be of a different breed, despite him having far more glaring genetic defects then any real human. He is a mutant. The malformed spawn of a pregnancy carried out too close to certain substances, who, too cope with what he¡¯s been denied since birth, has grown hateful, and like you, violent.¡± I shouted at him for comparing me to a someone like that, but he cut me off. ¡°But behold! Even he has found pride in something beyond his small world, he has worked with people his baser instincts would repel him from, he treats Pugal with what little respect he can muster. The best is brought out of him. Because all are equal in the range of the Mountain King.¡± ¡°Why is that?¡± I jokingly questioned, ¡°Is it because his royal highness is so pretty everybody stops fighting when he bats an eyelid? Is it because they all believe in this greater good crap? That if you do what you¡¯re told it will pay off in the end?¡± There was a definite lowering of his brow. ¡°Greater good? What do you really know about the Mountain?¡± I didn¡¯t answer. ¡°The goal of the Mountain is a mundane one. One shared with virtually every organisation in human history, perhaps an inevitable due to the very concept and course of society. His majesty seeks for the most delicate path, the hardest and kindest way to get to the finish line.¡± ¡°World domination.¡± I did laugh at that. I said after a good minute, ¡°Wait, so selling drugs in Tralee, Ireland, is all a part of that? What other operations do you have going on, does Pugal steal candy from babies? HA HA! Thanks, you were making too much sense for a second, but now I know you¡¯re a crazy asshole.¡± He was not amused in the slightest. I¡¯m not used to this kind of opponent, the kind that doesn¡¯t care. ¡°There can only be one nation if humanity is to survive. I don¡¯t expect you to understand, but tensions are constantly rising around the world. I¡¯ve seen it. The archaic empirical nature of Russia, the countless warring nations in Africa. This cannot last. And if there methods are used to determine the final nation, then their greatest government investment will be in military arms, and when there is no longer a need for militaries, it will be dumped on peacekeeping. They shall dissuade division, and so they will fall into the trap of shunning progress, real ¡®societal betterment¡¯ will be shunned for tradition. Either this nation will reign till the sun implodes, or unlikely anarchy will destroy civilisation. I can go further into how each option will be brought, but we are shortening on time, the neighbours may have called for the police by now.¡± I once again squared off, getting into a stance that would allow for me to make quick movements if necessary. ¡°It is curious. Can you move faster than this bullet? The distance between us is around 25ft, this bullet need only travel a few inches. There will be a time for you to struggle, to try and close this meagre gap, but not before I am done speaking.¡± I didn¡¯t move, but I stood ready, kept my feet light on the ground. ¡°I want you to imagine, ¡®hero¡¯, a world where you are able to save people, as you claim to do, not just yourself or this city, not even your island. The work you can do with a large budget, trained legions of men, can actually go towards making the world better, now and forever after. No man is an island they say, and so we must be a mountain, many mounds joined together.¡± I looked around the world a bit more before doing anything rash. Clover had started to fidget a little, she looked at me, then at the floor, then back at me. I felt like she was trying to tell me something, or that something was about to happen that I didn¡¯t know about. Lech had been hinting to an insurmountable obstacle, whatever he could do, with paranormal means or with ingenuity, the possibilities were endless. He raised his voice, ¡°Listen when I am speaking, please. You must understand that you are but one in a horde of hundreds, there is nothing you can conceivably accomplish by going against not just us, but the Mladenets, or Schism, hell, if you are as stubborn as you seem, then even the Internationals will prove to be your enemy. You hardly fended off those followers of the Liquid-crystal God, I doubt you¡¯d stand a chance against that fellow from Belfast. Not to mention the coming of June. You do know what happens in June, don¡¯t you?¡± There was another slight shift in his face, as if he were struggling to force out an expression that conveyed any sort of compassion. ¡°No one is saying for you to steal candy from babies, you¡¯ll keep your autonomy and be given more resources, weapons and technology. You could finally put this fa?ade of being enemies with the little Miss to rest. Information on whatever you need, that I can provide personally.¡± The last point I let him make before I shifted my body weight was, ¡°Do you have any idea how you even came upon your ¡®superpowers¡¯?¡± I tried to move sporadically so that whatever he was going to pull would be a little trickier. I swayed to the left, kicking myself off the wall in a zigzag, he commented, ¡°A no, then?¡± He closed the transaction. ¡°Well, just know, that I¡¯d give you the world.¡± Then I was here. At first, I thought he¡¯d covered the room in darkness, made me blind, I jumped up from bed like I¡¯d had one of those dreams where you''re falling. As soon as I got on top of the covers, I realised I was in a different room. I thought that he might have teleported me somewhere, and so I searched with what little senses I had left, I sniffed, opened my ears, closed my eyes to force them to adjust a little faster. Going from the hotel lit by lamps and televisions, to a room with only a slight line of orange from outside, like that of a street light, it can make you think you¡¯re blind. I couldn¡¯t use SP2 to turn on any lights, it can only turn them off, so I darted for the curtains and tore them open. The first thing I noticed was that regardless of my haste, I hadn¡¯t literally torn the thing form the wall, something I¡¯d regularly do when adrenaline is pumping through me. I panted and scanned the streets outside, it¡¯s not anywhere I recognise, seems to be expensive student accommodation, like I¡¯d seen on my visit to Dublin. If I had been teleported, I could be anywhere in the world, hell I could be anywhere in the universe for all I know. So I tried to look at the number plate of one of the cars, but gave up, due to my tired eyes not being able to make out the smaller details. Wait, tired eyes? I wasn¡¯t tired earlier, I was sore, but I got eight hours of sleep last night. It was at this point I realised that I wasn¡¯t sore. I felted an area that was sore on my back, only to find that I was out of my suit. I clenched up, slammed my hands to my head, my mask gone- my mask is gone! Then after feeling a little bit more, I realised I had a haircut, or had it treated, or something. I turned to the slightly better lit room, and searched the walls with a hand covering the upper half of my face. Finally, I found it, wincing as the world was brightened up. After flickering my eyes, a little, I could take in my surroundings better. I looked around the room. Green walls, poster of some superhero that looked like a knockoff, and a mirror. I screamed a little, nearly falling on my ass. I moved, and the reflection followed. But it wasn¡¯t me, no way that was me. I looked at my teeth which seemed to be unnaturally white, never mind my normal jaw being appealing, this guy¡¯s was flawless. He had a boyish look to him, his bright green eyes definitely helped. He didn¡¯t have any bags under his eyes, and his complexion was clean as soap. I looked at it for a long time, just the face alone, then I moved down to the rest of my body. Fucking jacked, lean as all hell. I pulled some flexes, and every single muscle put me to shame. At first, I thought he¡¯d switched my bodies, that would explain this freaky Friday BS. Then I noticed a birthmark, my birthmark. I won¡¯t say what or where, but it was definitely me in the mirror. This was me. Even when I contorted my face in bewilderment, it was still annoyingly handsome. No, it isn¡¯t my face. This isn¡¯t real, it can¡¯t be. I searched drawers, everywhere in that room, and found a few of my personal objects, among a wealth of comics and other iconography I¡¯d never be able to afford. Finally, I came across a phone, it looked to be even more expensive than the one Saoirse had given me as a gift. I had one last idea that I dreaded. That this guy had somehow been mind controlling me for sometime, forcing me to join up with the Mountain, and that all of this stuff, my new face, were all bought with immoral means. But it was the exact same time as it had been in the real world, down to the date. And that¡¯s the conclusion I¡¯ve landed on for now, that none of this is real, it¡¯s some sort of psycho manifestation brainreality-thing. I don¡¯t know. Whether it is entirely made from my psyche, or is being messed with by his intentions somehow, I don¡¯t know, but I am certain that all of this is incredibly screwed. Especially these abs. That brings us full circle. I can still log into this account. Hours have passed, and the sun is rising, I think that might be a good time to explore just beyond that door. I can¡¯t forget that everything in here is an attack, not just on my life, but my very identity. Once I get out of here, I intend to hit him just as hard. Bash 3.05: I am happy. I¡¯ve lost my powers. Even the weird one. I didn¡¯t notice at first, I guess having all my past injuries removed counteracted the feeling of having a body that can survive a drop from hundreds of feet in the air, but here I am, struggling to do a few hundred squats. I don¡¯t know why, but I was hesitant to open the door, by this point I was stalling. This whole place was unnerving, off putting, too clean. It screwed with me at the time. But eventually I noticed noises, and so I started to stretch, to prepare myself for what monsters I¡¯d find outside. That¡¯s when I noticed it was gone, there was too much strain on my joints. I tried to turn the lights off with SP2, nothing. I gritted my teeth. I might be happy, if it weren¡¯t for the fact that something was walking around out there. It was at 9 in the morning that I put on some of the clothes in that room. None of it was the sort of stuff I¡¯d normally wear, far too expensive from its quality, though I didn¡¯t recognise the brand. Just a blue T-shirt and jeans. It wasn¡¯t just my need to get out of here that pushed me out of the door, I was getting hungry. If this is an illusion, it mimics the weird noise my stomach makes when it¡¯s empty to a T. The door led to a hallway that probably had a greater volume than my room in the real world. There was an eccentric vase with a vibrant pink flower, I thought about searching the drawer it was sitting on, but then I heard someone walking around downstairs. It was certainly familiar. I twitched a little at the heavy footedness of the individual. My forehead creased. I don¡¯t know why, I guess it made me a little disturbed that whatever this was had made a copy of her. I tiptoed down the stairs slowly. I wasn¡¯t trying to hide, but the same thing that made me wrinkle up made me weary of even seeing how she was remade. I descended down a curved staircase, it led to a foyer, which in the morning sun alongside the family photos and other keepsakes, was warm and homely. Warm. For the past few months, the heating in my mum¡¯s has been off, this is a feeling I haven¡¯t gotten in a long, long time. I followed the clatter of cutlery and the sound of cooking on a pan. I held onto the door frame with one hand, the other tensed. There she was, my mother. I started to pick at the paint of the door frame. ¡°Are you gonna stand there till the eggs burn or what?¡± Her voice caught me off guard. It was still her voice, but it was in some American accent. My expression intensified. She had her back to me, she was a little smaller, or maybe I was a little taller, apart from that, she was exactly the same. Her dressing gown fell over her stout body, and she danced funnily to a song that was being played on the radio. ¡°Yeah¡­¡± My voice was a little deeper. ¡° ¡®Yeah¡¯ meanin'' you¡¯ll let them burn? Because you¡¯re not 10, you can dish out your own breakfast.¡± I laughed, and moved slowly to the cooker only after she had moved to the dish washer, maintaining a distance. This is an attack, I reminded myself. ¡°You¡¯re up early.¡± As it slipped out from my own lips, I wondered if I was talking in an accent as well. ¡°What?¡± She was confused. ¡°Today¡¯s my day off, if anything I¡¯m up late. That reminds me, you were up late last night, I thought you said you weren¡¯t on the night patrols anymore.¡± Patrols? ¡°Uh,¡± I thought of an excuse, ¡°They couldn¡¯t get anyone else, they needed me.¡± I took two of the five eggs sitting out, and a slice of bacon from another pan. Even the breakfast here reeks of americana. She finally faced me; I kept my gaze down at the food. not wanting to look her in the eye. ¡°Sammuel Burrows, you can¡¯t carry the world on your back forever. You''re no Atlas.¡± She walked over to the pan, as I sat down at the table, she noticed, ¡°You are acting weird! That¡¯s the first time I¡¯ve seen you eat bacon in years! You getting rid of that six-pack after all this time?¡± I murmured out a response, still trying to look at her face. ¡°No, I¡¯m just¡­ trying it.¡± I was nearly there. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me that girl you brought over said she likes guys with love handles. Or is it that you¡¯ll never have muscles as big as mine? UWAAGH!¡± This was definitely my mum; it was the exact flex she''d pull in real life. I looked at her and smiled. She had a healthy colour to her, she was glowing. I forked a slice of bacon and a full egg and forced it down. ¡°Are you alright?¡± as soon as she asked, my eyes went wide. ¡°What?¡± This wasn¡¯t normal. ¡°Honey, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be alright, maybe bulk up a bit, you¡¯ll catch up with me.¡± She was joking now, but she¡¯d asked the question with sincerity. I laughed, ¡°Yeah, I¡­¡± I fell, my voice, struggled to get out. Not really choking up, more so not knowing how to reply. She put her hand on me, held me, ¡°Listen Sammy, I know you feel like you need to be there for everyone, to support them, but you can¡¯t be there for everyone, and you can¡¯t be there for anyone if you don¡¯t look after yourself. Remember what Mr Grey said when you started under him, if things every get too hectic, don¡¯t be afraid to take a breather. Well, he said drop out of the program, but I know you. Once you¡¯ve got your heart set on something, you don¡¯t give it up. That¡¯s the sort of man I raised.¡± She smiled wide and I replied, ¡°Thanks Ma.¡± She brushed my hair, then went back to the pan. As I finished up my meal, I heard a piano. I mistook it for the radio at first, then my mum commented, ¡°Ugh, there he goes. Can you shut him up?¡± ¡°What are you talking about?¡± The question must have seemed stupid to her, ¡°You know, once he¡¯s in the mood for that carry on, he won¡¯t stop unless you play with him for a while. At least it won¡¯t sound half as bad, eh?¡± She winked and I turned my gaze back to the foyer, towards the room opposite the kitchen. I picked myself up, and even more cautious than before, I approached the song. At least I knew who my mother was, I hadn¡¯t the foggiest clue who this could be. As I was crossing over, I took another glance at a family picture. A photo of a family. I was far too old in it. I walked in stiff as a board, his back was to me. I bit the knuckle of my thumb. I would have started weeping if I didn¡¯t. He just kept playing, I¡¯d assume he heard me come into the room, if he weren¡¯t enthralled. Could he even do this in the real world? No one¡¯s ever told me if he could. ¡°Bach has been on my mind since last night. I¡¯m thinking about some of his greatest hits! This isn¡¯t a necessarily complicated one, it¡¯s pretty short and simple.¡± I slid a few inches closer. ¡°¡®The Well-tempered Clavier: first Prelude.¡¯ at least I think it is. Yeah, it¡¯s something like this.¡± He continued to play, the closer I got, the shakier I got. After a few minutes he¡¯d gotten the hang of it, ¡°Pull up a stool.¡± I couldn¡¯t even manage a ¡®what?¡¯ at this point, making a weird sound instead. He smiled, his teeth far less white, but it certainly had a charm. ¡°Come on it¡¯s been a while, but the memory is in your bones, it''s in your soul, just follow my lead, son.¡± I took some time then it came to me, this talent that I have never even pursued, it came to me like I¡¯ve been practicing it for years. My reaction was beyond confusion, it was amazement. I smiled with a fallen jaw, I looked back and forth between my dad and the keys. The window to our left was wide open, and wind blew through the gap, it wasn¡¯t draughty, it was warm and pleasant, and it carried strange smells on its current. It was a scent I must have forgotten, it filled me with nostalgia. But this is an attack. This is an attack. I was twenty minutes into playing the piano with my dad when I got up, excusing myself. ¡°I have to get ready to go out, Mum said you should stop playing too.¡± I was about to escape the room, when he asked, ¡°You going to be back for the party, aye?¡± I looked back, ¡°Yyyeah.¡± He laughed, ¡°I know that tone.¡± He said, ¡°You get like that when you¡¯re trying to remember something you¡¯ve forgotten. I can¡¯t believe you¡¯re ¡®al ma was right. You have been working hard, and working harder recently if you¡¯re doin¡¯ the night and morning shift.¡± If there is something I do when I¡¯m trying to bluff; it would definitely ruin my needed poker face. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t say that, I¡¯m just going for a run. I¡¯ll be back soon; I promise not to miss it.¡± He laughed bubbles, ¡°That would be a riot, wouldn¡¯ it?¡± I smiled, and wondered if he was actually anything like this. I don¡¯t think so. I found a pair of shoes much like the ones I wear as Shamrock, slipped ¡®em on and went for the door. ¡°You not taking that bag of yours?¡± My mum spied in from the kitchen, and I, wanting to find a way out of here quickly, I asked her where this bag was. She was confused, pointing to a backpack lying by the foot of the stairs. It had some weight to it, which is a sensation I haven¡¯t felt for a long time. Instead of opening it, I threw it on my back and walked out slowly. ¡°I¡¯ll be back soon!¡± I don¡¯t know who I was trying to reassure with that line. I thought the world outside of that house might be some insane dream dimension, buildings floating in the sky, monsters, staircases that led to nowhere, that sort of thing. But it wasn¡¯t. Every earlier glimpse of the outside was just that, a single pleasant fragment of a greater emanation. It was the same time of the year back home, but in this place, it felt like we were well into summer, compared to Ireland that is. It might have been sweltering, if not for the great gusts of wind that tempered the street, they complemented each other perfectly. I started running through it. The streets were busy, more so than Tralee, but you could tell it was a residential area, the roads weren¡¯t chalk full of cars. I still had ample room to run about, scanning around, I was certain I¡¯d never seen architecture like this, the buildings were brick red, and disregarding their repetitive design, you could tell that they were built well and strong, the sheer size was dwarfing. It was exhilarating. Not just this place, but the feeling of running again. My legs were far from tired, but they felt far more strain than my real body, I was panting despite my physique. I stopped myself around a maple tree, its branches, and the branches of other maple trees further down the road were still red, again, this was contrary to the date being spring. I stood there, and let the sun stream down through the leaves on me, I told myself it was to test whether or not the temperature would still be perfect if I sheltered myself from the wind or the sun, but in reality, my ape brain just wanted to admire the natural beauty of this place. I was beginning to miss my powers just a little bit, I would have liked to have seen this city from the air. I suddenly heard the sound of a plane cutting through the sky, people on the street stopped to look, some of the older ones with places to be kept walking. I walked out from under the tree to see what they were all starring at a plane for? It sounded as if it was low to the ground, still a while off though. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The rumbling of the air became louder, the wind ripping under a greater force, then I saw them. It was a human being, a woman to be more precise. There was no plane, no chopper. Just a human being booming through the sky, smashing the air with enough force to rustle the leaves on the pavement below. She wore a blue and white jumpsuit, it was slimmed down to reduce drag, her fists pushed forward like an arrowhead. And I watched from the ground wide eyed, until she pierced through a cloud. I looked up for what felt like forever, maybe it was an eternity that went by. My eyes darted to different angles of that infinite void. The sky seemed golden, and I at once forgot what all of this truly was, it had become my personal paradise. I bated my wet eyes after hearing the sound of the phone I found- my phone ringing. It was through a popular social that I don¡¯t have in real life. I recognised the caller from name and face. ¡°Clover?¡± I shouted into the phone. She replied, ¡°Heya Sam, just wondering when you want to meet up. You even out of the house? Yesterday was pretty hectic, with that fight against Fun-pool, I wouldn¡¯t blame you for being late to the meetup at mission control.¡± I glowed as bright as the sky, despite her also having the same American accent as my mum, it definitely felt like Saoirse, or I guess as Sam knew her in here, Clover. ¡°Yeah, let¡¯s meet up now! Where are you? Actually, uh, can you come to me? I went for a run and got lost.¡± Her laugh was spot on. ¡°That is SO like you, older but no wiser, huh? I¡¯ll read your tracker and be down in a few, minutes. We still on for tonight?¡± I didn¡¯t know what she was talking about, but I reassured her that everything was fine. ¡°Alright, See you soon babe.¡± My face froze, my legs stopped pacing. What the fuck did she just say? Did she just- no way, maybe ¡®babe¡¯ means something else here¡­ No, no, no that wasn¡¯t real, was it? Yeah, none of this is real, it¡¯s an attack, remember? Yep, yep this isn¡¯t real, it¡¯s some sort of psycho prison, a warped reality brought about by my subconscious. Goosebumps ran over my body. My skin went red and hot. Wait a mother fucking second, no. There is no way in hell that something like that, that deep down I¡­ I smashed both fists into my eyes, and started to ground them in. Nope. Fuck that, she¡¯s my friend, she¡¯s my friend, that bastards fucking with me! This is because of him interfering with my mind, yeah, yeah. I started to walk around the small circle of dirt that held the great tree. Reaffirming to myself the same scattered thoughts over and over again. That this is some twisted dream. I lost track of time but she finally showed. She looked at me with a cheeky grin, and I backed up a step. She was dressed for the warm weather. She was wearing a crop top I¡¯d seen her in before, and keeping with the Americanization, she wore a green varsity jacket engraved with a J. Down below, she had a, uhm, well she was wearing really short¡­ shorts. ¡­ No, this body was fucking with me, the guy in black was fucking with me, this is too- She started to walk over to me half circling, laughing when she got close enough, ¡°Haha, you got lost here? Come on. You¡¯re a meat head, but I¡¯d thought you¡¯d be able to recognise a street you¡¯d walked down every day for the past 2 years.¡± She widened her lips, and before she could get any closer, I moved. ¡°Uhh I think we should get going. Come on, we¡¯ve got stuff to do.¡± I pointed down the street, and she made a guess, half her smile falling away, ¡°Really? You know, for a guy who doesn¡¯t have any special skills, you sure are obsessed with work, huh?¡± She teased, ¡°It really seems like you¡¯re compensating Sam.¡± She put her hands in her pockets, and started to walk off down the street. ¡°Your Granma making the cake, or is it store bought?¡± I cringed at the idea of my granny trying to bake a cake. ¡°Store bought, at least I hope so.¡± Clover laughed wildly, ¡°Huh? You getting sick of the ¡®best bakery in Goldeye City?¡± I laughed at the irony of this version of my granny cooking something other than champ, and actually being good at it. ¡°You¡¯re so weird.¡± She said, reminding me of when the real Clover said that to me. I thought I knew the answer, but I still asked, ¡°How so?¡± She began, ¡°You really are an idiot if you can¡¯t realise that much. You¡¯re not the only guy without¡­ special skills you know. Axel¡¯s not using his spare time to go for 100km runs, I don¡¯t have any offensive abilities, but you don¡¯t see me doing 10,000 push ups a day. I don¡¯t know what you have to prove. You¡¯ve got nothing. But time and time again you put yourself on the line, even when everyone tells you not to. There are people far better suited for this but you''re so determined to keep going at this. You never faulter. How do you do it Sam?¡± I spaced out a little, ¡°I thought you said I was weird, not a badass.¡± She got angry, ¡°What part of that seems bad ass to you?? Like, there¡¯s no way you don¡¯t feel inferior in comparison to, I don¡¯t know, Sham-¡± She closed her mouth and eyed the crowds around us. ¡°Point is, I don¡¯t see how you can keep up with this, I don¡¯t try to keep up with the high tiers, I¡¯ve got no shot, but you can? That¡¯s just freaky.¡± I laughed, she sulked, and I gave her an answer. ¡°I¡¯m just trying to do my best. If I do any less, than I¡¯m not doing this right.¡± I smiled, finally understanding what this version of me¡¯s ¡®job¡¯ was. She didn¡¯t seem satisfied with my answer. ¡°If you didn¡¯t have beef grating abs, we¡¯d never be together, I hope you know that.¡± I would have laughed, if I wasn¡¯t now wondering if that was true. A ringing came from both my bag, and Clover¡¯s pocket. ¡°Shit.¡± She muttered, ¡°Guess you got your wish. We¡¯ve got work.¡± She looked at me sadly, then smiled, turning to go down a conveniently dark alleyway. I looked after her, then once I say her stripping down, I again pounded my fists into my eyes. ¡°What are you doing??¡± she asked calmly, standing barefoot, and bare-everything-else I¡¯m assuming. ¡°Come the fuck on, it¡¯s probably Fun-pool. We¡¯ll be done in 20.¡± I walked into the alley. Slamming my bag on the surprisingly dry ground. One thing that I can¡¯t believe is that this hovel doesn¡¯t smell of piss, it¡¯s just some black bin bags and scrap metal, completely unrealistic. After about 5 seconds she was fully suited, when I finally did look in her direction, I was astonished by how fast she was. I was fumbling the zipper of the pack. ¡°You really should consider getting one of these compact suits, it¡¯s way easier than carrying all your stuff in that old bag.¡± She was wearing, a head set with a rabbit ear motif, a domino mask hid a little bit of her face, but I think you could still recognise her without it, especially if she walked in front of the crowd who¡¯d just seen a teenage girl walk into a back alley. Her outfit was mostly dark green and black, with the only other colour standing out in the shadow of the two buildings being her brown boots, which continued the rabbit theme. I thought about it for a second, and I guessed that she must be pulling off of the idea of a rabbit¡¯s foot bringing luck. ¡°I like my suit," I answered, "It¡¯s got sentimental value.¡± I finally got past the zipper, peering in on an unfamiliar costume. I lifted up a sleeve, feeling the high-quality material, and I mean higher quality than anything I¡¯ve ever seen let alone felt. It was a lighter green than my Shamrock costume, with yellow complementing it. There was all kinds of equipment in there, heavy duty steel soled shoes, some sort of ball bearing attached to a long carbon fibre cable. I thought it strange that I had no medical equipment what-so-ever, what was I supposed to do if a civilian got injured? I put it on as best I could, slinging the long cable over my shoulder in a loop. I too had a domino mask, leaving my hair out in the open, and my facial expression fully readable. I grinned at her, a little giddy playing dress up, and she laughed at me. ¡°What¡¯s with that look?? You look like Hand-Made just teleported in.¡± She looked behind her, just to make sure. I finally asked, ¡°Where are we going?¡± To which she responded, ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± We stood there awkwardly for a while, until a mechanical whir built up over head. ¡°Our rides here,¡± She finally pointed out. Two drones squeezed into the alley, I recognised their designs, they were most likely made by Axel. Well, they weren¡¯t made. This isn¡¯t real. It¡¯s a trap, an attack. Right? They lifted us up with two arms, automatically buckling us in, and flying us off to our target. This gave me the chance to see the city. It stretched on forever. I don¡¯t have much of a reference for real cities, but this place had sky scrapers for miles on end, and we were heading deeper in, just off the outskirts of what I assume is the city centre, it resembled a mountain more than anything man made. We finally landed alongside another drone, carrying another costumed individual that I didn¡¯t recognise at first. A tall brown-haired woman who wore some kind of armour and circlet. It was Nordic in style, she seemed like a melee fighter from the focus on keeping her mobility and range of movement open, her joints were exposed. What made zero sense was the fact that she was wearing a short skirt. I again blamed Lechoslaw for implanting me with weird stuff like this. We landed in a large open space, sort of like times square from New York, but without the staircase. It was a little over half the size of a football field, to our backs was a main road that had been blocked off, it was about a third of the width of the area we¡¯d been dropped in, the rest of the area was filled with relatively short towers, onlookers scrambled to get out of our way. ¡°I hate this whore.¡± Clover said, before greeting the warrior, ¡°HIII! OMG, I had no idea you were back in town! Did Hand-Made not think you were doing a good enough job on your own?¡± The armoured woman turned to face her, and I at once recognised her cold glare. ¡®FEOLI?¡¯ I nearly blurted out. For some reason her skin wasn¡¯t blue, her hair wasn¡¯t dirty, and I think she was wearing makeup? ¡°Don¡¯t waste my time. Fun-pool made some new friends.¡± She charged off into the centre of the shopping district, not telling us what that meant. ¡°Tch¡­¡± Clover clearly didn¡¯t like her attitude, that¡¯s how I¡¯d imagine them being in real life if they ever met. Except, Clover¡¯d probably try to kill Feoli for being an enemy on her territory. And vice versa. ¡°Green, you get him from the right, I¡¯ll go from the left, shout if you run into any trouble.¡± She seemed more coordinated than usual. ¡°Ok.¡± I still had no clue who this Fun-Pool guy was, but there were people here, so I couldn¡¯t waste any more time. I looped to the right, zoning in on a large man with tons and tons of spikes fighting a guy dressed in blue and red. Neither of them looked like a ¡®Fun-pool¡¯ though. I heard Clover shouting, ¡°Green! 2 O¡¯clock! On high!¡± I looked in that direction, and nearly started to laugh. It was Pugal. Even though he was 10 stories high; I could still recognise him. He wasn¡¯t even a little different, well, he was wearing yellow instead of pink, but that¡¯s it. I thought back on my fight with him in the real world, surely this couldn¡¯t be much different. Piece of cake, I thought. Then he started dumping gym balls off the side of the building, each as big as my torso. I suddenly realised that I couldn¡¯t fight him. One of those would literally crush me flat. So I ran to the side and diverted civilians that were in the trajectory of the ten or so balls that were now bouncing around the plaza. I was doing a good job, occasionally checking in with the others, they were preoccupied fighting the spikey guy. I thought about ways that we could take out Pugal, the first that came to mind was just getting one of those drones to lift me up to him, but I had no clue how to phone in. Eventually I noticed two girls that had fallen down, trying to be a hero, I ran over to help them up, and make sure they weren¡¯t trampled. But I noticed the crowd wasn¡¯t stampeding, that made me notice the minimal property damage as well. That¡¯s right, I have to remember. I have to remember that none of this is- One of the balls was bouncing in at us fast from across the street, I didn¡¯t have time to move them out of the way, and so I did what I would have done as Shamrock in that situation. I went to catch it. Every single muscle in my body screamed out as the metal ball slammed into my chest. My legs were on the verge of buckling, my torso nearly caved in, and my arms were nearly torn trying to stop its momentum. I gritted my teeth, and grinned, I grinned wider than I¡¯ve ever done before. This was it. This was the point of everything. The fight against the odds, being an inch away from death, saving people, really saving people! This is what I¡¯ve always wanted! Around a minute after it had flung into me, I finally slumped forward, setting it down. I turned to the girls, who were still lying on the ground behind me. ¡°Don¡¯t worry ladies, I¡¯ve got everything under control!¡± I directed my grin towards them, and their fears faded, they got up, thanked me and ran off. It was a fufiling sight, the two of them acting like sane people, orderly escaping from the fight. But I wasn¡¯t satisfied. I ran over to the group fighting, and shouted to Feoli, ¡°Hey! Think you can give me a boost?¡± She looked at me confused, until I pointed to Fun-pool. She took a break from the brawl to throw me like a hammer toss, but before she did, I shouted to Clover, ¡°Wish me luck!¡± She must have, because I made it to the top just fine, kicking the villain upon my arrival. I was still unsatisfied, I had to do more, give me more! I¡¯m on the verge of ecstasy! Then I looked up. The fantasy was shattered. I remembered. I remembered what it really feels like to fight against horror, against a real danger. The Gator was looming over me. That¡¯s right. I¡¯m not a hero. I¡¯m not a superhero. They aren¡¯t real. There is no hero. No one is coming to save me. That is the reality. But I¡¯m not in reality right now, right now I¡¯m in some fictious world, whether it¡¯s an illusion, or a mindscape, or whatever. So, he did come. The hero. He rocketed in from nowhere and punched into its faux head, the titanic machine went flying. With a grinding roar. The thing was gone as soon as it appeared, and the sky was golden again. He looked at me, the strange tassel on his head, bellowed in the wind, his cape following as he stood against the glowing background. His skin was pale, offsetting the green of his costume. The only thing I didn¡¯t recognise was the symbol on his chest, it was some sort of Celtic knot. I¡¯ll have to look that up when I get out of here. He starred at me, I waited for him to smile, to grin. But he never did. Not even as he flew away. So¡­ perhaps he wasn¡¯t my hero after all. A few minutes passed, and I had managed to tie Pugal up with the wire. I also took the time to catch myself on, to compile what I¡¯ve learnt. Not a lot. There¡¯s no obvious way out of here, it seems similar to the real world, but there are things that don¡¯t make much sense, the behaviour of the people on the streets below, the fact that I just happened to climb to a good spot to observe Shamrock smash my greatest enemy, and of course, the fact that alley didn¡¯t smell like shit. I reread my notes from the night before, focusing on what Lechoslaw said about us ¡®being here for a little while or a very long time.¡¯ I wondered if that meant I¡¯d be stuck her for days. I even considered that this might be a, ¡®die in the dream, die in real life¡¯ scenario. Or maybe it was the opposite. I leaned over the edge. I was probably high enough to do the- Before I could finish my thought, three individuals appeared on the roof, there presence made clear by a crackling from one in particular. I turned around to face them, a floating man, a shapely woman, and a hunched figure in all black. The first, the floating man, was the source of the crackling. Some sort of golden thunder came from his eyes as he floated a few feet above his allies, centring himself in the middle behind them. It was hard to look at him directly, so I hardly saw his costume. I think it was white, yellow, with a hint of red? The woman was walking towards me. She wore a silver catsuit, with padding for defence. There was a sort of blue glow to her, and her hair was same colour. It was shaved around one side, and the top of her scalp had been grown out to compensate for its loss. Her eyes were covered by a bulky mechanical visor, it circled around half her head. It too was beaming with blue between the crevices of steel. I tried to get a better look at the third, but the woman spoke to me, ¡°Good job taking Fun-pool out Green, did you see which way He went?¡± I guessed who they were talking about. ¡°No. He disappeared as soon as he sent the Gator back into orbit.¡± I half noticed the dark figure turn his gaze to me, though it was hard to tell, his eyes were covered, the only skin he showed was his lower jaw, which was stubbled from the little I saw. ¡°Damn.¡± The woman turned with her hands on her hips, ¡°Right, here¡¯s the plan boys, me and Grey will go done there for the cameras, while Golden eyes goes after the vigilante.¡± He smiled, winked, and blasted off into the horizon, I nearly lost my footing from the air pressure. The silver woman caught me by the shoulder. ¡°Come on kid. No point taking any detours down.¡± Instantaneously we were on the ground, standing in front of the flashing lights of cameras and the foam of microphones. It wasn¡¯t the same sensation of Lech¡¯s ability, you couldn¡¯t feel that, this silver lady¡¯s power still allowed for you to feel the change in wind, temperature, and noise. In other words, more disorientating. After the crowd quieted some, the black figure began to speak in a grave voice. ¡°South gold plaza was attacked by a combined force of villains, Fun-pool, the organiser of this attack has been apprehended after being at large for weeks. Him, and another co-conspirator calling himself ¡®Crockosmile¡¯ have been taken to separate high security facilities by Hand-Made to ensure they never attempt to commit another act of chaos in their lives.¡± I looked for the silver woman, but couldn¡¯t find her. I guess that means she¡¯s this Hand-Made person I keep hearing about. ¡°This act of justice was not carried out by the main force of Unity, but rather the young Units beside me today, Hand-Made¡¯s sidekicks, Rabbit¡¯s foot and Sea-Stalker. Along with my own side kick, Green.¡± The shock was clear on my face when I turned to him, He stopped to inspect me, his mouth open, as if he was going to whisper something. ¡°-And Blue-man, who¡¯s recently begun working under Faberg¨¦. These young heroes have apprehended two villains on their own. They would have apprehended the third, the Gator, if a... wanted, dangerous vigilante hadn¡¯t taken justice into his own hands. Any new information concerning ¡®Shamrock¡¯ will be rewarded upon confirmation of its validity. For the time being, stay safe, look out for your neighbour, and remember,¡± He seemed to look at me through the ink black fabric of his cowl. ¡°-There¡¯s only one earth.¡± Bash 3.06: I took up an apprenticeship. It was an awkward flight to Grey¡¯s base. Not only was the cockpit of his plane cramped, he wasn¡¯t great for conversation himself. Not that I really had anything to talk to him about as far as I knew, I¡¯d never met this man in my life. And for some reason I was his sidekick? I was just his legacy character? ¡°Uh, what did you want to talk about, Grey?¡± He didn¡¯t respond for some time. I had no clue what my relationship with this guy was even supposed to be like. ¡°The new vigilante.¡± He started, ¡°Shamrock. We know next to nothing about them, their powers and motives are a mystery. Travels the world averting disaster, that¡¯s it. I want to compile my notes back at the manor. Any information you can provide on their fighting style will be much appreciated, Green.¡± I smirked, ¡°He hit ¡®em pretty fast, if he was using some kind of technique, I didn¡¯t see it.¡± The expression seemed pointless in the hot black glass cage. He continued on to his objective, paying no attention to my comment. He didn¡¯t tell me anything else for the entirety of the trip. It gave me some time to think on the situation. I was still no closer to getting out of here, for all I¡¯d known, hours had already passed in the real world, maybe longer. If they wanted to kill me, they probably could, either through Clover¡¯s critical hit, or by strangling me, as Noah had attempted. I felt like I was wasting my time, like this stuff was a side quest I had decided to go down when the main story was laid out in front of me. That was a strong feeling throughout the entire experience, that the exit was right in front of me but I was refusing to go through it. Something keeps pulling me back in. Rather suddenly, we began to slow down, the plane thumping to a landing after the anti-grav turned down. As the glass dome slide back over our heads, he leapt out with the efficiency that comes from doing something over and over. I made sure to look before I leapt, or rather, crept out of the vehicle. The manor, if you preferred the term over castle, was in a serious state of disrepair. It looked like a fake haunted house from the roosting crows and battered wooden beams. I turned to observe my surroundings. I got a little agoraphobic from the sprawling mountainside he¡¯d flown me out to. The place was in the middle of nowhere, that, and the enigmatic nature of Grey, disturbed me. I followed him in through the front door. Surprisingly there was a touch screen planted in the wooden wall of the tight foyer. ¡°Give it your finger print.¡± I looked to him, expecting for him to elaborate a little more. He didn¡¯t. First, I pressed my index finger against it, when that didn¡¯t work, I pressed my thumb against it. And when that didn¡¯t work, I pressed my left thumb against it. I laughed sheepishly as it opened. He allowed me to walk out in front of me, into the dark opening. He followed, and the door closed behind him. And I was submerged in the darkness. ¡°I had one imperative rule for him to work under me. One thing to remember. You failed three times. The first thing that tipped me off was the slight change in your mannerisms, not to mention the distance you put between yourself and Rabbit¡¯s foot.¡± The voice came from all around me, at first, I thought this was one of his powers, but after listening, fumbling around, they were definitely coming from fixed points in the room. Speakers? I didn¡¯t get a chance to think on it, a quick and heavy high kick hit me with a thud. as I shifted my posture to face the attack, it came from another angle, then he hit me head on, an uppercut with his palm, meant to break my nose, but I was already blocking mainly my, throat and stomach, but I caught him just the same. As soon as I felt him, I reacted, jabbing with my right. I barely grazed his suit, feeling now that it was heavily protected. Even if I landed a hit, it wouldn¡¯t matter, I¡¯d never get through to his flesh. I¡¯m only human. I tried to use the only thing I¡¯d been left with, myself. ¡°That¡¯s right, I¡¯m not Sam! I¡¯m Shamrock! But I¡¯m not the guy flying around! I don¡¯t know how this is going to sound to you, but I¡¯m not your enemy! You¡¯re not even real!¡± The brutality of the attacks ramped up, like he was trying to squeeze something out of me, he was shattering my defences now. ¡°This world is an illusion built- Pht!- built around my psyche! I¡¯m in a fight with- with a guy in the real world, Lechoslaw Limorilow, he¡¯s trapped me in here in order to break my spirit, so I¡¯ll serve him and his master! I kept my guard up, despite it seeming like a fruitless endeavour now. After shuffling about on my feet for a while, I realised he was done. I jerked done my arms, and waited for him to do something else. Flood lights came on overhead, slowly lighting up the entirety of the facility, which I could now see as the vast horde of tech and armaments it was. He was sitting over at a pair of monitors, I only noticed him after he spoke up, ¡°If you know that, then no matter who you really are, there is no further threat you can pose to me by seeing this. You said you were Shamrock, but not, what is that supposed to mean? Some sort of hyper versal consciousness? Two halves of the same coin?¡± I blinked, and rubbed the side of my arm, ¡°Uh, what? You¡¯re done just- just like that? What did I say to convince you?¡± He didn¡¯t look back. His mask was brightened by the dim light of his desktop. He raised an arm, and lifted a flap on the back of his cowl. After punching in a code, a slight stream of gas fshed out. ¡°Not much point keeping it on anymore, is there?¡± Then he flapped the full thing off of his bony face. I jumped at him, swinging a left hook for his exposed head. He caught it just a second too slow. He along with his chair flew back, wheeling across the floor. He was soon back on his feet glaring at me, studying my posture, I did the same for him. ¡°You¡¯re in here too?! You bastard! Do you really think you can make a mockery of my life like this? How the hell is this supposed to tie me over, you ass!¡± I bit of blood began to leak from his nostrils, ¡°There is no need for vulgarity. You¡¯re quite a strange character, ¡®Shamrock¡¯. First you steal my partner¡¯s body, find out my secret identity, then you punch me upon finding out what I look like under the mask? Please explain how I ¡®trapped you here¡¯? You wanted to come here, why else would you pretend to be Green?¡± ¡°Because I am Sam! I am Shamrock! I don¡¯t know if your just some avatar or whatever, but I¡¯m finishing this right now! I tried to circle around him, change up my stance, but he was a better fighter than me, and probably by a lot. So, I waited for him to make the first move. ¡°Are you sure we can¡¯t talk this through? I¡¯m almost certain we¡¯ve come to some kind of misunderstanding.¡± He softened his defence a little, trying to encourage me to lower my offensive. ¡°Unlike the rest of Unity, I¡¯m not entirely opposed to the idea of vigilantes, I think that if too much faith is placed in our pantheon system, eventually a generation will come along with a stricter sense of justice. ¡®Freedom and liberty¡¯ were once championed in America, it¡¯s an awful shame that we¡¯re seeing less and less of it.¡± The lectures were definitely like Lech¡¯s, but- (now this will sound dumb)- but this guy had a glint in his eyes. In contrast with his deathly appearance, he still had some life in his eyes. I again slumped my arms down, and held my hands open. ¡°Happy?¡± I said, already getting sick and tired of this routine, and this world. I expected him to dash in with a straight punch. But he didn¡¯t, replying, ¡°Not until I get a full explanation of this situation.¡± I threw my head back, and groaned. Then I remembered, my posts. For some reason they had all carried over from the outside. I showed them to Grey, the dates corroborating my story to some degree. He had sat down for a few hours, reading through the most important posts I directed him too. He hardly said anything to me in that time, murmuring at some of the things I told him. What really ticked me off was how quiet he got after he finished. He interlocked his fingers and set his elbows down at the desk in the corner. I tapped my feet waiting for him to say anything. ¡°There are two possibilities.¡± He began, ¡°One, this is an illusion, perhaps a hallucination to make you more¡­ affectionate towards this other me, and the world he¡¯s trying to build.¡± He paused for some time, not even bringing up the second option yet. ¡°How would you describe this reality in comparison to your original- the real world? Your relationships, your circumstances, how does everything match up?¡± I took in a deep breathe. Screw it, I thought. It hurts to admit it, even if it is just to some internal emotional projection of my enemy, but I had to try and better understand the situation, even if it was by restating a few things. ¡°Well¡­ wh¡­ whi¡­¡± My mouth definitely wasn¡¯t dry, I swallowed back a wet lump in my throat, there was a lot building up. ¡°I had my superpowers. They¡¯re different from my imposters, I can¡¯t fly for one thing. I did have super strength. Basically, I was stronger in every conceivable way. When I stub my toe on a table, I¡¯m more likely to do damage to the furniture than to myself. I couldn¡¯t get tired, not in the same way a normal human being does, my cells operate at a higher efficiency. It takes a lot for me to get any¡­ any blood pumping. A lot less hurts me, but that means there¡¯s a lot less I can actually feel. I essentially lost half my sensations, even feeling warm is harder to come by. I lost the ability to taste spices as well.¡± ¡°I might be fine with living like that, I never did many physical activities, except trying to bulk up my body. I told myself I was going to be a superhero in real life, because nobody else wanted to, or could, that was the only reason I ever did push ups every day. I guess I enjoyed it though. But I¡¯d sacrifice my own enjoyment if it meant the world had someone looking out for it, somebody who¡­ who could actually save people. There were problems however.¡± ¡°The first, was my SP2. I realised it was there soon after I the first power. I didn¡¯t need to use it. I just had to find a situation I could use it in. And it crept in, into the periphery of my mind. Any time I could use it, it let me know, like- like a spam email from some website you made an account for. They send you messages whenever they have any deals open, and obviously you don¡¯t read them, you try to ignore them, but they¡¯re there, your inbox is littered with this- this thing you never even wanted. It¡¯s not meant to be there. This thing in me- it¡¯s- it¡¯s not natural. Or it¡¯s not right, evil, I don¡¯t know. The worst part is, I don¡¯t know what website I subscribed to in order for these messages to come through, I might have worms in my brain, or be possessed by a demon.¡± I refrained from acknowledging what Seon-SooAe had said to me, even when I was about to unload all of my baggage. I thought about it, paused for a moment to let it out, but it never came. ¡°I guess I can¡¯t have sex either. I haven¡¯t had a boner in months, again, a result of me becoming more numb over time, though I guess it could also be due to nerve damage. Even if it is working down there, I¡¯m pretty sure I wouldn¡¯t be able to- to actually experience it properly. I¡¯d have to focus on not accidentally breaking her arm, or I¡¯d have to lay on my backside and do nothing. So, yeah, I can¡¯t have a relationship like that.¡± The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°I don¡¯t really have any meaningful relationships at all. The only people I talk to outside of school are murderers and drug lords, Clover¡¯s a drug lord. She is the closest thing I have to a friend, and even then, I¡¯m not sure she¡¯d call me that, I¡¯m more so a person she talks to out of necessity, because she needs to talk to somebody. That, and I¡¯m in her science class, so she mostly texts me for homework. I- I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s- if I feel about her. I¡¯m not exactly attractive. In here I have better skin, teeth, hair, cheekbones, eyes, abs, pecs, biceps, forearms, hairline, and I probably smell a lot better too. And because I¡¯m a social outcast, who¡¯s really going to get to know me? And even then, I¡¯m just a superhero nerd.¡± ¡°If I do like her, there is no chance of us being¡­ being normal. As we are in this fantasy.¡± He interjected, ¡°That and the fact that she is a crime lord.¡± ¡°Right, yeah.¡± I seconded. ¡°Yeah, my personal connections are different in here too. For one thing my dad¡¯s still alive, My grannies good at cooking apparently. And my mum-¡± My mum. I choked as she came to mind. ¡°I- At least I don¡¯t think she¡¯s a junkie in here. I mean, she looks healthy. Her eyes weren¡¯t blood shot at all. She was- she was there. She was just my ma.¡± That was the first time I had ever said it aloud, and it was to this guy. It made me sick to think about. ¡°I also haven¡¯t had to run into this one asshole with a mullet, or any other people from school. What else¡­ I work at a gas station, not as a super hero. Even two rooms in that house are probably bigger than my home. I read one of the comics in my drawer, and it was better than most stuff coming out at the moment. I had a good breakfast. The weathers great. I get to live in an actual city with amazing architecture. God, not to mention, there are other superheroes here. With teams and all.¡± I smiled at the concept. ¡°In other words-¡± Grey began, ¡°Your life is better here.¡± I frowned a little, looking around the complex. ¡°It was. Until I got my ass kicked by you. No, even earlier than that, when Shamrock showed up and got rid of the Gator. What do you think the point of all this is? You are him after all. You must have some idea, even if you are a fragment of him or something.¡± His eyes wandered. It was clear he was deep in thought. ¡°Twelve years ago-¡± He began his non-sequitur, ¡°My Tanya died. This was before I became Grey, before I had built any of this. I was just a well-off man suffering from grief. And so looked for a way to not only get her back, but to ensure that neither of us encounter such tragedy again. I placed my faith in Extra-universal beings, Gods, as I would have called them. A triad in particular, The Dark Gods, had caught my attention. There was Balor, the Entropic God. I sought him first, for power, for he is said to be the mightiest of the three, the most willing for destruction. I was na?ve, thinking that such a creature might pity a black speck such as myself. Or that power could grant freedom from this pointless world. Then I searched for the third, The enigmatic Negative God. Her domain was said to be the undoing of events, I placed much stock in her. But I never did find anything concrete on her. Her cults were dead, her memory buried, I only knew of her existence because of their ¡®heavenly poem¡¯, and the fact that all ¡®Gods¡¯ form trios. The most plausible master to serve my needs was the middle child of the dark gods, the one I spent the least amount of time in the thrall of. Irminsul, the Multiverse God¡± My neck rolled and I grimaced. ¡°Right, I can see where you¡¯re going, but it seems like a very large leap-¡± He interrupted, ¡°I do not leap to conclusions. As you already have.¡± He continued, ¡°I gained much knowledge in the tombs of his faith, chiefly, that it is impossible for a human being to travel through the branches of Irminsul. The human form is comprised of three archetypes. Body, Mind, and Soul. It is possible to stay alive with only two of these, but in order to travel between universes you must be one archetype thin.¡± ¡°You have lost your powers, even that esoteric ¡®SP2¡¯ of yours, which is likely tied to the soul. I stumbled upon an ancient rite, scrawled upon a scroll I found in Germany. I would have read it, had I not taken a moment to think things over. My goal was to find a perfect universe for me. This scroll had promised such a thing, but in reading it, I would fully give myself to the Dark Gods. An epiphany hit me in that moment, out of nowhere. I realised, that for me- my personality and memories- in order for me to get to the perfect world I¡¯d dreamed of, I would have to displace an already happy version of myself. I realised, that that world would never be my world. That would never be my Tanya.¡± He furled his fingers together and receded back into thought. I also took a second to think. ¡°Right, but this is information coming from you. If you are an illusion created by me or Lech, then anything you say is likely to be a fictitious too.¡± He waged a finger at me, ¡°I was just thinking the same thing. But if that¡¯s true, if this is in your mind, then you would still be connected to your soul, your esoteric ability. And if this were an illusion built to complement your desires, then why would anything happen to displease you? Why would you¡¯re enemy, the Gator, appear? Why would I have become aware of you being a different person from Green? Wouldn¡¯t it have been more pleasant for everybody to go on blindly believing that you are the prodigy child of the superhero world?¡± I racked my head for a counter argument, ¡°With that logic, why wouldn¡¯t I have just been dropped in a universe like that instead?¡± He was stumped. The clear expression of confoundment on his face, was in stark contrast to the corpselike demeanour of Lech. He traced through his knowledge. ¡°A universe¡­ is comparable to one giant closed system reaction. Every chemical and atom are destined to collide from the dawn of time, based entirely on trajectory and stored energy, the formation of physics was ensured from the very first reaction in time, with both variables in play distance was formed. And with a continuum established, complex structures such as stars, black holes and even peoples could form. All of this is set in place because of a reaction that happened billions of years, if not an infinity ago.¡± He really does love the non-sequiturs. ¡°Your presence in this universe is like throwing a stone into a pool. A chaotic but ordered bath of molecules, disturbed by something outside the system.¡± I tried to rap my head around it, but it seemed what he was saying was that ¡®destiny¡¯ is real, alongside the multiverse. I honestly expected to run into both going down this path, but nowhere near this soon. ¡°How could me mumbling ¡®uh-huh¡¯ whenever somebody asked me something throw my dream world off to such a degree that the Gator shows up? That seems a bit beyond the ¡®butterfly effects¡¯ scope.¡± He went silent. ¡°What if you were meant to defeat him then and there? What if that was the intended route, for you to find some sort of closure in beating the villain you failed to stop? Alongside Hand-Made alone, you could have beaten him easily, teleported in and out with Berwick in your hands.¡± I shook my head, ¡°But I didn¡¯t do anything to cause Shamrock to appear!¡± ¡°No,¡± he pointed a finger too me, ¡°-maybe you didn¡¯t. But you also said you¡¯re unaware of the true nature of your powers. You haven¡¯t told me what they do. I wouldn¡¯t have you, it¡¯s an amateurish mistake to reveal your hand, especially if you are right, that this is an illusion.¡± He clenched a fist and rose from his spot. ¡°I realise that I am¡­ biased. I¡¯d much prefer that my existence not be relegated to the mind of a horny teenager. Think about which is the more likely option. And we¡¯ll act accordingly.¡± I went beet red, ¡°Didn¡¯t you listen to anything I said?! I¡¯m not horny!¡± He ignored me, walking over to a long steel case, typing something into it. I tried to get back on track, ¡°You realise that if this is an illusion, and I break it, you probably won¡¯t exist anymore, right?¡± He just shrugged, before advising me, ¡°It¡¯s probably best to keep this between the two of us then.¡± I marched over to him, ¡°What exactly would you do if I was from another universe? You already said you can¡¯t send me back, not unless you ¡®give yourself to the Dark Gods.¡¯ So, what exactly is your plan?¡± The case whirred before opening, inside were heavy volumes of leather-bound books. ¡°One, we read up. Two, we find Shamrock.¡± I whined, ¡°Do you really think he has anything to do with this? He¡¯s probably a part of this universe, or dream, whatever it is.¡± ¡°If you¡¯re not Shamrock, who is?¡± The question stopped me. It made sense. Literally everything else in this world was different, but that was definitely Shamrock. Now that I thought about it, that was definitely me. The jaw, the physique. He tossed a tome at me, ¡°Get to it. You¡¯ve got three hours before I have to fly you back for your party.¡± ¡°What? Why would I go to a party if I¡¯ve finally got a lead on how to get home? And, sorry for all these questions but, why exactly are you helping me if there is a chance, I¡¯ll unmake your reality?¡± He flicked through the pages of another book, pacing back over to his chair. ¡°You have taken the place of my prot¨¦g¨¦, firstly, I want him back, but I also want his relationships to be properly upheld. This is the exact reason I didn¡¯t take my dream world away from another version of myself, there was always a chance of me perverting it, mishandling it. Just do the best you can to keep them happy. Secondly, I¡¯ve read through your notes. Look me in the eyes.¡± He looked up at me from his hunched over position, and I looked right back at him. There was a fire in his eyes. ¡°You said I- he has dead eyes; you describe him like a walking corpse. The idea that there is a part of me that could ever come to forget my humanity appals me. It is a disgrace to everything I stand for.¡± I was taken back by the shift in tone. There was a determination in his voice, like he was declaring some great ambition. And I felt it¡¯s heat. I nodded, guessing, ¡°The fact that he chose to become their pawn, it¡¯s a disgrace to her memory.¡± He looked away from me. ¡°Enough talking. Let¡¯s get some work done, Shamrock.¡± . . . It was a strange crowd that appeared at the party. There was the obvious guests like Clover, my parents and granny, but the human version of Feoli was also there, along with Axel, Tayanita, the girl from my art class, Bob for some reason, and a ton of people I didn¡¯t recognise. The first and strangest person met me before I even got to the party. Grey dropped me off in a surprisingly quiet part of the city and told me to follow the coordinates on a small pager like device. He cleared off as soon as I got a few feet away from him. We agreed to meet here tomorrow at eight in the morning, I had negotiated it up from seven. I had to walk down the same street that I had jogged up earlier that day. Passing the same inconspicuous alley. As I was passing by, a woman came out of it. Something about her seemed familiar, and after looking at her for a time, I realised it was Hand-Made. Her bulky visor was gone, replaced by a cold-blue pair of circular sunglasses. She smiled at me as I walked by. ¡°Hey, birthday boy!¡± she bumped me playfully, too playfully for a woman that looked to be in her thirties. ¡°Uh, hey.¡± She cackled at my response, ¡°Grey gave you a hard time, huh? Something to do with that Shamrock prick, I¡¯m guessing. Can¡¯t blame him for being a hard ass though, that¡¯s sorta what it takes to get into Unity without powers.¡± I couldn¡¯t get a read on what she was thinking behind that smile. ¡°Yeah, did thundereye-man catch up to him?¡± That got another laugh out of her, ¡°You know he¡¯d fly you into orbit if he heard you call him that, right?¡± I smiled and laughed. ¡°No, he hid somewhere out in the Midwest. That head start helped the bastard. From what we¡¯ve got on him, his probably not as strong as ¡®thunder-eyes¡¯. If we can find him, we can kick his ass.¡± I looked away to try and hide my reaction. That Shamrock was stronger than mine, judging from the one punch I did see. In the off chance that these guys are alternative universe versions of people in my world, they¡¯d probably kick my ass. Never mind the real world, they could crush me without my powers. That made me very cautious of Hand-Made. The tone of her voice changed. ¡°You know, Grey started off as a vigilante. I¡¯m sure he must have some sympathy for this guy. And I just received a notification from our database that all our files on Shamrock have been taken by your partner. Yeah, he always has aimed for targets a little over his head, but he¡¯s been acting off since you met him up on that roof. Any clue where he¡¯s coming from?¡± I tried to think of a reason, that would seem logical for him. ¡°He told me he was making a contingence plan, in case Shamrock ever became a threat.¡± She looked at me. ¡°He is a threat. A threat to those around him, and the system. A system that works just fine, that he could be a part of if he made a testament before the officials. He¡¯s destructive and completely unpredictable, that¡¯s a threat.¡± She reaffirmed, ¡°There is only one world Sam. Never forget that.¡± I still couldn¡¯t read her, but her smile seemed a little more put on than before. ¡°That¡¯s just what he said. He told me that Shamrock is safe now, but he¡¯s probably going to go off the rails if he doesn¡¯t get to him first.¡± Her smile fell away, ¡°¡®Get to him¡¯, huh?¡± She was silent for a good period of the walk after that, only speaking up when we got to my block. ¡°You¡¯re good at what you do Sam. Especially for a kid. I don¡¯t want to get too ahead of myself, but¡­ your being considered for a promotion into Unity proper.¡± The way she said it made it seem like it was some great revelation, but I still have no clue what she¡¯s talking about, I just starred at her, then the ground, waiting for a little more exposition before I decided how to react. ¡°I thought you¡¯d be happier. Well, under the circumstances, I don¡¯t blame you for not jumping with joy. You obviously understand the responsibility I am placing on you. Whether or not you¡¯ll be able to make the right call¡­ Can I trust you with keeping the world safe Sam? From even the closest enemies?¡± I still had no clue what she was talking about. ¡°Of course. I understand.¡± She smiled, and punched me lightly on the shoulder, ¡°¡¯atta boy¡­¡± It hurt a lot for the slow speed she threw it at me. We eventually did arrive at the party, when we did, I realised she probably could have teleported us right to the door but decided not to. She wanted to have that talk with me. I was taken back to the fantasy, the dream, by the homely light of the environment, surrounded by smiles and the blowing of party horns. The group shouted to me, ¡°Happy birthday Sam!¡± I smiled; despite the fact it wasn¡¯t my birthday. They sat me down at a table and turned off the lights and began to sing. I looked around, I didn¡¯t know half these people, but the fact that they were here for me, filled me with happiness. My mum, healthy and well, came through the crowd with a cake. I stopped myself from crying and waited for them to finish. Then I blew out the candles. Bash 3.07: Ive been given a gift. Two weeks. I was in there for too long. Not much point in telling you about the fights I had while I was there, how I teamed up with Grey. All that matters is how I got out. A day before my confrontation with Shamrock I was lazing about their HQ, or at least the one in ¡®goldeye city¡¯. They had me on a team with this world¡¯s version of people I know, like Clover and Feoli. Grey said it would lower Unity¡¯s suspicions if I attended meetings and stuff as normal. I assumed more leniency would be afforded to him, with him being a member of the inner circle of the organisation. Despite living there as long as I did, I only learned what felt necessary, like what Hand-Made¡¯s powers are. There was the fairly obvious one, teleportation, I didn¡¯t check any of the ¡®databases¡¯, I was frightened away from that source by how quickly she caught onto Grey¡¯s research material being taken out. I¡¯m glad I didn¡¯t, because after having a talk behind the safety of Grey¡¯s walls, I found out what her second ability was, as well as the ¡®database¡¯ . ¡°It¡¯s her brain. In a roundabout way.¡± I left my index finger on the page of a dusty tome he had me reading through, on the section detailing the effects of despair on your relationship with the Dark Gods. Apparently they¡¯re into that. I raised one brow and lowered the other, ¡°She¡¯s a robot?¡± He shook his head. ¡°In a roundabout way, I said. That would be literal, direct. I find that the two abilities that make a third worlder are typically the same ability manifesting within two of the archetypes I mentioned previously. Of course, you can have multiple abilities manifest within one archetype, Axel Right being an example of that: Programming and robotics; an ability solely present in his thoughts, the mind. ¡°Hand-Made is an example of the former, she can teleport herself, along with objects and others: body. But she is also capable of teleporting information, things like security footage, government records, their systems are built to allow her access to all of it, as soon as a violation of conduct, or wanted criminal is found, a transmission will be sent directly to her brain, or whatever she really has in there.¡± I feigned disinterest, ¡°I only really asked for the last bit, you didn¡¯t have to lecture me.¡± ¡°I¡¯m telling you what you want to know. I worked with Green his entire career; I know for a fact that you still have questions you want to ask me.¡± I didn¡¯t, at least, I didn¡¯t want to shift our focus off me getting out of this reality; whether it is another universe or just an illusion. I knew it was wrong to play into this, because the only thing I knew for certain was that this was all to make me ¡®happy¡¯. It¡¯s just a bad move to follow breadcrumb trails like this. ¡°What does that mean though? Your ¡®mind¡¯ is just electricity burning and passing through bits of your brain, and last I checked, my brain is a part of my body.¡± I had closed the book and wheeled my chair over to him by this point. ¡°No, it¡¯s not exactly¡­ It¡¯s tricky to explain, but they are ¡®archetypes¡¯, an example of a larger grouping of things. Body is flesh, adrenaline, your basest instincts. Mind is thought, memory, ideas. Soul is more esoteric, naturally. It is a measure of energy, but no weight or physicality. It doesn¡¯t grow, it stretches and wains as you age, it simply is as it is. It cannot be broken with brute force nor by ordinary institutional methods. I¡¯d say the soul embodies the will, it allows you to be reasoned with, and above all else, the part of the psyche that reminds you that you are you. It¡¯s the core. At least that¡¯s how I¡¯ve heard it.¡± I dropped my slightly aloof pretence, he further elaborated. ¡°Of course, this isn¡¯t just categorisation for the sake of bureaucracy, there is a far deeper cosmologically meaning to all of this, but far more relevant to us human beings, it highlights your enemies¡¯ weaknesses. Someone who¡¯s primary and secondary ability is embodied within the body archetype, is going to be tougher to defeat through physical means.¡± I thought back on my abilities, the match ups I¡¯d had. My primary is obviously a ¡®body¡¯, and if I had to guess, I¡¯d say SP2 is a ¡®mind¡¯, given that I might not actually have a soul. I reflected on my encounter with Sym-29, his matched mine, though I beat him in body by taking him by surprise before he had a chance to dematerialise. He beat me in mind, probably one of the reasons he needs his opponent to be unconscious to upload them. Thinking back it was my SP2 that got me out of there, so I guess I beat him in mind too. Though I wish it had kicked in sooner, although I don¡¯t remember much of what he did to me, I know it was hell. Well, Lechoslaw Limorilow¡¯s mind ability is shaping up to be just as bad, if not worse. ¡°Enough. I- I¡¯ve begun rambling. Sorry, but I¡¯m certain that I was the Grey chosen out of infinity to be your companion, due to my habit for going on about the occult, a subject you seem to have an intrest in too.¡± I almost went red. Realising that I had once again fallen for the temptation this place had presented before me. It became harder and harder to remind myself that this place was an attack, sometimes I¡¯d find myself chanting it as a mantra, though it almost never fended off this feeling. That I was right at home. One possibility that came to mind was that this was a result of me co-opting this Me¡¯s body, but after Grey¡¯s lesson, I¡¯m now thinking it¡¯s Green''s soul that¡¯s doing this. Making me feel so laxadaisy. I promised Grey, ¡°If I ever find you getting off topic, I¡¯ll try and set you straight. Just do the same for me, ok?¡± Then he did it. I¡¯d say it was eerie, creepy even, if I hadn¡¯t gotten to know the honesty behind the bone white face. Grey smiled. ¡°Of course. Maybe you don¡¯t know Shamrock, but that¡¯s what partners do.¡± This brings us back to my position at the headquarters. I was reminiscing on the cult histories we¡¯d been researching, a dead pan glare fixed on the tiled roof above. Suddenly, as heart racing as a gun shot, I felt Clover lean into my ear and whisper something. I didn¡¯t hear what she said, there was something electrifying about her hot breath passing my ear, the brief moment her hair stroked against my neck. I shot out of my seat and scolded her, ¡°Don¡¯t d-do that! Christ! Don¡¯t you know not to sneak up on people?¡± She curled her lips, ¡°What?? You liked that, didn¡¯t you?? You freaken'' perv!¡± My face went red, as I tried to fumble out a response that would completely shut her down. But I couldn¡¯t. If I¡¯ve learnt anything from this place, it¡¯s not what a soul is, nor that the multiverse is real, it¡¯s that you can try to repress any feelings you have, but they¡¯re still there, aren¡¯t they? I¡¯m 18, and I have spent years trying to get rid of deprived stuff like this. Judging from my relationship with Clover here, those feelings have devolved, frustration has built up over time to the point that the only girl I have any kind of relationship with get¡¯s hit with it. That¡¯s the only reason we¡¯re like this, she¡¯s been pinned with my bull crap. This is my fault. I¡¯m glad that I found out about this before doing anything too weird or embarrassing to the real Clover. Too embarrassing. Suddenly I remembered when I asked her if she thought I was attractive. Steam began to shoot out of my ears. ¡°Not many people are here today, huh? Feoli and the others are out on a mission with Hand-Made, most of Unity proper is looking for Shamrock, Axel¡¯s busy with that experimental chassis¡­¡± She clasped her hands in front of her and cat walked up to me. This is an attack, I reaffirmed, this is an attack. Her smile curved further, taking the same shape it had a few days before Valentine¡¯s when she was talking to Axel. ¡°Come on¡­¡± She said, ¡°Doesn¡¯t have to be for long. We haven¡¯t done anything in weeks.¡± I hate to admit it, it makes my skin crawl, but this did break my mantra. I began to think, wouldn¡¯t it be best if I did fool around with her? Grey said to try and act like Green would, it would be suspicious if he ignored his beautiful girlfriend. Yeah, and while I¡¯m at it, I¡¯ll be able to release some of this frustration, which will improve my relationship with the real Clover, no more awkward silence while we bum about town, we can just talk. Not to mention, this is what I want isn¡¯t it? Regardless of whether this is an attack or not, it doesn¡¯t matter, this place is meant for me, it¡¯s meant to be enjoyed. So what if it¡¯s an attack, I can take it, I deserve to take it. After all the shit I¡¯ve been through, Valentines, the Pooka, there¡¯ll be plenty more examples after I get out of here. Go ahead, say it, say yes, once you get out of here, you aren¡¯t getting this chance again, and I¡¯m not talking about breaking her pelvis. I can handle any attack. But this¡­ This isn¡¯t right. No, this is downright evil. This¡­ is not my world, it¡¯s not my Clover, and it sure as hell isn¡¯t me. Whether this is a hallucination or not, it isn¡¯t real. ¡°I can¡¯t- I don¡¯t have the time, I¡¯ve gotta meet up with Grey about- about the Shamrock case. He thinks there might be some clues left behind- you know, after that monster attack in South America.¡± She called me out, ¡°You sure as hell didn¡¯t look like you were in a rush a minute ago. Explain this much to me Green, why are you acting weird?¡± I tried to skirt around the subject, ¡°Weird? No, I don¡¯t know what you mean, I¡¯ve just been busy with work, you know how much of a hard ass Grey can be.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t do this,¡± She pleaded, ¡°Don¡¯t fall back on¡­ shutting yourself off. You¡¯ve come so far since we first met, by now you should know that you aren¡¯t alone. You never have been.¡± I didn¡¯t want to lie to her, not after that teasing smile had fallen away. Now she was Saoirse, a person who genuinely cared about me. ¡°I¡­ Sorry, but I wasn¡¯t lying, it really is work¡­¡± I put on a frown, spoke with a serious tone, and spouted out something that sounded important, ¡°¡­ I¡¯m being considered for a spot in Unity proper.¡± Suddenly, the girls face shifted from simply being concerned for a loved one, to shock and horror, ¡°You¡¯re replacing Grey! Are you even allowed to talk about this??¡± I didn¡¯t know this system well enough to understand that Green would be replacing Grey. Nor did I think anything would be wrong with me talking about the subject with someone else. It¡¯d been two weeks since Hand-Made told me about it, and I hadn¡¯t thought about it, let alone talked about it with her since then. ¡°Excuse us for a second, Rabbit.¡± As soon as she finished her sentence, we were outside, atop a sky scraper. A crash of wind blasted into me chilling me to the bone, though it was certainly aided by the shock of teleporting. I gritted my teeth as I collapsed to the floor, spinning my head around to find her. Hand-Made stood solid, I¡¯d say she was like a statue as she posed with her fists on her hips, if it weren¡¯t for the fact that her long slight-blue hair was whipping wildly in the wind. She was wearing her silver costume, the rubber-like material giving off a slight golden shimmer in the sun. Though she shouted, she kept her nonchalant tone, ¡°You were doing great up till that last bit, Green. We¡¯re going to have to do this now, Rabbit¡¯s trustworthy, but just in case Grey was listening in on you, like me, we¡¯ll have to go now. Where¡¯s your suit?¡± I stammered out its location, and she was gone, leaving me there alone with my thoughts for a few seconds. She was listening in on my conversations? Since when? Since my birthday party? Before that in this world¡¯s timeline? That sure as hell doesn¡¯t sound like the type of universe I would like to live in. Have I changed it so much? Had she, like Grey, noticed a change in my behaviour? Had I thrown a stone into the water with my response to joining Unity? If I¡¯d known Grey¡¯d be losing his job, then I¡¯d have said no. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Perhaps it was earlier than that, when she was alerted to Grey taking out those files on Shamrock. Either way, this mess was my fault, I¡¯d rocked the boat. It was at this point I decided it would be best to explain the situation to Hand-Made, even if I didn¡¯t trust her entirely, even if it went against Grey¡¯s advice. She finally popped back in, my bag in hand. ¡°Get changed now, we¡¯ll handle the press conference right after we deal with Grey.¡± ¡°A-alright.¡± I decided to hold off, until I had Grey to help me explain the situation. ¡°Before we, uh, inaugurate me, can we have a second to talk to Grey? I think we¡¯ll all need a minute to explain things.¡± She jerked her painted lips into a smile, ¡°Of course. There¡¯ll be time.¡± Without even touching me, we were instantly transported again, this time appearing in Grey¡¯s hideout. He didn¡¯t hear us at first, his focus was on the text I had been reading the other day. It was me who gave us away, an awkward twitch of surprise against the floor. He whipped his head around, shut the tome, and kicked himself from the chair. Again, we teleported, out of sight but still in his complex, and not far enough away that he couldn¡¯t hear Hand-Made. ¡°Is that any way to treat an old friend, Lecho?¡± He replied, even I noticed a tension in his voice while I was still feeling the effects of the heroine¡¯s ability. ¡°Maria, I didn¡¯t know it was you, forgive me. If you¡¯d let me know you were coming-¡± She interrupted, ¡°If I¡¯d let you know I was coming, you probably wouldn¡¯t have any of those old books out, right? Where did you get those? They must be ancient.¡± He was hesitant to reply, I could tell he was stalking the area by a change in the echo, ¡°I¡¯m sure you know, I¡¯ve been looking into Shamrock, looking into possible avenues for him to have gained his power. If you look at one of these texts, you can see for yourself.¡± She laughed, as she once again teleported, ¡°You¡¯re acting like I¡¯m accusing you of something Lech! No, I know more than that, Limorilow, I know what¡¯s in those pages. Let¡¯s just say I had a little lantern shine some light on your ¡®dark¡¯ past.¡± She punched me on the same spot she had two weeks ago. I felt my arm, the slightest bump. She teleported something into me before? She was listening, or rather, perceiving through it. Then she already knew everything me and Grey had been talking about, after the party. ¡°He played his part well, and he¡¯ll be rewarded with your seat. While he talked to you in here, I was looking into your past, I found out about all those nasty little cults. Another thing I know? Is that bad habits, like smoking, you tend to drop them around twenty-something, you go straight, get a better job, cut yourself off from that past. You continue on for ten or twenty years¡­¡± She teleported again. ¡°¡­ until you see a young man who was just like you. Someone who has their whole life ahead of them, they¡¯re filled with that youthful will, it pushes them to do whatever they want, regardless of whatever rules are in the way, because of that attitude, that rush that comes with youth. Kids. They have a sort of power in there rebeliousness. In Shamrock¡¯s case, literally. You admire it don¡¯t you?¡± It was a few seconds later that the lights were shut off, I realised he was using the same technique he had on me. ¡°You think I¡¯m going through a mid-life crisis,¡± The voice boomed from all around. ¡°Worse, Limorilow.¡± She snickered, ¡°You haven¡¯t been the same physically since getting that pace maker. You¡¯re slower, and it¡¯s not just that you¡¯re slower than you were when you were younger. It¡¯s that in comparison to the rest of Unity, you¡¯re decaying. You¡¯re experiencing a crisis of faith, your faith in yourself, in the system¡­ When the present fails you, the only place you¡¯ve got to go is the past. Your¡¯s just so happens to be filled with extra-dimensional beings that can promise something more.¡± Grey laughed into the speakers, while I was being pulled around be Hand-Made, along with realising I had been very wrong about her intentions, I also realised that something was off in Grey¡¯s breathing. ¡°Hahaha¡­ Of course, you would look into the past, Maria. Your regressive. This world has become a revolving door. All that changes is who¡¯s on the main team, who¡¯s at the top. We¡¯ve become complacent. Slowly, we¡¯re growing ignorant to people¡¯s intentions in favour of how we perceive them. Shamrock is a vigilante. He operates outside of the government, but why¡¯s that such a bad thing? He hasn¡¯t killed anyone. Is it because it makes him unpredictable? Haha¡­ I¡¯ve been a part of the system, and you¡¯ve never found out about any of the horrible things I did back then. You hate the idea of him, because he¡¯s the future. I place my hope in somebody, anybody escaping, to become a single unit, rather than a Unity. Someday, people will do¡­ good without you¡­ preaching.¡± The blackness went silent. The fight had begun, I thought. Hand-Made moved through the dark, the blue glow of her costume and visor briefly illuminating her surroundings as we moved through, again without touching me, we were teleported. I tried to pick the right move to make, deciding on when to attack her. I first broke down what I could figure out from the few times I¡¯d seen her use the ability. The time she had teleported me before getting this bump in my arm, she was touching me, and every time we¡¯ve rematerialized, I have been right beside her, physically touching her. The conclusion I eventually came to was that she needs to touch somebody to teleport them, I made the assumption that whatever she put in me counted as a part of herself, probably an example of her second ability, her ¡®computer brain¡¯ might be connected to it, giving her my location, and who knows what else. It was likely enough that this thing communicated sound to here, but then I started to wonder, what about my heart beat, my nerves, could she observe those? She couldn¡¯t ¡®observe¡¯ my thoughts at least, or she¡¯d have known I was watching her openings. If she knew my location then it¡¯s likely that she¡¯d be able to tell if I¡¯m throwing a punch at her. I realised I¡¯d need an opening from Grey, to make it look like I was reacting to him, instead of clobbering her over the head. If that didn¡¯t knock her out, then I¡¯d have to tear this thing from my arm. It¡¯d hurt like a bitch, but I¡¯d have to do it sooner or later. At that point I thought me and Grey would be going on the run for a while. I waited and I waited for Grey to come, judging from Hand-Made¡¯s posture, I could tell Grey was an outright better fighter, his lack of powers being the huge disadvantage, but it had led to him developing ways around opponents. It¡¯s the sort of hero I thought I¡¯d become, in a world without powers. But still I waited. Time begun to pass, eventually my heart rate began to slow down, as Hand-Made announced, ¡°You might as well turn the lights on, Grey. I already know exactly where you¡¯re lying.¡± And the lights did come on. And then she teleported us. He was collapsed on the floor, the bulk of his black suit rising and falling irregularly. One of his arms was splayed, the other he was lying on. There was a harshness, a struggle in his breathing, as more and more sweat built up on his face. I bared my teeth and went wide eye¡¯d nearly popping them from my skull. I at once noticed that they had started to wet as well. ¡°I did tell you¡­ You haven¡¯t been the same since getting that pace maker. I took¡­ precautions. Put counter measures in place. I felt guilty at the time, but I¡¯m glad my concerns were justified. At first, I was just prejudiced to your past as a vigilante, then I got to know you, and I became anxious. Then I got to know the real you, and my worries faded.¡± He was still conscious, just barely, ¡°Dwuu¡­ wa¡­ any¡­ real¡­? S-Sam¡­¡± I rushed over to him, Hand-Made watching over, ¡°Grey, I-I d-didn¡¯t know, I-I¡­ Ye- yeah, please, God¡­¡± He groaned, ¡°No¡­¡± He flopped the splayed arm, and I looked over to it, ¡°It¡­ Irminsul- Irminsul is at fault¡­ If¡­ real¡­ It can be¡­ Unreal. Off¡­¡± I tried to make sense of what he was saying, then I looked at his hand, two fingers still reached out. I looked away from him, blinking my eyes. ¡°I understand your sympathy Green¡­ Sam.¡± Hand-Made put a hand on my shoulder as she tried to pull me away from him. ¡°But this is how things had to be. He was a liar. And he did a lot worse. This was a debt that he needed to pay sooner or later.¡± I got up from my bent over position, shook. I walked over to the desk he was sitting at, the point the hand motioned to. ¡°A liar? Anyone could tell you he was honestly trying to help people when he put that mask on.¡± I could hear her fold her arms, ¡°Sam, you can¡¯t know that. All of this occult paraphernalia, you can¡¯t tell me you don¡¯t understand how dangerous all of this is. How tempted he would have been to go back to it all.¡± I analysed some of the things sitting in front of me, there was a dagger and one of the books, a volume I hadn¡¯t read yet. ¡°He hated himself. The person he was, the person he might have become had he went a step further. But He didn¡¯t. That¡¯s why I need to go back home.¡± She was a little confused, ¡°What are you¡­¡± I stabbed myself in the arm, wedging the lump free. I screamed out as loud as I could in an attempt to force myself through the pain. ¡°I AM SHAMROCK! I AM NOT A SUPER HERO YET, BUT I SEEM TO KNOW A HELL OF A LOT MORE ABOUT IT THEN YOU DO! IT¡¯S ABOUT TRUST! AN UNSHAKING WILL TO DO WHAT¡¯S RIGHT! YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN IT, IF YOU DON¡¯T, THEN THERE¡¯S NOTHING ¡®SUPER¡¯ ABOUT YOU! SAVE AS MANY LIVES AS YOU WANT, WHEN YOU PULL SHIT LIKE THIS, YOU¡¯RE NO DIFFERENT FROM ANYBODY ELSE! I¡¯LL NEVER LOSE TO SOMEONE AS WEAK WILLED AS YOU! FUCKING COME AT ME YOU BI-.¡± She closed the gap, grabbing me by the wrist. Then we were just outside the mansion, she was overlooking a cliff face, and I was hanging off of it. ¡°Do not fuck with me Green. This isn¡¯t the time.¡± She seemed more serious now than when she killed her team mate, ¡°You can¡¯t face the real world with such unrealistic ideals, and you sure as hell can¡¯t be a part of Unity as long as you support the memory of a terrorist.¡± I grappled onto her outstretched arm, kicking at the air as she held me at arms-length. She¡¯s done this before; I could tell from her unshaking resolve. I couldn¡¯t see how far the drop was from the way she was holding me, but it couldn¡¯t have been a short one. ¡°I don¡¯t want to do this to you Sam. You have so many people who care about you. I¡¯ve met your parents. I know Clover¡¯s crazy about you. Grey was an old man; nobody will care that he¡¯s gone. He was in the ninth position for Christ¡¯s sake. Do not go throwing away your future.¡± It was at this point I wished I had that book, for all I know it had some kind of incantation to get me home. I threw my legs up, my more gymnastic body allowing for me to reach her arm and wrap my legs around. She tumbled off the cliff, the both of us tumbling through clouds, ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll see if I can hook her up with one of those Russian kids to make this up to Clover.¡± We teleported again, landing in a city, she used me to break her fall. I coughed blood up as she and the fall crushed me into the pavement. I held on. It was a sizeable drop, but not high enough to kill. Next, she took me to the site of a blizzard, ramming me through snow and ice that had built up on the ground. I unhooked one leg, and started kicking her in the face as my body screamed out. Then came a desert, which finally broke my grip, the harsh contrast of the two elements gave me the sensation of exploding, switching between two locations of varying heights was bad enough, this was unbearable. She was still holding onto me by the wrist, licking a trace of blood from her busted lip. ¡°You were pretty good after all.¡± I clenched my free fist and threw it at her. She simply jumped on her feet. And teleported us somewhere cold again. Time seemed to slow as I watched her bob up, her hair bouncing with her, before she disappeared. I again began to fall, looking down at my destination, I could see the curvature of the earth. I could see it all. I don¡¯t know how high up I was, but I was at a height that wouldn¡¯t kill a human being from the cold. If I had to guess, I was probably in the stratosphere. Though I''ve that''s just a guess. As I was falling, I wondered if I could survive such a fall with my durability. I was starting to miss it now, more than anything. I had once considered that ending my life might bring me back to reality. It would explain why this reality was so perfect for me, as a way to stop me from dying accidentally, or trying to go down that route. But if it didn¡¯t work for Bill Murray, probably won¡¯t work for me, right? I don¡¯t know if I was beginning to burn up from the fall or not, my body had gone numb, I couldn¡¯t even feel the cartoonish force pushing my skin around as I started to fall faster and faster. Then it stopped, I don¡¯t know when, but it stopped. My eyes were forced open, allowing me to make out a blurry, colourless out line through what little tears I had left. ¡°You did well Shamrock. You¡¯ve managed to remove us from Irminsul¡¯s attention, whether you intended to or not. Here, we are finally safe. The accent felt foreign now, it was Irish, not from Kerry, but it was a voice from home. It was a girl¡¯s voice, but not that of any I¡¯d met before. ¡°Now that we have been rendered imperceptible to him, we can do what we do best-¡± I slowly regained my sight little-by-little. I could see the stars, and the horizon burning behind the blurred figure. ¡°-We can cheat. Fight dirty. Remember, this is how we have always won.¡± I wanted to know If we were dead. ¡°No, we¡¯re still alive, don¡¯t try to do die again, at least not in Irminsul. It¡¯s hard enough saving you in The Pointless, imagine how frustrating it is to do this. Please try to stay focused.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± I thought. ¡°It¡¯s time to do what we do best Shamrock¡­ Lie. Steal. Plot. Connive. Deny. Rock. Sham. Cheat.¡± ¡°This is who you are.¡± ¡°This is who we are.¡± ¡°Overcome as much of this as you can. Pleasure. Lust. Warmth. Hope. Happiness. Good. Content. Self. Strip it away.¡± ¡°Till there¡¯s a void.¡± ¡°Till there is less than void.¡± I could see them now. It was Shamrock. Well, it wasn¡¯t, I¡¯m Shamrock. But they were there, holding me like an infant with one arm, the other was holding onto the tassel at the top of my mask. Then they pulled it off. And I saw their face. ¡°HAHAHA.¡± Clover covered her mouth, trying not to break the tension in the room. Lechoslaw Limorilow watched me, as I at once became aware of my ability to breathe. Falling to a knee, I could finally, finally, look my enemy in the eyes. ¡°How long were you there for?¡± He asked, but he didn¡¯t care. He knew the sort of torture he had subjected me to, he¡¯d probably been through it himself, if Grey¡¯s story was real. ¡°You- You tell.¡± No light escaped his eyes, he didn¡¯t even bat an eye. I found myself disturbed, that the face of the man I¡¯d been working with for half a month was being worn by a monster. ¡°Just a second.¡± I looked to Clover. She had finally shifted her gaze off the movie, finally taken notice that the fight had only just begun. She read it from my expression, and from hers, I found that she was at least frightened for me. ¡°Two. Weeks.¡± I made my contempt for him clear by enunciating my words. ¡°That long? You must have a weaker will than I originally thought. Or perhaps too strong a sense of self-conceit.¡± What? Was there a clearer way to get out of that mess? What the fuck does conceit have to do with traveling across universes? Unless I was right the first time. That it was an illusion that I let myself get tangled up in. ¡°You bastard¡­ You really think¡­ I¡¯ll just let you toy with me? That I¡¯ll just let you have your way with my mind? I¡¯m going to put an end to your sick illusions.¡± He raised a hand stiffly, ¡°Calm down for a second and listen. That wasn¡¯t an illusion. What you saw was as real as you or me. If you didn¡¯t realise that¡­ then you must be an even smaller minority than I thought. Few people come back, fewer still cheat their way through it.¡± There was no way. I was shaking. Did he know about what had happened? Did he know about what was under that mask? His eye¡¯s twitched to the door on my right, ¡°Regardless of your¡­ personal circumstances, I think it would be best to reiterate the message until you fully understand. This world is pointless. Intentionally I assume. The sooner you realise that in the grand scheme of things your hopes, your will, your soul, your love, that none of that has any true meaning behind it¡­ Then I believe you will understand the little purpose the Mountain can bring you.¡± I don¡¯t know what signal he gave, but through the door on my right blasted out a wall of flesh knocking the door open and sweeping me up like a wave. Noah hadn¡¯t built much solidity; I was able to fight back a little, occasionally forcing a fist out of him, peaking into the grungy hotel room. I briefly freed my upper body, declaring to the dark figure, ¡°I¡¯ve been through too much to let you win now!¡± Finally, his face changed. It was minute detail, but he squinted his eyes slightly. ¡°You don¡¯t seem to understand, all of that? That attack you suffered through? Every pain and pleasure you encountered? That was a single second of our time. Brought about by a simple phrase.¡± His tone once more felt like it was from a smiling face. ¡°And I told you that we would be here for a while. I have many gifts left to give you.¡± I looked to Clover one more time. She turned away from me when I did. ¡°Hero, I give you the world.¡± I once again threw an unfamiliar sheet off my body, still fighting Noah. . . . The room I was sleeping in was illuminated by a sharp glare from the sun outside. I knew what was going on this time around, there was really no reason for me to be so cautious. I knew that where ever I was it was made in my image. Stalking over to the large glass screen door, I first noticed the giant expanse of water, the blue being analogous to the orange of the rising sun. Then I saw who was sitting there on the balcony. I winced as I opened the screen door, averting my gaze to my new body, perhaps built better than the other Me¡¯s. Maybe that just came with the age of my host. Once the door was open, I could hear a murmur from the bundle in the woman¡¯s arms. My spirit was once again crushed, my face misshaped, not by an attack, but by a gift. Bash 3.08: I slither. He¡­ was right. None of this really mattered. I found myself wandering a lot, After maybe the tenth reality. There really was nothing of note in any of these places, they varied, but they all had me in a position where I was surrounded by people, people who liked me, who looked to me. We were always doing well, the food was good, the weather was better. In some, I had power, in others I had nothing but a family. I guess it all depended on my mental state when Lechoslaw sent me back in. With every world I walked, a single second passed in mine. Every second Noah spent entombing me in denser masses of flesh, I grew mentally weaker, not because of my surroundings, but because of the constant mental resistance I had built up, I forced myself to stay alert, to remember my rage. Like I said, I began to wander. I hardly ever encountered anything supernatural, it was mainly people going about their daily lives. Rather than interfere with people¡¯s lives, like I had done in the first world I was ¡®given¡¯, I didn¡¯t want a repeat of what happened with Grey. In my bodies that didn¡¯t have any powers, I¡¯d continue down desert roads and mountain hikes until my legs collapsed. The person wearing Shamrock would always find me. Not always before I died, but it was always when I was alone, isolated from everything else. I¡¯d say half my time was spent on my own, or trying to further distance myself from living things. I never felt lonely, but I was always cold. I was always thinking about that face Clover had made while all of this was happening. How she turned away from me. It was reminiscent of when I had escaped Sym¡¯s torture, how she was more concerned with Ae¡¯s safety than mine. I understood it at the time, I was hardy the top priority, she was physically a normal human, there was a level of urgency that trumped me. It would be a lie, however, if I said that was the reason Clover left me. Clover left, because Ae is more important to her than me, that¡¯s just a fact. I¡¯m just another target for her enemies to aim at, a person she can have dialogue with, I¡¯m a pet. What does she really think about Sam? She bought me that phone, though to her it was cheap enough. The conclusion I¡¯ve come to is that when she moved, a good number of her friends stopped talking to her all together. The thing about moving is that everybody at your destination already has friends, they couldn¡¯t give much of a damn. The only people who would talk to her are other people who need friends. Someone like me, someone who is desperate for something to fill a space in their life, something to keep away the cold. I¡¯ve realised that, I am weak willed. I reread all of my posts, and I think that although the¡­ repressed feelings made me quick to accept Clover / Saoirse as friends, it was mainly due to me being as desperate as I was- as I am- to feel like a person. For a world like any of these. If he would just hit me, throw a boulder at me, shoot me, kill me for Christ¡¯s sake, I¡¯d have been able to cope, but all of these friendly faces, the comforting atmosphere, it sucks the life from me. Every time I got out of the first few worlds, I¡¯d punch through Noah just a little bit harder, just a little bit farther, just enough that I could trick myself into thinking that I¡¯d only need to be here for five more seconds, two more lives, until I got close enough to get a hit off on his jaw, knock him out, something. Then, on the sixth world, Noah had flattened back out, undoing any work I¡¯d struggled for months to make. It became twice as hard to move. I settled into apathy, and continued to wander through my fantasy worlds. I went to Paris in one, I¡¯d have felt bad about using that Me¡¯s credit card, if I didn¡¯t slowly come to agree with Lech¡¯s statement. In the face of infinity, all of this is pointless, isn¡¯t it? There exist exact copies of these worlds, including ones where I never invaded them. So why does it matter whether or not I do whatever I want? I need to somehow fend off the emotional response Lech is trying to force on me. I have to run away, as far as possible. France probably isn¡¯t anything like this in real life. Each world is ever so slightly stained as I travel through them, I think it was some kind of response to me becoming tired of my perfect surroundings, for one thing, I wouldn¡¯t describe the sky as golden near the tail end of my time here, silver would give a better idea. I found a few alleys that smelt like piss, especially in Paris. Slowly, slowly, slowly. It¡¯s like a single leech sucking you dry, whilst injecting you with ecstasy. You begin to prefer life with it, you enjoy the complacency. I played dead between world seven and sixteen, I told myself there was a chance of them believing it, Limorilow had said that it was more likely that I don¡¯t come back. But it didn¡¯t work. If I had been thinking straight, I would have considered that him knowing that I could ¡®cheat¡¯ my way out of each world, would mean that I could do it indefinitely. He didn¡¯t stop ¡®giving me the world¡¯ because I had told him that I was in the first one for weeks, proving that it was effective in terms of wearing me down. He knew that it was working just fine, if not better with my ability stopping me from getting trapped in here forever. I was weak to him, an attack on my mind that couldn¡¯t be blocked by my SP2. ¡­ I was sitting at a campfire. I¡¯d been in this world for¡­ long enough to grow a beard. It wasn¡¯t too impressive, and it was only as big as it was due to this Me¡¯s superior physique. I was alone, so the woman wearing Shamrock showed up. They usually didn¡¯t say anything, they¡¯d just take off the mask and I¡¯d be back home. But this time it didn¡¯t. I waited. I looked around to see if anybody was nearby, but we truly were alone. I asked, ¡°What are you waiting for? Aren¡¯t you going to send me back?¡± She shushed me, and raised his hand. At first, I thought they were pointing at something, I checked the line of trees to their side, nothing. I got up to ask properly. ¡°What. What do you want from me?¡± The hand was raised so I could see. A small snail trailed across the index finger, going towards the tip. ¡°This species can lay approximately one hundred eggs at a time. Half, if not all of them die or aren¡¯t fertilised properly. Imagine how many hundreds are never born. Imagine how many are. And for what? Five years, maybe two. Is that a life? Does such a worthless creature, that can hardly go beyond a mile within its lifetime¡­ Could it have a soul? It doesn¡¯t matter. Because they were born. They were born. Do you think other snails would grieve? If you were to drop this one over the fire?¡± The arm stretched out farther. If it was a normal human, a normal fabric costume, they would have burned. But it didn¡¯t. ¡°The truth of the matter it that it doesn¡¯t matter. Because the truth is, this snail will die anyway. Every inch it gained, worthless. Forever and always.¡± I plucked it by the shell and tossed it in. ¡°There. No more eyes. Can we go?¡± They stood up, and despite me being taller than my real body, I realised that I might as well be dangling over the fire. ¡°No.¡± The arm reached deeper into the fire, into the red heart of the wood. Squeezed between its fingers was a charred shell, some sort of ooze leaking from it. ¡°Sometimes, a snail will go inside of its shell. But after a while it will come back out, and start moving again.¡± I expected it to. But it didn¡¯t. ¡°Aren¡¯t you supposed to be doing something?¡± She asked. I was confused by the question, ¡°You¡¯re the one keeping us here.¡± ¡°You¡¯re the one who¡¯s supposed to fight.¡± I was getting fed up with this cryptic act, ¡°What do you think I¡¯ve been doing! I¡¯ve been resisting his attacks the best I can! You¡¯re supposed to pull me out!¡± ¡°You¡¯re supposed to fight. Against everything that is. Even the pointlessness of a snail. The absence of worth, the will of your enemy. You must not change. But you have begun to. Your environment, your architypes, they are corrupting your purpose. Bear your fucking teeth, and bend him to your will. It doesn¡¯t have to be a minute from now, it doesn¡¯t have to be ten years from now, not even one hundred. Go beyond the mile.¡± She held the snail out in front of her, before cracking open the shell. I don¡¯t think I was confused or disgusted, but that¡¯s the sort of face I made, as she stripped the goo from it and slurped it up. Tossing the remains to the ground, they looked at me, grabbing the mask, ¡°When in France, do as the French men do.¡± I didn¡¯t have long to think on that statement before I was flung back to reality. That was when I decided to fight back again. Not because I entirely understood what she was saying to me, but because she made me mad. For a single second, I was allowed to push back against the crushing mass, as Lech finished reciting the words. I awoke on a throne in a world of violence. All I did there was fight, a manifestation of my feelings in that second. When I got back, I kept pushing, until I was sent away. The process repeated, as months and seconds passed by, I kept trying, remained stalwart, gaining inches, being pushed back miles. Eventually, I incorporated my pain into the process. I screamed. As loud as I physically could. After reflecting, I thought about the other time I refrained from keeping quiet, against Isaac. Feoli had been covering her ears from a good distance away, so maybe there was actually something I could exploit from this technique. Every loop added to my roar, the frustration that I was now festering with, I promised not to let it fall back into sorrow. ¡­ Until one loop I will never forget. The previous loop I had managed to get a hand out of Noah, and after thinking about my next move for a week, I was sent back to my world. I thrust my other fist into the gap, and pried it away. By this point I had a near exact idea of when Lech would complete his sentence, so I knew I would be sent away after peeking my head out. That¡¯s when I wasn¡¯t. My mind was on fire, thoughts blazed through my mind, why, how long, what? I never got the chance to focus on it, as I was finally able to leap out of the flesh pit, and I could finally see the end of this long hell. My shoe smashed the floor, as I thrust myself from it at my top speed, even if I didn¡¯t hit him with my fist, this would definitely knock the air out of him. I unconsciously counted the passage of my extra few seconds, thinking there was no way that this could be it, that I was going to be sent away for one more time. Until it landed, my left hook smashed him in the face, crunching him as he collapsed to the floor. I grabbed him by his bloody mouth while he was on the floor, screaming louder than ever, not at him, not at his deaf helpers, but at the world. I won. I beat you, you bastard, I¡¯m free! I can do whatever I want! Nothing controls me! This is real! This is everything! I can go back to my life! I can go back to- Then the take away from all of this hit me. What am I trying to get back to? What was I doing with my life before now? Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. I turned to look at the room around me, thinking it a little strange that Noah hadn¡¯t tried to restrict me at any point. I glared at the room around me, the lights, the tv, the walls, the ceiling. It was clean. Not totally, but it was more prestine than it had been when I saw it three weeks ago. I broke my resolve, grin fading, and I nearly crushed my head between my hands, as I began to scream for an altogether different reason than my success. If you haven¡¯t caught on, there was nothing wrong with Lechoslaw¡¯s incantation. I really had been sent to another world. A world that made me the happiest I could be, given my current mental condition. A world where I was able to win. There was a crushing feeling that I was just being paranoid, that there was no way that was true, not after all I¡¯ve been through. I jumped out of the window behind Lech and began to wander aimlessly, just for a week, I thought, just to make sure. I didn¡¯t go far, settling myself in the mountains, occasionally getting food from the shop with the money in my bank account. I spent days up there. I didn¡¯t count how many. I stopped counting after this one loop. The last number I had was from around the 30th loop, around five months¡¯ time. I woke up one morning, cold and wet, to see myself, looming over me. ¡­ When I got back to my world, the opposite happened. Noah not only forced me back down, closed the gap, but his power had grown, and he was now crushing me, doing damage. Nothing of note for a time. There was one instance before the final world that stuck with me. This was the moment I realised that the man in front of me was not the same as Grey in any shape or form. I had actually managed to force my head out of a gap, I thought about what I would do with that position for a week. I could spit something at him, that might work. After thinking about it, I realised it wouldn¡¯t, not unless it was something hard, and all I¡¯d have in my mouth in that moment would be my tongue, saliva, and teeth. I had set my mind on not getting out of this by harming myself in a permanent way early on, I played with the idea of ripping my ears off so that I couldn¡¯t hear him, but went against it, as there was no guarantee that it¡¯d stop his ability. I have no clue how Noah cut off Clover¡¯s hearing, so I¡¯m not going to be able to replicate it. Besides, spitting my tongue didn¡¯t seem like it¡¯d hurt anyone much. So, I spoke to him. And it worked. Leaping back to my reality, I shouted the only thing I knew about him. ¡°WHAT WOULD TANYA THINK, HUH?¡± He stopped just short of finishing his mantra. I became excited, forcing a hand out as my head was half sucked back under the skin. I tried to find a way to leg myself up out of the hole, but I couldn¡¯t get it. He didn¡¯t respond right away. There was just a slight twinge of surprise in his face. He had been looking at me, but eventually broke his gaze. For some reason I focused on the crown tattoo under his left eye. Seconds, what had been months to me, passed by as he remained wordless. I finally clawed my other arm out and pulled my neck out fully. Maybe that¡¯s just what he was waiting for, me to get a good view. His eyes curved ever so slightly, his brow turned up, his lips raised, their corners stretched like the bones beneath his skin were playing him like a puppet. Lechoslaw Limorilow smiled. ¡°Who cares? She died fifteen years ago. Life is for the living, ¡®hero¡¯. That, is why I¡¯m trying to give you the world.¡± When I came to my new reality, I wasn¡¯t even disappointed with the result. At least now I knew without a shadow of a doubt, I was fighting a monster. I was fighting the Mountain. ¡­ I was disappointed with my escape though, but I did escape eventually, for what it¡¯s worth. Well, that¡¯s a poor choice of words¡­ I¡¯m guessing we were just over a minute by then, but once more, I¡¯d made it back to reality once more. I¡¯d gotten over another period of depression, so I was coming out screaming. The idea this time was to rip my way through Noah, the method I¡¯d used on Feoli¡¯s monster in our first fight. I knew it would take something like a minute for me to tear my way to the outside, so I was planning on going halfway, making enough room to throw a good punch. If I was lucky, it¡¯d only be another year. At first, I believed I had crossed into another bait reality, when seconds started to pass me by, I thought for sure it was. Then the flesh fell back, went limp. I came out of it feral, foaming at the mouth. I was close to smashing Lech¡¯s smug face in, I would have, if I thought it¡¯d matter. ¡°I¡¯ve changed my mind.¡± I didn¡¯t say anything, I just brought my brow down further. ¡°I¡¯ve been thinking¡­ Now isn¡¯t a good time to induct you into the Mountain. We¡¯ll be leaving. Me, Noah, and Pugal. We¡¯ll be in town for one more night, then we¡¯ll move on.¡± ¡°YEAH RIGHT! LIKE ANYBODY WOULD GO BACK AFTER ALL OF THAT! YOU¡¯RE PRACTICALLY TORTURING ME! LIKE I¡¯D BELIEVE FOR A SECOND THAT YOU JUST NATURALLY CAME TO THAT CONCLUSION, THAT THIS ISN¡¯T ANOTHER SICK, TWISTED JOKE.¡± His smile faded, ¡°I¡¯m quite impulsive. I¡¯m a vagabond. I wander aimlessly. Besides, we really haven¡¯t been here long, little over a minute, I think? That¡¯s plenty of time for me to decide I was wrong.¡± My eyes twitched as I struggled not to smash his head in. ¡°I think you¡¯ve gotten the point anyway. This? This Universe? It is Pointless. There is no chief god with a plan, there is only a scattered selection of wills to bend to. Whether it¡¯s a Machine God, a Glass God, or¡­¡± He looked at both Noah, then to Clover. Clover. I ignored whatever he was implying, focusing on her. This was the first time I¡¯d actually looked at her in nearly a year. It¡¯s embarrassing to admit, but she was probably the only thing that looked just as good in this world as she did in the ¡®given worlds¡¯. She had turned away, her shoulder length hair falling in front of her eyes from my angle. All I could see was her stiffened lip and nose. I looked back at Lech, my head a little cooler. Another thing I could see, realising it was there was like seeing someone you don¡¯t like outside of school, an unpleasant surprise. Asking yourself if it¡¯s really them, trying to know what to do once you realise it is. This was real. I knew it was, because my SP2 was flaring up, telling me how I could use it, telling me to use it. I didn¡¯t. I don¡¯t think I will from now on. I knew this was me; when I looked down at my hands, my wrists nobbled, at least in comparison to my other bodies. I looked up to him, ¡°Why.¡± He turned his head, ¡°No. If anyone deserves answers, it¡¯s me. What is your secondary ability?¡± I gulped, my jaw tremoring. He glared into me, as if he was looking for it. ¡°I¡¯d tell you my origin, but you know enough already. I will confirm, and this is knowledge that would prove harmful to me should you tell Clover, or any one for that matter, though if my suspicions are rightfully placed, I have information about you that would prove more than harmful. I¡¯ll let you wonder what that is. Yes. I serve the Dark Gods. Specifically, Irminsul, the Multiversal God. Active support of their trio is forbidden under the Mountain. It¡¯s a conflict of loyalty, so they say, other Gods are seen as regressive by our standards, but I serve both faithfully. With a name as sinister as the Dark Gods, you might think them malevolent¡­ No. They are nihilistic. They embody concepts of entropy, negativity, and-¡± He stopped himself, muttering, ¡°I¡¯ll explain that later¡­ Tell me the truth.¡± I shook my head, ¡°I¡¯m not telling you jack s-shit.¡± He nodded, ¡°Right, act tough. Put on a mask. Lie. They might like that. I won¡¯t claim to know them well enough. All I know is that they are the opposite of this, of existence. They are what isn¡¯t real. If this world is Pointless, then they are meaningful.¡± He looked down at my feet. ¡°Please. Tell me you know about June.¡± I shook my head and answered, ¡°I¡¯ve no clue who that is, and I don¡¯t-¡± Then something really screwy happened. He laughed. It went on for a few seconds, but it brought shivers through my entire body. ¡°Ask her, ask Clover what happens in June. I understand her intentions fully now .I¡¯m done here. I¡¯ve interferred enough. There are actual preparations to be made.¡± He waved and Noah sloughed off his excess skin. Then they walked out the door, which was still wide open from when I¡¯d started all of this. As he was passing by, he looked at me, and thought for a second. ¡°I give you the world.¡± ¡­ That one. Was different. ¡­ That will be what I finish this post with. When I came back to, I looked him in the eyes. I think my open mouth betrayed my true feelings. I told him, ¡°I- It makes no difference to me. I¡¯m gonna find you and kick your ass, got that?¡± He replied, ¡°Because that¡¯s what heroes do, right? They continue a cycle of misfortune to no end?¡± Then he left. I turned back around to see her. She had taken there leave as her queue to get up and talk to me. She pulled something from her ears and looked up to me, teary eyed. I removed any emotion from my face. ¡°I- I¡¯m sorry. I tried to warn you. I told you things were getting heated, I-I texted your shitty phone¡­ I never wanted any of this to happen to you Rocky¡­¡± She actually hiccupped a little. I turned my body to face her. ¡°That guy you fucked dropped it in the ocean. I¡¯ll have to get a new one.¡± I tried to pull the emotion from my voice. If I hadn¡¯t, she¡¯d have heard my anger. I knew why she was doing this, crying, it was probably the ¡®lucky¡¯ option or something, it had the best chance of getting me to forgive her. For one line, I failed to hide my contempt. ¡°How was your movie.¡± She looked up to me, at a loss for words. I asked her, ¡°Tell me what happens in June.¡± She seemed shocked by my question. ¡°J-June?¡± ¡°Lech said something about it.¡± She bit a nail wincing in pain. We eventually left the building, she was afraid of me carrying her home in my current state, so we walked. Passing by the irritating street lights and smell of shit on the air. ¡°June¡­ is a hangover.¡± I hadn¡¯t encountered this phenomenon when I was in Irminsul, ¡°What?¡± And frankley, I didn¡¯t have the strength to care about whatever cosmological event was occuring next. ¡°It¡¯s¡­ It¡¯s a blank space. Nobody can remember what happens during that month. I¡¯ve heard first worlders can remember stuff that happens, but obviously none of that involves us. Something¡­ Something big always happens. A ton of people die, Units and Second worlders, numbering in the dozens. That¡¯s one of the main reasons the Unit population is so low¡­¡± I didn¡¯t care. Not really. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell me this sooner? Come to think of it, you never mentioned the existence of monsters that hunt people like us down. It¡¯s strange, isn¡¯t it? You just happen to leave me out of the loop on things that¡¯ll destroy me, but you¡¯re fine opening up about your own problems, or how down bad you are for a one-night stand.¡± She stuttered, ¡°I-I¡¯m- I said I was sorry-¡± I mocked her slightly, ¡°Oh? I completely forgot. You said a two-syllable word and that excuses any of this? No, it excuses all of this. You know, I¡¯ve saved your life twice now? I never even told you about the first time, because I found out right after that the reason you told me not to talk to the Internationals was so there would be no legal records of me as a Unit, so that I was a guest in your territory! You killed me for fuck¡¯s sake! You piece of shit! Am I even a person to you? Am I? Or am I just another laughable pest? Tell me I¡¯m fucking road kill, say it to my face!¡± It was disgusting. Not just her behaviour before now, nor mine, I¡¯m talking about my body. My palms were so sweaty, my breathe was hot, my mask suffocated my face. She had her head cupped in her eyes, more so in frustration than sadness. The street light overhead blinked. ¡°Ignorance is bliss.¡± She at last said, wiping her eyes red, ¡°That¡¯s where the saying comes from. June. The less you know about it the better. There¡¯s a chance that you won¡¯t be ¡®¡®accepted¡¯¡¯ into it. That you¡¯ll be over looked as irrelevant. The more divorced you are from monsters, organisations, gods, the better. If- You weren¡¯t joining the Mountain anytime soon, then you needed some kind of insurance. You had five months to get used to your powers, figure yourself out¡­ that¡¯s not enough for June. It wasn¡¯t enough¡­¡± She crouched down. And hid her eyes again. ¡°I don¡¯t want to lose¡­¡± After a while, I said, ¡°I¡¯ve met over sixty Clovers.¡± I crouched down, and pulled her into me. I told myself I wouldn¡¯t pity her. I¡¯m the one being fucked with. I¡¯m the one who spent a year away from my home. But still. We defy logic. The material. In search for something better. Warmer. Brighter. Now I know where that is. ¡°I can¡¯t leave you, I¡¯ve got nowhere else to go. I don¡¯t respect organisations like the Internationals, or your Mountain, and I really don¡¯t feel like moving to Russia for work. I¡¯m here to stay. You¡¯re the one with an option, you¡¯re the one with a home, friends, family. Now you have two. You can do away with either. This mask is all I have. I can¡¯t go on without it. Now that I¡¯ve got it back, I¡¯m stronger than ever.¡± I hated myself for liking this. That this would probably the peak of my week. ¡°Let me take you home. I won¡¯t drop you. I¡¯ve got some places I want to go. She nodded and I carried her off. ¡­ Where did I go? After being gone for a year, you might think I¡¯d like to see my mum or my granny. I went to the mountains. Saoirse texted Sam, I didn¡¯t answer. I sat up there for a few seconds, reflecting on everything I¡¯d been through. Just as loud, if not louder than in the hotel, I screamed. I wailed and clawed at the dirt, smashing it, I undid my restraints so I could hit it harder, harder. I found boulders while I was fumbling around in the dark; granite and limestone. I smashed the smaller ones. I beat my head at the thought of what I¡¯d seen in the final world. ¡­ At first it was simply a dark void. I felt around, there was nothing. The ground I was standing on was some kind of petrified wood. While I was stumbling around, I realised that there was a drop, as I nearly slipped off the curved surface I was on. Peering over, there was only more darkness. Further investigation showed that the part I was standing on was cylindrical in shape. I travelled down in a straight line along the ¡®branch¡¯ for an indiscernible amount of time. Until I bumped into a wall. Taking a step back, I realised that it was an even greater cylinder, that stretched up and down beyond sight. I¡¯d say it illuminated itself, but that¡¯s not right, it was still dark, it was the dark. It just tried to give me an understanding of the scale of the thing. ¡°I. Am Irminsul. Welcome back.¡± ¡°I understand your mundane questions, little seed, but I shan¡¯t answer them all, lest you be here forever. I am the multiverse. Everything you heard about me and my siblings is true, there was not one time that I lied to you. But¡­¡± ¡°I wasn¡¯t entirely honest either.¡± I turned to the new voice behind me. It was Grey. He was alive. Another voice came out, Hand-Made¡¯s, ¡°I¡¯m infinite. I have no boundaries, I have no definable features, I know every truth about your world, every person, animal, bacteria, alien, werewolf, atom, star, it¡¯s just floating around in the back of my head.¡± It was the woman holding a baby next, ¡°So when I see you fumbling about at school, or playing dress up, I think to myself, what if this little speck had just the right number of endorphins at this exact moment? Well maybe he would have asked that girl in his art class out. They might¡¯ve dated for a while, had some fun, and it¡¯d have some interesting consequences in the future, or even the past. I¡¯d have to make changes to the big bang to allow for it to make sense, in order for it to be true to reality.¡± Then I heard a legion of Clover¡¯s from the ground below me, ¡°Everyone needs a hobby. And I mean everyone. J-on has taken interest in that little speck. My elder brother is a sadist. What would I say my hobby is? If I¡¯m being specific, perhaps too specific, I¡¯d say it¡¯s writing fanfiction. We watch your world. Not all of us, just the twenty-seven that are closest. Some of us like it, some of us don¡¯t. I find it interesting, taking requests from mortals like you. They were fun while they lasted, but you stopped them." The whole thing began to talk. If I had ears or a brain, they¡¯d have been disintegrated. But I was simply the idea of a mind in that moment. ¡°You liked them. You really liked it. More than the original. There was no way for you to strip yourself from them, and yes, it really was as simple as refusing it, saying ¡®no I don¡¯t want to play¡¯. You cheated. I become the world. I live through the eyes of the animals, the minds of the people, and the Universe itself. But when I wasn¡¯t looking, you ruined it. You shut it down the second I took my eye away from you.¡± ¡°It¡¯s safe to say, whatever you did, it destroyed those universes. Those infinite worlds simply ceased to be. If you had just gone the normal way out, then they would have kept living, believing they were real. But you just had to waken me.¡± ¡°To ease your fragile conscience, there¡¯s a chance they weren¡¯t. Maybe my work doesn¡¯t count because its unnatural, because I¡¯m a Dark God playing with human emotions like fictional characters. After all there is only one world.¡± ¡°One world. My siblings and I are the antithesis to everything. We are the negative, the entropy, the- multiverse? What does that have to do with non-existence? I¡¯m everything that is not. I¡¯m the breakfast you skipped, the girlfriend you never had, the world where the sky is gold and good. I am everything but your world. Technically speaking, those people weren¡¯t real. Their feelings don¡¯t matter. They are dead.¡± ¡°I¡¯m the actions that have not, and will not be taken. I am everything that isn¡¯t. I am not the world¡± ¡°There is only one world. And everything beyond, and below.¡± ¡­ When the sun finally came up, it was dull. There were no vibrant colours growing from it, it was just a circle set against a dull grey sky. The world is a heap of dirt with sharp green flowers, some soggy bits and the occasional sheep. And I am an unattractive pale faced, bony, short, weak, little man. After some time, I shifted my focus over to the crater of destruction I¡¯d torn up, the large boulders left in my wake. I lifted a large piece of granite. I struggled, but only a little. It was a five-by-five-by-five-foot stone with two flat surfaces, making it easy to balance. I placed it precariously on my backside and got down onto the tips of my toes, and the palms of my hands. ¡°One¡­ Two¡­ Three¡­ Four¡­ Five¡­ Six¡­ s-Seven¡­¡± I began to feel my muscles burn with a fraction of the heat from my will around the 40th push up. Clip 4.01: Im trying to do better. I woke up with a stiff back. It¡¯s either from me working out for the first time in months, from that skin head crushing me alive. Or maybe it¡¯s because of all the loose springs I¡¯ve never noticed in this bed. It¡¯s probably all of them, but I don¡¯t know if I¡¯ll ever live down what I went through. I¡¯ve died from having my brain having my skull blown out, I¡¯ve had to live with the guilt of failing to save nearly forty people from death, I¡¯ve had my consciousness whittled away by a vengeful ai, been haunted, shot, stabbed, crushed, eaten, laser-beamed, bounced, and drowned. But all of that means nothing, when compared to being surrounded by a constant reminder of how horrible the world is. It¡¯s like finding an area of your house that¡¯s gone undusted for years, except instead of it being a corner under your bed, it¡¯s the sky, the people, this entire house. I crawled out, cracking open the door to get some breakfast. School has pretty much ended with study leave going on at the minute, so I¡¯ve dedicated my time to trying to workout, to get stronger. I really feel like I should have been able to beat Noah easily, I should have been able to throw him off. If I was able to do that, then I could have gotten out of there in five seconds flat. I think the odds of me encountering the same group under the same circumstances is slim, but I¡¯d rather prefer this never happen again. I¡¯ll admit I underestimated that skin head, I became cocky after beating him twice, even if I didn¡¯t realise it at the time. It seems he¡¯s the type that benefits from prep time, I felt him becoming stronger the longer we went on. I¡¯d also like to get to know him as a person, and possibly refer him to a good psychiatrist so he can get over whatever¡¯s made him the person he is. Pugal I¡¯m not too worried about. Not because he¡¯s silly, but because he¡¯s stationed in India, I doubt they¡¯ll bring him out against me again any time soon. If they don¡¯t forget about me. He didn¡¯t care, did he? Lech. Like he said, he¡¯s a wanderer. He¡¯s the type to go through life without building any relationships, gaining any grudges. He wanted me to realise that the world is horrible on a fundamental level. People die so that I can live, people living in third-world countries, people who have come before me, they all struggled for the life I¡¯m living now. But as I walk down this hallway, I look to my right seeing only my whole life. I have no friends, no hobbies, no¡­ no future. What am I actually going to do? I have one more year of school, I don¡¯t know if I¡¯ll go to university, I¡¯ll have to get a real job to support myself and I don¡¯t see that panning out well while I have classes to worry about, along with all this super crap. One thing I appreciate about being locked in the multiverse? Now I know what I have to change about the world, about myself. There¡¯s the obvious stuff, working out again, worrying about the future, but then there¡¯s Clover. I decided that after I finish working out, I¡¯m going to track her down and get some real answers out of her. Who she actually is. I want to know which one is the mask. I¡¯ve gotten to know Saoirse, but I¡¯ve really only hung out with Clover when it was necessary, half in an attempt to hide my identity, half because I wanted to believe that Saoirse was real. At this point I don¡¯t even know which is her real name. After a couple thousand push ups, squats, pullups, practicing flips and punches, I finally left my spot in the mountains, heading directly to her house. At least, that¡¯s what I intended. I have a slight suspicion that she has her luck putting up road blocks every time I try to confront her. First was Tayanita¡¯s hit squad, and now somebodies shouting at me from the streets below. Which isn¡¯t a first, but it is the first time they¡¯ve used my name instead of ¡®asshole¡¯ or ¡®bitch¡¯. I had to back track, as I¡¯d already jumped past Adonis. ¡°Hey, long time no see! How are ya A-dog, been crushed by the realisation that God isn¡¯t real?¡± He looked down at me, ¡°I¡¯ve been watching for you, you¡¯re still on for the party, right? Party? I had to rack my brain; it had been ages ago. ¡°Your girlfriend¡¯s party, right? Yeah, I guess I forgot to give you a call?¡± He shook his head, ¡°It¡¯s her brother¡¯s birthday. I get you¡¯re busy, but we really need to hash some stuff out. She wants more than just you. Well, she didn¡¯t say that, but if it¡¯s just you then what¡¯s the point?¡± A little out of the conversation, I told him, ¡°Uh, I don¡¯t really have any friends with superpowers, I might be able to borrow a robot, but that¡¯s not very likely at all-¡± He argued nonchalantly, ¡°There¡¯s that fish woman. She might be a criminal, but you two seem to have some kind of¡­ understanding, right?¡± I shook my head to everything he just said. ¡°She¡¯s a murderer. Why would you want someone like that at a kids party? You can¡¯t convince her with money either, she doesn¡¯t use it. Seriously, I think those kids will be fine with me giving them piggy back rides.¡± His expression didn¡¯t change, he remained cool. ¡°Just talk to her next time you see her, ok? I¡¯ll be waiting for your call. Trust me, it needs to be a show. Just get somebody with powers.¡± I nodded, absent minded, and bounced off. I don¡¯t think Clover¡¯d be a good pick for that, sure she can make plants jiggle about, but kids aren¡¯t gonna find that cool. I could understand wanting Feoli for it, big monsters are cooler than a guy just above 5 feet tall. Actually, that got me thinking, there¡¯s still tons I don¡¯t know about her, stuff from the first night I met her, like: The marking on her hand, how her secondary power works, and what¡¯s up with those green luck vials. I don¡¯t think there¡¯s any law against selling ¡®Clover¡¯s dew¡¯, but that doesn¡¯t mean that stuff¡¯s safe. I snapped back to the current situation. I tried to think about what I wanted to say, I can honestly say that she threw me through a loop the other day when she started crying. There¡¯s just a part of me that can¡¯t ignore that face, the face of a woman who¡¯s been broken and beaten down, regardless of whether or not it was fake. Maybe it¡¯s because of how I know her as Saoirse. No, I felt the same when I saw her tearing up in science, when I¡¯d just met her. Then maybe it¡¯s from my mum. She¡¯s¡­ a strong woman, but there have been times where things have gotten really bad for us¡­ and she wasn¡¯t able to keep it back. There was someone else, another girl¡­ but she¡¯s gone. She left and it was my fault, as far as I remember. Maybe I¡¯ll get into it someday, if I ever go up to Belfast. Again, I had to pull myself away from disheartening thoughts. I charged up to the door and rang the bell. I was going to tell her how horrible everything she¡¯s done has been, I was going to ask her why she was doing what all this. If I can understand that, then there is a chance I can understand the Mountain, and if I can do that, then I¡¯ll be a step closer to my Goal. I¡¯m on the verge of purpose. If I want to solve this super power crisis, then there really is only one option. I¡¯m going to take every villain down. That¡¯s what I was thinking before she opened the door. ¡°Hello??¡± she looked at me with her head tilted slightly, while I stood wordless. When I had met her, she had been wearing a simple, but clearly expensive dress. Like that one, it was a cocktail dress she was wearing, but this one was shorter on one side, making her legs look longer. It hung from halter straps around her neck, coming down low enough to shoe some cleavage, while leaving her shoulders and sides exposed. She had her hair done up so that it came down on one side in a curl. She covered herself with a heavy amount of make-up. ¡°Uh¡­¡± I tried to think, ¡°Why are you dressed like that? She lowered an eyebrow, giving a little bit of a twirl, ¡°No reason. Well, I might die soon, so I thought I might as well dress up.¡± I replied dumbly, ¡°What?¡± ¡°June??¡± I tilted my head now, she continued, ¡°I told you it was probably the most important and dangerous time of the year?? Can you only remember what happened a week before now?? You got goldfish brain??¡± I defended myself as she let me in, ¡°Oh yeah, that thing you mentioned after I got trapped in an alternate world for a year.¡± I simplified it down. She frowned, ¡°I''ll make it up to you some time.¡± I swatted the air, ¡°Ahh whatever, I don¡¯t care.¡± Fuck, no, I do care. Of course I care! Come on focus! ¡°Most people¡¯d die or fold. I¡¯m not just talking about Lechoslaw. Noah¡¯s the Unit living in London, he¡¯s basically been intrusted to keep parliament, the royal family, and some other stuff safe from domestic paranormal threats in England. He¡¯s been in a lot of testosterone fuelled fights, and you managed to beat him while he had back up from some guy the King placed faith in.¡± She smiled, her whitened teeth sparkling through her thin lips, ¡°It¡¯s a dumb move to go against the Mountain, but now we know you aren¡¯t just street level trash.¡± I smiled a little, still fighting against the response she wanted most.¡± I shunned the compliment, ¡°Well, I cheated my way out of my fight with Lech, he let me go.¡± She shrugged, sitting down on her sofa. I turned my eyes up, afraid of how short her dress was. ¡°The vast majority of people die. So what if you cheated, he¡¯s tantamount to the king, I think it¡¯s a victory to see another day. Granted, that was one of his abilities. Don¡¯t ask me about the other, nobody knows what it is, not even Bastard. Don¡¯t go thinking you¡¯re the peak, you¡¯re not.¡± I swam through the living room trying to find a suitable place to sit down. I finally pulled myself into asking a question I cared about. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. ¡°Who is Bastard, and why does everybody think he¡¯s so great? That skin-head and Lech respect him, Axel and Isaac were afraid of him. You¡­ I have no clue what your relationship with him is.¡± For a second, she seemed surprised, before sealing her lips. I pushed a little harder, ¡°I¡¯m not asking about his powers, I just want to know what type of person he is.¡± Maybe she thought I might be convinced to join him if I better understood what it is he stands for. But that is of course, impossible. ¡°He¡¯s¡­ nice. Kind, to a fault. He doesn¡¯t like killing, but if it was to save somebody he loves, he wouldn¡¯t hesitate. Believe me, there are worse people in this world than killers, it just so happens that most of them are dead now. In the countries he has an influence over, they¡¯ve seen decreases in murders, homelessness, suicide, people like me aren¡¯t put into territories like this just to oversee the area, make revenue, or to defend it from people like you, we¡¯re here to fill the niche, so that people like the man in Belfast don¡¯t get the time to grow.¡± People like me, I thought. One of my theories as to why Clover came to Tralee was in order to nip me in the bud, before I became a threat. If her praise from earlier is to be taken to heart, then she at least partially failed. I pushed her, ¡°I asked you about Bastard, not your organisation, I¡¯ve got a good idea of how you handle areas. One or more Units presiding over a number of skilled second worlders in a given area, likely over a country, or in your case at least, an island. I want to know about your King.¡± She brushed her hair back, not showing much emotion, maybe I just couldn¡¯t tell with her makeover. ¡°The two are inseparable. The shrinks over at the Internationals say he¡¯s the ¡®ego¡¯ of our organisation, he embodies our vision and goals. They say that without him, we¡¯d fall apart. That''s alright, because we¡¯ll never be without him.¡± I thought about asking what that meant, but refrained, ¡°Well, what¡¯s your relationship with him?¡± She starred into the white eyes of my mask, ¡°He raised me. I think I was around six when I found that four leaf clover, he found me soon after, said I was important. I was joined to his hip until a few years back, I think I moved to London-Derry at around fourteen? I started seeing him less and less over the years. I understand, he trusts me to look after myself, but¡­¡± She narrowed her gaze, it half looked like she was trying to make eye contact. She smiled trailing off. ¡°You know, three years ago, I woke up in a coffin. I was in complete darkness for a couple days. Obviously, I got out alright in the end, I was dehydrated, starved. I only managed it because some grave robbers that luckily decided to dig me up. When I finally got my hands on a phone, I called him, I couldn¡¯t cry, but my dry voice told him I was in trouble. He hung up in seconds.¡± ¡°Within an hour, he came all the way from England to the shit hole I was buried in, some town in Australia. One hour. Just so you know, he¡¯s physically a normal human being, he can¡¯t teleport, turn into a space ship, or whatever. This was before portals were set up for commercial use by Vortech, so yeah, he pulled strings, tracked the call, dropped a meeting with some important people, all so he could hug me. Rocky¡­ you¡¯re a good guy, but he¡¯s the reason I¡¯m still alive after everything I¡¯ve been through, after every June.¡± I thought to ask a question about ¡®Vortech¡¯ but it would¡¯ve been in poor taste, not to mention, I was trying not to get side tracked. I think I failed however. ¡°I¡¯m trying not to be too pushy with this Rocky, but June is a big deal. I¡¯ve told you that the more you know about this stuff, the more likely you are to be ¡®taken in¡¯ by June, but there¡¯s around 400 Units-¡± That¡¯s a figure I¡¯ve been looking for for a long time, now that I¡¯ve got it, it seems a little skimpy. The Mountain has around a hundred Units, with Russia having a roughly equal number. That means there are two hundred people working on their own, in another group, or for the Internationals. I hope some of them are friendly. I guess I¡¯ve met a fortieth of the super population then. She continued, ¡°-around three-percent of us are going to die, that¡¯s like if two hundred million people died. One time that many did.¡± That got my attention. ¡°I told you that I was in a coffin. It¡¯s not just dying you have to worry about, it¡¯s a hangover, you¡¯ll wake up somewhere weird. A coffin or a couch in Brisbane, could be either or. My- My first boyfriend woke up in outer space, which was better than dying during June, because I had around a week to say good bye before an asteroid got him. Most people are not that lucky.¡± I was about to ask a question, but she asked me, ¡°You want something to drink?¡± Five minutes later she got us some coffee. ¡°What actually happens during it? Wh-¡± Maybe she knows the types of questions I ask by now, maybe she¡¯s just explained it so often that she knows the questions that need answered. I understood now that I was letting her lead the conversation, but I was starting to feel a shadow coming over the summer the more she spoke. ¡°It¡¯s different every time. Every year seems to have a theme. Last year seemed like some Aztec shit, I woke up dressed for carnival in Brazil. Nobody, and I do mean nobody knows why it happens. If you ask the Gods, they won¡¯t tell you, some people say not even they know.¡± My eyes lit up. ¡°I thought they were all powerful- all knowing!¡± To me, this was way more than the passing note she phrased it as. This was a chance. ¡°Some people believe it. Nothing concrete. Think about it, if you were a collective of outerversal beings you¡¯d probably tell everybody you¡¯re almighty, right? Who¡¯s going to argue, the monkeys?¡± ¡°The idea mainly comes from Christians and other monotheistic religions. They think that there is one power above all others, and that June is some sort of ritual culling, old testament like. So, if God is real? They¡¯re just as much a piece of shit as the other Gods.¡± I bit a nail, a little hopeful that beings like J-on and Irminsul aren¡¯t just stationary points in the world, that maybe they can be beaten. Hell, I reflected on what Adonis had once told me, that there must be some sort of limit, restriction, or hesitation from the ¡®Gods¡¯ to stop them from doing whatever they like. ¡°You¡¯re getting pretty loose lipped on all this,¡± I pointed out, ¡°What happened to ignorance is bliss?¡± She looked out the window, ¡°I have a bad feeling we¡¯ve past that point, and it¡¯s better than you going in completely blind. Seriously, when you wake up tomorrow, come here. If Valentines was enough for us to work together as much as we did, then yeah. We¡¯re walking into deep shit.¡± I grinned at how out of place the words coming out of this princess¡¯ mouth were, then I thought about what she just said, ¡°Wait, tomorrow?¡± She frowned, jerking her head out a little, ¡°Yeah?? The first?? Did you not realise?? Please tell me you said good bye to your family.¡± I looked around the room blankly. ¡°You fucking idiot! Holy shit, you need to go!¡± I laughed awkwardly, ¡°Ok, ok, right, wouldn¡¯t it be better to stay with you when the clock strickes midnight? Or however this works?¡± She put her hands to her head, her eyes bulging from her skull nearly made me laugh harder, ¡°GO. HOME. You¡¯re probably going to di-¡± She cut herself off, frowning. I stopped laughing as hard. I walked myself to the door, ¡°If you need me, you have my number- oh, I guess you don¡¯t. Well, as soon as shit goes down, I¡¯ll find you. Promise.¡± I grinned wide; it was the most honest smile I¡¯ve pulled since coming back. I left before she could say anything more. Honestly, that went better than I¡¯d hoped. Not only did I find out about the Bastard, I also came to a conclusion on the Clover-Saoirse situation. I got back home and checked my phone, finding 23 messages from Saoirse. Three of which she¡¯d sent recently. I completely ignored them, transferring her number from the 300-euro phone to my 15-euro brick, so I could call her as Shamrock. I smiled to myself, content with this conclusion. Whoever she is, she doesn¡¯t need Sam, she needs a hero. Like Shamrock. And that is what I was made for. I didn¡¯t even check for my mum, I thought about it, and if I do end up dying, then I think I¡¯d prefer to remember her like she was in those fantasies. I phoned my granny. ¡°Hello? Burrows residence.¡± I smiled to myself, ¡°Hi Granny, just checking in on you.¡± ¡°Oh, hello heartache, how are you?¡± I shook my head, ¡°Never mind me, I¡¯m grand, are you good? Eating healthy?¡± She sighed, ¡°Of course I¡¯m fine! You¡¯re the one who never tells me where you¡¯re going with your friends¡­¡± I licked my lips, ¡°I¡¯ve told you, I¡¯m not getting into trouble, and I¡¯m doing great in school!¡± ¡°Right, I- I know, you¡¯ve always been, ack you know¡­¡± I was quiet, waiting for the rest, ¡°Oh, yeah I know what you mean.¡± ¡°But now that you¡¯ve started going out with Bailey and your other friends again, I¡¯m just a little worried that you¡¯re stretching yourself thin.¡± I laughed; it was funny that she thought I¡¯d be in any danger just by hanging out with some people, when I escaped the multiverse nearly a month ago. ¡°I¡¯m being very serious, heartache! I know that- that when you¡¯re having fun, it might be hard to notice, especially with everything good going on, your straight A¡¯s, your internship back in Tralee¡­ but you¡¯re¡­ you¡¯re¡­ you know¡­ It¡¯s just very difficult when to know when you¡¯re at your limit when you¡¯re having so much fun. You might only have a sneaking suspicion that something¡¯s wrong but-¡± I cut her off, ¡°Alright Gran, I understand, really, I¡¯m fine! How¡¯s the dog doing?¡± She slowly followed the change in subject, ¡°He¡¯s- Well, actually, I wanted to talk to you about that, his poop is actually seeming strange¡­ His patterns have changed¡­ and now that I mention it there, do you remember the lady across the road from Ms Mac Ovey? Apparently, she¡¯s being treated for stomach worms at the moment, and I¡¯ve read that will affect pooping patterns. I hope the wee things alright; God bless.¡± ¡°God bless is right.¡± I didn¡¯t know if she was talking about the dog or the lady, but either way, I hope they¡¯re all right. I guess I¡¯ve also found myself hoping that there is a God to bless them. Really, when you think about it, God is just an older version of- Did my granny hang up? No, now that I think about it, I¡¯ve never heard my phone make this static before. Oh well, it¡¯s a new phone, I just haven¡¯t gotten used to- Is that smoke? I span my head around the room, sniffing. No, it wasn¡¯t, at least, it didn¡¯t smell like smoke. The idea that this might be some kind of poisonous gas came to mind and I suddenly regretted all the smelling I¡¯d done. I jumped out of the window in my room, good thing about living in a bungalow is that I don¡¯t exactly have to worry about a passer-by seeing me unflinchingly throw myself from a second story. My mind then flashed to my mum, I hadn¡¯t even checked to see if she was home, if this was an attack from the Mountain, then the smartest option would be to run. I prepared myself to dash through the mist, but before I did, the sky got my attention. Looking up, the sun was gone, the expanse before me wasn¡¯t grey exactly; it was, but it was¡­ Static. As I looked at it, longer and longer, I imagined it moving like the fuzz of an old tv that hasn¡¯t been tuned. I¡¯d have worried about going into an epileptic shock, what with the sky itself flashing black and white, but the thing is, it wasn¡¯t visual. It was in my mind. Eventually the white noise joined it. Like a single fast approaching wave that never did come, I felt fear envelop me, and I had to look away, I had to, what I was looking at was beyond my conception. Ignore. Ignore! Ignore it! I don¡¯t remember if those were my own thoughts, or an instinct. I bent my head down to the ground until I forgot what it looked like. Then I guessed what was happening. Fuck. I stopped for what felt like an eternity, thinking. Should I put on costume or keep my promise and get to her as soon as possible. Why was this something I was thinking about? Well, I don¡¯t know. A thought that came to mind was that if everybody forgets what happens during this time period, then why would it matter? Obviously, there is always the chance that this is all a ploy to get me to expose my identity. As I was getting changed, the truth hit me like a sack of bricks. Everybody I¡¯ve fought has had the chance to take my mask off. They just didn''t care enough to. They don¡¯t care. It¡¯s inconsequential what I look like, or who I am. Why do I wear a mask? What¡¯s the point of all this? All these costumes and disguises? The separate identities aren¡¯t necessary when everyone I love is already in danger. Deep down, I think¡­ there¡¯s a reason. I just can¡¯t remember at the moment. I got my costume on, round leaf motif on the end of my cape and on the face of my mask. I tried not to grin at my first large scale adventure in the real world, of course, they always start like that I reminded myself, and they always end with me screaming out in vain. I brought down my brow, but kept my grin. I leapt farther and faster than usual. If this was a trap, then I should move as fast as possible, I¡¯d like to see them catch up to me after a month of training. As I was running, I came to a point that forced me to stop. I tried to figure out what was wrong. I¡¯ve ran down this street hundreds of times through my life, so why is it so unsettling now? The people were acting normally, the weather was normal enough (grey overcast), so what? I ran on, only realising what was wrong with the world when I arrived at my destination. I arrived at Clover¡¯s house. This point, was Clover¡¯s house. I''ll try and explain. Take a photograph. Cut a circle in the middle of it. Now imagine that the rest of the picture cascades into that hole when you¡¯ve cut it out. It''s a sort of pinhole affect. That, on a three-dimensional scale. The ground, the grass, the trees, the neighbouring houses. Me. Needless to say, simultaneously wadding through ¡®thick¡¯ air, while your body is stretched the closer you get to that point, is difficult to comprehend. It was a comlpete distortion of space. Not to mention the internal call to ignore this thing in front of me. I did, in the end. Ok, ok, I¡¯m sure she¡¯s alright, I¡¯ll just run to the Quarter, she might be there. The same phenomena. Overwhelming panic consumed me now. Was I too late? Was this an attack from some other worldly entity? From June? If she¡¯s gone, then I¡¯m- I¡¯m alone. No, there are plenty of people I can go to. I went to Tayanita, house was gone. I phoned Bob, static. What the hell was happening? What sort of phenomena is this? To block everyone off from me? Again!? Then I realised. It¡¯s the other way around. I¡¯m blocked off from them. From June. Clover got what she wanted. J-on was right. If there is a higher power than anything I¡¯ve encountered so far, then it has overlooked me. Ignored me. I am a non-entity. Clip 4.02: I need to wake myself up. There is¡­ a feeling you get. When you realise that everything you¡¯ve done, every moment of happiness, every horrible thing that has happened to you, when you finally realise that the world doesn¡¯t, nor should care about any of that¡­ I¡¯d say there comes a clarity. It¡¯s like, I¡¯m at rock bottom again, not much else can go wrong. It¡¯s balanced out by the crushing lonelyness. So what does that leave me with? A melancholy. Once I got away from all the white noise and spacial sink holes, it gave me a clear moment to think. I don¡¯t matter. That¡¯s true. Doesn¡¯t that mean there¡¯s nothing holding me down? No expectations? If the bars set as low as possible, then with a little effort I can get over it. Well, I¡¯m not exactly book smart, I¡¯m bad at working out, I resort to violence more often than not, I have tenuous relationships with my family, I¡¯m poor, unpopular, probably smelly. But nobody cares. All of the disgusting qualities that I now see in myself, they don¡¯t matter. Beyond the grey buzzing in the sky, beyond the death that this month brings, I can find peace. This time, I am free, I can do anything. Without Tayanita or Clover over seeing their operations, I can wreck them, maybe even dismantle them if their luck is blocked off too. I don¡¯t have to be afraid of people like the Internationals or the Mountain sneaking up on me. Responsibilities like Feoli are probably gone too, though I should still check them out. I started patrolling as soon as the grin crossed my face. I moved with enthusiasm in my jumps, more so focusing on trying quirkier ways of moving in order to further build upon my primary power methods. I gave it some thought, and whether I smell or not doesn¡¯t really matter, not in the light of what I learned about my SP2 in Irminsul. I¡¯ve said before that I¡¯m not afraid of dying, but I am afraid of lowering the bar. If I keep relying on ¡®cheating¡¯ then I can hardly say I¡¯ve denied the odds. The idea that I might become the sort of person who will take the easiest, the cheapest way out, that¡¯s not my idea of a ¡®hero¡¯. I don''t care what the Woman Wearing Shamrock said A hero is someone who¡­ a hero isn¡¯t someone who¡¯d sacrifice someone else. That¡¯s the sort of feeling I get from that power, that every time I use it, it isn¡¯t costing me, it¡¯s costing others. I won¡¯t use it, not until I know that I am not being a danger to others. Not until I have clarity. I found a few faces I recognised, druggies, their lives deemed insignificant like mine. They were half way down an arched alley when I jumped down at the other side. ¡°Hi.¡± I grinned wide but I doubt they could see, the few who knew what I was tried to run, the others froze up. I really wanted to try something on them, the roof of the arch was about eight feet high at its peak. I could easily dash at them, close this gap in a second, but that¡¯s nothing new. The walls were made from brick, the cement between them around half the width of my finger. My shoes had no way of gripping to the wall, that slowed me down a bit, made my movements more clunky. I know I¡¯m ripping Parker, but I¡¯m trying to learn how to climb walls. Yes, I can jump high, but there are heights and situations where it¡¯s dangerous to do that, like if I had a passenger or I¡¯m trying to be sneaky. While there are plenty of places for me to train up in the mountains, I¡¯ve been meaning to try some sea face cliffs when I get good enough. I want to see if this is useful in the field first. I was slow to climb onto the roof, when I got off the ground the others started running. I suppose its freaky seeing a dark figure climbing around the ceiling. The longer I did it the faster I got, all the while thinking to myself, I¡¯ll have to look into getting whatever shoes or gloves mountain climbers use. I didn¡¯t catch them in that tunnel, obviously, but I got them squealing, and I was able to catch two of the group of six after a while. It¡¯s funny though, these are the sort of guys who¡¯ll question why horror movie characters don¡¯t just fight back. They¡¯re the type of people who haven¡¯t had to live through those sorts of experiences, and I¡¯m not talking about fighting the undead, or a serial killer, I¡¯m just talking about being afraid of the guy you¡¯re facing down. I said I recognised some of them, that¡¯s not just because of my hero work. One of them has an older brother, around my age. Usually, I was the one who started fights, whether it was because they were picking on somebody else, or because they were saying something I didn¡¯t like. Remember now, I was a little kid, I didn¡¯t have as healthy an outlet as I do now. Wait, no what I¡¯m doing now is probably worse¡­ Anyway, he started it. Maybe I did something to annoy him, I don¡¯t remember, but at least twice a week for about three months he¡¯d beat the tar out of me. Of course, we were like six, it was never too serious, a bloody nose and bruises. I tried to talk to him, ask him why he was hurting me, he just called me things that a kid under ten shouldn¡¯t hear, let alone say. He did jujutsu, so I guess the weird skinny kid who doesn¡¯t play gaelic would be antithetical to everything he knew about being a normal person, a man, what he¡¯d been taught by his parents and peers. I guess that reliance on others bit him in the ass later on. Sometime during high school, he dropped off the map. He tread just a few steps further than his little brother, and who knows where it took him. I couldn¡¯t help him, I wasn¡¯t physically capable or experienced enough with that sort of situation to do anything, even as I saw him around town, hiding his face from either the garda, his ¡®friends¡¯, or both. I¡¯m Shamrock now. I won¡¯t make the same mistake. It feels like I say that all the time, that I always make promises and never keep them, but still, I mean it, I won¡¯t let the past repeat its self. ¡°Come on Walsh, give it over.¡± I had him dangling. ¡°Ahh fuck yee!¡± I laughed, ¡°People have done worse. Be thankful I¡¯m out here making sure you don¡¯t know what I mean.¡± After getting some vapes and cigarette roles off of him, I let him go. I was more than happy, he was underage, sure, but at least I wasn¡¯t catching him with weed anymore. I brought it to a dump and tossed that crap away. This was my routine for the first week, while the sky was unintelligible, and all the people I¡¯ve been socialising with might be dying, I was running around three times as often, working out, practicing my moves, aforementioned wall climbing, but also new flips, and experimenting with kicks. Then the weekend came. I went to Dingle as normal, not because I thought I¡¯d find Feoli there, but because I thought it would worry my granny if I didn¡¯t show up after that weird call. I wanted to stay in Tralee, I felt good for the first time in so long, I had all the positives of super powers with none of the negatives. For the week. When I got to Dingle, I found monsters waiting. Looking at them, they seemed to be a strange mix between sea life and everyday animals, like cats and dogs. They were unexpectedly docile. I probably would have beat the smack out of the first one I saw- If it didn¡¯t start to speak. It was meant to be a dog, I think. It had the eyes of a fish, teeth like a shark¡¯s, a scaley nose, and its hair wasn¡¯t hair, it was some kind of wet material that had been stretched out from the central mass, as if it was mimicking hair. ¡°G-go- GoReen¡­ Go¡­ Go to the Kayefcee¡­ T-the beach is gone¡­¡± This was my first time talking to something that didn¡¯t look human, or rather the first time something like it had spoken to me. ¡°Uhhm, ok¡­¡± I was guessing who this things creator was now, ¡°Where is ¡®Kayefsee?¡¯ That Irish for something?¡± ¡°Gu- Green man¡­ G-go t-to Kayefsee.¡± I wandered around town, finding more of them, they varied in size, car to van in scale, at least from what I saw of them. I finally realised what Kayefcee was, jumping into the restaurant. She was the only person there, apart from the employees, I shouted at her, ¡°What, you think I¡¯m gone, so you take over the town?¡± She looked at me and got up from her seat, grabbing a bag walking over to me. I repositioned my weight so that I could dodge to the left, and hit her from an angle, but before I moved, she told me, ¡°I don¡¯t have any money.¡± ¡°And?¡± I obviously needed more information on what all this was about. She lifted the bag, ¡°I want to buy this.¡± I shook my head, ¡°Usually you pay before they cook the food.¡± She starred at me, her gaze a little less frosty than usual, just a little. Without her saying anything, I paid for it, 12 euro. We sat at the docks, the fishermen there were the least startled by her. ¡°Why did you do that?¡± I asked. ¡°You¡¯re going to have to be more specific.¡± I gritted my teeth as she said that, the irony in her words clear, but not to her. ¡°Everything? The monsters, the chicken nuggets, buying the food?¡± She thought about it for a second. ¡°That beach is gone, so I went to the first place that came to mind when I thought of you. While I was there, I wanted to test recreating some of the creatures on land. I¡¯ve decided to use the empty month to experiment. So, I ordered something. They gave it to me.¡± If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. I told her straight, ¡°You''re insane.¡± She turned to me, stopped eating, ¡°What¡¯s wrong with me?¡± I leaned away slightly when I saw her gaze. It had thawed, there was something there now. What had changed since the last time I¡¯d seen her? I¡¯d been fighting her monsters every week for the past few months, but the last time I actually spoke to her face to face like this was in February. ¡°You¡¯re a murderer. A homicidal maniac. The fact you can¡¯t see that¡¯s wrong is ridiculous, ergo, insane.¡± She re-aimed me, ¡°People look at me with horror. What¡¯s the difference between me and them, apart from the obvious.¡± I looked at her arm. ¡°The knives? The armour? I¡¯ve said this before but look around, you won¡¯t find anyone carrying weapons openly, I don¡¯t even do that.¡± She continued my statement, ¡°Nobody has a fiacla. Why? That¡¯s what I want to understand.¡± She leaned in, closing the gap I¡¯d made, ¡°I want to understand.¡± I was shocked. Out of everyone I¡¯ve met, I thought she¡¯d be the farthest away from any kind of redemption. Clover had killed, and I¡¯d cut her more slack than she deserved, why hadn¡¯t I done the same for Feoli? Because I caught her in the act? Because it was senseless? I asked myself if there was a chance I didn¡¯t give her a shot because she was different from me. I¡¯m not just talking about her being blue, I mean the alien culture she comes from. ¡°Where is this coming from? You disappear for months and now you want to ¡®be where the people are''? What the hell have you been up to?¡± She closed her lips, leaned away, looking out to sea. I rephrased my question, ¡°What do you want?¡± She was thinking about it, I gave her time before I thought of something she would need. ¡°Well, I can¡¯t keep buying you food, and the average person doesn¡¯t scavenge their own food. Before you say yes, remember, this is a world completely alien to you, it¡¯ll be a difficult task-¡± She looked at me with piercing eyes, ¡°I can handle it.¡± . . . The sea creature was shaped like an octopus, but was shelled like a crab, it¡¯s eight limbs locked stiffly at its joints. Its head was big, round with a few blunt spikes to make it look ¡®evil¡¯ while stopping it from being dangerous. Well, it was programmed to be dumb, docile, to follow routines we¡¯d planned out. I say planned, but the only thing we sorted out before this was getting a couple large tubs of water to the kid¡¯s house, Feoli figuring out the mechanics of her monster, and negotiating a price for the job with Adonis. I was really afraid of this whole situation. I don¡¯t know what I was thinking, actually letting her do this party. I mean, they don¡¯t know she¡¯s a murderer, that¡¯s a pretty big thing to leave off the CV. Adonis knows, though he seems a little detached from the whole super situation, despite being a second worlder. There was his dismissal of the gods, his satisfaction with the Circuit board seven just leaving, it isn¡¯t out of character for him to trust me to have a handle on a situation I have no control over. I¡¯d describe him as laid back, but not in the cartoonish way that Axel is, Adonis cares. If not for the uncontrollable things in life like cosmic threats and terror attacks, then for his girlfriend. That was another thing I was worried about. The woman in the second ¡®Given¡¯ world? Yeah, it was her. This was my first time encountering her in the real world, I was more ashamed of facing her than anything else. I made that world. That was brought to the forefront of my mind by how I feel about her, so at least for me it was awkward. Thankfully, my mind isn¡¯t made for embarrassment, it¡¯s made for fighting first and foremost. There were plenty of ways I could beat this monster, it was about as tall as a door, slow as a slug, and incapable of harming me. Ironically this forced me to get creative with how I fought, in order to drag out the fight, to make myself look cool, as I dodge eight swings at once. I bob and weave, hold back my punches, do some unnecessary flips at the right time. When I started to get a little sore in my joints, I decided to finish things. ¡°I think we¡¯ve had enough of you, Bottom-feeder, I¡¯m here for your boss!¡± I grabbed a tentacle and spun it around before tossing it into the sky. Feoli had built it to burst when it reaches a certain velocity, not the regular piffle either, he went off like a firework. I looked over to Feoli who had emerged from behind the shed in the corner Would that thing have done that if I¡¯d accidentally burst it? Was that dangerous? She¡¯s never used that against me. ¡°Good job, Shamrock. You beat my strongest minion.¡± I left a pause for her to continue. She forgot half of her lines and was horrible at acting, maybe my enthusiasm made it stand out more. ¡°It¡¯s over, Sea Stalker! You¡¯re out of monster water, you can¡¯t beat me on your own! Please, stop this madness! There is still time to undo the damage you¡¯ve done!¡± ¡°No.¡± Then she dashed over and hit me in the face, I flung back three seconds after it connected. Never mind forgetting half her lines, she forgot her final monologue! I flipped and landed on my legs, she took advantage of my silly movements, she was brutal, taking advantage of every opening. This part was a little less planned out, and it was clear she hadn¡¯t listened to the part we did plan. One of the twenty little kids sitting on the grass with their legs folded shouted out, ¡°I thought she was a witch, why¡¯s she kicking his fucking ass.¡± Like I said, foul mouthed youth. Where the fuck they get that shit from I¡¯ve got no goddamn clue. I was about to fill in that part of the plot, where the sea witch reveals that she drank the monster water, when Feoli answered, ¡°A real fighter hones every aspect.¡± So, the sea witch just worked out? After getting my ass kicked for too long, I decided to prematurely end the show, ¡°I didn¡¯t want to use this attack, but you¡¯ve left me no choice!¡± I began to charge my final move, grasping my fist in my other hand, before yelling as I threw a fake punch, ¡°Fwwwwaaah!¡± She flopped to the floor. The kids clapped. The parents were a little weirded out. It was a while after the show, we were still on for fifteen minutes. We spent most of our time giving five kids at a time piggyback rides. The only thing of note about this gig? ¡­ I realised that I¡¯ve changed for the worse since being in Irminsul. ¡°How much did that cost you,¡± The girl started, ¡°I mean, the show was a little¡­ but the practical effects for the monsters-¡± Adonis interrupted, ¡°Does it matter? Zane seemed to like it.¡± She smiled looking over to the wheel chair. ¡°Yeah¡­ but you still shouldn¡¯t be spending all this money. I don¡¯t know, I kinda feel like a gold-digger¡­¡± He joked, ¡°I¡¯m not with you for your looks, if that¡¯s what your worried about.¡± She wasn¡¯t offended by the joke, but still made an angry face for fun, Adonis continued, ¡°Maybe I did it for you, or maybe I did it for him. What type of person would I be if I sat on my wealth? I would be the type of guy who dates gold diggers. This is the least I can do.¡± She stifled a smile, and said something I didn¡¯t hear over a kid screaming. Eventually they parted, the girl from my art class attending to one of the guests, while Adonis was talking to Feoli, probably about her pay cut. She made a surprised expression talking to him, I guess she was trying to act more like a surface dweller or maybe he said something to catch her attention. It doesn¡¯t matter. At least, it¡¯s not the thing shaking me to my core. I¡¯ll tell you exactly what I was thinking after putting on a show for a little paralysed kid. That¡¯s the kid? The one who can¡¯t move? Ugh, right, so all of these other kids showed up to his birthday party? They¡¯re supposed to be his friends? What 9-year-old is going to honestly be friends with someone like that? I know kids, either their parents are making them go (corroborated by the fact theres so many parents here), or they¡¯re here because they¡¯re in his class and pity him. If I can¡¯t make a single friend how the hell is this little- NO! Holy shit! What the hell was that? There¡¯s no way I just thought that! Not even for a second! But I did. God so help me, I did. It- it must be a result of being in Irminsul for so long, never encountering a single flaw in any individual. I was also projecting a little, I was thinking about how lucky this kid is to have anybody show up at his birthday, I was jealous. Or, I guess you can say, I deserve it. Why can¡¯t I get a grip on the small things in life? Give me a party, give me a girlfriend, now that I¡¯m thinking about it, why can¡¯t I have a girl, huh? It¡¯s not like I¡¯m asking for a model, I¡¯m asking for this random girl in my art class! She¡¯s supposed to be in my league, right? So why the hell is she thanking that rich asshole, huh? I¡¯m the one who put on this show, I¡¯m the one who¡¯s been through shit- shit that¡¯s way fucking worse than being in a wheel chair! Aren¡¯t you going to thank me? Aren¡¯t you going to acknowledge me? Why can¡¯t you like me? Why can¡¯t you just give yourself to me! I was smiling, but under my mask my eyes were just as wide as my grin. ¡°Adonis!¡± I called, ¡°I think I¡¯m going to go now. Feoli, I¡¯ll wait for you at that place.¡± I carefully let the kids down, and walked through the back gate, and down the residential estate. I don¡¯t know how far I got, it felt like it was as soon as I was out of sight, but I know it wasn¡¯t, the area was different. I was looking down at a puddle when I stopped feeling a disconnect between my mind and body. I was sick, figuratively, and literally. I heaved it out of me, like I was trying to remove it from myself, those second long thoughts. I didn¡¯t believe any of that, not even for a second. But they came to mind, like that evil thing, it¡¯s creeping around in my head. Invasive, intrusive, wrong. But in the end, it¡¯s just me. I looked down at my shoes, bent over. It¡¯s just me. That¡¯s all I¡¯ve got. That¡¯s what I¡¯ve got. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with you?¡± I turn my head slowly, taking my hands away from my face. Feoli was standing there, as if she¡¯d been following me the entire time. As it turns out, she had been. ¡°We were paid to attend that gathering for a certain amount of time. You leaving is a breach of that pact.¡± I wipe at my face, ¡°Since when were you of lawful alignment?¡± She looked down at me for a moment before starting a speech, ¡°Always have been. Oaths should be kept strong; allegiances should be maintained. This is a world that will erode away someday. Look to the sky, and you might tell yourself it¡¯s today. If it isn¡¯t, then it¡¯s someday after. Flesh, bone, monsters, seas; they will fade.¡± I decided to get up by this point. ¡°-You¡¯ve upheld your promise, you¡¯ve protected these people from me for months, so you should understand that if there is anything in this world that is unbreakable, it¡¯s honour and will, things that you can¡¯t touch.¡± Her gaze wasn¡¯t cold. ¡°You¡¯re wrong,¡± I said, ¡°people aren¡¯t static. Even if you face down every hardship there¡¯s no saying that the person or idea you made that promise to won¡¯t change, if you yourself don¡¯t change first.¡± I¡¯ve realised that now. It¡¯s na?ve to think that you won¡¯t have to make compromises. I¡¯d broken a man¡¯s arm, gotten rougher with normal people, at what point do my actions become unjustifiable? I hope that when the time comes for me to go over the last line, it¡¯s for a good reason. ¡°Again, you¡¯re joking.¡± I turned to walk away; she didn¡¯t move from the spot, ¡°Even if the body, soul, and mind is eroded away by the currents of time, that moment will always live on. The promise that was.¡± I thought she wasn¡¯t going to follow me, she was four metres behind me. Just standing there. ¡°What is wrong with you?¡± I turned and talked back, ¡°What the hell-¡± She was pointing at the puddle. I thought about it for a second, ¡°I¡¯m sick.¡± She interrupted, ¡°You didn¡¯t seem physically hindered.¡± I shook my head, ¡°I really don¡¯t expect you to understand, but-¡± I remembered why I had done this job in the first place, calming down a little ¡°Well, to put it simply, sometimes when surface dwellers get a strong feeling of disgust, they vomit.¡± She looked at me like I was an idiot, ¡°I¡¯m biologically human, Shamrock, Fomorian¡¯s are capable of this as well.¡± I was about to ask her how I was supposed to know that, she can breathe underwater, that¡¯s a huge biological distinction, she interrupted me before I could ask. ¡°It¡¯s more common in the upper class, but it¡¯s believed that regurgitating can remove a sickness of the soul, in the same way it removes bodily ailments.¡± That encouraged me to walk back over to her. ¡°I¡¯ve heard about soul sickness, I think. Isn¡¯t that when your soul¡­ shrinks or fades or something?¡± She shook her head, ¡°A sickness of the soul is as complex as the mental or physical. Yes, a soul that has suffered an attack or has been reduced by a lingering spirit, is a type of soul sickness, but there are also-¡± I shouted, ¡°What about having somebody else¡¯s soul for a while?¡± She answered robotically, ¡°Yes, that would cause changes in your body and mind, but the world is big, it will vary depending on the nature of the attack on your soul.¡± I didn¡¯t want to tell her I was in Irminsul. If I recorded Grey¡¯s words properly, Balor is another Dark God, and just so happens to be the God that Feoli follows, her king. Lechoslaw warned me not to tell anybody about the nature of his powers, so I won¡¯t. If I¡¯m being honest, I¡¯m afraid of him coming back. Don¡¯t get me wrong, I want to see him again so I can kick his ass, but my best chance is to do at my own discretion. ¡°My mind was in another body, another soul, could that affect my thoughts?¡± She answered instantly, ¡°Yes.¡± That woman did tell me, I was ¡®being changed, purpose diluted¡¯ and all. ¡°Who¡¯s life?¡± She asked. I mumbled out a response, ¡°My own. A better version of my own. A couple versions.¡± ¡°Why did you leave? If your mind has been affected so heavily by that soul that it would be disgusted by it¡¯s true body, then how did you consciously escape it?¡± I didn¡¯t. ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Feoli stared off into the distance for a while. I thought about moving her on, we were standing in the middle of a street, it was lucky enough that nobody had seen us. She got down on her knees, grabbing most of her hair and holding it back, ¡°I know what your sickness is. What makes your resolve quiver.¡± She forced her other hand into her mouth, as I was once again disgusted. She gagged, vomited. I rushed over to her as she was catching her breathe, getting her to her feet. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with you!¡± I scolded, keeping my voice low. ¡°It¡¯s a dream,¡± Feoli started, ¡°-a pleasant dream. You go to sleep and find yourself in a world where everything is comfortable, yet strange in many ways. It¡¯s not what you pictured paradise to be, but there is an abundance of food, miraculous sights, and individuals that contradict your understanding of reality and logic. But dreams end. It¡¯s important to make a distinction between the imaginary and the real. Truth and lies.¡± ¡°You need to get up,¡± She finished. I had a feeling she wasn¡¯t talking about me when she said all of that, though I¡¯m sure it could be interpreted that way. My stomach tightened, ¡°That doesn¡¯t explain-¡± I stopped myself, looking at her. She was standing a foot taller than me now. I winced. ¡°Get up. And if at all possible, try to make that dream of smiling, well-fed children real. This is the perfect time for it.¡± She pointed up to the sky, as it jittered and buzzed down on us. ¡°I want to understand the logic of the dream. Whether there is anything right and true about it.¡± And with that, the real ''training'' began. Clip 4.03: I watched some admittedly average movies. What is the difference between truth and what¡¯s morally true? Truth is often found coupled with other concepts, like justice or ideals. There are tons of situations where ¡®truth¡¯ can be ascribed, facts of reality, things that have happened in the past, or scientific principles, the former of which is what connects it to the justice system. The latter however, has nothing to do with the laws of society. The truth about human beings is that they are the some of their parts: Body + Mind + Soul = person This is generally excepted as wrong, despite the fact that killing someone is no on a fundamental level no different than the cessation of a chemical reaction, like turning a kettle on, boiling water to steam. The mind isn¡¯t exempt from this, it¡¯s just electricity burning neurons, and Tayanita said that the soul is just another form of energy. On its own, a person is no different from air or a rock. That brings me back to ideals and ¡®that which is right¡¯. On a conceptual level, you can understand why these ideas would spawn from the tribal communities of our ancestors, things like murder, cardinal sins, all go to serve a small community, thus serving the individuals in them. With more people alive, there are more hands to collect food and kill wild beasts and enemies. Selfish desires detract from civilization; laziness and greed. Moral righteousness can easily be explained away with behavioural psychology, and there was a time I would have followed that line of thinking. You might not register any of this as being real, that¡¯s ok, but after all the things I¡¯ve encountered, is it too much to ask that there be something good out there? Something invisible, untouchable by drugs, the police, this societal framework that was never built to support millions of mammals, that forces them to live like ants in hive like structures. Is it so much to ask that there be a green hill beyond that grey horizon? I¡¯ve been told there are three archetypes, three parts of a person¡¯s self; I wonder if that self is the ¡®beyond¡¯ I keep looking for. The thing that will save me. I don¡¯t have one of the archetypes, so I¡¯ve been told, meaning my ¡®self¡¯ can¡¯t be found simply by looking internally, it¡¯s out in the world, in other people. My soul. ¡°What is it you¡¯re looking for Feoli?¡± We had gained quite a lot of ground from the point where we threw up, and we were nearly at our target destination. I was sceptical of her, still, I wanted to try and understand what she was saying earlier, about her own ideals, her truth. I¡¯d gotten a taste of her justice already, so I thought I¡¯d have an idea of what she¡¯d say. ¡°Ireland.¡± Something changed back there. After she finished her speech, I told her to get going. She fell back into her single word sentence structure. I guess she wanted me to ask sooner; I was busy thinking about what she said, and what I was going to do when we got out of this ¡®dream¡¯, as she put it. By this point, we were half way through the month, I might have compared it to the situation with Lechoslaw, but something about there being a definitive end and no pressing threat, it gave me time to relax. As the incomprehensible sky blared above, I reminded her, ¡°You¡¯ve already told me about that: you want to conquer and genocide Ireland, like my ancestors apparently did to yours.¡± She didn¡¯t respond. She just kept walking behind me. I didn¡¯t push any further for some time. We spoke out at the same time, fumbling over each other. ¡°I di-¡± she said. I said ¡°We¡¯re here.¡± I thought about asking what she was going to say, but decided this was more important. I looked back and forth between her and the building. It was a small enough building, the windows tinted, the door had the name of the bar on it, McHorrigan¡¯s. ¡°You can start here.¡± She was about to walk in when I stopped her, ¡°Ground rules. No matter what happens, you can¡¯t use your powers or violence. This is a real pub, you¡¯ll find all types of people in here, grouchy old men, middle-aged women on a girl¡¯s night out, and even people my age, their usually dicks, because they¡¯ve only started drinking recently. People will look at you weird at first, they¡¯ll judge you based on your appearance. Tell them that story about it being from a performance, you having a rough day and not being bothered enough to get changed. They¡¯ll buy it. The big problem you have is opening up to them, you¡¯ll have to do more than you¡¯re doing with me right now, if you want to figure people out.¡± I thought about what she might have meant earlier, I gave a hopeful interpretation, ¡°If you want to understand Ireland.¡± ¡°But-¡± She started stopping herself when a starring passer-by caught her eye. ¡°But what does that mean? What do I have to do to make them respect me?¡± I smiled a little, ¡°That¡¯s the cool part. They already do. They won¡¯t think less of you until you say something weird, or speak strangely. I¡¯ll admit, they¡¯ll be slow to accept you, specifically, but they will. They¡¯ll talk to you like they¡¯ve known you their whole life, about every little thing that happens around town. That¡¯s Ireland.¡± She was a little more hesitant to go in. But she did. I reminded her once more, ¡°Don¡¯t worry about this one going bad, we¡¯ve got sixteen more tries at this.¡± As the door swung open, I bounced out of there. I never strayed more than a mile as I surveyed Tralee for any criminals. I can¡¯t remember if it was that night or the next, but I did catch this guy dealing in his car. I recognised the kid buying, and guessed what was going on when he got in the car and got out five minutes later. The dealer tried to drive off, but after I lifted his rear wheels off the ground by an inch, he realised he wasn¡¯t going anywhere. Anyway, after maybe half an hour of patrolling, I came back to check on her. As I expected she was sitting on a bench not far from the pub. I grinned wide, waiting for the outcome I was waiting for, ¡°How¡¯d you do?¡± She was thinking about it, ¡°Difficult.¡± I waited for her to say something, she didn¡¯t. I snapped. ¡°Well, obviously. Remember how I said you have to open up? That means not speaking like a cave man. I know you¡¯ve got stuff going on in your head, you just have to talk! It¡¯s not about getting your point across; it¡¯s about getting your personality across. And you can¡¯t do that the way you are.¡± I leaned in, ¡°It¡¯s about showing your heart, not the facts.¡± She was about to say something, I waited. ¡°Step back.¡± I raised my lower lip and did as she asked. Again, she didn¡¯t say anything else. I rolled my eyes, she was right, this was going to be difficult. ¡°Next stop, let¡¯s go.¡± I took her to the cheapest hotel I could find; it might be what Americans would call a motel, it was only two stories, and had maybe ten rooms, with a breakfast area. I explained the situation to her, ¡°You¡¯re going to be living here. We¡¯ll be doing most of your training here, starting with you renting a room with the money you got from that job.¡± ¡°What will you be doing?¡± I told her blatantly, ¡°Don¡¯t think about me, just tell the lady at the counter that you¡¯re a performer looking for a place to spend the next two weeks, if she asks where your bags are, tell her I¡¯m bringing them in from the car round the corner.¡± She looked around as I dropped the money in her hands and pointed her to the door. She got stuck trying to pull the door open, before pushing it in. I think my worst weakness is my memory. I failed to remind myself that the Given worlds were an attack, and I consistently fail to recognise that these silly awkward people I keep laughing at are criminals. Murderers. I left to go get a suitcase, I¡¯d prepared it earlier that day, giving Feoli fifteen minutes to get the room ready. The door dinged as I put on a fake struggle, carrying the light suitcase. She was still at the desk, talking to the middle-aged woman. ¡°Oof! Feoli, what have you got in here! It¡¯s only for the next week or two, right?¡± I looked over to her waiting for a response. The hotel manager, Claire, was as tall as Feoli, but showed a far greater range of emotion. Most noticeably, happiness. ¡°So you must be her partner, aye? Lovely! I don¡¯t suppose you can tell me where yer coming from, your mate here¡¯s being very tight lipped about it. And for that matter I don¡¯t suppose you¡¯ll be willing to tell me if you have a preference for breakfast tomorrow, just so I know how much to cook.¡± Feoli was standing a few feet away from the desk as I was coming in, shuffling closer to me. It was unnerving to say the least. ¡°Ehm¡­ Hashbrowns? Do you do hashbrowns? Eggs and bacon, all that and just for her. I¡¯m staying with an old family friend while we¡¯re in town.¡± I looked over to Feoli and smirked, she seemed confused more than anything. ¡°Yep, that¡¯s great! Do you need any help with your bags super man?¡± She joked and I laughed, Feoli¡¯s blank reaction made it clear that this was going to be more difficult than I thought. ¡°I¡¯ll be seeing you tomorrow then! Breakfasts at nine!¡± She waved, Feoli managed to wave back. We got to the room, and I let her wander around it and the bathroom attached, she¡¯d be living here. ¡°It¡¯s not going to be exactly like a normal life, but you can¡¯t really get that in two weeks. Let¡¯s see, you¡¯ve got¡­ maybe 700 euro after paying for the room and breakfast, I don¡¯t know if that¡¯ll be enough to live off of for two weeks, especially if you¡¯re going to be eating fast food, which I¡¯d advise against.¡± I called to her while she was peeking into the bathroom, ¡°Seriously, you can¡¯t eat KFC every day, it¡¯ll kill you.¡± She called back, ¡°What do I have to do now?¡± I fiddled with the tv and the smart phone Clover got me, I poked at the cracked screen for longer than I should have honestly. ¡°Nothing.¡± She trotted over to me in her chitin boots, I told her, ¡°You should probably get those things off, there¡¯s no way you can relax in those things.¡± She ignored me, ¡°I am serious about doing this. Don¡¯t let my failings trick you.¡± I told it to her straight, ¡°Thing about the Irish? We work so we can afford to drink, and then we drink so we can sleep knowing we have work in the morning. You don¡¯t have work, so that means you¡¯ll have to replace that with sitting on your ass watching tv. It¡¯s what people who are on the dole do.¡± I looked her up and down from my spot on the floor, ¡°I actually did pick up some clothes for you, they¡¯re my mum¡¯s, so they¡¯ll probably be a little baggy.¡± ¡°Do you live with your mother?¡± I snickered, ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m eighteen. I¡¯ll be moving out in a year, maybe less.¡± She asked a follow up question, ¡°You live with your parents for that long?¡± I scratched my chin, still tapping away at my phone, trying to get a streaming service to work, ¡°On average, yeah. You live with your parents until you finish high-school. I guess I should ask, while we¡¯re on the subject, how exactly does aging work for you Fomorians anyway? Like how long are you considered kids for. Cre-Umha was 300 or something, right? He seemed like an old man.¡± She wandered over to her bed sitting on it. ¡°It varies. Those with a higher concentration of Fomorian magicks in their blood typically reach their prime in less than a decade, with the consequence that they will suffer physical deformations later in life. People like me, Creh-Umha, we reach adulthood around the same time as you¡¯ve described. I think¡­ opposed to the age groups being extended, there are simply more of them. Due to the flash in the pan lives of the majority of Fomorians, someone who ages to one-hundred is elderly, past that you¡¯ll get periods like the ¡®superiority crisis¡¯, and the ¡®archaic years¡¯.¡± ¡°Got it, Got it!¡± I finally got the screen share to work, looking back over to Feoli. Confused I asked, ¡°Why haven¡¯t you taken your armour off yet? Really, it¡¯s alright for you to wear my mum¡¯s clothes, she won¡¯t even notice they¡¯re gone¡­¡± Hell, she won¡¯t even notice I¡¯m gone. She was hesitant, I pointed at the bathroom, ¡°You can do it in there?¡± It was more of a question; I was trying to figure out what her problem was. I thought she was afraid of me, until she said, ¡°You aren¡¯t their king.¡± ¡°Nobody is going to try and kill you. At least not right now. Now¡¯s the time for you to do whatever weird crap you want to do. A dream, remember?¡± I scratched at my nose as I flicked through the movies. She picked up the clothes and left. While I was wondering what movies would be best to show her, what¡¯d help break her in, I heard the lashing of water in the other room. She came out dripping wet, I caught her just before she made it back to the foot of the bed, ¡°You¡¯re going to ruin the damn carpet! Mold starts to grow in it!¡± I pushed her back into the bathroom, over the puddles on the floor. ¡°What the-¡± This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. I looked around the room, not seeing her armour anywhere. A cog turned in my mind. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me you¡¯ve been wearing monsters this whole time.¡± She didn¡¯t answer. After I got a towel for the carpet, and a towel for her, I closed the door back on her and got to drying as much as I could. Stifled by the wall I heard her ask, ¡°What am I supposed to be doing?¡± I got back up for the third time, opening the door to find her standing in the same position. I splatted my towel on the ground, ¡°Stand on that, and mop the water off your body with the one in your hands.¡± Looking at her now, I realised that not only did the clothes not match their wearer, she¡¯d gotten those soaked too. I rolled my eyes, ¡°Take those off, surface dwellers try to minimise their wetness.¡± She countered, ¡°Then why are there so many people at the beach? Why is there a room dedicated to water transport?¡± She motioned to the toilet. I just decided on the movie we¡¯ll be watching first. ¡°Listen, humans need water to live, they drink it, use it to maintain personal hygiene, and we use it to transport poop and pee for disposal. But besides being able to drown in it, it can also cause infections and lead to poisonous mold to grow.¡± There was a twinge of seriousness in her face, ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Uh, yeah, if you don¡¯t mop it up.¡± She still had that knee length tattered green skirt, and the same fabric covered her upper-torso. ¡°I¡¯ll try and get you some different clothes tomorrow.¡± ¡°Will any of this actually be enough?¡± She asked, ¡°You¡¯ve been dancing around the fact that I¡¯m an unnatural colour, covering my skin with excuses such as it being for a performance.¡± I reassured her, ¡°It¡¯s the type of thing that people¡¯ll ignore after they get to know you, after you¡¯ve hung around town for a while. I¡¯m getting fewer and fewer stares every day.¡± That was a problem in the long run, one that I¡¯m still no closer to solving. ¡°I didn¡¯t even know that water can grow poisons. How am I going to be able to in- how am I going to learn your ways without basic knowledge on the surface?¡± I smiled as wide as I could, ¡°This is a special case. I¡¯ll use a secret technique.¡± She lowered her eye brows. She sat up straight at the foot of the bed, I was laying on my side, resting my head on my fist. ¡­ ¡°I thought he was the ¡®God of thunder¡¯. How does electricity defeat him?¡± ¡°Well, yeah, but Odin took away his powers, sealing them into his hammer.¡± ¡°And this is fictitious? These people are actors?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°There world, Asgard, is not real?¡± ¡°Probably not real.¡± ¡°Then why are we watching this? If this doesn¡¯t teach me about real people, then wha-¡± I shushed her, ¡°This bit¡¯s good, one of the guys who made the original stories makes a cameo. Listen, this isn¡¯t real, but it was written by people from the surface, you¡¯ll see their sensibilities and thoughts through understanding deeper meanings of the film. It¡¯s the story of a wealthy man living wearing the shoes of a pauper, it¡¯s a classic structure that can be found in every culture through human history. To understand that at the core we¡¯re all the same.¡± The real reason I put this movie on was because it was a ¡®fish out of water¡¯ story, and because a new one is coming out. Feoli asked, ¡°Who is the man talking about ¡®big strong arms¡¯ ungulating over this scene? Is he one of the thunder god¡¯s allies?¡± I motioned out to the tv, ¡°No, no, that¡¯s just a song they put over this scene to make it feel more like an American barbeque, that¡¯s a meal you have in the summer where you invite your friends and neighbours around. It¡¯s used here to make the scene a little less¡­ empty. Look.¡± I rewound the scene, muting the tv, and dubbed over the people murmuring, the sausages cooking, and the cars with my own sound effects. ¡°It would be emotionless without it, and that would subtract from the small town, middle of no-where atmosphere.¡± I explained. Feoli listened silently. We kept watching for a little longer before Feoli asked, ¡°What does he do?¡± ¡°Uh?¡± I replied. ¡°He¡¯s naturally blue. How does he hide his appearance.¡± She was talking about the thunder god¡¯s brother. I looked back at the screen, ¡°Odin uses his magic, I think. Oh, actually, I guess this scene implies that he subconsciously uses his own magic to transform himself.¡± I sat up and yawned, despite it not being too late into the night. ¡°The All-father¡¯s magic has many uses.¡± She said it in a way that told you there was more on her mind. ¡°Freeze it.¡± She commanded, and I did. She got up to go to the bathroom. I blurted out after she disappeared around the door, ¡°The bowl thing on the ground is for poop and pee! The tall thing with the¡­ dangly bit is a shower, that¡¯s the thing you use to bathe.¡± It would bad news if she got the two confused. I rolled onto my feet, and paced around the room, checking my phone. Most major social medias were down, and I noticed some features on the streaming service were inaccessible, like the ratings. It¡¯s gotten me thinking what this phenomenon is like from the other side. It seems to exclude the points of importance and those deemed relevant enough from the rest of reality. But when I think about it that way, it doesn¡¯t make much sense at all. Inch beach is gone. The only thing I¡¯ve done there is fight Feoli, and neither of us were accepted into the event. It¡¯s got me wondering if there is something else that¡¯s imperceptible, some kind of residue from super natural events. Or maybe there¡¯s something else going on there. Maybe there are more thing¡¯s going on in Ireland that I don¡¯t know about. There was already the Pooka, nobody knew about that. There could be something lingering around that area, anywhere. Maybe there¡¯s things still sleeping just below the surface, waiting for somebody to take the wrong road home one night. It would be quite the coincidence if a monster just so happened to be under the place we fight.I was lost in thought thinking on whether or not Feoli could be hiding something from me, so I didn¡¯t even here the bathroom door open up. She coughed, and I looked over. I jammed my phone into my pocket and got into a fighting position. Trying to avert my eyes, I rolled them into the back of my skull, but it was too late. I had already seen them. Not wanting to cause another scene in a hotel, I asked the nude woman in a hushed tone, ¡°Who the hell are you?¡± ¡°It¡¯s me.¡± Came a familiar voice. ¡°What the hell did you do!¡± I almost shouted, a little more than concerned that she was not only naked, but white. Her skin was as pale, like mine, but with none of the blemishes I hid with my mask. I was reluctant to observe her further, given the former. ¡°I made a second skin. The principle is the same as with my armour, though this is unnoticeably thin. I took one piece of advice you gave me and disregarded the other. I paid attention to the play being performed, and I came to the conclusion that¡­ that being blue would further hamper my ability to blend in with people. The people here.¡± I peeked for a second, ¡°But why are you naked!¡± I said, covering my face. ¡°I need to know if this looks right. That tiny mirror wasn¡¯t good enough.¡± I sighed telling myself they technically weren¡¯t really naked boobs, it was just another life form she¡¯d created¡­ ¡°I haven¡¯t seen¡­ one of those before.¡± I gulped, trying to hide my embarrassment. I inspected her head, like the other biological constructs, she failed to make natural looking hair. ¡°You, uh, aren¡¯t really good at hair.¡± She tilted her head, ¡°Should I go without it?¡± I shook my head, ¡°No, well, yeah, that¡¯s uncanny, we can get you a wig, but you need to keep your eyebrows and eyelashes. I leaned in and studied her face, inspecting it for signs of the ocean dweller. I bit my lip, trying to think if I should tell her the connotations of pretending to be a race you aren¡¯t. As weird as it was for her to wear a living suit, she was probably right, this would make working under the short timespan a little easier. Usually, the thin fabric of my mask eyes doesn¡¯t make much of a difference, but in discerning tiny details like a slight variation in colour or marking, it¡¯s a hard chore. I was nearly touching her. Was I imagining a small tinge of blue around her eyelids and lips? Was the skin-creature thinner there? She backed up, her ¡®face¡¯ a little more difficult to read, a triumph if you consider how good she was at that already. ¡°I think I did fine with the front. I need you to look at the back.¡± I argued, but complied, ¡°We¡¯ll have to work on your expressions, that second layer¡¯s going to hamper your ability to do stuff like smile.¡± I circled around her, I¡¯m a little ashamed to say I was starting to sweat, after again realising she was- you know. I noticed a blue-ish patch around her back. I poked at it, ¡°You missed around here.¡± She made a scary noise. I turned red, ¡°WHAT the hell was that? I thought you said it wasn¡¯t real!¡± She turned gritting her teeth, grabbing her shoulders, ¡°It¡¯s real skin. Of course it has nerves, it¡¯s real, you stupid bastard. Do not touch me.¡± I slammed my fists into my eyes and cradled my head back, apologising profusely. She waited before heading back into the bathroom, this time I heard the shower going, she spoke clearly over the top of the running water, ¡°You know if I were an enemy, you would be dead. Don¡¯t trick yourself into thinking we¡¯re alone now. Just like we¡¯ve been¡­ over looked, the same could have happened to outside forces. It¡¯s not entirely unheard of that organisations might make moves on presumably unoccupied territories.¡± I answered her question, I still shielded my eyes regardless of the thin wall between us. ¡°Well, I guess you¡¯re right. Sorry, I shouldn¡¯t be worrying about an intruder being naked, just that there¡¯s an intruder. I guess for a second, I forgot about our situation. I have a tendency to fall into mundanity.¡± She didn¡¯t reply, not until the water was switched back off, ¡°What do you mean by ¡®mundanity¡¯.¡± I answered slowly, ¡°You know, like¡­ The normal response to seeing a naked stranger is to stop looking right? I guess in this setting of us just watching movies, ordering breakfast, I sort of forgot I was wearing this mask.¡± She came out soon after, wearing that ratty green fabric. ¡°Why do you wear those clothes? Is there some significance to it? The cape and the esca.¡± she pointed to the stem like tassel shooting up from my head. ¡°¡­and the mask.¡± She finished by asking me, ¡°Are you a criminal? Is that why you hide your face?¡± I shook my head, though I probably have broken a few laws, ¡°It¡¯s just a costume. At first, I wore this mask to hide my identity. But I think overtime, it¡¯s become an altogether different¡­¡± I stopped myself. ¡°Let¡¯s get back to the movie. We¡¯ll pick up a wig in the morning, maybe get another pair of clothes together.¡± I flopped back down on the floor. She sat down on the bed. ¡°What about the poisonous fumes?¡± I chuckled, ¡°I think it¡¯ll take a lot of time and moisture before we have to worry about that. Besides, the owner seems to be taking good enough care of the place.¡± ¡°There¡¯s plenty of room. Up here.¡± I looked up at her on the bed with one eye, thinking to myself, it¡¯s just a singles bed, there¡¯s hardly any room for two up there. But then I realised that she was taking up as little space as possible. ¡°Aight. If it¡¯s fine with you.¡± I kicked off my shoes, and climbed onto the bed, sitting cross legged behind her. She turned around, catching me while I was picking my nose, ¡°Right, let¡¯s go then.¡± I unpaused the movie, and she turned back around not long after. . . . Over two weeks have passed, and what¡¯s changed? Well, the world hasn¡¯t ended, unless you count that apocalyptic sky. There haven¡¯t been any fights. I spent around a quarter of my time with Feoli, another quarter working out, and half my time roaming around Kerry, taking a few trips to Inch beach, or rather where inch beach should be. I made up a story to the nice woman at the desk who owned the hotel, telling her that there¡¯d been some trouble while transporting Feoli¡¯s things from Limerick. Technically, I didn¡¯t even ask for the clothes, she offered them up. They were just some old things she had lying around. Next, I took Feoli to a costume shop to pick out a wig. Again, I made up a story that Feoli had to shave her head after contracting lice. At first Feoli picked out an afro looking wig, and I had to explain to her why it would be a bad idea to get something that goes with a killer clown costume. It just about reminded me, this woman¡­ We eventually settled on a wig that came with a pirate costume, it was a shoulder length, straight, full bang cut; it was dark black with a shine. It suited her cold eyes, but gave a different feeling then her usual outfit. Her cold eyes being coupled with that dirty hair and open brow, gave off an ¡®I¡¯ll kick your ass impression.¡¯ This wig, coupled with the more sophisticated clothes of an older working woman, made her seem more like a socialite more than anything. One day we were watching a movie, I think it was *Austin Powers, ¡°The owner of the hotel has invited me out for drinks.¡± ¡°Ah¡­¡± I said, ¡°You¡¯ll have to go to that, she¡¯s been really nice to you, lending you clothes, not to mention, you¡¯ve been helping out around the place, so she probably feels inclined to ask. Of course, you shouldn¡¯t accept her invitation out of courtesy, or because you feel-¡± She cut me off, ¡°Enough with the exposition. I¡¯m not a fecken¡¯ idiot, I¡¯m going because I want to.¡± I had to hold back a smile, I took my eyes off the movie, looking over from the little folding chair we¡¯d brought into the room. She was lying on her stomach, facing the screen, head resting between her arms. She¡¯d adopted local vocabulary; if it were just that, I might think she was just putting it on to fit in, but she¡¯d also changed her mannerisms. Perhaps it was because she was becoming more comfortable above water. At first, I was¡­ worried. It felt like she was cutting herself off from her culture, like she was repressing it to fit in. But then I remembered something I¡¯d once told myself, that I wanted to live two lives. She will always be a fomorian, but she¡¯s made something close to a life here, a second world. It¡¯s what I wanted for myself, so I really shouldn¡¯t be getting so uneasy just because it was this woman¡­ This¡­ ¡°I was going to invite you, ¡®yawebish¡¯.¡± ¡°No, you shouldn¡¯t be cursing so often, keep it to once every five sentences or more, read the room to decide. And it¡¯s pronounced ¡®ya wee bitch¡¯, don¡¯t let the regional dialect fool you, if you go too native, most people won¡¯t be able to understand you.¡± She glossed over what I told her, ¡°I asked if you were going to come with me.¡± I answered bluntly, ¡°No.¡± She smiled unnaturally wide, it was too obvious she was forcing it, ¡°You aren¡¯t following your own advice, ¡®Instead of saying no, you should try and give some reasons¡¯." ¡°Little less teeth,¡± I pointed, waiting a second before continuing, ¡°I can¡¯t go out because¡­ It would make you look weird, bringing a guy in a costume.¡± Her smile did fade returning to the more reliable cold glare, ¡°You could take it off.¡± I didn¡¯t say anything. I was figuring it out in my head. ¡°If I take it off, then I¡¯m not me anymore. I¡¯ll stop being the person you know.¡± I noticed her look over in my periphery, long after I¡¯d stopped speaking. I think she was waiting for a better reason. I thought of a comparison, ¡°If¡­ if the villain in this movie, if he took off all those prosthetics and the make-up, then he¡¯d be someone else.¡± And just like that, an hour later I went home, got changed, and showed up to the pub dressed normally, with a cap on. I never interacted with her, never even faced her. I went simply because I was curious how she was doing, so I listened in on her and the table she was sitting at. It was a busy night, there were some guys playing some music, it¡¯s what some people would call a ¡®fiddle-dee-dee¡¯, where people show up with instruments and play something with other people there. I tried to tune it out, along with the drunk old man beside me at the bar. She wasn¡¯t really talking to them much, they were the ones asking questions, she was focused on listening to local stories. Good, I thought, she¡¯s making friends. Then the bar started singing an old Irish song called, ¡®Seven drunken nights¡¯. At that point I didn¡¯t know whether or not Feoli was joining in with them, she¡¯d have to know the words, I thought to myself. Everybody was singing the ¡®You drunk, you¡¯re drunk¡¯ part of the song, but they¡¯d slow down, taking turns to let a single person sing the drunk man¡¯s verses. I joined in a little, smiling to myself as I sipped the glass I¡¯d bought. It was the ¡®fifth night¡¯ she sung: ¡°Oh, And as I went home on Friday night as drunk as drunk could be, I saw a head upon the bed where my old head should be. Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me, Who owns that head upon the bed, where my old head should be.¡± I coughed when I heard her voice. It was deeper than most girls, I guess that¡¯s why she was fine singing a man¡¯s part. Even so, I¡¯d say she was good, disarmingly so. As her voice carrying a slight melancholy went quiet, the rest of the pub cried loudly, ¡°WELL, YOU¡¯RE DRUNK, YOU¡¯RE DRUNK, YOU SILLY OL¡¯ FOOL, THAT¡¯S A BABY BOY THAT ME MOTHER SENT TO ME! WELL, IT¡¯S MANY A DAY I¡¯VE TRAVELLED A HUNDRED MILES OR MORE, BUT A BABY BOY WITH WHISKERS ON, SURE I NEVER SAW BEFORE!¡± They eventually finished the song and I was content. I got off the stool, walked to the door, and just before I left, I looked back. There the hotel manager was hugging a woman with what looked like blue eyeshadow and lips, smiling too wide. As I was leaving, I thought about the sky. Looking up to it, it still seemed like it was flaring, exactly the same as during the day, though the world was still dark, as it should be at 10PM at night. My mind told me to ignore this fact. It¡¯s not the only thing I¡¯ve been ignoring. There are a number of things I¡¯ve avoided, but there is one I¡¯ve come to grips with. She¡¯s a murderer. That woman in there, she took the lives of at least ten people. It was never my call to excuse that. Yet here we are. It was so quick. After she made a little speech, I instantly jumped to this- this redemption arc, whatever it is. I wonder if I¡¯d be open to the same with the Gator, probably not. I cowered at the idea, but I¡¯ve already done tried this with one girl¡­ Am I so desperate, that I¡¯ll push aside my morals to get just a little closer to those worlds? That dream.? I wiped at my eyes. ¡®Nothing really matters¡¯. That¡¯s what I¡¯ve been thinking all this time, that¡¯s the sort of person I¡¯ve been all these years. I¡¯ve been completely divorced from the actions of other people, its how I¡¯ve been nurtured, the sort of world I¡¯m living in. Take Mullet for example, the way he sleazes around women, that¡¯s not right, is it? But it¡¯s got nothing to do with me. If anything, he¡¯s a better person then me, look at how many people he talks to, he has the confidence to do what he wants, I don¡¯t. He has the confidence to be himself around other people, and somehow people still like him for it. Can¡¯t I just do the same? Sam¡¯s not that bad, is he? The only person stopping me from hanging out with people is me. I¡¯m the one putting on a mask. It¡¯s their life, and then there¡¯s mine. I¡¯m cut off. There¡¯s an invisible barrier between us. That world has nothing to do with me. The mindset¡¯s been stuck with me, that no matter who they are, I should just be happy that they¡¯re talking to me. No matter what they¡¯ve done, I¡¯ll love them. I only care about myself. What I do. How I see myself. If that¡¯s not selfish¡­ I honestly can''t help feeling like i''m the worst. Still, I¡¯ve been thinking, am I really going to be able to keep this going much longer? I¡¯ve been meeting tons of new people over the last few months, and I¡¯ll meet more, I¡¯m sure. I¡¯ve decided I''m going to try and be honest with mysel- The sky¡¯s normal. Shit, sorry, it flicked back while writing this, thought there¡¯d be more time, need to go. I have to see if Clo is alive. Clip 4.04: I visit someone I havent seen in a while! Sudden changes are always a good thing. Well, if you want to be pedantic, I guess getting into a car accident is both a sudden change and a bad thing, but you know what I mean. It¡¯s unhealthy to stay in one place for too long, you¡¯ll start to wallow in sadness, or worse, you¡¯ll become complacent in comfort. I¡¯m guilty of both. After Valentines, I struggled to think of a goal. I couldn¡¯t see into the future, past those dark clouds the Gator left in its wake. Worse still, the Given worlds¡­ I need to refuse them. I need to find the strength of will to refuse things that make me happy, so that I can do what¡¯s right, heroic. I need to learn to be less self-centred. I need to look outward and forward, the only way I can do that is if I interact with the titanic organisations of this world, I can¡¯t waste my time with the Circuit Board, that¡¯s what a street level vigilante would do. I need to get in over my head, like a real hero. Don¡¯t misunderstand me, I¡¯m not going to join up with anybody, ever, I just need to understand who I¡¯m going against. It was a shock, one minute I was typing up the last post, then I noticed something about it, I don¡¯t know what. A black expanse. It took me a few seconds longer than I¡¯d like to admit, but I eventually jumped out of bed and out the window, much like I¡¯d done on the first night of June. Something told me there was a change in the situation, my mind felt clearer. The reason I was surprised, was because June wasn¡¯t over. It was the 29th. I still have no clue as to the exact science to all of this, which I think there is, there must be. It doesn¡¯t seem entirely restricted by the parameters of June, the month. It didn¡¯t start at 00:00 June 1st, so it¡¯s sufficed to say that it wouldn¡¯t end at July 1st. As far as I know, and if the memory erasure thing Clover was talking about is true, as far as anybody knows, the supernatural places and Units that were affected by this event could have had anything done to them. I was strangely calm as I bolted over to Clover¡¯s, I guess you could call it a sort of ¡®flow¡¯ I¡¯d finally gotten into. By this point I¡¯ve encountered a ton of abnormal situations, and I¡¯ve been given some time to readjust to my situation, all of the¡­ things I¡¯ve been through. The only thing on my mind was figuring out what actually happened to Clover and everyone else, it¡¯s a thought pattern I find myself falling into when I¡¯m fighting a new enemy, which I guess this month qualified as. I take the information I have, break it down, and pick out the most likely conclusion. It¡¯s strange, I¡¯ll take a few seconds to think of what 253 + 456 is, but my mind races when I¡¯m counting the limbs, eyes, and openings in a fight. After I¡¯ve got that sorted, built up a mental profile, I start to think about how best to break them. Overwhelm Feoli, out speed Tayanita, and make a couple plans in the heat of the moment. Use my surroundings to my advantage. You can see why it¡¯s weird I can¡¯t get anything better than a B in biology. Yeah, a personal skill of mine is to think through these sorts of situations, but there is one scenario, one enemy I can¡¯t seem to predict; I¡¯m with her now. As soon as I arrived at Clover¡¯s house, my cool demeanour was shaking. Her three-floor house was there now, but I found walking forward to be just as difficult, just as sluggish, as if the air had been thickened. It was late at night, if I hadn¡¯t taken a moment to scan the rematerialized structure, I probably wouldn¡¯t have noticed the hole in the ceiling. I regained my composure, and stomped over to the door, jiggling its handle a little. Locked, which is normal enough for this time of night. I starred up at the hole on the roof, stepping back a few paces to get a sense of where it was. I was about to jump up, but reminded myself what I¡¯d been practicing over the past few weeks. I paced over to the wall again, trying to get a grip on a part of the ground floor window, before realising that my shoes didn¡¯t have enough traction. I rolled my eyes at myself, this was taking too long. I pulled them off, holding the pair in my mouth by their collar, half obscuring my view. After getting stuck on a section on the second floor, I¡¯d gotten up to the dart-board sized hole in the roof, it opened through the wooden beams, couldn¡¯t see much past that. I kicked myself for never getting a flash light, that would have helped in a lot of situations. I was starting to slip, so out of fear of either my socks or the tiles losing their traction, I hopped down. The attic was smaller than I expected, the 5-foot drop didn¡¯t make much noise. As I landed, I wondered how and when that hole actually got there. I stumbled around, feeling the ground for some way down. My fingers first passed over an object, I lifted it for a second raising it up to my only light source. I focused my eyes; it was shaped like a full-face mask with a disk on its head. I squinted harder at the eye holes, something about them taking my interest, something about how the stars shone clearly through them. Huh, I thought, before returning to my search. I found the attic door, like in most houses, in Ireland at least, it was a simple insulation panel. It was tricky getting it open with my wet gloves, so I just got the metal mask, and used the edge of it to pry it off. This drop was a little longer, some feet over 10. I landed in the third-floor bathroom, not the one I¡¯d seen before, this one was more extravagant, it had a long window, letting the street light in. The room was ¡®L¡¯ shaped, a shower in the corner, the sink and window overlooking it were on the long side of the room, with the toilet around the corner, not far from the hole I¡¯d just dropped down. The metal mask clanked after me. Freaking out a little, I crouched quickly, as if i were silencing it. Why was I being so nervous? What did I have to be afraid of? Clover? The other members of the Mountain? No, I think I was being hopeful, I had convinced myself that Clover would just be trying to sleep. I tried not to think about it, she was alright, her house was, so she had to be. But her house wasn¡¯t alright. A chunk had been taken out of the roof. I swatted the air for a pull-cord, finding it near the door. I winced as the room brightened, opening the door to let the light pass down the hall. I checked every room from there onwards, finding one spare, a hot press, and finally, her room. I turned the hall light on, and crept inside. She had a really big bed, that¡¯s all I focused on when entering the room, the lump in the blanket. Two thoughts came to mind: There is a very real chance that this is someone, anything else, or nothing at all. The second thought was, that this was very creepy of me. I scooted across the floor, trying to minimise the squashing noise of my wet socks. Once I got to the head of the bed, I gently pulled the blanket away from the mass. There, I saw a head of long black-brown hair. At first, I was short of breath then I leaned over the bed. She had the crown tattoo, but that¡¯s not how I knew. Her eyes were a little worn out, just like Saoirse¡¯s had been when I first met her. I would have been happy, if it weren¡¯t for that. Whatever she¡¯s been through, whatever she¡¯s done, this girl¡¯s had it rough. I left the room, closing the door over as I left. I leaned against a wall when I got out letting out a sigh. What was I thinking? I honestly don¡¯t know what was on my mind in the time after that. I searched the rest of the building for anything or anyone, nothing else surfaced. Well, I did notice that all of the food in the house seemed to be out-of-date, except for some weird type of fruit I found in a bag in one of the living rooms. I thought about going out to get her breakfast, but didn¡¯t. I wanted to stick around. I took my phones out- that¡¯s right, both the brick and the smart phone. I don¡¯t usually keep both of them on me, but just in case Clover used either number to contact Sam or Shamrock. Usually, I¡¯m more careful, I try not to bring any ties between my lives, that¡¯s the whole reason I bought a new pair of shoes for my costume, why I try not to make the same faces across separate personas, hell, if I could change my body I would. It¡¯s honestly a miracle nobody has put two-and-two together. I¡¯ve already decided that, when somebody finally does find out who I am, Sam¡¯s the one I¡¯ll ditch, I¡¯m going to keep being Shamrock till I die. I tried to go to sleep, but I¡¯m not sure if I actually did. Regardless, I flirted with the idea of going to the bed upstairs, the spare bed, but was too lazy to get up. First, I felt the twinge of the sun rise stabbing through the curtains. Then I heard a rattling from the room, I waited, I knew who it was, but she didn¡¯t actually interact with me. Again, I was slightly confused, was she being cautious? Wait, literally anything could have happened. What if she had her mind swapped, all of her memories erased? Maybe it¡¯s a clone. God, I hope it¡¯s not a clon- As I was falling back into my analytic mind, I heard a guitar ring out, it reverberated through the entire room. It was like my body was being electrocuted. ¡°Oh, the old paintings on the tomb-¡± Cried the surround-sound, ¡°-THEY DO THE SUN DANCE, DONCHA KNOW?¡± Joined Clover. I looked up at her, frozen with shock. No amount of superhero stories could have prepared me for this. Prepared me for her. She was doing a dance, at least that¡¯s what I think you¡¯d call these lacklustre movements. It was at this part that I realised there was a theme. Ancient Egypt. Looking back on it, yeah, it is silly. This life-threatening event that had her shaking in her boots, was evocative of a themed party. You might even call it ''whimsical''. Looking back now, I know that¡¯s wrong. There¡¯s no pleasure to be taken from it. She was wearing a white sheath gown, with a jewelled collar. She was very tan and smiling. But her eyes¡­ I spoke up, ¡°Can you turn this down?¡± She replied, ¡°Walk like an Egyptian¡­¡± Her bangles clacked, as I got up and grabbed her phone from her. She went a little feral, as I turned it down as low as possible. ¡°Come on! Where¡¯s your sense of humour?? Why can¡¯t you just be chill??¡± She was still dancing a little. I mentally questioned whether or not she was drunk. ¡°You have a hole in your roof. ¡± I said bluntly. ¡°But I¡¯ve got a great tan, and a cracker outfit.¡± She tried to get the phone back off of me, I didn¡¯t really resist. ¡°There¡¯s rotten mush all over your kitchen.¡± She shrugged cartoonishly, ¡°I¡¯m not hungry!¡± She tried to compromise, turning it to about half the volume it had been before. ¡°You don¡¯t think we should try and figure out what- what happened to you?¡± She stopped for a second. ¡°What happened to me?? Not including you??¡± When I shook my head there was a glimmer in her eyes. I don¡¯t know if it was a flash of life, or the swelling of tears. She squealed and squeezed me, ¡°Who¡¯s the hero now, huh?? I saved you from danger, jackass.¡± That left me utterly shell shocked. She eventually let go, coming to a realisation, ¡°So you were in the first worlder part?? What was that like??¡± ¡°Good. Nobody came hunting for my head for a while, no monsters.¡± Her smile faded a little, ¡°Are you still¡­¡± You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. I thought about what she meant, ¡°That trouble with Lech? No, no for me that was a month ago.¡± My phraseology got me thinking about the given worlds. ¡°I¡­ Am awake.¡± She laughed a little, ¡°You¡¯re really obsessed with americana, huh? I don¡¯t blame you, it was a pretty good show. A few inaccuracies with the chemistry, but who cares¡± I didn¡¯t know what she was talking about, so I replied with a ¡°huh?¡± She laughed harder ¡°Whatever! But, you know, what actually happened?? Like, what crazy shit happened??¡± I thought about it for a second. What did I do... Wasn''t there something about the sky? ¡°No, everything seemed pretty normal. There weren¡¯t any big news stories. I met up with that Fomorian girl, but that¡¯s about it.¡± She gagged. I made a face and she knew what I was thinking, ¡°Oh come on, I¡¯ve been around the block, those guys are serious creeps. They worship a Dark God. You don¡¯t have to know what exactly that is, the name gives away their intentions. I think you know this, but they want to conquer this island, and not in the subtle way the Mountain¡¯s doing it, the want to wage war on our blood.¡± I tried to make an argument, ¡°I don¡¯t know, it seems counter intuitive to be prejudiced against a race because they¡¯re supposedly prejudiced against you.¡± She got a little mad, ¡°They aren¡¯t a race, they¡¯re a creed. Just another organisation, serving a backwards purpose. And there¡¯s a real difference between me, and- and Noah Thatcher, the skin-head, he¡¯s actual fucked.¡± I grinned and nodded, thinking of a way to mess with her, ¡°Right, right, you¡¯re not racist, you¡¯re just a white girl working for the British empire, while appropriating African culture.¡± Her eyes went wide, ¡°A- a- I woke up like this! I can get permission from people from ancient Egypt, I can get a hold of them if you want.¡± I asked ¡°You mean Egypt? It¡¯s just Egypt.¡± She looked at me confused, and huffed out her nose, ¡°I know what I said.¡± I waved my hands, ¡°So what, immortals? Like vampires?¡± That made her laugh a little more forcefully. ¡°What are you seven?? Vampires aren¡¯t real! God, that¡¯s so dumb. No, to quote Ae, ¡®Once you¡¯re dead that¡¯s it.¡¯ You might leave a ghost behind, but that isn¡¯t you, it might have your mind and soul, but it¡¯s all jumbled and broken, both erode in the end. I don¡¯t know the specifics, but there are, like, two Units in Egypt, I¡¯ve never met either of them- I probably did if Egypt was the theme, actually¡­ anyway, I can probably get into contact with them through the Mountain if I want.¡± ¡°Uh, shouldn¡¯t you be getting into contact with the Mountain? Like Bastard, just to check they¡¯re alright.¡± As I said his name, she smiled weirdly. ¡°He¡¯s alright.¡± A little after she said that, she changed the subject abruptly, ¡°Why is my hair black?!?¡± She seemed to be asking herself more than me. ¡°Clover¡­¡± I tilted my head a little, ¡°Can we please stay on the reality altering crisis?¡± She let out ¡®tch¡¯, before asking, ¡°Can¡¯t we just talk about something other than- this? We got out alright, and I¡¯m going to be getting a phone call from the King soon, telling me about all the crap that went down-¡± She had paced over to a chair by this point, ¡°The casualties.¡± I felt bad for pushing the subject. ¡°Besides, I think it¡¯s still late where the people I¡¯m on good terms with are- well, where they¡¯re supposed to be.¡± I kept quiet, shifting around on the sofa I was sleeping on. Before I remembered something I was lying on. ¡°Hey, you said you never met the guys in Egypt, right? Does that mean you¡¯ve never been?¡± She examined her hair¡¯s new length, ¡°Yeah, I hear the pyramids are crap anyway.¡± I pursed my lips dumbly, ¡°Then why do you have this freaky mask?¡± I lifted up the sand-coloured face of a woman, painted with a reflective blue around the eye holes and mouth, with a deeper blue for the disc above the face and for the hair. In the deep there were tiny specks of white. She got up from her chair, grabbing out for it, ¡°WOW! Where¡¯d you find it??¡± I pulled it away before she got it, ¡°Below the hole in your roof? Little suspicious, isn¡¯t it?¡± She pulled her hands back, ¡°Hmm¡­ Is it telling you to kill me?¡± I was a little taken aback by the question, ¡°What? No!¡± She pulled one corner of her mouth up, ¡°That¡¯s exactly what somebody would say before they get corrupted by a possessed mask.¡± I shook my head with a smile, ¡°I think I¡¯m ok.¡± Not really seeing any issue with it, I raised the plate of metal I used to pry open a panel, and held it over my face. ¡°Oh No! I¡¯m being possessed by a ghost!¡± I laughed. Then I started to hear whispers. ¡°Oh shit.¡± I spoke. ¡°What a fool you are. You suspected danger, but still, you have willingly given yourself to me, Nut, vault of the heavens, goddess of the sky. I was once bound to the shackles of mortality, but thanks to my soul anchor, my will persists through the mortal world! Fear not, mongrel serf, I will not destroy your mind. I seek a more elegant form. Yes, you shall give me to your little friend there, she¡¯ll need some work, but if I chose this house as the throne of my resurrection, then it must be with great reason! Hear my words, slave! Tell her that this is nothing but a valuable trinket, a toy for children, have her try me on as a joke! Yes, sell me your companion as a tool! You cannot refuse! My will bores into your very soul, none can resist such an attack!¡± I took the mask away from my face. And told Clover, ¡°Yep. It¡¯s actually got a ghost in it.¡± Maybe I imagined the mask crying out in confusion after I set it down on the coffee table. ¡°And how do you know that??¡± I answered honestly, ¡°Yeah, it tried this whole ¡®will-break¡¯ thing on me. Guess I got lucky, because it went for my soul.¡± She was a little surprised, ¡°You don¡¯t have one?? Are you one of those mystic types after all?? Doesn¡¯t really go with your ¡®punch-a-problem¡¯ attitude.¡± I explained, ¡°Ae hinted at it on Valentine¡¯s Day, and I got some more evidence after I came out of Lechoslaw¡¯s attack. Feoli said it left me with some kind of soul sickness.¡± ¡°Is that Lech¡¯s ability?? He obliterates souls or something??¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s- He makes illusions. Fake worlds. Stuff like your greatest desires. I guess you can get trapped in them.¡± It wasn¡¯t a big lie. I didn¡¯t get into how he commissioned a God to become a universe to bend my will, it wasn¡¯t necessary. He warned me, after all, not to go letting anything slip about his origin. And for some reason I felt compelled to obey. Not because I had any sympathy for him, but because I was slightly afraid of him. ¡°Well, what was it like??¡± I gulped as I thought back on her variants, then for some reason I thought about the Woman Wearing Shamrock. ¡°I was fighting people. I¡¯d rather not talk about it.¡± She looked away, apologising, ¡°Sorry¡­ guess it¡¯s better we talk about world events after all.¡± I tried not to frown, it seemed like a more ¡®Sam¡¯ face to make. ¡°Here, I¡¯ll loop back to what I was saying about the ¡®ol Bastard, sort of related to what I was talking about earlier. We¡¯ve got a year till next June, so I might as well fill you in on some of the deeper secrets.¡± She smiled, extending her four fingers, ¡°There are four corners in the world-¡± There was a knock at the door. Clover¡¯s smile faded. She blinked. ¡°Upstairs.¡± I scratched an itchy spot on my face, turning to the door, ¡°Shouldn¡¯t I get it? It could be anyone.¡± She spoke clearly, there was no trace of her mania, just a tired, serious look in her eyes, ¡°Just listen to me for once, okay? There are only a few people who know I live here, all of them, except one know you¡¯re my enemy. It might just be Tayanita or one of my boys, or Ae, or hell, maybe even Axel.¡± She sped up, ¡°But there is one person who almost always shows up after June. The one person who knows where I live, but not who you are. If you want to live, get your ass up those stairs.¡± We walked to the stair case, she must have noticed that I wasn¡¯t really concerned, she grabbed me by the arm as I went up a step. ¡°If he sees you, you will die.¡± I thought about asking if she was being literal; she motioned me up the second floor. I climbed up the stairs lazily, getting to the foot the second floor before stopping. One person? I heard the sound of the curtain by the door open, the jangling of keys. Was it a friend of hers? From the Mountain? I heard the door creak open, and I skid up the stairs. Around two corners and two floors from the individual at the door. I listened out, unable to make out any words, just a masculine voice, and a feminine voice I recognised as Clover. If he sees me, I¡¯ll die? That seemed like the power of a high-end Unit, to be able to kill another Unit just by knowing about them. I thought back on how I put that stupid mask on my face, despite the fact that it was clearly supernatural in nature. It was just a dumb call I made because I thought- I think I tricked myself into thinking that everything would be alright, because Clover was fine now. I need to take this seriously, this isn¡¯t a joke, it isn¡¯t a whimsical adventure, there are hundreds if not thousands of people who would willingly kill me on sight if I come off as suspicious. I heard Clover laughing downstairs. Maybe the man was laughing, I couldn¡¯t tell, I had holed myself up in the bathroom. I put my ear down to the ground, trying to hear anything from the stranger, but couldn¡¯t understand what he was saying. After they finished the laughing, the general excitement faded. The man was saying something slowly, like a drawn-out explanation. I could hear Clover going along with what he was saying, it was like he was trying to explain to her how to cook dinner or start up a washing machine, that''s how natural he spoke. There was a bit of silence before the man said something abruptly. Clover let out a sort of laugh after a while, before cautiously returning to the general air of when they started the original conversation. The man didn¡¯t follow, he tried to reign her in, keeping a serious tone. It was long, one-sided talk, before a short question from Clover followed by a solemn statement from the man. Then there was an inquisitive tone in his voice. Clover mumbled something. The man asked another question, in a livelier tone, almost sounding like he was scolding her. Then I heard him moving around, and changed my posture to get off the floor at the first sign of foots steps climbing up the stairs. The only sounds I heard were from another room, the kitchen, I think? Maybe a sound from the fridge? There was definitely the closing of doors or cupboards. I couldn¡¯t hear them talking if they were. I got up from the floor and looked around the bathroom, thinking about leaving through the window. What if he wasn¡¯t alone? It would be even more suspicious if I left without making myself known. Was the best course of action just to get Clover to explain who I was? No, obviously that wouldn¡¯t work. If he were to ask how we know each other, what is she going to tell him, that I¡¯m the guy who¡¯s cost the Mountain tens of thousands of Euros? The last group didn¡¯t look too kindly on me for that. If this was him¡­ then he¡¯s the one who sent Limorilow to find the cause of all the expenses, Me. I slammed my ear down to the floor. Something sounded different. The closing sounds were slower, and if I wasn¡¯t mistaken there was another, almost rhythmic banging. No, not banging, it was louder, because it was nearer, getting closer. The pacing of feet. I jumped up again, this time with no clear indication of which was which. It was a dumb move, closing myself into this room, not only did it further hinder how much I could hear, but it also meant I was trapped like a fox in a pen. I span around to the windows thinking about jumping out. But what if he was passing by a window when I fall through? ¡®If he saw me, I was dead¡¯ right? Shit. ... The door to the bathroom opened without a squeak from the hinges. His slight hum was all that told me he had entered the room. He strode past the shower to the sink, twisting the tap on. I held my breath, and the wire stem coming from my mask. I couldn¡¯t see him. Just the tiles on the walls, held together by a centimetre of grout. That, and a sliver of the toilet. Eventually I heard the water twist to a stop, and the ruffling of a towel. I scratched at my nose trying to scoot away from the opening without making a sound. For once, I¡¯m glad that Clover has all that drug money, it¡¯s gotten her a house with few creaks in it. I prayed that the one in a million squeaky floor board wasn¡¯t by my foot, or under my belly. A clump of hair. As soon as I saw it, I nearly threw my body back. I didn¡¯t, however. To stop myself from making a sharp noise, yes¡­ But I¡¯d be lying if I said I didn¡¯t want to see him. And this was him. I was sure of it. Something about him- he was unapproachable. It wasn¡¯t his build, that was average. It wasn¡¯t his clothes, he was wearing a slightly creased white shirt, his trousers a similar colour, a little more discoloured around the ankles, sandy. His hair was blonde and shaggy, that was the only feature that stood out from the snapshot I saw of his back. When I say blonde, I think I mean yellow. It didn¡¯t seem unnatural though. And when I say shaggy, I mean it was meant to look that way, styled. There was a slight dustiness about him, maybe that¡¯s because of the events of June, but if anything, it made him seem greater, experienced but not aged. This is the feeling I got from looking at the back of his head for a few seconds. I heard him step in a bit of water I had dripped on the floor, thinking to himself out loud, ¡°She¡¯s left the roof space open too¡­ No wonder it smells like wet socks¡­¡± I don¡¯t actually know much about British accents, but his was something similar to Daniel Radcliff¡¯s voice. I don''t know, I was just hyper focused on every edge of him. He opened the cupboard beneath the sink, getting some cleaning supplies out from it, and wiping not only the puddle, but around the toilet as well. The entire time I was damning myself for not taking the panel with me, for not finding some way to hold on to it while I scaled the flimsy wall. I bit my teeth, getting more and more irritated as he cleaned the room. Suddenly he stopped, setting a bottle down. ¡°Huh¡­¡± The short hum made me cold. It¡¯s tone was suspicious, that made me shiver. Then he left calling out for Clover. I let out a sigh. I wouldn¡¯t have, had I been able to stop myself. I hastened my crawl away. In the now well-lit attic, I could see some junk in the corner, hunkering down in the smelly mess of boxes and old forgotten things. There was always the chance that they¡¯d come up here, but Clover told me to go upstairs, not out a window. I had a feeling that her word choice would lead to the most desirable outcome. This man was the Mountain, he was the man with near one hundred Units under him. He probably has just as many enemies as friends. It was really, really unlikely that he was travelling alone. I heard him drag something into the bathroom. He was talking to Clover. ¡°I could phone somebody. We¡¯ll-¡± She cut him off finally saying what I was waiting for, ¡°Bastard¡­¡± He seemed to understand what she was talking about, ¡°You''re right. You''re right. As much as I¡¯d like to do something simple, we just don¡¯t have that luxury do we? I¡¯m sure it¡¯s a mess out there, and it¡¯s only going to get messier for us. Adam has probably made moves already, what with the destruction of one of his cities. I can¡¯t see Russia involving themselves, unless I were to go to Egypt- or perhaps, I should simply say the ''eastern Libyan desert'', or ''north Sudan''.¡± They both went quiet. ¡°It was bigger this time. It¡¯s getting longer. That¡¯s what the trends from previous years show,¡± he said, ¡°Something needs to change. Or else people like me will keep destroying people who can¡¯t protect themselves.¡± She tried to laugh, ¡°You don¡¯t know that. There¡¯s nothing to say that- that you¡¯re to blame.¡± He argued, ¡°If I had paid more attention to regional conflicts- to have been there for something unfathomably horrible, and not stopping it when I am the most powerful man in the world¡­ That makes me just as much to blame as whatever egotist tried to destroy the world this time.¡± I heard the panel being pushed in, and felt a shock through my body. Not just from the sudden noise, but because I found myself empathising with him. Through the muffling of the floor, I heard him say, ¡°Don¡¯t focus on it. Clover¡­¡± He paused before continuing, ¡°-Sweetheart¡­ June ended nine hours ago, you were asleep for eight¡­ But your eyes are still red, you¡¯re not hungry, and you were complaining of soreness.¡± There was sadness in his voice. ¡°I don¡¯t know what happened in June, but those are all common signs of grief.¡± He apologised to her. ¡°Make a few phone calls. If you need me, I¡¯ll-¡± She argued, ¡°No, I¡¯ll be fine! Maybe I was just sad about Tayanita getting redeployed, whatever it is I can handle it on my own.¡± He whispered something. And they left. I don¡¯t know how long it was until Clover called me out. I reopened the panel and jumped down, with little to no concern to the noise I was making. It returned as soon as I looked around the room. I realised just how stupid I am. To think I was bragging to myself about how great I am at planning situations out. At the corner of the ¡®L¡¯ shaped room, were my shoes, the shoes I had to take off because they lacked the traction necessary for me to scale the wall of the bathroom. They were sitting beside each other, perfectly parallel, at the point where Bastard had simply said ''huh''. It wouldn¡¯t take a genius to figure out that these were neither the type of shoes Clover would wear, nor the size. Clip 4.05: I started my summer vacation. ¡°Ok, Ok, to save us from the usual back and forth of you asking stupid questions like, ¡®are vampires real¡¯, or ¡®are there aliens¡¯, I¡¯m just going to dump everything Bastard just told me on you. This might be pretty hard to believe, but a lot has happened, even compared to the usual. I¡¯m trying to get logged into a data base we have set up for June. This is the Mountains, admittedly low tech, way of counting the causalities, though it¡¯s only for the Units, I¡¯ll have to find out if the guys under me are alright. Of all people, Tayanita¡¯s alright. It¡¯s for the best, for both of us, she¡¯s been shipped out to- to Sudan. Bastard was in contact with her, apparently it¡¯s not just militias and natural disasters, some monsters have emerged too. Bastard says he¡¯ll be getting into talks with the Internationals, but we both doubt they¡¯ll be interfering with the territories bordering Egypt.¡± Clover swallowed, rubbing across an eye with her index and middle finger. I think it was more out of tiredness than anything else. ¡°It¡¯s gone. Egypt is gone. The government structure collapsed a week ago, again, by Bastard¡¯s prediction. The land mass has been reduced heavily, primarily the area around the red sea, extending south-west of the pyramids of Giza. Guess I¡¯ll never have the chance to find out if they were any good now, because they¡¯ve been sunk, or obliterated, no one knows. At best, around a third of the country was lost. At worst a half. I¡¯m talking about both population, and land. Those Units I was talking about are probably part of that figure by the looks of it. They haven¡¯t signed in. The Internationals are going to be especially pissed off, one of their- I guess you¡¯d call them super fortresses, got annihilated, so that¡¯s a bigger reason they won¡¯t be mobilising any relief, besides bureaucracy. They¡¯re among the victims.¡± I was still smiling as we walked back down into her living room, ¡°Heh, what are you talking about? I think I¡¯d hear about the destruction of a country.¡± She looked back at me; the life gone from her eyes. It was a glazed over look that reminded me of Lechoslaw. She blinked, looking back at her laptop. ¡°I¡¯m sorry-¡± I stammered, ¡°-but what? No, seriously, what? I thought you said that normal people, people who can¡¯t wrap their heads around all this crap, that they were exempt from this.¡± She was scrolling through the list of names quickly, ¡°But you aren¡¯t one of them. They¡¯ll receive the knowledge on the event, reinterpret it in a way that fits their understanding of the world. Your mind doesn¡¯t take in information like that, for you to be exempt from June, you probably completely blocked it out, locked the doors and barred the hatches subconsciously. While they were talking about a nuclear warhead going off or an earthquake, whatever explanation they go with, you were probably busy thinking about what you were going to have for dinner. That¡¯s what I¡¯m assuming, again, I haven¡¯t met anybody excluded from June, so I¡¯ll have to use what I do know about all of this.¡± I got a little heated, ¡°And what do you know about this, how do I know you¡¯re not keeping anything else from me?¡± It was the outlandishness of what she was saying, that she was accusing me of simply turning a blind eye to something so¡­ ¡°Human beings are just ignorant bastards. What happened isn¡¯t your fault, nor is it mine. Hopefully.¡± That was her reply. And it was at this point that I realised why I had this burning in my chest. I was angry. No, I wasn¡¯t angry at Clover, not even at myself for not doing anything about this. What kind of world is this that something like that could just happen? Like- like that¡¯s not- that doesn¡¯t follow any sense of logic, does it? That only after the event has ended, when the deed has been done, do people recognise that horrible things are happening outside of their daily life. What made me even more mad, was that we¡¯re just expected to move past this? I don¡¯t know how many people live in Egypt, but how can I call myself a human being while living on after so many people were- ¡°Rain only falls after the thunder, and when it falls, it¡¯ll flood. Don¡¯t get swept up in it, if you want to actually get stuff done.¡± Clover said that, as she was standing at the opposite side of the room trying to phone somebody. I hadn¡¯t even noticed her move, let alone standing right in front of me. What type of face was I making for her to say that out of the blue? It was like she was reading my mind, could that really be chalked up to a lucky guess? She took the phone down from her side and cursed, redialling the number. I leaned forward, furling my hands and holding my head. She dialled once more, ¡°Come on!¡± How to describe the feeling in the room¡­ It was like wadding through swamp water. There¡¯s a bubbling and churning to it, it¡¯s a rotten situation that you never want to find yourself in. That¡¯s what I was feeling from Clover. That she was in the process of pulling herself out of a rut, even if she didn¡¯t know it herself. ¡°What??¡± She asked her phone why it wouldn¡¯t connect her through. She rubbed at her face before asking, ¡°You want to do something insane?? Because that¡¯s that¡¯s were I feel like going right now.¡± I raised my head, desperate to get us out of this environment. ¡°I can¡¯t imagine it being worse than what¡¯s already been said.¡± ¡°Right,¡± she tried to order her thought into a sentence, coaxing the words from her mouth, ¡°-Portals are a thing, and I¡¯m thinking about hiring one.¡± . . . This was yet another anomaly that I¡¯m struggling to put into words, let alone understand. At least that¡¯s what I was thinking at the time, while peering into this mess of blobs on the floor, spinning and dividing themselves. The first thing that came to mind while starring down at it was microscopic images of cells, but that wasn¡¯t quite right, those are either erratic or stationary, this selection of blue circles was somewhere between the two extremes they were swimming amongst and through each other. My mind told me that it was a flat surface, like a tv screen, just a projected image. ¡°You can touch it if you want. That¡¯s a part of the setting up process anyway.¡± I looked back at Clover, who was waiting on a confirmation e-mail from the company providing the service. She didn¡¯t go into much detail about how this was being done. It didn¡¯t feel like the right time to ask questions like that anyway, given the aforementioned tone of the situation. She¡¯d given them a set of variables, like the coordinates, the width of the portal, whether or not she wanted it positioned vertically or horizontally- ¡°But be careful around the edges. I know your durable, but the ¡®cheap and cheerful channel¡¯ deal is razor sharp around the rim.¡± I knelt down on the ground to avoid tripping and falling into whatever this thing was. Could be a portal through hell for all I know. I reached my hand out to the centre of the TV-wide revolving hole. Once my finger made contact with the blue, circles of green in the shades of my costume were added to the mix. ¡°Yo!¡± I called out, and she laughed a little. A thought sprung to my mind, and I blurted it out loud in my excitement, ¡°I just figured out what this reminds me of. Marbel paints, you know what those are?¡± She gave a sigh and slight smile, ¡°Yeah, my- Bastard used to show me all sorts of art work like that, back when we were-¡± She trailed off once the notification pinged. After she typed in the code, I took a step away from the portal, still cautious of the puddle. She clapped her laptop down, tucked it under her arm like something precious, and turned fully to face the portal. I felt like asking a question along the lines of ¡®will this thing de-atomise me¡¯, but felt that would be in poor taste. Come to think of it, anything could be beyond this thing, for all I know, this leads straight to a cage made of some super metal, she could be leading me straight into the heart of the Mountain. I shifted my vision to her from behind my mask. She was again rubbing at her eye. If it is a trap, well, who cares? I can¡¯t let my fear hold me back, it would be so easy to just grab onto the life I¡¯ve been living for the past month, it would be so comfortable. But I wouldn¡¯t forgive myself for living a comfortable life while a person right in front of me is¡­ The space in the floor, stretched downward, as if it had just discovered a third dimension. Like Clover had said, there was a razor thin area for the bubbles of blue and green, but now there was a redish background with shapes you could almost recognise. Clover stomped over to the segmented ground giving me a quick explanation, ¡°You want to go in by the head, sort of- roll through it in a quick, fluid motion. The difference of gravity will disorientate you, don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll help you out the other side.¡± And with that, she crouched down on her knees, and rolled through, a little slow getting her legs through, and the portal had taken on the colours of her jewelled collar. After watching her do it, I was a little more confident, but not enough to just jump straight in like she had done. I texted my mum, telling her I might not be home for a while, that I was staying with a friend. After pocketing Sam¡¯s phone, and Shamrock¡¯s, I slowly poked my head through. It was like I was poking my head out of the ground, the part of me that was within the thin area of the portal felt like it was being pinched, I suppose that¡¯s what it feels like when your body is split between two different gravitational pulls, the blood would start to coagulate around that area if you were in that thing long enough. I didn¡¯t follow Clover¡¯s advice, I looked around my destination before committing to this next misadventure. Most of the room was primarily coloured punch red, the walls and floor. I could see a part of a bed on top of which were Clover and a stranger. I don¡¯t know if me coming through the portal made a sound, or if they were watching for me. The stranger, not Clover, marched over to me. He was covered shoulder-to-toe in a military combat armour, printed with black and grey camo. It was hard to gage his build, but with the amount of padding he had on him it wasn¡¯t a leap in judge to say he was strong to carry it all. Or maybe it was just light, it was a fairly streamlined design from what I did see. When his boot came to a clank a foot away from my face, I was further put on edge. I was looking up at him at a nearly a ninety-degree angle, he loomed over me. Then he bent down and held his hand out. I took it. I leveraged my foot on the edge of the wormhole, stumbling out, as I made no attempt to sturdy myself against his pull. Once I was up on my feet, I could see that we were around the same height, though he might have actually been younger than me, Asian, and just a little pudgey faced. ¡°Good?¡± He asked, an obvious accent even from the one word. ¡°Yes, good.¡± I replied, looking over to Clover. ¡°Introductions are in order, I¡¯m Mongkeh Baturbah, I¡¯m in Korea on behalf of the Mladenets, as I¡¯m sure you can tell from the uniform. I was here before the June, and I am here after it.¡± He looked back at Clover, as if he was waiting for a response from her. ¡°Yeah, I know who you are. Ae was talking about you; has been for the past year or so.¡± He smiled, and looked off to the side, like he was going to put that knowledge to use, ¡°Good to know.¡± ¡°Well, I know who you are, ¡®Bastard-crowned¡¯ Clover.¡± He motioned over to a photo on the wall, ¡°¡­She talked about you too.¡± They were melancholic for a minute, lost in their memories, before Mongkeh motioned to me, ¡°I think she mentioned you as well, I¡¯m guessing you are the one who fought those robots?¡± After taking a second to appreciate that somebody knew I was doing hero work, I happily replied, ¡°Yeah, yeah that¡¯s me!¡± Then he continued, ¡°The one who got beaten up by a mannequin!¡± My smile faded, as Clover let out a laugh, a semblance of her usual self peaking through. The portal closed over at this point, glowing faintly as it went. She carried her laptop, now open, around the room, ¡°Neither of you ever told me how that went down exactly. Though I¡¯m sure you charged forward, probably did some neat trick with that bull shit secondary ability, but still got overpowered. Then Ae comes in with the save, she says something to distract or convince ken-doll to give up. Am I right Rocky?¡± I turned to Baturbah, then back to Clover, almost pleading with my expression. Both of them were smiling fondly, I noticed that Baturbah was looking away again. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s about right.¡± I admitted. Clover laughed way to hard, even for her, focusing her gaze on the stocky figure. He scratched at his black hair, as if he felt her gaze on him. It came back down into a giggle, the longer it went on the more uneasy I felt. It didn¡¯t match her eyes; those tired eyes. ¡°Uh-huh-¡± She segweyed, ¡°-that¡¯s a great retelling Rocky, but I think she¡¯ll tell it better. Come on Baturbah, we¡¯ll get her cooks to set something up, and we can talk about it over lunch- or dinner- whatever meals next over here!¡± As she was speaking, she giggled, and the military man stiffened, keeping that reminiscent smile on his face. He turned a little, and I noticed now that he had a few lines of stitches stretching from his lower lip down his chin. As her voice was tiring out, choking off, I looked between the two, until he focused back on Clover. ¡°Clover¡­ Ae¡¯s not with us anymore.¡± She let out a sore breath of air, ¡°Yeah. Yeah, I had a feeling. Just a feeling.¡± ¡­ We were walking around the place with the Mladnet. He¡¯s the first one of them I¡¯ve met, though I have heard a little about them. What I heard from Clover, is that they work for the Russians, and have around the same number of Units as the Mountain. Baturbah expanded my knowledge. He¡¯s told me that they¡¯re an extension of Russia''s military, a black ops group that are called in for situations involving the supernatural, usually monsters. The strange part? Or really, the screwed part, they¡¯re children. All of them, below the age of 18. That makes it a little more understandable how this guy can be in this condition 10 hours after finding out that his friend is dead. ¡°Well- uh¡­¡± None of that made it any easier for him to talk about it. ¡°I can speak to somebody about getting you some food if you¡¯re hungry.¡± Clover shook her head, as we followed him through the halls of the hotel that was once owned by Ae¡¯s family. Back when I met Ae, I assumed she had connections to the underworld like Clover, and it seems like she does. Her family were gangsters, operating under a hotel and casino business. We were under both now, their casino which provided rooms for guests. I thought it a little strange that Ae had lived here, at work, but then I overheard her story from Baturbah. Her parents and older brother had died when she was a kid, so this place, these people, were the closest thing she had to a family. Now I¡¯m wondering what happened to Clover¡¯s. Where were her real parents? I looked over to her as she muttered, ¡°I¡¯m really not that hungry.¡± I felt sick hearing that, so I said, ¡°We haven¡¯t had anything in hours, we really would appreciate it.¡± Baturbah looked back at me, smiling just a little. He understood Clover¡¯s condition. I turned to her, her eyes on the floor. ¡°In that case, I¡¯ll get Kim to sort something out for you.¡± He addressed Clover; ¡°we¡¯re passing by him now, so there¡¯s really no point in not, yes?¡± She smiled, ¡°Yes. Fine.¡± We stopped outside a wide double-door, Mongkeh called out after knocking, ¡°Mr Gi-Yeoung, you have more guests. You were expecting one, you¡¯ll find the other a welcomed surprise, I¡¯m sure.¡± After a woman came to open the door, we were ushered into the room. I recognised the man in the corner, having some wounds wetted by more- I think they were servants? Anyway, it was the man who accompanied Ae to Ireland when I was being haunted by that ghost. And that¡¯s when I realised how they got there so quickly, they had most likely used that portal service, Vortech. Though, they would have had to get a higher tier travel package than us, simply to fit this man through it. Just like the last time I saw him, he was shirtless, but now I could see a grey tinge to his skin around the wounded areas the helpers were rubbing alcohol into. And by observing the art on the wall, I came to the conclusion that the hat he was wearing was a traditional korean helmet. His body let out a groan as he stood up from his seat. For a second, I was afraid Han was going to march over to us, it seemed silly for me to have been startled by Baturbah with such an imposing figure in range. ¡°Ooh, the Mountain¡¯s girl! Clover!¡± The voice took my attention away from the possible threat. I turned to the middle of the room to see a man sitting beside a tree-like potted plant having a drink of water. He must have been well past seventy, judging from his wiry frame and puckered face. He wore a white Panama hat which matched his shirt and trousers. He hobbled to his feet, rubbing his back. ¡°How long has it been? Five, six years? Ahh, I remember when you were¡­ Shorter.¡± He looked at her with wincing eyes. He held a weak hand out, which she reciprocated. As he was holding her hand, I was reminded of the marking on Clover¡¯s, a pinkish clover, the difference being that when I last saw it there were only three leaflets. Now it had four. As I was making mental notes, the frail looking man questioned, ¡°I¡¯d ask if you were doing well, but¡­ I already know what it¡¯s like to lose a close friend, so maybe you can introduce me to this young man.¡± He let go of her hand and wobbled over to me. ¡°He¡¯s not with the Mountain,¡± she rubbed her hand, ¡°-calls himself Shamrock.¡± She looked up to me, and I felt a little embarrassed as all eyes in the room were turned on me. ¡°I can see why you¡¯d bring him here- or maybe why you would come here? Yes, he, me, and Han Chul-Moo all lack the same thing. At least, I¡¯m assuming that¡¯s why you¡¯re here?¡± Han shifted in the corner, the muscles on his back stretching, as he glowered at me. Clover spoke up, ¡°No, we aren¡¯t here because we think Ae stole his soul over the break. He¡¯s been like that since before he met her.¡± He said to me, smiling a worn-out smile, ¡°Ahh, you¡¯ve been through a lot then, haven¡¯t you?¡± I didn¡¯t answer him back, being more than slightly weirded out by this old guy. I think Baturbah knew what I was thinking, because he stepped in, ¡°Mr Yeoung, there¡¯ll be plenty of time for talk, but they¡¯ve come all the way from Ireland, I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll answer your questions over dinner.¡± He slowed to a smile before agreeing, ¡°Of course, look at the time! Haha! So much has been happening today, tending to the wounded few, and of course the business of arranging the young miss-¡± He seemed to catch himself, momentarily forgetting the weight of his words. ¡°I¡¯ll have something prepared right away, I might be old and defunct, but my word still carries weight under this roof!¡± He said something to the carers and they moved into action. ¡°So it¡¯s still being arranged. The funeral, I mean.¡± Clover sturdied her stance a little. Mr Yeoung mumbled, ¡°Sometime this week, yes. Sooner, rather than later. She has been kept on the premises for some time, in good condition. We won¡¯t be able to bring her to a morgue, due to the level of decomposition and¡­¡± He wavered between Baturbah and Clover, ¡°-Let¡¯s just say it¡¯s going to be a closed casket. I can¡¯t imagine what the mortician¡¯s would think if a bunch of gangsters approached them for embalming a two-week-old corpse of twenty-year-old girl. My initial feelings about this man were proved right, he was a creep. I thought he was a family friend; how could he keep that smile on his face while describing something so horrid? What¡¯s even more concerning to me personally, is that he compared me to himself and the powder keg in the corner. ¡°Head still intact?¡± The question made my jaw drop. I turned to her, the same tired look drooping from her eyes, disfiguring her usually glowing face. I felt my heart begin to beat in my ears. ¡°She¡¯s recognisable if that¡¯s what you mean.¡± The old man had succeeded in keeping his composure, where me and Baturbah were too shocked to speak. He continued, ¡°I can understand your¡­ scepticism, I¡¯ve always thought your Mountain was an organisation that has favoured conniving tactics to ascend to the peak. But I can tell you right now, your hopes of this being a convoluted lie, a conspiracy to¡­ I don¡¯t know, for Han Chul-Moo to steal the Seoung-Soo syndicate for himself...¡± He nodded, ¡°The truth is that your friend is dead.¡± She didn¡¯t seem angry, ¡°If it¡¯s all the same with you, I¡¯d rather not take the word of a man who has sworn to destroy his own country.¡± He smiled, ¡°And the difference between destroying your own country, and one that you¡¯re as good as a stranger to?¡± She tilted her head, ¡°One tells you that the destroyer has no loyalty, the other implies that the destroyer¡¯s just doing a job.¡± ¡­ As The four of us, Me, Clover, Baturbah, and Yeoung descended through the elevator, the clacking of the wires meshed with my racing pulse. What the hell were we doing? Clover wanted to go into a meat locker to check on her friend? No amount of suspicion can make that a logical decision, she isn¡¯t thinking straight, I thought to myself, and this is only going to make things worse. I hate to point out the argument that was creeping around in my mind. This was Clover, the luck girl. If there was some sort of danger that would be narrowly avoided, or there was something to be gained, then it¡¯s likely that her choices will result in it coming to light at least. Once again, these super powered scenarios only serve to complicate things unnecessarily, and I¡¯m left with this gnawing wish that none of this had to happen, if the world was just normal... I was brought back after our group stopped in a hall I hadn¡¯t even realised I¡¯d been walking down. The old man swiped a card over a scanner, and the bolts holding a heavy looking door unlocked, the crackling of frost audible. ¡°Wait!¡± I suddenly spoke out, catching Clover as she was about to pull the handle back, ¡°W-well, I mean¡­¡± I tried and failed to think of a way of convincing her that this was insane. I watched helplessly as she pulled the handle down. ¡°She should be somewhere on your right, beside the jeyuk... can¡¯t quite remember what it¡¯s called in English¡­ that''s right, it''s pork! Ha!¡± The horror of what he described zapped me into action once more. ¡°I¡¯ll go!¡± Again, all of the eyes turned to me. And I was just as surprised with what I¡¯d said as everyone else. Baturbah remained quiet, Yeoung let out a noise. Clover asked, ¡°Why?¡± I didn¡¯t waste any time trying to put together a coherent argument, I blurted out everything that was on my mind. ¡°C-Clover, you can¡¯t do this, think about what Bastard said, you¡¯re in the process of grieving, you can¡¯t trust yourself to make decisions like this. You need a good meal, rest, time, you don¡¯t need to go proving that there¡¯s some plot to steal your friend from you. But I know you, you¡¯re pig-headed, once you¡¯ve set your mind on something, you¡¯re going to see it through, but you don¡¯t have to see it through personally. That¡¯s- that¡¯s what I¡¯m here for. I¡¯m here to help.¡± She loosened her eyes, I felt like she wasn¡¯t convinced, that I needed to say more. ¡°I¡¯ve seen her before, I¡¯ll know if it¡¯s her, like I¡¯ve said, I¡¯ve saved your life twice before, you know I wouldn¡¯t try and- and lie to you. Not about whatever¡¯s behind this door. You were talking about loyalty, remember? Well- well I¡¯m loyal to me- to this,¡± I tugged at my mask. She shook her head and ruffled her dark hair. She whispered, ¡°I know. I know you. I know that you hate to see me like this. There¡¯s your sympathy, sure, but that¡¯s not what I¡¯m on about.¡± As if she was falling over, she leaned over to me. ¡°I have killed people. You understand that, right? I¡¯m a horrible bitch that has murdered people, younger than me when I¡¯ve had to. It might not be in the forefront of your mind, but you don''t want me to be sad, you want me to feel bad. You want me to realise I''ve done the same to other people.¡± She gritted her teeth. ¡°I am not a little girl. I never fucking was.¡± The blood drained from my face, and I said soon after, ¡°Yeah.¡± I corrected myself, ¡°NO, Fuck, I- I don¡¯t- I want you to be better. It- It¡¯s just- I''m asking that you extend your sympathy to other people, so- fuck, I want you to understand that none of what you just said is a healthy way to look at this. You don¡¯t need to fight me; you need to stop and look at yourself. You¡¯ve been different since we got here¡­¡± She shook her head harder, cupping her temples in her hands, ¡°Shut up.¡± ¡°Just go. Just go in then.¡± She tossed her head back and stepped away from the door. I looked at her, the only sound the crackling tension of the ice in the other room, and the ac whirring. I wiped my face, realising that I didn¡¯t help her out, I just rattled her when she was too tired to argue. I walked in. I kept walking. Then I stopped. God, if there is a god, a good god, then I begged them for the strength to keep going. That¡¯s what I would need to keep going in such a situation, to stop myself from hyper-ventilating. I leapt head first into this mess, what was I expecting? That we¡¯d go on an adventure or something? I¡¯m in fucking Korea. If we aren¡¯t counting the given worlds, then I¡¯ve never even left the country, what made me think I could handle any of this? Because I worked out? Because I watched some movies? Because I¡¯m wearing a dumbass costume? How the hell does any of that make me any better at helping someone out of this shit? Fuck! Fuck! I half scan the right of the room. Then there¡¯s that. What exactly was I thinking here? I¡¯m in no way the person who should be doing this. I try to edge closer, my teeth chattering from the cold. Did I seriously think I was ready for something this real again? I spent a month held up in my bedroom because I failed to stop those people from being buried, freaked the fuck out when Grey died, and he might not have been real, I don¡¯t fucking know! Then there¡¯s this, so help me God- The only thing I¡¯ll tell you about- about her is that she was in a body bag, laid down on a table. I approached the head, a zipper affixed to the top. I told myself, over and over, just breathe. Just. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. I lifted my right hand to the zip, an inch away. In. Out. It jingled as I picked it up in my jittering fingers. In. Out. In¡­ I think I pulled it about a foot before I twitched back, grabbing my hand Out, out. In, out, in, out, in, out, in out. I crashed to the floor. In, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, in out in out in out in out. I scuttled across the scratching ice floor, chilling me to the bone. In out in out out in out in out out out out out- out-out-out-out- I grabbed at my heart. I told myself to breathe, but my body didn¡¯t listen, I kept exhaling in short bursts, as if I were crying; I wasn¡¯t. My eyes were completely dry. When I got back, Clover¡¯s mood remained the same, despite my findings. ¡­ I¡¯ve been racking my brain in the hours since we were lodged in separate rooms, free of charge, asking myself the same question, why was I here? Why did I follow this girl half way across the earth? I came up with a few answers, none of which satisfied me. The hero part of me said I tagged along so I could get involved with whatever was happening in the world. The human side of me said it was to look out for Clover. The darker part of me said it was because I wanted to face situations like this. There¡¯s a part of me that seeks these situations out, that¡¯s why I became a ¡®hero¡¯, to give the world someone who¡¯s looking out for it, to give myself the peace of mind knowing that at least one person is definitely doing their very best for others. I just wish it was easier. I looked around the room before sitting down at the foot of the bed, reminding me of my time with Feoli. I looked at my cracked phone, checking the VPN I installed on it. I seriously didn¡¯t think I¡¯d be using it this soon. After Clover bought me this phone, my first thoughts went to her being able to find out who I really am by looking at stuff like roaming charges or something. One thing I¡¯ve definitely learned after living in this world for half a year, is that I¡¯m made of three parts. Hero, human, and Street-trash. I need all three to be myself, I¡¯m weaker than the average person, so I need to put in three times the effort if I want to be content with myself. Clover was right, it bugs me that she and everyone else have been so flippant with human lives, especially ones they have no connection to. It¡¯s selfish, to say the least. That part of me is loudest when I stick this thing over my head, but it¡¯s not the full picture. I don¡¯t want her to feel bad. It¡¯s silly, but true. I know she has the capacity to understand the weight of her crimes, she just needs time. I take off the mask, pinching it by the back and pulling to break the line of glue, rubbing at the bits that remained. After disconnecting it from my neck, I wedge my thumbs under the eye holes, peeling it off my face from there. After my head is out in the open, I pull at the hairnet I¡¯ve been using to hold my messy scalp down. It falls out over my face. And now I¡¯m Sam, near enough. Sam in Seoul. I laugh at myself softly as I wipe away the bubbles left on my face. I¡¯d have to get gorilla glue somewhere, who knows how long I¡¯ll be in this rabbit hole for. For all I know, I could have missed a secret camera in here, they could be recording my real face right now. The anxiety jabbed me, but it wasn¡¯t enough to stop me from letting out my human side. It was necessary. I looked at my phone, Sam¡¯s phone, thinking of what to send. ¡°Hey Sorsh, you¡¯ve been quiet for a while, I don¡¯t know if this is really a place for me, but I was a little worried about U.¡± I left it for a few seconds, before I sent another. ¡°You don¡¯t have to say anything, I¡¯ll be content if you leave me on read.¡± The hero in me cringed. ¡°I mean, if you leave me on read, then I know you¡¯re alive, so¡­¡± I¡¯d almost forgotten how bad I was at this. I laid myself back. That girl, Ae, she helped me out twice already, I never got the chance to pay her back. Really, the least I can do is make sure that the living can keep it all together. A ding came from cracked slab of glass. I slowed my breathing before I checked. ¡°Thanks lol¡± Clip 4.06: An analysis of the passengers on the train from Seoul to Busan post June. The turn-out for the demon of divertissement¡¯s funeral was meagre, not only as a result of the short notice, but by design. Seventy-two guests attended the burial, many of them invited to the service by Kim Ge-Yeoung due to their loyalty to the family, their level heads, and their position within the organisation. It would be important to monitor their reactions to the announcement he had planned, it would be imperative to the mission moving forward. It was already fragile enough under the care of the ¡®iron weapon¡¯. There were, however, guests that invited themselves. They came not out of respect for the past or to acknowledge the changing world around them. There was the first new arrival, the pollutant of pointlessness, who was there because she was worried about her friend, and ended up staying four nights to mourn for her death. A happy accident really, she would have missed the funeral if she wasn¡¯t so lucky. She was no longer wearing the ceremonial garbs of Ees-ees, the self-proclaimed Egyptian god of all things. No, if one were to ascribe the word God to any of those beings, it would only be in the sense that they are the subject of worship and that they are in possession of an above average amount of power. I don¡¯t think something so base should qualify. Yes, the pollutant had done away with those old robs and taken on a more appropriate attire for the event. They were Ae¡¯s. The aegis of apathy told her it was alright, that the departed would appreciate it. It was true. The second foreign arrival came from Japan, the sentai of spectrality who had encountered the demon thrice before now, was in the neighbourhood with his girlfriends. That makes it sound as if the event was just a detour on his holiday, but he did truly care about the girl, she was after all the only other Unit he had encountered to this point. He was on edge around the hardened criminals, but found some comfort beside the aegis of apathy. The focal guest of this analysis, the aegis, was wedged between the aforementioned Units. Out of all the guests, he seemed the most¡­ approachable. Unattached. Both the pollutant and the sentai understood that he was a close friend of the demon, and he projected a strength that they could lean on. The aegis was advised to go along with it, they were Units, they could make an unwanted scene if irritated. This was a sentiment shared by Gi-Yeoung. As customary, people began to pay their respects at the side of the coffin, one by one they trailed along. The pollutant was the first of the Units, as she passed by the box, she thought back on something she¡¯d been told. It was a simple line from the ¡®merchant of Venice¡¯, ¡®All that glitters is not gold¡¯ is how it starts, ¡®welcome frost¡¯ is how it ends. She at once came to understand the meaning of pointlessness. Next, came the aegis. His face reminiscent, yet cold it held. As he touched the box, he imagined a joke being told, she would have snickered something behind a stretched smile. But nothing like that was shown. Toughening his lip, but keeping the same general expression, he tilted his head up from the varnished wood. And there he saw it. Her, but not. All the features were identical, her wolfy hair, her thin face, it was all right. But that slightly translucent thing told no jokes, nor did It snicker. It simply told him he was holding up the line. And it told him to keep moving. The third Unit, the sentai, placed his snow-white hand down, the colour of the object contrasting his skin more than his black suit simply by possessing pigmentation. He thought of one of his girls, Akahana, she¡¯d be shouting at him for being depressive right now, but what¡¯s wrong with that? Holidays are supposed to be escapes from the everyday. Unlike the rest of his life, this felt real, meaningful. Once everyone had returned to their seats, they expected the coffin to be lowered, but it wasn¡¯t. Everyone was rightfully confused, even if they didn¡¯t voice their thoughts. Everyone, except for Kim Gi-Yeoung, Mongkeh Baturbah, and the man approaching from the audiences left. His fists were clenched, the dark cloth of his hanbok fell down to his ankles loosely, but was bound tight at his ribs. His back imprinted with the Seoung-Soo family seal in light red, gave a sheen against the dark purple of his clothes. Bound to his head was a capped helmet in the style of the Joseon dynasty, yet made from solely organic materials. The intention was to hide his face, not protect it. All but his eyes were covered. As he reached the grave, Gi-Yeoung raised to stand beside him. "To translate", she told Mongkeh. He saw this coming, but everyone else was still in the dark. ¡°I thank you for coming,¡± The man now known as Han Chul-Moo grated, ¡°-to the funeral of Ae-Seoung-Soo. I¡¯ve been told¡­ that it isn¡¯t customary to give a ¡®eulogy¡¯ in Korea, but then again, I¡¯ve never been one for customs.¡± He was quiet for a second, and the crowd began to fill the space with mutterings. His back cracked as he raised himself taller, ¡°I¡¯m a Unit. I¡¯ve been working for this syndicate for four months. And in that time-¡± He held himself back, ¡°-this-¡± It was a visible struggle for him. ¡°-This girl has not only stolen my life from me, she¡¯s made me a damn mule. A tortured animal!¡± Gi-Yeoung looked back at him while he was translating, and Chul-Moo gripped his frustration. ¡°I¡¯ve given everything to this. She destroyed 36 years of my life for four miserable months- that isn¡¯t a fair trade. How many years have you given? Forty? Fifty? More? Only for the Bloodline of the instigator to end here? Bull fucken¡¯ shit. Fifty-five years from thousands of people, only for us to get slaughtered like damn animals?¡± The guest from Japan looked like he was going to do something. ¡°Stop him,¡± She told Mongkeh, ¡°Don¡¯t let that boy interfere.¡± The aegis extended his hand slightly, and the pale boy understood. ¡°I¡¯m a foreigner," Han continued, "I have no stake in any of this, I don¡¯t even get that promised land bullshit, she stole my fucking soul! SHE TOOK THE ONLY THING I HAD! THIS IS THE PERSON SHE MADE ME!¡± After his anger peaked, he was able to bring it back down. The crowd was a little more at ease when he was able to smoothen out his voice. ¡°But that girl wasn¡¯t stupid. She knew that this wouldn¡¯t last long at the rate you were running it. You need ambition. You needed an actual weapon. I have nothing to lose, and nothing to gain from taking over, and I am taking over, none of you can stop me, the only reason I¡¯m telling you any of this is because I¡¯d prefer that you not waste good assassins on me. In times like this, we need people with skills like that.¡± The boy to Baturbah¡¯s right was shocked that nobody was doing anything to interfere with him. The woman to Baturbah¡¯s left hadn¡¯t changed her expression since sitting back at her seat. The pollutant had expected power grabs, ugly, distasteful shows of ego, despite the fact that Ae was never too involved with the syndicate, there were people who ran things while she stayed in school. Baturbah thought about what was actually being said here. The picture he¡¯d put together was that Han was just a mad animal, one that had been leashed and bound by Gi-yeoung and Ae before her death. There was no doubt in his mind that this was a show of power on the part of those backing the goals of whatever sub-faction had formed under the old man¡¯s control. It reminded him of home, the Mladnets. Rabid, impressionable minds placed under the heel of a physically weaker master. But they were children. He knew why he himself was still serving. He guessed at why this Chul-Moo kept going. He was probably lonely, more than anything else. That¡¯s one of the many symptoms of the soulless. ¡°There will be time to discuss the power shifts, please, try to enjoy the rest of the funeral.¡± Mongkeh looked to his side, waiting for the demon to laugh at the irony. He smiled at the thought alone. As the coffin lowered, so did the experienced young soldier¡¯s eyes. ... Not far from the graves, the other two Units met their respective entourages. Sato Takahashi, the dull, pale, highschooler, met his seven girlfriends, ushering them away before they made a scene. ¡®Bastard-crowned¡¯ Clover met the boy in green. He had wanted to go to, saying he could wear an all-black mask, but in the end, Clover had told him not to bother. He would only make more trouble for them. Baturbah said that wherever Ae was, she¡¯d just be glad that she was being kept in his thoughts. Of course, the prime issue with Ae Seoung-Soo¡¯s current existence was that she couldn¡¯t be glad, or angry, or sad. She couldn¡¯t allow the traces of her personality to be diluted with moods and opinions. The position of a spirit is a delicate one, less so for Ae, due to her experience with souls in life. Mongkeh knew all of this, that the last vestiges of herself were dependant on her not smiling, nor laughing, but he still looked for it. He checked in on her, seeing a face that couldn¡¯t even be described as bored, it was completely apathetic. ¡°Don¡¯t stop to talk to them. If you do, we¡¯ll miss the train. Wave. That¡¯ll be enough.¡± When the Mladnet did look back to them, he noticed Clover starring. He simply did as he was told. Something told him that despite the bastard crowned not having any spiritual fine tuning, she understood what it was he was always looking for in the distance. Without a final word to either of them, he left to catch a train to Busan. . . . ¡°What did you think of them?¡± Baturbah asked. ¡°I think she¡¯ll be ok, eventually. Something tells me she¡¯s seen a lot of death, but she hasn¡¯t experienced a lot of loss. Maybe once or twice, an adult, maybe another friend. Just not enough that she¡¯s able to take it in her stride.¡± He looked across the train car, ¡°Not like us.¡± She was unresponsive. He smiled, making himself comfortable. ¡°Still, that kid with her, I don¡¯t know how he¡¯s made it for as long as he has. I¡¯ve heard that the soulless are the tenacious type, but there are far more flaws than benefits. There¡¯s the big pro, immunity to direct attacks to the soul, I¡¯ve heard about some people paranoid enough getting suckered by that, but in the end, it¡¯s not worth ending up like Kim or Han.¡± ¡°He was more or less the same when I met him. The only difference is, now he has nothing to love. He had one love that he used to cope with his hatred for the world, and more importantly his hatred for himself.¡± He guessed correctly that she was talking about Han, though as far as he knew maybe she was talking about the Irish man. It was just a factual statement; no emotion in her voice. ¡°I can¡¯t see him benefitting from the change, whatever his life was like before. I understand why you stole his soul, probably the same reason your grandfather stole Gi-Yeoung¡¯s, but hot-tempered simpletons aren¡¯t good in administrative roles, or as aspirational figures for that matter.¡± He thought back on the man with the Faberg¨¦ obsession at the Siberian branch, noticing a few similarities between the two take overs, the one in Russia was being done with a little more tact. It had to be, what with it being a group a hundred times larger than this gang in Korea. She didn¡¯t talk back to him, so he tried to squeeze something more out of the conversation, ¡°You pointed out one of the biggest flaws with detaching the soul, it perverts the thing they loved most, they start to hate it too. That¡¯s slightly connected to the other symptom, the unnecessary strengthening of resolve. I¡¯m sure the afflicted appreciate it, it¡¯s probably saved that kids life a few times, made him a little more confident, but it¡¯ll make him uncompromising, he won¡¯t, or rather, is unable to do anything he doesn¡¯t want to do. Someone like him¡¯ll call it a strong moral compass, but I¡¯m sure it¡¯s led to situations where it¡¯s clouded his judgement of a situation. It''ll tear him apart when he''s pushed across that line, when he does something in the heat of the moment. ¡± She wasn¡¯t speaking anymore. ¡°That''s not even mentioning the biggest one. You could call a late-stage symptom, because it¡¯s the one that ends up getting them killed. A lack of concern for their own life. Rather than thinking through a situation based on self-preservation, they¡¯ll look to things like what they can gain from it.¡± He realised that this line of conversation wasn¡¯t working, that was alright, going from Seoul to Busan they still had hours left to themselves. Nobody was riding in their car for a reason, it was just him and her. He smiled just a little. ¡°I bet you laughed pretty hard when you saw the green guy, it¡¯s a pretty surprising appearance, even for a Unit.¡± She answered him back, ¡°You weren¡¯t surprised.¡± He laughed and shook his head, ¡°No, no, I¡¯ve been from here to Chernobyl, I¡¯ve met around a hundred different Units in my life, and fought more monsters, so a mask from a cartoon won¡¯t startle me. But it would get you rolling on your sides, tell me, please, what were you doing when you met him?¡± It knew what he was trying to do. ¡°I was at Clover¡¯s eighteenth birthday. I¡¯d flown out a day or two earlier, staying for the week. It was on the night of the party that I saw him first. He was surrounded by people.¡± He pushed her harder, the smile on his face widening, as he felt like he was getting closer to his goal, ¡°And? What did you think when you were walking over to him?¡± ¡°I thought, ¡®this is the man Clover said I could hook up with? This little man in a frog costume?¡¯¡± He thought to laugh, but realised she was just listing her exact thoughts in that moment. Still nothing of emotional value. ¡°Actually, thinking back I suppose there was another reason why I wasn¡¯t shocked by Shamrock. Yeah, there was a kid over in the European sect of the Mladnets, he had a mask like that. It was a leaf, covered all of his face. He needed it for his ability, or for his dark god, something like that.¡± Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. She wasn¡¯t even looking at him anymore, uninterested in any information that wasn¡¯t directly tied to her consciousness. She was looking out over the city as the train clacked by. Every building; homes that families had built and lived in, whether bound by blood or love, each one passed in the blink of an eye. Five hours, Mongkeh told himself. Five hours left. ¡°Wait, did you say hook up?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°We didn¡¯t though.¡± She blurted. Here we go, he thought. ¡°Did you feel the need to clarify that?¡± ¡°No. That was just your actual question. Obviously. I¡¯m not just residual information Monkey. I have soul. I still have the capacity for thought.¡± Mongkeh laughed at it, ¡°Yeah, I know. It is you, isn¡¯t it? You¡¯re her memory, her thoughts and feelings.¡± ¡°No.¡± The words cracked into him like a pick through ice. ¡°-I¡¯m not me. You know how this works Monkey. There are issues with the soul. Weaknesses. Like a body filling itself with adrenaline or how you might perceive time as passing slower as you reach death, at the end of its time, a soul will react.¡± ¡°It cries out, begging, ¡®I don¡¯t want to go. I want to keep loving baseball; I want to stay alive¡¯. It speaks. At least greenie doesn¡¯t care if he dies, you¡¯re the one who has to live with that fear of death.¡± He kept the smile, fixing his posture slightly, ¡°And what¡¯s so wrong with that?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t judge. You know what will happen if I do. Your grief is blinding you from it.¡± He snickered ever so slightly. ¡°Something beyond death, should I let that clinging part of my self win. The longer I exist like this the more I¡¯ll change, emotional stability is now bound to my physical stability. You know this. But you still push me.¡± He didn¡¯t say anything. He didn¡¯t make any snide remarks. In the silence there was only the clashing of the steel beneath them. Once he thought of a logical reason, he let her know, though some time had passed since she¡¯d brought it up. ¡°Once you get to that property in Busan, the process will be put on hold, as a part of whatever deal your family made with those entities. The whole promised after-life should Korea be dismantled.¡± After eternities passed them by, she finally looked at him. ¡°This might be the last time we see each other- assuming I don¡¯t join up with the whole devil worshiping, blood drinking thing. It¡¯s just five hours, come on, crack a joke!¡± She didn¡¯t. She looked to his side. They were passing by a body of water, a lake or reservoir, she didn¡¯t care, nor did she care for how the light shimmered across it, or how the sky glowed red in the near-setting sun. She did not care. It was just information. Information that would go towards her loss of humanity, the death of self. Mongkeh kept a cool face, a cool head, but deep down, brewed emotions that he didn¡¯t even know he had. ¡°You said Clover tried to hook you up with that green guy, right?¡± ¡°Yep.¡± ¡°That must have been rough for him. Seeing as, you know, he¡¯s in love with her.¡± He thought that her silence meant something in the few seconds it lasted. ¡°What are you talking about?¡± He laughed, hoping that this time she might be different. ¡°Well, right off the bat, there¡¯s his outfit. I¡¯m pretty sure he isn¡¯t getting any girls dressed like that. And with how flustered he gets from talking to a girl he knows well, it¡¯s safe to say that''s the only girl he talks to. If you want to break it down, he¡¯s probably just hot for her because he¡¯s never been this close to a girl before.¡± ¡°You¡¯re a master when it comes to this sort of thing, are you?¡± He was elated. There wasn¡¯t a sarcastic tone to her voice but it was a question that came from the direction he was pushing her. ¡°Well I do work with kids. It comes with the territory.¡± He crossed his arms, waiting for her reply. ¡°You are a kid, Monkey. You have been alive 17 years.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t see why you need to speak like a robot. I¡¯m 17, yeah, what about it?¡± ¡°17 years doesn¡¯t make you an adult. I was nearly three years older than you when I passed. I honestly don¡¯t think that¡¯s enough time either. And it¡¯s especially not enough for this.¡± ¡°You might not let it compromise the ¡®mission¡¯ but you¡¯re taking this just as bad as Clover. Be honest, Monkey.¡± He kept that smile. ¡°I¡¯ve seen things. I¡¯ve had people die on my team; you were there for one of a dozen of my comrades. It¡¯s not just the fact they¡¯re gone, it¡¯s how they go. Quick and instant, or slow like an eternity. You can argue that I haven¡¯t completely risen above all of this yet, but I know people who have. With all due respect Ae, you aren¡¯t a Mladnet, you¡¯re a free-lance Unit-¡± She interrupted him, not a thorn in her words, ¡°I was a free-lance Unit. I am dead,¡± But they still stung him. ¡°Those kids Monkey? They¡¯ve been broken. Children are fragile. Their minds are glass, after being subjected to enough pressure they shatter, shards scatter, parts lost. Empathy lost. Those people are sociopaths Mongkeh. They¡¯d have to be to survive in that environment.¡± His smile faded, this wasn¡¯t how it was supposed to go, ¡°I¡¯ve survived in that environment since I was 13, are you saying I¡¯m a psycho?¡± She shook her head, ¡°I¡¯m saying you aren¡¯t, Monkey. You might try to be like them, but you aren¡¯t.¡± He turned away, the smile fading from his face. ¡°My name is Mongkeh Baturbah. So why do you keep calling me ¡®Monkey¡¯?¡± There was a long pause, ¡°That¡¯s just what I call you. It¡¯s just a nickname.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a play on words. ¡®Monkey¡¯ is also used as an insult, between friends, it¡¯s a joke.¡± He glared at her now. ¡°It isn¡¯t. That¡¯s just what I usually call you. It¡¯s a force of habit.¡± ¡°Forces of habit aren¡¯t a part of your memories, or your will. It¡¯s a bodily mistake. A mistake of the living.¡± She stammered, ¡°Yes- I can¡¯t stop. My soul wants me to be alive. It wants to exist, against the natural forces it continues on-¡± He interrupted, face calm, ¡°You can¡¯t deny it Ae, you want to live. That is natural. It¡¯s utter bullshit that one minute we¡¯re eating fucking breakfast, and the next you¡¯re a spirit, and I¡¯m- You¡¯re being selfish. This isn¡¯t fair to me. Seeing you like this over the past few days-¡± This was it. ¡°Now, that I think about it, why have you stuck around all this time? You could have left days ago; you¡¯re not bound to me or anything. I¡¯d say it was to make sure that your syndicate didn¡¯t collapse seconds after the news came out, or maybe so you could see Clover one more time- but what¡¯s the point if you¡¯re going to act like this? You know who needs to be honest Ae? You need to be you. We¡¯ve got four hours now, is this seriously going to be your final memory?¡± Say it, that was his will. An unnecessary movement. A lick of the lips, a tilt of her head. Say it. ¡°Just cut me down, you idiot.¡± What. What? The silence would have been audible, if the clattering of the rails hadn¡¯t already filled Baturbah¡¯s ears. ¡°What?¡± At last, the thought passed his lips, the emotion in it finally true. The spectre replied to the slight tremble. ¡°You¡¯re right. I haven¡¯t been fair, not to Boston, not to Clover, and not to you.¡± His heart winced. ¡°I let my desire to keep living cloud my judgement. But now that I have been a spirit for four days, I understand the severity of our situation. Of my situation, Monk. I¡¯m falling apart. Shattering. I¡¯m going to lose everything, or worse, have it perverted into a- a monster. I¡¯d rather you- and I¡¯m sorry that it has to be you- I¡¯d rather you cut me down.¡± He got up, wearing a face identical to the one he wore when Clover asked to see the body. ¡°You¡¯re asking me to kill you, wh-¡± ¡°I¡¯m dead.¡± Two words. She¡¯d already said them, he had heard them the first time. But now he understood. He realised at once that she was right. He¡¯d been blinded by his emotions. She had the right approach to all of this, he needed to be reasonable, sensible. ¡°I¡¯m dead, Mongkeh. Save my memory.¡± He struggled, wavering as the force from the train pushing against the rails vibrated up his legs. He squared his stance, willing together his soul. Mongkeh Baturbah holds a family heirloom, one passed by hand, yes, but it is what can¡¯t be held that is most important about this object. His uniform is not the standard issue, adjustments were made so that this heirloom could be more manageable. He pressed down the smart cloth integrated into his combat armour. Like a wet rag being wrung, a liquid dribbled out of the cervices of the fabric. Defying gravity, drops and streams were pulled into his open hands. First formed the handle, making a sort of crook shape to the wielder, then a guard materialised, drooping down to complement the crook. Lastly formed the blade itself, curving one way, before sweeping up the other in a crescent. He made a sword. He willed it in that form because that¡¯s what she told him to do. To the average observer, the boy pulled out a sword from nowhere, that¡¯s how they¡¯d rationalise it later. To a Unit with no sensitivity of the soul, they observed the Mladenet make one of many crude weapons he could manifest. To Seoung-Soo Ae, Monkey had pooled an enormous amount of soul energy into the shape of a blade, displaying not that he was capable of putting this to an end, but that he had the will to do it. To strike her down as she asked. A good soldier, she thought. She tensed, not just at the glaring of the blade that could rend a person; soul and body, but at that stray thought. She was losing her edge, the humour she loved in life was clamped to her like a shackle. But she wasn¡¯t the only one. It melted. Not her pressurized will. Not just the sword. But that idiot. Both of them thought at once, ¡®This isn¡¯t what I wanted¡¯. Mongkeh looked at her, any barriers he had built up were shattered like ice, and melted into tears instantaneously. ¡°I don¡¯t want this Monkey. I want to live. I want to live. I thought just one day, then it was until the funeral, and now, I realise I¡¯m not strong enough. I don¡¯t want to go. I want to be with you.¡± This wasn¡¯t how it was supposed to go, he wanted her to say it, but not like this. He just wanted hear her laugh one more time. ¡°I don¡¯t care if there is a perfect world after this. I don¡¯t want to live in it without you, not for a second.¡± The soldier dribbled snot as he cried. ¡°I don¡¯t want to exist on any level without you.¡± His will once again bent the silver liquid. It was a bulky shape, clinging to his hands and chest. He wanted armour- he wanted to be strong, safe from this feeling. And he wanted to be able to grab a hold of her. He tumbled forward, arms out wide, almost falling on her. Despite his condition, it wasn¡¯t an abrasive hug, it was hesitant and gentle. He didn¡¯t go to her because he wanted to grab onto something to keep him up, he hugged her to tell her he was sorry. He said it with a nose full of mucus and a throat full of reluctance. ¡°I lub you-¡± He didn¡¯t want any of this- He didn¡¯t want it to go this way. It was horrible saying it out loud, even if it no longer mattered- maybe it was because it was too late. Her voice was muffled by his energy fighting against her projection, ¡°I love you.¡± That hurt them both more. But that¡¯s what they needed to hear. Baturbah knew it. Seoung-Soo only just realised. It wasn¡¯t enough for her will, her desire, to fade. It helped her on her way. He sobbed for a good portion of the ride. Ae knew that if she joined him, it would destroy her. She wouldn¡¯t be coming back from such a feeling. It was clear that he wouldn¡¯t be able to get rid of her if she became a threat. She¡¯d seen what a normal human could do after they died. She was a Unit with a massive soul. She¡¯d become an imperial threat. At least. He knew that, but here he was. Despite all of his training, he¡¯d turned ¡®weak¡¯ in the knees. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said, ¡°I can¡¯t. I can¡¯t keep doing this.¡± ¡°It¡¯s okay. It¡¯s only four more hours.¡± ¡°We only have four more hours.¡± He paused before finally giving in. ¡°I can¡¯t handle the responsibility of- stopping you from changing. You¡¯re right. I should have been thankful for just this.¡± Disregarding this she still displayed a desire. ¡°Remember me. Even if- if that afterlife stuff was bull crap, I¡¯ll be content if only you remember me.¡± He laughed, a little. ¡°I can¡¯t forget you. And we both know it¡¯s not just me. Clover won¡¯t forget, and with the Mountain watching over her, she¡¯ll probably last longer than me. You¡¯ve got tons of Normals in Korea, you remember the other week- or I guess last month- when I walked in on you face timing, decked out in my suit?¡± He didn¡¯t wait for the laugh; he knew now it wasn¡¯t coming. ¡°Hey, now that I think about it, that Han Chul-Moo guy doesn¡¯t seem like he¡¯s going to be forgetting about you anytime soon.¡± He bit his tongue just after he said it. Realising he should cut the joking tone he¡¯d picked up, and that if she was asking him to remember her, it probably wasn¡¯t as the type of woman who stole souls. She glossed over it, ¡°Speaking of him, I need you to do something.¡± She didn¡¯t want to steer the conversation away from them, but she¡¯d need to say it sooner or later. ¡°Not now, it¡¯s too soon for him, and it¡¯s too late for you. I know you need to get this flight; they won¡¯t allow any more delays.¡± She leaned in to whisper, though no one was in the train car to hear. ¡°I want you to give a part of your weapon to him. A milligram. When next you meet him, I want you to make a judgement on whether or not he¡¯ll be able to conquer this country, that, or if you find yourself in a tight spot.¡± There was a sliver of suspicion in Baturbah now, ¡°If you want me to give even a drop of my family heirloom to that guy-¡± ¡°I don¡¯t. If it looks like things are just on the brink of working out, or you¡¯re about to die, give it to him. It¡¯ll interact with his own abilities, I don¡¯t know how, maybe it¡¯ll kill him, maybe it¡¯ll turn him into a monster- It might even grow him a new soul.¡± He realised that she wasn¡¯t saying this because she thought it would strengthen her syndicate, she was telling him this so that there was a chance she could apologize to the man who had cursed her out at her own funeral. ¡°But if he¡¯s still the same, or if you get into a fight with him, don¡¯t so much as touch him with it. And I mean that.¡± He scratched at his head, ¡°Is that all? Because you¡¯re leaking out a lot of emotion.¡± ¡°That¡¯s all.¡± He thought for a moment about what they could talk about. ¡°Tell me what you want me to remember about you. Without telling me. I guess you could tell me stories and secrets; facts.¡± He looked into the shallow pool of pressure in that train car. And they talked. She told him stories, about her father, her thoughts when she met Clover. When she encountered the remains of her father¡¯s spirit. She told him about the robots, how she goaded Han-Chul-Moo into a competition, how she and the boy in green tricked the tiny robot. She told him things nobody else knew, and she told him things that only they knew. And as quick as a paragraph, the train crossed all of South Korea, and they were in Busan. They passed it, the sanctum that Ae¡¯s soul would be entombed in. And they parted. There were no grand final words, rather than the short candle they had held for each other burning out naturally, it was snuffed by a passing breeze. . . . It was maybe fifteen minutes that Baturbah spent alone in that car, until it finally reached the station. He took a moment to steel himself, but he had already taken up enough of their time, their resources. ¡°I hope you understand, Baturbah, that it was no easy feat organising this with the Korean government?¡± The man waiting just outside the door asked him. ¡°I know. But it had to be done.¡± Mongkeh lied. The man scratched his slight beard, ¡°Had to be done, you say. This was a personal matter for you, you asked for this. I¡¯d be surprised that it went through, if it weren¡¯t for your devilled tongue!¡± He laughed. He laughed, before returning to the matter. ¡°Did it expect it? Was all of this necessary in the end- in your expert opinion.¡± ¡°No, she didn¡¯t, and yes it was. As I¡¯ve said, I needed her to be in a sterile environment, the constant movement compiled with the constant flow of information, contrasted against a friendly, familiar environment weakened her mentally, loosening her control on the soul.¡± He lied to a superior. ¡°Right, good, as long as it¡¯s taken care of. You will have to deal with quite a few consequences now Baturbah. Not many will take kindly to your interference with a foreign power, though you won¡¯t have to worry about the Internationals, if anything they¡¯ll be thankful for the intervention. The bastards have bigger fish to fry in Africa- and if my suspicions are correct, a certain Mountain mule.¡± Normally, Baturbah would hold this man¡¯s suspicions in high regard, but right now, he didn¡¯t care. He hadn¡¯t the energy to care. Let alone the energy to exorcise her. . . . She wandered streets unseen, unacknowledged by the ignorants around her. She observed human beings, some old, some new. All made equal in the end. In her current state, she couldn¡¯t float, to do so would contort her form further, and she was so close now, her father hadn¡¯t made it, but she was so close, she was a few metres from the shrine, the shrine built by her Great-grandfather, this was to be her end. Now, rather than shy away from this, from death, she welcomed it. It was a final far, far more appealing than the alternatives. Be cut down by that boy, or become something like her- Her father. It stood at five metres tall, its backwards legs taking up around a third of the height of it. They were taloned, the both of them, three thumbs reaching out sharpened to a claw. The pillars were textured unlike the rest of its body, they were scaled like a bird, rather than a lizard. Infact, the theme was carried out through the whole body of the beast. It¡¯s main body, from a distance, might have seemed to be covered in red feathers, but on closer inspection you¡¯d see it as a complex weave of overlapping leathery skin, borne red in shades of vermillion and garnet, the colours expanding in great waves. This was carried on its arms, chest, and was shown best in the ¡®tail feathers¡¯ held up and shifted by vertebrae. It exploded from the bird¡¯s hind in three main strands upon which the shifting feathers of flesh followed, making a hairy looking peacock sail. It¡¯s head and neck had traits from both its bulked legs, and the torso¡¯s padding. It¡¯s eyes remained unchanged, though the rest of his face had been deformed, the nose was greatly enlarged, the nostrils upturned at the side, and the upper lip fused together with it. The chin had nearly been erased, the disproportionate size of the eyes and brow conveyed a great sadness in the creature. Whether this was a product of the soul or the mind, Ae did not know. ¡°Honey.¡± It was one word, and it made her shiver. Her emotions had been teased out, and now they were being pulled. She didn¡¯t have any powers in this form, not as an unchanged soul, if he was looking for a fight, she was destroyed. ¡°I need to tell you the truth.¡± ¡®The truth?¡¯, she thought. He left a wide enough gap for her to understand. This sanctum was supposed to ward off soul degradation, and the degraded souls. So how was he standing there? Within its walls. ¡°It isn¡¯t possible, Ae. You can¡¯t remain static.¡± She looked up to its craning neck as it bent down to her, it¡¯s head like a hawk, those eyes pierced into her. ¡°You''re dead. You will decay. I am sorry.¡± She looked down. Thought back to Monkey. There was no way she¡¯d be able to find him now. He wanted one thing. He wanted to see her laugh one more time. He wanted to see her, but she denied him that. For this? There was a word for this, she was sure. Tragic? A tragedy? After everything she¡¯s lived through, this is it. She put a hand to her mouth, as her form buckled. And then it came out of her. An explosion that dislodged her head. ¡°This is ironic!¡± She laughed, ¡°Just what I¡¯d expect! What I should have expected!¡± The vertebrae began to form, snaking around her new form. And from a foot within the false sanctuary, her failed father stood in melancholy. Clip 4.07: An analysis of the City of Babel post June ¡°Yeah, the toilet is fine Bob.¡± ¡°It didn¡¯t sound like you checked every valve on it- Did you wash the cup?¡± ¡°Come on, I know this thing better than you do.¡± ¡°You know about space toilets, but I practically live in sewers- wait, wait, let me rephrase that-¡± Before he could, the weightless of worry made a sound of disgust on the other side of the phone, ¡°You really need to get a promotion or¡­ however that shitty job of yours works.¡± He leaned back in his chair, ¡°Charlie, please take this seriously. Do you know how many monsters I¡¯ve encountered that live in sewer systems?¡± ¡°As many monsters as you¡¯ve ran away from in sewer systems?¡± He took no offense to her statement. ¡°It¡¯s not my job to fight monsters Charlie, I track monsters, study them in the field, engage if it¡¯s below an exterminator.¡± ¡°R-Right, making you below an-¡± ¡°HASHUSH-SHASHUSH!¡± He spat into the call, trying to take the focus off his work. ¡°-In Florida, there were these miniature crocodiles that shot electricity out of their face. Over in Texas, I found a fissure that opened in a water purification plant. Place was filled with worm people. Well, they were kinda nice, we shared a meal, of course I got worms from it, and that¡¯s exactly the reason why you gotta check everything. You can¡¯t even trust hospitable worm people.¡± She hadn¡¯t replied in a while, and he started to worry that he wasn¡¯t getting through to her. ¡°Listen to me Charlie K Parker, do not underestimate June, there¡¯s a reason I phoned you as soon as it ended. Anyone can be affected by it. It¡¯s not a leap to say that out of everything in the world, it is the single biggest unanswered question. It¡¯s been happening for thirty-two years, and it¡¯s had major effects on Unit culture. Kings have died, militaries eradicated, it¡¯s completely changed how Units interact with each other. Not everyone is as bold as the Circuit Board, and it¡¯s because they¡¯re afraid of people retaliating during that period.¡± He heard some clattering on the other end. ¡°Sorry, I had something going on in my workshop, I left w-when you were saying something about¡­ No, I left when you started shushing me.¡± His face that had been held in a serious scowl was broken. His eyes rolled back and he seethed from the mouth. ¡°There could be monsters in your house Charlie! You¡¯ve been gone for a month!¡± ¡°Oh, is June that month were people blip out of existence? I could have sworn that was September. Whatever.¡± His eyes bulged for a second, ¡°No, not whatever Charlie! You were exempt from it? You, the inventor of antigravity tech used by R.O carriers all over the globe? Wait, wait, are you saying you didn¡¯t even notice it was June? You didn¡¯t notice any crazy phenomena?¡± She thought for a second, ¡°Nnnope.¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t notice I was gone?¡± There was a light pain in his voice though he tried to hide it. ¡°No- Well, I thought it was a little weird that you weren¡¯t picking up I guess, but I didn¡¯t think about it, I think I¡¯m on to something big down here.¡± She didn¡¯t notice that her big brother was erased from existence? What the hell? He mulled it over in his head for a few seconds, before finally reaching a rational conclusion. He thought, ¡®Ahh, ok, so whatever phenomena makes June must also encourage those excluded from it to ignore those included in it, that¡¯s the only explanation. I should tell the Doc about this, I¡¯m sure it¡¯ll be useful information, in fact I¡¯ll phone her next, yeah.¡¯ ¡°Hey, I thought you said that only important people get included in it, how come you were involved, Mr Cleaner-who-lives-in-the-sewers-with-worm-people.¡± He wasn¡¯t offended, it was a joke. ¡°It¡¯s not ¡®importance¡¯, it¡¯s involvement, (I guess). You never leave your house, so you weren¡¯t in it. I travel the world, in search of cults, and monsters, and-¡± ¡°I do leave the house! I went to fucking Alaska!¡± He snickered, finally returning to that stiff face. ¡°Charlie, you were paid to go there. With your boyfriend. To build a space ship. And I still had to convince you. And it was a year ago.¡± ¡°He¡¯s my ex-boyfriend, Bob. Not that my love l-life is any of your business. Besides, a baseball can break my arm, why would I want to go to Anchorage?¡± He laughed, ¡°To build a space ship? Who wouldn¡¯t want to do that?¡± She didn¡¯t say anything for a time, ¡°Hello?¡± ¡°No Bob, building a giant animal-themed killer robot was not something I wanted to scratch off my bucket list.¡± She said it as if it was obvious. Was that obvious? She tried to end it, ¡°Don¡¯t you have a-a toilet to clean or something? I¡¯m kind of busy.¡± He nodded with a dumb smile, ¡°Oh yeah, sure, Like I said monsters could be anywhere Charlie, Babel could be infested with them right now.¡± ¡°Ok.¡± ¡°In fact, for all we know, this might be our last transmission. I could get up from this office, turn up that corridor¡­ and die.¡± ¡°Alright, well I¡¯ll see you at the family BBQ. Bye-¡± She hung up, as he blurted out, ¡°Ok, love you, bye!¡± He leaned back in his chair deep in thought. That¡¯s one thing taken care of. What should I do now? Shit that¡¯s right, the system log-in, I should have done that first. But a man has a duty to protect his family first and foremost. He wheeled around to face the screen, tacking in his password, ¡®I12believe¡¯ He kicked back in his chair for a second, pulling open a few drawers, until he found some food. It was a store brand, or maybe foreign, packet of chocolate peanuts. He was alleargic to peanuts. That made him wonder, is this even his office? He pushed himself over to a filling cabinet, opening the drawer at the bottom, flicking over the ¡®x¡¯ section. Flick, flick, flick-flick, got it. He half pulled it out to have a peak at it. ¡°Oh yeah¡­ So cool.¡± It was technically pornography, but that¡¯s not why he kept it around, he just thought it was neat. The cover displayed an assortment of alien- as in outer-space- organisms. Two of which were phallically shaped, with a head of hair like a shaggy dog. One was bent sideways, ¡®sitting¡¯, the other was curved in an s. Behind the two of them was a giant creature, horned, slightly humanoid though it lacked legs and stood on its arms. In the place of legs was a mass of writhing tentacles, (he didn¡¯t know if they were writhing, that¡¯s just what he imagined). He knew the alien was a giant from the first and only human model in the entire world of extra-terrestrial pornography, the person who¡¯d given him the magazine in the first place. He didn¡¯t look at her on the cover, in fact, he hadn¡¯t even flipped to her pin-up page, not even once. He just wanted to see aliens. As far as he was aware, apart from her, he was the first person in the world, or at least in the last thirty years, to have seen a sentient alien organism. This is not true. She was right, the idea that she¡¯d brought him back a porn mag from her trip, that was funny. Well, he admitted to himself, this could be a magazine about anything, he couldn¡¯t read the snippets of text. Yeah, those were the ¡®fun¡¯ days. But he was in his thirties now, it was time to be responsible, a man. He was about to slide it away, when a creak at the door startled him. ¡°Eeeeek!¡± He shouted. A woman peaked in laughing, ¡°Hey Bob, glad you¡¯re okay, dude.¡± There was a pause in the room. She looked around, ¡°Oh, thank God, I thought you had a woman in here.¡± He didn¡¯t want to say anything, but he knew she was talking about that squeal. He coughed and tried to retain his face, sweating a little as he struggled to shimmy the brightly coloured cover into the file without arousing any suspicion. It¡¯s not like she¡¯d know what it is by looking at it. ¡°Yuki, I am a professional. I have been working here for nearly ten years, what could possibly make you think that me of a people would do something indecent at work?¡± She smiled wide and awkwardly, ¡°First of all, all I said was I thought there was a woman in here. Why would you think I was talking about anything ¡®indecent¡¯- unless you were doing something indecent? And second of all-¡± She let the door swing all the way open. Bob said, ¡°Ah,¡± Seeing now that his tie was hanging around the door knob. He again questioned whether or not this was his office. ¡°Well- That¡¯s more likely to be someone¡¯s sick sense of humour. Probably one of the guys in extermination. She pointed at him, he looked down. ¡°Ah.¡± His tie was missing, his shirt half unbuttoned. ¡°Well, the unbuttoning was- because of the physical exam, which I was in the middle of performing.¡± ¡°Oh, do you need me to look at your back then?¡± To change the subject? He practically leapt at the opportunity. ¡°Yes, of course! That would be great.¡± He wheeled forward into the middle of the room, taking off his jacket, and unbuttoning the rest of his shirt. She circled around him, standing between the desk and the cabinet. He leaned forward, and asked, ¡°Do you see anything? Scars, boils- no worms?¡± ¡°Uhm, lean forward a little, I can¡¯t really see your lower back.¡± He did as he was told, ¡°Is this alright? Actually, my foot feels like it¡¯s dead, isn¡¯t that a sign of¡­¡± He couldn¡¯t remember what it was called, it was some kind of ¡®magic¡¯ disease. He hadn¡¯t involved himself in that stuff since he was a kid, back when he was still looking for answers. Well, he never got any answers, but he stopped looking into ¡®voodoo crazyness¡¯. There was a shuffling from behind him, as Yuki said, ¡°Oh- Uh-oh.¡± He froze up, his face remained, but his eyes flickered. ¡°Uh-oh,¡± he mimicked, ¡°-did you find something?¡± There was more shuffling, ¡°Oh my God!¡± ¡°What? What is it?¡± If she had been inspecting his back, she would have seen sweat begin to build up. ¡°What is that! Looks like it¡¯s going to explode.¡± That was enough. ¡°What what what!¡± He twisted around like a dog chasing it¡¯s tail. Then he saw what she was actually looking at. She caught him looking and smiled wider. ¡°Hey!¡± He grabbed out for the magazine. ¡°Too high and mighty to bang in the office, but not above whacking one out, huh? To whatever this is¡­¡± ¡°That¡¯s for research purposes.¡± ¡°Right, these things look photoshopped.¡± ¡°It¡¯s real.¡± he spun around in his chair locking his hands, still trying. ¡°She gave it to me.¡± ¡°Right. You used to date her. Or so you say." ¡°Right. I dumped her.¡± ¡°Sure. You have anything to eat? I¡¯m starving.¡± He looked around the room. ¡°Don¡¯t think so.¡± She passed by him, opening the drawer at his desk. Before he could protest, she pulled out the bag of chocolate peanuts. He looked up to her as she tore it open, ¡°I¡¯m guessing you snuck those in there?¡± She shrugged, ¡°Seems like something I¡¯d do.¡± He shook his head, rolling over to the cabinet once more. ¡°We have a duty, Yuki.¡± She nodded absently as she investigated the room further. ¡°Yeah, yeah, I know we need to actually perform a physical exam on you, I did mine already. I have a mirror in my room.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not what I¡¯m talking about. Our work is of utmost importance. Without us, and the work being done at the five cities, the protected countries would have fallen to the nefarious things in the night. The tyrants of Russia, the gaze of the Mountain, and the uncountable hordes of monsters that plague ordinary people- Tell me Yuki, how does putting food that I¡¯m deathly allergic to in my desk benefit humanity?¡± This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. She smiled as she munched on them, ¡°I¡¯m really just here cause it¡¯s a stable job.¡± He gave a side nod, ¡°Yeah. Free accommodation, an escape from US health care¡­¡± ¡°Found something!¡± Yuki¡¯s rummaging led to her discovering something sitting just behind an exotic plant Bob had stuck in a corner. It was a small jar with murky blue liquid. Bob finally got out of his chair, ¡°Hey, that¡¯s Int-cleaning fluid, anything could be in their Yuk-¡± He tripped after attempting to take a second step. Normally, Yuki would laugh at him, but after giving the jar a good shake, she realised why he was having a little trouble walking. ¡°Holy shit.¡± Bob sat himself up, realising that something was wrong with his right foot, ¡°Whatever it is Yuki, I can tell it¡¯s not something you should be messing with. I have a bad feeling about this year¡¯s physical.¡± As he shifted his leg around to his face, she placed the jar in front of him, wordlessly telling him to shake it. He kept a stony exterior, as hard as a shirtless man with a bit of a gut can be. He lifted the jar, tilting it around. ¡°Ah.¡± It floated around quickly, the big toe bouncing off of the glass slowed the fore-foots movements. . . . ¡°You used an entire 30kg canister of foam? Are you fucking insane?¡± After seeing her colleagues dismembered foot, her attitude shifted. ¡°Listen, you didn¡¯t see the state that kid was in-¡± ¡°This random kid that you found naked in the woods- this kid that ran to the monster that tore a foot long chunk out of his torso- and you just dumped the whole thing on him?¡± This was unheard of, to Yuki at least, that someone would use an entire canister on one person. A wound requiring a 9kg can would be fatal. This kid that he was talking about was supposed to be a Unit, but this story just had to many holes. ¡°Ok, ok, it¡¯s weird, maybe, but I¡¯m not asking for $10,000-¡± She jerked a hand out to him, ¡°You¡¯re asking for a thousand.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t even use all of it, just a line to get the guys back on.¡± ¡°How do we know they''re still-¡± He nodded, ¡°It¡¯s International Cleaning fluid, my foots fine.¡± She shook her head, ¡°I mean the stuff wards off all bacterial infection- fungal and animal cell growth, but I don¡¯t know about necrosis Bob. ¡°Why would I just leave it there, huh? I was probably waiting for a good time to ask you or Nglolgth.¡± Great. It was good to know that after working with this guy for three years, out of the hundreds of people on staff, she and the worm-person who joined up four months ago had the same relationship with this guy. Bob at last admitted, ¡°I need my foot, Yuki.¡± ¡°Look, if this things over a couple weeks old, we aren¡¯t going to be able to grow you a new one, and we definitely won¡¯t be able to reattach it.¡± He clasped his hands, ¡°I need it! Without my feet, I¡¯m not a human being! I¡¯ll die!¡± She gave in, ¡°I¡¯m not putting it on, and you better pay me back.¡± He let out a sigh, and after a while he was able to return to his strong jaw, now with a confident smile. She had a think about it, ¡°We should probably get you up on it though.¡± He looked back and forth. ¡°To see if the nerves attached to your foot are still alright? ¡°Oh, ok.¡± She wondered what he was thinking, before a practical joke sprang to mind. He balanced himself on one foot taking off a floppy sock. ¡°Twist it round.¡± He did. ¡°Squeeze the arch and heel.¡± He did, almost falling over. ¡°Any numbness, soreness?¡± He replied, ¡°Pins and needles, at this bit,¡± He pointed. ¡°Hold on I¡¯m gonna go get a drink, a small can, maybe get into communication with the network.¡± ¡°Ok.¡± And once again, Bob was alone with his thoughts. He fell back on his office chair, analysing his foot, prodding it in places, marvelling at how small it was with half of it cut off. Ok, maybe this was a little weird, even for June, everything else seemed normal, for him at least. He doubted he was directly involved in the ¡®main story¡¯ of the month, but it was possible that somebody who didn¡¯t like him cut off his foot. There were people in Babel that didn¡¯t like him much, there were a group of exterminators, but they were more along the lines of ¡®school bully¡¯ than ¡®psycho¡¯. Speaking of psycho, there was his ex, she could have done it easily. But no, they didn¡¯t split on terms that bad¡­ Well, if he drunk called her over June, then yeah, she¡¯d probably cut off his foot if he offended her. Who¡¯d want to cut off his foot¡­ He honestly couldn¡¯t think of anyone. The next place his mind went to was that kid, the weird one running around without a shirt and with a luchador mask on or something. At first Bob thought he was a new Unit that just got their powers, but there was his weird reaction to the monster, not only running to it, but beating it. After he made sure that the kid wasn¡¯t dead, sprayed him with an entire bi-yearly supply of ICF, Bob¡¯s mind turned to suspicion. The British Isles are a place for that. Home of Bastard, his- well, Bob didn¡¯t really know what she was, but that Clover girl was important. There was a strong connection between the area and the Dark God Balor, most people forget that because his followers live underwater now, but with Gods, there is always something just beneath the surface, something left in their wake. He started to think that kid was either from the Circuit Board, or from the Mountain, trying to get something on Axel¡¯s trip. That little asshole was full of himself, it was a simple and stupid test. Bob had purposefully told the boy dressed in green that the maker of machines name was spelt Axel Wright, opposed to Axel Right. Bob thought that if he was a spy, then he¡¯d pick the correct spelling instead. Obviously, if they were smart, they¡¯d just write it as they were told. Axel actually told Bob to not interfere, he was curious. In the end, and to his knowledge, that kid didn¡¯t do anything. Axel made a comment on the flight back that ¡°He¡¯s an interesting guy. There¡¯s definitely more to him, he¡¯s not just some guy dressed as a dragonfly.¡± Bob picked up his phone after thinking it over, scrolled down to S, and let the phone ring, and ring, and ring. ¡­ But the kid never picked up. He hadn¡¯t picked up since¡­ Before Valentines, if he remembered correctly. Actually, that kid did know Clover, didn¡¯t he? Well, they both lived insanely close together, it would happen sooner or later, but he couldn¡¯t help but get a bad feeling from them being involved with each other. Especially after June. He double tapped the green icon on his screen. ¡­ Still nothing. ¡°You phoning your sister?¡± He shook his head, ¡°The kid from Ireland.¡± Yuki shrugged as she walked through the door way, wearing what looked like a colander with electrodes connecting to her nape and temple. In one hand she had two mugs of coffee, the other was free. ¡°I saw Paige on my way, she says she hasn¡¯t heard anything about bits of bodies being cut off from anybody else.¡± Bob acccepted the mug handed to him, ¡°Was she hooked up with one of those things?¡± Yuki sipped hers, fiddling with the PC on the desk, ¡°No, she can¡¯t find hers, she¡¯s going on word-of-mouth, and that old system you rely too much on.¡± He scalded his tongue on the hot drink, ¡°HAH! ¡­ I don¡¯t like the whole¡­ transcogitate thing, it¡¯s too Orwellian, hooking yourself up to a database of people¡¯s thoughts, letting them read your thoughts- It¡¯s just creepy... Hot, hot, ow!¡± ¡°It¡¯s effective, instead of typing out a sentence, you can just think it up, it¡¯s way more reliable than emailing all five super-cities, whatever you do to get through the office day.¡± ¡°What can I say, I¡¯m an American at heart. I can¡¯t sit down and rub some weird gel on my forehead. The whole thing is a breach of privacy. It¡¯s dehumanizing.¡± She gave it a second. ¡°Come on, there¡¯s no way you haven¡¯t wondered what someone¡¯s thinking, right?¡± He snickered, ¡°I mind my own business. The only thing on my mind is the matter at hand, or rather, foot. I can¡¯t think of how I could have possible gotten into a situation like this. Wasn¡¯t there a Unit criminal interned here? One with a fascination with dismemberment? For all we know, this entire compound has been compromised, this roof could cave in any moment, as far as I¡¯m concerned, the only thing that equipment is good for is connecting us with the rest of the world, and getting our footing after whatever went down¡­¡± As he kept talking and talking, he never really said anything, at least he didn¡¯t say anything that grabbed Yuki¡¯s attention. No, she was more concerned with getting this to work. After Bob finally got accustomed to the heat of the coffee, he started slugging it into him. ¡°What was the first thing you did when June ended?¡± The question was thrown at Bob while he was mid-sentence, ¡°What?¡± The message reached the transceiver, a little foggy and unclear at first. ¡°I phoned my little sister, almost shitting myself. The entire time the phone was ringing, I just kept thinking to myself, oh god, oh shit, what if she¡¯s in trouble and I¡¯m sitting on my ass doing jack shit? What the hell was I doing? I had the browser open on a shitty forum for DIY- that reminds me, I¡¯ve still gotta sort that wardrobe out, don¡¯t I? No, I probably did it over June¡­ well, knowing me, I probably didn¡¯t¡­¡± The answer that left his lips was quite different, Yuki listened to see how it differed from the second long response. ¡°Please, Yuki, I signed into the post-June network as soon as possible, like I just said, we-¡± Boring, she thought, she wanted to at least keep going till he caught on. ¡°Who did you phone after your sister?¡± He was a little puzzled. ¡°Did I tell her I phoned Charlie? Did she over hear me phoning Charlie? Did she hear me arguing with her about toilet cups? Or how I had worms coming out my ass for a week after that case in Texas? No, no, I didn¡¯t say anything about that. I only told Dr. A, God I cried like a bitch after that, fucking humiliating. Maybe she heard my cell ringing? We¡¯ve worked with each other for years, she knows I¡¯d get in my ship- screw what the CFO says, I¡¯d fly my ass to California in a heartbeat. No, I¡¯d be glad if she just heard me phoning that kid from Ireland- or trying to, at least. It¡¯s weird, but something about that kid reminds me of myself, not just the fact that we were both nearly naked when we met, but he kinda reminded me of my ex, maybe that''s because she''s also a Unit-¡± ¡°I phoned my sister a while ago, yeah, and then I tried to phone that kid, like I sai-.¡± ¡°For advice on how to get rid of worms?¡± His eyes went wide and he started shivering. ¡°How does she fucking know about that! Did the doc tell her? Did I tell her when we got drunk in Vegas? Did she find those pills I was taking for it? Calm down, I¡¯m over reacting, I might have told her I had worms, but there¡¯s no way I told her they were in my but¡­¡± She kept a semi-serious face the whole time, ¡°You know. For your butt.¡± His lip started to tremble. ¡°Why! Why would I tell her that! It must have been the doctor! No¡­ NO! I refuse to believe that my idol would destroy my reputation so nonchalantly! It must have been someone else, it must have been my EX! Was I still dating her at that point? I don¡¯t think so, then again, she can do anything! She¡¯d easily be able to get into my apartment, or find my medical records, whatever! Damn her! Damn her to hell! I broke up with her!¡± Yuki lifted an eye brow, ¡°Did you actually date the lady on the porno mag Bob?¡± ¡°I wish I didn¡¯t! God, I wish I didn¡¯t! She was a fucking psycho! A psycho! But holy hell was she great in bed! Though, that might¡¯ve been because I was, like, twenty something, and she was- well she wasn¡¯t actually older than me, but she technically was- What in the hells up with these questions? She¡¯s trying to do something here isn¡¯t she?¡± She slowed into a grin. Bob¡¯s sweat, turned to steam as he cried out, ¡°HUMAN RESOURCES! SOMEBODY CALL HUMAN RESOURCES! UNCONSENTIAL USE OF TRANSCOGITATE TECHNOLOGY! You should be ashamed Yuki! This is a new low, even for you! Spiking my drink with that shit, really? No, wait, you¡¯ve done worse! You did it with walnut powder last time!¡± She nodded, ¡°You¡¯re right, that was juvenile and immature. The walnut powder only had superficial appeal, big puffy lips isn¡¯t as funny as the situations you get yourself into Bob Parker, the ED king.¡± His face flexed back from anger; it was almost his neutral face if one ignored the bulging eyes. He leaned swivelled around in his chair rubbing his nose. ¡°What am I thinking of now?¡± The words ¡®The quick red fox jumps over the lazy brown dog¡¯ looped in his head. ¡°You¡¯re thinking about that time I caught you dancing around with your nuts hanging out, but you¡¯re trying to cover it up with a dumb reference.¡± He rubbed his nose harder, before bending his arms and raising them over his head like a fork. ¡°What about now?¡± He looked like he was going to blow his lid. ¡°Well, you started by chanting ¡®human will, human will¡¯ repeatedly, but now you¡¯re thinking about that time a whole bunch of people saw you shaking your balls around, including your mom. And now you¡¯re trying to cover it up with a clip from ¡®twin peaks¡¯. He was about to lose it; he was going to slam his hands down in frustration- But he steeled himself, he drowned out all of his frustrations, his stress, at being treated like a joke by his closest acquaintance. He cut through the air, and all tension in his body was gone. His mind was as tranquil, like a newly flushed toilet. His jaw stretched out, like a figure made of stone, his mouth chiselled into an assured smile. She looked at him, the raised eyebrow showing how sure she was that this third attempt would bare no fruit. ¡°This the last one I¡¯m gonna do before I actually hook myself up.¡± She pointed at a slider on the side of the device. He shook his head, ¡°Try me.¡± She looked into his eyes, the thoughts entering her mind were coded differently than her own. The feelings were ¡®coloured¡¯ differently than her own, in fact, the longer she studied them, the more differences this new wave, this new wall of thought- it was completely unlike his earlier attempts. It was a single train of thought, most minds have two, or three running at any given time, though they vary in position and speed, they¡¯re always running throughout the human psyche. But right now, there was only one train running in this stubbly idiot¡¯s mind. ¡°Buy it, use it, break it, fix it, trash it, change it, mail, upgrade it, charge it, point it, zoom it, press it, snap it, work it, quick erase it, write it, cut it, paste it, save it, load it, check it, quick rewrite it, plug it, play it, burn it, rip it, rip it.¡± She took a second, mulling it over in her mind before finally saying, ¡°Technologic? I mean, it shows mental discipline, to think of just one thing, but I¡¯d say in your case, you''re simply using your obsession to-¡± It was the rise back up, the surface of the toilet water began to bubble, as Bob¡¯s expression changed. A grin was spread across it, he clenched his fists, the joy exploding from his voice. ¡°THE TIME YOU DREW OVER MY PANTS WITH INVISIBLE INK RIGHT BEFORE WE HAD TO DO THAT CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION!¡± She tried to sift through his constant stream of thoughts, but it was too late, the toilet bowl had broken, and her mind was flooded with lyrics from Daft Punk. She should have been able to find a thought, something pertaining to the prank he described, or at the very least, a couple of thoughts on his ¡®victory¡¯. But it was just lyrics. He rocketed out of his chair as she physically backed up to try and think this through. As he shot up, he fell back down to the ground, screaming ¡®YEEEEEES, THE HUMAN WILL!¡± She squinted her eyes at her ¡®serious¡¯ co-worker, now kneeling on the floor, shirtless, and with a stub of a foot hanging out of his trouser leg. He was facing the open door when somebody gave it a courteous knock. It was a younger man, with bleached blonde hair, he stood with his hands in his suit pockets. ¡°Hi, sorry to bother you guys, but, well, everybody else is trying to do their job? You know if you guys, I don¡¯t know, checked the system in the last ten minutes, or actually used that piece of equipment strapped to your head, you might have heard.¡± Bob reflexively repaired his expression, the solemness of it clashing with his current state. He slowly, slowly lowered his arms which had been pumping into the air. ¡°Heard what Hunter?¡± He asked the question with a completely straight face, though if Yuki had been checking his thoughts in that moment, she would have known that he was screaming at himself. He scratched his face, leaning on one leg, ¡°Oh, you know. Egypt¡¯s gone.¡± ¡°Uhm,¡± Yuki slowly asked, ¡°-the city, or the country?¡± He let out puff of air shaking his head, ¡°Oh, well from some satellites¡­ Yeah, all of it.¡± He changed to a nod at the end. He sized up both of them, before saying in a tone that was dead serious, ¡°Again, totally sorry for ruining your fun. My bad guys, please, go back to screaming about your balls.¡± He tried for one last faux smile, but it soon fell away into a grimace when he looked down at Bob. He frowned before looking away, ¡°Always the mother-fucking Cleaners.¡± He strutted away leaving them in silence. Bob¡¯s arms finally lowered back down in a flop. Yuki slowly sat down on the edge of Bob¡¯s desk. ¡°I¡¯d- I think I¡¯d like my foot back please.¡± He was quiet like a whisper, limping back to his chair. Yuki felt like she needed to say something, anything. ¡°Did uhm, did you know anybody over there?¡± Bob unscrewed the jar, it opened with a plop. It took him a moment to get of the embarrassment, and disappointment in himself. ¡°What? Uh, no. No, I¡¯ve been here forever.¡± The sudden hit that came from the knowledge finally passed Yuki¡¯s mind, ¡°I mean- it must have been a couple million people. Hundreds of our people. With us out of the region, the Mountains going to be getting bolder- so will the war lords through of Africa. Do you think we¡¯ll be sending any relief?¡± He shook his head, ¡°I can¡¯t see us doing anything about it, at least not us. Maybe the guys over in Absalom, they''re closer.¡± He looked over at his phone one last time. ¡°You thinking about that kid?¡± He looked at her. Seeing that she was attempting to tune into a wider frequency, if not with the wider city of Babel, then she was trying to get into touch with Egypt. ¡°Yeah. He didn¡¯t pick up.¡± He shook his head, ¡°I doubt the Circuit Board Seven was enough paranormal exposure to get him into June.¡± ¡°Obviously,¡± She nodded along, ¡°But the Princess? The Mountain?¡± He grabbed his shirt putting it back on. ¡°I spent ten thousand on him.¡± She looked over, a little surprised, ¡°Is that what you''re worked up about?¡± He didn¡¯t take any offense to her assumption. ¡°It¡¯s just- I carried 30kg out to the middle of the woods, brought him back from the brink, and-¡± He snapped his fingers. ¡°Just like that. He¡¯s dead. Because I couldn¡¯t¡­¡± Yuki looked down as Bob raised his half-foot on to the desk. ¡°It¡¯s just- I ask myself, am I enough, you know? Ten years given, and what do I get? I get bitten, burned, electrocuted, and does it make a difference? When somebody can glance over your life¡¯s work and reduce it to a couple files in a drawer and a porn mag from space.¡± ¡°Am I giving enough Yuki? Because it sure doesn¡¯t feel like it.¡± She looked back up, ¡°Come on, dude-¡± When he met her stare, she checked around the room, looking for something to try and bring back the ¡®ED king¡¯. ¡°We¡¯ve- come too far- to give up-¡± she pointed a finger at him. He laughed a little into himself understanding where she was going, ¡°Maybe ¡®who we are¡¯ isn¡¯t good enough.¡± She kept going anyway, ¡°So let¡¯s- raise the bar- and our cups- to the stars!¡± She lifted the Rebirthing foam can up. He grabbed it from her hands. ¡°I don¡¯t think this is really something I can avoid by listening to music- or your horrible singing.¡± She shrugged, ¡°I don¡¯t know what comes next.¡± He pointed a finger out at her as he fished the foot out with his other hand, ¡°Ok, if that¡¯s not a lie than I don¡¯t know what¡¯s true.¡± She gave a little laugh as the atmosphere they had built a few minutes ago slowly crept back. She argued ¡°But you can see how it¡¯s relevant- uhm, ¡®the present has no rhythm, what keeps the planet spinning¡¯, uh-huh?¡± ¡°Shit happens, best we can do is clean up the mess.¡± She pulled at her blue forked tie, denoting their profession. He looked down, ¡°Is my tie still on the door?¡± She looked over, understanding what this probably looked like to Hunter, ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Ah. I think you should take it off.¡± ¡°Yep.¡± And with that she hopped off the desk. Bob felt around his foot for the bones, found the major veins and tried to do the same with the chunk that had been taken off. The rebirthing fluid was best used in regrowing lost limbs, though if you know what you¡¯re doing you can get everything working with the original tissue, at a more reasonable price too. A thin layer of foam costs a lot less than a foot¡¯s worth. Besides, if he botched it, it was good to have some blood pumping through it and be paralysed rather than it sitting in a jar, he could always get an operation done later. ¡°Ah.¡± Yuki came back over, setting his tie on the desk, ¡°What is it?¡± He held up his right foot, realising why he couldn¡¯t find the veins. He held the foot just above the jar to stop the fluid from soaking the floor. Pinky toe to big toe, left to right. In other words, this was a left foot. Inside his shoe he wiggled his left shoe, he wiggled his toes. Yep, they were all in place. ¡°Ah, okay. I¡¯m missing half a foot, and I have someone else¡¯s.¡± He dropped the thing back into the jar with a plop, gave his hand a wipe, and started tying his tie. ¡°Well, sitting around isn¡¯t going to find the bastard who took my foot.¡± Clip 4.08: An analysis of Uaigh Miol Outside the castle, people gathered in mad droves, guardsmen standing at around 10 feet tall held halberds made from the remains of creatures far larger than them. The city had been built around a mass grave for whales, the soil was once rich with the decayed flesh of hundreds of creatures, not just whales, but the things that fed on them, the vicious gnawing things at the very bottom of the sea. And now, after near a thousand years, the dead things had been consumed and processed by man, used as fertilizer, unreliable medicines sold at unreasonable prices, and perfectly good fields of rot were upturned for construction. Still, there were creatures that could be harvested yet, herded and kept in abundance, bioluminescent creatures, not bred as food, though some were; these animals were kept as totems to these human¡¯s greatest sin. Above pollution, above greed, even above the countless dances with death the citizens of this country, let alone the single city, had danced- All of this is rendered as inconsequential in the face of consumerism. Always, even in the worst of conditions, Human beings will work through sweat and blood so that they can get something, once they have it, they¡¯ll use it in a night, or a month, and then they¡¯ll need it again. Food, entertainment, self-improvement, these things are sold at cheap prices, yet the consumer is always at a loss. Most specific to the people of this low place, as low as sea-floor-cities go, is a resource in particular. Light. Leagues below, the workers of this city have no chance of seeing the great star in the sky, electricity is above most of them and dangerous to work with in this environment. Fire is out of the question. So, for just a small fee you can cling to the failing light; as you delve ever deeper into the dark. Guards and men of the state are provided with a royal pigment, which they adorn their armour and weapons with. Eighteen men as strong as horses march alongside a prisoner and a witch. The eighteen glow purple, as they float in formation past a horde of commoners. They scream out insults and slurs at the prisoner restrained in a magic beast. And they hail the witch with insults too. The beast and its mistress glow green and silver by use of a bacterium, it puts on a spectacle for the bored masses, many of them aren¡¯t aware who is kept in the creature. The date is February 16th, 2022. The date that Mor Isaac Cre-umha, elected king of the Free Fomorians is being interned in the heart of his most reviled enemies. He is being interned in the Fomorian Federation¡¯s capital city, Uaigh Miol. Down they wound, until they are at the base of a cliff, the largest peak for miles, the holiest site in their country, the living tomb-castle of their God-King, Balor. Bone spires erupt from the cliff side, as the great green light circled by violet, lands its self a couple kilometres left of the great obsidian doors. Civilians are carolled away from the great metal structure by more guards, there, the numbers of lit figures increase to thirty, then forty-four. The crowd think they understand what is going, they¡¯ve heard the stories. Everywhere, from the tallest spire of the castle, to the lowest step, is painted weekly, to glow brighter than the rest of the city, there mounds of stone incomparable to the greatest church of God. Except for one building That smoothed structure, specially fashioned from steel, a rare substance in the dregs, sat just beside the castle, unpainted. Ironically, what had made it stand out was how little it stood out. There was only one answer they could come up with, that it was a surface dweller. This level of security, the foul witch standing alongside them- probably one that was sent to the mother land as a scout, one of their magic beasts contained the fiend. A few mutterings came from people who knew what they were talking about, ¡°They¡¯re putting it in the iron lung! That means it can¡¯t breathe through water then.¡± ¡°The facility is a prison for em¡¯. Built near a thermal point. So they can boil away the water for them ta breathe.¡± ¡°Most be a lively one. ¡®Ar they¡¯d have stuck it an¡¯ been done.¡± ¡°If the thing needs air, then they¡¯d just kill ¡®em with the water. They means to torture it, interrogate it.¡± ¡°Ye foul witch! Show us yer phanny! GAHAHAH!¡± She watched, the witch of water, she kept calm despite all that was going on around her. She spoke to the guards, nearly being drowned out by the crowd. ¡°Keep your sound visors closed.¡± The ones without their helmets on, strapped the padding around their degenerated ears. It was a result of growing too accustomed to living in these conditions, they¡¯d become weak to loud sounds. The witch¡¯s power formed a box of flesh with a cone at the end of it. As she was about to make the announcement, the were feral, throwing rubbish, cursing her form, her life. Her eyes traced over them one more time, she tried to get accustomed to how dark it was back down here, but ultimately failed. She breathed in through her gills, before letting the words pass out her speaker. ¡°It¡¯s Cre-umha.¡± As the sound boomed through the depths, it reverberated back and forth echoing. After an astonished moment of silence, they sung her praises. It was a crashing wave that was twice as loud as the tiny murmur she¡¯d made. It came into her, and she was blown away, out of this world. Her heart began to beat in her ears, and she struggled to place the feeling. Relief. She at last landed on that word for it. Eventually, the warden of the prison came out, congratulated the witch, and begun to make a speech that he¡¯d prepared after a messenger had brought the affair to his knowledge. They were ushered inside, after entering a decompression room, they were once out in a highly dense concentration of oxygen. The guards struggled to breathe without tanks of water, the witch didn¡¯t. ¡°Crack it open.¡± said one of the guards, the one that Feoli had sized as the head. She argued, ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s a good idea.¡± ¡°It¡¯ll be fine.¡± He said plainly. ¡°Needs to be done for what we have planned.¡± Another brought an iron nail out and a mallet. Starting to crack into the suit, little by little. He continued to strike at a point near the throat, the neck looked thinner than the rest of the strange statue before them. ¡°Ahhhaha¡­¡± After a large flake had fallen away, a voice escaped it. The witch and the guard¡¯s captain went wide eyed. He gave a none verbal order for his man to stand down, as a few more flakes fell away. ¡°Give the order captain,¡± said one off to the side, sounding like he was demanding it. A voice escaped the frozen man. ¡°Are you really going to take that tone from your underling? If I had heard my general talk to me in such a manner, I¡¯d like to think I am enough of a man to knock him to his knees at least.¡± The captain turned ignoring the voice, ¡°Do not underestimate the man, he¡¯s escaped these circumstances before, and while under watch of mightier men.¡± The Mor tried for a laugh, though it was hard with his head restricted in this way. ¡°If they were mighty, then you must be children! Speaking of the little fish spawn, is that witch-girl still here?¡± She remained quiet. ¡°I¡¯d say she is. Allow me to ¡®psycho analyse¡¯ you, hmm? Just something to chat about as you show me to my room.¡± She took a step away, freezing her glare. ¡°Take him deeper. Main room.¡± The captain ordered. ¡°I have a rather in-depth understanding of how you became a witch, I¡¯d considered trying to convert one of your kind to my cause years ago. I failed, she bit me, I killed her. In the end, she was a straight forward sort like that. Prideful I suppose. Despite all the ire born from her position.¡± They travelled past cells housing humans, land-dwelling humans, most of them were there as ransom, some would never be released, not even for a price. They were there for life. ¡°I looked into your eyes, girl. I think I caught a chill from them in fact. It surprised me to see another Fomorian, but it was a far greater surprise that you knew who I was and didn¡¯t so much as flinch. Meaning in your life you¡¯ve seen worse things than death, you¡¯ve practically lived off of it, like every other scum sucking backwards idiot here.¡± They marched along in silence for a second before he admitted, ¡°That was quite rude of me, wasn¡¯t it? I apologise. But you have to understand, it¡¯s rather difficult for me to empathise with the people who are trying to execute me simply for seeking political and religious independence. Really, you can¡¯t help being the way you are, it¡¯s nature and nurture that you have to fight against to retain any civility.¡± ¡°Does he shut up?¡± asked a guard. ¡°Told you not to touch him.¡± replied Feoli, at last confident enough to make her presence known. Isaac laughed a little merrily now. ¡°Good! Good! You are here! I was beginning to worry you weren¡¯t! Well, not really. As I was saying, you¡¯re a prideful character. You put on a brave face, remain cool of head, just as taught, just as indoctrinated. But it brings you a smidgen of shame that you had to ally yourself with the boy. I¡¯ll admit, you were the one keeping him from drowning for most of that scuffle, but he was the one who broke my arm. I¡¯d give you 40% credit.¡± ¡°I had assumed that you wouldn¡¯t be able to face the rabble outside long, you enjoyed it when they cheered back to you, I felt their roar through my suit. It roused your ice heart, just long enough so that you could feel guilty about taking all the credit for this tremendous achievement.¡± She felt like saying something, but soon realised that he wanted something out of her. He enjoyed talking too much not to be a liar. ¡°Hmm.¡± He let out the murmur of thought. ¡°Don¡¯t tell him this, but if I¡¯m kept in this environment much longer, I believe my arm will become quite infected. He seemed a sensitive lad when I spoke to him, his empathy is the making of a good king, I should say.¡± She didn¡¯t like that he was speaking about the boy so openly, not only was she embarrassed that she¡¯d failed to defeat one challenging opponent, she also- A curdling scream came from a cell as they passed. Isaac Cre-umha let slip a jovial laugh, ¡°My! That one startled me! I hope my service will be a little better, aye?¡± None of the guards answered him. ¡°Where was I? Oh yes, the boy. Honestly it could have been a result of Sym¡¯s tampering, but his sadistic flip was a surprise. Despite the former, you have a way with him, don¡¯t you? You directed him quite well. Though, I¡¯d say I can get far better use out of the young man. I said he could become a king with the right tempering, with the right guidance.¡± ¡°I¡¯d say the two of you are similar, yet not. When that boy finally did try to do me damage, there was an underlying feeling of desperation, not the fear of water present in most humans, but that was certainly there. It was the desperation I got from you when that wave of sound returned back.¡± ¡°You both want to be loved. Desperately loved. You want to feel like you¡¯re right. The difference is that you¡¯ve bent your head to the world, in hopes that service to God, to the witch-mother, or perhaps society in general, that they will be glad of you. That boy possesses a tremendous will to not bend, to not bow, he will make the world love him. Whether it wants to or not. That¡¯s what makes him like me. Thet¡¯s why he might yet be made a king.¡± It disturbed her, just this man¡¯s voice. He spoke so flamboyantly, giving off airs with every syllable. He was imprisoned, he was going to be executed, so why didn¡¯t he act like it? ¡°Do you like that boy, witch?¡± She didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°He chose you over me. After I acknowledged his worth. I suppose we are all enemies, but as I said, the boy is like you, he has suffered and will suffer far more. From his brutality? From that expressionless face he made as he brutalized me? I can tell, that just like you, he has been conditioned. By an entity or by a simple human, who can say, but I¡¯d understand if you were bent to his will eventually, he¡¯s stronger than you in every way. It¡¯s laughable to say this, but I¡¯m sure that human might yet keep you as a pet-¡± He let out a laugh to himself,¡±-If you¡¯re lucky perhaps he¡¯ll make a concubine out of you! Ahahaha!¡± Down a diverging path, the witch spotted someone they didn¡¯t want to see. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The woman, a witch like herself, laughed with Isaac, at the expense of her compatriot. Feoli ordered the captain, ¡°Take him away.¡± As she reluctantly left the prisoner to confront the other witch. ¡°Wait!¡± Isaac called, but she had already left. ¡°Blast it. I forgot to ask what the young man¡¯s name was. It seems I¡¯ll never learn it¡­¡± One of the guards was contemplating to himself. He was reflecting back on his father, who served under Cre-umha before he turned traitor. Here he held a dagger at his side. It would be a quick movement, a few seconds, and his father, who had been slaughtered for his loyalty to the God-king, would at last be avenged. One of his contemporaries noticed this, his expression half shown behind his helm. ¡°Don¡¯t try it, Cologhaim.¡± Cologhaim heard what he said, he understood what the outcome of attempting to end the traitor while that damned relic still clung to his flesh. 40-years ago Cre-Umha had been captured. Cologhaim wasn¡¯t working in the iron lung at the time, the facility was rudimentary, yet was able to generate enough oxygen to stall the armour. But when they had tried to execute him normally, some sort of emergency function had been activated, saving its wearer at its own detriment. But there it was, a thin layer of corroded metal, it seemed like one could puncture it with their nail if they had the determination. He had the will. And he had a knife. But it was not his superior¡¯s will. And so it was not done. Finally, they arrived at the cell. Out of all the rooms in the iron lung, this one had the highest concentration. At above sea level, the air is 21% oxygen, enough for him to walk, if a little slowed. At the average percentage in the iron lung, 50%, it would stall him completely. Within that room the armour reacted strangely, growing crystalline structures.There would be no escape this time. It would keep him alive, for weeks, maybe a month they hypothesised, but it would cannibalise his flesh to do so. They would starve him out this time. They carried his demobilised body into the room, through a decompression chamber, and at last he was centred in the middle room, with no light, no water. And once this door was closed, there would be no one coming in, and no one coming out. This facility had been equipped with technology beyond their society, given to them by a mysterious benefactor on the surface, one that the other witch had met in her travels. It would allow them to monitor the prisoner¡¯s vitals without entering the room. As the armour began to react with the air, scholarly men rushed to equip it to the part of his neck that had been chiselled away. They waited for a signal to come through on their monitor. It was with a jagged line on an out-of-date liquid-crystal screen, that Cologhaim left the room begrudgingly and that Mor Isaac Cre-umha was finally entombed. . . . The date is April 16th, 2022. Isaac Cre-umha has been a prisoner without food or water for two months. He has not spoken a word, he has not seen a face, and he has not moved a muscle. The machine pulse of his armour filtrates nutrients through his still body, powered by a small reserve of water, and the kings own excess moisture. By this point, his entire right forearm has been repurposed, every fibre rationed to him in the smallest of morsels. His heart rate has slowed to a near stop. Yet his mind is as electric as when they first began to monitor him. Though his thoughts are hidden from his keepers, his moral is still high, even if his vigour is none existent. The warden standing at around four-foot tall sharpens his teeth, clacks his nails on his desk, and contemplates his situation. They held a festival weeks ago, prematurely celebrating the prisoner¡¯s death. There was a small lapse in in his heart rate, it lasted around a fortnight before he regained some regularity to it. He was completely aware what was at stake here if he should fail in his duties. He had the prestige of working beside the castle- as an administrator. If he should fail- This is not just an average dissident, this is a matter of national security! The barbarians to the west are nothing without their king, just a rabid militia employing guerrilla tactics to overcome greater forces. He is the only ¡®Unit¡¯ they have, the Federation has five or six counting the witch mother- and the backing of a God! They¡¯re just a far-removed settlement, led by one jumped-up general passed his prime! But if this were true- -Then how could he have survived all of this? Did Balor not smile on their work? Would he not yet permit Cre-umha¡¯s decay? The tacking of his pointed nails came to a stop, as he set himself to work. There was one man alive who could obliterate that scum from this earth, with or without that cursed casing. He took a slate of stone, and began to scribe. Once he was done, he walked with some trouble through the waterless halls of his prison. With great damage to his pride, he gave the slate to a messenger. The warden instructed the serf to deliver it to Lord-Regent Rocganimhe Glor, who had been on a campaign in the west. That man was undoubtedly the mightiest of their people, within the federation, or free. There was nothing else he could do. The men were becoming anxious. Against common sense, they had begun to fear that the traitor clad in copper would escape. People like Cologhaim, who had lost family to the fiend, were especially frustrated. For now, they would have to wait for the regent¡¯s return before they could have even a taste of vengeance. . . . The date is June 29th, 2022. Isaac Cre-umha¡¯s mind is on the brink of collapse, as he is jolted back into reality by the cessation of the phenomena. ¡°What was that?¡± He thinks to himself, noticing points of decay in his body. His fore arm which had been consumed by metal ached with a phantom pain, he felt his stomach turn in, and bloat. It was as if time itself had been cut, like his mind had just been thrown into the future. ¡°Was that June?¡± Actually, the longer he thought about the whole thing, the sooner he noticed a slowness to his mind. ¡°How could so much time have passed? It was- It was February when I was interred here, wasn¡¯t it?¡± A quarter of a year. A blink, compared to his three hundred years of life, but it was alarming that he¡¯d spent so long in here. ¡°No, not alarming. I¡¯m completely calm. They can¡¯t touch me. Their spears are too thin, their egos too small to ask ¡®daddy¡¯ for help. There is nothing to be concerned about. As soon as there is a change, the slightest decrease in pressure, I¡¯ll do something.¡± But as he became reaccustomed to his new pains, he realised that nothing in his environment had changed. The suit told him, though it was functioning at a lower capacity. Temperature, pressure, O2 concentration, not a single variable had changed. That either meant that the suit was displaying interior values due to it being broken, or the fanatics had finally caught up with the rest of the world. This was worth being called a facility now. ¡°Ahh, I¡¯m proud of them. They¡¯ve finally caught up to the surface, they know that I am a relatively large threat. Still, I think it strange that it took this long. I hate the Entropic God, but I can¡¯t imagine life without his blessing. One of the guardsmen, said that word, ¡®human¡¯, before they stuck me in here, if I remember correctly.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a vile word, especially when used to describe our species. It comes from ¡®homo¡¯ meaning man, and ¡®humus¡¯ meaning earth¡­ well that¡¯s the Latin term for a ¡®person¡¯ but¡­ But since birth, not one of us has been of this earth, I doubt we are even of this world anymore. Bred by a God- changed by magic, we are beyond humanity now.¡± ¡°We Fomorians are above them. And I am logically above Fomorians!¡± ¡°They worship a God that does not care for them, who would see us destroyed if he had his way. Where I am a companion to J-on. The knowledge he divulges to me, is inarguable. There is a logic to this world beyond the conflicting systems of power; magic, physics, and psychological energies. Soul, mind and body. Unit, monster, and God. Everything is connected. Because everything exists.¡± But his mind wandered off on its own as he philosophised. ¡°Well¡­ what is a Unit really? J-on had once, quite off-handedly I admit, described one as ¡®The basic outline of the human archetype with two ¡®powers¡¯. Yet that really only raises more questions than it answers, doesn¡¯t it?¡± He waited for a response, not only forgetting that he was alone, but that he hadn¡¯t actually been speaking. ¡°But what is a ¡®power¡¯? I¡¯ve been told by that league of nations and J-on, that my being a Fomorian is a single power- I understand that Sym¡¯s abilities to project an avatar and to download an individual count as separate powers, and I understand that Red can absorb metals and increase his durability accordingly to maintain his shape¡­ sure, if the Legs is a Unit-¡± ¡°But myself? One of my powers is shared by millions of people- so could one not say that they possess one ability? Wouldn¡¯t that throw off J-on¡¯s statement on how a human can only have two powers? Lest their archetypal structure crumble?¡± He thought about it for a second. ¡°I¡¯m sure to someone who¡¯s lived here their entire life, a television screen is quite an exotic piece of technology- paranormal by their standards. Guns, aeroplanes, nuclear bombs, these are all examples of the mind archetype at use within human society. Though it is seen as normal by millions, it is a miraculous phenomenon, a nurtured and curious mind. Further still, to the millions of people who understand the mechanics of nuclear fission, they would say minimised nuclear fusion is fictitious. Yet I¡¯m sure there are surface dwellers who understand it innately.¡± He mused, ¡°Perhaps I¡¯ve spent too long in their world. Society¡¯s that normalize the use of soul magics, I¡¯m sure their archetypal understanding is less limited, to them, a soul is as clear as someone¡¯s flesh.¡± ¡°Societies around the world use ¡®phenomena¡¯ daily. They are natural things, a part of the universe, or the beings beyond it. Even the devolving blood of my people is an application of this- Their ¡®body¡¯ is simply more advanced as a society.¡± ¡°Then being a Fomorian is not a power at all, it¡¯s a gun, a runic rite- To be a Fomorian is to simply be a ¡®second-worlder¡¯. Just as one on the surface can pilot an R.O carrier equipped with miss Parker¡¯s technology. Yet I am a Unit, I know for a fact that I have two ¡®powers¡¯.¡± ¡°This armor has functions as numerous as a Fomorian body: It adapts to its wearer, it has healing properties, pressure regulation, general durability- the list goes on, but J-on said that my secondary power wasn¡¯t having a suit, it was that I was compatible with the suit. The two of us were on a collision course since my birth.¡± ¡°But again, I must ask myself, what is my power? It must be related to my being a Fomorian¡­ Have I always been myself? Things are forgotten, flesh decays and new cells are grown in their place, I wonder if I¡¯ve lost something over the years¡­ I¡¯ve spent near a hundred years in the Shaul of Brigid¡­ Am I still the same man who put it on?¡± He thought about it. Has he¡­ decayed? Simply by existing, does he serve the will of Balor? Life expends energy at an alarming rate, heat and movement waste calories away. How many thousands of creatures has he killed to sustain himself? How many has he killed to sustain his own ego? After some time, on June 29th the vital signs from the rudimentary machine ceased. There was a clamour from outside the cell, and in the Warden¡¯s quarters. Guards rushed into the room; either he¡¯d escaped during June, or he¡¯d died. That was the only explanation. But when the dozen armed men squeezed their way into the cell, finding a nude man sitting at the base of a tree of blue and green, it was cracked open like a fissure. ¡°Hmm,¡± He murmured, ¡°I can¡¯t see you too well, but that makes since given my horrid condition.¡± There was a tiny blue speck of light in the dark, opposite the purple goliaths that blazed that cell violet. ¡°Though I can hear just fine.¡± His voice was hoarse and strained, like he was about to cough blood and bile at them. ¡°I¡¯d prefer that you use knives gentlemen. They¡¯re much easier to use in a small space, and I¡¯m actually raring for a bit of a brawl at the moment. Please, I have no tricks up my sleeve, in fact, I don¡¯t even have sleaves! Ahaha, I¡¯m terribly sorry for being so immodestly dressed but-¡± One lunged forward, Cologhaim the avenger, he swung his halberd down at the slight, emaciated figure, guided by the blue on Cre-umha¡¯s stumped arm. The single blue light shot forward in a second, ricocheting off of the giant totem of dark-light, and into the avenger¡¯s head. There was nothing about the prisoner that made him any greater than the son, nothing but experience, and hunger. The first titan was pulled away, screaming, and the room was filled with a wet sound. The guards, they¡¯d trained for everything- everything but these sounds. The guttural screams came to their ears as alien, unimagined terror. They¡¯d heard similar from the inmates, but not Cologhaim For the seconds that they were frozen in fear, teeth were able to force fresh matter done the fiends gullet, he knew where the thinnest parts of the armour were. The cycle was renewed with blood. The five in the front pierce forward, and the tree was shattered. Isaac jumped, without so much as a thought, the armour had already started to reincorporate the sustenance into the prisoner, allowing him to avoid their attacks. The speck of blue was limited to its basest functions in this environment, sustaining the wearer. A second soldier began to scream, as claws fingered round his head, finding a soft spot to tear into. The next, first to react to his friends pleads for help, was booted away, falling to the floor under the weight of the water tank strapped to his back. Every one of them was trained especially for this, they had been instructed on how to change their fighting style to suit waterless environments. Day and night, they became more and more accustomed to the pull of their blade, the sluggishness. There mistake was that none of them had adapted, and that known of them had been in live combat with anyone more experienced than their trainer. As the third guard was teetering back, Isaac grabbed the halberd from him, with a struggle. It cost him, as one of the titan¡¯s caught a glimpse of the prisoner, clipping the king with the metal of the stick. It was a numbing pain, but it was a sensation, regardless of whether it did him damage. ¡°Splendid! Isaac thought, ¡°It¡¯s been years since I felt something like this!¡± As he lashed the blade around him wildly, it wasn¡¯t enough to kill any of them, but it warded them off, and it filled them with a surge of adrenaline. Some thought to flee. Isaac continued his musings, keeping his thoughts to himself for a change, ¡°Within recent memory I¡¯ve been battered by all manner of opponents, stronger than these spawnlets. It was only cool rage that filled me when that young man cost me my arm. This, this is exhilaration. It¡¯s something that I lost when I took my position, my responsibilities.¡± He changed his hold on the halberd, plunging it into the closest man. ¡°I must have lost something when I disowned Balor-¡± He pulled the man into him, chomping down on his arm with his disfigured mouth. ¡°I¡¯d forgotten what type of creature I was. I imagined myself to be like a human, or at least with similar mutations to that little witch I fought. But here I can feel and smell with my own flesh. The gnashing of my teeth on raw meat unfiltered, contaminated by disease no doubt! What a monstrous thing to do!¡± After a gluttonous fill of meat, he had the strength to cleave a man¡¯s arm from his body. ¡°This isn¡¯t me in my entirety. This is an undeniable facet of my being, of course, but my being is comprised of more than barbarism. Perhaps this is the grander meaning of ¡®two powers¡¯. Whatever more there is to an individual, it must exist in a dichotomy. An order through pure chaos.¡± His mind raised through such grand workings of the universe, as he snorted at the throats of people whose thoughts were only of their family, their friends. His breathing had become stunted as he finished the first wave of men. His ears twitched as he heard more coming from behind the decompression chamber. He strolled into it, horsing a hand down by bending his neck back. The door to the cell was closed, and fans allowed for the valuable oxygen to be recycled. ¡°I can feel it. Something that¡¯s been with me since birth- I feel like I¡¯m about to be born again.¡± The warriors, their blood dulled by time, though their form didn¡¯t show their humanity, it was clear now, that¡¯s all they were. Their place in this universe is below him. Below the Unit. Below God. The warriors waited just outside the door as it was slowly opened with a great effort from their machines. They were half sure that their comrades had taken care of the fiend- No, they were certain, as the seven of them filed into the room. They waited. They tried to listen, but as mentioned, their ears were unaccustomed to sounds traveling through air. They waited for an eternity, waiting for their enemy to reveal themselves- for their brothers to hold his head high. Head held high. He hung above in the corner behind them as they walked in. The drop in oxygen allowed for the sliver of his armour left to carry out more simple functions. He hid the expanding network of blue at his side. ¡°Decay. Entropy after death. Time before birth. None-existence goes both ways. These men are a blip. Are you happy, Balor? Don¡¯t I do your work well?¡± His body had grown, with little help from the shaul by this point. His form had regressed, degraded, but with it came a barbaric strength. His neck widened, growing thicker than his head, his body just about accommodating his changes. Where once he had been lanky, even while he was well-fed, the muscles had now knotted in great bunches. His lips remained thin, his gums receding, his teeth were on-show, though in the dark none of them saw his head¨Clong smile. He waited for the door to open, for them to gaze upon the mess of purple, and if they squinted, red. As he tore them apart, he thought, ¡°It¡¯s always been so simple! Here, a path to something greater has been laid out in front of me! A plan crafted by a God, to benefit me!¡± Once he was done with the septet, he ruminated, bathing and gorging himself on fathers and brothers like a beast. ¡°Yes¡­ to obey his plan. Too bend to his totalitarian will¡­ No, I don¡¯t think so.¡± Under the layers of iron, the enormous amount of moisture, at last, the blue light had grown into a rudimentary hand. . . . ¡°Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid.¡± The warden, tried to call, to struggle even a little against the man with the angler-fish helmet. Isaac continued, ¡°It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll,¡± He would have started to cry were he able, the warden squeaked to the single man- the single Unit laced with an electric blue glow all over. Except the faux teeth born on that helm¡¯s visor. It was a maw of darkness, trapped, kept in check by the light. ¡°I am the master of my own fate; I am the captain of my soul.¡± The insignificant man, nearly half the height of his captor, prayed that his children wouldn¡¯t have to see what this thing was going to do to him. He was lowered to the ground slowly, floating out of Isaac¡¯s hand. ¡°There you are my fellow.¡± He patted him on the head. ¡°Now you see that I¡¯m not a monster at all. Just like you, I am capable of great fury and empathy. And that, is the making of a good king.¡± As the warden watched him rise away, he uneasily turned back to his prison, his prestigious position. Lines were drawn through the steel, sections had collapsed in, and the entirety of the iron lung was flooded with water. Suddenly, Isaac called down to him, ¡°I should like to tell you that it was a rather worthwhile stay- for the most part. I should like to give you¡­ three-and-a-half stars, sir.¡± He looked to the mists of blood rising from captor and captive alike, and wondered to himself, ¡°Now what would be done with me?¡± As he wondered his mind turned to fear, as he remembered that he had sent for the Lord Regent, who never found the time to check in before June. Now, June had come and gone. The Regent wouldn¡¯t neglect the capitol any longer Now, the warden wasn¡¯t afraid for his life, nor what his children would think. Now he was afraid for his family¡¯s lives. It is still June 29th, 2022. Mor Isaac Cre-Umha is from a distance visible as a tiny blue light, set against the painted mountain behind him. The corpse of a living God. As he drifts away from the dark, he has two thoughts on his mind: ¡°Ah what to do next¡­ I suppose I could go looking for the young man and his little witch. Yes, I¡¯d like to repay him for that arm; in a coy way, I should prefer. Although¡­ I suppose I¡¯m ¡®on the lamb¡¯ now¡­¡± ¡°Well, there¡¯s really only one place to go. Westward: To friends and company!¡± And with that, he darted back to me. To my plan. He follows the Circuit Board by his own will- Not because it is a purpose he was bred for, not because a superior being commanded it of him- But because an ally asked. A friend in the dark to ward away the night. And because he ironically hates arrogance, a sin which the maker of machines is terribly guilty of. A producer that would seek to harm his people. A man who pedals the greatest consumable- Minds. Clip 4.09: An analysis of The Liquid-Crystal Gods social life post June Brigs groans as he rises from his squat with a box full of parts for the next component. His arms curl as he pulls it to his chest, his biceps bulge against the container. With a crash and a sigh, he drops it on my work counter. ¡°Man, I ain¡¯t got time for this. Why do I have to carry these boxes for you anyhow? Can¡¯t you just use that nifty-lifty thing yah got in ya¡¯ arm?¡± There is a delay in my avatar¡¯s reaction to Brig¡¯s, its limited processor is overwhelmed by information being gathered from all over the globe, and to a limited degree, slightly beyond. My ¡®head¡¯, a faux cranium with a video display as a face, jerkily turns to face him. For a few seconds, the basics of a smile appeared on my face, two dots and a curve. ¡°I work better with you helping me.¡± It¡¯s a simple statement, with many interpretations. Brigs pouts, scratching at his forehead, ¡°Yeah, I know you gotta work at all this science crap, but I¡¯m pretty much done with makin¡¯ those bombs you wanted. I gotta focus on stayin¡¯ in shape for the next mission.¡± True. ¡°Yes, but I¡¯d like to have you here. Either I¡¯ll need your help, or in the event that we are assailed.¡± ¡°Assailed?¡± He was scratching his chin now, ¡°What makes you think we¡¯ll be ¡®assailed¡¯? By who? The suits? By Right?¡± ¡°Anyone.¡± I replied dumbly. My avatar began to worry that if Brigs kept scratching at his hair, it might fall out. ¡°Uhh, that doesn¡¯t really answer my question, John.¡± It would take effort for my String to explain the situation simply, to tell him that I needed to reacquaint myself with the geopolitical and cosmological changes after June. Or in a way that would be better understood through Brigs¡¯ perspective, I have to double-check the variables. I was trying to tell Brig¡¯s that while we were under The Blind Moon of Summer, anyone could be surrounding our hideout, though I had made attempts to survey the surrounding area every two hours, there was an enormous amount of work set out for my String. Of course, there was the obvious task at hand, checking in on the members of the Circuit Board Seven: Brigs, the Living Legs, and Sym-29 are all present at our main base of operations in New England. Boston Red is still playing his part, though effectively removed from the available Units list. At this time, on June 30th 2022, Isaac Cre-umha has not yet returned to us, my avatar is unaware that he has even escaped his captors, though it made a semi accurate guess. And despite the fact that over twenty-four hours have passed since the cessation of June, Stan Berwick, the Gator, or even Sobek the AI of the vessel, have yet to contact the outside world. They are receiving transmissions, and they are on their usual orbit, that much the String knows. I have yet to even check on Axel Right, what with most of his personal software being heavily guarded against hacking through ¡®guard-dog¡¯ AI¡¯s. It would be feasible for me to puncture through, though it would take hours, maybe days. I simply have better things to be doing. It all comes down to time. My Avatar within reality can run any program it needs, it can overcome any firewall, it can process the scientific principles displayed to it. Anti-grav tech, armaments, even Right¡¯s prodigious work in robotics; as long as the resources, schematics, and time is provided, I can reproduce the technology- in some cases progress it. My attention is divided between research into technology, how the Pointless has changed¡­ And Brigs. So, I just repeat myself, ¡°Anyone.¡± ¡°Ah, hell John, if ya¡¯ gonna get all spooky- well, what I¡¯m a supposed to get outta that, you know? You¡¯re talking like a try hard; you know? Like Sym. Hey, I can go get him if you want, sure he¡¯s just a kid and he¡¯s weird sometimes, but he¡¯s smart enough to help around here.¡± The expression on the screen is unemotive, limited, two dots and a circle. ¡°I¡¯d prefer that you stay, Brigs. Sym¡¯s¡­ in a precarious state at the moment. I can help you move your training equipment in here temporarily. I¡¯ll do most of the work with my ¡®nifty-lifty¡¯ thing.¡± I display the devices properties, though Brig¡¯s has already seen it. I combined the weightless of worry¡¯s properties with the experimental technologies of a man in Michigan who died before he could become Unitary. I took the incomplete concepts he purposed, stasis fields, and with a lot of time and attention my Avatar invented the modules on its arms. With a whir, I aimed the centre of my arm at a car battery Brigs had bought from a shop. It was encloaked with the blue glow of an antigravity material, and by probing it further with my end-effector, the part gently floated out of its spot into the place I directed it. My head swung back to Brigs. He laughed, ¡°Haha, yeah, see? What do yah need me for when that thing gives yah the umph to lift crap like it¡¯s nothin¡¯.¡± There is a pause in my Avatar, despite knowing the outcome I was still disappointed. It isn¡¯t his fault. No matter what I say, what I show him, where I take him; he is physically incapable of mentally acknowledging¡­ the wider world. He isn¡¯t stupid. He isn¡¯t closed minded. Yet somehow, he is unwilling to accept all the things around him. Robots, he can conceptualise as drones. Underwater civilisations are ¡®weird swamp country¡¯. Gods, he sees as people. He¡¯s a particularly strange case of the mental constitution referred to as ¡®being a first worlder¡¯, there hasn¡¯t been even a second where he has been shocked by seeing a werewolf. Most people cloud their minds after seeing it, after rationalising. He simply walks by a man who can liquify metal with a single touch, and calls him his ¡®buddy¡¯. I want him to understand. I want him to see. ¡°Alright.¡± I say dumbly, giving in. Giving up. He smiles, ¡°Really, just shout over the coms if you need me, I¡¯ll just be workin¡¯ out.¡± After a moment, I reciprocate lamely. Dots and a curve. As he turns to leave, he calls out, ¡°Ah shoot! Forgot to ask, Did¡¯ja hear from Stan? He hasn¡¯t called in a while, right? I know Isaac¡¯s got stuff going on in his kingdom or whatever, and Red¡¯s gone looking for a new hobby or something, but-¡± That man, with a scar above his eye, arms like steel cables, and enough combat experience to put a navy seal to shame, smiles shyly. ¡°I mean, he must be getting lonely up in that rocket ship, right? It wouldn¡¯t hurt if we all got into a call some time. Hell, maybe when this is all over- if we can get him down- we should go out. Hell, we should bring ro-butt too! My ma¡¯ used to bring me to a restaurant, best place I ever went with her. Might be a little cheap for us now, but hey, shits and giggles, right?¡± The thought inspires the Avatar to show a different screen. It was a gif from an old sitcom, captioned, ¡®let¡¯s go!¡¯. He laughed, ¡°Right jackass, it¡¯ll be my treat. You¡¯ve done a lot for me man, least I could do for you.¡± He left the room. There was a massive delay in progress for a few minutes after. At first, the Avatar¡¯s mind was too excited to focus on the project in front of it or the surveillance. Soon, it turned to melancholy, then lethargy. After the program has been run, it thought. After the Circuit Board is complete. It wasn¡¯t until my String received an incoming transmission that he began interacting with the world again. >>>J-on >>>J-on >>>J-on It was from just outside earth¡¯s atmosphere, the Gator had reawakened. <<>>J-on >>>The Gator¡¯s damaged badly. Parts missing. Sobek placed us in repair mode. It¡¯s off now, or I wouldn¡¯t be able to >>>Was this us J-on? <<>>What happened to Egypt? >>> Please, please, John, tell me that wasn¡¯t us. I checked his position. <<>>I don¡¯t know if I >>> If I <<>>I¡¯m in outer space. >>>How the fuck would anybody involve me in anything? Whatever destroyed half the Gator¡­ I thought about it, my avatar thought about it. <<>>I don¡¯t care about Right! I want to know what I¡¯ve become. >>>I can¡¯t see, I can¡¯t hear, I can¡¯t eat, I can¡¯t sleep unless it puts me to sleep, >>>I want out J-on. There was a pause from the String. >>>Just hold on, Stan. I give you my word that I am going to show you that you are not a monster. To simplify, I put him on mute while I searched every source available to me. ¡­ The Mountain has made a statement warning people around What-Was-Once-Egypt to not interact with any golden masks, no matter how compelled you may be to touch it or wear it. A number of Internation agents have reported severed limbs, missing and found. The Mladenets have issued no significant statements. The Home is not reachable. Turbulence is unreachable. Through groups and sub groups I searched, through messages from family and friends, every available piece of footage in the affected areas from the last 24 hours. Then I found something. It might have been related, it probably wasn¡¯t, but it was something significant enough to Stan, that I told him as soon as I found it. Because I knew he¡¯d understand the significance, After searching in the place, I ignored; the place I should have at least checked before beginning work on new projects. >>>Axel Right has been hacked. It was unthinkable, something my String couldn¡¯t imagine, and with the knowledge allowed to it, rightfully so. <<>>His walls have been breached; the gates let down. I don¡¯t know by who, but the only man on Earth who could breach those would be Right himself. <<>>If not surpass him. >>>They opened access to his service models, whatever they could find on the network. Obviously, that excludes combat models, the Gecko¡¯s. And it excludes specialized models, the Gator and the Golden retriever. Before Berwick could begin to feel like this was unrelated to his moral crisis, I dangled a suggestion in front of him. >>>If they got into Axel¡¯s systems, then if they really wanted to, they could get into yours. <<>>This is a complete unknown. For all we know, they could have used this very channel, Stan. They could have even done it directly. I tried to reassure him. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. >>>There is a reason you''re still alive. Through all the suffering you¡¯ve endured, through all the pain you¡¯ve caused Stan- It¡¯s so we can make things right. He did not reply again, though the channel was still open. << >>>Why do you keep him around? Is he good company? <<>>He¡¯s a mercenary. <<>>So, my only friends are an ex-merc, a sadistic simulacrum, a dictator from under the sea, a psychopath, a sociopath, and an ever-present Ai that¡¯s always watching me. Great. My Avatar didn¡¯t know if he was talking about me or Sobek. <<>>He¡¯s a terrorist Thinking of Stan¡¯s feelings, I neglected to tell him that he most certainly was too. <<th, 2022, Vortech records a transaction with Clover, the requested wormhole leading from Ireland to Seoul, the Seoung-Soo syndicate¡¯s headquarters. Within 48 hours, a request is placed by five Units for the unclaimed territory.¡± Clover half laughed, half wheezed, ¡°Five? There aren¡¯t that many Units living in Ireland, let alone those who¡¯d be willing to side with you. There¡¯s me, Rocky has the notion that he can do everything on his own, and then there¡¯s the Fomorian girl, but she¡¯s from the country that worships the Dark Gods, and last I checked, they were the enemies of Isaac Cre-umha¡¯s nation. Seeing as he¡¯s walking around with no punishments after assaulting an unaligned-¡± Attrition rolled her eyes, ¡°Will you shut up? This is a claim that has been verified by the Mountain. By Bastard. They haven¡¯t been allowed the territory because they¡¯re an allied party, they¡¯ve been allowed that island so they don¡¯t over step their bounds, and because its government isn¡¯t a funder of the Internationals. Don¡¯t get the wrong idea, they aren¡¯t allied with the mountain, if anything their relationship is even more contentious.¡± Clover sunk into her seat. ¡°Has Belfast become a ¡®hotspot¡¯?¡± That was a term I hadn¡¯t heard before. It made Attrition pause. ¡°No. Not yet, though I think it will be.¡± I wanted to ask what a hotspot was, but decided against it, I didn¡¯t want to waste our time. I asked, ¡°You found this out after a few hours, how many other people have access to this stuff? You were able to put together that when Bob flew out to Seoul, he was coming to get us, who else could do that?¡± They replied with complementary tone, ¡°It¡¯s a good question to ask. Though ultimately pointless. There are three roles an Agent will be assigned, Exterminator, Researcher, and Cleaner. Out of all researchers, I¡¯m given the highest clearance. So, as far as your ownership being uncovered, ¡®Rebecca¡¯, nobody else would be able to gather that information, from here on out they would have to simply happen upon the information. She changed her stance, ¡°That being said, Belfast has supporters. Many would see them as¡­ a way to deny the Mountain resources; ¡®enemy of my enemy¡¯. But for them to have gained access to Vortech¡¯s files, for the territory request to have gone through so quickly; they aren¡¯t just trying to use Belfast, there are people in this organisation working for them.¡± I hunched forward. ¡°That¡¯s fine. It¡¯s not like we were planning on trusting you guys anyway. We¡¯re getting out of here fine. And when we do,¡± I looked over at Clover, ¡°I¡¯m going to take nap.¡± She looked at me like that was an anti-climax, but I¡¯m seriously not in the mood for fighting Apocalypse and his four horsemen. I want to see Saoirse again. I want to be happy. If I don¡¯t get to be Sam, then I¡¯ll collapse. Attrition stood. ¡°Right. You can get a cab to Administration. Your ¡®friend¡¯ has been given a work space on the ninth floor.¡± She changed her tone, it became annoyed, ¡°That¡¯s ninth from the street level, not from the lowest sublevel in the city, I¡¯ve had too many idiots shouting at me because they walked themselves into the sewers.¡± Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I laughed, it sounded like a joke. After she narrowed her eyes, I nodded. After she left, she called back to us, ¡°Walk a few blocks away first.¡± After a minute, I said to Clover, ¡°She seemed, relatively, nice.¡± Clover frowned at me, ¡°Few years back she tried to start a world war.¡± I laughed, it sounded like a joke. After she narrowed her eyes, I frowned back. . . . The elevator dinged to a stop, and I peeked my head out, adjusting my restraints. ¡°They really messed these things up, they practically pulled them off. It would be like taking a shoe off without untying the lace, accept, the lace is tight enough to restrict blood flow. They¡¯ve stretched them out.¡± Clover side eyed me, ¡°Rock, you don¡¯t have to wear that crap, nor do I care. And you don¡¯t have to keep poking your head around the corner, it makes us look suspicious, we¡¯ll get thrown out. Besides, I¡¯ve already taken care of the us getting found out.¡± She raised her marked hand as we were walking, showing only two of the cloves on it. ¡°What, and just like that our worries have faded away? Why don¡¯t you just use that to ask the universe to get us home in a second.¡± She walked ahead of me, flopping her arm back down, ¡°That would work, I¡¯m sure. Some sort of freak malfunction at Vortech, we¡¯re instantly transported back home; I¡¯ll be fine, without a doubt, but you? You¡¯ll probably get there de-atomised.¡± I shut my mouth, ¡°And¡­ you wishing that ¡®nobody will figure out who you are¡¯ isn¡¯t going to blow up in our face?¡± ¡°Yeah, maybe it will. It depends how close the objective is to sheer luck. If I want a copy of the bible signed by Jesus Christ within the next hour, I¡¯ll get it, but it being so hyper specific and illogical will mean that the Universe¡¯ll need to make some leg room. I¡¯m sure some cataclysm would be born in the prosess.¡± ¡°What are the odds that we just happen to pass the enemy by any way?¡± She smiled, ¡°They¡¯re infinitesimal because of me.¡± As we finally found the lab room, we passed by some delivery men who were dropping off parts. It occurred to me that if we¡¯d gotten here a few seconds earlier, we would have been in the room when they were setting things up. Sooner than that, we would have been locked in the elevator with them. Maybe there was an enemy on this very floor, we¡¯d just never encountered them because they dropped something, and we passed by while they were picking it up. For all intents and purposes, we would be rendered esentially invisible to that person. ¡°Kid!¡± I was taken back to the facility by a familiar call. Bob rose from his seat, a cane replacing his crutch. Once again, he flung himself at me, except this time I¡¯d dodged. He stumbled on one foot, turning to me, ignoring his own weird behaviour, ¡°Ahh, how are you feeling? I was told you got surgery! What was that like?¡± I tilted my head, ¡°I don¡¯t know. I was unconscious.¡± He laughed, ¡°Well, hey, everything¡¯s turned out alright in the end, huh? They¡¯ve arranged a flight in 54 hours, Charlie blew the ball out of the park!¡± I looked around for her, not seeing her among the helpers and movers, ¡°So you¡¯re not being charged?¡± His attitude changed, his stony face was meant to hide his feelings, but it only exemplified his sorrow. ¡°They took my keys. I¡¯m not going to be flying for a few months.¡± I tried to cheer him up, ¡°That¡¯s not so bad right? It could have been worse.¡± Clover folded her arms, ¡°If I was your boss, I¡¯d have your balls chopped off.¡± I side eyed her, ¡°No, if you where his boss, you¡¯d have him dress up like a rabbit and humiliate him in front of your friends.¡± Bob was left out of the loop, he reapproached the conversation. ¡°Charlie¡¯s been worried about you kid. She told me you¡­ you know. Got her down? She wanted to say thanks before you leave.¡± I nodded, ¡°Yeah. She¡¯s here I¡¯m guessing. If anything, we should be thanking her, for sorting out the flight back home and all.¡± Bob started walking, pretty normally even with a reliance on his cane, ¡°Alright, it might take us awhile to find her in here, they gave her a quarter of the floor. It¡¯s a temporary set-up, most of the resources are bein¡¯ taken off of Yoshida¡¯s stuff. They want more than one prototype set up.¡± Clover commented, ¡°Implying you¡¯ve got a prototype set up.¡± I flashed a look at her, she calmed me down, ¡°Hey, it¡¯s like I told the doctor, I¡¯m not interested in this tech stuff. Well¡­¡± She gave a pause, ¡°Nope, I don¡¯t wanna know. I just want to go home.¡± Her smile wasn¡¯t too reassuring. We wandered through a couple dozen rooms, filled with blue gravity discs of varying sizes, there were miscellaneous machine parts, none of which I had any way of recognising as anything other than pieces of metal and rubber. We eventually came to a large room, centred by the makings of another machine, this one crescented up ten feet. This room was like an intersection to multiple other rooms, so Bob was calling out, ¡°Charlie! Goth and Green are here!¡± Clover beared her teeth, ¡°Why do you keep calling me that?¡± Nobody replied to the three-foot-long black bush of hair, but there was a voice calling from behind the top of the machine. Shortly after it had rung out, a person in a mechanic¡¯s blue jumpsuit descended, they were controlling their movements through large bulky braces that started at the elbow and ended at the wrist. They bore the same design philosophy as other pieces of gravity tech, but the signature circular plates were glowing red. They came down in front of us, their long brown hair was tied and maintained by a cap. I would have thought she was giving me the stink-eye, if I didn¡¯t already know the type of person she was. Clover commented, ¡°So you traded chic for utility, huh? You only dressed up like an asshole for your meeting then,¡± just when I was thinking Clover¡¯d over stepped her boundaries again, she smiled, ¡°It suits you.¡± ¡°Thanks¡­¡± She wasn¡¯t really finding her footing, literally, her feet were only touching the ground by choice, tiptoeing just above the ground. Clover pulled at me, ¡°Don¡¯t you think so Rocky?¡± I shrugged, ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± I didn¡¯t want to make a comment similar to Clover¡¯s, I¡¯d probably end up saying something rude. Just when Clover was about to yell at me, there was a whistle from one of the entrances to the room, everybody turned, except Bob. ¡°Oh, Yuki¡­¡± Charlie tried for a smile. It seemed like she had more to say. I turned to Bob, the life seeming to leave his eyes, ¡°I¡¯m going to guess she¡¯s not a friend of yours?¡± She was wearing the same tie as Bob, and from what Dr Attrition had said, it seems like that denotes position, blue must mean cleaner. ¡°No,¡± replied Bob, slowly, ¡°she¡¯s my friend.¡± I recalled now; Yuki was the second contact Bob had left us with. She was an Asian woman, looking a little younger than Bob, but not by a lot. Two things caught my attention about her, she had wavy white hair, and a sour look on her face. She was wearing a suit, the same quality of Bob¡¯s, she had a duffle bad slung over her shoulder, and she was walking towards us. Bob finally turned, ¡°Hey Yuki, I¡¯m back! Haha, no hard feelings about pushing you out on to the landing pad, right? I mean, we¡¯ve both taken a few days to cool down- I¡¯ve realised that I screwed up, bu-¡± She threw the bag at his head in one quick motion. The anger on her face bursting out in the same instant. Before vanishing. ¡°Ahh, yeah were even!¡± She laughed as he rose back up. She walked towards me now, ¡°So, you¡¯re that kid from Ireland I¡¯m guess? The one he spent ten thousand on like an idiot, leaving me to clean up that mess when the post-June equipment check came up? You¡¯re doing good? Well, apart from you getting into fights, being hospitalised as soon as you got into town, you¡¯re doing fine?¡± There was a familiar levity to her questions, despite the assault I¡¯d just witnessed, she seemed welcoming. ¡°Hey, I¡¯m good, thanks. My name¡¯s Shamrock, this is-¡± She moved on, ¡°And you¡¯re the girl I spoke to on the phone! Sorry I couldn¡¯t help you, I was on the 75th floor, it just seemed like the doctor¡¯d do a better job, right?¡± Clover asked, looking over at Bob, who was clutching his nose, ¡°I thought you two were friends.¡± Yuki frowned, ¡°We are friends. I think. Not that I¡¯d say that in front of other people. Especially people who were at the 2016 Christmas party.¡± Bob called out he¡¯s eyes blood shot, ¡°That¡¯s enough! You promised to never bring that up!¡± ¡°And you promised I wouldn¡¯t have to do you any more favours, but here you are! Me and the doc had to keep them from shooting you down when you were flying over the Philippines.¡± Bob smiled, ¡°What?¡± She shrugged, ¡°It¡¯s in the past. Don¡¯t worry about it.¡± She looked up to the machine, ¡°Is this the time machine?¡± Bob screamed out, ¡°SHAAHAPAH!¡± Grabbing his head, staring wide eyed at Clover. I expected Clover to be smiling at them fumbling the bag, but she went cold. She tried to hide it, ¡°Is that what it is? Ha, I thought it might be smaller, whatever it was.¡± Charlie laughed nervously, ¡°I-It¡¯s not a time machine, I-it¡¯s just a step in that direction.¡± Clover folded her arms, ¡°I believe you.¡± I was suspicious of her reply, Yuki was silent, Bob was happy, ¡°You do? Seriously, Yuki hasn¡¯t a clue what she¡¯s talking about.¡± Clover folded her arms, smiling with an explanation, probably for me, ¡°Time travel is a reported phenomenon, though I¡¯ve never experienced it. There¡¯s supposedly a terrorist operating in Russia that¡¯s from the future, or a possible one at least. Growing up, I was told that if under any circumstances I should find a possible avenue for time travel¡­ I should destroy it.¡± It was as soon as she had started that I thought she was going to do something rash. I don¡¯t know whether I was preparing myself to stop her, or to get us out of there. ¡°You Internationals. You¡¯re all so obsessed with progressing this status quo, prolonging it as long as possible. I¡¯ve heard about your attempts at space travel, I¡¯ve seen your opposition to change. It¡¯s completely in character for you to desperately find a way out of the grave you continue to dig for yourselves. You would risk all of existence just so you can get your hands on a fresh oil reserve, or so you can attempt to stop the damage you¡¯ve already done to the planet.¡± Yuki was giving Bob a look, which Bob reciprocated. ¡°So, I believe you. If you did invent time travel? If it were in your hands, we¡¯d already be dead.¡± She turned with a smile, ¡°You should be happy Charlie, I¡¯ll be keeping in touch.¡± Yuki clapped, ¡°Ok, I don¡¯t know who you the hell you are-¡± Clover turned, expecting the same thing I was. ¡°But damn, you need a drink. Chill out, right? You¡¯re on Vacation! Bob¡¯s treat!¡± I¡¯ve heard people give some strange responses, but this one was downright insane. A gloomy looking girl just professes her hatred for your organisation, and your response is to invite her out for a drink? ¡°Oh, yeah, sick.¡± Bob shook his head, though Yuki kept throwing out invites, ¡°Charlie, Problem child?¡± I was a too confused to respond, Charlie mumbled out, ¡°I¡¯ve got to finish up here, so¡­¡± Clover nodded, ¡°Alright, Rocky¡¯ll stay with you! If you don¡¯t hear from me, they¡¯ve probably had me executed.¡± Still too confused with everything that was happening, I said nothing. The two of them left, Bob following close behind them, obviously concerned about Clover saying she¡¯ll be ¡®keeping in touch¡¯ with his sister. Clover was laughing away at something the white-haired woman said. Charlie let out a sigh, when I turned to her, she held her breath. ¡°What just happened?¡± Charlie breathed out, ¡°She¡¯s like that. She¡¯s mellow, she deescalates situations, that¡¯s probably why her and Bob are so close, he tends to bring some craziness out of people. I can¡¯t blame her for reacting like that though, what the hell would you do if someone said that stuff about the people you work for?¡± She tilted her head before pushing herself back up into the air, ¡°Your friend is pretty¡­ crazy.¡± I thought about saying she wasn¡¯t my friend, but there¡¯s no real point in denying it anymore. I circled around the machine following after her, ¡°When it comes to this stuff, she¡¯s loyal, to a fault I guess.¡± ¡°Loyal to who?¡± There was a clattering from something just out of sight, ¡°That¡¯s right, the Bastard King or whatever. You¡¯re from Europe. Do you work for the Mountain? I h-heard that she does, but you don¡¯t seem like the war mongering type.¡± I was a little surprised by how talkative she¡¯d become since Clover left, ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m solo. Like I said, you¡¯d have to be pretty stupid to join up with people like that, especially when you have no clue who they are.¡± She smiled, a little dirtier than when I last saw her. ¡°That¡¯s what my brother did, at the ripe age of sixteen he left to join the Suits, I met him when I was eight. I sell to them, but I¡¯m not planning on joining them. It seems like they encourage independence, in an admittedly stupid way. As private owners, people like me, Axel and Vortech can sell to whoever we want, we can decide how involved we are in all of this super-crap.¡± She threw her arms up, ¡°If they¡¯re interested, they¡¯ll fund me.¡± That part of what Clover said must have been true then. For them to encourage this sort of environment, the Ints must be at least secondarily motivated by turning some kind of profit, instigating an economic upturn for the countries, or something. Seriously, I really do just punch assholes, I¡¯m not sure I¡¯m ready to understand their business. She asked me another question, ¡°But, you¡¯re involved enough in this stuff to get taken by¡­ June, right?¡± I lied to her, ¡°Yeah, I was. I¡¯ve faced off against one of the largest supernatural organisations, I¡¯ve seen Gods, and a whole host of other Unit¡¯s.¡± It wasn¡¯t for the same reason as Bob, who cares if I look cool, I was trying to keep me and Clover¡¯s story straight. ¡°R-right¡­¡± I thought about asking if she needed me to help her with anything, before I could, she asked, ¡°But you¡¯re not a part of the Suits? Why¡¯s that?¡± ¡°Well, I think if I joined up with anyone, it¡¯d get harder for me to stay anonymous. I¡¯d be losing a part of my civilian life.¡± She was floating down, ¡°That¡¯s right, you¡¯re a superhero, right? What¡¯s¡­ that like?¡± Again. Again, I got d¨¦j¨¤ vu from the first two weeks in the given world. That was the first time that somebody; somebody who was real, just accepted that I was a super hero. The first time I¡¯d been called that. ¡°It¡¯s¡­¡± I diont know. I¡¯d like to say it¡¯s been fun. Running around town, being taken semi-seriously, talking to people. But then there¡¯s the Gators. The soul crushing reality of my situation. That I¡¯m a very small fish in an ever-expanding reservoir. A reservoir built by beings far more intelligent than me, who allow my existence for some twisted incomprehensible reason. ¡°It¡¯s somewhere in the middle.¡± I wasn¡¯t sure if that was a lie or not. She skipped over to a box, lifting something out of it. It looked to be some sort of cable, stretching the length of her body. I asked, ¡°How can you lift stuff if you¡¯re weightless?¡± Charlie looked over to me, ¡°It¡¯s the same principle as the disks. It¡¯s not that the disks being weightless makes the ships rise, it¡¯s that they make the ships lighter. That being said, Bob¡¯s was different, it directly changed the gravitational push, it employs (something) magnetism (something). My¡­ I¡¯m a naturally occurring version of the phenomena,¡± She might have noticed now that I had no clue what she was saying. ¡°I¡­ sort of ooze it. I make things lighter and I can lift things without¡­ following gravity.¡± I nodded, trying my best to understand. ¡°What about you?¡± I looked up, ¡°Hmm?¡± She motioned to me, not finding the words. ¡°You¡¯re like me.¡± She seemed like she was batting between making eye contact and looking down. I had to guess what she was talking about. ¡°Do you mean my biology?¡± She nodded. ¡°My body operates at a higher capacity, in a way that¡¯s beneficial. I¡¯m stronger, but I don¡¯t burn calories faster or anything. Higher pain tolerance, surviving with grievous bodily injury, that sort of thing.¡± She finally held her gaze, ¡°But it¡¯s- it is hard, right? I mean, you can¡¯t turn it off, can you?¡± I had a feeling she understood my situation. ¡°You can¡¯t turn off being a Unit,¡± I agreed. ¡°No, I mean, Bob warns me about monsters, that¡¯s one of the reasons I don¡¯t like coming out here. I¡¯ve only been twice before, and the second time didn¡¯t go so well.¡± She toyed with her fingers, ¡°I¡¯m talking about- we¡¯re different, right? We can¡¯t live normal lives.¡± I knew where she was trying to take this, ¡°That¡¯s the hand all Units are dealt.¡± She kept pushing, ¡°But- Those things around your arms, you wear them because you¡¯re afraid of¡­ it aren¡¯t you?¡± She lifted her arms, the gauntlets seeming more like chains now, ¡°No matter how much you try, no matter what you do, you¡¯ll never be like everyone else.¡± I frowned, ¡°You were born like this?¡± She nodded, ¡°I¡¯ve spent every day of my life afraid of the sky. I couldn¡¯t go outside for eighteen years without a weighted suit. You- I saw the state your body was in. You can¡¯t go to a regular doctor, you said you feel less pain, but with those bruises? Those scars? You must have been living in agony.¡± I tightened a fist. I don¡¯t know why. Something started to boil up in me. ¡°Do you really think that¡¯s all that defines you? Do you really think there¡¯s nothing worse?¡± I glared, though she couldn¡¯t see it, ¡°You aren¡¯t wearing a weighted suit. You aren¡¯t being held prisoner by some robots and an undersea king. You¡¯re a revolutionary scientist. You have undeniable skills, that I¡¯m quite sure were gained through nothing but your own dedication to your craft. Through bending your curse into a gift.¡± She floated back slowly. I thought she was frightened, but that isn¡¯t the face she was making. I continued. ¡°There is no such thing as normal. Simply by living people are cursed. You can dread it, you can hate it, you can even ignore it, but eventually you need to accept it.¡± The room went quiet except for a droning sound from a faraway room. I looked down, regretful, ¡°Sorry, I don¡¯t know what you¡¯ve been through, but I think it¡¯s just a little ignorant to only look at what might be wrong with your life. You¡¯ve got money, family, and¡­ not too many people have that.¡± Charlie stopped me from going further, ¡°No, y-your right.¡± She was smiling, ¡°I wanted you to feel the same as me, but I think that¡¯s what I needed to hear.¡± She drifted over to me, now completely putting aside her work. She sort of sized me up, ¡°Shamrock? How¡­¡± I turned my ear to hear her better. ¡°How old are you?¡± Looking back, it was a weird thing to ask out of the blue, but I guess she was asking because I was giving her advice, despite obviously being younger. I actually had to think about it. ¡°Nineteen,¡± I answered plainly. Though I was born in 2003, and my birthday wasn¡¯t until September, I figured I should count the time in Irminsul. She looked like there was something she wanted to say. I took another guess, ¡°Clover¡¯s eighteen, back home that¡¯s a legal drinking age.¡± She seemed somewhat disheartened. ¡°Sorry,¡± I raised my hands, backing up, ¡°I¡¯ve been hanging around because Clover cleared off, I¡¯ll let you work, just tell me where I can find that, ¡®accommodation¡¯ Dr Attrition was talking about.¡± She went quiet. For a while. I¡¯d say she was trying to remember where it was or something, but she¡¯d have checked her phone if that was the case. She was frozen, until I asked, ¡°Are you ok?¡± She turned red and laughed, I was worried that something was wrong with her. ¡°I-It¡¯s probably for the best, yeah. Call the doc, sh-she¡¯ll know where it is, better than me.¡± She ascended quickly, turning her back on me. I shrugged it off, ¡°Well, thanks for everything, I guess. In case I don¡¯t see you again, just know that me and my friend really mean that, she might have been a little¡­ off-key at times, but she¡¯s not the type to go looking for trouble.¡± I grinned to her back, ¡°I for one wish you the best of luck with your time stuff, so long as you work out how to use it responsibly first.¡± As I turned to the door, pulling up the contact numbers Bob had left me, she called out. I twisted back, and she¡¯d closed the gap already. ¡°Do you- do you have Discord?¡± I blinked, ¡°No,¡± I lifted my phone, ¡°I only have a flip phone,¡± I lied. She seemed to redden again, I tried to stop her from freezing up again, ¡°I can give you my number if you want.¡± She found a piece of paper pretty soon. And she didn¡¯t say anything as I handed it to her back to her after writing the string out. As I was trying to make my way through the halls, I started to think if she was really all that weird. I mean, that sort of behaviour, if Sam saw that then he¡¯d think that she was insane. But as far as Unit¡¯s go? She¡¯s not racist, she¡¯s not a criminal, so an especially bad stutter isn¡¯t much, right? Especially if she¡¯s been stuck inside most of her life. So I don¡¯t think her experiences were an especially bad influence. Though, I¡¯ve only known her a day. I should know better than anyone else, that people wear masks. They have multiple identities that they take on in different situations. Do I trust this girl? Not as far as I can throw her, I¡¯ll tell you that much. But I don¡¯t trust anyone really. So, as I¡¯m writing this in my hotel room, I think I¡¯ll get to know this girl before I make any judgements. Though, seeing as I¡¯m leaving tomorrow night, we¡¯ll have to do it over the internet or something. Deck 5.05: I met some people. This seems to happen every time, Huh? Just when you think the curtains have closed¡­ I¡¯ll tell you right now, this time, my problem wasn¡¯t emotional or mental, I wouldn¡¯t have taken two weeks to start posting again if that were the case. And I wasn¡¯t being held captive either, not by the Internationals, not by Creh-umha. I just got beat, plain and simple. I simply wasn¡¯t physically capable of posting until now. I¡¯m actually laughing out loud right now, the fact that me, the flying brick, was beat in an honest fight, no sucker punches, no tricks on their part, and they still wiped the floor with me. It¡¯s like I had one thing I was good for, and this guy totally out did me. And I can¡¯t help but laugh about it. It¡¯s insane, right? I gained nothing from all that fighting, but her I am looking back on it fondly. I once told Charlie K that my experiences have been between horrendous and great, but this was fantastic! I don¡¯t know how better to start this off than from the beginning. I was in bed; hotel Milano was the name of the place me and Clover were staying. Well, Clover hadn¡¯t come back yet, she was still out with Bob and Agent Yuki. I had been trying to sleep for the past hour or so, worry keeping me from drifting off in a little. Though I had faith that the organisation, the Internationals, would do nothing to the Mountains ¡®princess¡¯ if they were to find a loop hole around Clover¡¯s wish, there was still the looming threat of the Belfast supporters, and though I doubted that any of them would act in the open, it was weighing on my mind. Though my heart was in the right place, it was wrong of me to have trusted Bob¡¯s friends so openly. If any of them found out who Clover actually was there¡¯d be no guarantee that they¡¯d act as charitably as Bob. And when I say that, I mean that man has selflessly given himself for others. I recognise that now. Eventually, through tossing and turning I came to the conclusion that Clover could handle herself. She¡¯ll probably get into trouble, but she will always find a way to wriggle out of it. Honestly, I should have been more worried about how that trouble affects me, as she had warned. I heard a roar from the door. From my ominous introduction, you¡¯re probably imagining that I rocketed out of bed in response. No, I recognised this sound, I¡¯d heard it thousands of times. I simply turned to my side, and flopped the other pillow over my head, like I¡¯d usually do. The three of them had burst into the living room, laughing, half-cut by the sounds of things, strange, as any time I¡¯d seen Clover drunk, she was plastered in seconds. It felt like they spent another age acting like idiots in there, I was in that sleep state where I couldn¡¯t quite comprehend time, So I haven¡¯t a clue how long they went on for. But eventually, they did stop. And by that point, I was no longer on the verge of unconscious. I¡¯m almost certain that it was a result of all this flying around, jetlag I think it¡¯s called. I had technically taken a ¡®nap¡¯ in the hospital, and so had Clover, I felt like it was still the middle of the day. I sat up for five seconds, before throwing my feet to the side. Checking my phone, it said the time was around 6 in the morning. That meant nothing to me I got up, and set out for breakfast. As I came into the living room, I found Bob unconscious on the sofa, his trousers nowhere to be found. I looked at him with disgust for a few seconds, then I saw his co-worker, Yuki. ¡°Good morning,¡± She cooed, ¡°Sleep well? Do you wear that get-up as pyjamas too?¡± I had expected the previously mentioned from Bob, but I didn¡¯t expect Yuki to be awake, let alone working out. ¡°No thanks to you,¡± I was bitter, and when I¡¯m bitter I become honest. She laughed, ¡°Sorry, did we wake you coming in? Man, you should¡¯ve come with us last night, pretty sure E.D King over there is going to have to get his stomach pumped.¡± She pointed to the hall way I¡¯d come from, ¡°The princess really can¡¯t hold her liquor, huh?¡± I felt a slight shiver. She noticed my change in expression, ¡°Booze loosens lips. That¡¯s one of the reasons I asked. Well, that and Bob needed to pay me back for all the crap he¡¯s put me through.¡± She was currently blazing through single-handed push-ups. Then she switched to the other hand. ¡°And?¡± ¡°And what,¡± She replied. I paced around the room, ¡°What is with you people? I thought you weren¡¯t supposed to be important, why are you acting so non-challan about aiding a high-ranki-¡± She pushed herself up right, I hadn¡¯t noticed earlier when she was in her suit, but now that she was wearing just a sports bra and trousers, I could see this woman was cut like ice. She walked over to the arm chair, her shirt and jacket were strung over. ¡°Bob once told me that¡¯s what being a cleaner¡¯s all about. Exterminators are for killing monsters. Researchers are phenomena. So cleaners are for the people. Something like that. I only half understand what he means. I mean, most of our work is simple stuff people don¡¯t want to do, sealing procedures, area decontamination, but Bob say¡¯s what makes this job is that we¡¯re the ones who talk to people after they¡¯ve been attacked by a monster.¡± She scratched at her head, ¡°He¡¯d say something about being the ¡®bulwark¡¯ or something. But I guess he¡¯s really just here to help people.¡± My heart stammered. I shook it off, ¡°What are you here for?¡± She smiled, ¡°I¡¯m not here. I had no idea she was the Mountain Princess. Got it?¡± Bob groaned, ¡°End of the day, Yuki¡¯s here for the pay check. It¡¯s not politics or the goodness of her heart that stops her from selling you kids out, it¡¯s corporate negligence.¡± She winked, ¡°You¡¯re still in town tomorrow night, right? Y¡¯all should come on down next time.¡± And with that she left with a plastic bag and Bob¡¯s bottoms. The half dead man lying prone hadn¡¯t noticed any of this, his eyes were screwed closed. I felt like I should say something. That would be the right thing to do. ¡°Bob,¡± I started, ¡°do you want breakfast?¡± He groaned in a way that told me ¡®no¡¯. After I found some food, a bowl of some American cereal brand it was a little sugary, and the milk in the fridge wasn¡¯t quite right, Clover eventually crawled out from her cave. ¡°Good morning,¡± I parroted, ¡°did you sleep well?¡± ¡°Quiet¡­ asshole¡­¡± She was looking a little frazzled, I wondered if she knew what happened last night. ¡°Yuki found out who you are.¡± She nodded, ¡°I know.¡± I was half way through the bowl when Bob decided to rise, that grown man with hair all over his thick legs squeaked out as he realised, he no longer had his trousers. He made an attempt to hide himself from Clover with his jacket. The way he was squatted defensively on the ground, it gave me a horrible view of his rear, ¡°Nothing I haven¡¯t seen¡­¡± I muttered to myself. Bob frantically searched the apartment until I hit him with the cold reality, ¡°Your friend has stolen your trousers. She left a few minutes ago.¡± He clawed the door with his eyes, restraining himself from running after her. Bob begged Clover as she grimaced at the contents of the cereal box, ¡°Hey, hey! Kid, you¡¯ve gotta have a spare- anything, right?¡± She didn¡¯t even look at him, ¡°Not for you.¡± He was like an animal. He circled around the room, looking for something he could wear. Then the unexpected happened. He chose the door. I called after him, Clover shushed me, ¡°Let him go. Apparently, this happens all the time.¡± I laughed as she sat down across from me, ¡°I sort of assumed that with how willing he was to run out-¡± Then Yuki came back. She sat herself down on the sofa, as if nothing had happened. ¡°Where were you hiding,¡± asked Clover. ¡°Down the hall. I waited for him to pass so I could see his reaction. I came back here, because there was a group of old ladies.¡± Juxtaposing her work out, Yuki slouched back in the chair. I asked, ¡°And you don¡¯t think he¡¯s crazy enough to run past them?¡± ¡°No, he would, he¡¯s an idiot. I just didn¡¯t want to see that happen.¡± There was a clacking from down the hall, and I wondered if this was really a good hotel, the soundproofing wasn¡¯t great. Bob tripped as he saw Yuki, face planting to the floor, she replied by tossing Bob¡¯s trousers over his head. ¡°You¡¯re in your thirties,¡± stated Clover, trying to wake up on the right side of bed, and failing miserably, ¡°and you don¡¯t have the excuse of being Units. So why do you act like-¡± She couldn¡¯t find the right word. Yuki rested her head on her hand, leaning left, ¡°I¡¯m trying to train him.¡± Bob was prancing around the room, trying to pull his trousers up. ¡°He¡¯s thirty-four and he still has no planning skills, that¡¯s more than obvious from the fact that he flew out to Korea with only the barebones of a plan. Ok, Bob, question: what should you have done in the previous situation.¡± As he finally got his trousers on he answered quickly, ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have fallen asleep in your presence.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± she admitted, ¡°but the answer I was looking for was something along the lines of, ask someone to go find me or another pair of trousers, there are two dressed people here. The subject¡¯s problem is that he is illogical,¡± I got the feeling that was some sort of in-joke at the end. Clover was basically ignoring us, she yawned from tiredness. I would have told her to go back to sleep, but she¡¯d kept me awake last night, and like I said, that¡¯s left me bitter. As Bob hobbled over to the counter to get the cereal, I felt like I should ask, ¡°How¡¯d you get that limp Bob? Was that a result of acting ¡®illogically¡¯.¡± Yuki answered for him, ¡°Probably. He got it after June. Half his foot is missing, and he refused getting either a new one grown, or a prosthetic.¡± Bob poured the last of the milk into his bowl, ¡°It¡¯s got sentimental value, alright?¡± ¡°Ship of Theseus,¡± stated Clover, out of the blue, ¡°how many parts must you replace before you have a different boat altogether? Some people¡¯d say if the keel of the boat is replaced, that¡¯s what will make it a different ship. It¡¯s a sort of spine to the structure. But human beings aren¡¯t like that. Over a seven-year period, every cell of your body has died, and been replaced. So are you the same ship?¡± Yuki shrugged; Bob was scoffing down that horrible cereal. ¡°You¡¯ve forgotten things, changed mentally, I¡¯m not an expert, but the soul is supposed to change according to both of the aforementioned. So if all three archetypes change, then what makes you, really?¡± She stood up, and walked away, ¡°The fourth option, the triangle made from every other point. Self.¡± I hadn¡¯t a clue where this was coming from. Actually, I¡¯d never seen her with a hangover, was this the result? ¡°Uh-hu,¡± replied Yuki, confused as me. Clover sighed, ¡°I need a shower.¡± Bob had perked up, ¡°I guess I underestimated you Mountain-folk, huh?¡± He was wearing that now annoying smug face, Me and Yuki were going to lay into him for being- him, when there was a call from both of their phones. And actually, there was a call from our apartment as well. I recognised the blare; it was the same as it had been on the ship. The warning signal from the passing of that monster. The one that blew us away as we were passing tens of thousands of feet above it. Clover looked back, the mental stimulation zapped her awake, her wide eyes were exemplified by the bags that had built up under them. We checked the agents; Bob had the same response as back on the ship, Yuki was calm, she wasn¡¯t slouched anymore. She stood up, and fixed her suit. ¡°It¡¯s alright. It could be a Beast, or it could be- an announcement. Listen-¡± she stuck her head out the door, ¡°it¡¯s only our phones and this room that are giving the warning. This is a message from Administration for us, probably because we¡¯re Charlie¡¯s contacts, and this is the room they provided for her ¡®friends¡¯.¡± Bob closed his mouth. ¡°Either way, we should go, right?¡± I asked, but either option seemed like it was something we should check out. ¡°No,¡± answered Clover, ¡°this isn¡¯t about Charlie. This reeks of trouble on our end. But seeing as we aren¡¯t flying anywhere too soon¡­¡± Bob was clearly worried; Yuki was observing him. . . . We got there in Yuki¡¯s car, it was probably slower than me just carrying them all, what with the traffic, but I still wanted my low profile, because last time I ended up encountering Creh-umha. And that didn¡¯t end well for me. It might have taken just as long as the drive for us to ascend the Administrative tower. Bob insisted that we stop on Charlie¡¯s floor, Yuki kept him straight, ¡°Regardless of what¡¯s happening, the best thing to do is to head up to Capsid, if anything¡¯s happened to her, they¡¯ll be able to explain.¡± If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Clover joined in, ¡°And if a Beast is on the move, then she¡¯ll have been summoned as well, right?¡± While Bob finally pulled his finger away from the elevator button, Yuki answered, ¡°Every Unit living in Babel will have been summoned, that¡¯s the policy. Them and any highly valued guests,¡± she motioned to us with a smile. The smile wasn¡¯t in her eyes, not like it had been earlier, ¡°Most residential Units are out of town at the moment, post-June relocation is moving slowly, what with Egypt¡­¡± We were quiet for most of the ride up, there wasn¡¯t much to say. I thought to myself, there had to have been a better way to communicate what the problem was, I didn¡¯t understand what all this secrecy was for. Where they trying to keep this info from somebody? Were they worried about this information getting into the wrong hands? If that were the case, they¡¯d be warning us about a human threat, not a monster. Mass panic, I was sure. From the outside, this tower was strangely structured, it ascended straight up, and around the 90th floor it stretched out, if you were to see the ¡®head¡¯ of this structure from the horizon, it would always look like a basic hexagon Mounted on a thick pike. From inside, this place was like a maze for me and Clover, we only got so far because of the Agents¡¯ help. They eventually led us to some sort of command centre, in the centre of the head, or ¡®capsid¡¯ as they called it. There were people sitting at desks in front of holographic monitors, many of them were wearing some kind of device on their heads, all of them were multitasking as we walked in. Bob nervously approached someone who¡¯d been passing by, ¡°VIPU summons?¡± The woman he¡¯d stopped looked at his dishevelled appearance, and motioned, ¡°CFO¡¯s board room,¡± before walking off. Bob looked back to us and led down the central aisle between the desks, the room was built like a movie theatre, with one big display showing a map of the world, some sort of economic graph off to the side, with various news feeds, mug-shots, and other pieces of info I doubt I¡¯d fully comprehend even if I had been given the time to take it in. We were taken off to the left, until Bob stopped us. At a plaqued double door stood a fat man, reminding me of a pit bull. It was just the general shape of his head, his short stature- and obviously his scrunched face. I don¡¯t want to sound rude, but he had a look to him that said he bit. Yuki put her hand in front of Bob, letting him know that she had it. I didn¡¯t make out how she introduced herself, though he seemed repulsed by the fact that someone was speaking to him. Maybe that¡¯s not the right word, but he looked ready to chew her out. Then as she pointed back to us, his tone shifted. He still looked like a dog, but now he didn¡¯t want to eat us. He walked over to us, rubbing his hands like a fly, ¡°Hello, my name is Mr Greem, I am the CFO of our enterprise, and the one running this City. You¡¯ll be glad to know that everything is under control, as you can see, we have not entered a state of emergency. We¡¯re not going to get eaten by The Shadows any time soon, haha!¡± He must have noticed we didn¡¯t understand what was happening, ¡°Please, we¡¯ll be able to explain everything in my office. It¡¯s a private matter.¡± He scowled at his workers, then smiled back at us, ¡°I assume that the three of you are miss Parkers entourage?¡± Yuki was actually apprehensive, ¡°Four of us. Agent Parker is the VIPU¡¯s brother.¡± He tried to hide it; he¡¯d managed to warm up to Yuki after she¡¯d told him that the guests he¡¯d been waiting on had finally arrived, but his eyes were dark as he looked to Bob. ¡°Fair enough,¡± he at last managed, ¡°please, the other guests are waiting.¡± As we entered, I noticed a few familiar faces, and some I¡¯d never seen before The first to catch my eye was Charlie, she was at the front of the conference table and her hair was let loose. She had dressed in her high fashion jumpsuit and the gravity gauntlets, but she mustn¡¯t have had enough time to fix her hair back. Or maybe, in this environment, her status as a Unit was something she valued. There were around twenty chairs, and I wasn¡¯t surprised that at the complete opposite corner of the table sat Isaac Creh-umha. He might have turned his head to me as I entered, it¡¯s hard to tell with his helmet. He was positioned at the head of the table, beside where Mr Greem would sit. Across from him sat Dr Attrition, she had scanned her eyes over us as we walked in, focusing on Clover. This was a bad position for us. Not only did she know who we were, so did Isaac, and I trusted him with that info far less than the doctor who diagnosed me. Of course, in a room with twenty-one seats, it would be strange if only four of them were filled. Though I noted at least ten people standing, most of which were behind the people sitting opposite Charlie, the majority of the unfamiliar faces. I walked around to sit beside Charlie, but the director of the facility stopped me with a forced smile, ¡°Units sit, second-worlders stand. It¡¯s just to let strangers know your position.¡± I thought about what to do. I looked over to the Doctor, her gaze had shifted to me. I put on an equally disingenuous smile for Mr Greem, ¡°Thanks for the clarification, sir, but, as Dr Attrition can tell you, I am a Unit.¡± I pulled the chair out and sat down beside Charlie, who was glad to have another friendly face at the table. Mr Greem slowed, returning to the chief seat, ¡°That¡¯s right. The incident from the other day. I must thank you for not pressing charges on either the transportation firm, or on his majesty Creh-Umha. Maybe we can put all of that to rest for the moment, gentlemen? So we¡­ can get the real business out of the way.¡± I nodded along, though I half felt the king eyeing me up. Then something happened that I didn¡¯t expect. Clover sat down at the table. I had expected her to keep things quiet, to remain in the background as much as possible. So had everyone else who knew who she really was, Bob and Yuki shuffled behind us, Attrition raised an eyebrow. Mr Green commented, ¡°A pleasure to have you, miss¡­?¡± Clover folded her arms taking a different tone than anyone else in the room, ¡°If it¡¯s all the same to you, I¡¯d rather find out what¡¯s coming to kill me. If, this is everyone, which I¡¯m almost certain it is.¡± The man directly across from her snickered, though Mr Greem didn¡¯t seem to think it was funny. He covered himself, not wanting to say anything to affend the VIPU this black-haired girl was supposedly aligned with, ¡°Yes, you¡¯re right on two accounts. You are the last to arrive, and we should get things underway. Above all, I can assure you that there is no immediate threat to Babel, or to yourselves.¡± It was at that point I counted the number of Units at the table, the previously mentioned five I recognised, and the three I did not. There was the one that had laughed at Clover¡¯s joke, the man I¡¯d come to know as M.D. Ali. He was well built man, stretching his well-made suit. He was very dark skinned, to the point where he stood out to me. Then again, I¡¯m from a predominately white country, and the boonies at that. His head was cleanly shaven, and he had a short-kept black beard, it made him look older, but I¡¯m fairly certain he was somewhere in his late twenties. Despite the nature of this meeting, he had a positive attitude about him, he¡¯d been joking with the bleach haired man standing behind him, though it seemed to be a one-sided levity. I knew immediately that they were members of the exterminators I¡¯d heard about, judging from them having red ties. Another thing I¡¯d picked up on was the man with bleached hair¡¯s glare, it was transfixed on Bob, disgust etched into his face. Maybe they had some history? I never found out if that was the case. His name was Hunter Santiago, he was a hotshot in the exterminator department, fresh out of whatever training they go through, and he¡¯d become something of a rising star over the year or so he¡¯d been working. To contrast Bob, who was standing behind me, he was an important person. Sitting beside Ali, was another Unit, though not one officially allied with the Internationals, from how he was dressed. His name was Aayan, from what I could see of him at the time, he wore a small gold chain and a white tank-top with a graphic design on it, from some band I didn¡¯t recognise I¡¯m guessing. He was blonde, his hair spiked up. It contrasted the black facial tattoos that adorned his brow in a jagged crown. The other people behind them seemed to be friends and family, none of them were Agents. I honestly hadn¡¯t even noticed the third Unit at the time, after I¡¯d tried to make an assessment of the people in front of me, there was no time to study the others, Mr Greem had started. ¡°For those of you who¡¯ve been in similar situations before, you¡¯ll recognise the alarm we sent you as being the warning signal for the approach of a Beast or covert emergency. We purposefully kept the notification vague. The reason we notified you, and only you, was because as long as you are under our jurisdiction, you have a legal right to know if you are in the way of danger.¡± He pressed a rather old looking remote, and a holographic projection appeared, depicting the American west coast from space, along with a blurred image of some far away island off the coast. It was standing somewhere out to see, and I assumed it was the Beast we had encountered earlier. Clover must have as well, she was turned back to Bob. ¡°Angroboda?¡± It was Isaac who¡¯d asked. He was being relatively quiet for the majority of this meeting. He¡¯d always been the talkative type, so for a moment I wondered if me being incapacitated in one good punch had disappointed him. Greem smiled, it seemed to be an honest yellow grin, ¡°No. Angroboda is accounted for, at first, we thought it was the one that escaped captivity post-June, the Sky Beast, but after sending a Right corp drone in from the west, we realised it was the Jungle Beast, Tlaloc.¡± There was a general surprise from everyone in the room, except me and Charlie of course, we had no clue what they were talking about. Hunter, the standing exterminator asked, ¡°How is that possible? There¡¯s no way it got from the Amazon to, what I¡¯m guessing is off the coast of Portland, certainly not in a single month. It shouldn¡¯t even be active in that environment.¡± Mr Green was frank with him, ¡°Look, it¡¯s June, I can¡¯t tell you how it got there, but I can tell you that we¡¯ve got our best people together to relocate that thing. This is being done by a high-end professional.¡± I felt like I needed a better explanation. I debated raising my hand to speak, but refrained. I didn¡¯t want to look weak, or stupid. So I whispered to nobody in particular, ¡°I¡¯m going to need a break down on this.¡± Bob leaned forward, ¡°There are four classifications of monsters. The first, mutated animals, are supernatural creatures so weak they can¡¯t be detected via bio scans. Then there are creatures, more of a miscellaneous category then anything. They appear on bio scans due to their biological complexity; some are as big as a dinosaur; some are as big as a dog.¡± He breathed in, ¡°Then there are the eighty-one, monsters predicted as being greatly improved by their abilities, to a point where they are seen as above Units on the food chain, they have multiple powers, and they all appear clearly on bio trackers.¡± ¡°Then there are the Nine. The Beasts. Indisputably above 99% of all Units. There were twelve. Two were killed by the 1%, the other was killed by another Beast. They¡¯re called Beasts, because when the first four were categorised decades ago, they were likened to the Biblical stories of Armageddon. Their mere presence on the earth causes disaster for everything in their path. We¡¯ve lucked out, Tlaloc is docile at this distance. It¡¯ll kill us if we got close, but left unprovoked-¡± Mr Greem let out a restrained yell, ¡°That will be enough, Agent Parker,¡± He spat Bob¡¯s name out, ¡°This is all helpful information for the uninitiated, but regardless of context, what I¡¯m saying is far more important.¡± ¡°The Jungle Beast is currently 4 miles off the coast of Portland, at its current speed, it should reach Babel in two years. I¡¯ll emphasis, it is currently 200 miles away from us. You are safe. We¡¯ve asked you here to warn you not to go East. We are outside of its perception, that thing can¡¯t do anything to you here; my city is safe.¡± I childishly wanted to ask how big it was, but the fact that it was visible from 4 miles away told me it was large, and that¡¯s if it wasn¡¯t standing on the sea floor. Ali spoke up, ¡°And this couldn¡¯t have been communicated any better?¡± Greem stressed, ¡°It¡¯s a sensitive operation. If the Beast is purposefully provoked by our terrorists or extremists, then not only will our nearest exporter be infested by Tlaloc¡¯s spawn. And there¡¯s always the worst-case scenario.¡± Even I knew what he was implying. I¡¯d heard the news about Egypt. Hell, there were memorials on the streets as I was coming here. Hunter leaned over the table, ¡°Why don¡¯t we hit them with an R.O? A coordinated strike from orbit-¡± A laugh echoed through the room; it was similarly eery to Lechoslaw¡¯s. I recognised it as Dr Attrition¡¯s voice. The room turned to her attention, ¡°Apart from that aggravating the Beast? What purpose would that serve?¡± The young man hadn¡¯t expected that response. ¡°I think it¡¯s an improvement to just shoving that thing back down to South America.¡± Mr Greem smacked a hand at the air, ¡°We don¡¯t pay you to think; you¡¯re paid to kill things. The head Doctor is paid to solve these problems for idiots like you.¡± Hunter Santiago seemed offended, but he managed to bite his tongue. Greem relaxed his posture, ¡°Please, Attrition, continue.¡± Dr Attrition responded, ¡°Perus is it¡¯s natural habitat. Or rather, it is the only thing keeping the rainforest from dying. It and its spawn make up the majority of hypothetical biomass in that area, and as I¡¯m sure you know, that¡¯s where the majority of Earths oxygen is made, if I were to put things simply-. She swivelled around, ¡°Robert was partially right, the Beast¡¯s presence has a profound effect on the planet, the effects of removing one, if at all possible with the use of simple R.O.¡¯s, would cause a catastrophe.¡± ¡°And that¡¯s why we have decided to commission a VIPU to relocate it. It¡¯ll be done as soon as we get into contact with her.¡± Clover became uncomfortable, ¡°What are you giving her in return?¡± Greem hesitated, ¡°Well, miss, that will be decided once we contact her. We have reports of her being in North Africa, after the events of Ju-¡± Attrition interrupted, ¡°We can contact her right now. The hotlines in the room right now.¡± I got ready, from Clover¡¯s uneasiness I assumed this was an enemy of hers. And if I was being practical, I¡¯d admit that it would only be in Attrition¡¯s best interest to sell us out now. The circumstances had changed, if Clover could be used as a bargaining chip, I doubt the doctor would hesitate to offer her. Clover was holding up quite well, usually she struggled to hide her cards. It was only a slight change in posture and expression that tipped me off, and only me, someone who knew her. Attrition looked in our direction, ¡°Robert?¡± Clover turned back to look at Bob and I soon followed. He in turn checked the eyes of everyone else in the room. ¡°Uhm- Who do you want me to¡­?¡± Attrition smiled, ¡°Codename: Mother Goose. You are still on amicable terms, correct?¡± I could actually feel the room become clammier, as sweat began to fall from his face. Mr Greem interrupted their mental battle, ¡°Doctor, what are you getting at here? Are you trying to tell me that this Cleaner has a personal relationship with her?¡± She raised an eye. Bob gulped, ¡°Yes mam,¡± then proceeded to diel his phone. It rung for an eternity, or at least long enough for me to check back; all the eyes were on Bob, Ali seemed amused, the civilian sitting beside him seemed generally uninterested. Hunter Santiago seemed offended, and he made no attempt to hide his disgust. ¡°Hi, Santi, this is Bob- yeah, it¡¯s been a while, but you know I wouldn¡¯t- It¡¯s work,¡± he stressed, turning away in an attempt to dissuade the starring eyes. ¡°No, not even a little¡­ Well, I¡¯m glad to hear that-¡± he checked back, staring at me, ¡°Just hear me out. Ok? There¡¯s a situation here. A Beast¡¯s shown up near Babel, we need you to take it back to the rainforest, or- No, wait a second! Wait!¡± He hesitated, ¡°My sisters here. It¡¯s miles away, but the longer it¡¯s there the more risk she¡¯s in¡­ No, listen, you¡¯re not the only person who- I promised these kids I¡¯d get them home.¡± He nodded his head, ¡°Ugly duckling, Sant,¡± I mouthed my confusion to him, he waved a hand. ¡°Point is, they¡¯re in danger. Thousands of kids will die if that thing goes unchecked. So just come out here for an hour or two, talk the details over with-¡± He stopped. He flopped his arm down after a couple seconds. Looking around the room with a defeated face. It was clear she¡¯d hung up. Then, there was a pop. ¡°Alright, what do you want Bobby?¡± I recognised her immediately, so did Clover from her change in expression. There was a gasp from the entire room, I heard a crackle and the clattering of metal behind me. She stood tall dressed in a grey fabric, not to dissimilar to what Clover was wearing post-June, it was clothing for the desert heat. She had blue hair, the temples of which were grey. She wore a pair of blue mirrored sunglasses. ¡°Hand-Made,¡± I was the first to speak, though I didn¡¯t do so consciously. It was like I was back in that dream, right around the part it became a nightmare. She looked at me curiously, ¡°Santina Maria. I¡¯m assuming you¡¯re the duckling. You are a strange one.¡± She lifted an arm, but Bob blocked her. ¡°Don¡¯t.¡± It was the most serious I¡¯d seen him. She just smiled, ¡°I wasn¡¯t going to do anything. He has an interesting sense of fashion. And I¡¯m sure he has an interesting story to tell, it¡¯s been awhile since anyone¡¯s called me that, nino. Where¡¯d you hear that from?¡± I didn¡¯t answer. She scanned the room, sighing. Eventually she transfixed her gaze on the projection in the middle of the room. ¡°You want me to take care of that thing? To drop it somewhere in Peru, I just found the coordinates. Never mind an hour, I¡¯ll have this done in a minute.¡± Mr Greem interrupted, ¡°What do you want for this.¡± She bobbed her head, ¡°Well, normally I¡¯d ask for this little kid,¡± she gestured to me, ¡°but he¡¯s Bob¡¯s, so I¡¯ll refrain. Let me think¡­ I want twenty-seven tailor made space suits, made to survive extreme pressure changes please.¡± She leaned over to Yuki, who was perpetually aghast, ¡°One of my kids has been asking to go to io, and it wouldn¡¯t be fair to bring just one, right?¡± She smiled turning around. Greem was talking to a wall, ¡°We¡¯ll need a few months. You¡¯ll need to let someone into your complex to take the children¡¯s measurements.¡± She was transfixed on Charlie now, ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s fine. I¡¯ll be watching your transactions, is this your sister, Bobby?¡± Charlie, who until now had minded her own business, was now being studied by eyes she couldn¡¯t see. ¡°She¡¯s quite cute, isn¡¯t she? Though she¡¯s twenty-two now, that¡¯s a little old for my tastes,¡± She spoke about her as if she was an object, something to be looked down on, ¡°Hi sweety! Sorry I missed you when you were growing up, it¡¯s too bad, I¡¯m a great mother.¡± Bob pulled her off, ¡°Alright, that¡¯s enough,¡± The rest of the room looked ready to jump away when he grabbed her by the shoulder, I was ready to jump in. ¡°You said ducklings, didn¡¯t you? That means at least one more wandered in here.¡± She turned, eyeing Clover from afar, Bob kept a grip on her for as long as he could, but he eventually slipped his hands away. As Hand-Ma- as Santina Maria wedged herself between me and Clover, I caught a glimpse at the change in her expression. She started with the confident smile I¡¯d always seen drawn across her face, then it slipped, showing that same wondering expression she¡¯d used on me. Then she had a wide mouthed grin, ¡°It¡¯s you. Guess I can¡¯t do Bob any favours and get you kids home now, even if I wanted to let you go. I¡¯ve been banned from taking you with me, prin-¡± There was a quake; the lights flickered. We were around one thousand feet in the air, on a completely artificial city. There were sub floors stretching down just as deep into the earth. And yet the room shook. ¡°Thought you said they were a few miles off,¡± commented Maria. Mr Greem buzzed someone, ¡°What the hell was that,¡± came his gruff voice. There came a verbal reply from the centre of the table, ¡°Sir, there¡¯s been a breach in the buffer zone along with various minor structural attacks from here to the main area.¡± ¡°From city centre to the city border,¡± affirmed Ali, ¡°seems like you underestimated this thing chief. Mr Greem burst out in a red furry, ¡°We were supposed to have more time! How much damage has been caused to the western buffer?¡± The voice rang out again, ¡°Sorry sir, I might have caused a misunderstanding. The Eastern buffer has been broken into; the Eastern portions of the city have received minimal damages. I¡¯ve sent a few drones to assess the situation, they should be arriving shortly.¡± I hadn¡¯t a clue what was going on. I was under the impression that this was an attack from the monster, that one of its many powers had allowed it to get here quicker. Now I know that we were dealing with something far worse. We waited with baited breath, all of us except Maria. Bob asked, ¡°I don¡¯t suppose you¡¯re thinking of sticking around for whatever mess we¡¯re getting into? This is probably a greater threat to these kids.¡± I turned back to Bob, ¡°I thought you said that only the top-tiers could handle these monsters? Is she really going to be enough?¡± It really was quite simple. Clover had told me there were around 400 Units, and she¡¯d been on the verge of telling me that there were ¡®four-¡¯ Bob grimaced, ¡°Out of all Units, she is an honest contender for the prestige of most powerful. She¡¯d in that one percent.¡± As basic math had indicated, she was one of the 1%, the ¡®four¡¯. I was once again afraid of this woman, despite my powers and despite Bob¡¯s defence. I was afraid for those around me. I was afraid of what she could do. ¡°I¡¯ve got a visual, sir, patching it through.¡± The image of the beast sitting on the horizon vanished, and was replaced by a plane of black metal boxes. The image zoomed in, refocusing soon after. It was fuzzy from the distance, though through the cloud of smoke that had burst from the ground, movement could be seen, whatever it was, it was running forward, the cameras following it. It emerged, slowly details were revealed on the creature, everyone was leaning forward. Then it burst out of the fog. It was a man by appearance. I studied him, though there was slim chance I¡¯d recognise him. I heard a smack beside me. Clover had covered her mouth; a deeper shock was in her eyes then when she¡¯d heard the alarm. I looked back to it, the only thing I could make out was his face, and only slightly. There was some sort of disfigurement on the left side it, a burn or a scar. Santina Maria pushed herself from the table, ¡°Well, that¡¯s a completely different situation.¡± My eyes were still transfixed, as she turned to Bob, ¡°Call me when he¡¯s gone, Ok? I¡¯m not allowed to be so close to that man.¡± He tried to argue with her, she ignored him, ¡°Sorry, it¡¯s out of my hands. But really, once you get rid of The Channeler, I¡¯ll help.¡± I felt a rush of air and heard a pop. I- I thought she was supposed to be in the one percent, what could have possibly made her turn tail so quickly? The question went unanswered in that moment, but now I know, that just like every Unit, she had eventually found herself running from a Monster. I guessed, ¡°Is that- Belfast?¡± Clover peeled her hand away, looking at me with a dead smile, ¡°Heh, no, not everything revolves around us, you know? No, no, this is a complete game changer.¡± She stood, sweeping her bangs, announcing to the room. ¡°I am Bastard crowned Clover, of Bastard¡¯s Mountain, and I except no part in what happens next.¡± Deck 5.06: I watched a fight. I thought there was a reaction when Maria teleported in, this was something greater. The exterminators drew their weapons. Hunter drew a hand gun from its holster, Ali drew a clear blade from nowhere. Yuki pulled a gun too. I don¡¯t blame her, if she hadn¡¯t, she¡¯d have been an accomplice in the smuggling of a Mountain member, into the heart of the city. I hadn¡¯t expected that Clover would make this move. If I''m being completely honest, in that moment, I struggled to understand why she was revealing her hand. Now I know, that if she didn¡¯t do it herself, Attrition or Yuki would have done it. There was an unease- no, it was more than that, there was a terror from the civilians standing, they were frozen still. The first person to thaw through that age of ice was Mr Greem, there was a still restrained fury in him. ¡°What is the meaning of this?¡± Clover remained still, making no sudden movements, ¡°Like I said, I have no part in what Jack Chandler is doing down there. This is a shitty coincidence.¡± Hunter was probably the person in the room most willing to open fire, ¡°And you expect us to belie-¡± He was quickly silenced by Greem, who simply rose his fist. ¡°Then why are you here, Bastard crowned?¡± He looked to the second worlders on his right, ¡°Let the people go. This is now a private matter, don¡¯t you think?¡± She was carful with her words; I could tell she was keeping her tone in check, ¡°No, they stay. Little under a week ago, my territory, the Mountains undisputed territory, was registered under a VIPU supported by your people. As I was attending a funeral in Korea at the time, there was an opening. You closed my access to Vortech¡¯s channels to that area, and so I had no choice but to seek alternative means of transport.¡± ¡°Bullshit,¡± poked Ali, ¡°I¡¯ve that¡¯s the case, then why didn¡¯t you and Ganja-man just fly back on one of the Mountains Choppers?¡± She side eyed me, ¡°That¡¯s something I''d like to make clear to you, my friend here, Shamrock, is not aligned with the Mountain in any way. In fact, I only use the term ¡®friend¡¯ for simplicities sake. He only stuck with me because the current territorial master of Ireland is a common enemy. He only came with me to Korea because the funeral was for a common friend.¡± ¡°And I didn¡¯t fly back commercially, to keep him out of the Mountains eye, and because that channel is easier for our enemy to access than Vortech¡¯s. I wanted to travel incognito. So I worked my magic. I chose the Internationals, because Rocky had a contact, Bob Parker, who was left unaware of my true identity. I used my powers so that he¡¯d fall into a pit trap, where he¡¯d need our help. It¡¯s just luck that he happened to have a relationship with the head doctor.¡± ¡°That brings me to my second reason. I wanted to squeeze out any info concerning Ireland. And now none of you have a choice. You¡¯ve fallen into a conveniently placed pit trap, and now you have no choice but to listen to me, to bargain with me.¡± She relaxed into her chair, not a single person followed her. It broke Greem, ¡°You think that you can endanger an entire city- MY city, and face no consequences- No, you think you can benefit from this! You think that because of your position you can just, walk into my office, make demands, hold me at ransom in my country?¡± He bore his fangs spitting across the table, ¡°If you think I''m going to except the words of Mountain trash like you- that I''ll let you work your powers on me-¡± Clover cut him off, mocking him, ¡°I can¡¯t use my powers anymore. In this situation, I face the same limitations as Santiana Maria, I have been prohibited from using it near The Channeler, as you¡¯ve taken to calling him.¡± I had no idea why she would go so far. A few days ago, she had berated me for taking the same action, what reason could she have for making that ¡®stupid¡¯ decision. I wanted to check Bob, Charlie, and Yuki¡¯s reaction to all of this, but I felt like turning around would be a bad idea. ¡°So here is the deal. I supply you with Jack Chandler¡¯s weaknesses, the best counters for his Archetype. All I ask is that in return, not one of you speaks of my presence here, and that me and my associate are returned home.¡± I waited for a response. ¡°No,¡± At last, Mr Greem looked up from his shoes, wearing a face fit for a muzzle, ¡°You are in no position to argue. If you are without your powers, and you are without Bastard Tudor, then the most efficient course of action would be to deal with you and The Channeler now. If I¡¯m feeling merciful, we might even ransom you to your friend down there, see if we can end this without any more damage, eh?¡± He wasn¡¯t barking any more, he¡¯d chosen a route to take: Cool and hard. I fidgeted, not intentionally, I had nearly forgotten my position. With the slightest shift, multiple sights had been set on me. Clover lifted a hand to the table, making a gesture with her finger, tapping it on the table every second or so, like clockwork. It was to let me know things were alright, that or to strengthen her composure, or at least the calm image she was trying to project. Finally Clover explained why she was so calm at the barrel of a gun, ¡°You say that, Mr Greem, but it¡¯s too late. I said from that point on. I already made one final wish, that no matter what, you would accept the deal I propose. I might be in your office, surrounded by your men, but you¡¯re in my hands now.¡± Just like that, Greem¡¯s composure was shattered, he would have roared out, had someone not spoken up. ¡°If I may, dear host?¡± It was Isaac. He¡¯d been silent for the entire meeting, he had no points to make on the Beast, nor on the appearance on one of the Corners of the World. Yet, now he had politely raised his right hand. ¡°You are in the middle of a standoff between not you and the young miss Clover, you are in the Middle of a Mexican standoff as they say, between Mr Chandler, the Jungle Beast, and if you should leave the latter unattended to, the Ocean Beast will surely take notice of the conflict on the border of her territory.¡± He rested his shoulder on the desk, speaking calmly and concisely, ¡°The two encroaching threats far out way any presented by a powerless girl and her... serf.¡± I noted the change from ¡®king contender¡¯ to serf and was gladder for it. ¡°Whether or not she has information of value to you, the possible aid of two Units is something you can¡¯t pass under these conditions. All I know about Mr Chandler is that he can¡¯t be defeated by any less than three Units, or so they say. I don¡¯t suppose it would be any harm for us to hear her out.¡± Greem changed his expression as he looked to the Fomorian on his right. It wasn¡¯t quite confusion; he had a vague notion that what he was hearing was true enough. He began to lose himself in consideration. ¡°Sir, if I may,¡± Attrition spoke up, ¡°Perhaps we should discuss what we know of The Channeler? And weigh whatever information she provides us with.¡± Greem bit his tongue, though I''m sure there was a large part of him that wanted to give the firing order, but he was compelled by something- a stray line of thought, a sudden understanding, a change of character. He waved a hand, turning away from the table. ¡°Jack Chandler is not a Unit. A Unit is a creature that has taken the basic outline of a human mind, body, and will, shaping these attributes in abnormal ways, while keeping form. Keeping their Self. You can imagine your Self as an equilateral triangle made of three isosceles triangles. The colour, opacity, and material of the individual triangles change after becoming a Unit, but you are still the same person. You still have your Self.¡± I thought what that meant for me, and as if reading my mind, she answered. ¡°Then there are individuals, not necessarily Units, that have one of these triangles removed. They lose a piece of their Self, but the structure is still recognisable.¡± I sighed, I don¡¯t know why, I guess I was relieved that I was still ¡®myself¡¯ after everything. ¡°The Channeler is a one of a kind. His triangle is perfect. It is not broken into three separate pieces, it is One. His is the perfect archetype, the being that we are all made in the image off. Or so baseless theorisation would lead you to believe. I¡¯d simply call him a monster. The monster. A being that has surpassed human limits, that has changed and utilised the very essence of Self to reach an unattainable height.¡± Hunter weighed in, ¡°Having more than two powers.¡± Attrition didn¡¯t look over, ¡°Having six powers, is one of his true powers. He doesn¡¯t have to worry about his mind caving from overly heightened senses, or his body collapsing from conflicting properties. He can take it all into himself. His second power is copying any power flawlessly.¡± Clover spoke up, ¡°Is that all? The Doctor seemed displeased with her tone, ¡°Yes. Now, if you can, provide us with something more substantial than that.¡± Clover pushed back, looking up to the ceiling. ¡°Jake Channeler is a clone. We chose him for a experiment because he was one of a thousand. We asked the question, what happens in June? Bastard has become desperate for answers, and so one April he asked me to do my thing, he told me to ask for that individual to be able to remember the events of June. We chose a disposable, because it was a risky question, we were afraid that it would alter the recipient.¡± ¡°It did. He did remember June, whatever it was we had done, and I¡¯ll bet he remembers what you¡¯ve done, that¡¯s why he¡¯s here. That, or he¡¯s here for the high-end abilities a couple hundred miles due west.¡± She looked around the room, ¡°You want to know how to kill someone like that? Who knows things about you, that you''re not completely aware of?¡± ¡°Simple,¡± She put her feet on the table, ¡°you just shoot ¡®em in the head.¡± A fist slammed down on the table, Greem shouted out, ¡°I¡¯ll have you skinned you fascist little shit!¡± ¡°I¡¯m being serious,¡± Clover spoke louder but kept a calm tone, ¡°he can¡¯t copy objects. Your right, he can copy any ability. But imagine if he had Charlie¡¯s mind ability, that pasty guy sitting beside the doctor''s mind ability, Rights mind abilities- those are abilities useless in the field, when without material and time.¡± She laughed, ¡°If you rammed one of those ships into him, the only power he¡¯d get is knowledge on how to build one, he wouldn¡¯t be able to manipulate gravity or anything.¡± She tilted her head to the side, ¡°You must have a couple hundred here, right? Of those Lindenbergs? From how understaffed you are at the moment, I doubt you¡¯ll be able to get pilots for all of them, but it¡¯s a better move than dropping R.O¡¯s. Engage him close up-¡± Dr Attrition chimed in, ¡°If we follow that ¡®plan¡¯, then we¡¯d not only have to do without the use of even light R.O¡¯s, but Units as well.¡± Clover laughed again, it was becoming a robotic response by this point, ¡°Are you ready for this? I¡¯m almost certain I''ll have you convinced with this last part. Even if I don¡¯t, it¡¯s pointless to resist, you are now destined to do as I say.¡± Mr Greem had another outburst, ¡°Enough with these mind games!¡± Clover simply continued, ¡°Like a monster, he can sense the fact that you have powers, but not what they do. He needs you to use it on him before he can take it. There¡¯s no way of knowing what powers he has now, but your best bet would be to hit him with something faster than human perception.¡± There were glances to the Unit civilian, who had remained undisturbed until now. ¡°Alternatively, you could use some sort of area affecting ability, an ability he would have to spend on of his slots to counter.¡± Now there were twice as many looks to Ali. ¡°How the hell do you know-¡± started, Hunter. Clover cut him off, ¡°I don¡¯t know anything about you people,¡± she twirled a strand of hair, ¡°It¡¯s just my luck that I''d mouth off some crap that was relevant to you. Don¡¯t get me wrong, those approaches will all work.¡± Finally, she took her feet back down and stood up, ¡°I can¡¯t assure you a flawless victory, but this will be the absolute best course of action for you. It¡¯ll minimise loses, of life and resources, and I''m certain it¡¯ll get the job done quickly, so that big green road block can get shifted- so me and my mate can fly home.¡± She crossed her arms with a smile, ¡°Do we have a deal Mr Greem?¡± He was considering it now, no longer reluctantly, ¡°And you¡¯re positive that the damages will be minimized? And all we¡¯ll be giving you is transportation-¡± Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. ¡°-And for us to be scrubbed from your records,¡± Clover nodded seriously, ¡°if I find out that any of you leaked my status to Belfast-¡± She checked me, her moral compass, ¡°-let¡¯s just say, it¡¯s just my good karma, that something horrible should happen to ¡®whoever ratted me out¡¯.¡± She looked back to Greem, all eyes following soon after. Ali kept his levity, Hunter was appalled, and Aayan who didn¡¯t seem to mind that the city was being attacked, broke into a sweat. Greem showed his yellowed teeth, but not in a snarl; he was smiling as he had when he had welcomed us in. . . . Again, I found myself descending through an elevator, leaving the command centre. I was pissed. ¡°You seriously expect me to do nothing? Two enormous threats, and you expect me to just go back to the hotel room and twiddle my thumbs?¡± Though it was a cramped space, I still swung my arms around. Clover shushed me, ¡°You are the absolute worst match for this fight,¡± She grabbed my arms, ¡°You were talking about these things restricting yourself, and Glass God knows what mental restrictions you¡¯ve put on yourself. Chandler doesn¡¯t have those kinds of restrictions. You said you could clear a good few miles in an hour, he¡¯d probably make a break for the Jungle Beast if he got the chance, then loop back here and kill everybody with whatever powers he gets.¡± I grit my teeth, ¡°But we can¡¯t just let him rampage through the city!¡± Bob tried to calm me down, ¡°He¡¯s in the buffer zone, it was made to disorientate monsters approaching the city, it¡¯ll work on him till the strike squad arrives.¡± I¡¯d seen a topological map of the city, if I had to describe its shape, I''d compare it to a car wheel, Administration is the centre, the lived-in part of the city was the practical metal part, and the buffer zone was the rubber tire. It encircled the city, taking the brunt of any wear from running this facility. It¡¯s not a perfect circle, but it came to mind when I was looking at the map. The average radius of the city was around 20km, around five of which were devoted to the buffer zone. There was really no telling what kind of abilities he had, who¡¯s to say he wouldn¡¯t simply look at this structure we were in right now and disintegrate it? There was a beep from the two agents¡¯ phones. The occupants of the elevator were kept to a minimal. We alone were allowed to leave the command centre, not counting the strike team. There was me and Clover, we¡¯d been given clearance to fly back home. There were the Parkers, Bob was going to be our pilot again, Charlie had elected to stay with him. Of course, because Charlie was now a highly valued VIPU, our original group couldn¡¯t be trusted with her information. So, they switched Yuki out for Hunter. ¡°And when that strike squad arrives, you Mountain Bastards better pray for your friend. I don¡¯t see him getting out of there.¡± Clover laughed at him, ¡°You haven''t a clue what¡¯s happening, do you?¡± He pulled a fake smile, ¡°Twenty-five Lindenburgs are about to coming crashing down on him, along with three Units. Even if he does copy their abilities, he doesn¡¯t have the experience with said powers or numbers that our guys have.¡± Clover avoided eye contact, ¡°Incredible. I¡¯ve never seen so many baseless assumptions in a single sentence, and I practically live through assumptions. First of all, he gains an animalistic understanding of the abilities he copies. ¡®A spider doesn¡¯t need to learn to spin a web¡¯. And secondly-¡± She looked up at him now, ¡°What makes you think he¡¯ll want their abilities?¡± The door opened, and we were once again on Charlie¡¯s work floor. ¡°I¡¯d say he¡¯ll only want three abilities, the ones he¡¯ll need to take to live.¡± Despite Clover being the one who made the plan, we were left in the dark as to what those powers actually were, we¡¯d only given them a few good ideas, I think. It¡¯s not that Clover¡¯s power had given her any clue what was happening, she just said the first few things that came to mind and it just happened to mean something to them. There was again, a droning ring from the agents'' phones. ¡°They¡¯ve made land fall.¡± Bob nodded, ¡°I¡¯ll patch the picture through to some nearby monitors.¡± Hunter kept that spiteful smile, ¡°You know cleaner Parker, I don¡¯t trust either of these kids. But I actually think you¡¯re incapable enough that you hadn¡¯t a clue who they were when you brought them here. So, let me spell this out for you. Do not give them our visual.¡± Bob turned around, ¡°You felt that rumble Hunter, how long do you think it¡¯ll be until he collapses this tower?¡± Hunter stormed after him as Bob made his way to the room we would watch the fight in, ¡°As soon as his friends are out of the city. Why else would he let out that tremor, other than to let somebody know he was here.¡± Bob sent the multiple feeds to the monitors, Charlie had drifted off to find something, Hunter began to waver between his duty of protecting the VIPU, and his hot-headed hatred of Bob. He finally pointed, ¡°Do not let them watch it, Parker!¡± As soon as he turned the corner Bob started it up. It was a channel between Administration, and the twenty-seven body cams issued to those on the mission. The first one that came up was a suit piloted by an Agent Pilkington. They circled around Chandler, the majority of the Lindenberg suits coming to a stop in the ruins of a fa?ade building that had blown up in smoke. ¡°Target spotted. Bergs one-through-eleven landing in the East.¡± Ali replied, ¡°Twenty-two stick with his majesty, cloak yourself in the aura of the radio tower, that¡¯ll render you invisible to his monster senses. Can¡¯t speak for whatever other tricks he¡¯s got up his sleeves.¡± ¡°Copied, sir.¡± ¡°Twelve-through-twenty-one, move in on vantage points in the N-W-S, in case he tries to escape into Urban sprawl.¡± ¡°Berg¡¯s Twenty-three-through-twenty-five... engaging.¡± The feed cut to four screens, two agents I didn¡¯t know, Ali, and Aayan was being carried in, without armor. Almost every member of the strike squad was outfitted in mech suits, I thought they were Axel¡¯s, but apparently there made by a one of the Internationals¡¯ guys, the Unit that was sitting at the briefing, the one that didn¡¯t stand out enough for me to look into them any deeper. They used jets and anti-grav for flight, and equipped with a couple missiles and conventional fire arms. They stood no taller than the length of a car. The three that were engaging from the front opened with a barrage of bullets, so as to not give Jack any cover to possibly hide behind. I observed him from four perspectives, despite this, I could hardly make out any details, his clothes were obviously made for a hot-dry environment. There was a sudden sweep of his foot, and the cameras shook; that black smoke erupted from his feet. One of the agents cameras fell away, the sound of clashing metal rang out as he was struck from the available members of the squad. The other two rose above, Ali picking up Aayan. ¡°Creh-umha, visual!¡± Isaac pontified in response, ¡°Yes, he¡¯s still on the ground, not moving at an inhuman speed. Our ally is dead. I have a shot; he appears to be waiting for us to make the next move.¡± ¡°Hold of,¡± said someone from Admin, ¡°We still don¡¯t know that he can¡¯t copy your suit.¡± Isaac hypothesised, letting his character get the better of him, ¡°I don¡¯t believe he can. If I were to take this shot, I believe he¡¯d simply gain the schematics of the Shaul of Brig-¡± Ali yawned, ¡°Tell us where to aim, your majesty.¡± Isaac grumbled out a position, and the two shot out half a dozen missiles at their target. The shock wave alone shattered a city block, from the black smoke erupted fire, like nothing I''ve ever seen before. I thought back on the Gator, it had destroyed an area around the same size, though I hadn¡¯t seen it like this before. I¡¯ve said this a lot, but it was the realisation that I was so small, that¡¯s what impacted me most. The two that were engaged circled the fire, until it faded. There was only that black smoke. ¡°His ability is still active,¡± noted an agent. Ali had a chipper tone in his voice, ¡°Oh whatever, we¡¯re not getting anywhere with ranged attacks, like the Mountain girl said.¡± With that he dipped down, Aayan¡¯s scream was cut out by a draft of air on the outside, Ali¡¯s laughter was unfiltered. He landed directly in the shadow. ¡°Alright, I''ve done my thing. With any luck, he hasn¡¯t noticed any difference.¡± It was at this point that Ali used his ability, though it wasn¡¯t shown by the camera¡¯s. ¡°He knows me and Aayan are Units, so he¡¯ll be cautious,¡± you could practically hear Ali¡¯s smile. Aayan was recovering. Ali set him down, ¡°You¡¯ve gotta get a grip, man. You want that pay cut, right?¡± Aayan regained his composure, his panic turning to hunger. He and Isaac had been offered compensation for aiding in this fight. I¡¯d have done it for free, if both Clover and the squad hadn¡¯t discouraged the idea. I was bidding my time. On the complete opposite side of the battle field, up north, there was a new plume of smoke and buildings toppled, this was shown by Berg fifteen. ¡°He took the bait. Get¡¯em boys,¡± Ali blasted forward, the smoke in the area he had landed in fading. Aayan was left behind, he still needed to psyche himself up. Finally, one of the Berg¡¯s landed a definite blow on him. Though the reason for its ineffectiveness was revealed in the same instant. Suddenly, a giant black blade materialised, whipping out. It was like a great lizard''s tail, but large and metallic. I recognised it as the Gator¡¯s. As it swung out, the rest of the machines body manifested. ¡°That¡¯s one of Right¡¯s robots,¡± shouted an agent, Admin replied, ¡°The Gator has been categorised as a Unit. Clover¡¯s information has held true.¡± I wondered how they met, if he might have any of the Circuit Boards other powers stored. It gnashed its teeth down on another Berg, shattering more buildings with its tail. By this point, four of the Bergs had been destroyed, four people had been killed. Some of them unloaded their missiles into the dark Gator, it did damage, but after de materialising, and rematerializing the head and arm, it was regenerated. It was moving quickly, recklessly, as it could afford to trip over it¡¯s self, swatting gnats out of the air. ¡°It¡¯s alright,¡± affirmed Ali, ¡°Back up. Give him some more space, focus fire on the stomach. We¡¯ve discovered three of his abilities, we¡¯re half way there.¡± They did as commanded, though he blocked most of the attacks with his arms and tail, he didn¡¯t make any rash advances on the retreating Burgs. He threw himself to the ground, using it to the part of the ship that housed his real body. The black smoke dissipated, and the Gator¡¯s engines went dead. ¡°Ah, shit. Maybe we should¡¯ve been more aggressive...¡± Ali dove down, standing at the creature''s side. He gave it some thought. ¡°Three, thirteen, and nine, approach from the opposite side as me.¡± They did as they were told, one of them unleashing a couple blasts to breach the hull. ¡°Be careful not to get fused with it if he suddenly decides to reform that thing. Who knows if he can do that.¡± They had entered the living quarters, using their built-in flood lights to guide them through the dark. ¡°It¡¯s empty,¡± admitted Isaac, ¡°I don¡¯t know how, but he¡¯s disappeared from my sensors. He was there when he landed, I can tell you that much, he curled into a ball where you three are right now.¡± Then the Gator dematerialized. A fissure was formed, both from the general damage to the area, the caving in of the disappearing metal, and whatever actions Jack Chandler had taken. One of them managed to back out before the ground ceased their mobility, the other two were at his mercy. One still had a gun arm free, firing on the target. It did nothing, he simply manifested a portion of the Gator directly in front of him, acting as a shield. Jack managed to get too close to the gunner for them to fire. It was at this point that Ali descended into the pit, looking to engage in melee rather than riddle his peers with bullets. Somehow, it wasn¡¯t entirely clear due to him being out of the camera frame, but Jack managed to break into the cockpit. It was at this point he used his fourth known ability. The agent that had nearly gunned him down, screamed out for a second before the audio cut off. Both pilots that had fallen into the pit went silent, their names being struck from the list. Just before Ali could grab at the entombed mech, there was a tremor, and the black smoke erupted from the fissure. Jack did engage in melee with the mech, the camera shut off, and Ali was forced to use the last of his missiles to blast himself out of the darkness. He was flung just over the ledge, stabilising himself just forego any damage to himself, the same can¡¯t be said for his armour. Two more came down, ¡°Ali, you okay?¡± ¡°He still on me?¡± ¡°He¡¯s still in the pit. Seems he barely had time to react to that blast of yours,¡± replied Isaac. ¡°It would seem whatever seismic ability he has is not limited to the ground, it appears to be able to interfere with my sensors, and it does correlate with the usage of that fog, though, that it¡¯s self does not hinder my abilities to-¡± Ali kicked his cockpit open, I ignored whatever Isaac was trying to communicate. He wouldn¡¯t be jabbering on for much longer, however. Jack spoke out. ¡°You¡¯re name is Typhus Ali, though you ask people to call you M.D. Ali. You like how it rolls off the tongue, and it speaks more to your personal accomplishments, your pride. You roped two other Units into this Isaac Creh-umha, who is currently over at that tower, waiting for the right time to shoot me. Along with that man standing off to my right, Aayan. He¡¯s just some guy who wanted to live in peace, cursed with being a Unit, and thus roped into this mission.¡± He pulled himself out of the fissure, the black forming behind him as he walked, ¡°That¡¯s why I''m going to kill him first.¡± He looked up to the sky, ¡°I couldn¡¯t care less about the ignorant among you, they pose little to no threat to me. Fly away, and I will not come for you. I¡¯m only here to @#$$$#%@$@!!$#%^&%.¡± I couldn¡¯t understand what he was saying at the end of that sentence, nobody did. The Channeler picked up on this. He sighed, ¡°I¡¯m here to hold someone accountable. You¡¯re just stepping stones.¡± He was coming closer into view of the cameras, though I doubted I''d be able to get a good look at him. ¡°That was the objective. But now there is something else I''d like to do, if at all possible.¡± He turned Eastward, towards the tower, ¡°I¡¯d like to find the informant. The woman I stole these short term memories form wasn¡¯t a high enough rank to know the identity of whoever told you to use these strategies.¡± Clover put a finger to her mouth. ¡°And even if it was the King himself, I¡¯d gladly look him in the as I rip him apart.¡± Clover tsked in response, ¡°Fucking Jack, damn wildcard...¡± I focused on the video again trying to make note of his abilities, Ali was doing the same. ¡°The hell are you rambling on for? We know four or five of your abilities now, Gator, the smoke crap which might be the same as those tremors, mind reading from all that shit talking, and you copied my ability or else you¡¯d be facing the wrong way.¡± He continued his walk forward, and despite him being only a few meters away, I couldn¡¯t make out his face, just the scar. ¡°It isn¡¯t mind reading. It¡¯s a mind link, except, it wasn¡¯t made for me, my mind is-¡± They opened fire, he sunk back into the shadows. I couldn¡¯t hear anything, there was a rumble that reached all the way to the city centre. Clover slapped on the side, ¡°Now would be a good time to gather everyone up.¡± I ran through the floor as fast as I could, completely believing her. I didn¡¯t catch whatever happened next but I felt the room shudder, I soon came across Hunter, who pulled a pistol on me. I put my hands up defensively, though I doubt it would have done if he¡¯d fired it. ¡°Charlie!!!¡± I tried to shout over the rumbling, I doubt she heard me, but Hunter did. ¡°Goddamn,¡± he cursed. After lowering the gun, he split off from me to find her. I had a feeling that whatever was going to happen next, it wasn¡¯t going to be on the level of an earth quake, or a Gator dropping, they¡¯d already done that much damage, and it was clear that The Channeler had just been biding his time, waiting for an opening to gain info on his opponents, whether their abilities were worth the trouble. Now, the city was screaming out. What could be worse? I found her she was stuck to the roof, remaining still. When she saw me walk in, she descended fast slamming into my arms. I don¡¯t know why, but when she hugged me tightly, I became far more afraid. It was the desperation, her fear, it made the structured complex we were sheltered by feel far more fragile. I froze. And it served to cost us. There was a real tremor, not like the ground was quaking, not like we¡¯d been hit with turbulence, we were being smashed into. I was thrown off my feet, and for a second, I thought to let go of Charlie, but was gripped with a fear of the roof caving in. Like it had on Valentine''s day. I didn¡¯t hear her scream, I didn¡¯t hear the walls blast open, the world went quiet. All I could hear was my increasingly laboured breathing. It took a slam into the wall to partially bring me back to my senses. I was afraid, but now I put my terror to action, I bowled under a counter, keeping her close to chest, trying to protect her. And eventually, the shaking settled, as it was passing into the distance. I was shaking, a smile barely passing my lips, ¡°A-ah...¡± was the best I could manage. Charlie looked up to me, nearly in tears. ¡°It¡¯ll be okay.¡± I reassured, ¡°You¡¯ll be okay.¡± Looking to the gaping maw, the entire city was on display. It had blown right through the wall, leaving a gape in the floor. The door I had come through was gone, a mesh of steel in its place. She saw it now to, and was on the verge of crying out, she stuttered instead. I cradled her, testing the floor as I looked out onto the city again. Sirens began to blare from the streets below, and from inside. I stared wide eyed at the starry sky, the sky was a dark cool colour, not night or day. There was a robotic voice, ¡°Babel is under attack by a high-end threat. All residents are urged to find shelter areas safe from threat include: Evacuation centres. North or South buffer zones. Sub complexes. It is heavily advised that you avoid the city centre. Threats include: Falling debris. Rioters. Unitary terrorist. Administration has been breached. Containment has been breached. Repeat; avoid Administration, it is a high priority target, and there is a high risk of captured Eighty-Ones escaping.¡± I take one last look at the city, then up. This was his fifth ability. I saw that starry night fill with streaks, as the jewels of the night sky blasted down to earth. Finally, Charlie screamed out at the cosmic horror in front of us. A scar. Deck 5.07: I poked a pigs snout. Looking back, I shouldn¡¯t have acted so hastily. It felt like a couple minutes had passed before I started to run through the rest of the complex, shouting at Charlie. I asked her for directions, not like she could have given them at the time, she¡¯d only been here for little over a day, that, and she was unresponsive. My first thought, which came from my fixation on this super powered world was that her ears had been blown out by the deafening blasts from the stars, but I neglected, (and would continue to neglect), that she was not a fighter. She told me that she hated this world, that she was trying to escape it, if, via the roundabout manner of using her supernatural abilities to make a fortune and then live her life in peace. And here I had her slung, over my back, and all that I was thinking about was whether or not I could make it down to the battle in time. I was wondering if I could smash one of those streaks crashing through the sky or if it would disintegrate me. I was thinking about the internationals¡¯ guys down there, what powers they had, I wondered if I''d be able to counter their powers if used by ¡®the channeler¡¯. And I was dying to find out what the sixth power he had stored was. The open mouth smile was torn off my face by another meteor tearing straight through the building, just a leap in front of me. I pulled Charlie''s legs to my chest as I fell on my ass. I was knocked off a peg, as a splinter of the bad guy''s power burned through floors of reinforced steel, or whatever this city is constructed from. I¡¯m definitely a super hero, sure. Sure. I remembered my place. ¡°Ok... Charlie, ok. Here¡¯s what we¡¯re going to do- we''re uhm, we¡¯re going to find Bob, and Clover, and Hunter, then- then we¡¯re going to go down to the street level, get on a- a flying-thing and get out of here.¡± I still don¡¯t know what those flying machines are called, and it didn¡¯t matter in the end, because she wasn¡¯t listening to me. It¡¯s not like I said anything ground breaking anyway, that was the plan from the start. There was no way Charlie was going to regain her composure, not while her life was literally falling down around her. Well, I¡¯ve been there. That was in the back of my mind, it always is. The Gator. It wasn¡¯t actually him down their right now, but it was the Gator¡¯s powers. If I can beat him- if I can destroy his Gator- Then I could have stopped him from killing those people. I dipped into the only available corridor; I would have preferred the other one, but I didn¡¯t want to chance it, not with the floor falling through at the edge of the star¡¯s scar. I was running as fast as I could, I didn¡¯t pace myself for Charlie¡¯s sake, I did it so I''d have time to look around the tens of rooms I was sprinting through. I was looking for anyone and everyone, there were no workers as far as I could see, though there hadn¡¯t been many when I first came to this floor. My mind suddenly lept to the room full of people in the command centre. I had three choices then, to get my group down and out, to go back up, or to fight. Before I could decide on my own, I saw Hunter turn the corner, and face me for a split second, before another tremor hit. He screamed ¡°Shit!¡± and I dashed over to him, ready to scoop him up. We shouted in union, ¡°What¡¯s the status?¡± I stayed quiet, wondering why he was asking me that. ¡°Is Parker injured,¡± he groaned under the rumbling. I zapped back to reality, ¡°No, but she¡¯s catatonic.¡± He glared for a second. ¡°Give me directions to the elevator, and I''ll carry you-¡± Half-way through my meek words, he managed a laugh, his face twisting in a half-mocking, half-honest smirk, ¡°Like hell. Ever heard of the scorpion and the fox? I do that and you¡¯ll have no use for me, I¡¯ll lead the way, but you¡¯re handing over the VIPU.¡± Even though I myself was focused on things other than our immediate danger, I realised that this was not the time or place for politics. And it wasn¡¯t the time for arguing either. I handed Charlie over to him; she was as light as a balloon. He took a second to adjust his posture, and it was then that I realised his pistol was half raised. From the look of it, it was definitely some kind of sci-fi gun, rectangle barrel, parts seemingly leading to nowhere, the usually pony show. Hunter¡¯s smile had faded to a grimace, his eyes hadn¡¯t changed from when I first met him. There was a moment between rumbles that stretched time. And he finally said, looking down the corridor he¡¯d just ran through, ¡°Don¡¯t fall behind, ass-¡± He cut himself off before starting to run again. It was slower, a snail''s crawl in comparison to my preferred pace, but after a hundred rumbles and another blast through the wall, we got back to the elevators. I skidded to a stop, not even acknowledging the fact that Clover was safe and sound, I was thinking about whether it was a good idea to even use the elevators. I must have mumbled my thoughts aloud, because she shouted, ¡°Hover-tech, dumbass!¡± I was getting sick of people insulting me; looking down on me. Before I could say anything, Hunter picked up on something a hero would have noticed. ¡°Where¡¯s the cleaner?¡± I thought about it for a second before realising that Bob was gone. I turned heel and asked, ¡°Which hall? If he was looking for Charlie, then he¡¯d have gone down.¡± ¡°Shit...¡± Hunter growled to himself. Clover shouted at me again, ¡°We don¡¯t have time for that! We¡¯re out of luck, remember!?¡± ¡°Right, this hall should loop in that direction,¡± I got ready to kick forward when Hunter chimed in, ¡°Queen bitch here is right, our best bet is to get onto street level, Agent Parker will do the same once he loops back here.¡± For some reason that stopped me. Not because I put any thought into that statement however. ¡°He won¡¯t stop looking. He wouldn¡¯t stop if it was a random kid he just met, and he certainly won¡¯t stop for his own sister.¡± Hunter snarled, ¡°Listen, I- You''re a Unit, our collective best chance for survival is sticking together!¡± He thought about it for a second, ¡°You¡¯re not going to leave me with her, are you? A hot head like me, with a defenceless enemy leader-¡± I cut him off, ¡°If you ¡®let her die¡¯ I¡¯ll break your legs.¡± ''Oops'', was the thought that poped into my head during the silence that followed. It just sort of slipped out. I wasn¡¯t being serious; it was figurative more than anything. I didn¡¯t think he was going to try anything, though he¡¯d been an ass. Clover was shouting at me, and this was the first high stakes event I''d been in since Valentines. ¡°I¡¯m going. You don¡¯t like it, come with me.¡± I imagine myself remaining expressionless, while Clover was mortified, and this guy was glaring. I darted off, finally. Though I said they could come with me, there was no chance of them catching up with me. The rattling and creaking of the building continued and grew. I was far more reckless with my jumps; I skipped over pits that shot deep into the lower floors of the building. And eventually, I stumbled upon a person. Well, between the fraction of a second I passed it by, the few seconds of milase I spent calling out, I thought it was a person. It was the oinking that made me think otherwise. Then it was the fact that it was translucent. There was a short humanoid figure, it was hunched over, balanced on its good leg. I had been starring at its back, until it somehow knew I was there. Its head turned to face me, oinking as bubbles poped around its gelatinous head. At first it looked half human, half pig. It had an unmissable snout, and the floppy ears perking up out of the top of its head. Shit, (I thought), first monster. Hopefully this thing isn¡¯t acidic. As it rose, I squared off. And then I noticed a group of bubbles build up in the throat, at the same time I understood what the frame letting this thing stand up was. The bubbles boiled out at the surface, but instead of that oinking, it said, ¡°Is there anyone there? Where is everyone? So... damp...¡± Underneath that pinkish jelly was a person. My teeth chattered before I could say Bob. I stood in shocked horror as it limped forward. Suddenly the limping shot to mind. I steeled myself. Whatever that stuff was, I just had to tear it off with my hands. Whether it¡¯s corrosive or not. As I was about to pounce, a metal panel frisbeed down the corridor, a corner sticking deep into the things back, causing it to fall forward onto its bad foot. I looked at the thrower, and shouted out in surprise. Bob pointed at the pig-thing, ¡°Zombie! Don¡¯t touch!¡± His words forced out, hardly audibly over the chaos, the distance, and Bob¡¯s overly laboured breathe. ¡°It was speaking,¡± I argued. ¡°Mimicry! Slip past it and run, kid!¡± ¡°Is it a monster?¡± I asked, put at least a little bit at ease by the fact that he knew what it was, that it wasn¡¯t from Jack. ¡°Yeah, a weak one- just run!¡± I nodded. I put an arm out to the wall, tearing a panel from it. If Bob¡¯s poor throw could lodge one in the pig¡¯s back, then... It was a flic of the wrist, for a second, I thought back on art class. Not long ago I¡¯d have used that same motion for a messy stroke on a page. Half the thing''s head splattered messily across the wall it had been closest to. Bob screamed in soprano. I hopped over the body, and informed Bob that ¡°Charlie¡¯s fine. As fine as she can be I guess, she¡¯s at the elevator we came on, with the others.¡± His eyes popped back into his head, ¡°Thank god...¡± I looked back the way I came, ¡°What was that thing? You said it was a zombie.¡± He scratched the back of his head, looking me up and down, ¡°Yeah, there are a couple monsters kept in the city.¡± I gave him a look. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°You know,¡± he continued, ¡°for research. We¡¯ve made a ton of stuff from interesting ones, Int fluid, transcogitate- I''m pretty sure there were three Eighty-ones in command, that thing you just killed was a part of one of them.¡± He finished inspecting me, ¡°Just touching that slime is all it takes for it to start the assimilation process, it¡¯d seize motor control in the affected area, start sapping nutrients for propagation, invade your nervous system, link you to its hive mind-¡± ¡°Wait, what?¡± He thought about it for a second. ¡°No... I mean, yeah, it knows where we are, that there¡¯s a delicious Unit right here-¡± I put a hand up, ¡°Don¡¯t describe me as delicious, but go on.¡± He started to walk as fast as he could with that limp, ¡°That one was beaten up pretty badly, it might have come in from anywhere.¡± I nodded along. Bob stopped in his tracks. ¡°Can you carry me?¡± Somehow, I was still surprised by this guy. He stretched his arms out like a kid, ¡°Please?¡± I threw him over my shoulder, and our speed tripled. I smiled to myself, ¡°You know, for a second I thought that thing was you, Bob.¡± ¡°It¡¯s pronounced Bob, and what made you think that? That guy was decomposed for a couple weeks.¡± I answered his question with a question, ¡°In a world where 5-mile-wide animals exist, why isn¡¯t it possible for a guy to turn into a pig in half an hour?¡± He let out a thoughtful grunt, and I continued, ¡°Not to mention, that thing had a limp on the same leg as you.¡± He thought about it for a second before shouting out, ¡°Wait really? That¡¯s actually kind of freaky, isn¡¯t it! Kid, you better have not jinxed me.¡± I took a U-turn round a corner, ¡°Bringing up the jinxing double jinxes you.¡± We came to a particularly large horizontal chasm, and I looked for the best place to leap over from. ¡°Well, with that logic, you¡¯ve just... what, quadruple jinxed us?¡± I shook my head, ¡°It depends if it¡¯s exponential or additive.¡± Bob had surprised me with his idiocy earlier, but I was impressed how well he was taking all this, compared to how Charlie handled it, at least. I guess I¡¯m trapped in this loop of underestimating and overestimating this 30-year-old white-collar worker. ¡°KYEEEE!¡± I looked back at the 30-year-old pansy on my shoulder. ¡°Move, kid!¡± Luckily, I positioned myself to move right before a loud oink sounded out. I not only leapt to the other side of the pit, but to the floor below us. I pried Bob off me with one arm, and formed a fist with the other. When I whipped my head around, I was looking straight up through the hole, the giant amorphas blob illuminated by the stary sky and dim lights. The same colouration as the man-shaped one from earlier, but this was more gel than animal, that¡¯s not to say it wasn¡¯t comprised of animals; along with its cohort of sub-monsters roaming free from the blob, there were all sorts of animals in it: cats, sheep, a horse, and people. A few figures had the distinct tie worn by International agents, most of the ones outside of it wore the same outfit as the helpers assigned to Charlie. It was a small frail army with a bus sized mastermind; two floors up from us and descending. The humanoids aimlessly stumbled off the side, falling like droplets, the pig-brain squealed out as it oozed surprisingly efficiently where we had been standing not five seconds ago. ¡°How do I take it out?¡± Bob screamed in my ear, ¡°Just run!¡± I ignored him. I looked at the people this thing had swallowed in the few minutes I had spent running in circles. I let my fist go and ran. I ran to the exposed wall and pulled at it, looking for a certain part. Bob pulled at me, ¡°Come on kid! That unranked monster kicked your ass! You can¡¯t take this thing on; this is a worse match up then the Pooky!¡± ¡°Pooka,¡± I corrected, ¡°And I¡¯ve got a couple ideas that are better than ¡®hit him harder¡¯.¡± As I tore some panel at the drones that had managed to get onto our level Bob took step back. I heard him smack his face, ¡°Shit... Shit!¡± Then I heard him struggle to pry a panel free. I smiled when I found the part I wanted, but frowned when I thought about it affecting the integrity of the roof. With a cocky shrug, I pulled the support beam from the wall. The roof above creaked, but stood strong without it. They don¡¯t call it a state-of-the-art facility for nothing. The beam was a little taller than me, maybe 6 feet long, not enough to stab half-way through the Pig-head, but it was enough to swat the drones away. ¡°Maybe stick to the side that¡¯s structurally sound, alright Bob?¡± I didn¡¯t wait for a response, (guess I never do), I kicked across the pit, then jumped back over it and up one floor. With a horizontal swing, I smashed through two goo zombies, bisecting one, and sending both flying. I took a look around the floor, tried to count the number of zombies, gave up at ten, and changed my stance. I needed to focus on keeping a distance from these things, I tucked the beam under my arm, spearing it out to some success. Their bones were shattered with every push out, leaving a pile on the ground for me to watch out for. It¡¯s only now, with the glasses of hindsight, that I realise there was something wrong with me. I wasn¡¯t acting like I should have. I had no trouble smashing corpses away, the truth is I wanted to get into a fight. I hadn¡¯t done anything like this since Irminsul, so somewhere along the line, in one of those worlds, it looks like I lost something. A thin layer of apprehension. The main blob was moving now, it had flattened itself against the wall of the pit, the flesh bodies within it gripping to the wall, pulling it across like insect legs. All except one. I hadn¡¯t noticed looking at the thing from a low angle, but there was a single large skeleton in the centre of the viscous mass. It was a skeletal pig- not a pig''s skeleton now, it was like a cartoon version. It had a skeletal snout and ears, and it was bigger than a human, bigger than me anyway. With zero apprehension, I made it my target. The way I figured, hiveminds have two different systems, at least in fiction. Either they were connected in a network and I''d have to kill them all, or they had a central unit controlling them, the primary monster. And the way I figured, the easiest thing to do would be to cut the head off the snake. My best bet would be to hit it while it was close to the wall, because that would give me something to break its skull against. As I scooted forward, Bob yelled from below me. I couldn¡¯t jump down, or the main blob would simply follow me. I believed, and still believe, that what i did was the best thing to do. I speared forward, not missing a beat. I had struck at the pig-head, not the second it was in range, I waited till it was close enough for me to reach, but far enough that it would be a foot away from my hand when I jabbed the beam in. When I stabbed the goo, it made a watery squeal, before moving it¡¯s bones out of the way. I muttered, ¡°That¡¯s going to be an issue, isn¡¯t it?¡± Although I needed to think of a new plan, it was good to know that particular skeleton was worth moving. About a tenth of Pig-head''s total mass had made its way across the thin piece of ground still intact on this floor, and it was reaching out for me dumbly. If there was any thought behind its actions, it wasn¡¯t conveyed as anything other than basic instinctual groping. I threw some ideas at the wall, coincidentally, my first idea was to throw the beam at it, though I didn¡¯t see that one working out any better. I thought about swatting at it, but that would make a mess. I thought about burning it, but I had no fuel. Honestly, I wasn¡¯t getting any bright ideas, (I know the creative juices have run dry when I think ¡®burn the fucker to hell.¡¯) The only way I was going to win this one? Taking a step back. I gave up on hitting the important part of the Pig-head, and decided to start swinging at its feet. Another assumption I made was that there was a reason it had a horse, a cat, and a couple people stuck in the main body, the conclusion I came to (seeing as they were all standing) was that they provided some sort of physical support. So I swung for the closest zombie inside of it, smashing it against the wall. It oinked in response and bulged out, ignoring the death of its legs. I battered at the floating morsels of flesh with precision and urgency, I didn¡¯t want to get gooed, and I didn¡¯t want to waste time while Bob could be getting gooed. The general structure of the slime didn¡¯t change, it maintained the general shape of a dew drop as the bulk of its mass found its way to my side. Not only had it finished crossing, but more zombies were dropping down from the floor above. Time was running out, I was getting backed into a corner, its movements were speeding, and I was losing faith in Bob holding his own. I glanced back, seeing a thin corridor. I found yet another idea. I back stepped quickly keeping a close eye on the skeleton, It slowed as it compressed its body to follow me, keeping the main body at the back of the probing slime. With a grin, I took my first shot when it was in a position where it couldn¡¯t dodge. It was a large skeleton, and although it dodged me while it was on the wall, in this hall there was little space for it to shift about. For me, it was a simple straight throw, I just had to hit something. I¡¯ve said before, but I don¡¯t have a good throwing arm, so I wasn¡¯t surprised when I hit its pelvis, just disappointed. Or rather, I was finally freaking out. It sped up greatly now, and I had already gone past the door on my left, there was only a stubby dead end with cleaning equipment. I threw away my best weapon, and my avenues for escape were closing up. At the time, I was cocky enough to believe that I¡¯d be able to escape by knocking down a few walls, I stayed as long as I did because with the support beam lodged in its mass, there was less room for the bones to move. If it was sentient, it could have moved the beam as a cover, the same could have been said for its walking bodies if I hadn¡¯t taken care of most of them; it just oinked furiously and trawled on. I punched a hole through the reinforced wall and dug around, not finding more than scrap when I pulled my hand out. I backed up against the wall trying to think. I tried to think of an idea that wasn¡¯t, ¡®punch really hard and really quick¡¯, or ¡®suck him into the vacuum by my feet¡¯. But I could use the mop and brush. My last idea that didn¡¯t involve running smashed through my mind. I removed my restraints on one arm hastily, and grabbed the end of the floor brush and the head of the mop. Both of them reached twice the length of the beam, near the total diameter of the blob. The end of the mop was already in the blob, and the skeleton reacted automatically, minutely. Speed was the trigger; it wasn¡¯t being cautious with the immobile debris it had already swept up, so if I just waited... I didn¡¯t even have to move the stick forward, I just had to line it up. Although it wasn¡¯t smart enough to know this motionless stick was a threat, it instinctively moved its skeleton away from it, like you would instinctively hide your head if somebody looked like they were going to hit it. This thing was good at dodging, but with so little space for it to move, there was little chance of it avoiding me. I didn¡¯t wait for the last possible minute, if I had screwed up, I would have just thought up a new plan. It was a flick of the wrist, and the cartoonish snout was pierced by a mop. I had been aiming at its eye socket, but it didn¡¯t matter as long as I got a hit off on it. I could barely see what happened, as the goop lost any rigidity and fell away. Now I was acting on instinct, it was like seeing a spider on your bathroom floor, except there was a real threat that this would kill me with its alien touch. I jumped backwards. Smashing through the wall that was behind me. I grinned looking at my hand. I was right in the end. That thing didn¡¯t stand a chance against me. As the watery goo receded back down the hall, I thought about my current circumstance. The Internationals had said that there were eighty-one monsters of this calibre, that¡¯s two that I''ve defeated now. Their supposed to be above me, right? That thing was supposed to be my natural predator? Even when I was new to this, I could beat one of these things with nothing but brute force. Now I could beat one of them without touching it. Simply put, I was growing an ego. I neglected the fact that the monsters I''d fought had all been low ranking ones, that there were four hundred powered Units out there who are stronger and smarter than me, that there are nine Unworldly Beasts that dwarf me in significance. And of course, there were the so-called Twenty-Seven Gods. It was when I realised that the skeletal body wasn¡¯t lying broken on the ground, that this fight wasn¡¯t over, that made my head shrink back down. I kicked myself forward, I cleared the ten plus feet like a bullet, not falling till I was half-way over the pit that the falling star had made. It was at that moment that I realised that the zombies were still standing. Killing the boss didn¡¯t turn them off? I was wrong? That¡¯s when I saw the pig skeleton, the zombies were moving toward it, as it lay on the opposite side of the pit from Bob, the poll still hanging from its nose. It didn¡¯t move, it just bubbled, frothed, and oinked. I was desperate to finish it so I ripped the floor up once I got close to the pig. I warped the purple steel around my fist like a boxing glove and smashed into its skull. It, and the ground beneath it, shattered. I twisted my head around the open space, and they were still oinking away. I was in disbelief. This wasn¡¯t the jungle beast in the west, nor was it the Channeler, it was just a pig. Bob screamed out. And I gave up on fighting that thing. It was a quick jump back, I called out for him. As I looked around the half-room filled with paste, I was again afraid that I had made the wrong choice. Until he poked his head out and screamed, ¡°Where the hell were you!¡± I looked down, ¡°I thought I- could handle it.¡± Bob limped over to me, ¡°It¡¯s not the sort of thing you can kill with brute force or tactics. That thing is a monster.¡± After a couple seconds Bob was slung over my shoulder again. ¡°I mean, that¡¯s not true for all of them, but if you¡¯d let me explain for a second, I could have told you what we were dealing with.¡± ¡°How was I supposed to know that you had info on that thing!¡± I tried to convince myself, more than him, that my decision to fight had made sense. ¡°I told you, I¡¯m clean-up. I saw that thing when they brought it in, I was briefed on how it functions.¡± He paused, ¡°It¡¯s not something you can kill, because it isn¡¯t alive.¡± ¡°Monsters are entities that defy logic, that go beyond any reasoning. That creature was alive, once. You understand that Mind is an archetype, that thing transcended its limits, it grew beyond consciousness. I guess you could say it reset to zero. It¡¯s like a cancer, reproducing through other cells, maximising production.¡± Bob¡¯s voice seemed to take on a different tone. ¡°It¡¯s not limited to animals. It¡¯ll infect plants, trees and grass. It¡¯s hypothesised that even the world''s plankton could be infected by it.¡± I started to sweat a little, ¡°How the hell is that not a threat to the world at large?¡± ¡°Simple,¡± he started, ¡°Because there are people who can solve that problem without brute force or tactics.¡± I snickered a little. I¡¯d almost forgotten that this was the real world. Of course, there are people better at problem solving than a comic book fan from Nowhere. ¡°Hey... Put me down for a second.¡± The out-of-place tone had left Bob¡¯s voice. I did as instructed. Whatever this was it wasn¡¯t going to be good, there was a slight panic in his voice. He took off the shoe on his good foot, and pealed off the sock with caution. ¡°Ah.¡± It must have been a drop from the ceiling. He was below me when I was trying to fight the original pig. The skin of his leg was pulsing, and it looked wet to touch. He was on the verge of freaking out. I would have been right behind him. If a coldness hadn¡¯t seized me. I had to make this right somehow. ¡°Lay down,¡± I ordered. He was about to scream out, to cry. ¡°Listen to me,¡± I commanded. ¡°I will cut it off.¡± I didn¡¯t smile. He tried to argue, ¡°I- The chance that that will do anything-¡± My eyes grew, ¡°So there is a chance.¡± I carefully removed my right legs restraint, it was designed for restricting blood flow around the calf, it would definitely stop flow around the thigh. ¡°Kid-¡± I glared at him. He gritted his teeth. I tied it. I knew that I would have to cut it as high as possible, the area that looked infected was around his ankle, in case it was more than that, I decided to cut above the knee. If it was in his blood, then... I didn¡¯t think about that. I ignored that possibility. ¡°It¡¯s going to be alright Bob. I¡¯m going to help you.¡± He covered his eyes. It would have been around this time, that the stars stopped falling. Though I was in no position to notice. My heart was shaking every inch of my body. Except for my hand. Somehow, from somewhere, I gained the strength of will to do something like this. I don¡¯t remember, but I think I was looking back on something somebody had once told me. Or maybe it was something I had told myself? I have a strange feeling it was the latter. I was doing this with my unrestricted arm, so it was going to be clean at least. I held my hand out, it would be one chop, then we¡¯d be able to move on, I¡¯d find some rebirthing fluid, we¡¯d find the others, get on the thing, and fly out of here. We would all be fine. I¡¯d keep them all safe. And they¡¯d like me. ¡°This is going to hurt,¡± I finally said. There was only a moment''s hesitation. Deck 5.08: I hit a wall. It was when the stars stopped falling that the battle in the buffer zone entered its second phase. This coincided with the amputation of Bob¡¯s leg, but before I tell you how that went, I think it¡¯s best to keep things cohesive, chronological. The dust that had risen from the buffer zone wasn¡¯t due to Jack Chandler¡¯s powers, it was naturally occurring, due to the blasts from the sky. That power would remain a mystery. The Ints theorised that it was something he picked up during June, ancient Egyptian theology placed a significance on the stars and the sky, is what I heard. I¡¯d believe that whatever monster had that ability before Chandler could have been the one who destroyed Egypt, I haven¡¯t a clue as to why he was hesitant to use it. Its range was miles, its potency was enough to turn reinforced steel into Swiss cheese, (though the architecture of the city kept anything in the actual city from collapsing.) Was there a stamina to it? Could he not use other abilities while it was in affect? Was there a chance of it hitting him? I¡¯m glad I was too busy to think about any of that, it never even came to mind with all the trouble in the city centre. All I know is that with that power, he was able to wipe out the entire squad of Lindenburgs. I don¡¯t have a firm grasp on how powerful those things are, but I know they¡¯re highly mobile, highly deadly mech suits. And he was able to destroy all but one. The driver of the lone machine had gone radio silent. There was no point keeping comms open, the pilot knew that when facing unknown powers, the more ¡®noise¡¯ you make, the more likely it is that you¡¯ll get caught. There was a pattern to how the stars fell: firstly, they fell from an angle, from the east. The attack rotated in a spiral centred on their battle, like a churning whirlpool that teemed with deadly fish. Somehow, through the rubble, smoke, celestial rain, fear of death, and bulky metal chassis, the pilot was able to figure out the most cost-effective route through it all. They kept calm, flew high, and turned off the engines at the right time. Like I said, their desire was to make as little ¡®noise¡¯ as possible. They did exactly what they needed to in order to finish the job. But there were more people fighting then those in the Lindenburgs. In the midst of all that destruction walked M.D Ali, who had removed himself from his mech. Stood beside him was Isaac, and behind them both, Aayan, the civilian who just so happened to be a Unit that could have helped. I don¡¯t know much about what happened in that moment, the only events of the battle that I have a first-hand account from is the pilot. It was a result of Ali¡¯s powers that not one hit landed on them. At least not directly. Both of Ali¡¯s powers were limited to a range, the first, the one that he had used on Jack at the beginning, had a wide range, the one he was using now, was about a couple feet around his body. The first, was illusory. The second was sleight of hand. That¡¯s the basic breakdown. Aayan probably hadn¡¯t been in a fight before; I can¡¯t blame him for doing nothing. Yet Isaac Creh-umha, Mor of the Free Fomorians, who had grown stronger over June, did nothing to save his allies. He was being cautious, letting Jack Chandler lay his cards out one at a time. By Clover¡¯s explanation of the Channeler¡¯s powers, Isaac could have used his suit just fine, all that Jack would gain from copying it would be an understanding of how it works, he wouldn¡¯t even have the resources to build it. If I was in the sea-king''s position, if I had his moral flexibility, I would have made an attempt to end it as quickly as possible, his caution had led to his cover being blown away and the deaths of twenty people. Again, I don¡¯t know what was going on in the minds of those under the fog of war, but I wonder if there was another reason Creh-umha hesitated. One of his powers was simply the ability to use the suit, a compatibility with it. I wonder if a part of him was afraid that the suit would choose Jack over him. The three Units remained inactive as far as I know, never encountering their enemy as they wondered the now crater on the edge of the city. They too kept quiet by design. I don¡¯t know what their plan was, if they had intended for Jack to stop using the meteor shower in order to gauge his surroundings, or to move forward. For whatever reason, Jack did stop his attack. And began a new one. Or at least, the clean-up. As the lone pilot flew above the dust, they began a tactical retreat to the border of the old battle ground. That¡¯s when they observed the centre of the pit blast up with smoke, the form of the Gator barely visible under the bulge in the clouds. The pilot¡¯s instincts said to run faster. It was a moment too late to steady themself, as with a swipe of the giant replications tail, waves of black rolled away and upwards. Too late to steady, but just in time to save herself from a brutal crash. There was of course a crash, but it was rolled into, although the chassis was not designed for such a motion, she managed to pull it off. She tried the emergency open, but it failed. She reached down for a box locked in place by her side. She pulled out an axe. Not one meant for emergencies, one meant for killing, and cutting ice. She wedged it between the frames of the ¡®chest¡¯ of the robotic frame, and pried her way out, a cloud of dust breaking in as she broke out. She winced and covered her eyes. She wasn¡¯t blind, the Gator had served to clear even the outskirts of the warzone pretty well. Her sense of direction held strong, as she edged closer to the centre of the arena, until they were in sight, two figures standing half a dozen metres apart, they were little more than planks standing up right in the basin of the pit. Water from sewage pipes had spilled out into a thin sheet over the ground, filling the air with a rotten smell. She saw now, that the one closest to her was the enemy. The other had a devious smile, and was broad of frame. ¡°Don¡¯t you think we should move out of here? I¡¯m not talking about the ground caving more than it has, I mean I¡¯d rather not get piss on my shoes.¡± Ali was stroking his chin now. Jack remained silent, still. The pilot got low. She was hoping that Ali¡¯s illusion wasn¡¯t in affect. Her understanding of the first of the exterminator¡¯s abilities was that he altered perception. Right became left, up became down, back became forward. It was a perfect illusion, excluding the sense of touch. Say a building was behind you, under Ali¡¯s illusion, you would see that building without looking at it. The thing is, Jack had that power now as well. In the initial assault, Ali had used it when they were circling Jack in the Lindenburgs, when that smoke power had been thrown up by Jack. Even a being that manipulates the powers of Units like clay could be tricked by Ali¡¯s mastery of that power. But a trick can only fool someone for so long, or not at all. Ali was immune to his own altered perception, not the Channeler¡¯s. As soon as they had attacked Jack, the illusion was broken, allowing him to copy it, and use it on Ali. Of course, Ali would see this coming, so he had probably placed a new illusion on Jack as soon as the first had broken. This would mean that the altered perception that Ali was experiencing was created by someone incorrectly perceiving reality. This could go on and on, a constant stream of mind games, self-doubt, and one-upping. Whether or not the illusion was in Ali¡¯s favour or not didn¡¯t matter. Jack was frozen in place. The entire scenario was clearly meant to screw with him, out of the three Units the one with the shit eating grin and a couple cards up his sleeve just happened to be the only one to survive the shower? Not likely. That this was meant to stall him while Isaac and Aayan- the latter of which being a complete unknown- followed a plot? Likely. The M.D waved a hand out, ¡°What¡¯s the matter Channeler? D¡¯you like the smell of shit or somethin¡¯? Why don¡¯t you pull out the Gator? Or a mini-quake and smoke? Or turn the shower back on, or link with my brain, or pull some other move that I have no right resisting?¡± He was trying to get in his head. ¡°You don¡¯t seem the least bit injured. You¡¯re not tired out. So what¡¯s the problem? Have you realised that this ain¡¯t worth it yet? Cause whatever it is that you came here for... You can¡¯t get it, no matter how much of a monster you are. You¡¯re still a single entity, Unit or not. Even if you could take the three of us on at once, invading this city will make you our bosses¡¯ number one enemy- hell, they¡¯ll probably market the whole thing to make it look like you destroyed Egypt.¡± Jack did speak. But no matter how hard the pilot tried to listen to what he said, she simply couldn¡¯t fathom what he was saying. That is until he asked the question, ¡°Do you know what the most powerful attack in creation is?¡± This was undoubtedly a part of Ali¡¯s plan, to distract the enemy, if only for a second. The agent answered, ¡°I don¡¯t think there is a most powerful ability. It¡¯s not the tool, it¡¯s how you use it. If I had to guess what you think the most powerful ability is, I¡¯d say one of Bastard¡¯s-¡± ¡°You think you¡¯re clever, don¡¯t you?¡± Jack started to circle, ¡°Not a single trick you¡¯re pulling is imaginative or original. Your ability is nothing but a simple parlour trick, your words are empty and carry no weight.¡± The pilot shifted, hesitation building in her stomach. ¡°Firstly, you can¡¯t get into my head. I know things you can¡¯t even dream. Secondly, you don¡¯t have an army backing you up. You have three people, not Units, people. You''re ready to put your life on the line, but they aren¡¯t. The sea-mutant is an ally, but only so long as there is something to gain from this alliance. As long as there is a chance he can lose something, his heart will waver.¡± ¡°Obviously, experienced as you are, you understand that. You aren¡¯t relying on him to attack me, he¡¯s a bluff. You tried to focus my attention on the pooling water, something that would play to his strengths. I¡¯m sure you are planning on using it somehow, just because it¡¯s there. Maybe the civilian has a power that plays to it. Maybe he can control water, or freeze it. Maybe he can shoot electricity from his fingertips, or maybe he can create little gremlins from shit. It doesn¡¯t matter.¡± The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Ali remained unphased. Jack finished his point, ¡°The thing about it being three against one? You will always have a weak link or two. The thing about me is that I have no weaknesses. I am, inarguably, a perfect being.¡± He then shouted out, not a hint of emotion in his voice, ¡°I said I was going to kill you first, Aayan, and I meant it. All you need to do is show me where you are, fire off an attack- and I''ll stomp you¡¯re head in.¡± Ali¡¯s figure stood still for an age. The pilot waited for something, anything to happen. But nothing did. ¡°Speech, is humanities-¡± Ali made a move, drawing a sharp edge from nowhere, which was met by a black shard being summoned by Jack. When the square of the Gator¡¯s tail met the clear straight blade, the latter sent the former flying in the opposite direction. As the blade approached, Jack threw up a steel barrier, barely blocking the two blades. Ali smiled, looking forward, ¡°Clever? There''s no doubt that I''m a genius! I¡¯m a doctor, a street magician, a world-class badass, I''ll play every card I¡¯ve got, even if it¡¯s a poor hand! In the end, it isn¡¯t what you¡¯re dealt-¡± Jack grew the Gator¡¯s exterior forcing the agent back. ¡°-it¡¯s the poker face.¡± That perfect being hadn¡¯t noticed. He was so focused on the Units, the ones he couldn¡¯t see, and the one that was misdirecting him, that he didn¡¯t realise there was a single mortal woman standing behind him. That axe that was make for breaking ice tore into that being¡¯s arm, through all of the altered realities, one-upping, bluffs, physics defying cosmic power, it was a bronze age tool that landed the first blow. Yuki frowned, ¡°Man, I¡¯ll need a raise after this.¡± ¡­ ¡°Uh... uh, kid? Sh- sh- we?¡± Bob was out of it. Honestly, I¡¯m glad he was. If he wasn¡¯t, he¡¯d probably be screaming like crazy, alerting any monsters roaming through the inside of the building. I was talking to myself more than him, ¡°We¡¯ll make it through this just fine. I haven¡¯t been up this high before- well, I haven''t tried to scale a building as tall as this, but uhm- theirs a first for everything, right? Like, with all this destruction, I''m sure climbing down won¡¯t be an issue. Plenty of stuff to grab onto, right?¡± It was the best idea I had. Riding the elevators while the people on the top floor were fleeing seemed like a bad idea, breaking through the floor seemed worse. So it was time to put that climbing training to good use. I was on the outside of the building a couple floors above where I fought the pig head, when the smoke in the distance was dispersed, and I wondered if that was a good sign or not. I was glad the meteor¡¯s had stopped, that¡¯s what made my climbing possible. After a couple seconds, I was regretting my decision. Know when you look down and realise, you¡¯re actually really high up? I was really high up, and I looked down. I¡¯d probably survive the fall, but Bob wouldn¡¯t. And the fact I was doing all this with him slung over my neck, wasn¡¯t helping. The entire time I was climbing up, I was scared that he¡¯d slip, or a gust of wind from the distant battle would finally reach, throwing us out into the open. I was climbing up slowly with sweat dripping from my hands, not from effort obviously. The panelling designs actually helped quite a bit. That, and the giant holes. I¡¯ve done a lot of drawing for art, when I''m not working with fabric, I''m doodling designs and sometimes buildings. I won¡¯t claim to be an architectural genius, but I can recognise when something is... off. I was around twenty-four floors high, and there didn¡¯t seem to be any of modern architecture¡¯s sensibilities. The panels on the outside had a sort of wavy pattern on the square tiles, which varied in size drastically. The question finally came to mind, how did they build this? It was almost like this building, no, the entire city had been lifted from some dark foreboding future. I guess you could only explain this structure¡¯s existence with, ¡®it¡¯s sci-fi magic¡¯. That sinister feeling was over shrouded by the fact that we had reached our destination. Before he lost it, Bob told me where to find the Rebirthing fluid. There was a production and storage facility on one of the middle floors. Access was limited to your rank and position, to keep the Internationals¡¯ most important piece of equipment safe. I broke into the lowest floor with a kick, slipping into a filing room. Following evacuation guidelines, the secretaries working here were gone. I was hoping that any guards that worked here were out as well. But on the off chance that they weren¡¯t, I''d have to be sneaky. The first wall I punched had blasted apart without any problems. So did the second, third, fourth and fifth. When I said sneaky, I meant I wouldn¡¯t be walking straight through the front door. Acting like a human wouldn¡¯t get me anywhere if there were guards here, they¡¯d avoid a rampaging monster searching for a Unit. It was the sixth wall I punched, ¡°OW!¡± I leaned over grasping at my throbbing fist. This was the first time I''d punched something and it didn¡¯t break. Well, the outer casing broke. I put Bob down and peeled away the purple panels to reveal a flat grey surface. When I imagine ambiguously, ¡®metal surface¡¯, this is what would come to mind. It was slightly reflective, if dull. The panels that I had busted down were reinforced, and I made short work of them. But this hadn¡¯t been damaged at all. I¡¯d later find out that this substance was called Sub-terrainium. ¡°Right... This must be it, huh?¡± I turned to Bob, who was groggy. ¡°Wait here. I¡¯ll find somebody who can get us in. Or I''ll find a way to break it.¡± With that, I cautiously kicked through the wall adjacent, and the wall behind it, and so on. I tested the walls on my left as I went, all of them were still too tough to shatter. Eventually I broke through a wall, and was rippled with bullets. I covered my mask to stop it getting damaged, and said, ¡°Oh, good. That didn¡¯t take long.¡± I walked forward, a little afraid of any stray bullets ricocheting of me and less so that this would hurt me. I didn¡¯t want to break their weapons; they¡¯d need them if a monster came along. So I made my decision. I turned around and put my hands up. There were two ways I could win here, one, they run out of ammo, or two, they figure out that I''m not some kind of goblin. The latter, the better option, won out. ¡°Turn around!¡± One shouted. ¡°Slowly now!¡± I did as I was told, ¡°You guys aren¡¯t really in any position to make requests, you know that? You were watching as I busted through that wall, right?¡± I smiled as they remained silent, unable to resist me, ¡°I¡¯m here for a canister of that fluid. Can you hook me up?¡± One stuttered for a second, I twisted my wrists around, ¡°It¡¯s not even for me! It¡¯s for one of your guys. I won¡¯t say who, in case he gets in trouble for all...¡± I pointed a thumb back, ¡°-that.¡± The one that had stuttered, whispered to his partner, ¡°He¡¯s a fucking Unit. What do we-¡± ¡°We¡¯re not giving you shit. Do you really expect us to open that vault during an assault? You¡¯re shit out of luck. I¡¯m not selling my soul to some Mountain bastard.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not with the Mountain.¡± I lowered my hands, they opened fire, their automatic rifles blaring over anything I said. ¡®Words are useless then...¡¯ I thought. I picked up the one that was stuttering in a quick motion. The other stopped firing just a little too late. One or two stray bullets had struck. He cried out, as the one with more confidence finally froze. ¡°Open it, or two men are going to die.¡± It wasn¡¯t meant to be a threat; I was just stating a fact. ¡°I tried reasoning with you- I tried being reasonable, but this place isn¡¯t like that is it? Would you seriously let somebody bleed out in front of you because it was your job to keep that door shut? I¡¯d make a joke about American health care, except I''m not in a joking mood.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got lives to save.¡± ¡­ The lower half of Bob¡¯s body was submerged in foam, and I''d used a little on my hand, just to keep it at peak condition. Dr Attrition had warned me against using this stuff as an amateur, but here I was, rubbing the stuff in like it was lotion. I just left the vault guards alone; they¡¯d slow us down. I knew I had to pace myself, first I save Bob, bring him down to the others, get them to the flying-thing, then I can really help. Then I can really be a super hero. That¡¯s what I was thinking. ¡°Hey, Kid...¡± Bob had become intelligible, ¡°How are we doing?¡± ¡°Great,¡± I looked down at him, ¡°Just try not to move. We¡¯ll wait here for, like an hour, or whatever.¡± I had no clue how long it would take him to regrow two legs. He looked over himself, Bob was lying on his back, the foam forming a mermaid tail over his other half. ¡°Did you-¡± he sounded angry now, ¡°You covered my left leg as well?¡± I shrugged, ¡°Yeah, I¡¯d rather not carry you everywhere.¡± He looked mad too, ¡°I don¡¯t want a new foot!¡± I was confused by this, still am. ¡°You- you wanted to be crippled?¡± He was struggling not to sit up, ¡°No, I¡¯m glad you repaired the one you removed, but I was going to reattach my old foot when I find it.¡± I scratched my head, ¡°If you¡¯ve been looking for it for like two weeks now, then I doubt you¡¯ll find it at all.¡± A sudden look of pain over-came him, as his head fell down in a frown. I thought about saying something, but then my phone rang, my Shamrock-phone. I took it out and shouted into it, ¡°Which floor are you guys on?! I¡¯ll be down in a second-¡± A voice just as loud shouted back, ¡°Quiet!¡± The voice took on a whispery tone, but the volume didn¡¯t decrease, ¡°Did you forget that you¡¯re a Unit?! These things are attracted to your voice, idiot!¡± It was definitely her voice, and from the sound of it, she was in trouble. ¡°Clover, what¡¯s going on? Which floor are you on? I¡¯ll-¡± ¡°We¡¯re on the bottom, and while your dumb ass has been running around doing fuck-all, we¡¯ve been running from a giant hedgehog!¡± I asked again, ¡°Which floor!¡± ¡°We¡¯re outside! I said that, didn¡¯t I?! Get your ass down here already! Be my meat shield!¡± I hung up. ¡°Hey Bob-¡± We stared at each other for a second. ¡°What?¡± I scratched my head again, ¡°Can I move you? Or will that- misshape you?¡± ¡°Uh, I guess it¡¯s fine. It¡¯ll take longer for me to heal, but it¡¯s hardened up pretty nicely, so you should be able to pick me up without dislocating a vestigial leg, haha.¡± I nodded, picked him up with one hand, and jumped out the window. I had a half-full canister left, so even if I accidentally broke Bob¡¯s back, I was thinking, or rather chose to believe, that I''d be able to fix it. That¡¯s not to say I didn¡¯t fall with some caution, I kept close to the wall, jamming my arm into it to slow our descent drastically, it was basically a ton of falls with some short and sudden stops, through which Bob screamed the entire time. When we reached the bottom, not much changed. There were similar marks left in the ground by meteors, and a ton of damage from less sturdy buildings half collapsing. As Bob was catching his breath, I told him, ¡°I¡¯ll run around, see if I can find the other-¡± It was at that moment that gunfire sounded off not too far away. With a smile, I ran off. I weaved around a couple buildings with a few kicks. I¡¯ve realised that I¡¯m not actually that fast. I can jump straight forward, but I can¡¯t push my legs up and down any quicker with my powers. I can¡¯t run normally. So when I turned a corner and went flying toward a wall of spikes, all I could do was jam a leg into the ground. The spikes nearest to me reacted, moving so that they would pierce my vitals, and they grew longer too. It was like a monster jumping out in a horror movie, and my desperate attempt to run away solidified that impression. What broke it was a further inspection of the monster. It wasn¡¯t a wall of spikes, it was half a sphere, barely encompassing the entire street. Every seven-meter-long spear from tip to base was blue to purple. There was a kind of pattern to how the spikes came out of the creature, like how a pineapple has a kind of spiral pattern in its spines. It all converged on a stub, about the size of a football, shaped like an American one. Flying backwards I ended up crashing into a building, which was thankfully vacant. I took a second more to observe the monster. There was a shift in the spines, some of them retracted and fell flat, mainly the ones to its side so it could turn to face me, it¡¯s prey. I now understood that inside the thick coat of spines was a type of rodent, long and thin, keeping that same size through its whole body, finally narrowing in its head. It was like a traffic cone, not sharp just cone shaped. It had shrewd eyes, like it was squinting at me in confusion. I¡¯d later find out that this thing was called Sermilik. And it was another one of the eighty-one. It finally pushed its spikes forward again, guarding its head at the same time. It seemed pretty slow to react to me, so my plan was to hit it hard, and fast What I didn¡¯t know was that this thing¡¯s greatest sense was its vision, and it could see me now. As I flew out to punch it in its nose, it pushed a spike out, piercing my knuckle. It didn¡¯t get very far though, the only thing that had pushed it in was my own momentum. As I was dangling on the air by it, I tightened my fist and broke the spine with my free arm. As I fell to the ground, I took a moment to remove the splinter. Some sort of ooze leaked from it, but I didn¡¯t pay much attention to that, as the hedgehog pointed a spiked wall at me. I was in the middle of making a plan when gun fire came from behind it. To this, it tightened the spines on its back to protect itself. I look the opportunity to pick up a hand full of rubble and throw it at the monster. Every rock was safely deflected by its thorny shield. ¡°Huh. I am seriously off my game today.¡± It went on the offensive now, jabbing its spears at me. I dodged most of them, the rest hardly scratched me. That made me a little braver. I pushed forward, letting it graze me as I moved, with every slight graze I was getting closer, and closer. Until finally, I got close enough. Thing is, I forgot my arm wasn¡¯t restricted anymore. I¡¯d probably have been able to kill it without my recent workout routine, but I doubt I could have sent if flying. Now, with one punch, I killed it. With one punch I sent it flying. It twirled off after its head crumpled. Leaving the path in front of me clear, and a near by building destroyed. Luckily, I didn¡¯t send it straight down the street. They were there, all three of them, Clover, Charlie K, Hunter, they were safe. They were looking at me with half astonishment, now that I think about it, not even Clover had seen me fight seriously. This was the first time I had an audience that could appreciate me. I asked myself if I had always been this strong, if the fight with the pig really was just a bad match; if everything so far had just been a case of bad luck. Clover¡¯s jaw was hung wide. She looked like she had something to shout. Charlie looked at me with a glow in her eyes. She managed to pull herself together while I was away. Hunter might have become even more weary of me, maybe he was taking that threat from earlier more seriously. All I could do in response was smile. Clover shook her head, blubbering nonsense, her usually crazy raving of curses and insults. She was grabbing at her head, shaking, and pointing at me. Hunter grit his teeth before shouting out, ¡°It¡¯s barbs are venomous! Even a scratch is lethal!¡± ¡°What was that?¡± I asked dumbly. Clover roared out. All I could do was smile. Deck 5.09: I did a lot of walking. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Deck 5.10: I prayed. I don¡¯t remember waking up. Maybe I was never unconscious, if what I heard about the venom after that day is true. It was a puddle, that¡¯s how it felt; every inch of my being, and beyond, was as shallow, and murky, and damp. I must have been doing something, because they spoke to me. ¡°Don¡¯t move,¡± one of them advised, I don¡¯t know who, ¡°We should have taken those straps off sooner, they''ve probably sped necrosis in his arms.¡± ¡°We need him alive.¡± I think that got me moving. ¡°Fuck! How are we supposed to put up with this!? Oh come on, one of you try to hold him down carry him while he keeps kicking out like that!¡± If I was kicking, I didn¡¯t feel it. I couldn¡¯t feel my legs anymore. I wasn¡¯t concerned in the slightest; it was probably the venom burning through my nerves, if not my mind itself. What was I thinking about? I wasn¡¯t at all. I just heard voices, debating, arguing, agreeing. I heard the distinct voices of Bob, Hunter, Clover, and Charlie who was whimpering. Beyond them, I heard voices from above- the rancorous voices that where shouting at each other. I don¡¯t know where that word came from, but that¡¯s what I¡¯d describe them as. I didn¡¯t recognise any of them. Except for one. A woman¡¯s- that woman¡¯s, the one wearing Shamrock. She was so close, yet so far, every word pulled me in, every pause in her voice led to her drifting away from me. Maybe it wasn¡¯t a puddle that my mind was becoming, maybe it was an ocean. I don¡¯t want to think about it, nor should I. Sometimes, the only thing you can do is... ignore a problem. Save it for later, or wait until it goes away. ¡­ ¡°Clove...?¡± ¡°Hey, Rocky, just try to take it easy, idiot. I want you to be lucid for this.¡± ¡°Where are we? I can¡¯t see...¡± ¡°We made it to the airport! Nothin¡¯ bad happened either. No monsters, no complications. Right now, the others are working the paperwork out, confirmation from Admin, you know?¡± ¡°What? I don¡¯t...¡± I think she was shaking me, just a little, ¡°Hey, hey, stay awake, I need you lucid Rocky.¡± ¡°What do you...¡± There was something in the way she said it, I don¡¯t remember what, but even if you didn¡¯t understand the severity of what she was saying, from that tone... ¡°I¡¯m going to use my power on you.¡± Even in that state, I understood the risk. Luck isn¡¯t real. If something happens, it''s because it was going to happen. Grey told me that from the beginning of the world to the end, all things are on a set trajectory, particles colliding and reacting. So when Clover makes the wish, ¡®I hope Shamrock doesn¡¯t die from poison¡¯, that alteration has a wider impact on the world. The closer something is to her, the more obvious the effects. With Jack Chandler close by, there''s a chance he¡¯ll be able to copy her ability. I don¡¯t like admitting it, but Clover holds back. I don¡¯t know the full extent of her power, but she¡¯s capable of giving a god an opening into this universe. ¡°Do you know what a closed system is? It came up once in my chemistry class that when a reaction occurs within a closed environment the reaction will eventually reach an equilibrium. If we think of you as a closed system, if I make a wish to specifically impede the poison, then we might be able to get out of here without giving him the means to kill us.¡± It was a lot, and I''m surprised I was able to take it all in. ¡°Clove... I¡¯m- is there an anti-venom or something?¡± She paused. ¡°The doctor. Attrition. She¡¯s in a personal bunker, so we won¡¯t be seeing her until all this is over.¡± She leaned in closer to me and I was able to focus my sight. ¡°My luck might manifest as a miraculous recovery, or some insane turn of events might lead to you meeting her before you...¡± Again, the tone implied more than was said. ¡°Ask for...¡± I was trying to think about what the best one to make would be. Even then, in that horrible condition, my focus was elsewhere. ¡°Clo... Is Bob alright? He isn¡¯t sick?¡± She was confused, almost laughing, ¡°Yeah, of course he¡¯s alright, why wouldn¡¯t he-¡± ¡°The pig,¡± I muttered, ¡°He came in contact with a monster, that¡¯s what happened to his leg. I¡¯m afraid that- that it¡¯s infected him...¡± ¡°Oh...¡± ¡°If your going to make a-¡± ¡°Right, so you want, ¡®Rocky and Bob to make a full recovery from the sicknesses they contracted from monsters¡¯, is that it?¡± For a second, I was surprised. For some reason, I had doubted she could cross her fingers for something so specific. ¡°I-¡± There was a smile in her voice, ¡°It¡¯s alright. I think Bob¡¯s a jackass, but I''m not going to risk his life, if I can help him I will. That¡¯s the difference between the Mountain and the Cities. If someone treats you well, you treat them the same. We don¡¯t throw people under the bus at the last second.¡± For a second, I remembered what Hunter had done to the architect. For a second, I listened to what she had said. ¡°I¡¯m never joining up...¡± She laughed, ¡°We¡¯ll see! I wonder how you¡¯ll feel after you meet some good people from the Mountain.¡± For a second, I felt better. But seconds pass quickly. I heard someone shout into the room. Clover responded quickly, ¡°Shit- Shit. Rocky- shit, just stay here, ok? You''re in no condition to-¡± I didn¡¯t hear the rest, but I could have guessed. Maybe it was Jack, but I doubted that. There might have been some people, either escaped convicts, or rioters. But more likely than not, it was probably another monster. I had imagined us running into a third in the tunnels, but it made far more sense that it would happen now. What were the odds that when Clover used the last stroke of luck, that we just so happened to be attacked while our heaviest hitter was out for the count. If I had to make yet another guess as to the nature of Clover¡¯s power, I''d say that once she plucks all four of the leaflets from the tattoo on her hand, that¡¯s when her luck runs out. That¡¯s when things begin to go south. Time stretched and squashed like putty, long after she¡¯d left, I was calling out in my mind, ¡®wait for me¡¯. ¡®Don¡¯t leave me alone.¡¯ Then, I could feel my hand. It was rubbing against the floor- no, the chair I was sitting on, I was regaining some sense of reality. I pushed against the couch to get myself up; with no restrictions, I felt the springs snap and twang below me, falling back into it, I felt my foot at last shoot against the floor, a kick of instinct. I leaned forward on it and stumbled, nearly toppling over. I wasn¡¯t going to fall again, not to sickness. If I was going to die, I was going to die on my two feet. If I am going to die, I''ll die fighting. Bits and pieces of myself and my surrounding were becoming perceivable again. Was Clover¡¯s luck giving me a miraculous recovery, or was it through shear strength of will? The answer is both, the first only partially. She doesn¡¯t make miracles; she just reforms the universe under new conditions or something. So, the me of with the sudden burst of strength, is the me that was able to stand up and fight. I bumped into a wall. Squinting, I searched around for a door. My mask certainly wasn¡¯t helping. With some effort I managed to twist the door handle without breaking anything, and stumble out into a hall. I was slowly remembering this place, the workers area in the airport, the area we went through to handle Charlie¡¯s paperwork. How far away was that rumbling? It wasn¡¯t the same as the tremoring from the falling stars, that was almost rhythmic, this was like somebody was throwing a fit, taking out their anger on the living room furniture. I thought I was going the wrong way. Then I finally stumbled over to a window. That¡¯s when I started to see again. What was it about that wide sky-blue expanse? The sun wasn¡¯t visible, the colour just naturally blead into my eyes. That¡¯s when the building shook, I could feel it in the air. It was like I had just smashed through a wall and was feeling the recoil. It was close. Whatever monster us Units had attracted was so near I could feel it move. Finally, after lamely limping about I¡¯d found the resolve to run, I could make the distinction between the world and myself, so without hesitation I burst down the corridor. My thoughts returned; Bob came to mind first. I¡¯d already risked his life once before, all because I was wasting my time trying to play hero. I refused to let the same happen, I wasn¡¯t going to play this fight out, I wasn¡¯t going to go for a flawless victory, especially if it risked lives. I wanted to throw myself into it, to solve the problem instantly, and if that didn¡¯t work, then maybe I''d try thinking. The fight with Sermilik had taught me a lesson, and it was one I should never have learned. That if worse came to worse, I really could sacrifice myself so that everyone could get out alive. It had always been an option, a last resort, but now I was thinking it should be my first, it was the safest after all. That¡¯s it, even if I find this thing and it¡¯s on fire, radioactive- whatever, I just need to throw a fist at it, I just need to go for the kill. And I wasn¡¯t just talking about monsters. There it was again, a quiver in my heart. It wasn¡¯t even for a second, but it was enough to stop me. Was that really my own thought? Was that really what I wanted? Again, I was beginning to reminisce on my time in Irminsul. That was before the wall in front of me was half smashed, the window frame barely holding up as a large brown stump crashed into it, causing me to flinch. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. I struggled to see the thing in full, the room was still moving a little. The window must have been over-looking a roof top, from the length of this things arm I was guessing it wasn¡¯t standing at four or five stories tall, though that wasn¡¯t exactly out of the question. It threw a second blow to the window; it was clearly focused on me now. This blow submerged it¡¯s arm half way into the hall, I didn¡¯t have to dodge its wasteful punch. That feeling struck me like lightning- that I needed to fight, that I needed to finish this now. I burst forward, my unbound leap shattering the floor. My cape forming an arrow until I launched my fist at it. It made clean ¡®rock¡¯ sound as I burst through its chest. I couldn¡¯t keep up with how fast I was going When I came out on the other side, I went skipping across the runway like a stone, before finally smashing into a craft, the first wall tore apart like it was tissue paper, the second nearly met the same result. Luckily, the force was distributed fairly evenly, the carrier simply rolled to its side. I wasn¡¯t at all hurt, I got up slowly because I was trying to understand what had happened. I felt wet, but it wasn¡¯t warm like blood, it was like I''d stepped in a big puddle. After looking at the substance a little more, dipping two fingers in a thick part of it stuck to my arm, I recognised what it was. Mud. I had both regained a sense of reality and lost it at the same time. ¡°No way...¡± I leapt out of the broken machine, barely perching myself on top of the opening. My eyes went wide, filling with tears. ¡°No fucken¡¯ way.¡± I looked over to the monster, a gaping hole in its chest, clay still dripping down from it, though some of it was moving up, towards the human shaped figure, to repair itself. Like nothing had happened, that false human standing twice as tall as a regular man, turned around and began to walk towards me. Engraved in the front of its head instead of a face was the word Emet. Truth, in Hebrew. The inscription had a light to it, a light blue slightly obscured by two churning orbs of orange underneath a layer of mud in the place of a man¡¯s eyes. This whole trip had been one long string of d¨¦j¨¤ vu, filled with reminders of that first world of Irminsul. And it all started when that old Korean man brought up this story. He asked if I''d heard it before. Not only had I, I''d lived it. Pacing towards me, trying not to crumple under the weight of its body, was the Golem of Prague. The original superhero. . . . ¡°You haven¡¯t heard of it? It¡¯s an essential in this industry. Well, I can¡¯t blame you. There aren¡¯t any formal institutions in your world.¡± As I fell into that wave of nostalgia, my mind that had been raddled with venom, adrenaline, and some other horrible affects that I''ll get into later. I found myself in the cockpit of the Silver-lining, Grey¡¯s jet. I looked to my right, and there was farmland a thousand kilometres beneath us, a view that astonished me at the tim. The golden sky beating down over that world... I looked to my left. And there he was. Seeing the golem had got me thinking about him, but... Last I saw his face, it was being worn by Lechoslaw Limorilow. ¡°Shamrock?¡± I was obviously showing my emotions. ¡°Uhm... it¡¯s just, I sort of understand- the gist of what it is, the monster in Argentina, it¡¯s a man made out of clay, brought to life through Jewish mysticism.¡± I tried to say what it was I remembered saying when we were here in the past. My stammering stopped me from succeeding. He was quiet, suspicious for a while before saying what I expected. ¡°No... it¡¯s more than that. Much more, to you and me especially, to all heroes. Do you know why it was built?¡± ¡°To protect the Jewish people. I- I skimmed over it in one of your books-¡± ¡°Wrong,¡± that was him cutting to the point, as per usual, ¡°It was born to save them.¡± Though I remember him telling me this, I was still confused, ¡°Isn¡¯t that the same thing?¡± His eyes flickered over the dashboard, ¡°No. To protect something implies it being made with a focus on violence, evil. The golem was large, mighty, but was never meant for fighting. It was to help the down trodden people of those slums, to build them homes, to help them with chores... to raise them up.¡± He gripped the steering wheel, ¡°Sam... you seem off.¡± I adjusted my breathing. And in an attempt to keep things ¡®regular¡¯, I opened a compartment and got out a protein bar. It was something I''d grown accustomed to doing, after the first week working with Grey, I was starting to feel at home, in that stuffy black box. ¡°Really, I''m fine, motion sickness, I guess.¡± ¡°Right,¡± he nodded, ¡°the golem didn¡¯t start off as a monster, when the Christian populace of Prague became truely oppressive, the golem changed, it had to in order to keep ¡®helping¡¯. It held the gates of the walled ghetto shut for as long as it could. But eventually, they broke through, hate, flooding in like a stream... and it was repaid. The golem became a monster in response to the evil beyond that little community.¡± I had laughed in my memory, so I tried to laugh now; it came out coarse, ¡°Ha! I didn¡¯t take you for a pacifist Grey!¡± He didn¡¯t look at me. ¡°I am not a hero, Sam...¡± My eyes widened. He¡¯d gone off script. If this wasn¡¯t a memory... what was it? ¡°... are you familiar with...¡± he gave a hearty chuckle, the second and last one I¡¯d ever see from him. Now I was really confused. ¡°Do you know why we refer to Body, Mind, and Soul as archetypes? It¡¯s derived from greek philosophy- which through my interactions with those outside of our universe, I have confirmed as reality. Beyond the physical world there is a sea of concepts from which everything else is derived. Books, trees, people, in that platonic world the true form of these ideas exist.¡± I¡¯d never heard any of this from him before, or at least, I hadn¡¯t remembered at the time. ¡°However there are a few things that don¡¯t exist... Undefinable concepts. Cold, death, dark, those are the obvious ones. They are the absence of something else. Is and Isn¡¯t. Then there are more difficult things to express. Man made concepts such as closed and open, up and down...¡± ¡°Good, and evil,¡± he continued. I could see where this was going. Grey turned to me. I should have been worried that he wasn¡¯t paying attention to flying, but it¡¯s not like whatever this was actually mattered. It wasn¡¯t real. ¡°Which is real, Good or Evil?¡± I paused. ¡°Good.¡± He didn¡¯t reply. ¡°Good exists,¡± I reaffirmed. He looked back over the sky. ¡°It took you awhile to answer that.¡± ¡°Well, it was a weird question, right?¡± He let go of the wheel. ¡°It¡¯s alright. I won¡¯t chastise you for not believing in the same things I do, you can¡¯t force yourself to believe in kindness.¡± I swallowed. Grey at last confronted me, ¡°You do believe in evil. That''s why you started doing this. All of this is to prove to yourself that good exists in the world. That good exists in you.¡± He gave a sigh, relaxing himself for- for the first time. ¡°Can stones curse? Can plants hate? What about the stars, do they throw stones at the oppressed? Can the ocean lie? But you are capable of those things. Because you aren¡¯t the archetype. You are human. And yet...¡± There was a gleam in his eye, ¡°The golem was built to help. The longer he existed the less good he saw, the less good he had.¡± We sat in silence for a while. The plane didn¡¯t tip. I asked, ¡°How¡¯d you figure out this wasn¡¯t... real? That it¡¯s... some sort of- dream?¡± He smiled, ¡°The steering wheel doesn¡¯t work. If I had to guess this is some sort of memory. Tell me, did you ever find out if I was from another world, or an illusion? Not that it matters now, now I''m sure that I exist only through you.¡± I choked, ¡°An illusory universe, I guess. Irminsul- when my mind was transported inside of it, it¡¯s omnipotence was put towards creating your universe. An entire- a whole universe created... and destroyed- It ended when I left.¡± ¡°Interesting...¡± He muttered. I shot him a teary look and he straightened, ¡°So, I¡¯m a memory of a false, dead, version of myself. It¡¯s almost laughable." ¡°If I had just smashed his head open-¡± I was doing something similar to sobbing, but the tears only built up. They never fell. ¡°If I was strong enough to just- to beat him before he¡¯d opened his mouth, then you¡¯d-¡± He put a hand on my shoulder. ¡°Then I wouldn¡¯t have existed.¡± I rubbed my head. It was getting sore. ¡°I wish you and Sam could have met. You two would have learned a lot from each other. I laughed, still rubbing my eyes, ¡°What, he could teach how to set up a dental appointment? I could help him find better taste in comics?¡± He smiled, ¡°He was jealous. Deep down. It never surfaced, but he wants- wanted- more. He had to work ten times as hard as anyone else, to prove he was worthy of the title of hero. I know, because i went through the same. That¡¯s how good was measured in my world. By the amount of power one held, political, physical, the two became interchangeable.¡± He looked down, ¡°It was only a matter of time before he let it go to his head.¡± I joked, ¡°So I¡¯d learn about work ethic from him, would could he have gotten from me? I¡¯ve let my head get big. No thanks to my powers.¡± ¡°What are you talking about? Of course there was something he could have learned from you. Green was doing this for years. You¡¯ve been doing this for a couple months. If he met you, he¡¯d have remembered what makes a hero.¡± What makes a hero? I held still before hearing the answer. ¡°Hesitation.¡± My body started to move, minutely. I was churning it over. ¡°What? No, a super hero¡¯d run straight into a burning building to safe someone, anyone-¡± ¡°What kind of ignorant self-destructive logic is that? You¡¯d sooner charge into fire than observe your surroundings to find a way to climb to that floor without getting burned? And I''m not talking about ¡®super¡¯ anything. There is no shame in being a blubbering mess in a stressful situation, so long as you¡¯re thinking, so long as you¡¯re asking the question ''which is right and which is wrong''. If you keep doing that, then you won¡¯t live a perfect live, but it will be good. Most of the time.¡± I was frowning, ¡°Whatever. This isn¡¯t real. You aren¡¯t Grey. You¡¯re... my imagination or something.¡± He motioned a hand to me, ¡°Yes, that¡¯s what I''m talking about, that ¡®or something¡¯. The unsureness of youth, you¡¯re not set in any particular way. You¡¯ll regret the ¡®wrong¡¯ choices you make, and lament your failures, learn from it all, and become a better person. You are the golem. Do not let the gate burst open.¡± I looked down. . . . I began to recognise the area, everything, it was as if the venom had been purged from my system completely. Time had passed since I hopped onto the broken aircraft, but not enough for the Golem to cross the distance. That feeling that I had almost forgotten finally took over, neurons fired through my mind, doubt helped me choose the best course of action. I had it right with the pig head, I wanted to make the right choice now. I let go of my fists, settling myself down. I sat on the edge of the broken thing, my legs dangling. I stroked my chin, trying to bring forth my old memories. The Golem was walking towards me, its melted feet trudged over the ground in long strides, and it was getting faster. Gun fire sounded off, a sharp light piercing the air, mud splattering off in drops. It was distracting me, so I shouted over at the racket to no avail. Not only were they firing guns, but they were speeding around in a roofless car, skirting against the now uneven tiles. I shouted again, ¡°Get out of here assholes!¡± It seems like they noticed me now, they were driving my way. The car, carrying three members of airport security, Hunter driving, and Clover acting as bait. ¡°ROCKY, YOU SON OF A BITCH! I TOLD YOU TO STAY PUT! I CAN¡¯T SAVE YOUR SKIN, ASSHOLE!¡± I hopped down and said to them, ¡°Get out of here. You haven¡¯t a clue what you¡¯re doing." Hunter piped up, speaking quickly, ¡°We can¡¯t beat that thing, it¡¯s magic! We need to keep it away while Bob and Charlie-¡± The clay-man had started moving towards us again, the slump in its side wasn¡¯t stopping it any more. They sped forward, Clover calling as they left me behind. I paced in the opposite direction, muttering to myself, ¡°What were the words again? Or letters, I guess...¡± It was becoming uncharacteristically enraged, unlike the one from the story or Irminsul. Maybe this one has seen more evil? I didn¡¯t have time to think about it. ¡°I remember reading them... Aleph, Mem... and Tav. It was Aleph, that¡¯s the important one.¡± It¡¯s fist slammed down, hitting me with the full hardened weight of its arm. I had thought about dodging, but decided to counter, seeing how he had struggled to bust that wall, it¡¯d take a lot more to best me. And honestly, I wasn¡¯t paying enough attention to dodge in time. But maybe that was the right thing to do, because I noticed something I wouldn¡¯t have if I''d acted immediately. He slammed down on me with his left hand, and suddenly I remembered that Hebrew is written right to left. The mud tightened over me, the same technique that Noah Thatcher had used. He was restricting my movements, covering me completely. Except, he hadn¡¯t yet covered the floor beneath my foot. I learnt from my mistake fighting the skin head. After a few quick stomps to the floor, a small part of the floor broke apart, and me and the mud fell through. With its other arm, It took a swing at me, this one I dodged, busting the floor as I shot away. The force from my leap and his slam caused the floor to fall apart. Looking back, these were quite impressive feats of strength, we were standing on a platform meant to support the weight of not only the antigravity crafts landing on it, but there were normal aeroplanes. He was standing on the level below me now, reaching up at me. His stump like hand reached up to me, maybe I imagined human fingers stretching out, maybe I didn¡¯t. I leapt forward, too close for him to grab. I stretched a single finger out and drew a line. The last letter on his head was removed. And the golem was no longer alive. It didn¡¯t melt into a puddle, it kept its form as it slumped back into the pit, nothing but common clay. The car had circled back, I raised a hand to them. They stopped, Clover and Hunter got out. She didn¡¯t say anything, they approached, but kept quiet a distance between us. Hunter was the first to say anything. I¡¯m sure he had his gun out already. ¡°Hey, I don¡¯t know what the fuck you just did, but our guys have tried everything, that thing won¡¯t stay down.¡± I responded, ¡°Fuck off.¡± ¡°Rocky,¡± she was gritting her teeth. ¡°Clover, give me your phone for a second, I need to look something up.¡± I finally looked over to them. Hunter¡¯s gun, I could tell he was ready to use it, though it wasn¡¯t even raised. ¡°Hey, ¡®kid¡¯,¡± Hunter smeared that horrible smile across his face, ¡°This isn¡¯t the time to antagonise me. Don¡¯t think I didn¡¯t see what you were going to do back in that tunnel. This is the end, right? You go home and forget about all this. We never meet again.¡± ¡°Shut up. Clover, your phone.¡± She looked back to the agent, Hunter gave her an order, ¡°Don¡¯t do it.¡± I¡¯m sure she felt his animosity. And with no good fortune left to help herself... She tossed her phone over. He was becoming antsy now, cursing under his breath. ¡°All of you should leave. I¡¯m staying here. I¡¯m going to finish this.¡± Clover was arguing against me now, ¡°Wow, wait- what are you talking about?! Rocky-¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to save them. You guys are alright. Now I just need to save the city. The Ints. Creh-umha. Jack Chandler. I will not fail. I¡¯ll mess up along the way, but I''m going to do right.¡± I had found what I was looking for, on the phone. ¡°All of you, get out of here. I¡¯m going to take my mask off. It¡¯d be disrespectful to keep it on for a funeral.¡± ¡°Rocky!¡± ¡°Hey, Clover-¡± I turned around, ¡°-if things get fucked up, I¡¯ll run away. I¡¯m definitely not going to die.¡± She looked at me, like I''d lost my mind. But there was an understanding there. She wanted to stop me. They both did. I¡¯m sure Hunter knew this would only stir up trouble. ¡°But if I just run away from, then this world isn¡¯t going to... If I don¡¯t keep fighting, this life isn¡¯t going to get better.¡± In response to my smile, Hunter took a step forward, ¡°Listen asshole-¡± ¡°No, you listen to me, exterminator, from here on out, whatever skills and talents you¡¯ve got? Whatever inexplicable tech you pull out your ass? It doesn¡¯t mean shit. I¡¯m Shamrock, the non-entity. I defy logic.¡± My smile stretched into a grin, ¡°Fuck off ye cunt ye¡¯.¡± He squinted at me; Clover hesitantly grabbed onto him. ¡°He¡¯s made his mind up. He doesn¡¯t have a soul, you¡¯d classify him as a Golem. There¡¯s nothing you can do.¡± I thought he¡¯d pull something. But I guess he wasn¡¯t stupid enough to take Clover hostage, or to fire a shot at me. He spat out, and turned his back on me. I waited for them to drive away in that car with the guards. Then I took my mask off, just the top layer, I left the hair net. The world looked so crisp, seeing it through a veil had made a huge difference. This was the first time in days that I got that thing off my face. I felt around my nose, wondering if I''d busted it somewhere along the line. Eventually, I turned to the pit where that thing shaped like a man lay. From what I''d read in Grey¡¯s books, Kaddish, the Hebrew burial right, is supposed to be performed with an audience, but I doubt either of them would humour me. Inscribed on the Golem¡¯s head, was the word Emet. Striking the letter Aleph from its head (like the rabbi in the story had done), left only the word Met. Meaning Death. There had to have been something special about how I''d removed the letter from its head, or else the Ints would have taken care of it a long time ago. (Unless they found some way to profit from it.) Maybe it was simply because I understood the significance of the action, the history behind the being. The Golem didn¡¯t have a soul. It was just clay given autonomy. When it becomes Death, there is nothing for it anymore. Nothing remains but a mess of dirt. It was, and now it simply isn¡¯t. The Rabbi had believed that was something worth mourning. And so do I. I bowed my head low, looking into the pit, and after excusing my poor pronunciation I read the script. Yitgadal v¡¯yitkadash sh¡¯mei raba b¡¯alma di v¡¯ra chir¡¯utei; v¡¯yamlich malchutei b¡¯hayeichon u-v¡¯yomeichon, uv¡¯hayei d¡¯chol beit yisrael, ba-agala u-vi-z¡¯man kariv, v¡¯imru amen. Y¡¯hei sh¡¯mei raba m¡¯varach l¡¯alam u-l¡¯almei almaya. Yitbarach v¡¯yishtabah, v¡¯yitpa¡¯ar v¡¯yitromam, v¡¯yitnasei v¡¯yit-hadar, v¡¯yit¡¯aleh v¡¯yit¡¯halal sh¡¯mei d¡¯kudsha, b¡¯rich hu, l¡¯ela min kol birchata v¡¯shirata, tushb¡¯hata v¡¯nehemata, da-amiran b¡¯alma, v¡¯imru amen. Y¡¯hei sh¡¯lama raba min sh¡¯maya, v¡¯hayim, aleinu v¡¯al koi yisrael, v¡¯imru amen. Oseh shalom bi-m¡¯romav, hu ya¡¯aseh shalom aleinu v¡¯al kol yisrael, v¡¯imru amen. ¡­ I looked up to that polluted sky. Deck 5.11: I got rocked. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Deck 5.12: I said the goodbyes I could. From the fact that I''m writing this you can probably tell that I¡¯m alive and at the very least, able to type. Well, after being kept unconscious for a week and a bit, I made a full recovery! The thing is, there were people who didn¡¯t want that. There were a couple reasons that the people of Babel city didn¡¯t like me, after everything was said and done. First of all, there was the obvious stuff, I had threatened multiple International personal, the guys guarding the rebirthing fluid and Hunter. As it turns out, there are a lot of cameras placed over the city. They¡¯d basically seen everything I''d done except, thankfully, the stuff that happened on the landing strip of the airport. So nobody has seen my face, secret identity is secret. They showed me the footage of when I went to get the time ball from Charlie, completely unrecognisable as a person. Thankfully. In the days I''d been conscious, Charlie never came to visit. That was another point the city was making against me, that I''d mentally scarred one of their saviours. The story the lawyers were spinning, (or whatever jobs those guys had), was that I had intimidated her into breaking her contract with the Internationals, handing over that tech to me. It was one of many charges, if anything it was more of a threat to her than me- it would mean a complete termination of their private contract, or at least they¡¯d have to rework it. There was a huge mess about it, but Charlie never made any public announcements. I don¡¯t think I''ll see her for a long, long time. And that¡¯s probably for the best. For her. The most important point against me was the fact that I had empowered the Channeler and made contact with the Beast. The latter is apparently a globally issue. Soon after Jack had been dealt with, Hand-maid, or Santina Maria, was called to clean up the mess. I know she can teleport, but in my mind, it seems impossible for her to deal with something of that sheer size, the fact that she could just teleport a something the size of a mountain... Anyway, my presence provoked it, Jungle Beast Tlaloc, it started to make its way to the shore, and it ¡®begun using its none passive abilities¡¯, whatever that means. There was a huge scare about it, public safety and all. Maybe if this had been my first time going through this sort crap, I''d have been freaking out over that detail, but I don¡¯t mind. My actions lead to both of the city''s major problems getting solved. It¡¯s not like I was looking to be worshipped as their saviour, but I would have liked a little credit. That being said, Babel did sort of run a victory lap, they celebrated a couple people''s involvement. Ali, Charlie K, and Aayan were all hailed as heroes in the end. Noticeably, Isaac and Yuki were excluded, Aayan was probably only included to satisfy his family, at least a little. Yuki didn¡¯t seem to mind; they did give her a bonus in the end. I¡¯m sure they knew that would be enough to satisfy her, the same goes for Isaac. I heard his aid was enough to solidify the alliance between the Ints and his nation. I don¡¯t really get it, what with Creh-umha being a part of a terrorist group, I guess they can just overlook it as long as the mess is kept between him and Axel. Though I''m sure if they had to choose between Artificial intelligence or aqua-man, they¡¯d choose the latter. Well, despite everything that happened they did help me recover, if after a two-week period. They could have just dumped a canister on me and be done with it, but they rationed it to me, while making attempts to remove toxins from my body. There were arguments over whether they should heal me at all. In the end, the party that supported me trumped the other. Who was it that helped me out in the end? Was it Bob? No, of course not. With the death of the city¡¯s director, they needed to elect a new one, and with the large reconstruction of the city, there was at least one person left thankful for what I''d done. ¡°Haha, I guess I really do have a lot to thank you for then!¡± I didn¡¯t recognise the man that came to visit me. This was my fourth day awake, and he had a friendly face at least. It was better than the people who¡¯d come in asking me questions. I prefer to be the one asking, rather than answering. ¡°Sorry, but do I know you?¡± Though I was glad for the company, I was tired from the blood transfusions they were performing. Not to mention the check-ups with Dr Attrition. The man, who was quite young, about my height, laughed, ¡°Yeah, a lot of people have been asking that for a while. Though, you and I have met. I was at the meeting, you know, the one where your friend, the Bastard crowned girl told everyone who she was?¡± I knew what he was talking about, but I still didn¡¯t remember him. He shook his head, ¡°My name¡¯s Yoshida Lindenburg,¡± he stretched out his hand, before retracting it awkwardly. Behind my bandaged face I lowered an eyebrow. Like I said, they were being stingy with the rebirthing fluid, I¡¯d been given enough to reform up to my knuckles at the time. It¡¯s not like they could just put the thing back on. It was trapped within an indestructible sphere, but we¡¯ll get there when we get there. ¡°You see, I''m an engineer, I make robots! Maybe you recognise some of my work? I¡¯m often overshadowed by Axle Right, but I¡¯m an integral part of this institution. Oh, I was the guy who designed the frame of the Gator the Channeler kept summoning! Though, Right ended up co-opting that project... Anyway, in the rebuilding, my suits have been an integral part of the process: Reconstruction, decontamination, they might not have done a lot against the enemy, but they were there too!¡± I didn¡¯t really understand why he was blabbering on to me. ¡°Apparently, the CEO has greatly appreciated my contribution. I¡¯m now the Director of Babel! Honestly, I don¡¯t know how long I''m going to hold the position for, but I¡¯ve effectively gotten to the top without the years of work that you¡¯d usually need to put in! Haha, really, I thought that Dr Attrition would have taken over, but to think a researcher as low down as me would come so far. Thanks!¡± I was trying to narrow my vision on him, but it was blurred. ¡°What are you thanking me for?¡± He looked confused, like it was obvious, ¡°Well, if you hadn¡¯t interfered, then Greem would still be alive. You opened his spot.¡± I could hear a snap. I told him, ¡°I can get out of this bed you know. I feel like crap, and I''m missing an arm...¡± I paused. He looked at me with a tilt to his head. ¡°But I can still get out of this bed.¡± My words came out in a growl. He had a bizarre expression on his face and backed up to the door. I leaned forward, feeling only worse. I can¡¯t say if what I did was for the best or not, but- but I couldn¡¯t do nothing, right? I just couldn¡¯t get in that air craft and float away into the clouds. Speaking of which, that¡¯s what Clover did in the end, she made it home alright, never checking to see why I didn¡¯t come back. Well, I did make it back home. Again, a story for another time, let¡¯s stay on track. Let¡¯s talk about my last day there. I was getting used to having a hand again, flexing it as the doctor began taking her session with me. ¡°This will be your last day here. How does that make you feel?¡± Attrition had a knack for avoiding leading questions, guess that was a part of her job. A psychologist, though one focusing on the supernatural, whatever that really means. ¡°I really should have left this place ages ago. I¡¯ve got two lives to get back to.¡± ¡°The man under the mask, and the mask itself. I understand. Though I''ll tell you this much. Your fear is irrational.¡± I gave a laugh, ¡°I thought as much. Nobody is going to care who I am. I really don¡¯t have anybody that somebody could use to get to me, not like in the comics. Honestly, you could take anyone hostage and I''d treat it just as seriously.¡± She was sitting across the room from me, I was sitting up in bed, a guard''s mask covering my face. The doctor looked into it with her dark eyes, ¡°Besides that, the ¡®superhero¡¯ persona that you identify with, your main draw to that mask seems to be... the ability to choose. The anonymity.¡± I stood up, giving myself a good stretch, ¡°To choose what?¡± She continued, ¡°To choose how people see you. This isn¡¯t exactly a special or unique response to social interactions. People act differently when around certain company. You wouldn¡¯t treat Robert the same way you treat me.¡± I nodded, ¡°Because your someone who knows what they¡¯re doing.¡± ¡°Because he¡¯s someone you¡¯re familiar with,¡± she half smiled, ¡°he¡¯s good at that, being welcoming. That¡¯s why I took an interest in him.¡± She shifted the subject back, ¡°The difference is that you are afraid, indecisive. You don¡¯t want to form a single type of relationship with a person. You want options when it comes to the type of person you are. You want to be seen as abrasive, and approachable. Meek yet powerful.¡± ¡°What, you think I''m bi-polar?¡± ¡°Obviously not,¡± there was a dry humour in her voice, ¡°that would be all too simple.¡± She grabbed a clipboard that had been leaning against the leg of her chair, ¡°I wanted to wait until... just as long as possible. I assume you don¡¯t know how you became a Unit, or how...¡± She was trailing off, all the while looking at me with some thought. I turned to face her head on, sitting on the very edge of my hospital bed. She put on a pair of reading glasses and went through what she had written down. ¡°There are the obvious injuries, the splinter like stab wounds, bruising on your arms, the broken ribs, the acidic burns. That by itself was something you¡¯d have not surviving if you were a man. But there was that ¡®venom¡¯. Understand, we had to get rid of that before administrating any foam. It was a biological agent.¡± She raised a hand, ¡°I believe it was Robert who let it slip that those monsters scattered throughout the city were being subjected to research, correct? Well, there was the pig, it was being studied by one of my associates, the research material derived from it was put towards the psychic network between the cities. Then there was the Golem that you decommissioned. A project of mine.¡± There was a slight edge in her voice. ¡°D¡¯you want me to apologise?¡± I asked. ¡°No,¡± Attrition sighed, ¡°we¡¯ll save that for later.¡± ¡°What I want to talk about is that creature and its venom. Of course, if we were simply interested in a fatal poison, we¡¯d study a creature that produces it. But don¡¯t go thinking we¡¯d keep it on American soil. There government wouldn¡¯t allow it, and they¡¯re too important to deceive. We keep our weapons research to less valued territories, or international waters. So long as the study of a dangerous creature is being put towards the betterment of mankind, we¡¯ll unanimously see it as moral and right.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll tell you right now, Robert and that exterminator were wrong. It wasn¡¯t a venom. It was... a communion. Regularly, it would be fatal, but only because it would increase the processing of the mind beyond human limits. Those audible hallucinations, most likely weren¡¯t fantasies. They were the Twenty-seven.¡± I reacted to that. It would explain where that information came from, how I knew about the time ball. One thing that didn¡¯t explain was why that voice had decided to help me. At the time, it seemed like something to keep secret from Attrition, but she already knew, I¡¯m sure, even if she couldn¡¯t read my body language. ¡°I found something while pocking around your brain. Figuratively and literally. As you know, that body of yours has been enhanced. I¡¯ll guess that you woke up one night and it just so happened that you had powers. But there were changes you couldn¡¯t possibly notice. An enhanced processing and planning speed, the frontal lobe in general was showing a lot of activity, even while unconscious.¡± ¡°My point is, after you became Unitary, you were changed in every capacity, mental and physical.¡± She rushed to follow up now, ¡°That on its own, simply an interesting facet of your abilities. If that was all, I wouldn¡¯t have taken the time to look over your case. The thing is, from our meetings and further studies, I¡¯ve found something out about you.¡± If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°You understand the Harpocratic condition, or more commonly, the ignorance effect, that certain people are predisposed to ignore certain events, evidence, or facts. That mundane algorithms ignore certain posts on the internet. This affects everything in the world during June. I myself am an expert on the topic.¡± ¡°To put it bluntly, there are events in your life, in your past, that you have chosen to ignore, or repress. Typically, this is impossible. Units regain the ability to recall such events after going Unitary excluding something of June¡¯s calibre.¡± Maybe I should have reacted with a little shock, but there was no such feeling in me. I wasn¡¯t too surprised to hear that there was something strange about my origin. The one thing that I¡¯d heard from Bastard the Mountain king was that not even June can erase your emotional state, at least when it comes to that ignorance phenomenon. When I think about SP2, I feel sick. There was something I''d really wanted to ask, ¡°What makes you an expert on the ignorance effect Doc?¡± She looked up at me from her clipboard. ¡°It¡¯s just, if I remember correctly, you knew about the Channeler¡¯s ability to recall the events of June, but you didn¡¯t know how to combat him.¡± She half smiled, ¡°I¡¯m... not a combatant. I¡¯m a researcher. I¡¯ve spent years searching for an exemption to that rule.¡± I nodded, ¡°But you know, Jack said something before I cut him off, that you knew more than you were letting on.¡± Her smile held, ¡°I realise you want some kind of confession, a sort of answer to who¡¯s fault all of this was, but you¡¯re not going to get it like that, not from me, and not by directing a general statement towards me.¡± I kept pushing, ¡°I wasn¡¯t implying that you were the person he was looking for. I was thinking broadly, you said you were an expert, and he said you people were hiding more than you let on. Now that I''ve had a little time to think it over, I wonder exactly how it is that you learned there were gaps in memories. From learning my personality, or some sort of super brain scanner you just had out-back? That¡¯s unlikely. And then there¡¯s our sessions. You come in here ask me a few questions, allow people to visit, drop little hints of stuff I''d like to hear more about, like the Golem, dividing my attention-¡± I took in a breath, ¡°-And another thing, you were sitting in the board room meeting, meaning you are a Unit, meaning you have powers, powers that aren¡¯t combative.¡± I was catching myself now, ¡°That, with the whole ¡®expert on the phenomenon that makes people gloss over memories¡¯ seems very suspicious, when the only person in the world who can physically remember those events comes looking for a high ranking Int in this City, makes it sort of difficult for me to not accuse you of hiding something.¡± She gave me a second to catch my breathe. Attrition kept that smile, ¡°Secrecy and schemes are something I deal with, but only tangentially. As a researcher, I solve mysteries. As a higher up, I deal with people plotting all sorts of ways to rise through the ranks. Oh, and I guess you could count my invention. I¡¯m the one who developed technologies that can render certain places imperceptible to first-worlders and attract monsters.¡± ¡°In short, manipulating information,¡± I jabbed. ¡°Yes. And I¡¯ll confirm both of your suspicions now. My other ability, apart from developing such technology, is to ¡®hypnotise¡¯ people. I did, at least temporarily erase your recollection of parts of our sessions, that¡¯s how I found out that somebody else had been poking around in there. And don¡¯t worry, I can¡¯t make you reveal your secrets to me, I just made you forget unnecessary details, procedures too painful.¡± ¡°I assure you, the lies you tell yourself and those closest to you are completely safe, Shamrock.¡± She added a raised eyebrow to her half mocking smile, yet that dark look in her eyes was still there. Everything but that shadowy stare fell away in a frown as she continued, ¡°Secondly, yes, I am the type of person to have done it.¡± Attrition stared off into the distance, ¡°I¡¯m the type of person who would choose to sacrifice a country for the world. Lord so help me, that¡¯s most likely where this soul crushing feeling comes from every July.¡± There was a slight break in her accent, a southern tang to it. Before saying anything else I let the silence hang for a second. ¡°Do you... believe in God, doctor?¡± She was quiet, she probably knew why I was asking, but she replied, ¡°Why do you ask?¡± I fiddled with my fingers, half out of nervousness. ¡°Well, you just brought up the ¡®lord¡¯, and- and you said you were studying the Golem-¡± I trailed off. She looked me up and down, and finally the therapist dynamic had shifted. ¡°I grew up in a religious sect. Most folk¡¯d call it a cult, but it was much older than the modern meaning of that word. We lived in a sort of Amish community; is how I''d describe it to someone who doesn¡¯t understand. My mother traded her life for mine. My father never forgave me. He denied me my humanity, any sort of familial bond to them. His name wasn¡¯t even Attrition, he¡¯d called me that because- well, I''ll save you that vulgar detail.¡± ¡°We prayed seven times a day, and still the summer was too hot to grow grain, the winters were too cold for some folk, and there wasn¡¯t a day gone by that I wasn¡¯t at least a little bit miserable. Eventually, I left. I went looking for answers to why the world is the way it is. I didn¡¯t find much, but I found these people early on in life. I wonder if I¡¯d found different answers had I gone to Europe or Russia.¡± I was quiet, and she finished, ¡°You don¡¯t want to know if I believe there¡¯s a Lord up there, you want to know if he is real.¡± In my mind, I half saw an image of her overlay with Grey. I say half, because those eyes don¡¯t exactly match up. She asked me her last question. ¡°How did you dismantle the Golem? That wouldn¡¯t have been possible for someone who hasn¡¯t studied the torah for a lifetime.¡± She was fully focused on me now, reading my movements, minute gestures. Eventually, I smiled, ¡°I saw somebody do it in a dream.¡± . . . I was in the front of a Yuki¡¯s car, heading off to the airport for my departure. It was prepped and ready to take off, we just had to make it through a finally stretch of traffic. I made an argument I''d made ten times during the ride, ¡°This¡¯d go by a lot quicker if I just walked.¡± She smiled, maybe she was actually enjoying how stubborn I was being, ¡°We¡¯ve been over this kid, if they catch you doing something like that, you¡¯ll be targeted as a criminal. You make a mess when you jump up that high. And also, you¡¯re sort of dressed like-¡± She burst out laughing. ¡°It¡¯s a classic,¡± I argued weakly. ¡°What the hell does that mean? Holy crap, you¡¯re wearing under pants! What about that is classic?¡± I shook my head, feeling deep down that I was being stupid, and it was climbing up the more people laughed at me. ¡°I¡¯m not gonna walk you through the list, but tons of super heroes start off with this. Before they get their iconic costume made, they wear whatever street clothes they can scrape together, typically hoodies, though that¡¯s not a rule. They¡¯d have their logo spray painted onto the front. A ski mask or something to that effect, and a pair of underpants.¡± ¡°That! That¡¯s the bit that doesn¡¯t make any sense! Why, would anybody wear them like that when the fly up-up and away to fight aliens?¡± ¡°One of the inspirations for the modern super man were circus strong men, they¡¯d be dressed in a loin cloth with leopard print-¡± She laughed as the cars started moving again, ¡°Right-right, and the hospital couldn¡¯t get you that or spray paint, huh?¡± I steered away from the stuff about underwear, heading into what she¡¯d said about the paint, ¡°I don¡¯t have a symbol to paint.¡± She was mocking me now, ¡°Oh no! How else are you gonna saturate the market with merchandise around your crime-fighting endeavours. Hey, ten years from now, when the cinematic universe catches up with us, can I be played by- Well, I can¡¯t think of any Inuit actresses... But how about Cara Delevingne, she¡¯s sort of weird-hot, and it¡¯d be cool if I were British...¡± She was giggling to herself as I was only now realising that she wasn¡¯t Caucasian. Then I was thinking about whether that was racist or not. It probably is racist that I''m bringing it up now, right? While I was getting anxious about that, I put a stop to whatever she was talking about, ¡°That¡¯s enough, alright? I¡¯m here by choice. It¡¯s not like the child lock on this door will do anythin¡¯.¡± She shrugged, ¡°Well, if you want to be treated seriously, then maybe you shouldn¡¯t dress like nobody¡¯s watching.¡± The excitement faded from her, ¡°Maybe that¡¯s why Bob took a liking to you. You¡¯re pretty similar.¡± As I was about to deny her, I remembered two things: one, when I met Bob, I was also half naked. Maybe a better half to be naked, but not a lot better when I''m wearing a shoddy mask. Second, I started thinking about how he hadn¡¯t come to visit me in the hospital. ¡°Sure,¡± I whispered. Maybe she sensed that I was in a darker place than she¡¯d have liked. ¡°He¡¯s been pretty busy lately. He actually got a promotion in the end, for aiding Hunter. And he had to look after his sister, that¡¯s the type of guy he is. Family first. He abandoned her once; he¡¯s not going to go and do it again right after-¡± She stopped herself suddenly- I didn¡¯t know why at first, but with a little context clue, even I was able to pick up on what she was avoiding. ¡°I traumatised his sister-¡± Yuki tried to argue otherwise, but I knew it was true, ¡°That entire time, I was the only person, the only thing she could rely on. To keep her safe, to just understand what it¡¯s like for someone... timid. For someone who¡¯s horrified at the situation-¡± ¡°And you showed her the face of her hero, half a skull and some slopping skin,¡± Yuki took off the kid¡¯s gloves. ¡°But so what? If she can¡¯t keep upbeat, that¡¯s on her.¡± Those words made me spike back up, ¡°What the hell are you-¡± ¡°Everybody has a first time dealing with stuff like this. And that wasn¡¯t hers. She was at that massacre, the Right corporations one-year anniversary. Then there was the space programme, your familiar with the Gator, right? What happened to your little town, but werewolves showed up to complicate things, and I''m pretty sure there was some acid rain or something.¡± ¡°Then there was the event that made her break up with Axel Right,¡± There was a more serious tone to that one. ¡°Something to do with cheese, is what I heard from Bob.¡± I almost laughed, and that cheered Yuki up. But the joy died away from me quickly. ¡°But did she ever see someone she knew dead? I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ve... It¡¯s different. When you think things have cooled down. When you¡¯re about to head home, you twist the door knob to your house-¡± I chocked. I got the feeling that I wasn¡¯t talking about Charlie anymore. ¡°-and you find someone dead. Out of nowhere, someone you¡¯d seen as strong is just-¡± ¡°Ahh, shut it.¡± I looked up. When she said something harsh earlier, it made me mad, but now that she was directing that at me... ¡°You¡¯re gonna see a lot more people dead. Some you know, some you don¡¯t. But you can¡¯t let it set your pace. You need to keep living life, whether it¡¯s in a suit, or your underpants. Most importantly, you need to keep it light. Get angry, be afraid, hell, be sad about it if you can manage. But in our world, it¡¯s laugh or cry. Never cry kid.¡± I felt like there was some more she needed to say, but she never came out with it. ¡°The Electric Dance king taught me that.¡± We arrived just shortly after a moment of silence between us. I got out of the car with a sack, filled with my stuff and Clover¡¯s. She¡¯d left her laptop, phone, and clothes at the apartment. I had the dented frying pan and some other trinkets stored away. Yuki called out to me through her rolled down window. ¡°Kid, about Bob, he¡¯s the type of guy who won¡¯t let things go, but he isn¡¯t the type of person who changes his opinion of somebody.¡± She smiled and drove off. I stood around, looking for the entrance. There were some problems with security, nothing major. I showed them some documents that the city had given me. Then, the guards ushered me through to another checkout, I showed the same files, and got pushed through to shorter que. A guy at a till told me which landing zone to go to, and how to get there without interfering with other flights. I was tired by the end of it all. When I got to the craft, I stood at the foot of the door, wondering if I should knock or, if I was supposed to wait. While I had my hand raised to the metal frame, through was a clunk from inside, a step falling down to greet me, and the door opened. I looked up as it did so, seeing him. I thought they¡¯d have gotten someone other than Bob. He had a hand against the doorframe, looking down on me. His stubble was a little longer, and his eyes were darker. He took a step back as I climbed up. He opened his mouth... and closed it. He slunk back in. I just stood there. Eventually my body moved on its own, I just hobbled up those steps and into the messy shuttle. It might have been a little stripped back, missing a few items, at least on the left-hand side, in the back. Materials they didn¡¯t want me going near? The higher-ups I mean. Though I wouldn¡¯t have put it past Bob move some things away from the guy who traumatised his sister. I felt like that should be the first thing to acknowledge, and that might have been the right thing to do... But I can¡¯t be Shamrock for nearly a month. I need to be Sam. Weak and timid. That¡¯s just who I am. Partially at least. I was choking on the guilt I felt. I saw him on my right as the door closed behind me. He was sitting with his back to me, doing something with the controls. I sat in the passenger seats, the closest to the door in fact, but then he finally said something. ¡°You can come up front if you want.¡± I didn¡¯t feel like I was in a position to refuse, so, begrudgingly, I sat beside him. It was definitely tense. A little hot, if I''m being honest. Maybe that was just because I had a helmet on my head. Maybe it was just the heating. While I sat there with nothing to do, Bob fiddled with the controls, flipped some switches, looked at some stuff, before finally taking off. It was quick and clean. I haven¡¯t been on an aeroplane or helicopter, but I assume they take a while to get ready, that there¡¯s some build up to it. We rose up. I could just about feel it pulling me down, the force of take-off, but over whelming that was relief. Leaving that city was like lifting a weight from my shoulders, I could get back to my life. Maybe I wouldn¡¯t be doing much in my small town, but it was the feeling of freedom that I wanted, that I had the opportunity to make my own choices and not get wrapped up in whatever these factions were doing. Though, I do have some long-term goals. For dealing with this large-scale crap when I''m prepared. I thought it was stupid at the time, but when we started moving forward, I let out a gasp of air, sinking into my seat. Afterwards, I noticed Bob tighten his grip on the steering. That made me tense up again. It returned after momentarily slipping my mind. I¡¯d compare the rise to when I first got into Grey¡¯s jet, but that was black, this cockpit was just dirty, and the seats were switched, Bob¡¯s was an American design, driver on the left. Or pilot, I guess. I looked over to him, turning my neck. He did the same, hiding his face. I suppose I was doing the same. I gulped back my insecurities, getting ready to say anything. ¡°Kid...¡± started Bob, taking me by surprise, ¡°I- uhm...¡± I braced myself. ¡°I can¡¯t begin to apologise.¡± I looked at him now, I wasn¡¯t simply facing him anymore. ¡°How old are you?¡± He asked. It came out of the blue, ¡°I¡¯m 19, I guess.¡± It had become a hard question to answer since Irminsul. ¡°Nine-teen. Fucking nine-teen! Your entire life ahead of you and how many times have you nearly been killed under my watch?¡± I almost laughed. I tried to reassure him, but he continued, ¡°Minutes after we met, I told you how to get to a monster. I¡¯d be fine with just that, I could shift some of the blame on you and your powers, or at least on your... quirky behaviour,¡± I looked down at my underpants, ¡°but over June I just... abandoned you. I didn¡¯t even try to warn you about it. I thought your blood was on my hands. And again, I made excuses-¡± ¡°-how could I know what would and wouldn¡¯t put you at risk? But when I saw you in that hospital bed- when they brought you in-¡± He kept himself together long enough to turn on the auto pilot. With a groan in his voice he cried, ¡°I was with you that entire day, but I was just dead weight. You went to get that foam for me, and I couldn¡¯t give you a drop when your body was melting. And after you woke up- I just couldn¡¯t-¡± He took a break, ¡°I couldn¡¯t look at you. Recovering from injuries you received because I wasn¡¯t guarding you.¡± I leaned forward in my seat. It was like looking all over for something and finding it in your pocket. He had been there. I just didn¡¯t see him because I was unconscious for half of my stay. I also realised what it was Yuki meant when she said Bob had taught her not to cry. He turned to face me, and I could see the snot dripping down his face, even through the black plastic of my helmet. I guess what Yuki meant was, that at least somebody in the room has to keep their shit together. That¡¯s just how the world is. All I could do was try and console him, tell him it wasn¡¯t his fault that I''d been beaten and melted and poisoned, and a lot of other things. After I realised that wasn¡¯t working, I finally gained the courage to say it. ¡°I¡¯m sorry... A-about Charlie.¡± He responded like I had, he told me it wasn¡¯t my fault, that it was just something that... I can¡¯t really remember what he was saying. It honestly doesn¡¯t matter. Only I can know when I''m wrong. It¡¯s something I decide. Between the two of us, I was the one who had been stupid. Bob, the E.D king, the man who danced in the nude, had taught me just a little about responsibility. Hopefully, that, and his last name are the only thing he has in common with Uncle Ben. In that unnamed flying machine, surrounded by empty packets of American confections and unwashed clothes; with the heat a little too high, and a pilot whose composure had broken, I made my return to Ireland. Pierce 6.01: I got home just fine. I fell asleep in the ride over. Honestly, I should have taken the time to write the previous post out then, but I put it off till I got back home. Not only do I prefer to type it out on my stationary laptop rather than over my phone, I also had a lot of stuff to do once I got back. At the top of my list was finding Clover, telling her what happened to the Channeler. Then Bob asked me what I was going to do as I got off. ¡°I guess you want to get home and see your folks, huh? I mean, you¡¯ve been gone a whole month. Heh, I can relate. When I was your age... I¡¯ll tell you about that next time I see you.¡± I was hung up on the last thing he said. ¡°Sorry, stupid question, what month is it?¡± He looked back before leaning against the door, as if he¡¯d never broken down in tears, ¡°Uh, it¡¯s still July, but August is around the corner.¡± I nodded, ¡°Oh, ok.¡± I had a nagging feeling in the back of my head, that was subsided by the awkward goodbye that was currently taking place. We stood around in the same field he¡¯d taken off from before, but now he wasn¡¯t just a weird guy I''d encountered. ¡°Thanks. For helping us out,¡± it came out forced, though I was glad to have him. ¡°Hey, what else could I do?¡± I feel like he wanted to say more, and to be honest, I should have kept in better contact. ¡°I¡¯ll see you later, Agent.¡± He just nodded; coolly is what he was going for. I left first, jumping in the unmistakably familiar direction of home. I¡¯d taken for granted how accustomed I am to my little life here; I¡¯d wasted a lot of time running myself ragged trying to find where to go in that city. This place makes me feel more human, I guess. Like I really do have a place I belong in this world. Even if that place is as the guy who sits at the front of the biology class that only talks to one person. With that thought, a sudden change of heart overtaking me. All of a sudden, Sam¡¯s life became a lot more appealing. I wanted to talk to Saoirse, not Clover. It had been so long, my exhaustion had already left me, I was simply excited to have a bit of craig with a friend of mine. The thought that she was a murderer had all but dissipated. In my mind she was someone who¡¯d experienced just as much lose as me, if not more. She was somebody who could understand me. I was doing short leaps, to the current me it was like taking a leisurely walk, to those watching I was some parkour try hard. I shot up and over a hill, behind my mask, an unstoppable smile broke out. It was just how I left it. From that height I could see river, so about half the town. I was coming in from the south side, the area with single story and old buildings. Sudden waves of nostalgia started hitting me. I recognised every turn off at that roundabout, I knew who lived in that house there, (an old couple, they¡¯d shouted some obscure slurs at me.) Then I came to the Mc Donalds. I got a warm and fuzzy feeling, not just because I liked to stash my costume up their before I moved my store to the mountains, but it reminded me of the first time I''d actually talked with Clover. I stopped for a second at the gas station beside it, smiling dumbly to myself. A half-assed whistle broke through the quiet country air. I unintentionally turned to face it. At first, I was happy to see her, thinking to myself, ¡®what are the chances?¡¯ Then the irony. And then, when I realised I was in a costume, there was really only one person she could be trying to talk to here. ¡°Rocky, right??¡± She was asking, but she already knew it was me. Who else would be dressed like this? My excitement died nearly instantly. I realised I¡¯d be getting into business quickly. She had stuffed a hand in her bag, ¡°Took you long enough shit-head. What the hell were you doing??¡± I was a little sore that she hadn¡¯t been too worried about me, but my mind quickly jumped to the alternative, ¡°So, you had complete faith in me, did you? Not at all surprised that I beat the Channeler?¡± She scoffed with a sullen expression, ¡°I would be, if it was actually you who beat Jack- and don¡¯t call him ¡®Channeler¡¯, the last thing you need is to think those types of names are normal. It¡¯s just the ints that call him that, they misheard his name when he first appeared, that¡¯s it.¡± She was walking up to me like that dirty roadside was a cat walk. ¡°Hey, I don¡¯t know what you heard, but I beat the-¡± She hissed in at me, ¡°Far as I know, Charlie beat Jack. You''re just the guy who turned tail and threatened her into giving that tech up.¡± I shook my head and took a step back, ¡°Now hold on, I didn¡¯t threaten her. She- My face was melted off, so even though I was just asking for it-¡± ¡°Rocky,¡± she stopped me, shaking her head as if I was obviously wrong, ¡°Out of all the people in this world, you¡¯re the person who should have the least to do with time manipulation. Because you¡¯re a fucking moron.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t-¡± She tilted her head, ¡°You wouldn¡¯t be able to resist. Eventually something horrible would happen, something like Valentines, and you¡¯d eventually try and stop every horrible thing in history. And that would kill everything. Ever.¡± I hung my head. She changed her posture, becoming a little less aggressive. I really wasn¡¯t in the mood, so I just said what had to be said, ¡°Right, so you and Charlie talked about it on the flight back over then? So you know what happened to him? What the time ball did?¡± Clover shrugged, ¡°She kept to her contract. I don¡¯t know the specifics, but I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll send word to the Mountain sooner or later.¡± I nodded, ¡°Right, well, in case they decide to keep his fate secret, like they had done for that escapee, I¡¯ll tell you right now. He¡¯s alive. Him, the ball, and my left hand are frozen in time. Thing about stopping ¡®time¡¯ is that everything in its radius is frozen, including the air, the light. Apparently, I didn¡¯t use the ball correctly, and that was the result. It was a prototype after all. Because time manipulation is uncharted waters for all of them, even Charlie, they don¡¯t really understand the physics of it. They can¡¯t undo it. He¡¯s stuck in a big black ball until they figure out how to turn it off.¡± She gave it some thought, an eyebrow raised. ¡°Good. That¡¯s one less thing for the king to worry about.¡± I knew that Chandler was planning on killing Clover, but I don¡¯t think I could ever describe that as good. ¡°Well, if that¡¯s everything, I sort of have a life to get back to.¡± I turned tail, but she laughed, ¡°Nope, not yet.¡± She was holding out a red letter, what she¡¯d been fishing around for in her bag. I tried to feign interest and failed, simply shrugging my shoulders. ¡°It finally came. The letter.¡± ¡°And I¡¯m supposed to know what that means?¡± Her smile died away, ¡°Oh come on, you remember,¡± she turned around looking at the chain restaurant, ¡°I texted you about him here. Four people came up in our chat. My king, the guy in Belfast, Chandler, and-¡± she lifted the letter and her brow, leaving a blank for me to fill. ¡°How the hell do you expect me to remember something from months ago? With everything you were saying how could I possibly remember that I was going to get a mysterious Red letter?¡± She raised a lip, holding back an unreasonable tantrum. I held my hands out defensively, before taking it off her hands. Clover was saying something, as I flipped it over and read the writing on the back, not opening it yet: For the boy. Contents not for Clover¡¯s eyes. Instructions for Clover: Thirteen days from Jack Chandler¡¯s assault, ¡®Shamrock¡¯ will return from The City of Babel. Clover is to pass this on for the Deliverer. You will use her ability to arrange a meeting on the day he is projected to return. Provide Shamrock with access to a telescope on August 1st. Instructions for ¡®Shamrock¡¯: Do not open this until August 1st, 10 PM exaclty. Before this time will result in death. After this time will result in death, with a slight allowance of ten minutes, and a leniency in the event of unforeseen circumstances, e.g the reader being the victim of an assault during the allotted period, or if the letter is in some way damaged in a freak accident. For further details, proceed to ¡®the place you keep your remains, the stone, the bottle; were you¡¯ll leave the seed and the mud¡¯. -Schism I was slightly roused by the last part, some kind of riddle? The part about remains makes me think of a graveyard. There are a few around here. The part about a seed made me think it¡¯d be under a tree or something. I shook my head. I guess that ¡®additional processing¡¯ Attrition was talking about is too busy deconstructing other people¡¯s superpowers. And my underreaction to the ¡®will result in death¡¯ part wasn¡¯t because I wasn¡¯t taking it seriously. With all the crap I''ve seen, sure, if I open this letter I''ll die. That makes sense to me now. It makes me say, ok. It¡¯s not like there was a lot to go off of, for me to understand what Schism was. I handed it back to Clover which made her go wide eyed, ¡°Woah,¡± she said, halting whatever passive aggressive insult she was making, ¡°I¡¯ve done my part. Just don¡¯t open it till the day, and come by my house an hour early. So August 1st, 9 PM.¡± I was only noticing something was different about her now. ¡°Understood??¡± I nodded and turned away. I hopped back onto the side walk and ran off. I had to fix my helmet as I was running away, to keep it from slipping off. Once I got to my neighbourhood, I scaled a flat roofed house, dumping myself in a chimney¡¯s blind spot. As the strap clicked, and the mask popped off, I could feel the heat flush out. I took that dumb helmet off my head, finally breathing in some fresh air, after nearly a week of that thing on my head. I might have been a little sweaty and a little red around the face. I guess without SP2, the heat might be a problem. I ran my hand over my shaved head. After taking a couple of drawn out breathes, I managed a short laugh, keeping quiet, just to myself. So... She dyed her hair back to blonde while I was gone... And it¡¯s pretty well done this time. ¡­ I stayed there as long as I could. I¡¯d been completely inactive for so long, itching to get back to doing something- But here was a perfectly good day. A bit of an over cast, but where I live that¡¯s to be expected. It was just free enough of clouds that you could see up into that clear sky, the pleasant warmth of the sun. I could just relax. As I mentioned, it¡¯d be impossible for me to live there, in that moment, forever. The sky doesn¡¯t stay blue. It shifts and changes with the smallest pressure. The beauty in it is taken away be something as simple as evaporated water or unburnt carbon, by the inevitable setting of night. So I headed for the nearest roof I could sleep under. Nobody was outside, I¡¯d been listening out for people passing by. Slid down the side of my neighbour¡¯s house, and started my slow walk back home. I slung my bag over my back properly and turned a corner. There it was. In comparison to the hotels I''d been staying at, it was hardly a room. I gave the handle a quick jostle. Honestly, I couldn¡¯t remember where I left my normal clothes a month ago, so I didn¡¯t have my keys. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Her key was probably in the door. My mum had a habit of keeping it there. I hesitated, gave the door a good knock. I waited awhile. I knew full well she wouldn¡¯t answer the door anytime soon, I¡¯d have to call out whenever she was standing near the door. She wouldn¡¯t risk opening the curtains. Not when there¡¯s a chance of it being... collectors. From the government, or from people outside of the law¡¯s reach. I could hear a shuffle on the other side of the door, so I shouted for her. After a second, I heard the lock start to open. Her key sticks a little. The door pulled back, and the curtain came with it. She stepped out of the way as I walked in. The front door opens into the living room and kitchen, so she was able to walk back to the sofa to lay down just a few seconds after I came in. I fixed the strap on my shoulder, picking up some bottles as I walked to my room. She asked me where I was. I gave her a weak lie; told her I was staying with some friends. She didn¡¯t say anymore. Two of the bottles clinked together, she heard; told me to leave it, that she¡¯d clean it up later. My quick jerk of a smile said, ¡®yeah right¡¯, though she couldn¡¯t see it, not while watching the tv. I put it into a carboard box we use for recyclable waste. I didn¡¯t feel like cleaning the rest of the room. As I got into my room, she said something. I rolled my eyes and turned back. ¡°What was that?¡± She mumbled it, hopefully she was just drunk. I walked over to the sofa, patiently waiting for her to say something. ¡°Don¡¯t... fall in. You¡¯re a good wee boy.¡± My nostrils flared, a sulk coming over my face. Yeah, fucking right. That¡¯s a fat assumption. I closed myself into my room, squeezing by the desk and closing the door behind me. Really this space was supposed to be a store room, and I guess it pretty much is. I looked up at the low hanging roof, it was still clean. I studied the window overlooking my bed finding that while I was away, a large amount of black mould had built up. I hung my head, crouching down and pulling a box out from under my bed along with some average cleaning fluid. I kicked off my shoes, and got up on the bed. First, I opened the window, then I sprayed along the edges, giving it a good wipe with one of the cloths in the box. Going from top to bottom. When I was done, I could see clearly out the window, though the streaky pattern did obscure it slightly. Outside was a wall. I guess when they built this room they didn¡¯t think much about how depressing it¡¯d be to look out from it. I turned my head sideways, put it down low, and looked up. The sky had turned the same colour as the wall. I held my hand up, it completely over shadowed the sliver of sky that peeked through the opening. It made me think back. When I was a kid, I had an action figure. Well, not really, it was about three inches tall and you could only move its arms at its shoulders. Anyway, I used to be able to hold it up to that thin little triangle of light, and imagine that he was... He wasn¡¯t flying, but he was... he was up there. Pretty boring childhood, but that¡¯s how I spent it, more so than getting beat up in fact. By my peers. Stuck in a dirty little storage closet. I turned back to the room, my eyes had adjusted to the light outside, so it took me a moment to actual see it. From this perspective, I could see the thick layer of brown mould that had built up on the wood of my closet. It was common enough, its an older wood. Even if I clean it, it¡¯ll just build up again. I can leave the window open, but that¡¯ll just slow it. At least my clothes don¡¯t get dirty, it always grows on the outside. And it¡¯s just the closet that it builds up on, the wood of my desk is clean, the wood of the bed frame too. It¡¯s just that stupid hunk of wood that takes up a quarter of the room in my- room. I clenched the wet fabric in my hand. Eventually, I threw it back into the tin box. Stored the cleaning equipment under my bed. I sat for a moment. This isn¡¯t the life I wanted to come back to. I walked out into the living room, looking around for the dog. I guess he was at my grannies. It didn¡¯t matter, it¡¯s not like I needed an excuse to leave. I went back into my room, getting out my clothes. I gave them a sniff, and they seemed fine. A pair of jeans, and as I was leaving, I threw a raincoat on. I glared off into the distance. I needed to go somewhere, anywhere but here. I didn¡¯t run off, I walked briskly. There was no point using my powers when I wanted to be Sam. I ended up travelling north, winding around the town with no real aim. I happened to stumble into a shop. I had 2.50 Euro, so it isn¡¯t like I could get much. Maybe a protein bar... I guess I still need to eat to put on muscle, it just so happens that the muscles I grow are impossibly effective, and I can get an unrealistic amount of energy out of 20g of protein. I really doubted I''d be in the mood to go get dinner once this walk was over. I drifted up and down aiels, looking for... Shit. I realised what was happening at that point. I walked over to the exit, just on impulse, like I knew Clover¡¯d be there. She was almost dressed the same as before, she was still wearing a green skirt and the same top, but she had a heavy looking black and white stripped coat. Was this her luck at work or mine? She looked up at me for a moment before stepping into the store and walking right past me. My head turned after her, she sort of looked around the store like I had. Aimlessly. At first, I was confused, then I was scared that she was mad at me or something. Did she think I¡¯d been avoiding her? I hadn¡¯t talked to her, over the phone or face to face for two weeks. After stuttering a little I called out to her. She turned and looked at me for a second, before saying, ¡°Holy shit!¡± She sped over to me, sort of hunched, like there was a chance she was wrong. ¡°S-Saiorse, hi, I-uh, I¡¯ve been staying with my granny for a while, she got sick. So, I- how are you?¡± She bulldozed over what was saying, grabbing at my head, ¡°What happened to your hair!¡± I froze up as she brushed over the side of my face. She kept asking, ¡°You must have gotten a one all over- I''d understand getting it cut, but what¡¯s with all this?¡± I suddenly came back to life. I brushed a hand over the top of my head, it feeling more like stubble. ¡°Oh, well...¡± I hadn¡¯t really thought about it much until now, but that acid could melt through my face, it could melt through my hair. I guess Rebirthing foam doesn¡¯t grow back hair. I vaguely remember them shaving it while I was waking up. That made me think there was a good portion of time where somebody might have seen my face, but I was completely focused on Sam at the moment. And it¡¯s not like anybody there would recognise me. ¡°Well, the shorter you cut it... uhm,¡± I was searching for an answer, ¡°the longer it¡¯ll be till you have to go back to the hairdressers...¡± She squinted an eye. ¡°I-it¡¯s cheaper. Over time.¡± She shook her head, ¡°But still, they fucked you up. I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s uneven...¡± She took her hand away. ¡°I could do a better job,¡± She smiled. ¡°Sure...¡± I avoided her eyes, turning towards the shop, ¡°-You and what fashion sense?¡± I resolved to get that protein bar. It¡¯d be weird if I came out of there with nothing. Saoirse laughed, ¡°Right, I¡¯m the one who doesn¡¯t know anything about fashion, what colour is the plain T-shirt you¡¯re wearing under that second-hand coat?¡± I slightly smiled at the insult, ¡°I¡¯m poor, not blind. I also do art at school, specifically textiles.¡± She tried to hide the fact she found that humorous. That annoyed me a little, I turned, looked her dead and the eyes and asked, ¡°What¡¯s so funny about that?¡± She questioned whether she should keep going or deny. The latter gave her a chance to turn this around in her favour, or annoy me further. ¡°Well, you¡¯re like a dwarf.¡± Or she could confuse me. ¡°What does that-?¡± She grabbed my forearm, I pulled back ever so slightly, she didn¡¯t notice, pointing out, ¡°You¡¯re short, obviously, but you¡¯ve got broad features. You¡¯ve put a bit of muscle on too.¡± She stopped to laugh, ¡°And you make dresses?¡± I was going to say no, but I thought about it. Or maybe the problem was I didn¡¯t think. ¡°Yes,¡± I lied, ¡°and I could make something better than what you¡¯re wearing now.¡± She pulled her hand away to cover her mouth, a cackle breaking out from behind it. ¡°Sure you could, sure, sure.¡± I felt the need to correct what she said, ¡°If I''m a dwarf than what are you?¡± ¡°Uh?¡± she squeaked with a smiled as we reached the end of the aisle. I put my hand on the top of my head, then moved it straight forward, just over her. ¡°I¡¯m taller.¡± ¡°By an inch,¡± she pointed out, dancing past me. She didn¡¯t answer my question. But if I had to say? She¡¯d be a fairy. Ephemeral, only half real. When we left the store, I had bought a protein bar. She followed behind me, with nothing from the shop. . . . We went down. Down town. South, we were both aimlessly traveling together. Eventually, we came to the basin, just up river from where I¡¯d fought Isaac. But that wasn¡¯t on my mind. We¡¯d finally stopped. There was a good wall to sit on there. Sometimes it¡¯s nice to walk and talk, but in all honesty, I prefer to sit still. It was getting dark; the clouds were large and dark. The sun should have been setting then, but you wouldn¡¯t be able to see it through the shroud covering our small country. ¡°It better not rain¡±, she groaned. ¡°It won¡¯t¡±, I assured, ¡°and you should know that. Your Irish senses should be tingling.¡± She didn¡¯t have the energy to laugh, ¡°Right, like you just know when it¡¯ll rain.¡± I nodded, ¡°Because I¡¯m Irish. Maybe you can¡¯t because your technically British.¡± She shook her head, ¡°You¡¯re being dumb, stop being dumb.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± I gave in. We stared over the dull water. At least it looked clean, it wasn¡¯t polluted with algae like most freshwater sources around here. ¡°Sam.¡± I turned, rubbing the sleep from my eye. ¡°Where do you get all those bruises from?¡± She was holding her head. I was beginning to suspect she¡¯d been drinking before meeting me. I missed the irony of me trading one drunk woman I liked to lie to for another. ¡°I come from a rough area. Sometimes people pick fights with me, sometimes I pick fights with them.¡± ¡°Right...¡± she nodded, not satisfied. The wind blew in, that¡¯s when I realised the summer air had cooled off. I really should have been heading home, I still had to write this post and the last one. ¡°It¡¯s just...¡± she straightened her posture, keeping her elbows on the wall. She flicked her hair out of the way, looking up at me as I sat still on the wall. ¡°Well, when I brought up- you don¡¯t have to talk about it, or whatever- but I feel like I''ve gotta ask about your dad.¡± I didn¡¯t react much. It had actually been on my mind, seeing as it was nearly August. I let the wind blow. ¡°He¡¯s dead.¡± She moved about a little, but didn¡¯t comment. I wasn¡¯t looking her in the eye. ¡°So no, I¡¯m not getting beaten at home. Though if my mum felt like it, she probably could,¡± I tried a laugh, but I was tired too, ¡°she could¡¯ve.¡± I think Saoirse was trying to smile, I let her know, ¡°Seriously, I don¡¯t have to go on- I''m fine with talking about it, but you just got back from losing your friend, I¡¯d feel... selfish, if I just dropped this stuff on you.¡± She sighed. I heard the scuffle of gravel on the ground, looking to her, I could see Saoirse was making a lame attempt to throw her leg up and over the wall. After a while she eventually made it, her legs dangling over the basin. ¡°¡®Used to do gymnastics¡¯ my ass,¡± We spent what little energy we had left laughing at that. After a while she told me, ¡°Go ahead.¡± She nodded, repeating, ¡°Go ahead.¡± I still had a slight smile on my face, ¡°They split up pretty soon after I was born. My Dad didn¡¯t do much to help with money, my mum... developed a habit. He moved back in with my granny, mum kept the living in that house.¡± I wasn¡¯t sure if I should keep talking, if I should be so open. It felt wrong. ¡°Years passed. I don¡¯t remember most of it, I was too young. One night, while my mum was coming back from her night job, just outside our house a car had been waiting. They beat her. Not too badly, it was just to send a message. They were a loan shark¡¯s guys; she was behind payments. I can¡¯t blame her for what happened next.¡± ¡°That¡¯s when I started working. At five, around that age. I was taken out of school half the time, and I worked most nights. It was clean enough, no drugs; I was in sweat shops and in the back of a few restaurants. At the weekend, I was staying in dingle. With my dad.¡± I turned to Saoirse, not really taking in the expression on her face, ¡°My mom had one rule: to lie. When I had cuts on my hands and my dad or granny noticed, I was supposed to say anything but the truth. And most of all I needed to smile. That was easy, I didn¡¯t really have a clue that what I was doing wasn¡¯t normal, so keeping it a secret, making up dumb stories about how the needle wounds on my fingers were from a snake attack, or- or that the burn from touching a pan that was still hot in the kitchen was from a volcano-¡± ¡°-it felt good. To keep secrets. To hide things from my granny and dad. I giggled about the stories as I told them, and I guess that¡¯s what sold the idea of me being just a rough little kid. My granny bought it, though she never stopped worrying.¡± There was a stop in my voice, I struggled to put my memories into words. ¡°I don¡¯t think my dad ever bought it. I don¡¯t know what he was actually like. But he must have known something was up. He had to. He knew my mum, dated her.¡± Clover was quiet, ¡°One day, he sat me down, and he asked me for the truth. I tried to argue that I had been telling the truth, but he didn¡¯t buy any of it. I tried laughing it off, then crying, and then I threw a complete tantrum. What else¡¯d you expect from a little kid? The entire time, when I was screaming and hitting him, he sat in that chair completely stoic. Or maybe that¡¯s just how I remember it.¡± I licked my lips, ¡°In the end, I broke. I was tired, I wanted to go play. So I told him that mum would take me to places and leave me there with other kids, and that we¡¯d be put to work. Still, he seemed completely unphased. When I told the truth, he just waved me away- or maybe he gave me a pat on the head and sent me out.¡± I was smiling now, the reserved type that Sam would wear, that seemed like it fit best. ¡°I... wasn¡¯t happy, with the fact that I''d been found out. But there was a slight feeling that I''d done the right thing. Because it got me out of there. The truth was good because it won in the end. But mostly, I felt dirty for telling the truth, for going against what my mum told me to do.¡± ¡°You¡¯d think that- I guess normally, I''d have been taken away from my mum, she¡¯d go to prison for child abuse, if laws decided how the world works, then that¡¯s how thing¡¯s would have gone.¡± I took in a breath, this bit I could remember clearly. ¡°-But when the weekend ended, I went back to Tralee like nothing happened. I worked at the restaurant, cleaning dishes, the staff toilet, whatever. The week passed in a flash. I rode the bus straight up, my mum took me, leaving me at the door of my gran¡¯s. When my granny came to the door, she told me that my dad was having a lie-in and not to bother him. She was heading out to a friend¡¯s house. Hours passed by, and I was getting hungry. I hadn¡¯t had dinner the night before, so I had been looking forward to some lunch. I couldn¡¯t reach where we kept the bread and cereal, and I didn¡¯t want to eat any of the fruit that was on the table.¡± This part, I''ll never forget. No matter what changes are made to my mind. ¡°I opened the door to my dad¡¯s room.¡± In one of my posts, I said that my dad had died under ¡®strange circumstances¡¯. That was a lie. There was nothing strange about how he died. Though I guess nobody expected it. ¡°He died, Saoirse. He killed himself. And I found him.¡± I twisted around, hanging my feet over the basin with her. I expected to see the sunset, the red and green sky complementing some sort of profound moment I was having. But the clouds don¡¯t part because they should. I wasn¡¯t feeling anything. The truth didn¡¯t take any effort, and it didn¡¯t make me feel any better. I could have gone on, I could have told her that I had to wait hours until my gran came back, I could have told her I didn¡¯t cry at the funeral, hell maybe I should have mentioned that it was nearly his anniversary, August 3rd. Or that when you really break things down, it was probably my fault that he had done it, the life that I''d trapped him in, how I was the source of that overwhelming guilt he must have been bearing- But the honest truth is, I don¡¯t know how what he was thinking. All I know is that he chose to leave me. We sat there, she didn¡¯t say anything about it. I kept looking out at that body of water, eventually her head fell done. She put her hands to her eyes, or maybe just to push her hair away. She tensed up, like she was angry. I guess she was. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she let out a hick. I fully expected it to just be a drunken sound. But she tilted back, so far that I moved to stop her from falling over, though I didn¡¯t need to. ¡°Oh Glass God!¡± When she cried out those words I pulled back, my eyes going wide. Clover had slipped out- no, she was always there. That girl, who had known so much death that she refused to cry at the death of her friend- She was sobbing for me. That¡¯s what I thought at the time, I felt a hope in my chest, that she and we really could understand each other. But looking back on that moment, the pain on her face... Was she crying... from the guilt on her shoulders? Shamrock had reminded her over and over that her line of work affected people¡¯s lives. Now Sam had told her that his life had been defined by the effects of that place. That shit. At the time, I struggled to find any words. I¡¯d had to deal with one sobbing person earlier, but this was more serious than Bob¡¯s problem, at least that¡¯s how I saw it. Because this was Sam¡¯s world. ¡°Oh come on... I¡¯m not that bad, am I?¡± I smirked for a second, before it died. She shook her head, touching her eyes, ¡°God, no- I''m sorry about this. Shit,¡± she was trying to be supportive, but there wasn¡¯t really much for her to support. ¡°It was years ago. I¡¯m not going to pretend like I have my life together now,¡± I wouldn¡¯t be aimlessly walking around the streets in my spare time if I was, ¡°but Sorsh, I don¡¯t want your pity, or your money. I don¡¯t... even need to talk about it.¡± She was in the same state, the alcohol wasn¡¯t helping her recovery. ¡°I¡¯m glad things are how they are now.¡± My eyes were half open, I tried to raise them, ¡°Thank you. For being here.¡± That was the only bit of honesty that did something for me. There was no light in the sky, but things looked a little brighter. I¡¯m content with my life staying how it is. ¡°Fuck that!¡± She blubbered, ¡°you said something about being selfish right? Well, what¡¯s wrong with wanting more?? God, that stupid fucking look in your eyes,¡± That made me sit back, she moved in, ¡°-like you¡¯ve lost all hope, like your about to cry. You¡¯re not going to do anything about it are you!¡± She¡¯d stopped crying now, though she still looked like a mess, ¡°How the hell can I not pity someone like that? Remember when I said we should go to that shit hole, the giant¡¯s causeway?? I¡¯ll take you there, you¡¯ll see, it isn¡¯t- there¡¯s-¡± She gritted her teeth, ¡°There are better things than this fucking world!¡± ¡°I have to go.¡± I started to think that this was a mistake. I don¡¯t know if it was or not. But I know that whatever she tries, it¡¯s futile. I¡¯m not going to feel any better than I do now, not through the actions of others. I¡¯ll find my way. I won¡¯t be satisfied otherwise. The only reason I looked so defeated was because I was talking about the past, I need to move forward. I climbed down and she shouted after, ¡°Shit, wait!¡± It was a struggle for her to get back down. I got a good distance away before she let out a groan, similar to when she was trying to shoot me, on the day we met. I waved, ¡°I¡¯ll see ye¡¯ round.¡± I guess something about my attitude made her give up. Or at least, she didn¡¯t follow after me. I could hear her cursing with self oathing in her voice. I went home, cleaned the mould from my wardrobe, sat done on my bed (there isn¡¯t space for a chair), and started typing long into the night. And now I¡¯m nearly done. I¡¯m just thinking of what to do next. I guess I¡¯ll go... Find some drugs. Pierce 6.02: Im being watched. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Pierce 6.03: I fought a super villain. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Pierce 6.04: I went star-gazing. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Blow 7.01: I got in a car! You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Blow 7.02: I tried to be sociable! It was a three-hour drive to Dublin. We¡¯d been on the move for about an hour already. If I had to put a number to it, I''d say I¡¯d opened my mouth nine times by the time we got to a town called Limerick. Six times in response to something Adonis or TGFMAC had said. Three times because I had to say something. Me and Feoli were sitting in the back, and she had been talking, just not to me. I can understand that, but I felt like Sam should at least make an attempt to socialise with her, you know? It¡¯s what Saoirse expected of me. I wasn¡¯t looking to be her friend or anything, if another person who knows Shamrock meets me in this life... That¡¯s way too much to juggle. I need to keep things separate. Saoirse/Clover is an exception. ¡°S-so, Feoli, you said dingle was your home away from home, right? Are you from Tralee?¡± ¡°No. I¡¯m from overseas.¡± She was looking over at me. ¡°Oh. Well, your accent sounds Irish. You from... Scotland? Boston?¡± ¡°A third world country. You haven¡¯t heard of it.¡± It wasn¡¯t a lie, but it wasn¡¯t the truth either. ¡°Oh, okay.¡± I quieted down, thinking to myself that neither of us was suited to this situation. She had backup. TGFMAC piped in, ¡°Feoli, didn¡¯t you say you¡¯d been in Limerick? Where about¡¯s were you staying?¡± ¡°Near the sea.¡± I thought she was done, but she eventually unfolded her arms, ¡°Or the river¡¯s mouth I should say. There is a store there that sells breads and cakes, we stayed close by, me and my-¡± TGFMAC chimed in, ¡°Your crew? There must be a lot of work that goes into a production of that quality, you¡¯d need a lot of people working on it. Costume, makeup, effects-¡± ¡°No,¡± Feoli¡¯s face didn¡¯t change, ¡°it was only the two of us. Me and that man.¡± Adonis looked at the rear-view mirror, ¡°Have you heard about it Sam? If you¡¯ve been to Inch beach you¡¯ve probably seen the show that Feoli used to work in.¡± Adonis knew it wasn¡¯t a show. And he knew that the only thing Feoli had been working towards all that time ago- was my destruction. Emphasis on was. I¡¯m stupid enough to forgive somebody for murder. Typing that out, I can¡¯t really believe that I mean it, but I think I do. Feoli killed people. If I was living lawfully, with justice in mind, I''d have probably gotten in contact with the Internationals so they can work something out, imprison her. Put her in a cage. I guess it¡¯s just the type of person I am. That I can¡¯t stand that feeling, so why would I ever wish it upon someone else? Even a criminal. Maybe there was a time where I couldn¡¯t forgive Feoli for what she¡¯d done, but it¡¯s long since passed. If I get to know her any better, I¡¯d say there¡¯s a chance of me legitimately saving her. Just like I¡¯ll save Clover. From herself, from her kingdom, hell, while I''m at it I might as well pick a fight with their gods, wouldn¡¯t be the first time. Maybe that¡¯s something that should hold my attention more. The circuit board seven were goofy in comparison to what I''ve faced recently, but they were headed by a being that held the title of god. Schism had called himself all powerful, but he never claimed that title. He said he was the devil, so did Clover. From Schism¡¯s perspective he¡¯s the good guy, trying to protect the world. From itself, sure, but with the mention of god and the devil- it gets me thinking that those things out there are far more inhumane than even the world''s worst man. Looks like I''ve got my work cut out for me. ¡°Is that what you do,¡± I asked rather dumbly, ¡°You''re a street performer?¡± She didn¡¯t seem fond of the title, ¡°I was a performer. Now I work at home, at the hotel I live in. The... traveling performer job, it was all that man¡¯s idea. Rather, he¡¯ the one who made a show out of it all.¡± TGFMAC opened a packet of crisps, she didn¡¯t seem to invested in the whole thing, ¡°He skipped town without you, right? He took your van and drove off.¡± ¡°The...¡± Feoli was thinking about how to word it, ¡°the van was his. I was merely living in it.¡± ¡®Merely¡¯, I thought. Maybe I''d put on too many movies set in ye olde times. ¡°It was his business. He is well within his right to abandon it.¡± That made my heart sink a little. I kind of... up and left her. That was the deal, but- ¡°Still a pretty crappy thing to do right? After all the time you spent together. It shouldn¡¯t matter that he was your friend, you should kick his ass the next time you see him, flip the hero-villain script on its head, right?¡± Feoli smiled. It was uneasy. ¡°He wasn¡¯t my friend. I knew as much since I first met him.¡± ¡®Yeah¡¯, I thought. We aren¡¯t friends. But I''m glad that despite everything she¡¯d been through, there was a hope for her. In a crazy sort of way, maybe she had more hope than me. That¡¯s how it looked to me, while the two of them were talking about me behind my back to my face. ¡°He¡¯s a good guy.¡± I looked away from my ten-yard stare, focusing on the driver. Feoli nodded, ¡°That¡¯s right, you met him.¡± Adonis responded, ¡°yep, I spoke with him a couple times about-¡± He looked in the rear mirror, ¡°About how you did your tricks. It was pretty interesting stuff.¡± Adonis was trying to hold back on mentioning Units, like I''d told him to. He was right to, the last thing he¡¯d need is Sam, the person he¡¯d just met, finding out that the driver of the car believed in robots and gods and witches. Adonis kept it tame, ¡°I was at a pretty low point that night, things were going pretty terribly at work, and I''d said something stupid to TGFMAC. Then, he walked over to the corner of the caf¨¦ I was at and actually asked me how I was.¡± Adonis laughed, ¡°Can you imagine! He was about five seven, so I¡¯ve got nearly a foot on him, and he asks if I''m alright with that smile on his face. Like he could so easily burst out laughing to himself. It was... bizarre. I¡¯ve never experienced anything- anything similar to that in my life. At first, I''m startled, then we get down to talking, and I just unload on him. Not every little problem, not the stuff about work, but it was like I lost my weight in word vomit.¡± TGFMAC looked away, ¡°Gross,¡± Adonis simply took it in his stride, ¡°It was when we started dating, you know. He actually ended up giving me advice on... how to handle things at the time.¡± Did I? She looked at him for a while, until he glanced over to her, communicating something only they could know.¡± ¡°Was that after the satellite fell? You never told me it was that guy who pulled you out of that slump.¡± She gave it some more thought, ¡°Ha. He gave you life advice?¡± There was a tap on the side of the steering wheel, ¡°What can I say, he¡¯s my personal hero.¡± It was a joke, but my own gratitude was nearly visible. It was something I hadn¡¯t gotten from most of the people I''d saved the lives of. A thanks. ¡°He¡¯s playing a hero, though. It¡¯s an act. Feoli, you knew the man under the mask, what was he really like?¡± Feoli¡¯s mind was elsewhere, ¡°He was... I never really knew anybody else, except for the man wearing the costume.¡± Adonis laughed, ¡°Cryptic!¡± TGFMAC sighed, ¡°You¡¯re both infatuated.¡± She shrugged with a smile, ¡°Well... I guess it is a good show.¡± Feoli cracked a smile, and that goaded Adonis on. I was on the verge of showing my pride. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever wanted to tell the truth as much as I did in that moment. ¡°It¡¯s too bad I missed your show,¡± I laughed Adonis laughed a little. ¡°I could perform a trick now.¡± When Feoli said that, Adonis stopped laughing. I tilted my head, ¡°What do you mean? D¡¯you have something prepared?¡± TGFMAC giggled, turning around, ¡°That thing with the water?¡± Feoli hushed her, ¡°Don¡¯t spoil it.¡± Adonis became more serious, ¡°I¡¯m not so sure you should be pulling tricks like that out of nowhere. Honestly, Sam, it¡¯s... it might be a bit much.¡± ¡°It¡¯s quite harmless. Just... don¡¯t give it much thought,¡± Feoli had a comforting expression, which if you knew her, it¡¯d only bring discomfort. ¡°Right,¡± I answered weakly. I didn¡¯t know exactly what she was going to do, but whatever it was it wasn¡¯t something Sam would understand. As she took up a bottle of water, I realised that I¡¯d have to pretend to be surprised by whatever it was she was planning on doing. It honestly wouldn¡¯t be doing much faking. She drank it. She chugged the entire bottle of water in a couple seconds. I hadn¡¯t expected that. She cleared her throat. Then she straightened her neck, breathing out a gasp of air. She opened her mouth, holding a finger parallel to her lips. Then there was a gurgle, a wet squeaking, the compression of gas. Three wire-thin tenacles whipped out grabbing onto her teeth and finger. I¡¯d half seen it coming, it would either be a crab or an octopus, but there was something about it being in her throat. I clasped my mouth, gagging, as only more tentacles emerged. TGFMAC was sitting forward in her seat, and though she also said it was gross, it seemed like she was at least half enjoying it. Adonis seemed angry now, ¡°Alright, you didn¡¯t have to make it so- big.¡± Eventually she had pulled the full thing out, it was like a writhing ball of hair, oily and black. She brought it over to the bottle and the creature crawled inside. She tightened the lid, screwing it shut. And with a forceful shake, the creature was water again. I was balled up on the opposite side of the car, that part was an act, I knew it was harmless, both because she wouldn¡¯t program it to do harm, and because I''m still Shamrock. She pushed the bottle to my face, ¡°See? Water. It was a trick.¡± My face was snarled, ¡°Yeah, a bloody good one,¡± I was going to ask how she could put on a show with something like that in it. My revulsion fell away however, when I saw the smile on her face. It looked natural. ¡°Haha,¡± I put on the laugh, trying to keep a good mood, ¡°don¡¯t show that to Saoirse, but if Mullet ever gives you trouble, just- just do that.¡± She sat back in her seat, leaving the bottle in the middle, ¡°If he calls me freakishly tall again, I think I will.¡± TGFMAC chimed in, ¡°I don¡¯t think he¡¯s talking about Mullet insulting you.¡± Feoli snorted, ¡°Well it¡¯d be unwise of him to pick a fight with me.¡± It seemed like she still didn¡¯t understand. I never can get a read on her. Adonis shook his head, ¡°Better not have spilt anything.¡± Feoli felling back into her seat submissivly. ¡°I didn¡¯t.¡± They made good company till we finally arrived to our first destination. I didn¡¯t immediately recognise the area as Dublin, I hadn¡¯t exactly been keeping to the roads the last time I went through here. The traffic was immense, but not slow. A poor driver could very easily have gotten into an accident, so I was worried about those near Mullet¡¯s car. It was later in the day, around the time that people would be going home from work I assume. Or maybe it¡¯s always like that in a real city. If I ever did decide to go live in the city, the amount of people about is something I''ll have to be on guard for. What would I even do to make a living in the city anyway? I haven¡¯t the faintest clue what types of jobs are on offer for someone coming straight out of high school. It¡¯s not like my subjects suit each other, so I''m not going to be able to set up a firm career or anything. At least I think that¡¯s how it works? I can¡¯t even remember where I was heading before I got powers. I just indulged in fantasies, my own and the ones I found in comics. Was I really not looking for a way to get out of my crappy life? Out of that house? What I was thinking about doesn¡¯t matter anymore. My situation has completely changed, that was made abundantly clear by the hotel we drove up to. It was deep in the centre of the city, near a public garden. ¡°Crap,¡± Adonis half swore, ¡°where am I supposed to park? Alright, you three go in, and wait for Saoirse to show up. They can¡¯t be too long behind us.¡± Adonis was stuck outside for a while; we took the bags in making our way to the main desk. On the outside, it looked like a fairly simple building, I thought it was attached to a restaurant next door, but it turns out that was a part of the hotel! Me and Feoli only made it half way to the desk, on our right was a fire place, above which hung two massive paintings. They were portraits of a woman, the colours used were dirty, in keeping with the shapes used in the pieces, and the reception. My interest in the art broke, and I took a long look around me, spinning on my heels. It was a minimalist design; the architecture and furniture were all flat shapes and colours. When I finally came back around to look at the paintings, I could see that they contrasted the rest of the room just enough to stand out, avoiding the pit fall. I noticed that Feoli¡¯s attention hadn¡¯t broken, she was still staring at the first of the two paintings, the one where the woman was missing her arm. I wanted to ask how they made paintings were made where she came from, under water, it¡¯s too bad I didn¡¯t have the chance. I caught up with TGFMAC, carting somebody¡¯s suitcase in toe. ¡°Did you find out where he can park?¡± She shrugged, ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter really. He can¡¯t get by without a room key. And we¡¯re not getting a room key until the others-¡± It was like clockwork, that sadistic smile circled around me in an instant, ¡°Well?? What do you think.¡± I looked off to the side, ¡°It¡¯s nice,¡± my answer to Saoirse¡¯s question was weak, in tone and quality. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t say that if you knew how much it cost,¡± I¡¯d thought she was deriving pleasure from my suffering before, but now, I think she actually was happy to see the life drain from my face. ¡°W-¡± I stuttered, before I could get the rest of my sentence out Izzy came in carrying everything from Mullet¡¯s car. She had about three bags slung over her back, and more gripped in her hands. She was making a face I¡¯d seen a hundred times, right before somebody smashed me over the head with whatever was in their hands. As she got closer, her muttering slowly became coherent, ¡°-goan¡¯fuckenskideawayonyasow...¡± Intelligible, if you spoke the same dialect as her. ¡°Uhm- Izzy, I can take some of those if you want-¡± I felt bad for her, Saoirse had literally abandoned the girl to carry everything on her own. She turned to face me, and her expression shifted entirely, ¡°Would¡¯ya?¡± She kept two of the seven or so bags, stretching a little as she turned back to Clover. ¡°You think you can just fuckin leave like that? Hop out the car and leave me with that shite.¡± The skull fracturing face came back with a bulging vein. Saoirse looked genuinely confused, ¡°What do you mean? Most of its yours. And I have to go back out to give your piece of shit boyfriend the card,¡± she fluttered her eyes innocently, ¡°I mean, unless you really think I should cancel this trip because of what he said to me.¡± Izzy found a middle ground between the two expressions, which was really her usual face. It seems like she was just about able to contain her anger and remember who¡¯s paying for all this. Saoirse looked me up and down, ¡°Look after my bags, Stinky?¡± I assumed that was me. I looked away before saying, ¡°Yep...¡± When she skipped up to the desk with TGFMAC, I was left standing there with Izzy. Curiosity got the better of me, or maybe it was just my fear of standing in silence. ¡°So, what did he say this time, huh?¡± Izzy looked over at me already forgetting her gratitude, ¡°What makes ya think he said somethin¡¯ stupid? For all you know it was-¡± She stopped herself off, cussing to herself, ¡°It¡¯s not your business, ye smelly bastard.¡± She hit me with it like a sack of bricks, it was so unexpected I nearly laughed. That seemed to make her angry. Maybe that brutal honesty is something they¡¯ve got in common? Don¡¯t see how that trumps Mullet¡¯s proclivities. Even if she was angry, it seemed like a better alternative to silence. ¡°Will you at least tell me what song he put on?¡± She looked back at me, ¡°You knew ¡®bout that? He play one fer yah?¡± I winced, ¡°He doesn¡¯t have one for me. He didn¡¯t know I was coming.¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. She lowered her heavy brow, ¡°Yeah he did.¡± I smiled respectfully, ¡°Well, it seems a little weird that Saoirse would tell you guys I was coming and not, well, and not me. I only found out this morning that-¡± She shook her head, practically shouting, ¡°It doesn¡¯t take a genius to figure out she¡¯d bring ya.¡± Why would he lie about a mixtape? ¡°Then again... He¡¯s a wee bit less then genius.¡± There was a kind of anxiety on her face that I shared. We were making some progress in our little trip; Clover¡¯d reached the first checkpoint and I''m sure the same could be said for a couple of her troops. I had to start looking for an opportunity to run back home, and take care of those hideouts. Well, whatever. It¡¯s not my first rodeo. I was way more worried about everybody else. So far they seemed to have some problems getting along. Half of them weren¡¯t even friends, and I couldn¡¯t see Feoli and Saoirse getting along. Not to mention this whole ¡®mixtape profiling¡¯ that Mullet was doing. ¡°It¡¯s not about the money.¡± I looked back to Izzy, ¡°that¡¯s the song he fuckin¡¯ put on for Saoirse. Said it was fittin¡¯ to ¡®er situation.¡± Saoirse called over from the counter, ¡°We got the cards!¡± She stomped up to Izzy, flicking one her way, ¡°try not to lose it, we¡¯ve only got six.¡± There clearly wasn¡¯t bad blood between them. Izzy turned with a defiant sulk, away to open the car park for the cars. Saoirse filed the rest of us into the elevator, nudging Feoli into the right direction, ¡°What, is this your first time being in a place like this.¡± Feoli turned with a cool expression, ¡°No.¡± Clover was slipping out, ¡°Hahaha, well you sure act like it.¡± I asked ¡°Do I act like it?¡± TGFMAC nodded. As both Saoirse and Feoli were getting into the elevator, there was a moment were the sea-witch stopped and gave us all a confused look. ¡°Hurry up and get in, we don¡¯t have all day,¡± Yeah, they definitely weren¡¯t going to get along. Feoli stood obtusely in front of the floor numbers, Clover was losing her temper as she politely asked her guest to move. As we stood in the mirrored metal box, I waited patiently for Saoirse to realise she was putting the card in the slot upside-down. Feoli was inspecting her face in one of the surfaces. I¡¯d do the same if I had a living organism stuck to my face. In her frustration Saoirse made a snide remark at Feoli, putting on an accent, ¡°Your beautiful baby, even if your nose, make-up, and teeth are crooked.¡± Feoli looked over for a second, ¡°I appreciate your complement, but- I''m sorry, I¡¯m not attracted to women. Well, definitly not you.¡± That got a good laugh out of TGFMAC, I knew Clover, sI knew she wasn¡¯t going to find it very funny. I took the floor key from her, putting it in the right way and pushing the button. Saoirse turned, ¡°Thanks Sam, I can¡¯t say how much help your being, unlike a certain tag along, who is staying in my room for free.¡± I tried to cool the situation the best I could, ¡°Well, it¡¯s not that big a deal,¡± as it turns out, me turning to properly face Clover only increased the tension, as I bumped into everybody at least a little with the bags slung over me. Feoli looked down on her, ¡°Oh. Well, if it¡¯s that much trouble Saoirse, I could just buy a room. How much would a night cost, eighty euro?¡± Clover laughed out loud, it was mostly put on, ¡°You think a room in a five-star hotel costs eighty euro? Where have you been staying?¡± I stammered, ¡°You got a five-star hotel?¡± She ignored me as the elevator started up and Feoli¡¯s cool expression broke, she reacted like a spider just crawled over her shoulder. Of course, Clover only laughed more, ¡°What, you afraid of elevators? Well, we are being raised twenty metres into the air, attached to nothing but a thin wire.¡± She was trying to spook Feoli, but actually having an explanation for what was happening helped her return to her usual expression, ¡°Hm. It¡¯s a little bumpy. That¡¯s all.¡± Saoirse turned her head away, trying to forget about the woman for the moment. I leaned forward catching her attention, ¡°Saoirse, how much did this cost.¡± She caught onto why I was asking, ¡°Oh, seriously, don¡¯t worry about it,¡± yet she didn¡¯t really consider my feelings. ¡°It¡¯s just money,¡± she said flippantly. I just stared until the elevator came to a stop, she got out first, shouting back at me, ¡°Dinner¡¯s included! At least come see the room before you start shouting at me.¡± I followed after her, not to indulge her, but because I couldn¡¯t tell her off from the elevator. The other¡¯s followed, I guess they wanted to watch the show in quiet. ¡°Saoirse, seriously, just tell me how much it cost. What, a hundred?¡± TGFMAC stifled a laugh. Saoirse was scrambling to get the door open, ¡°Look, it¡¯s a holiday, why not spend a little where we can, right?¡± My glare to the back of her head said, ¡®where you can¡¯. My evil eye was broken by the crack of light from behind the door. It was green and natural. A part of me was expecting the block that Feoli had been living in, but it was so much more. More alive. I mean, it was the same sort of fabric on the bed, the throws that can be easily washed, but it complemented the room and the lighting so well. The carpeting and the curtains were complementary, following the flat motif of the reception. The wall opposite the entrance was a window, half of it opening to a balcony with dark metal chairs and a glass table. I walked into the middle of the room, seeing on my right a large king-sized bed. I¡¯d walked four steps forward and I hadn¡¯t even reached the centre of the room. To the left were two more rooms, I assumed one of them had another bed in it, the other a bathroom. Beyond this huge room, there was still more. ¡°Well? Do you like it?¡± She could see that I¡¯d been impressed. I let the bags fall off of me, ¡°Yeah...¡± She took it as an admittance of defeat, ¡°Great! Get yourself settled in, this¡¯ll be the boys¡¯ room.¡± I nodded. So that¡¯s how things were being set up. I guess one of us could sleep on the sofa, it was about as big as my bed. I pulled out my phone, trying to remember the name of the hotel. Saoirse turned to the other two, ¡°Well, things seem to be going alright. Two of us will have to share a bed because we¡¯ve got one extra. Best not to tell the hotel.¡± Feoli raised a hand defensively, ¡°I¡¯ve already told you; I don¡¯t like women.¡± Saoirse put on a laugh, ¡°You better cut back on the jokes when I get home, I''ve got friends who won¡¯t find that funny.¡± Feoli made a face, ¡°Who¡¯s joking? I¡¯m just trying not to lead you on.¡± I couldn¡¯t decide whether that was a joke or if she was being herself. I honestly wasn¡¯t paying attention. The google search had come up. I found the hotel¡¯s ¡°Four hundred and twenty euros? Saoirse! What the fuck!¡± TGFMAC had a smirk on her face, as the glamour came tumbling down around me. Saoirse turned around, exasperated, ¡°Sam,¡± was all she said. ¡°I know, I know,¡± the words tumbled out of my mouth, ¡°That might not be a lot to you, but whatever. That¡¯s- that¡¯s less than the phone you got me, right?¡± I covered my mouth, as she agreed, ¡°So, let me put this in perspective- something I use every day, is worth a third of one night''s stay, if the other rooms the same price. Do you realise that-¡± I covered my mouth back up, bending over. I didn¡¯t realise what was happening at first. ¡°That¡¯s such a- such a wa- waste-¡± I heaved. My mind jumped back to Feoli¡¯s little trick in the car, both of those thoughts combined, led to my stomach rising. Even as Sam I was able to rocket into one of the rooms, which was luckily enough, the bathroom. ¡°Oh, fuck sake,¡± cried Saoirse, TGFMAC was silent, Feoli admitted, ¡°that¡¯s partially my fault.¡± I pulled myself away from the toilet, ¡°No... no, I guess I was a little travel sick.¡± Feoli had a smile in her voice, ¡°No, that trick I pulled was disgusting, it¡¯s not exactly for the faint of heart...¡± I could see where she was going to take the off handed comment. ¡°Well, that¡¯s what I''ll blame it on, you and the poor roads down here.¡± Saoirse had her arms folded sitting on the corner of the bed. Feoli strode after her, ¡°I could demonstrate. If you¡¯d like¡±. Clover was antagonistically curious; she was about to challenge her enemy, I knew her enough to tell. ¡°Don¡¯t,¡± I called over, ¡°she pulls an octopus out of her throat.¡± As much as I''d like to see her honest reaction to the ¡®trick¡¯ I''m sure she¡¯d realise how it¡¯s done. I¡¯d told Clover about my fights with the Fomorian, she could put two and two together. Knowing Clover¡¯s disposition towards ¡®mutants¡¯, I assumed she¡¯d be presumptuous, that she¡¯d pin Feoli as a spy for Belfast. It was for the best that we avoid that level of hostility. I believe that Feoli will help us. If only as a favour. Clover looked at me, just confused at first. Then she laughed, ¡°Oh, you¡¯re right! That is disgusting.¡± Feoli seemed disappointed, turning to the door while giving me a dirty eye, ¡°We should get to our room, yes?¡± Clover smiled, ¡°Sure, here¡¯s the card, run on ahead!¡± Feoli took it with a reluctance, as her and TGFMAC left. Saoirse stayed. Saoirse, my only friend, who I honestly should never have been friends with. I washed my mouth out and approached her. She looked like she wanted to say something, but I got a word out first, ¡°listen I- I know we don¡¯t really mesh well, you being a big spender and me being me...¡± I took a look around the room, ¡°But it is nice. I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll have a lot of fun.¡± The cheer on her face gradually came back, mixed with embarrassment. ¡°You''re an asshole. It¡¯s my money and I can spend it however I won¡¯t. If I want to spend it on you, I¡¯m not going to consider how you feel about it.¡± I scratched my head, ¡°you always have to win, don¡¯t you? Promise you won¡¯t rip out that girl''s throat?¡± She stood up with a stretch, ¡°No promises.¡± I guess she wasn¡¯t the only one who wanted this. I suddenly got the feeling that my hero complex wasn¡¯t the only thing that I''d be feeding on this trip. There was something about that face, that made it Saoirse¡¯s. Clover couldn¡¯t possibly make it. I guess we have more in common than I thought. Saoirse got to the door, turning for a moment, ¡°You should probably take a shower before dinner. I was only half joking when I said you were stinky.¡± I gave a salute. With nobody watching me, I could finally let out a sigh. It was like being in the eye of a storm all this time air. Now I was out in the tornado, a rush of emotions was hitting me. I can¡¯t possibly say how I felt exactly, it was a mix of everything. I felt sick, embarrassed, self-conscious, angry, glad, envious, betrayed, elated, high, there was so much happening all around me, and I thought to myself- -maybe this is what being alive is. Maybe this is normal. I¡¯m not afraid, or in pain, or tired. I felt that I was alive in that moment. It must have stretched for longer than I thought, because Mullet and Adonis eventually showed up. ¡°Aye, Everton beat Man-united two-nil," said Adonis, ¡°Bullshit, I''m looking this up!¡± replied Mullet. That¡¯s about all I heard out of them, rather, that¡¯s all I could understand. I don¡¯t know anything about soccer, so it was in one ear and out the other. Adonis asked innocently, ¡°What about you Sam, what d¡¯you think?¡± I got flustered, ¡°Who, me? Haha, I guess I''d- I''d say it was pretty stupid yeah, or at least- you know-¡± Mullet cut me off, ¡°He doesn¡¯t watch football.¡± I felt like shutting him up somehow, but obviously that would have been stranger. ¡°Oh,¡± Adonis nodded, ¡°do you play any sports? You seem pretty fit.¡± ¡°Nope,¡± I looked around the room for an exit, backing up to the balcony, ¡°I¡¯ll sleep on the sofa.¡± Adonis nodded, ¡°fair enough. What sort of gym do you go to then? From the look of you, you¡¯ve gotta have a pretty hard-set routine.¡± Mullet raised an eyebrow, waiting for me to say something. ¡°Y-yeah, I don¡¯t go to the gym.¡± ¡°No way,¡± interrupted Adonis. I nodded. ¡°No way! So you have a home set up?¡± I felt uneasy, it¡¯s not like I could just tell him that I just go to the mountains every night and lift a couple dozen tons of granite. Even if he asked how much in total I was lifting, I don¡¯t exactly know myself. He pressed a little harder, ¡°You can¡¯t get muscles like those from- push ups and pull ups. How many reps do you do on the bar bell, for curls I mean.¡± My head was spinning at this point, I could only stammer. I tried to stop, but I couldn¡¯t. ¡°That¡¯s enough, Adonis. He doesn¡¯t have room at his place for equipment. He only does weightless training. That¡¯s all he can do.¡± Adonis paused, ¡°Right, sorry for prodding. Yeah, we should focus on getting ready.¡± I nodded, latching onto the opening Mullet provided me, ¡°Let¡¯s... I guess we don¡¯t really need to unpack, do we? If it¡¯s only for the one night.¡± Adonis reassured me, ¡°Yeah, we¡¯re probably not going to be using the room much really, it¡¯s near dinner time. Well, we have enough time to get showered if either of you wants to go.¡± Mullet looked confused, ¡°Why would I get showered half way through the day? Besides, I had a bath a couple days ago.¡± I just nodded along, ¡°I was planning on getting a shower, yeah.¡± Adonis clasped his hands, ¡°Right, and we¡¯ll all get dressed for dinner.¡± Mullet sighed, ¡°Well, get dressed in the bathroom after you get out of the shower. I don¡¯t want to see your guys¡¯ asses.¡± Adonis¡¯ laughed like his annoyed tone was supposed to be taken jokingly, ¡°Well Mullet you can go ahead and get changed in the other bedroom, Mullet.¡± We were both confused. Mullet looked down and back up, ¡°why would I need to get changed?¡± ¡°For dinner,¡± Adonis said plainly, slowly realising what was going to happen, ¡°they have a dress code. You do know that, right?¡± There was a silence. ¡­ ¡°You stupid fucking idiot!¡± We¡¯d looped around to the other room to tell the others, and Saoirse wasn¡¯t taking it well, ¡°I told you to tell Sam everything!¡± Mullet shouted back, ¡°aha! You didn¡¯t! You said this trip was going to be a surprise, remember? You shouted ¡®surprise¡¯ when we got to his house!¡± Saoirse squinted, ¡°did all that weed rot your brain? I thought that was a myth, but it must be true, because I don¡¯t see how someone can be born brain dead and live as long as you have.¡± Izzy spoke up, a little spite in her voice, ¡°You were there as well, weren¡¯t you? Why didn¡¯t you tell him everything yourself?¡± Clover was thinking of another insult, when she realised that was fair. ¡°Right, well, neither of them have clothes for dinner. What¡¯s your excuse for not having any clothes, Mullet?¡± He wasn¡¯t bothered about it at all, ¡°Even if I cared about eating outta this place, what¡¯s wrong with what I¡¯ve got with me?¡± Mullet had a Gaelic football top on. Nobody acknowledged him after that. I was trying to be rational, ¡°Look, we¡¯ve paid for the dinner, I¡¯m sure they aren¡¯t just going to turn us away, just because I''m wearing a plain t shirt, right?¡± ¡­ ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but we have a very strict dress code, when guests pay for the (hotel name) experience, they look for a certain air. The atmosphere is very important.¡± Saoirse was playing good cop, ¡°well, we¡¯re customers, and I think I have a little something-¡± She pulled out a twenty euro note. The man guarding the entrance to the dining area, looked at it from a skewed angle, ¡°That¡¯s very kind mam, but tips are excepted for service, not in order to gain favour or for special treatment.¡± ¡°So that¡¯s it,¡± she flapped her arms down to her side in disbelief. Adonis backed her up, ¡°look, we¡¯re only here for the one night, surely you can make an exception-¡± This wasn¡¯t the first time this hotel worker had dealt with a situation like this, they were completely unphased, ¡°No exceptions sir. I¡¯m terribly sorry, but your money won¡¯t be going to waste. We offer room service for a slight few. Saoirse was about to have another try at it, but she stopped herself. Turning back to look at me for some reason. ¡°Fine. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll understand if held on to this,¡± she waved that twenty dollar note like it had any sway over the situation. Then she turned back. Everyone followed with a murmuring, Izzy was audibly cursing as we left, though I''m sure she didn¡¯t intend for it to be so loud. I was standing there, watching them go. Adonis was in a suit, nothing special really, but he¡¯d made an effort. The same could be said for the girls- except Saoirse. She was in the dress she¡¯d worn when I met her. The green cocktail dress that fell just below her knees. Her hair was tied back. It reminded me of when she¡¯d given me a phone. She didn¡¯t have to do that. She didn¡¯t have to do any of this. But she did. And she did it for me. For us. I stood for a moment, thinking back to what I''d seen on the travel website that I used to find out the room price. I walked after them, and though she was in the front, I made the effort to grab her arm. I¡¯d have just called her back, but my throat had closed from the anxiety. I¡¯d feel like a jackass if I did what I was about to do on my own. I needed somebody to be there. It was probably the wrong move, pulling her back while she was in heels, but I led her by the arm back to the man. The anxiety that had shut me up was still there, but I was able to force the words past it. ¡°I wasn¡¯t going to say anything, but the way we¡¯ve been treated here has been atrocious, from the moment we got here. Firstly, we encountered trouble with that girl at the front desk, then when I called room service and asked them to have our suits steam pressed, they only return one! And when I phone down, the rather unpleasant fellow on the other end says they haven¡¯t had any suits down there this afternoon!¡± I had picked up an accent at the start of the speech, but that was alright, I just had to maintain it for as long as it took for him to break his composure even a crack. I just had to fake him out. And if building a persona helped then I''d do it. I¡¯d make it work. ¡°I¡¯m sorry to hear about that sir, but if there''s been an issue in that department, I don¡¯t have any jurisdiction over your loss, nor am I inclined to-¡± I took a step forward, he was taller than me, obviously, but still I squared up, in no way backing down. I interrupted him, saying, ¡°Are you implying that it¡¯s irrelevant? Because I was sure we were still in that same hotel. Isn¡¯t it strange, concierge, that an establishment that requires its customers to wear a suit just so happens to be one that can¡¯t hold onto the suits that customers trust them with? It¡¯s almost as if you want us to pay that extra fifty euro for room service.¡± There was still nothing out of him, but I introduced some new ideas, ¡°well, I wasn¡¯t going to have it looked into, I''m a reasonable person after all. But this-¡± I gestured around the lobby, ¡°-this isn¡¯t an experience I paid for, this is an experience that my,¡± I paused, ¡°very close friend, has put a lot of money towards. It¡¯s a trip she¡¯s been planning for a while, and I''ll be damned if I don¡¯t see that she¡¯s properly reimbursed for her trouble.¡± Maybe there was something there. He tried to speak up, but I cut him off again, running the risk of frustrating him in an undesirable way. ¡°Infact, no holds barred. Saoirse, what do you mother and father do again?¡± She looked at me with wide eyes, it was as if that anxiety had taken her over now, ¡°P-property development-¡± ¡°-and preservation,¡± I added. I tilted forward, looking into the room, it was so close now, ¡°I might not seem like it in these gym clothes, but I study architectural development and restoration at Trinity college, and you might not know it, but that section over there, that I''ll assume leads into the kitchen, is of an older building. You can tell from the plastering at the corner,¡± It was best that I left things ambiguous, the more it looked like I was talking about something obvious that he couldn¡¯t see, the more intelligent I looked. Or rather, snobby. ¡°While studying architecture, I''ve found out a couple things concerning property safety regulations, like how there are certain substances in cooking equipment that, if used in a building over twenty years old, might cause irreparable damage. Your father has quite a few contacts with in the health administration, Saoirse, how do you think they¡¯d feel if they got a tip that a historical site has been in improper use for quite some time?¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure they¡¯d have a field day,¡± she had finally caught on, I was worried about introducing her to the conversation, but I had to use her somehow, ¡°think of the legal red tape. If court appeals go poorly, which, if you are planning on suing for the property loss, I¡¯m sure the legal department will be stretched pretty thin.¡± I nodded, ¡°Sure, best-case scenario, you have to refurnish all their equipment back there, and if that happens, well, forget about one night with the five-star experience tarnished for the guests, you¡¯d end up without a restaurant for two months. Of course, in the coming holiday season, your busiest time of the year, there will be significant loses.¡± He was dazed, I¡¯d overloaded him with information, maybe I''d hit a little too hard, that always had been a problem I¡¯d had. I shook my head, leaning into him now, ¡°Listen, I¡¯m asking that you talk it over with someone a little higher up. I don¡¯t expect you to go against your superiors, endanger your job, but, if you go against me-¡± I whispered into his ear, trying to make it look like I didn¡¯t want Saoirse to hear, ¡°I could very easily involve you directly in both legal scandals. I say the lost property was a scheme you came up with for a little side profit, and I can tell the court that I had tried to tell somebody about the wrongful activity and that nothing was done. I could play the long game here; money is no object to someone like me. How long can you keep fighting two legal battles? All I need to do is call my father, her father, their fathers.¡± I took a step back to get a gauge on him, to tell him I was ¡®serious¡¯. ¡°How long could you fight for? Because I never get tired.¡± There was an animosity in my voice that could have backfired horribly, the worst thing that could have happened would have been me getting a warning for being disruptive, or kicked out of the hotel. But this guy deals with entitled people all the time. I don¡¯t know much, but I¡¯m guessing there¡¯s a lot of cut throat rich kids out there who could be taken seriously when making claims like that. All I needed to do was trick him into thinking that I was one of those people. Saoirse helped me with that. I suddenly remembered that I was holding onto her arm. I quivered with excitement. ¡°Listen,¡± his tone had changed, ¡°there¡¯s no point in blowing this out of proportion, I¡¯ll get someone to look for your suits-¡± We were on the right track, ¡°And how many hours will that take? We''re on holiday, we have sightseeing to do after this, do you think we¡¯ve got time to twiddle our thumbs at reception.¡± He hid a sigh. ¡°Talk it over with your boss. I can wait five minutes,¡± I turned my back to him, ¡°like I said, I¡¯m reasonable. Patient.¡± Me and Saoirse made it back to the group. ¡°He¡¯ll do his best.¡± There wasn¡¯t a word from any of them, Mullet was glaring, Izzy and Adonis were at a loss for words. TGFMAC tilted her head, like she was trying to recognise me. ¡°Good. I haven¡¯t eaten since lunch,¡± Feoli didn¡¯t seem to have much of a clue what all of this meant. For me, or for all of us. Saoirse turned away from me, watching the worker go looking for his boss. Then she turned back, slipping her arm out of my grip. I suddenly felt that anxiousness return. I guess it left her completely. The closest thing experience I have to compare with what came next... I¡¯d say it was that technique that Noah thatcher used on me, where he snapped that coat of flesh over me. That¡¯s a horrible thing to think, but it was an instant binding, and I just can¡¯t think of anything else to compare it to. There was the initially surprise, where I wondered what was happening and then I felt the warmth seep into me, slowly. But the conflict left me. I was no longer afraid, or concerned. It would have been so easy to just stand there and except that warmth, that would have probably been the right thing to do. But I hugged her back. And it made me feel... I guess I just made me feel. She let out a growl and backed off me, ¡°Where the hell did that come from??¡± It took me awhile to answer, to come back to reality, I felt my face flush red, ¡°Oh, uh, I- I- when I was on the internet looking at the room prices, I saw a review from a customer, the hotel¡¯d lost a bag with some clothes in it. That gave me the idea, I guess, and things just sort of-¡± I turned my head away, this was exactly the type of thing I shouldn¡¯t be doing with Saoirse- I shouldn¡¯t let her know that I''m just some liar, that I scam people. ¡°What about that stuff about architecture?¡± I backed up, out of her arms, ¡°bullshit,¡± I whispered, a wiry smile on my face. Adonis laughed out loud behind me, smacking my shoulder, ¡°goddamn! You''d make a killing on wall street like that.¡± TGFMAC snorted, ¡°because he can lie?¡± Adonis brushed it off, ¡°You¡¯re brutal. That was ruthless.¡± My eyes wandered, ¡°yeah, I guess it was.¡± Mullet¡¯s glare caught my eye for a fraction of a second. Izzy¡¯s upward nod took my attention away from it, ¡°The cunt¡¯s back.¡± I thought that was a bit harsh- though, I guess that was the sort of image we had to give off to get what we wanted. My smile faded when that thinking came to mind. I suddenly felt the weight of my last few nights in Tralee, the fact I''d left more than a few people bloody on the street, how I''d almost hit Sea-threw Gurl hard, too hard for a person to handle. When did I become so ruthless? Was this really the person I wanted to become? No. But... Something¡¯s better than nothing, right Mullet? We walked back over to the man, I stayed silent, letting him say his piece. ¡°I... discussed it with the manager, and We¡¯ll be able to get you a table at the back.¡± Saoirse nearly squealed with excitement. I sighed, ¡°Thank you. I¡¯m sorry. You don¡¯t make the rules, do you? I¡¯m glad everybody got what they wanted in the end.¡± Clover fiddled for the card in her purse, Adonis handed up his as well. One for the girls¡¯ room, one for the boys. He put one into the card reader, and we started to file in. Then he stopped us. ¡°Excuse me! Sorry, sir, but these rooms are for three people, six total. We can¡¯t cater you all in good faith.¡± He raised an eyebrow, the slight pleasure of a win on his face, ¡°one of you hasn¡¯t paid.¡± We all stood still for a moment. ¡°Mullet should stay out,¡± I turned to Saoirse as she said it nonchalantly, ¡°He¡¯s the reason- he''s the one that¡¯s caused us the most trouble, right.¡± Izzy stepped forward, ¡°hang on, we already said it was your fault for- the bit with Sam. She nodded to the side, ¡°Adonis¡¯s plus one should go.¡± Feoli put a finger to her lip, ¡°If I''ve over stayed my welcome-¡± Adonis spoke up, ¡°now, that¡¯s not very fair, I¡¯ll go-¡± It seemed like there arguing only intensified the longer it was allowed to go on. I looked back to the exit. As I passed the man whose career I¡¯d threatened, Saoirse cried out, a hint of refrain in her voice, ¡°Sam!¡± I turned back, shrugging, ¡°We¡¯ve got all night. All week. Just have fun.¡± Of course. I don¡¯t get what I want. Neither does Saoirse. Once again, I was walking away as she struggled to find the words to get me to stay. I guess I¡¯m not ready to be there yet. Walking away was so easy. I hadn¡¯t eaten a bite, but I''d already had my fill. I was running on an empty stomach, but my mind was filled with the faces they¡¯d made. And my heart... I could feel it. This was real emotion. There was such a thrill, to know that I had given them what they needed. I turned the corner, getting out of sight. Then I got out my phone. I started clicking away on the keypad. It had started to seem like a tedious inconvenience, guess I appreciate modern cell phones now. Then I sent my message to Clover. I told her to get guys ready. That I was ten minutes away from the first enemy facility, way back in Tralee. I wasn¡¯t lying. I got there in eight. Blow 7.03: I pulled an all-nighter. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Blow 7.04: I stopped feeling good about this trip. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Blow 7.05: Im starting to understand things a little better. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Blow 7.06: I remembered a couple things about friends. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. It''s obvious isn''t it? If anyone''s going to get super powers, it''d be one of you. Blow 7.07: I learned what happens when lies fail. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Blow 7.08: I descended into darkness. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Blow 7.09: I did help someone in the end. After a couple minutes, a voice echoed in my head, ¡°maybe this is where I belong.¡± The cell I was stored in was as small as my room at home, just without a window, or furnishings. I was left in pitch black, heightening my other sense- or maybe it just drove them crazy. There was a smell like death in the back of the room, and the far off screaming that I had heard from the execution chamber still lingered in my ears. It reverberated through me, ever sensation echoed in my mind and mingled with the memory of that place. I thought back on how I had screamed against him, an insane wall of insults meant to keep me from giving in to despair. To fight against that feeling of hopelessness he was aiming for. I hadn¡¯t a clue how long ago it had been, or what time it was. My best guess was after three in the morning. They said they¡¯s attacked at twelve, and it was an hour''s drive from Derry. On top of that, we were in that room for something like an hour. It felt like I''d been in the darkness for hours, it was probably far less. An hour of darkness, close to sensory deprivation. Or something else entirely. I was like this as a kid, after my dad died, maybe. Or maybe it was the work, or the fact I started fighting around that time. It was a darkness like the one that blanketed my nightmares. It was a fear for the future. It was the anti-hope. I had tried so hard to fight, but it appears that Belfast is smarter than I thought. With nothing else to do, no other input apart from the distant screams that your imagination would link to those of your allies, there was nothing a rational person could do but despair. I¡¯m irrational, and even I was feeling a creeping- dark veins turned to wilful arms now as I felt that other half of me calling out from a far-away place. Its voice was cold, and it reaffirmed, ¡°this is where we belong.¡± I heard footsteps just outside the door, stopping there. I finally began wondering what their plans for me were. I understood that they had options with Clover, they could put her to work for them which would give them stronger connections to the Mountain, or they could ransom her, make the argument that she had this coming, because she did. Fuck, you know what I mean, her friends didn¡¯t deserve that- but she brought it on. Her faith in herself was too strong, she thought she could rely on luck. I guess it¡¯s a fickle thing for those indirectly involved with it. I let her pull me, I could blame her power, or I could blame my desperation. Maybe when I looked at her, with or without my mask on, I couldn¡¯t differentiate the face of Saoirse from the face of Clover. I had a horrible feeling that I''d need to change very soon, or I''d be walking into an unplanned suicide mission again. Whatever was happening at the door now, I would handle now. A white slit opened in the door, and light peered in. It was soon overshadowed by a torso. They were quiet, I spoke first, ¡°Out with it. I¡¯ve had an hour to get used to this posture, if you¡¯re one of the fomorians, I¡¯ll be doing to you what I did to Cre-umha. If you¡¯re Gurl, I''ll just hit you in the face. If you¡¯re the boss-¡± What was my plan for the boss... The voice replied, ¡°No, it¡¯s me. Again.¡± I turned myself to face the door, ¡°Do they let you talk to the prisoners? It¡¯s just, if I was going to hire someone to manipulate my enemies, I¡¯d keep them on a short leash.¡± Adonis was silent behind the door, before putting on an act. ¡°Ouch, haha...¡± He took a breath in and tried to make a start. ¡°They didn¡¯t hire me to lie. I- I really do work on trading, basically, my job was- a sort of black stock market. Drugs, parts of people, people- supernatural parts as well, but I never directly dealt with any of it, there were less qualified people for that.¡± I thought about shitting on him, but he was trying to go somewhere with this, I figured he might say something he wasn¡¯t supposed to, something I could use. Either to fight, or to manipulate. He continued talking to the door. ¡°I started off fine. Normal- years ago I was just a kid with some money who watched a couple videos on YouTube, got really into economics- eventually I put what I learned to use- my parents made a few calls, got me a few interviews. I landed a trial period with a place in Belfast.¡± He let out a short laugh again, ¡°You might think that¡¯s where it started, but you¡¯d be wrong. I got screwed over, by the people I worked for. I was a kid, sixteen, there wasn¡¯t anything normal about me getting a- a part time job working with crypto currency and analysing company stock trends- fuck, it doesn¡¯t matter. Basically, I was making too little money, and they fucked me over, I ended up owing them some and- well I was too deep to back out.¡± The way he was speaking... honestly, the little details yet slight vagueness of it all, it made me question if he was telling the truth, an opinion I hadn¡¯t come close to holding back when I thought he was a straight shooter. It had the desperation of a quick lie; one you¡¯d tell to get out of a bad situation. Yet he had come to me. I wanted to know what all of this was for, some kind of persuasion tactic? Unbelievable. At least, it wasn¡¯t a tactic that Belfast would use. The others seemed sneakier, smarter. It begged the question, if Belfast isn¡¯t the brains, then why is he the boss? Has he taken the role of a figure head? Is it because his power is just that much greater than theirs? Experience? I did need more info. If Adonis¡¯ wasn¡¯t accurate, then I might at least get a read on his feelings. ¡°So what, you start selling people? How do you even end up ¡®accidentally¡¯ joining these guys?¡± He took a moment. ¡°You can find them anywhere. Or at least, people they¡¯ve paid off. Don¡¯t think it¡¯s dumb luck that I just so happened to live in the same area as you, Clover, Feoli, and- you know. Her. They are everywhere in the country. Denser in the north. Even if I hadn¡¯t leaked them information, positioned the others in the hotel- they''d have come for them to get to Saoirse- sorry, Clover.¡± I knew I should have avoided the subject, but I needed to know, ¡°One of the people you came here with, Emmett. Apparently, he¡¯s dead. You let him leave the hotel, risked the operation. Why?¡± He seemed to think it was a random question, ¡°It was a part of Gurl¡¯s plan- she wanted us to wait until after midnight, before going ahead with anything. She¡¯s the one that came up with that method of bypassing Clover¡¯s... luck, or whatever it is. Belfast provided her with the file- the one the men in black had on her. It had something about ¡®the monkey paw principle¡¯ in it. The initial plan was to... to capture them tomorrow. She moved it forward to exactly midnight, arguing that a wish might¡¯ve been made to stall us. I guess that¡¯s why there wasn¡¯t any of Clover¡¯s men? Were they a few hours too late? Don¡¯t answer, it doesn¡¯t matter, point is, they know everything about you- everything. I mean, everything!¡± I went along with him, agreeing, just to get him to calm down. Something was off. It was beyond a simple scattered lie. Though I had a suspicion, no definite thoughts came to mind. I was focused on the fact that Sea-threw Gurl had let me out, most likely because she thought I was going to get changed into my suit, not to meet up with a long-lost friend. By that point she could hardly lie. If Adonis was right, and they did have eyes everywhere, then they¡¯d have seen me take a leisurely stroll into that pub. Then they would have sent Sruthan after me. Then, there was a very good chance that the second worlder that had followed me, had seen my whole fight with her, and that they were completely aware that I, Emmett, had survived. That would explain why Gurl told them ¡®Emmett¡¯ was dead, it was to try and fend off Sruthan, and it was to discredit whoever else had been watching. A Unit carries more weight than a second worlder, Adonis¡¯ silence earlier had shown that they weren¡¯t valued the same. If there was a grunt going around, corroborating Sruthan¡¯s story, then that would raise some red flags, put Gurl at risk of being labelled a traitor, or that she was double crossing. Don¡¯t get me wrong, she wasn¡¯t putting her neck out for me, she was putting it out for her game. Too her, saving my hide to keep playing wasn¡¯t any different from robbing a bank for fun. It was the risk, the thrill, that¡¯s the profile I''d built up. But now I knew she was also in this with Adonis. It was another side to her, another hidden angle. One of many, possibly. I couldn¡¯t discount the idea that she had plans beyond and contradicting Belfast¡¯s. ¡°Anyway-¡± Adonis sputtered, ¡°they set a test in front of me, one developed by the men in black- to see if I was a second worlder, I passed and got told to stay on the lookout. And I did. Nothing. There weren¡¯t any fish people, or robots, or you- after a while I forgot about that test and just did whatever work they gave me. Then, little over a year ago from now, I got a video. It was the boss¡¯ power. It was him levelling a building. The other guys, the ones who smuggled and dealt directly with it, they celebrated. They were talking about Clover, and I didn¡¯t know who that was at the time. The next day it says on the news that there was a gas leak. I dug deeper.¡± ¡°It was around then that we started getting support from the men in black, the suits, whatever you want to call them. They sent files. About the Mountain, about Clover, and about the Mountain¡¯s Glass God. Some guys killed themselves. Very, very few defected, and ended up dead. You and me, we talked about those gods, remember? Ha, I wish... I wish I''d reacted like I did with you. It¡¯ll sound really, really shitty, but that¡¯s when I started to regret what I was doing.¡± I couldn¡¯t help but drop the agreeable act, ¡°Because you started to realise that there might be consequences? You realised you were making enemies?¡± ¡°No, I- I realised I was wrong. I grew a conscience, I guess, hah.¡± I didn¡¯t have a reply for that. He had said that, and yet here he was two years later, standing at attention while people died in front of him. ¡°I don¡¯t... I don¡¯t deserve your pity. I¡¯m sure you haven¡¯t got a clue what I''m talking about, but... things were going good until then. My parents, my peers, I had their attention. I was some sort of genius to them, something special. Things were good, so I thought I was good. But if I was good, where was my God? I wasn¡¯t special. I was nothing compared to the boss, the enemies- the money didn¡¯t mean anything. It carried no weight.¡± ¡°Eventually we got word that some of Clover¡¯s people had become active again, and it just so happened that they were going to my town. And all of a sudden, I realised that I no longer had a choice. There was no backing out. Me and a couple other guys kept watch over the area, we noticed a large order of guns, that sort of thing. Nothing big.¡± He pushed against the door, ¡°It was the anticipation, or maybe it was the fact that I was beginning to think I''d gone crazy. Either way, there was a point where I just couldn¡¯t do it anymore. I tried to end it. I didn¡¯t have the guts.¡± He started sobbing I don¡¯t think he was talking about ending his career. ¡°I had to keep going, or they were going to kill them! You- heh, you¡¯ve got a secret identity, right? You have people you¡¯re trying to protect too, right?¡± A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. His speech wasn¡¯t filled with scattered excuses any more. It was just a desperate plead. ¡°Yeah,¡± I lied. ¡°You know,¡± he sniffled, ¡°I was telling that guy about this the other day, Emmett, I mean. I told him that you¡¯d helped my relationship with- with my girlfriend. Truth is, you started it.¡± I looked up at the sliver of light, wondering if he¡¯d finally caught on. ¡°It was a week before we first met. I- I was hanging around inch beach, because one of our guys had overheard that there was some kind of ¡®show¡¯ there. He didn¡¯t see it, but the fact that a hyper realistic puffer fish monster had apparently beached itself on the shore of a remote beach- it''s something they want checked out. So I did, just from the car park. I¡¯d asked around, but couldn¡¯t find any information. Somebody tells me they only appear only on weekends. It was a Thursday.¡± ¡°I went back to my car, and... well, one thing led to another, and I reversed my car into her easel. I was nervous, and she was in a weird spot, and seriously, who sets an easel up in a car park? I told her as much, and she told me that it didn¡¯t matter, I was still paying for it. I just got a pay check, in cash, so I ask her how much. I didn¡¯t have the change for a tenner.¡± ¡°I uh, might have blinded her a little. I had something like five hundred in my wallet. I told her that I''d give her twenty for the easel, and the painting. I left with a smile on my face. She wasn¡¯t. I looked at it in my car- and you know, that¡¯s the type of thing I liked her for, not this ¡®Sea-threw Gurl¡¯ crap- ah, no offense but, she isn¡¯t the same, you know? It¡¯s like she¡¯s someone else.¡± I stayed quiet. It was at least better than the silence. I couldn¡¯t bare that. ¡°Then I saw her at school, like I never saw her before. So I talked to her. And I thought, this is definitely good. There was nothing evil about this, my life was good, finally and definitely. Then she asked if I''d give her a lift to the beach.¡± I said, ¡°And that¡¯s where you started to realise that you were just bringing another person into it.¡± His back pressed against the light, ¡°Yeah. I just got a feeling from that place. My legs were all shaky, the sky was dark- I knew that there was something wrong about it. The beach I mean- always felt like I was going to sink into the sand. So that second time that I went there- I forgot she was even there with me. It was my first time seeing something like Feoli¡¯s monsters in person. And I just- looking at the masses crowded around that thing like it was some sort of show, it drove me crazy.¡± ¡°I freaked out, asked my girl how she could just laugh. Then she pointed. And she reassured me, ¡®that¡¯s just how the show goes, right? The monster stomps around, and then the hero saves the day¡¯. And I looked closer, and you- you were there. You were fighting it. Suddenly, I had to get closer. I don¡¯t expect you to remember now, but I got a picture with you. It wasn¡¯t for work. I actually held off on telling them.¡± He turned around again and spoke through the slit. ¡°Whatever side you''re on, is the right side. So-¡± I let out a sigh, smiling to myself and lowering my head, ¡°I can¡¯t believe you ever sold anybody anything. Crypto or drugs. That was the worst pitch I''ve ever heard.¡± He swallowed, his breath ragged, ¡°Do you know how countries are made? I don¡¯t mean the politics and history- the british empire was founded by the Mountain, and after the collapse of the empire, the Mountain still stands. The Spainish empire, Egyptian pharaohs, the Holy Roman Empire, they were all controlled by Units from the shadows. Ireland is on the verge of that. The creation of a new kingdom-¡± I hung my head lower and asked, ¡°Do you hear yourself?¡± He just kept going, ¡°The boss is right. With no reason to stay, Clover will pull out or she¡¯ll go all in.¡± I pushed my back straight, shouting up, ¡°Or she¡¯ll call the fucking Mountain in on your ass! Five Units can¡¯t beat a hundred.¡± He hissed back at me, ¡°But seven would take too much effort. Isn''t that why the Circuit Board were allowed to flatten our town with zero repercussions? Haven¡¯t you ever asked- who makes the law? It isn¡¯t the police, it isn¡¯t the politicians, it¡¯s the one who¡¯s really in charge.¡± His voice lost that pleading tone, I don¡¯t know how else to describe it other than ¡®pulling¡¯. ¡°And there is still time for you to be the one.¡± ¡°What the fuck are you talking about?¡± It wasn¡¯t a serious question, he¡¯d finally lost any comprehension, his shifting tone and focus all but confirmed my earlier suspicions. This fucker was on something. I thought I would laughed, but I found that to be impossible. It was the realisation that they were controlling him with more than threats and money. ¡°The boss led these people into the supernatural, but it¡¯s been a slow fucking crawl. He¡¯s only got all this because he absorbed smaller groups with pure overwhelming power- and because he¡¯s selling the subterrainium they have you cuffed in for an astronomically low price. Heh, I bet that¡¯s why Bastard hasn¡¯t done anything, he¡¯s gotten greedy.¡± I shook my head, ¡°Bastard won¡¯t sell Clover out.¡± My eyes widened. What made me think that with such absolute certainty? I¡¯d only ever seen the back of the man¡¯s head. Adonis just pushed the thought out of his way, ¡°You don¡¯t know anything about Bastard, he¡¯s too smart, too old to not see what¡¯s happening with Clover. She¡¯s become a liability. There was the Battle at Babel, she handled that well enough, freed a prisoner of war, which is nothing compared to the fact that she nearly caused an international incident. Then there¡¯s this: directly disobeying orders to not engage- with seemingly no plan whatsoever.¡± He whispered, again trying to appeal to me, ¡°I¡¯m telling you, if that girl stays with him, she¡¯ll get cut off the second it becomes advantageous to him.¡± I humoured him, just to get him to talk a bit more, ¡°What would you have me do, lick Belfast¡¯s boots till he lets me out of these cuffs.¡± Adonis laughed, ¡°Well, that¡¯s the only way you¡¯re getting out of those cuffs. They¡¯re indestructible. You¡¯d need to rip them apart atom by atom to destroy them.¡± A voice in the back of my head asked, ¡®Who said anything about destruction?¡¯ I hushed it for then, just until I was ready to listen. I did listen to what Adonis said about ¡®atom by atom¡¯. If Belfast¡¯s ability can strip something apart atom by atom, or put it together atom by atom, that corroborated of it being related to some kind of element manipulation, regardless of which state of matter it¡¯s in. That begs the question, what about that is Schism potentially opposed to? It wasn¡¯t the fact that he was controlling an element, nor was it the fact he was mass producing a rare material- if either of those were the case, then my shackles would have fallen off. Or at least, that¡¯s what I''d assumed there was a chance that Schism had no intention of honouring that deal, seeing as he technically never agreed to it. There was also the chance that he had no intention of honouring our deal. Period. Was I seriously going to trust him simply because he gave me a costume? A voice told me that there was nobody that I could trust but myself. That I couldn¡¯t rely on Clover because she was fallible, and that I clearly couldn¡¯t trust anyone else. That voice said I was primed and ready to use SP2. ¡°As it stands,¡± Adonis finished, ¡°You only have two options, both of which are only viable under the pretence of you joining us: first, you could simply join us. You don¡¯t need to do anything differently, you just fight who they tell you to fight, nobody who doesn¡¯t have it coming to them, rival gangs, foreign Units- eventually you¡¯ll grow in position- I know for a fact, that what you¡¯re doing right now doesn¡¯t pay. I¡¯m a fucking millionaire, and I''ve been doing this for two years- my biggest win has been bringing in you, Feoli, and Gurl.¡± ¡°Second option?¡± ¡°Do I even have to say? Get out of those cuffs, and at the first chance you get, kill him. It¡¯d damage the company, sure, we¡¯ll lose a major asset-¡± I eventually roared out laughing, ¡°God, you really don¡¯t know anything about me! I don¡¯t kill people!¡± He was speaking but all I could do was laugh. Eventually he banged on the door, ¡°You can¡¯t imagine what you could do with all of this, but I could! Infact, the only way you¡¯re going to survive is if you bulk-up. You need numbers, you need money, you need facilities, guards, spies, that is the only way you can keep this country safe. I hate this- this place, but I don¡¯t hate you. I believe in you.¡± He stepped away from the door, ¡°you convert everyone else to your church, or the walls start to fall down.¡± I finished laughing. He left me, ¡°you¡¯ve got an hour to think. I know you¡¯ll make the right choice.¡± Before he did, he asked, ¡°you... do realise you were screaming for his death a couple minutes ago, right?¡± As he was trailing down the corridor, he said to himself, ¡°...maybe you just need to be in the right moment...¡± I ignored him. I guess I hadn¡¯t noticed, but everyone I''ve fought has always given the option to settle things peacefully, either by teaming up with them, or by simply ignoring the situation. They¡¯re all so open minded. I''m not. If that old man from Korea''s to be believed, it¡¯s because I don¡¯t have a soul that I can¡¯t change my mind. Once I''ve decided on something, I will not compromise. I will fight, and rage until there is nothing standing in the way of my peace. If I have to be alone to reach that point, then I will be alone. In that case, I''ll always be alone. Always. I didn¡¯t have to keep hammering the point in, but it opened up my options. I had gotten rusty, and the more negatively I thought, the more potent SP2 became. I¡¯d reached a point where I could affect things just beyond my concept of ¡®self¡¯. That meant the cuffs. They were currently ¡®closed¡¯ around my ankles and wrists. All things seem to either exist, or they do not. Cold exists in the absence of heat, off when something isn¡¯t on, and death in the absence of life. Closed and open are trickier concepts, one I haven¡¯t given much thought. It¡¯s a man made, semi subjective state of existence, but if we¡¯re following the logic that the lesser of two states is the non-entity, then in this specific case something ¡®open¡¯ is non-existent. I imagined a lock and key, ¡®naturally¡¯ the lock exists in an open state, that is until the key is used to lock it, until an action is taken. I can¡¯t erase the fact that the key has been used to lock the door, but I can open the door. I can¡¯t undo anything; I can only do the undoable. First, the bullet shaped piece was detached from the cuffs, clattering to the ground. It took a little more focus for me to unlatch the cuffs, but they fell to the ground just as easily. I sighed, damning myself for not being able to do that earlier. It wasn¡¯t just that I was unwilling, I simply bet on the wrong horse, took the wrong path. I thought that somebody else would save me if I worked hard enough. In the end, only I can save myself, because I¡¯m the only person who would. I busted down the door to my cell, and walked into the corridor, squinting my eyes from the florescent light. I thought about going after those distant sounds, realising that freeing whoever was trapped away wouldn¡¯t help anyone. Why would I let them wander these halls? Worse, why would I keep them with me when I was planning on finding and kicking the shit out of the most dangerous person here? I¡¯d free Clover, get her to her men, they could stall one or two of the fomorians. I realised now that those people would be, most likely, sent to their deaths. It was Clover and her crew against the fomorians and theirs, plus Sea-threw Gurl from some unseen perch. They¡¯d be killing each other. But if Belfast¡¯s boss wasn¡¯t taken care of first, then all of Clover¡¯s men might be taken out in an instant, that was as best as I could split them. Or so I thought. As I was whisper-shouting ¡®Clover¡¯ down the halls, dealing with any guards, and by that I mean bruising their faces purple and misshaping their weapons, I heard footsteps. a lot of them, coming in loud and quick. My first thoughts were that Gurl had given away my position and was sending a troop after me, probably one of the fomorians as well. I braced myself before running in that direction, finally turning a corner to see a dark wall, I skidded into a hail of bullets. We both halted, recognising each other. It took me the length of the corridor to realise they weren¡¯t in the same gear as the guys I''d taken out. A fat one in the back said something, tapping another guy. He took off his helmet and I rolled my eyes seeing it was the fat guy from the quarter, one of the three men that had been sitting in there when I was looking for info on Gurl. He said, ¡°Shit, force of habit man, you get me.¡± A few laughed, others kept their rifles up. I smiled, ¡°If you bastards, put any holes in my suit, I will get you.¡± It was supposed to be a joke, but only the fat guy laughed. I tried to be cooperative, thumbing back, ¡°I¡¯ve swept the corridors on my left, we¡¯ll have to check the one behind me,¡± I turned around to point, but there was something far more frightening walking up behind me. Feoli, with groups of rounded pufferfish tied to her waist, filled with water I assumed. I froze. Then I got ready to jump forward. I questioned whether she was bullet proof. Beyond that, I questioned if she was still trying to kill me. I told the guys behind me, ¡°I¡¯ve got this.¡± She just said, ¡°It¡¯s alright. They can vouch for me.¡± I didn¡¯t turn back around as the fat guy spoke, ¡°Y¡¯all not on the same page?¡± ¡°No! She¡¯s with Belfast!¡± She looked me dead in the eyes, not at all worried, ¡°I made a deal with them. I gave them the location of the entrance, a map of the sub complex, various codes for doors, and I detailed the powers and weakness of all Units, bar the boss, but including myself.¡± I stammered in disbelief, ¡°what-? You seemed totally for this whole thing when you captured Clover¡¯s people and strapped those cuffs on me!¡± She looked confused, ¡°I was going to remove the cuffs using a slime mould, but you seem to have managed.¡± I frowned, ¡°Why? Why go through all this trouble when you could have just told me? You still could have gone under cover.¡± The Mountain soldiers behind me walked by me and to her side. She answered, ¡°Bea approached me back in February, saying Belfast would be advantageous to the war effort. I declined her offer because I don¡¯t like her, and... because I was beginning to suspect that there was no war to be waged.¡± She started to walk with the armed escort, and I had to run after them, ¡°Then, Adonis approached me with the same offer. Initially, I turned him down. He told me to call him back. I didn¡¯t even know what that meant at the time.¡± I barged to the front of the party; it seemed best for the bullet-proof man to be in the front. Feoli finished, ¡°To answer your question, I didn¡¯t tell you because Bea, one of my people, was already a part of the organisation. To put you against them, would be treachery. And because you wordlessly abandoned me after June. How was America?¡± I didn¡¯t have an answer for that. The fat guy cut in, now wearing his helmet, ¡°Shit yo doin¡¯ seems pretty treacherous, Fe.¡± I grimaced as Feoli replied, ¡°You¡¯d be right Wheeze. But like I said, I never liked her anyway. I decided that I''d forge a better path for my people. And I¡¯ll be settling things with her.¡± ¡°Shamrock,¡± I turned around, it felt like the first time she said my name, ¡°Thank you for showing me a better way to live.¡± It was that smile she¡¯d made on the roller coaster. I stayed quiet. SP2 lost some of its hold on me when I heard those words. The fat guy was saying something, when another soldier shut him up, saying, ¡°this a field op, or a damn slumber party, fat ass.¡± Then the rest of them mumbled, and he said, ¡°we do this, we do this right- For the Mountain!¡± he chanted. ¡°For the Mountain!¡± Feoli and the rest of their men chanted back. My face drooped as we walked on. I mean, it would be more advantageous for the Fomorian Federation if they formed an alliance with the Mountain, over Belfast at least. I¡¯d really need to talk to her about it after the mission. Blow 7.10: I ascended from the darkness. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Blow 7.11: Ive been crushed and torn. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Blow 7.12: My origin. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Blow 7.13: I fought against the dark and won. From a distance I could see the hotel had been abandoned, spires of flesh and bone covered the street, as cop cars were now gathering around the perimeter. The nano chips danced in the air there, like thick fungal growths they clumped together, waiting. For their master or for me, who¡¯s to say. My heart fluttered for a second, the same sort of thing when I was with a friend. I guess that¡¯s the feeling you get when things turn out better than you expect. Feoli had done it, she¡¯d gotten Clover and the others out of there. I knew where they were going, she¡¯d given me the general location of their hideout, but I went down to the street anyway. The police saw me, perhaps ignoring the fact that I''d jumped down from a roof, they called out to me through gas masks, ¡°Get out of their! This area has been contaminated with an unknown biological agent!¡± They seemed to have already made a story around the scene they were ignoring. I quickly made my own up as I approached, ¡°Listen to me! The substance is a biological weapon designed to bypass any safety procedures! It eats through the respirators on hazmat suits!¡± I pointed, ¡°There are people in there, the company that owns this building is directly involved in human trafficking, and there is a subcomplex where they test drugs and weapons on people, even children!¡± I was about to suggest something dangerous, stopping as I thought it over. To hell with it, it was these guys¡¯ job to risk their lives, and it was a minor risk compared to the alternative. ¡°I tunnelled a hole through the ground to escape, it¡¯s in the storage closet north of the reception. The executives have rigged the building to explode in exactly 2 hours. Now listen to me! You need to go in there, save those people, and get everyone out of here, evacuate for a few streets.¡± With that I turned to run away, they called after me, but I brushed them off, ¡°Just listen to me! You must do this or twice as many people will die! Announce that you are entering for aid, there are armed men in there.¡± I jumped away, but I was sure none of them would pick up on the strangeness of that. That building was becoming a centre for our conflict, and as time went on, it was becoming clearer to me that this area needed to be evacuated, the victims in there needed to be free. I knew that it was risky to send those cops to go in, but it needed to be done fast. I would join them as soon as the storm in the north was dealt with. After I was done. I soon came crashing through the growing cloud over the city, searching for the building Feoli had shown me or one of the vehicles that Clover had listed under the Mountain. I found the latter, speeding down the right road, and quickly made myself visible. The van only slowed as I ran up behind its sliding door. I hopped in and first saw Sruthan. She was seated but just as imposing. I nearly slammed my fist into her until I looked around, seeing everyone packed together all around me. Clover, Feoli, Mullet, Izzy, the Mountain troops, and even one of Feoli¡¯s monsters, a large fish like the one that had swallowed Isaac. Half hesitant I asked, ¡°So you convinced the fomorians.¡± Clover coldly asked, ¡°Where is he?¡± I nodded, ¡°He¡¯s coming after you, he¡¯ll be directed by Sea-threw Gurl. Feoli, give me your communicator.¡± She nodded to the side, ¡°I dumped mine, but you can have Bea¡¯s.¡± I breathed heavily. Things were improving drastically. This is what it feels like to do this with friends, to have people you can trust fighting with you. It was a taste of the Mountain, but I would make it my own. As she handed me the earpiece, I put it to the side of my mask, and realised what I''d have to do next. I took no pride or joy in it. I simply did what I had to. ¡°How the fuck did you get out of that one! I¡¯d be impressed if it seemed planned, but you lucked out somehow, didn¡¯t you? Your girlfriend saved you by praying or something? Some hero you are, getting rag dolled and pushed around by some fat old guy-¡± ¡°It¡¯s not your fault. I¡¯m sorry I couldn¡¯t stop him.¡± She was saying something else, but I continued, ¡°I wasn¡¯t good enough. He told me you were the best thing in his life. It was never the money, or this job- that was all just smoke and mirrors. Belfast blinded you guys with it all-¡± She screamed through the other end, ¡°Right, try and talk me out of this, that¡¯s sort of clich¨¦, isn¡¯t it?¡± I looked up, and around. Wherever she was she could see me now. ¡°You need to listen. He killed Adonis. For no reason other than to fuck with me.¡± Mullet rose for a second, ¡°Wow, wait, what the hell are you saying?¡± ¡°Look for him.¡± The other end went quiet then. I closed my eyes as it dragged on. ¡°Oh my god,¡± Her voice was meek and quivering, it was like the ringing of a mouses throat. ¡°Oh god!¡± I pushed at my eyes, and then tried to bring her back to business. ¡°Listen to me, hey, stay with me.¡± I prepared myself, the excitement was cold and black. ¡°I¡¯m going to kill him.¡± The only noise I could hear was the bumping of the wheels on the road. Nobody said a word, Gurl¡¯s side went quiet. ¡°Did you hear me? I¡¯m going to put him down. I¡¯ll need your cooperation, ok? I swear that I''m going to keep you safe. The Mountain isn¡¯t going to come after you for retribution-¡± ¡°Shut up!¡± Her tone had changed back to normal, as the sound came through on her end. She was crying. I knew that the longer this took, the harder it would be to get Belfast away from the city. I let her work through it anyway, even taking the device away from my ear. Mullet was looking up at me, silently waiting for an explanation. He deserved one, more than the girl from my art class who¡¯d gotten so deep in these games that she forgot that it was anything but. She never truly understood the danger. She might have excepted the risk to her life, but not this. ¡°Listen. The- the last thing Adonis wanted me to do was to keep you safe, and to avenge him. You don¡¯t need to do anything. Just tell me where the closest body of water is to that monster.¡± It was quiet again as the sound cut out. ¡°-west, the river is a couple kilometres west. Hes on your twelve.¡± I sighed and thanked her. She must have been watching me at that moment, ¡°Can you even do it?¡± I bit my lip, ¡°I don¡¯t know. But I can guarantee, that if he isn¡¯t dead in the next ten minutes, he¡¯ll wish he was.¡± I reopened the door of the van, but before I left, I remembered, ¡°I¡¯m going to pass you over to Clover now. Tell her the truth, that Emmett is alive.¡± I checked back on them all as I left. Feoli, Sruthan and Izzy looked at me with surprise, Mullet kept the same expression as when I''d said Adonis was gone. Clover didn¡¯t emote. Though when I threw the earpiece to her, she lunged at the small thing as if her life depended on it. Mullet¡¯s eyes tracked it. As an isolated event it would have made me cry with joy, that if I did die, a handful of people would care. I dropped out of the van, then went for Belfast. I knew where he was instantly, the cloud helped. With a scream, I slammed right through it, missing him and colliding with a building. I imagined a laugh, as the storm turned against me. I had given him time, and with all the resources at his disposal his cloud had quintupled in size, blocking the sun above me. A hail of spears rained down, and I stood still, slapping any that came at me while always watching the cloud, and always keeping my bearings straight. I caught glimpses of him in sporadic showings, baiting me into jumping at him as he moved through the dark. It was formulaic, robotic, and I soon understood that there was a point he frequented. I learned the patterns and jumped again, smashing into pikes with my face. The metal was harder and sharper than before, it managed to slice into my face, and tore at my mask, but nothing more. One eye was blinded and stinging as I entered the cloud, the other a lot less. But I did hit the target. I rugby tackled into him, catching his torso under my arm. The storm raged after me as I stole their king, biting at my heels as a went by. I landed, and then re triangulated myself, rocketing towards the lake. Belfast was durable, only because he had the bots within him bolstering and repairing his flesh. There was nothing special about his biology as far as I knew. Even if they could provide him with nutrients, there was little chance the bots moved underwater. They were moved by air easily enough. Belfast didn¡¯t have the strength to fight my grip on him, but he did have a shiv. I don¡¯t know if it was made of sub-terrainium or what, but he first stabbed it into my leg, then he went again at my stomach. I had to sacrifice the trajectory to wrestle it from him, and he crashed just off the bank of the River Lagan. He landed sorely on the ground, but like me he was only bothered by it. ¡°You dirty cunt! You really let them fall? All so you could kill me? Ha! We... We are on the same side, aye? Just two horrible little cocksuckers who are so far up their asses. That they can¡¯t make the right choice-¡± I threw myself at him with a scream My leg was limping as I kicked up wet dirt to get to him. He beat me with his fists as I grabbed him by the throat. ¡°There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that stops you from being better. You choose to be this.¡± I checked the position of the cloud, through one masked eye. It was a quick and painful struggle as I threw him into the river, the two of us getting swept away by the current. I couldn¡¯t see anything, it was toomirky and polluted. He still clawed against me as he rolled against the river¡¯s bottom. I unclasped one hand and smashed it into his lungs. Bubbles erupted from his mouth. It wasn¡¯t long until my body was screaming out for air, and I too was breathing in the water. We were drowning together. I couldn¡¯t remove the water from my lungs, it was a far too important component in my body to be lessened by SP2. Under water, he was only a slightly more durable human, I looked up to the shifting lights above us, nothing but limp pieces of metal fell on us. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The atomic things couldn¡¯t work underwater, if a hard shockwave could blow them back, then a fast river would serve as a perfect shield. It was taking longer than I expected, and it was even more terrifying than I''d imagined. There was no sound down there, no sign of human spirit except a few limp pulls at my arm that could have just as easily been the waves. I checked back with the surface, and what I saw did not bode any better. There was complete darkness above us, and then a ripple that reached the depths. As the object got closer, I first felt the weight of the water sandwiched between me and the floor. It pulled my hands up from Belfast to catch at it and try to topple it away. It was a very, very big ball. The nano machines had pooled their resources together to create one giant weight to crush me. In the wave that swept through the water, Belfast¡¯s body flushed out and away from me. Noticing that, I quickly followed, throwing the massive weight away with the last of my inhuman strength. My eyes were adjusting to the muck, and as I looked for him, I say a body rising to the surface, movement in its arms. I had to jump up with my one good leg. That got me up to him, but that was as far as I could go anymore. I grabbed and pulled at him with my best arm, but he didn¡¯t struggle. I honestly had no strength left to fight. Neither of us did. Without a second thought, I grabbed him, trudged along the sediment, rising up the bank. Every sane instinct in my body was saying to dump him and run. But I couldn¡¯t. I pushed him over the water¡¯s surface first. My body gave up then, I couldn¡¯t move at all as the water choked up and out of me. The buzz of the storm had died away, the same stagnant clumps that I''d seen at the hotel were idly floating, mostly on the water¡¯s surface. I heard water bubble out of Belfast¡¯s mouth, and was sane again. I grabbed at his chest, and tried, honestly tried to put him under water again. Instead, I pushed down on his chest pumping the water out of him. That was all I could manage. I heard air whistle through his nose for a slight moment. I laughed, realising I couldn¡¯t kill someone, no that wasn¡¯t possible. He didn¡¯t get up or move. Eventually, the flesh around his nose twitched, but not naturally. It was like something was pushing against it from the inside. The flesh stretched and broke as a pill shaped object the size of a mouse floated out of his head, glowing an iridescent white. I hadn¡¯t a clue what was happening, then, as the clumps in the air magnetised towards it. Metal cables and legs formed with the same glow as it. I quickly grabbed at it, the thing itself was soft, like a paper mache, with little weight to it. I realised it was his power, whatever the true nature of it was. It made me think of Schism. Thinking about the whole affair since then I''ve concluded that the best outcome for him was for us to just kill each other. He knew that Feoli was going to betray Belfast eventually, he just thought I should be thrown into the fray to handle everything. I guess I did. I was still alive, but when I looked down at Belfast then, I realised he was never going to yammer horrible shit ever again. I felt nothing. I wasn¡¯t sorry, and I wasn¡¯t happy. It was a complete and utter emptiness. That scares me more than anything else. I looked to the light orb once again. Whatever it was, it had lived symbiotically with him, it was symbolic of and responsible for all the evil he had done. It floated with its own upward pull. I formed a fist around it, clutching it tightly. Then I just threw it. It was gone within seconds. For a while after I was worried that I''d be split apart by China¡¯s shadow ruler, but I wasn¡¯t. The light went straight up into the sky, with all the scattered clouds following it. There was no reassurance that destroying the orb wouldn¡¯t cause some chain reaction where the rest of the particles eat away at everything in a frenzy, at least that was an educated thought swimming in my head. I waited for it to come back down and ¡®grey goo¡¯ the planet, but it never happened. I had forgot that I was sitting with a dead body beside me. People say it, but he really did look like he was just sleeping. Eventually, a car pulled up and I quickly fixed my mask, pulling a black piece of fabric over my half-exposed face. I heard them talk first, and then Feoli crouched down in front of me. ¡°I don¡¯t get it,¡± is what I told here, and she seemed to understand. There was a driver and a first aid guy. They gave me a blood transfusion through the leg Belfast had gouged a hole in, it was the only opening. They then sealed that up with an adhesive. He told me it was a crap job but it was the best they could do for me. Infront of the soldiers I asked ¡°Feoli, please don¡¯t join the Mountain.¡± She smiled from the front passenger, ¡°It¡¯s alright, I doubt we¡¯ll have to fight. This is Clover¡¯s land in their books. I¡¯ll be sent somewhere else. I hear most recruits go to Egypt.¡± We drove by near identical buildings, grey and three stories high. ¡°That¡¯s not what I mean, the Mountain are a bunch of... If you join them, they¡¯ll make you killer and a pawn.¡± Feoli sighed, feeling at a bandaged wound on her arm, ¡°I don¡¯t think they will.¡± I snickered sorely, trying to straighten myself. ¡°Explain your motives,¡± I advised. ¡°Right,¡± she remembered, ¡°but you already know what I want. I want to live in a world like this, and I want this sort of life for all fomorians. I see now that it is not blood that makes a person unworthy, it is their actions.¡± She turned around, smiling sadly, ¡°I don¡¯t think staying here with you will provide them with that. I¡¯d be more than happy, but never content knowing I abandoned my people.¡± I wanted to tell her she was wrong, that I was just getting started here- I sensed however that was not the thing to say. ¡°If you think this is truly the best thing to do, then I¡¯ll support you, if from the other side of the line.¡± Her smile then was almost freaky in its honesty. I don¡¯t think I''ve ever seen her smile that toothily before. After enjoying the drive for some time, I realised it was time for me to go, though she asked me to stay. I learned where Clover was and that was enough for me. I first got changed, seeing how scored and bruised my body really was. Fresh blood poked through my scarred forearm, my eye swelled and sank at a cut, and there countless other parts of me in disorder. With the same clothes I¡¯d worn yesterday, I left to find Mullet. He was at the hotel with Izzy and TGFMAC, arguing with a cop to be allowed in. The building had been swept for explosives and it came up clean. They were still weary of contamination, though that had cleared visibly. It seemed like their wasn¡¯t much threat from the gun men after all. Maybe the guys who had always shadowed Belfast were playing things cool. ¡°Hey,¡± was the first thing I said to their backs. They turned, Gurl starred, Izzy continued the argument in Mullet¡¯s stead as he walked over to me. ¡°How much did you know?¡± I choked on my words, ¡°Saoirse said she knew bad people, but I thought she meant small time shit, you know?¡± Mullet looked like was going to punch me then collapse. ¡°I- Can you take me to her? I need to talk to her.¡± Mullet was in disbelief, the life drained from his frame. ¡°Where is she?¡± I told him and, he wasn¡¯t happy about it, but he got me into his car once the cops wheeled it out for him after declaring it clean. Gurl hung around me for a while, half lost, wanting to speak to Shamrock. I just told her that I''d never fuck up like that again. And then me and Mullet drove north in silence. I told him it would be okay if he left me off, then went back to the girls on his own. He didn¡¯t have an issue with that, and we were quiet for the road. He eventually told me, ¡°She said yes.¡± I thought about congratulating him, but I just said, ¡°I heard about Adonis. From Feoli.¡± ¡°Fucking Christ Emmett. Doesn¡¯t take a genius to know I don¡¯t want to talk about it.¡± He was harsh, but not unwarranted. He reached for the cars music, taking out the thing he played the ¡®holiday songs¡¯ on and put in a different one. An Irish song came on, and then another, and then another. I couldn¡¯t understand a word of them, but I knew they were old and sad. Then one came on that seemed familiar. I asked what it was and he sighed, ¡°Song of the books.¡± ¡°I-¡± I didn¡¯t know if I should mention it, not to Mullet and not to myself, ¡°I had a friend who liked this song. She¡¯s gone now. She¡¯d rather die than stick around me.¡± Mullet pulled over. ¡°Out. For a second.¡± I did as he asked, standing by the roadside. I tried to think of the distance to our destination, still twenty or fifteen minutes away. I tried to think of anything other than the fact Mullet was crying in his car. The sky was red when we got there, to the sea. There was a fenced in perimeter, that kept people away from the coast. Under normal circumstances it¡¯d be closed at this time. There''d been an exception made for the two of us. Mullet was left at his car and would soon leave all together. When I was alone and in silence, my mind looked back. I killed a man. The waves moved against the coast in the distance. It was a bit of a walk before I came close to the sea, I first saw the tourist booth and knew I was on the right track. I stumbled across hexagonal columns that looked like they¡¯d been cut and fashioned by a person, when in reality, they weren¡¯t forged by any such myth but volcanic activity. Eventually the land was nothing but those structures, jutting and wet from the cliffs all the way down to the sea. Either way they were wet with rain. It was at the edge of a cliff that I found her, sitting a little too close to the edge. ¡°Saoirse.¡± She turned, slow and dreading. Like the others, she¡¯d cried sometime after I last saw them in the van. She came up quickly, slipping and stumbling to the point where I was afraid now too. I ran over to try and stop her from splitting her head. She went faster, colliding into me. She was crying, loud and painfully. I pulled away from the edge and I asked, ¡°Oh god, are you alright?¡± I pulled her head to me, like I would when saving someone. She spat and sniffled, ¡°W-what the fuck?? Of course I''m fine! Your fucking arm! Holy shit, your fucking face!¡± I smiled, ¡°You need to look in a mirror.¡± She roared out laughing, ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter! I look fine! I always do, always am, haha.¡± She was breaking down. I crouched, and as she was still grabbing onto me, she followed. ¡°This shouldn¡¯t have happened to you,¡± I said. She was about to say something, but I continued, ¡°I heard about you friends, Saoirse you don¡¯t deserve this.¡± ¡°No,¡± she stammered, pushing away, ¡°No, it¡¯s my fault. They¡¯re dead now, and everyone wants me dead for what I did to them. I brought this on- And I know, you want to tell me I''m wrong, but I''m not Em, I didn¡¯t kill you this time, but it¡¯ll happen, and I''ll have to watch when it does.¡± She wiped at her tears, ¡°Mullet was right. Broken clock is right once a day, huh. I¡¯m stringing you on, where else are you gonna go? It¡¯s mean but, you do rely on me, right, but you don¡¯t even really know who I am, I¡¯m a drug dealer, a terrorist, a murderer, a loan shark, a psycho who is completely incapable of standing on her own two feet without other people¡¯s money, I¡¯m unstable and you can¡¯t help me!¡± ¡°You aren¡¯t a psycho,¡± I tilted my head away, ¡°Yep! I¡¯m a total piece of shit! I only care about when my actions affect me poorly, I-¡± ¡°You are perfectly capable of extending your sympathy to others. I was an asshole to you when we met, and you still stuck by me.¡± ¡°That¡¯s different, you don¡¯t count, cause you don¡¯t have a clue what I''m talking about!¡± I smiled, ¡°Well, if that¡¯s not a back handed dehumanising insult than I don¡¯t know what is.¡± Saoirse chuckled at it, ¡°That¡¯s what I mean! Your bar is so low, that you haven¡¯t got a clue what an actual healthy person looks like.¡± I looked back at her, ¡°This. I don¡¯t know a lot of people, but I know myself. I know my mom. And the types of people on my street. You aren¡¯t like us. Because they wouldn¡¯t cry about something like this.¡± I put my hand to the side of her face that wasn¡¯t purple, ¡°You are not set in stone. You¡¯ve grown so much, that I know you''re not that person, if you ever truly were. You made mistakes, and you''re still going to, but I have enough faith to know you will make the changes you need to.¡± She wasn¡¯t convinced, ¡°I can¡¯t. I''ve tried. Really tried.¡± ¡°Alright,¡± I sighed, ¡°You don¡¯t have to believe in yourself, because I do.¡± Looking back at her, I was half annoyed, ¡°This is the second time you¡¯ve cried for me, it¡¯s sort of sickeningly sweet at this point.¡± She dried her eyes, ¡°What, you¡¯d actually rather I didn¡¯t give a shit after you show up back from the grave with your arm flayed?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want you to cry for me.¡± I leaned forward, ¡°I want you to-¡± I searched for the words, ¡°I want you to...¡± She wrapped her arms around my neck. ... I don¡¯t want to type about it. It wasn¡¯t a lot, and I certainly wasn¡¯t ashamed of it, but it was something that should be between us. It was something that made everything so much more painful for the both of us. After she said, ¡°I want you too.¡± My arms fell to the side. ¡°Saoirse-¡± She grabbed my hand, ¡°Call me Clover.¡± I was despondent until she said, ¡°That¡¯s who I really am. It¡¯s the name I use when... It¡¯s my real name.¡± She smiled, and I felt it could wait an hour or two. We talked about all her problems; she went into as much detail as she could concerning Ae and the war with Belfast, I made up a story around how I escaped from Sruthan. I told Clover the truth, mostly, that I''d punched her out and ran after she got hit by a car. Eventually we came back around to what started this whole ¡®trip¡¯ obsession of hers. ¡°Honestly, seeing this place for the first time, it¡¯s a fuckin shit hole. Garbage litters the whole walk here.¡± I shrugged, ¡°I didn¡¯t really notice. I was looking at the rocks.¡± Clover laughed, ¡°God, I just can¡¯t believe they market this place as the tenth wonder of the world or whatever, it¡¯s just another tourist trap. Except this one''s somehow bigger in the brochure.¡± I liked it enough, ¡°It beats Belfast though, right?¡± ¡°Ireland¡¯s still Ireland.¡± I thought about it, ¡°Yeah, I guess it¡¯s all the same really, it¡¯s the same people in the end just from different perspectives, but that¡¯s what makes it different, and good, I guess.¡± ¡°How poetic,¡± she teased. I tried again, ¡°I mean, obviously this isn¡¯t the same part of Ireland as Belfast or Tralee, this place has a real ancient history to it, where Belfast is the epitome of all the modern problems with Ireland. Theeres a social divide, prejudice, ignorance, and worst of all... they¡¯re so vicious in that city.¡± ¡°Here there¡¯s a whole load of trash and just as much ignorance, but at least it¡¯s quiet. Peaceful.¡± Clover looked back up at me, ¡°It¡¯s just us.¡± ¡°Saoirse,¡± something about the phrase made me sick, ¡°Clover, we have to talk.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what we¡¯ve been doing, isn¡¯t it?¡± I breathed in, ¡°Clover, I like you, I really like you, but-¡± She was still grinning, but her eyes told a different story, ¡°But I don¡¯t think we should be together. Not right now, not after everything that¡¯s happened.¡± I quickly cleared up what I meant, ¡°I¡¯m not even talking about you risking everyone¡¯s life, that¡¯s something you have to work on, and if it was just that, I''d be there with you.¡± I slowly shook my head, ¡°This is about me.¡± I finally admitted, ¡°When I... heard about what happened to your friends, a large part of me, most of me, thought, ¡®that¡¯s horrible! Is she alright?¡¯ but then there was something else.¡± I tried to put it as best I could, ¡°When I saw how happy and carefree you were with them, I was jealous, envious. I wanted you to myself. So when they were gone...¡± There was a half look of horror on her face. To that I just nodded. ¡°I think, we need to grow as people before we can... hang out. You know? I just don¡¯t want to feel like I''m being rewarded for-¡± For the deaths I¡¯d witnessed, allowed. The murder. This has been a golden oppurtunity for me, and it would be wrong of me to squander it on personal wants. Belfast was dead. I''d have a lot of work with the coming power vacuum. She nodded, ¡°Yeah, I get it, I do.¡± She flapped an arm, ¡°I uh, actually, I have to go over to England for a bit. For a family thing.¡± I was taken a little off guard by that, ¡°Oh.¡± ¡°Yeah, now that you mention it, I think it¡¯ll be a good opportunity for me to get away from... all this. To be someone different.¡± ¡°Right,¡± something about the phrase echoed in my head. ''To be someone different.'' ¡°But, we¡¯ll stay in touch. I¡¯ll be back.¡± I smiled, ¡°I¡¯m not going anywhere.¡± For a second I thought that was the end. Clover must have feared the same. ¡°Can we sit for a little while longer?¡± ¡°Yes. But I''ll have to go soon, or else I won¡¯t be able to get back home.¡± ¡°I can get you a car.¡± ¡°No thanks. I''ll manage on my own somehow.¡± Blow 7.14: The analyses of the Non-entity post Black hole. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Clout 8.01: Im working. ¡°I¡¯ve told you nearly a hundred fucken times, kid. Don¡¯t fuck with me! Just give me some fucken whiskey!¡± I looked at him from over the store counter, I went to the same primary school as the guy, he was a year or to below but I remember him. He didn¡¯t seem to have a clue who I was. Can¡¯t blame him. I was skipping school to work, even then. A fly could have landed on my eye, and I wouldn¡¯t have blinked, or twitched. ¡°Sorry sir, but you just seem a little young. I¡¯ll need to see some identification.¡± ¡°Come the fuck,¡± he spat. I smiled. Dirt could have slathered between my teeth, and it wouldn¡¯t be much different. I put out my hand. He slammed a piece of plastic into it. It twirled around in my fingers. I looked at it, then at him. We¡¯ll call him Mark. He was shorter than me, black hair brown eyes, pale skin. There was a slight twinge of life on my face. Honestly, working at this grocery store was shit, but this was something to keep me humoured. I looked down at the plastic card, and slowly started to laugh, as I had done a hundred times before by Mark¡¯s count. The photo pictured a man who looked to be in about his thirties, his skin was so black in the crappy fake ID that it contrasted against the white background, so no features could be distinguished. Tripping over my words I gave it back to him, ¡°Sorry mister, here¡¯s your-¡± He punched my arm over the counter. It stung for a second, and only caused me to laugh harder. ¡°You''re such a fucking dick head,¡± he seethed. I waved my arms defensively, still fucking with him, ¡°Have you ever got into a club with that? Ah, nah, I¡¯ve seen you at me girlfriend¡¯s place, right?¡± He took his bottle and went storming for the door, throwing up his black, grey hoodie. I clicked my tongue, ¡°Aww, don¡¯t be like that!¡± I looked for my co-worker, then hopped over the counter with my arms, ¡°Come on don¡¯t be a fucken pussy about it. Look-¡± I grabbed him by the shoulder, ¡°it¡¯s a shit fucken job man, you get me? I don¡¯t know, it¡¯s just funny.¡± I pleaded with him, looking into his eyes with my own dark and sunken orbs, and he replied, ¡°You''re wasting my time, cock sucker!¡± I played into my role, slipping my arm off him. ¡°Watch your tongue.¡± He looked down. I wasn¡¯t smiling anymore. To stay on his good side, I half dropped my glare, and gave him a playful tap, ¡°Hey, look at me, look.¡± Half unsure he looked back up at me, ¡°I¡¯ll get you an extra bottle. Hard shit, the pricey stuff.¡± ¡°What, outta your pay?¡± It was a dumb question for him to ask. Especially since he had a good idea who I was. ¡°No!¡± I laughed, into a whisper, ¡°You think the old fuck who owns this place cares? He¡¯s rich compared to you and me.¡± A smile crept across Mark¡¯s face. I looped around the counter, ducking down and opening the liquor cabinet. It was a misty grey locker, no different from the rest of the store. ¡°Shit mate, what if you get fired?¡± I shrugged at that, and stood, sliding it into his hand, ¡°Who cares. It doesn¡¯t matter to me. Does it matter to you?¡± He showed a chipped tooth, then let go of the bottle to bring me in for a shoulder bump, ¡°I don¡¯t care what the guys say, your sweet blud.¡± Mark winced a little, ¡°Listen, I- sorry man, I didn¡¯t mean to imply you were a pussy or somethin¡¯.¡± I coughed back, ¡°Forget it, I mean it. Just don¡¯t say that shit around your mates,¡± I grabbed at his coat, ¡°and not around my woman, clear?¡± He nodded, only half forcing a smile now. I sent him away with a pat. I stared after him for a moment. No, it¡¯s more apt to say I was looking at the air around him. It was grey. Not just in the store, but everywhere. It was a little brighter in September, but not much. This autumn was a clouded one. If it wasn¡¯t raining, it was misty, and if it wasn¡¯t either of those then the sky was just a white sheet. The weather felt like it really was nothing. After all these months, do you know what I noticed? The colour of the town¡¯s lamp posts changed- the light I mean. They were dark orange before, or maybe they just seemed dark because they were on at night. It¡¯s mid-October now, but it doesn¡¯t feel like it. I associate those eye straining orange lights with Halloween, because it was the only night, I was allowed out late, though I wasn¡¯t allowed to trick-or-treat on our street specifically. That, and because black and orange is sorta the Halloween¡¯s colours. I could remember every single costume I ever wore on Halloween. For fuck¡¯s sake, I made a costume every year till now...¡± ¡°I know your nervous about things, but that¡¯s a little much, isn¡¯t it?¡± I only half acknowledged my co-worker. It was special kind of struggle, trying to listen to her. ¡°The fuck are you on about?¡± I had been lost in thought, and honestly didn¡¯t know what she was talking about. She gave a sigh. ¡°You just sold two bottles of whiskey to a minor,¡± the exasperated tone fit her, frighteningly well. So did the horribly plain blue uniform she wore, it really brought out the brain rotting, soul grating repetitiveness of our job. Her grey-brown hair was in a short pony tail that made her look gaunt. Not like I should be throwing stones, I hadn¡¯t slept in weeks. Luckily for me, most of the company I was reserved to keep were far worse physically dishevelled than myself. She was supposed to be a regular girl. We both agreed on that. No weird alternate spelling of the word, just... The girl from my amazingly crappy job. We¡¯ll call her TGFMACJ. She looked at me from across the counter, a mop bucket in hand. I didn¡¯t put on any airs, ¡°If I didn¡¯t give it to him, he¡¯d have got it from somewhere else. They always find a way.¡± The sad face she made me angry. She couldn¡¯t throw stones either. Either way, I went about my business, sticking a hand into my pocket and grabbing out a hundred Euros in twenties, stuffing forty into the cash register for the ¡®purchase¡¯. She said, ¡°Don¡¯t forget what he taught us. About abusing money.¡± There was still a choke in her voice when she thought about ¡®Black hole¡¯, the incident in Belfast I didn¡¯t like to think about it much either. I curled a fist. Not that it would do anything. ¡°Watch it,¡± I told her. She gave a sigh and wheeled the mop bucket away. It was a slow day, so she talked to me. I forbid her from doing it openly, I wouldn¡¯t associate with her in front of the people of this town. Our relationship wasn¡¯t a friendly one. We knew each other from school, and work, and that was it. A lady walked in with her kid, walking to the back of the store. ¡°Restock the bleach,¡± TGFMACJ told me, and I pulled out my cracked phone. From a bird¡¯s eye view, the bleach was in the north-east end, just short of the corner. ¡°The big brand,¡± she added. I just kept missing around with my phone on google maps. ¡°Uh, huh,¡± I said with disinterest. The Girl expertly checked the cash register, counting coins ¡°2, 1, 12, 12 again...¡± I looked at big towns up north, finding a town called B-a-l-l-y-bofey, ¡°Jesus, you don¡¯t have to do that out loud.¡± The Girl closed the register with a sulk. I kept my phone out. She perked up suddenly, ¡°Hey did I tell you that I got my dog groomed, OMG,¡± she said with mock delight, and valley girl accent, solving the blank screen of her own phone in my face, ¡°aren¡¯t her paws soo cute?¡± I pushed it out of my face, putting mine away, ¡°Alright, I get it! Fuck.¡± I hadn¡¯t noticed the customer walking up with their kid. It seemed she only half heard what I said, either way, she still furiously batted her eyelashes. I excused myself and went for storage. TGFMACJ dropped the joking tone, her own honest amusmant at the charade dying, ¡°Hi, would you like a plastic bag?¡± I hardly heard them as I bumped through the door and out. I got to the garage door where stock gets taken in and got to work lifting boxes. Honestly, I¡¯m still the same person I''ve always been, iI can¡¯t start conversations with people, not even for work, I just let TGFMACJ handle that sort of thing and I''ll do the rest. She¡¯ll point to the chores that need done, and I''ll do them. That is unless it¡¯s someone from the Quarter. I speak to them personally. I thought the customer would have been long gone by the time I got back but I walked in on her, pointing fingers blindly at the door. At first I thought she might have been chewing out my trusty co-worker, then she said, ¡°-what right does that little prick have to speak to you like that? Tell me his name love, I''ll see your manager about him.¡± I couldn¡¯t help but snicker. That brought her attention to me standing in the doorway. I brushed a hand over the shaved side of my head, and up into the thicker mop on top. It wasn¡¯t a cut I liked but it was fitting for my character. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. I looked at the woman with her kid, smiling wide, ¡°My name¡¯s Rori, mam, is there a problem here TGFMACJ?¡± She looked hesitantly to the customer, then back at me, questioning both. The lady said, ¡°I bet you have no idea what this girl has been through, not just in Belfast, but everyday. You¡¯re the sort of lazy young man who just does whatever he wants without recompense.¡± TGFMACJ looked down at the illusion to ¡®black hole¡¯, as well as her everyday life. I don¡¯t think she¡¯d talk to me about home even if I asked. I told the lady, ¡°Listen I don¡¯t really give a crap what she¡¯s been through, cause I¡¯m working the same shitty job she is, understood? If you feel the need to raise a complaint with our supervisor, your better off phoning him between five and six, that¡¯s when he¡¯s in his office, if that¡¯ll be all- thanks, goodbye!¡± She seemed flabbergasted by me reaching the counter, grabbing her shopping and handing it to her. As she turned, to shout at me, I repeated, ¡°Just tell them you have a problem with Rori, trust me, he¡¯ll know who you¡¯re talking about. Oh, he won¡¯t fire me. I¡¯m the cheapest worker.¡± The mother showed restraint and kept her mouth closed, though no doubt she would have slung a couple Irish sayings at me. Wisely, she tugged her son through the door. My eyes flickered down on the five-year-old kid, so small I''d missed him before, really. He looked back at me from under a paper mask that had been coloured in green. It made my teeth grind. ¡°You didn¡¯t have to do that,¡± Girl said, the anger in her voice, ¡°I didn¡¯t ask you to.¡± I ran a hand up and down my hair again, ¡°Maybe that lady said something to piss me off, did you think about that?¡± ¡°You¡¯re going to get fired you stupid bastard. What are you going to do then? It¡¯s not like you go to school anymore.¡± She went storming down an isle and my eyes rolled after her, ¡°I won¡¯t get fired. They pay me half the regular.¡± She turned back around, ¡°Sooner or later someone¡¯s going to suspect the worst of you, with all that money you throw around stupidly. Trust me, the thugs you''re getting cosy with-¡± There was a ding at the door, and without looking to see who it was, she turned away from me, when she did see who it was, her eyes went dead and she went off to do her own thing. An all too familiar voice called from my side, ¡°You arguing with that twig again?¡± I managed a smirk before turning to her. Her boss had sent her back from Egypt a month ago with a promotion. She was working as hard as me, but you wouldn¡¯t guess it from how she looked. She was wearing an open Prada puffer jacket, though it didn¡¯t do much to keep her warm. She told me once that whether clothes kept you hot or cold didn¡¯t matter in this neck of the woods. They were a symbol, they said who you were, and that¡¯s what matters. On that we agreed. She wore a strap top underneath to display her tattoos, she¡¯d gotten more since last I saw her, they stretched out over her neck like a black sun and criss-crossed down to her naval in waves and bars. She raised an eyebrow to me, whispering ¡°I could kick her ass, if you don¡¯t have the balls for it.¡± ¡°Fuck you,¡± I grinned. It seemed everything came down to shows of manliness with her. It¡¯s weird competing with your girlfriend on that. ¡°I¡¯ve got two cannon balls right here.¡± She bit the inside of her lip. That caused my smile to faulter a little. I realised balls were sexual, I only mentioned them because it was vulgar. It was too late now, my stupid ass had said it and she was coming closer. I looked over my shoulder for a co-worker, but none were available. I looked back to her, barely intercepting a grapple for my balls. She seemed to like that more, and a second later she pushed her face against mine, spitting in my mouth and prodding my tongue with hers. I reciprocated. Because she is my girlfriend. She pulled away with a wet noise and grimaced a smile, hers was like a snarl. ¡°You done yet? I¡¯m hungry, let¡¯s get something to eat.¡± I looked about, ¡°Nah, I¡¯m way to busy. Fucken pig boss killing me here. What about your bar babe? Shouldn¡¯t you be there?¡± She licked her lips, maybe savouring my taste, ¡°You want to kill someone?¡± For a moment, my face was Emmett O¡¯Hara¡¯s. I soon returned to Rori, ¡°What the fuck are you talking about, Tay.¡± Tayanita caught me off guard with the question and saw an opportunity to grab my balls, just for a second. She laughed when I lurched. ¡°It¡¯s a figure of speech moron. Unless?¡± She brushed a black strand of hair away. Sneering at me with black opal eyes. I took an urgent tone, walking her out the door, ¡°Yeah, yeah, fuck head, just be straight with me for once.¡± Tayanita blew out her nose, ¡°Alright listen Rori, cause I¡¯m only going to say this once. Me and my boys are putting together a little party. Halloween. As exclusive as it gets for our rungs. There¡¯ll be... Well, you could say service, candy, and entertainment. Bare Boxing is the main event. It¡¯ll be better than anything that blonde cock sucking little whore ever did with the place.¡± She took me back with the pure malice in her voice, but she¡¯d spat hate like it at Clover so often that I learned not to flinch when Tayanita went at her. ¡°Right, what¡¯s that gotta do with me?¡± She scowled when I asked, ¡°There¡¯s fucking money in it.¡± I turned my tongue over in my mouth, but she cut me off, ¡°You¡¯re gonna fight, because you can, got it? Don¡¯t try to bullshit me, you hardly flinch at anything.¡± She went for my balls for a third time, and I grabbed her with a twist, she growled up at me but said, ¡°You wanna get out of this shit hole? There¡¯s no way you see yourself working here in five years. You only have one shot; you fight, you claw your way up, you do anything for what you want. You¡¯re a man, aren¡¯t you?¡± I had to shut her up, she would make a scene if I let her. I grabbed her back and pulled her in again. She didn¡¯t argue when I was rough. Tayanita¡¯s right. One of the only things I can do well is fight. I kissed her again, ¡°I¡¯ll do whatever the hell I want. I might be there, sure.¡± I looked behind my shoulder and into the shop, ¡°Did you come to buy something, or just to screw with me?¡± Her laugh told me enough. ¡°Fuck off. I¡¯ll find you after I''m done here.¡± She obeyed, but only because, as she put it, ¡°You need time to think it over. I¡¯ll find you.¡± With that she was walking away, hardly a look back. I don¡¯t know what she sees in me. And that¡¯s what terrifies me. I went back into the shop and found my co-worker behind a shelf, looking in our direction, ¡°You¡¯ll go to that party,¡± she said, ¡°Then we can finally put an end to this.¡± I frowned, ¡°No...¡± I decided to break our code, hissing quietly, ¡°I need them.¡± ¡°You know,¡± she started, ¡°I always hated jobs like this. I liked my old one better. Itfelt good. It¡¯s better than this, work for work¡¯s sake. We stock shelves, customers clean them out, and then we gotta stock them again. It¡¯s not worth my time, anyone¡¯s time. You''re looking for a... promotion. It¡¯s not gonna come, not at this level, not like this.¡± I swallowed. ¡°I¡¯ll go to the party. Get what we need to finish things, just let me see where us dating goes.¡± ¡°You¡¯d go too deep. She¡¯d find out who you really are before you find out where about the foreign shipments.¡± I wiped at me face, clawing at exhaustion just as much as skin, ¡°Forget it, I¡¯m going to stock shelves till I get an honest pay check.¡± She called to me as I went to greet a customer at the till, ¡°It won¡¯t be worth it in the end.¡± I smirked at the customer, honestly. Of course none of this was worth it. I¡¯d thrown myself into work. I¡¯d consciously. I¡¯ll take the money, for my mum, so that I can leave her and my granny something. No matter what happens, I''m going to see the end. I thought about kissing Tayanita. It made me want to close my eyes, to see a different face than hers. There was a gnawing feeling in my gut. I had a ton of unread messages from... from Clover, but I couldn¡¯t look at any of them. She was gone. Out of my life. No matter how many times I asked Gurl to check up on her and Feoli in Egypt, it wouldn¡¯t make her mine. It wouldn¡¯t earn her. Hours passed and I whittled away at menial tasks, like TGFMACJ said I would. Shelves, customers, stock, I attended to it all quietly. Later I''d head off to the Quarter to see Tayanita in the back lounge. She had new friends and old faces, all of them her supporters. There were the three stooges; Tyrion, the fat guy I''d seen at ¡®black hole¡¯, Malcolm, the older guy, and the freckly ginger guy who never spoke up enough to give me his name. There were foreigners that she¡¯d met while she was on tour in north Africa, though they were from all over the world, ex-military, ex-International, they had defected from both organisations because they didn¡¯t respect their laws or values, the restrictions. I agreed to fight in the ring. Tayanita was right, I¡¯m a fighter. I¡¯ve always been able to throw and role with punches, but I''d recently learned how to take them. I¡¯m not afraid of my shadow anymore. For better or for worse. I¡¯ve done worse than steal money from drug dealers, I''ve done worse than give a seventeen-year-old beer, what matters is that I do better. I figured out how to get drunk too. Though, I never switch of my resistances around them it¡¯s better that they think I can hold anything. Drinking with Tayanita always made me think back to Valentines. It seems a lifetime ago, even before I started being more Rori than Emmett. I read the old posts. I knew I wasn¡¯t a winner, but I never realised I was a loser, you know? There was a line I remember writing, declaring I wasn¡¯t traumatised by anything that happened on Valentines, but who am I kidding, that made me who I am today. If I hadn¡¯t cried for those people, I wouldn¡¯t have raged when Grey died. If I hadn¡¯t raged when grey died, I wouldn¡¯t have been so chilled by Adonis¡¯ death. I feigned righteousness and strength, I chose to believe I was unshaking, that I alone would be a pillar for justice, because I was a golem, immutable. Thing is, I¡¯m soulless not mental. Provided with new information that my morals will allow me to accept, my views can change. The definition of insanity is doing things over and over again saying, ¡®this time will be different, this time things will change¡¯. I am not insane. I¡¯ll except the world as it is and try to live my life... Then again, I haven¡¯t slept for weeks. I¡¯ve done nothing but the same job over and over for the past couple months. Maybe I am going crazy. I was walking home after seeing Tayanita, she told me to stay at her place, but I told her I needed to feed my dog, some excuse like that, it was something stupid that she didn¡¯t believe. I was walking down a street with horribly bright white streetlamps, when I heard a call from somewhere. At first, I thought it was a woman screaming, but listening to it properly, it sounded like nasally laughter. Again, I was reminded of Tayanita. I eventually stumbled out onto the street from which the noise originated, finding a group of boys in ski masks grouped around... something. I turned away for a second, hiding behind a corner, listening to the hitting of flesh. I gaped for a moment, just hearing them laugh and taunt, ¡°Look at the dirty fucker¡±, ¡°rotten fucken wanker,¡± It was a hail of plain insults. I looked at my hands, dangling at my side, fists unclenched. That disappointed me. I felt at my face, one of them sounded like Mark. I threw a jacket on, zipped it up to my mouth and pulled a hat from my bag. ¡°MOVE YE SONS OF BITCHES, BEFORE I SKIN THE LOT OF YE!¡± It was not Rori¡¯s voice that spoke, nor was it his body that charged at the group and shoved them off and away. Luckily for both of us, they bolted. It seems the news broadcasts had frightened them. I watched them disappear down the street as cars carelessly passed by the scene. I was only close to a fist, my forearms flexed and rigid, my neck was as stiff turning down to what they¡¯d gathered around. It was a man without a home, one with nowhere to go, no one to rely upon. He was an immigrant, a worker who¡¯d made a leap for a better life, yet here he lay in the gutter at the feet of a piece of shit. Cars passed, and on the other side of the street people went about their business, walking home from a late shift or stumbling back from the pub. I suppose I was doing the same. I suppose I''ve gotten a step closer to that calloused mindset. The difference between me and them however, is that I am Shamrock, and I had learned the names of all these immigrants and folks without a place in this world. I crouched at a distance, hushing, ¡°Hey, hey- Ahmid, right? You okay? You need anything?¡± He got off his side, muttering something I couldn¡¯t understand. He neither reached out to me or backed away. There was a sway to him, and his eyes weren¡¯t on me exactly. I looked up and down the street, and behind my back. Then I returned to Rori, speaking clear and harsh ¡°Here, take this, go to the shelter if you need to.¡± I reached into my pocket and then for his hand. Ahmid was hesitant at first, but he opened his hand. I pressed sixty euros into it and then stood. He understood that it was a kindness, calling after me as I strode away, masking my face as much as I could. The next day I went to work as normal. TGFMACJ babbled more numbers and directions and phrases, as my curiosity got the better of me. I looked up the news on my phone, the newest story being a break in at ¡®Pretty Paws Dog Groomers, Ballybofey¡¯, a large town in the northwest of Ireland. Apparently, they were still figuring out the situation. What they knew for sure was that there was a break in, property had been greatly damaged, and four arrests were made. The police weren¡¯t giving up any info, meaning it had to be linked to one of ¡®John Ireland¡¯s'' copycats, as they labelled such cases. Meanwhile me and a regular gurl with limitless periscopic x-ray vision were each two thousand euros richer, all from working an equally unending job. Clout 8.02: Im pent up. A once in a lifetime event occurred recently for Rori, the current me. I went to school. Lately I''ve been way too busy trying to keep my girlfriend happy while also trying to get work done quickly. I¡¯m at the point where I go in maybe once a week, and even then, only on Fridays when I have the most periods free. It¡¯s not like I was screwing about in the senior common room, I couldn¡¯t go there for fear of running into somebody I knew. Either a friend of Rori¡¯s, or Emmet O¡¯Hara¡¯s. Hey, I can give you my name, can¡¯t I? It¡¯s a little late now, but, Emmet is my real name. Yeah, I¡¯ve said that all this writing is so that someday, someone might know what I''ve done, but it was never my intention to get attention. Sam is someone else''s name, and I''m too tired to cook up another identity. So on the off chance that somebody is reading this, and they get the notion that I''m somebody they should look into- Stay the hell away from my family. Stay away from my town, my people, and if you aren¡¯t just a second worlder, my island. If you¡¯ve read this far, then you know that I¡¯m not going to take shit anymore. ¡°You will not pass this subject! Your current work output is abysmal and that, Emmet, is not reflexive of your talent.¡± I sat in school uniform staring up at Mrs Art from my wheeled office chair. My silence signified shame and that I agreed... No, the truth is I just didn¡¯t want to get into it. She was rushing out of the art store room where I was allowed to work, ¡°I understand that you have an interest in textiles, which were very well displayed last year, but you can¡¯t do that, not at the start of the year. You need to do sketches, build a portfolio, research relevant artists, and most important of all, you need to centre your work around a theme; ideas and artistic expressions. There needs to be a point to it. You can¡¯t just mindlessly sew away.¡± I blinked off into a nod, ¡°Yes Mrs.¡± She scrunched her face up, pushing a smile up and her brow down. It was a sort of passive-aggressive, condescending expression. She was a fair person, unlike my other teachers she had yet to make any harsh threats regarding my attendance. Still, her face and actions told me that she herself was not a person who enjoyed her job, that she was living life on repeat. I¡¯m sure she loved the idea of the job, but in practice it was misery, running after a bunch of no-good kids all day every day. ¡°I¡¯ll try,¡± I half promised. She wasn¡¯t really listening to me anyway; with that same unseeing smile she was gone through one of the two doors that led to the room. I looked after her for a moment, reflecting on what she said, realising it was right, and then going straight back to sewing. The sewing machine makes a racket, but I''ve always had a childish love for the jittery feeling it gives off, it leaves your hands feeling mechanically massaged, if that makes sense. Right now, I wasn¡¯t working on anything meant to be worn, it was more a mock-up so I could get used to the fabric and see how the seam would look. I was sewing together an expensive dark green fabric that I had bought with drug money I stole. I suppose it¡¯s kind of fitting that this dress be made and bought with dirty money. Afterall, it¡¯s for Clover. I¡¯ll repeat again, if somebody reads this like two years from now, and you try and contact any of the people I''m talking about I will change your life. If you send any of the lame ass things I''ve said about Clover to her, I¡¯ll die. I haven¡¯t been keeping in touch with her over the last couple of months, getting involved with Tayanita is one reason, another is my guilt. For lack of a better word. Clover would lie to me anyway. Our relationship was becoming more open, but as the people we had both been, it would never have worked. Neither of us could admit to the other that we had superpowers and had literally gazed upon eldritch realms, which is sort of a big thing in a person''s life you know? If I told her who I really was... what do you think her reaction would be? Something I''ve learned from lying is that people do not like it when the truth finally comes out. It is better this way, to wait until I am a stronger man and she is a more independent woman. I have TGFMACJ checking her, it seems there really isn¡¯t a limit to how far Gurl can see, but it takes a while for her to pinpoint the location. Clover is currently in the Cairo gulf with Feoli, and a bunch of other Mountain folks. Gurl says their doing just alright. Work wise they¡¯ve set up relief efforts as well as strengthened the Mountain¡¯s position there. Otherwise, Clover and Feoli are always arguing, they¡¯ve gotten into trouble with some other units stationed there, as well as monsters that Tayanita missed. Ghosts mostly. Gurl screamed out loud when she saw it. Now that I think about it, thirty people died here on Valentine''s day and only one ghost was born from it. I won¡¯t do the math, but a hell of a lot more would come about from the deaths of over ten million people. I try not to think about that, but I can¡¯t help it when I''m sewing. The machine just rattles away while I think about the girl I like being forced to fight drowned phantoms of unfortunate souls whose lives have been ruined by some unknowable facet of the world. What the fuck am I doing? Trying to seduce a monster hunting crime boss into giving irrefutable evidence of her involvement in mass arms shipping so that she can be imprisoned for it while running myself ragged searching for leads on the American drug operation trying to weasel over here in Belfast and Clover¡¯s absence? Two months and what I got? The sewing machine just burrs away, the sound working its way through my ears. You know, kids have started to make fucking TikToks about ¡®John Ireland¡¯- if you want your face to wrinkle like a corpse, go ahead and look it up. I wish it was just five year olds with paper masks, and graffiti and memorials, and the police swarming about Tralee looking for me, but no, people dress up like me for fun and do stupid dances for internet fame while I¡¯m getting shot at, bulldozed, lit on fire, and a hundred other things. Do you know how fucked it is for the world to think your dead and the first idea most of them get is to paint half their face green and the other half bloody and swollen as a memorial all while shaking their hips to some dumb song? Worst part is, I haven¡¯t a damn clue while this time was different! The ignorance effect seems to have half worked, they don¡¯t think I have powers or anything, but they still acknowledge me, still know me as the person who resolved ¡®Black hole¡¯. It makes me grind my teeth while I sit completely alone in this store room. That after everything I''ve done in my life, that is how I will be known and remembered. As a big green joke, when I''m a fucking murderer. The thought had been on my mind for the last couple of months, but I''ve since grown numb to it... I¡¯d prefer to say I''m defiant to it, even now. I will not be a joke. When I die, people won¡¯t post shit on the internet, they¡¯ll just be sad. They¡¯ll think the world just got a little worse. I want to be good, regardless of the shadow that follows me. A creak came from the door and my heart jumped. I gave my head a dull shake, trying to wake up and deal with my teacher. ¡°There you are you son of a fucken¡¯ bitch!¡± I looked up and to the voice. My face remained as cold as before, if not freezing over. ¡°Hey Mullet,¡± I groaned. To which he replied, ¡°Don¡¯t give me that! Where the hell have you been? I haven¡¯t seen you in a month!¡± I raised an eyebrow, ¡°You must be devastated.¡± Mullet hissed out his teeth, ¡°No, I couldn¡¯t give a shit personally, but you¡¯re depressed without me so, here I am.¡± Depressed without him and psychotic with him, is what I thought. I tried to be fair with him, ¡°It¡¯s cool that you¡¯d... show concern Mull, but I¡¯m good. If that¡¯s all, then you should get going, Mrs Art doesn¡¯t let people outside her class in here.¡± Mullet grinned, ¡°A-ha, your double wrong. Tell me you smelly depressed bastard, you still in touch with Saoirrrrrr- Clover?¡± I batted my eyes, and oddly enough answered honestly. ¡°No.¡± He nodded, showing just a faint insignificant speckle of wisdom, ¡°She was your best friend. You and me Emmet, we both lost somebody in Belfast. Well, she dumped you or whatever, so it¡¯s nowhere near the same, but like I said, you relied on her because you didn¡¯t have anybody else. You¡¯ve got me now. Meaning, I am your best friend.¡± I was dumbfounded. Stupidly I strung a thought together, ¡°I mean... Mullet, we went on a trip together, sat beside each other last year, but you don¡¯t even really like me all that much.¡± He broke any sort of solemn mood that had been built, nodding stupidly, ¡°True, true, You¡¯re nowhere near my best mate, everybody knows that¡¯s Aaron from Ballinorig, he¡¯s the man. I¡¯m your best friend, because I''m your only friend, yeah?¡± Honestly, it was a stupid thing to say. But he¡¯d been right before... ¡°I¡¯m friends with TGFMACJ,¡± I said. It wasn¡¯t exactly true, but I hung out with her a lot more now, but only for ¡®work¡¯. Despite everything she¡¯d done, and what I failed to do for her and Adonis, we¡¯re friendly enough. We do joke from time to time... but like always there¡¯s an unease over us. Still better than Mullet. ¡°Uh, dude, she¡¯s a girl.¡± I waited for him to expand on the point, folding some fabric about. He seemed confused that I hadn¡¯t caught on, ¡°Boys and girls can¡¯t be friends.¡± I snorted out my nose before realising he was serious. ¡°You and Clover were friends Mullet,¡± as I said that he smiled deviously. I rose from my seat, ¡°I¡¯m gonna kick your ass now.¡± He wasn¡¯t afraid at all, just laughing me off, ¡°Alright man, sure. I¡¯m just being honest, I looked at her ass a lot in that biology class.¡± I ground my teeth and he moved on, ¡°Didn¡¯t you fancy her anyway? The girl from your art class? You know, before Adonis got her.¡± I scoffed at the idea, then my face mortified, ¡°What the fuck are you saying?¡± I glared at Mullet, my blood boiling, ¡°Now that Adonis is gone, I should just swoop in? You fucken sicko.¡± Mullet wasn¡¯t smiling, ¡°He was my friend Emmet. More than yours.¡± He was quiet for a moment. I joined his silence for a second. ¡°Like...¡± he tried to think, ¡°On paper its fucked as all hell. In reality it¡¯s just nature. Your both animals who lost a lot, and you need support like that or you¡¯ll go crazy. You don¡¯t need to think of it as profiting from somebody''s death, just as helping her get over it.¡± My mouth hung open dumbly. ¡°I¡¯m not hurt,¡± I said with certainty, ¡°Clover¡¯s still alive, I just let her go.¡± If it was just the usual state of affairs, me getting my as kicked, failing to save the people close to me, then I would have moved forward like always. But I killed someone. ¡°Sure, you let her go,¡± Mullet shook his head, ¡°What¡¯s stopping you from going on a date with the Girl? Other than... you.¡± It was approaching the point of over sharing now, ¡°I have a girlfriend. Not Clover, another one.¡± Mullet did not believe me, ¡°She hot? You got a picture?¡± This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Fuck it, I thought, he went through Belfast, he knows I had to fight a giant fish woman. He¡¯s a second worlder, so either way he was going to get into trouble. I figured I might as well tell him what was up in Emmet¡¯s life so he could steer the other way for once. Shamrock had hurt him enough. I pulled out the cracked phone that Clover had given me, showing him a pic Tayanita sent me post-workout. He frowned cartoonishly. Mullet opened his mouth to speak looking for the words, ¡°This is some sort of rebound situation dude. Ye know she¡¯s a drug lord right? Like Clover kept it really well hidden and all, but anybody who goes to the Quarter knows that Taytay...¡± Mullet bulged his eyes as if to tell me telepathically. I asked him, ¡°Aren¡¯t you the guy who said he¡¯d go for any woman? Shit, back in January, didn¡¯t you say that I should go to the Quarter for a pint and get a woman?¡± I smiled as he tripped over his words. ¡°Okay, okay, she¡¯s hot, yeah, tan skin, silky hair, tattoos that emphasis her ¡®I don¡¯t give a fuck¡¯ attitude¡¯, she¡¯s ¡®one of the boys¡¯, she¡¯s got a fine ass- and abs I guess- and she¡¯s definitely a freak in the bed-¡± He nodded over all of that, ¡°- but she¡¯ll fucking kill you.¡± I folded my arms a dull smile on my face, ¡°On our little trip to Belfast, every girl there seemed to want to kill you.¡± ¡°Emmet,¡± he said. I didn¡¯t look him in the eyes. For some reason I didn¡¯t want to lie to Mullet. Or maybe it¡¯s that I didn¡¯t want to lie anymore. ¡°I¡¯m going to take her out. Like, take down her operation.¡± Mullet rolled his eyes back, ¡°You¡¯re a fucking Shamrock wannabe. Of fucking course you are!¡± I considered it for a moment. First, I tried to lay out a reason for why Emmet might want to do this, ¡°She works for the same boss as Clover, if I take Tayanita down they might send Clover back home.¡± The excuse came to me so quickly I wondered if it was an actual hope I had harboured. If it was- is- then it¡¯s misplaced. He glared at me, ¡°You mean you want to be John Ireland? What you gonna do, pull some action movie bullshit? Yippie ki-yay her into jail?¡± Mullet pointed a finger, ¡°You know he killed someone right?¡± There was a twitch in Mullet¡¯s face as I said, ¡°I knew people he got killed.¡± Mullet choked for a moment, ¡°A little after Black hole they found a body off the shore of the River Lagan. He fit the description of the drug guy that tried to kill us. Fuckers better gone, but do you really want to look up to the guy that put him down? Its like the saying, there¡¯s always a bigger shark.¡± I wanted to say that I wasn¡¯t a shark, that I was just a man trying to keep the ocean clean. ¡°That¡¯s just a better reason for me to handle things like this, if I sit back and let things happen his way, John Ireland¡¯s way, then people will die, when I can-¡± Mullet folded his arms, encouraging, ¡°What.¡± ¡°I can just make it stop. We can just live in peace again.¡± Mullet, for what it¡¯s worth, tried to be delicate, ¡°I know you¡¯re not going to understand, but these aren¡¯t the sorts of people who¡¯ll ever stop. Their tenacious, vain, and above all else, they believe in themselves way too much. I¡¯m talking about Tayanita, John Ireland... Clover. Me.¡± ¡°You know that I''d never stop looking at other girls not even when I''m married, I''m just that much of a horny bastard. Oh, by the way the weddings in March. Or it might have been April, I don¡¯t know Iggy¡¯s handling that stuff. Anyway, yeah, don¡¯t get any more involved in this shit than you already are, trust me, I¡¯ve had to put up with enough of their crap.¡± For that I was truly sorry, but now was not the time to say as much. ¡°Am I invited? Seeing as I¡¯m apparently your best friend.¡± He didn¡¯t laugh at my joking, Mullet instead straightened himself and proclaimed, ¡°I will except the responsibility of being your best friend, but I will not go out of my way to hang out with you. You wanna talk, you come to class jackass.¡± I looked at him while he was walking to the door, thinking about why he went out of his way to do this. I grabbed at my arm, the one that Sruthan had used her power on briefly. It always itched now. ¡®Come to class¡¯, Mullet said. I felt he must have been concerned when I stopped going to school, and that¡¯s why he came looking for me. And then he stopped at the printer. The machine beeped as he punched in a code, I asked what he was doing and he said, ¡°I told you didn¡¯t I? I came here for two reasons, because there was a slight chance you might be here, and because this is the closest printer to my class.¡± He looked away from me, shuffling the sheets of course work that came out. I nodded to myself, of course I was just a stop in the road. You know... Tayanita is a killer, but at least she seems to like me. Even if it is a fake dick head version of myself. Mullet was about to go, but he called back, ¡°Seriously, come to school, I need somebody I can talk about black hole with, even just a little. Izzy makes it about prods and catholics and the British- I just want somebody who understands how fucking insane it was. You fucked up that fish monster right?¡± I feigned confusion, ¡°I don¡¯t know if I''d call her a fish, but yeah I beat up a big woman. She poured acid on my arm or something.¡± I took off my blazer and rolled up the sleave of my shirt. Mullet came over to look at it, ¡°Shiiit. You should get that tatted. A dragon or something, that¡¯d be bad.¡± I gave a laugh, slipping my hand over some green fabric on accident, the sheaf rolling of the desk in front of me. I turned to tend to the mess I''d made when I saw what was revealed by it. The mask I''d worn when I fought Belfast was sitting in the box I keep my fabrics in. I looked up to Mullet. He was looking down on it. He was quiet for a moment. ¡°Oh,¡± he said, ¡°You already made the mask for the John Ireland bit huh?¡± He didn¡¯t seem to mean the words as he said them, but I gave a firm confirmation, ¡°Yes, yeah, I thought I might as well do that bit- cause I can you know.¡± ¡°It¡¯s accurate,¡± he said without joking. I nodded quickly, throwing materials on top of it again, ¡°Thanks. I got a good look at him when I was making my way back to the hotel.¡± He nodded. A part of me told me he wasn¡¯t convinced though the story made sense. ¡°Don¡¯t go around wearing that thing, you know what the cops are like nowadays. You fit Shamrock¡¯s build perfectly.¡± I shake my head, ¡°You keep calling him Shamrock, I thought John Ireland people called him Junk Monkey here.¡± ¡°Sure do. I hate the guy, least I can do is remember his name unlike the rest of them,¡± He sighed, forgetting it, ¡°I¡¯ll see you in biology.¡± He didn¡¯t look back as he passed. I took a breath when I was alone again. I looked to the pile of scrapes, under which lay the remaining half of my ask. In the fight with Belfast it had gotten torn and I never came around to repairing it, actually I''d maybe a couple dozen other masks but was never content with the shoddy fabric. The Schism mask was of a high quality, the cops were probably looking into purchases of highly durable green fabric online, but neither was the main reason. I simply didn¡¯t feel like putting it back on. Don¡¯t get me wrong, I still wear the rest of the costume plus a balaclava mask, but I''ve just let the face I once loved sit in a box. I closed my eyes, gripping a fist. I snatched at the pile of materials suddenly, throwing them to the side, then I grabbed the mask. It was tossed aside like nothing too. Hidden beneath all those green fabrics I had kept it. A second letter from Schism. Normally I would have left something like this back at my cave, but it was something that shouldn¡¯t be left unguarded, especially since I hadn¡¯t read it yet. I held the red envelop in my hand staring at the blank side furiously. With a wince I turned it over. ¡®Concerning the one person who has ever loved you, truly.¡¯ If it were only. Schism isn¡¯t the sort of man I can trust, not after black hole. He reminds me of a loan shark, the one my mum owed money to. He gave us a couple months'' rent, to warm us up to him. My mum knew better than to trust a man like that, but she couldn¡¯t do better. She had no one but a whiny little kid. He was nice to us. As nice as sharks are. He offered that we do favours for him, that I make deliveries and he be allowed my mum, that, or he¡¯d be back for blood. I knew what was going on, the walls were paper thin after all. They gave me little tasks to do for them, dirty work. When we had nearly paid off the debts, he calls me over. Usually, he¡¯d give me drugs hidden in a toy or ball, this time he gave it to me straight. When he handed me the little bag, he said it was a reward, a bag of sugar meant for me and not my mum. He said he¡¯d show me how to take, like I hadn¡¯t seen my mum do it before. I held it like I held the red letter. I¡¯m sure there was some reassurance to be taken from either object. It was a warmth at the end of a long day, something to make life just bearable... and it would be the catalyst for their control. I nodded meekly and accepted it. It struck me then that that was the first time I had actually handled a drug- I¡®d shoved stuff over on the kitchen counter, but I''d never owned it before. At age eleven, I opened a baggy of cocaine and scattered it across the wind. I told myself that I would never belong to anyone. That I wouldn¡¯t make the mistakes my mother had made, and that I would never be put in that position again. Here I am. Still running drugs, scattering them to the wind and the process repeats despite my best efforts. I tossed the letter back in as my art teacher came through the door, ¡°Working well Emmet?¡± ¡°Yep, yep, absolutely,¡± I smiled and nodded, but that only made me feel worse. If I''m a good person then how can I lie about everything so easily? The door closed as my art teacher got what she came for. ¡°Hey,¡± a voice startled me, and I turned to see the girl from my art class, who is also the girl from my amazingly crappy job. She was usually around here as well, but we agreed not to talk any more than we would have before black hole. ¡°Gurl, wait,¡± I spun around in my seat to see her setting up an easel in the opposite corner. My mouth hung open and my brow was furrowed. ¡°Inch beach. I need you to search it.¡± She checked to see if anyone was nearby, ¡°Is Feoli back in town? She liked that beach.¡± So did Adonis, I remembered, and Samantha Burrows. ¡°This is something else. I need you to look under the dunes for a cavern.¡± I had visited the beach awhile back, but hadn¡¯t gone digging. I never told TGFMAC about it, why would I? I told her now because I was feeling desperate. She looked to the west for a moment, her arms folded. ¡°Is it big?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, I never- I don¡¯t know what it looks like. I¡¯ve been told it¡¯s a church.¡± Despite my encounter with the Negative God I did not remember Sam. For all I know it was lies, for all I know, it was just some malevolent part of my power trying to cause me pain to overcome adversity. Either way, it mattered. I wouldn¡¯t take what Schism or any other false god was offering me, I''d find it on my own. ¡°I don¡¯t understand. Is this something your girlfriend was talking about?¡± I tried to think of an answer, ¡°It¡¯s something dangerous. Something that you shouldn¡¯t be involved in. And you won¡¯t be.¡± ¡°How many enemies have you made?¡± she joked; I didn¡¯t answer. ¡°Fish, robots, mountains, cities, China, oh and gods I guess.¡± Her grey eyes teased, ¡°And that list is getting longer, and longer. And longer... It¡¯s worth it though, right?¡± ¡°There are monsters out there that are your natural predator,¡± I reminded her, ¡°If a roamer came for you and I wasn¡¯t here, you¡¯d be chow.¡± ¡°Ho, ho!¡± the girl laughed, ¡°Whatever you say boss. I¡¯m under you.¡± Some days she was Gurl. Other days she was distant, like a shadowy version of the quiet girl from my art class. Gurl said ¡°You haven¡¯t slept much. Sometimes when I''m up late I watch you on the job. I saw that time you got run over by a fucking bulldozer, that made me laugh like crazy, and I had to make something up for my parents. We were watching that Jeffery Dahmar documentary-¡± ¡°What¡¯s your point,¡± I said in Rori¡¯s tone. Her smile faded. Now the girl said, ¡°You don¡¯t have to be a paragon to be a good man. Adonis did bad things, but he did just as much good. He gave money to charity, he got a new van and wheelchair for my little brother-¡± ¡°I¡¯m not a paragon,¡± I interrupted, swatting the thought away, ¡°I¡¯m using drug money now too. You know what I did in Belfast.¡± ¡°Listen for a second. I was your enemy for a while, I learned you. You could have built bonds and made compromises with any of those groups, and they might have respected you, given you the space you need to do actual good.¡± I walked in front of her, forgetting what she was doing. Gurl stared straight through me as I said, ¡°I do not compromise. Look around, the country has been free of enemy units for months. Before black hole, there was a new fish or wizard every week, I¡¯m finally free.¡± Her eyes twitched over the distance, ¡°It¡¯s the calm before the storm, you don¡¯t need x-ray vision to see that. The Ints and Bastards are probably prepping right now to take us. Maybe for whatever you think is under the dunes.¡± She spun away and got to painting. Angry I whispered, ¡°What did you see?¡± ¡°Nothin¡¯,¡± Gurl said, ¡°Without knowing what I''m actually looking for, I can¡¯t really find it. Like I can¡¯t see air. Maybe it¡¯s not there, or maybe it¡¯s magic.¡± She made a ghost noise and twiddled her fingers. I just stood grimmly. ¡°You¡¯re going to run out of juice,¡± she went on, ¡°A thousand normies over the two sleepless months is probably equal to the ten or so Units your enemies are going to send here. I¡¯m not good at math, but that¡¯s about right.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t get it,¡± I curled my fists. ¡°I don¡¯t get tired. I¡¯m fine- great. Your lazy ass might see this as an opportunity to relax, steal a bunch of cash and have fun, but for me this is a parting in the clouds, where I can do what I want to do. Fix this country.¡± She went quiet again. I knew she thought it was stupid. I made yet another promise, ¡°I¡¯m not going to die. When I do, your smart enough to join up with the Mountain or the Ints. I¡¯d recommend the later. I hope they are coming, saves me having to find a way to cross the ocean to get to them.¡± ¡°Why,¡± she stressed, ¡°why do you care so much about people miles across the world?¡± I made an effort to unclench my fist, ¡°I care because nobody else does.¡± I thought about it, ¡°I know your sticking with me for protection, but what do you actually want?¡± She sighed, and for a moment I couldn¡¯t tell who she was. ¡°I wanna be free,¡± she painted bright blue onto the canvas, ¡°I wanna be free to do what I wanna do, regardless of who it hurts. I can see everything, but I can¡¯t reach because I''m only human. Do you know how frustrating it is for me? I can¡¯t do anything, I can¡¯t hold onto what I want but you can take whatever you please, go where ever you want.¡± I saw where she was going with this, ¡°I can¡¯t go anywhere. The oceans in the way and I can¡¯t swim.¡± She was getting annoyed now, ¡°Oh yeah! You can¡¯t swim but you can teach yourself how to climb up walls on nothing but your fingernails! It¡¯d take you a fucking day to learn. You know what I really want? I want everyone to be free. You should do what you want to do, if that¡¯s living out some hero fantasy, fine. But no, your sitting here on your miserable ass, trying to torture yourself for putting down a rabid dog!¡± ¡°Quiet down,¡± I commanded, ¡°we¡¯re at school.¡± She didn¡¯t listen, ¡°Go to England and fuck up that golden eyed prick. Go to Egypt and spend time with your girlfriend. Do not waste your youth getting with a woman you¡¯d sooner punch than fuck.¡± I let her vent her frustrations, and when she was done I said my piece. ¡°You¡¯re right.¡± I admitted, ¡°I''m not happy like this, never have been. A lot has changed over the years. I¡¯ve met a lot of incredible people, seen incredible things, and I have imposed my will on the world to great effect,¡± I thought of the police officers now patrolling Kerry, searching for me and worse. ¡°Do you know why nothing changed until Belfast?¡± She did not answer. ¡°Because I never changed.¡± She shuffled about, ¡°Trust me, change isn¡¯t necessarily a good thing.¡± I nodded, and started away, ¡°I know. John Ireland killed someone. Shamrock never got anything done. I¡¯ll try Rori out.¡± I haven¡¯t written in months. Do you know why I started again? Because this little meet-up on Halloween is something that needs to remembered, whereas I can afford to forget the tons of drug busts and all else. Whether Rori works or not, I need to make note of the outcome. So that someday, I may become the hero the world needs. I¡¯ll see you in November. Clout 8.03: I was where I shouldnt have been. ¡°After this, I am going to rip you to pieces.¡± My face stayed straight as Tayanita said that. It was something that took every ounce of will power I had. The night was cold, and I could feel my pale face start to redden. The street leading to the club was dark by purpose, though outside we could hear the expected Halloween hustle and bustle. ¡°The shutters are down,¡± I never associated this building with silence, but Tayanita informed me, ¡°The shutters are down because it¡¯s closed.¡± Saying that, she put her key in the door and opened it. The blackness was overbearing, and I turned to look out to the streets one last time. Out there was only a crowd of bored youths on a bad road, in there were men just like Belfast. It was not a place where I should show my face. ¡°Come,¡± Tayanita ordered. ¡°Where else am I going to go? Home?¡± I entered the dark with a smile. This hallway felt familiar, so was the man overlooking it. He was stout and bald with a misshapen nose, ¡°Aye Tay. Rori. How¡¯s it cuttin,¡± he said in a northern accent. ¡°Never better,¡± Tayanita answered. I asked, ¡°You out here all night Patty?¡± Patty the bouncer gave a surely nod, ¡°Nah. Just till ten. I¡¯m sure the boss can handle her guests.¡± Tayanita seemed proud, ¡°Like a wolf handles cats.¡± I had to peel my ears to hear it, but there was definitely noise coming from down the corridor. It was harder than the usual music of the Quarter. Tayanita walked on, hands tucked into her puffer jacket, I stopped. ¡°Hey, Patty, you¡¯re a good guy...¡± I produced Twenty euros from my pocket, ¡°-I owe you this... for the trouble we¡¯ve put you through.¡± He accepted it with pause. Money was money. I would have advised him to leave early, but then he¡¯d have been taking the money as a bribe. Twenty euro wasn¡¯t nearly worth the damage he got on the night I met Clover, but whatever. I was getting loose with money, but not bad enough to throw it around. ¡°Thanks mate,¡± he said, none the wiser. He looked after me for a moment, I could feel his eyes, ¡°What¡¯s in the bag?¡± he said finally I grabbed at the straps, ready to show him, like I had to give him proof. Tayanita only laughed, ¡°What do you think?¡± With that he looked away, and I left with a backpack full of cocaine squarely on my shoulders. We walked through lifeless rooms as the hellish roars from the back got louder. Once again Tayanita was opening the steel door for us to enter, thought it wasn¡¯t the same hall as the one she opened on my first night in the Quarter nearly a year ago now, I couldn¡¯t help but think back to that moment. She gave no warning, no rattle of keys, the entry to that world opened easily to me now. There was a harsh flood light beaming down on a square arena that had been constructed tight in the middle of the room, it was surrounded by the trusted goffers and soldiers screaming for blood, while their bosses and guests watched on from booths. Raised alcoves in the walls surround the crowd and square in a circle. I¡¯d been here before with Tayanita, but they had built the stage for this occasion. I looked around to the booths first, seeing not just the regular Mountain soldiers, but smaller, local business owners. I¡¯m ashamed to say their faces were familiar to me. Not because I''d seen them out and about or at the shop or anything like that. I recognised them because they had been at me house when I was a kid. Funny coincidence, the loan shark that I used to run for was sitting in a corner, his eyes focusing on me more and more often. He was trying to recognise me. I felt naked in that moment, but I think I kept a brave face. ¡°Come on, let¡¯s see the guys,¡± Tayanita leaned in, and the away to the right. When I was slow to come, she shouted, ¡°We¡¯ll get you into the ring soon enough.¡± I remembered why I was here, and who I was. I remembered what was in the bag. I bumped past the jumping and fisting hoard of enemies, their excitement at a match being called nearly knocking me back, but I forged on none the less. I noticed that Tayanita didn¡¯t have the same problems as me, they noticed her and moved. Despite the hiccup around Valentines, Tayanita had their respect and terror. She served in Egypt long enough to eliminate five monsters, or so she said. She counted a Unit in that. Apparently, there are a number of war lords in third world countries that are openly Units, something to do with social and cultural differences allows certain powers to be more readily accepted by first worlders, and thus allows for them to be bent into shape by fear. Still, Tayanita was able to lead a raid and take him out with a couple ¡®R.O¡¯s¡¯. She¡¯d told the story a couple times, but I didn¡¯t know what an R.O was. I knew it was Int tech, but it seems to have gotten into the hands of the Mountain as well. ¡°Malcolm!¡± She shouted over the crowd. The older man was sitting at the side of the booth, the other occupant''s unseen. I¡¯d seen his two friends in the crowd, if only for a moment. His bug eyes weren¡¯t watching the match. As we came to the table, he puffed out smoke and told Tayanita, ¡°Leave the boy. The Jacks are here.¡± I think that was the first time I saw her confidence challenged. I saw it in her posture, how she was checking the faces of the men for a hint of intention. Or face rather. I couldn¡¯t contain my surprise, I looked back and forth between the two. One had a cropped beard and buned hair, the other was shaved completely. Both had a circle tattooed on their face, but the bald one had a black dot in the middle of his. Both wore the face of Jack Chandler. Tayanita regained her composure, ¡°Gentlemen. I hope your enjoying yourself.¡± She tried to lighten their spirits, but both reacted with a synchronised eyebrow raise. It was then I remembered that Clover had said the Channeler was one of many lab grown... specimens. Somehow, a part of me knew they weren¡¯t Units, at least not of the Channeler¡¯s caliber. They seemed less obscured than him. Tayanita continued, ¡°My man isn¡¯t going to be staying long, I¡¯m throwing him into the ring.¡± Malcolm, the sunken man smiled emptily, ¡°Pit him against Thomas. That¡¯d be a funny match.¡± He took another smoke. Out of turn I asked, ¡°Is... Thomas ready now? I wanna go.¡± Tayanita took her seat beside Malcolm, across from the Jack¡¯s, ¡°Fine. Go to the betting booth and ask for Thomas then. I¡¯ll be watching.¡± ¡°See ya,¡± I said, twisting on my heels. I couldn¡¯t actually see where the booth was, I was shorter than everyone else there, except for the strippers hanging around. I pushed through, now with more difficulty than before. After a shove to my backpack, I decided not to dance about, and went through the crowd with little effort at all. I¡¯d gotten really good at minimalizing my power using a combination of under exertion and SP2. I¡¯d figured out a lot of tricks recently, I can cool myself down, I can minimise the effects of my primary power, and some other stuff that I haven¡¯t exactly put into practice yet. Though I was away from Tayanita¡¯s gaze, it wasn¡¯t wise to just flippantly display my strength. I made way for less packed areas, moving away from the centre. I came out at a booth, and the occupant called out to me. ¡°You,¡± the man shouted, then whistled. I looked over to see the man had white hair and a beer belly. If it had been anyone else I would have rolled my eyes, but I steadily walked towards the loan shark. ¡°Haha! You recognise me? You¡¯re Maeve¡¯s kid, right?¡± I shoved my hands into the pockets of my shorts, ¡°Aye.¡± He gave a giggle, ¡°That all you ¡®ave to say?¡± I looked away into the crowd, ¡°Aye.¡± He wasn¡¯t laughing, ¡°You¡¯re doing alright. Saw you with the old boss of this joint. You remember me, don¡¯t you? I gave you your first proper hit.¡± I tried not to show any disrespect, ¡°I¡¯m not here for drugs. I¡¯m here to fight.¡± I eyed his guards. Though there was nothing they could do to me they still dwarfed me like giants. The shark said, ¡°Really? Who you up against?¡± ¡°Thomas,¡± I said. ¡°You¡¯re not beating him. I woulda thought your girlfriend might have given you a better match.¡± For a moment I didn¡¯t respond. Then, I took my backpack off and unzipped it a sliver, just enough so he could see. ¡°You seem confidant. Wanna bet?¡± He looked down into my tiny bag a smile creeping over his face, ¡°How much is in there?¡± ¡°Five, Six kilos. How much you got on you mister?¡± He stroked his chin, ¡°I got a goffer out front with ten kilos laying in his trunk...¡± ¡°Cash,¡± I said, ¡°Even that fancy ass watch¡¯ll do.¡± He checked his wrist, ¡°Trouble selling? Thought a kid like you would know how to do that. Raised by a crack whore and all.¡± I don¡¯t think he meant any offence from that, ¡°My mum never wanted me near the stuff.¡± He rocked back in his seat and looked about. ¡°Did a shit job of it then. Fifty thousand. And this watch is a ten k on top of that.¡± ¡°Deal,¡± I said, reaching across to shake his calloused hand. He laughed when I turned for the crowd. I knew he wouldn¡¯t pass up the deal, because men like him never imagine that my kind ever wins. I eventually made it to the guy I needed to check in with and told him to pit me against Thomas, on Tayanita¡¯s orders. He gave a look that said it was my funeral. I left my bag there, where it was locked up while him and an escort of bouncers led me to the flimsy wire fence gate that would take me up and into the cage. I was the first in, just after the last fight had finished. A blonde man stumbled out bloody and dazed but he was in better condition than his opponent who had to be carried out, his face caved and an ear missing. It made no difference to me, they had chosen this. I stood in the ring, a square fence trapping me in now. I kept my head low and tried to look like I was nervous or getting ready. I jumped on the spot for a bit, swung my arms, and then I rolled my shoulders. I grabbed the neck of my shirt, and pulled it off. I tossed it away; it wasn¡¯t something I cared about. I peeled off my trainers and socks, handing them out to the bet keeper. Eventually, My opponent came up, already prepped for the match. It was the skinny sickly ginger kid, the one who was friend with the fat guy and old Malcolm. Though now I could tell he wasn¡¯t skinny, he wasn¡¯t weak. He had an exceptionally well-toned boxer¡¯s build. I knew from his triceps, the only part of him that bulged. Yeah, he was well made. I was planning on doing this without my super strength, and with a weakened endurance so that he wouldn¡¯t suspect anything. You might be wondering what possible purpose would weakening myself serve, generally speaking? I¡¯m not going to post any pictures, but after working out for the last two months with my durability in check, my muscles have been given the opportunity to break down and build themselves up. If my powerless self gets stronger, my maximum output will be greatly increased. This is a bit of a side note, but it stood out to me that using my SP2 did not permanently decrease my strength, like if I use SP2 on my weight, I can become lighter, but I wouldn¡¯t be able to get heavier, sort of like Charlie K¡¯s condition. Yet SP1 just recuperates naturally, like there¡¯s an external factor to it, like it¡¯s working complementary to SP2. I got ready as soon as the door closed behind him. Thomas as I now knew him, was bugging out. Guess in a ruleless match there¡¯s nothing stopping him from hopping up. His posture was shaky, but he kept his centre. ¡°Bet¡¯s fer Thomas the Tank v Rori!¡± It seemed like the whole crowd was rearing to bet against me, can¡¯t blame them, I was shorter and he had a history here. The crowd was chanting and light was placid over the scene. Thomas¡¯ eyes seemed fixed to mine. He made no taunts or banter. Fear was in his eyes. As soon as a siren wailed, Thomas did the same. His fists were fast and hard, and worst of all they snaked around my guard. It hurt like hell, and for the first time in a while I remembered the desperation of a fight. It was in every swing he threw, and I could feel it building up in myself as I quickly realised that I was as mortal as him. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. My fist flew into the soft flesh of his gut, and though he stepped an inch away he was quickly back to business. I¡¯d underestimated him. My arms were down for a second, and he managed to plant a knuckle in my nose. I realed back, and he managed to change his posture, sweeping a leg up. His heel hammered into my forearm, and I just barely grabbed it. Pinching it just barely between both arms I was able to get a hold on him. He should have kept with boxing, maybe he thought I was clever enough to notice a pattern in his starting barrage. Unluckily for him, all I know is how to take and throw punches. That being said, the best course of action was now to throw him. Again he threw a fist into my nose, but it only slowed me. Thomas crashed into the fence gate as I tossed him. For a second I worried it¡¯d fall in on its self, instead it stood and he fell. I got over and started smashing down on him. By then he was a clawing frenzy, tearing away at my calves or arms, whatever he got a claw into. It was becoming clear that no matter how much blood erupted from his face he wasn¡¯t going down quickly. Exiting my comfort zone was the only way. I got on top of him and started grappling, struggling to bring his arm around as his other red hand drew blood from my leg. Eventually I winched the bastard into position, his head to the ground, and his arm pointing up. With my knee pressed into his shoulder blade, I looked around, expecting for somebody to call the match. I forgot where I was. Or maybe, for a simple animalistic second, I forgot that this wasn¡¯t a game. A human lay below me, with a life I''d never know. His arm popped, maybe breaking. From there, I grabbed his scraggly hair, and slammed his face down into the paper-thin mat. I did so until he was whimpering meekly and the other arm was doing nothing. I hardly heard people watching, I''m sure they must¡¯ve booed Thomas for losing there money. Pain rocketed through my body once the fight was over, still, I had to smile and pump my fist in the air with a sound that could only be described as that of a giant douche. They let me out of the cage and got somebody to bring over a wet towel for my head. I think I needed to bury my face in it. Who can say what sort of expression I was making then? I waited till the cold water of the towel had heated from my blood and breath, then swabbed it down, and carried on with my main objective. The first thing I did was get my shoes, bag, and even my t-shirt from the gambling den and march myself towards Tayanita¡¯s table. The crowd moved for me now, it was like walking down a road lined by trees. I turned off halfway to see the loan shark. He was laughing about something to someone. I stood square and against his table of behemoths. He eyed me from the side, ¡°What?¡± ¡°My money.¡± He simply snorted out his nose, ¡°What money?¡± A sick red feeling was building up, not too dissimilar to how I''d felt in the ring, ¡°The money you bet.¡± His eye brows squeezed together and curled up, ¡°I don¡¯t remember leavin¡¯ nothing with the bookie. Besides, that was one of your girl¡¯s men, who could have easily taken the fall for a little cut, not to mention everybody was betting on him...¡± ¡°I just caved his face in!¡± One of the guards made a move to stand, just a shuffle. ¡°Don¡¯t forget that I''ve been here longer than your Mountain. ¡®Far as I''m concerned, I''m the baddest motherfucker here, not some humiliated little bitch, and I''m definitely above you, ye little whore¡¯s son.¡± The ringing in my ears made it hard to listen to reason. That was mine, without a doubt. I¡¯d stolen money from drug dealers, but just there now, I earned it. Never mind the fact that I held back, never mind that this motherfucker has no right to talk to me like that. I turned my eyes away, down, anywhere but on him. ¡°You¡¯re a little fish,¡± I said, ¡°Someday, an actual sharks gonna swim along and...¡± I was muttering to myself, I realised. If I was wearing a mask right now, I¡¯d have sung insults to him. Why couldn¡¯t I put on that green face anymore? Why did it turn my stomach to call myself a hero? I knew the answer, and all I could do was frown about it. The loan shark¡¯s name is Rodie McCay, he¡¯s forty-seven years old and lives on the west side of town, in an apartment complex he owns. He has a wife and two sons, which are aware of and being groomed for the family trade. He has connections to paramilitary organisations and is a known drug dealer. He was sentenced to prison for five years in 2006, but he wasn¡¯t there long. People hate him, children fear him, but the law seems to love him. Remember how I said if anybody ever reads this and comes looking for me or my people I¡¯d give them my worst? This one you can take. If I don¡¯t make it, I''d like my hate to be recorded somewhere. A part of me was wondering if my little backpack scheme was really going to take someone like him, or anyone in the Mountain off the streets. In my bloodshot frenzy I forgot that it wasn¡¯t just cocaine. I was ready to start trouble right then and there, when Tayanita bumped by me. ¡°My man¡¯s not causing any trouble,¡± Tay had both hands in her pockets, ¡°Right?¡± With my mission in sight, I ground my teeth in silence. Rodie the shark just gave a wheezing laugh, ¡°No, no, start no trouble get no trouble, that¡¯s a rule here.¡± ¡°We made a bet,¡± I finally admitted, ¡°He needs to give me my money.¡± Looking back on it I can understand where Gurl was coming from with her greed. It wasn¡¯t about what the money could get, or how it could improve my family¡¯s lives... it was ego. Over the last month I have horded away at least three hundred thousand euros, I had more than enough to buy food and heating, and just fork it out to the homeless with no explanation needed, but it was useless for buying a house, or changing my life. It was to hold onto and prove that I was as good as I thought I was. All I can do is fight, and if I can¡¯t change things with that then what do I have? ¡°You bet on yourself? Talk about an ego,¡± Tayanita rubbed against me, and then forward, pulling her sidearm out and putting it on the table. Rodie McCay¡¯s guards stood when they noticed the gun placed square on the table. One hand was still in Tayanita¡¯s pocket. She asked, ¡°Did you make a bet with Rori?¡± ¡°You¡¯re not gonna do shit, Taytay,¡± Rodie pointed to the crowd, ¡°I got men in there, hell, I got men here.¡± Tayanita just nodded, ¡°I won¡¯t start shit,¡± she said, ¡°long as you don¡¯t try and bullshit me.¡± He looked her up and down, ¡°Maybe I made a bet on him. If I did, it was banter, a joke. Who bets against the house?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not the house,¡± I said weakly, ¡°I¡¯m a guest, same as you. If- if I tried to pull the shit you...¡± Tayanita finished, ¡°If he was lying right now, I¡¯d have his cock. You might not believe in fairness, but I do. The winner takes what he wants. You¡¯d do well to not underestimate a starving dog.¡± She leaned on their table harder, finger faintly tapping at the trigger of the pistol, ¡°Especially a humiliated bitch.¡± The man avoided her eyes, swallowing a hard lump. He raised his left hand slowly, and stripped the watch from it, then he nodded to one of his associates. ¡°The last thing this town needs is a fucking shit storm.¡± He nodded despondently, ¡°A worse shit storm. You better not go pissing it all away over some boy.¡± They dished out money and I counted it up as Tayanita tutted, ¡°Do I look seem like a vapid blonde to you? I¡¯m not losing this again.¡± I looked for her eyes when she said that. They twitched, flickered. She was hiding something. To avoid losing it I put the gaudy gold watch on my wrist, the metal sweaty and uncomfortable. I just gripped the stack of cash in my pocket. Tayanita walked and I followed. She led out past her booth, I could see now that the Jacks were gone, the fat guy, Tyrion, sitting in both their places. I called out to Tayanita, ¡°Where we going?¡± ¡°I¡¯m in a bad mood, let¡¯s wrap this up.¡± I breathed in, arguing, ¡°I wanna talk to the guys for a bit. Hey, what was up with those twins?¡± I had to squeeze through a wall of human flesh, as she stepped through a narrow door I toppled out after her, the air in the lounge had a fresher smell to it. It was a new room, one built for a large group to party in peace. ¡°We¡¯ll do that shit later. I wanna show you something.¡± All of a sudden she was crouched on one knee and kicking at a wooden panel at the foot of the booth bench. After it wedged back a bit, she gave it a jiggle with her hand, and it fell away. Realising this was something secret, I closed the door behind me, locking it. She slid into the tight gap and seemed to fall. With caution I crept after her, looking in to see a rough cut and dim passage. ¡°Come,¡± she shouted up. Awkwardly, I jimmied my legs in and wormed after. My feet found a ladder, and I descended. ¡°Jesus, what¡¯s taking you so long?¡± I turned my neck around to face her as I was coming out into a wider opening, ¡°Maybe the fact that I got my brains battered, you think that did something?¡± She laughed, covering her mouth. She gave a turn, her arms outstretched as far as they could go under that five-foot high ceiling, ¡°This is where we keep the shit. I squinted my eyes, the phosphorous light above her head at the very least allowed me to see the squares in the walls, reminiscent of coffins in a tomb. ¡°You keep drugs here?¡± It made sense for them to become a little smarter with their storage, seeing as last January, I was able to walk right in and trash the place. ¡°Meth, coke, whatever, it¡¯s on your left, that isn¡¯t what I brought you down for.¡± Tayanita went deeper in, checking the boxes on the right. Stopping at one, she dug her feet into the ground and tugged the box foot by foot. There was a heavy sound to it, like she was moving a fridge. I stepped forward, staying a greater distance from the box than she kept. It was a brown box, and for a moment anything could have been in it. She punched a key code in, and I did my best to remember the code. Three-five-nine-something... Luckily, I had other options than getting it right on my own. The lid of the box moved back, and I had to ask what I was looking at. ¡°Remember how I hunted monsters in Egypt? This is how I did it. R.O¡¯s. There¡¯s enough fire power down here to blow a country up.¡± I thought they might have been a trophy from her hunting, but it was something far worse than a couple monster parts. ¡°What the fuck are they doing in your basement¡± I clenched up. This might ruin my plans. She gave a laugh, ¡°I keep them handy. Guns can¡¯t kill the green guy, but these can. If they can¡¯t, I''ve got bigger one¡¯s on stand-by.¡± An uneasy laugh escaped me, better than saying ¡®thanks for sharing¡¯ outloud. I looked away for a moment, gnawing on my fist. ¡°They¡¯re not nukes or anything.¡± She lifted a gun piece that looked like a rocket launcher, balancing it on her shoulder. The other hand held a small warhead. ¡°Oh my god,¡± I couldn¡¯t help but queas. ¡°When were you such a pussy?¡± I tried to save face, ¡°Sorry, if I''m overreacting to the fact you¡¯ve got a fucking nuke in your hand.¡± She frowned, ¡°It is not a nuke. This is a hunting tool. It¡¯s meant for hunting monsters, not people,¡± she still meant me, but whatever, ¡°With materials like Subterrainium around, materials that are nigh indestructible you have to get creative with how you destroy. There was a man back in the fifties whose family was eaten by skin changers. The experience led to an evil entering his mind, arcane knowledge of how to shrink materials entered his mind slowly. An evil origin, but a noble cause. His only real mistake was that he trusted the Ints with it.¡± ¡°The idea behind it was that a hell of a lot of energy was needed to kill a monster, think about all the collateral and wasted energy in nuking an individual when you could just ball all that up into a supernova the size of a basketball. It was the superior tech the Ints had that put my family out of the business. Luckily the inventor defected to the Mountain, there his research was expanded upon, but that is all beyond R.O¡¯s. With what they had, the Int¡¯s were able to develop the raw explosive energy of the original R.O¡¯s. Imagine it. The power to vaporize a planet, contained and maintained at the size of this room.¡± She looked about, a sly smile spreading across her face. It faded as she remembered, ¡°There are creatures that could blink the world away. With a thought, or a glance. These weapons aren¡¯t something to fear, ¡®cause they¡¯re ours.¡± Ironically I know exactly what she meant. I¡¯ve been at the mercy of more powerful people my whole life. So had she. Tayanita had told me before that she had dreamed of starting her own monster hunting agency. This wasn¡¯t just another show of power, this was the pavement for her future. Still, sad that I had to wreak it. ¡°You know what I mean. You¡¯re starting to get it now, really get it. You need to fight for what you want,¡± she was up against me, and for the first time I didn¡¯t feel like pushing her off right away. ¡°I think I do,¡± pity was hidden in my voice. I thought she was going to do something, but for some reason she stepped back. Lowering the arms back into their crate, she said, ¡°That¡¯s all I wanted to show you here.¡± She tossed the egg shaped warhead back in with a clank and my eyes widened. ¡°Relax. It has to be primed by the gun. A musket needs gunpowder to fire. That, but more complicated.¡± There was something off about her as she relocked the box and shoved it partway back in. Through the now sapping tension she bumped past me, ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here,¡± leading the way up out of the ladder. I blinked away any sympathy or use I saw in having a monster hunter around. Tayanita did not fit into my future. For that, her hopes for humanity had to be destroyed. I quickly flung my bag around and zipped it open, flung out the bags of cocaine, and put in an earpiece. ¡°The code for the drug boxes is different from the guns, it¡¯s four-one-two-one-four-one-nine. Tayanita¡¯s getting her hand through the hole above you. There¡¯s a cop car four streets away, they¡¯ll be checking in within an hour after I make the call. Get the pictures, get out.¡± TGFMACJ had her work cut out for her. She was watching me, my immediate area, as well as the cops in the area. Halloween was a night when the garda had their hands full with misdemeanours, Gurl recommended that we pull something serious. Without a sound I used my strength to lift one of the crates on the left out of the wall with a couple steps back, opening it. ¡°Tayanita¡¯s out now, she¡¯ll be getting impatient soon.¡± I opened the cocaine bags and emptied them out onto the Quarter¡¯s stock, what I had hidden in it fell out along with the blow. Gurl buzzed in, ¡°We do this and the public will turn against ¡®John Ireland¡¯.¡± I could only nod. If I wasn¡¯t pressed for time, I''d have told her I didn¡¯t care whether the public or the police hated me, if anything it would be a boost for me. Inside the bags of cocaine were double a dozen shoddy shamrock masks, and two pistols that I''d confiscated from a drug house up north. I shouted up, ¡°Do you want me to turn off this light, Tay,¡± I looked behind me for a second, forgetting that¡¯s exactly what Gurl was for. ¡°No, it shuts off on it¡¯s own, hurry your ass up, I wanna go.¡± ¡°She¡¯s eyeing the opening. Take the fucking picture already.¡± Gurl had been watching, drug dealers learning the combination for their phones, I took a picture with one now of those phones now, of the drugs and guns and the mark of a nationally certified terrorist.¡± Then I shoved the box back in, ¡°Ow,¡± I shouted up, ¡°stubbed my damn toe.¡±With that I was on the first step of the ladder, Gurl gave me her finally words. ¡°Sending. Tralee PD is receiving; the phone manager is reacting with horror. You¡¯ll have an hour to get out of there, if they listen to the threats and warning I added with it that is. Could be a day, if they¡¯re too stupid to understand what ¡®tonight¡¯ means.¡± I whipped her out of my ear tucked the piece away. It was harder getting out of the pit than getting in. Crawling headfirst out of the opening, all I was thinking about was what could go wrong. My DNA was all over the place, in the ring, on the crates. The garda doesn¡¯t have me on record, but if I were to become a suspect in this case... There was also the fact that if or when Tayanita gets out of prison- or anyone else who saw me enter that lounge- there''s a chance they¡¯ll figure out one and one makes two is what I''m saying. Alright, someone figures out Rori did it, so? Thing is, if they make a big deal out of it, if this doesn¡¯t go perfectly, than someone in that room already knows who my mother is and where she lives. The thought was chilling, but it wasn¡¯t a highly likely outcome. It was just something to keep in the back of my mind. It¡¯s not like the whole Mountain would come crashing down on what remained of Emmet O''Hara''s life. If Tayanita or anyone else ever figured me out, then that would be the day that I die. And Shamrock lives again. Tayanita helped me to my feet, ¡°I wanna take you somewhere.¡± Uh-oh. I laughed, ¡°We¡¯re already somewhere.¡± I made an effort to move in, she just raised an eyebrow, ¡°I mean there¡¯s somewhere I actually want to go. This is work. Down there is work. Just once, I wanna ¡­ I don¡¯t know, let loose?¡± No comfort was born from that, ¡°Where would we go?¡± ¡°It¡¯ll be a surprise.¡± Luckily Tayanita hunched down to fix the panel before she could catch a glimpse of unease on my face. She rose, unlocked the door and- My phone rang. If there was anything that should have told me this night wasn¡¯t going to be just another short one and done bust, then this should have. Nobody calls me. It wasn¡¯t the phone I used for Rori, or a burner, it was my regular phone. Quickly I flicked it out of my pocket, giving it a once over, ready to hang up. In the end I didn¡¯t have to. The caller hung up on their own. I looked down with a grim expression. Tayanita finally asked, ¡°Who was that?¡± I quickly lied, forcing a snarl across my face, ¡°Fucking scam caller, who even falls for shit like that now-a-days?¡± Maybe too much cursing, but she seemed to buy it, ¡°You can get an app that blocks those automatically.¡± Tayanita clicked open the door with a sigh and I followed out after her, desperate to fulfil the mission I followed, but the ring stayed in my ears like a creeping madness. If it was Clover, I¡¯d have gulped, but carried on. If it was Mullet, I''d have rolled my eyes, but carried on. But it was the girl from my amazingly crappy job. The girl who knew what I was doing and had agreed to not call me unless there was an immediate danger to herself, or the current mission. The fact that she hung up on her own said it was nothing so simple. She was not one to make a slip at work, and so, it implied the worst. Clout 8.04: I went to a secluded area with a murderer. ¡°Police, Nobody move!¡± Tayanita shouted, honking her horn at a group of kids who¡¯d been loitering. Naturally, they scattered. She rolled up the window of her car, and drove on laughing, ¡°God, they shit themselves! I hate this whole Junk Monkey craze, but you¡¯ve gotta respect the fear its inspired.¡± I was on edge, trying not to seem off, I kept her talking, ¡°Fear?¡± She went on as I worried about Gurl and the operation, ¡°Fear. The streets are afraid of the green guy and the pigs, while the pigs are afraid of the green guy. To top it all off, pretty soon I''m going to make that smilin¡¯ shit stain terrified.¡± I snorted through my nose at that. It was going to take a little more than her stock pile of super guns to scare me. It would take a threat to my people. We both went quiet for a bit, as she drove us down a tight road in the dark. He were still in town, but we¡¯d long since left the city centre and heading South. Guess that¡¯s doubly true. ¡°Should you really be leaving the Quarter? What if something comes up and you¡¯re not there to deal with it?¡± I wanted to push her to go back, but if I failed to accomplish that and she wasn¡¯t jailed, then I¡¯d be leaving a whole line of clues pointing to me being the traitor, more than there already were. I resolved to drop it after her answer now, I wasn¡¯t going to be pushy. ¡°No. I¡¯m content with what I got out of it. You made it a night to remember, Thomas usually takes a lot more damage, and it¡¯s not like you were the first guy to try grappling him.¡± I asked, ¡°What made me different?¡± Tayanita said, ¡°You didn¡¯t underestimate him at first. Usually, some guy gets hopped up and they feel like they can take on anybody, then this chicken shit comes in pale and teary and they stop thinking. You have a head.¡± ¡°Sounds like the drug dealer is telling me drugs are bad.¡± She pounded the steering wheel a bit, smiling, ¡°Yeah, I guess.¡± She was to erratic for me to be comfortable, let alone manipulative. I looked out the window, scanning for nothing in particular. We were entering a more suburban area, there were actually kids trick or treating here. ¡°Look at these little fuckers,¡± Tayanita glared out the front, slowing for a group crossing the road. There was an ironman, a spiderman, and three Shamrocks. And a vampire that mustn''t''ve gotten the memo. ¡°You know how I said people were afraid of him? That it was something I respected? This makes it pointless. It makes him a joke. How are people supposed to respect a man when he¡¯s dressed like a clown and people openly mock him whenever they feel like it? It¡¯s ridiculous¡± ¡°I know.¡± We slowly sped up again, making a left turn but my mind was still back around the bend. I asked her, ¡°Did you ever do Halloween?¡± She scoffed, ¡°I lived on a ranch. Even if I wanted to prance around for some shitty little corporate holiday, I couldn¡¯t.¡± ¡°It¡¯s an old Irish holiday, pumpkin carving and all.¡± ¡°Of course it was. It isn¡¯t any more.¡± Silence again. It was killing me now. Why would Gurl called me back at the Quarter? Had Tayanita seen through my plan? If so, was she taking Rori away to execute him? There was a chance that the Mountain or the Ints or some other worrying hiccup had reared in the mission. What if the cops got to that basement and fucked around with the bombs? What if Tayanita¡¯s guys put up too much of a fight? Reminding myself that I wasn¡¯t going to get an answer to these questions, I returned to the car, ¡°Come on Tay, what¡¯s going on?¡± She looked like she wanted to say something, her mouth was open just a sliver, ¡°You¡¯ll see.¡± My mind finally settled, but not on a comforting thought. I was coming from her toybox showing, so it wasn¡¯t out of the question that she might be taking me to see yet another weapon of mass destruction. Something scavenged from Egypt, and probably kept well-hidden if that was the case. Though Gurl had been keeping an eye on Tayanita, so it would have had to be something rarely visited. Tayanita took a strange turn out on to a dirt path. I hadn¡¯t expected her to steer the car into the small wooded area. The road ahead, well, it wasn¡¯t a road, just a bulled over path with a couple mounds of excavated dirt acting as a dead end, dumbed after a long since finished construction project. All I could see was the area illuminated by the car lights, and even they didn¡¯t reach beyond the first row of trees. I¡¯m not afraid of the dark, but I¡¯m pretty offput when it comes to murderers driving me to a secluded area. And then the lights went off, and she sighed. Again, we were just... quiet. Usually she¡¯d do something sexual, like prod at me, just to tease me, I guess. ¡°You ever been alone Rori?¡± I chose my words carefully. ¡°Depends what you mean. Never been on a desert island before.¡± She snorted at that. I could hear her jacket rustle as she folded her arms, ¡°When my family died, I was left utterly alone. Oh, there were people around, the Internationals stalked me like wolves, they had the balls to ask me to join. Worse still were the streets. I was hungry, cold, and attacked, but that wasn¡¯t it. It was the fact that white fuckers walked around without a care in the world. My home had been stolen, my family ripped to shreds by monsters, and they walked by like nothing happened. It¡¯s cold. Dark.¡± An arm reached, towards me I thought, but instead it flicked the interior lights on. Tayanita pulled the hand back and started pulling at her jacket. Black and beige flesh revealed. She pointed at the tattooed rays on her flesh, blocky and bold. ¡°That¡¯s why I got the sun.¡± She smiled, reclining into her seat, ¡°They¡¯d have to skin me to take this from me. It¡¯s my birthright. It¡¯s my legacy.¡± I winced a little. Don¡¯t. I told myself. Not now. The world doesn¡¯t need empty sympathy. ¡°I went north. Canada was a shit show back then. Apparently it¡¯s cooled down. I had to go through skin-changers to get to the nearest Mountain outpost, and somehow word got to the boss. He set me up with a cushy spot here, in reserve. He was testing me, and I think I''ve failed,¡± she smiled, ¡°I had men in Egypt, loyal men and they still are. They¡¯re just not here. I was so close to getting my...¡± I knew the word was faction, army, hunters, something along those lines, and yet there was a pain that stopped her from saying it. ¡°Rori, you cried like a bitch when those people died, remember?¡± I shared her painful smile at that, ¡°How could I forget?¡± ¡°Would you cry if the same thing happened again? You go out looking for a party and get a calamity. How would you react?¡± I hated myself for it, but I answered honestly, ¡°A lot¡¯s happened. People I know have died, and I¡¯ve grown to realise that worse tragedies happen outta view. It¡¯s just frustrating.¡± ¡°You can play your macho act all you want, but-¡± I tried one last time to keep up appearances, though her behaviour was making that hard to do, ¡°I am a man. I told ye before, I was drunk that night, emotional. I¡¯d sooner punch a wall than bitch and moan. No offence but... why are telling me all this shit?¡± ¡°We fuck around,¡± she admitted, ¡°So just this once I thought... we could be serious. For an hour.¡± ¡°Oh yeah, that¡¯s why you were screaming out the window at those shit heads.¡± That got her to frown, ¡°Serious starting now. Or are you so fragile that you need to hide under curses and taunts?¡± Honestly, it sounded like she was projecting, but maybe that¡¯s who she saw in Rori... Herself. ¡°What do you want to talk about,¡± I said without thinking. I needed to find a way out of here, not dig myself a deeper grave. Tayanita popped the door open, ¡°Don¡¯t know. The future I guess.¡± As soon as she got out of the car and her eyes were off me, I went for my phone, expecting to get a text from Gurl, ever watching and waiting. It came through. ¡®I have a gap in my memory. I was sitting on my bed, surveying the area, when all of a sudden, I blacked out and I was calling you.¡¯ I texted back as quick as I could, ¡°Send cops to me, then I¡¯ll suit up and¡± I had to send the message unfinished, Tayanita was saying something. I exited the car, following. ¡°- but I think there¡¯s more to this. There could be more. You¡¯ve kept yourself walled away, and I mean about your personal shit and this third world. I¡¯ve been round the block, trust me when I say the world won¡¯t be kind enough to just let you be. It moves, it evolves.¡± She marched up a dark mound, a sound like gravel crunching came from beneath her feet as she trudged up it. I followed still. I could have told the truth, just said that I didn¡¯t want to take our little... whatever this was, any further. A part of me said that would be too suspicious. If I sat and listened to her now, then she¡¯d never suspect that I''ve stung her operation. Unless she was more paranoid than I thought, which was always a possibility. ¡°What the hell are we doing Tay?¡± ¡°Sitting.¡± She fell to the ground first, nothing but a black smear. I felt the ground before joining her, weeds sprouted up like stiff little fingers. ¡°I¡¯m going to go it on my own now. I¡¯m leaving the Mountain.¡± That made me feel sick for some reason. I had asked her as Shamrock to quit her job, just as I''d asked Clover, and everybody else. ¡°This is going to sound corny as shit, but I''ve been thinking over the last few months... I¡¯ve got enough power to do what I wanna do. Who¡¯d stop me from going back west and reclaiming my land? Bastard might even get me some leverage, and in return I would still hunt monsters for him. Just for a better price, and with my own equipment.¡± I wasn¡¯t all for it, ¡°I doubt they''d pay you to quit.¡± Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. ¡°I¡¯m out of the job either way. Ireland¡¯s closing up shop.¡± This was news. From the Jack¡¯s I was sure. ¡°The hell¡¯re you talking about?¡± She grabbed me violently, ¡°I¡¯m fucking gettin'' to it!¡± She released her grasp, ¡°Did I ever tell you about Canada? Countries crawling with Ints and werewolves for fuck¡¯s sake. For something like twenty, thirty years, they fought over every frozen inch of that shit hole. Know why? The Mountain was content with letting them have everything west of Montreal, but then the ¡®Werewolf queen¡¯ appeared, united the shape-changers, and started getting out of hand. Loose cannons, even ones made of glass, scare the shit out of them. So Bastard sends a couple trusted Units over to fight The Ints send men too, but men who¡¯re wet behind the ears, who don¡¯t know when not to pick a fight. After the first few skirmishes both sides start to get smarter, ¡®cause they¡¯re losing true strength. They realise this fight isn¡¯t worth it unless they actually get something out of it. So the fighting¡¯s become less open. It was, and still, is a symbolic war.¡± I was wondering where she was going with this. ¡°A wealthy, developed country. One that is unclaimed in the eyes of either group, yet still has a threatening native power, one that¡¯s growing unchecked. Not worth the time or money needed for a two-front battle. Remind you of anywhere? That¡¯s why they¡¯re pulling out, letting the Ints take this one.¡± I might have been able to leave but I just dug myself deeper into the trench that was this relationship, this conversation, ¡°Isn¡¯t Britain your capitol? Why would they give them such a close position?¡± She snorted tilting back, ¡°Don¡¯t pretend you understand war, Rori. The green man is better allied with the Ints, he saved their city after all. If he¡¯s forced to choose between two evils, he would side with them. The Mountain will fight a pointless war... but not a losing one. Their plan is to let the Ints invade, and make an enemy of old Junk Monkey. I suppose any man¡¯ll fit the shoes.¡± ¡°¡®Any man?¡¯¡± I say her dark silhouette turn and face me, her face expressionless, ¡°Well, it was the Storm in the North¡¯s role before. Now it¡¯s his. It¡¯s nature, social Darwinism.¡± My elbows spasmed into my sides at the thought, goosebumps prickled all over my body. I¡¯m nothing like him, I might hold his territory, but it¡¯s pretty obvious that what I''m doing is not the same as what he did. He was ruthless, an monster. In fact, Tayanita was more like him than me, she would kill people for being born as Units or for getting powers. ¡°I¡¯m leaving the Mountain, and I''m leaving Ireland, this life, behind. I have decided.¡± I couldn¡¯t read her face, ¡°After what those twins told you? You¡¯ve decided what to do with your life in an hour?¡± I could hear the bitterness in her voice, ¡°Believe me, if I could stay I would. If I could set up my own organisation I would. Fuckin¡¯ Bastard... I¡¯m only here to hold appearances, a scarecrow to make the monkey and the cities think there¡¯s someone else living here. I¡¯m a tool, and I''ve been nothing but a tool, a knife or an arrow whichever suits. That ends. I¡¯m going home and I''m going to rebuild my Akecheta tribe, the right way.¡± Then Tayanita came closer to me, ¡°Stay here, and you find work, maybe a way to save yourself from this shit hole you call home... Or you choose to go against them. You choose to fight control. Everyone may tell you there is a right way of living, do this, get that, climb, impose your mastery over men- What they don¡¯t want you to realise is that it is never too late to run. You have legs, Rori. Use them. Come with me.¡± I flet a hand grab for me with an unsettling softness. She grabbed my hand, her fingers kneeding into my palm. I can¡¯t begin to describe the pain I felt then. The consequence of lies, again. She would kill me if she knew who I was, yet a few tweaks to my personality, a few omissions, and she was pleading with me. Haven¡¯t I learned this lesson before? Hasn¡¯t the universe made it abundantly clear to me that there is the truth and then there is nothing? ¡°I¡¯d... I¡¯d be leaving everything.¡± Another hand cupped my wrist, ¡°You¡¯re a strong man. Hard, quick to anger yet disciplined, with a good centre. I¡¯d give you a life, freedom.¡± I can¡¯t stop lying. ¡°Where would we go,¡± I remembered saying, to which she replied with a whisper. Her voice brushed at my ear, and I did not flinch or hear. Her hands left mine; they moved to the trunk of my body, pushing up at my shirt. There was something very different to it now. She brought herself back for a moment, pulling off her coat and top at the same time. All I could see was a mass being removed from her figure, leaving her as a thin line. ¡°Take off your clothes.¡± My hands hovered. I shouldn¡¯t do this. I knew where she was going. I have to follow along. The police are on their way, they¡¯ll be at the Quarter soon, then they¡¯ll send someone over here. There¡¯ll be enough time for me to do what I have to do, and get out of here. Then, I¡¯ll deal with the disturbance, then the ints, then the Mountain, then Russia, and everyone else. I¡¯ll see Clover in no time. I just have to do what needs to be done. My eyes were adjusting slightly, I could see where the trees met the sky. The night was overcast, no stars, just a barely noticeable grey against black. The moon was somewhere up there, beaming down. I removed my top for the second time that night. This was no different from fighting in the ring. It wasn¡¯t something I wanted to do, but it fit the image, it was what Tayanita needed to be kept happy. She sat on top of me, admitting, ¡°I haven¡¯t done this before. It sounds prudish, but I¡¯ve never met a man good enough for me. I¡¯ll take you.¡± I suddenly realised that I was breathing heavily, that my arms were too tense to move. ¡°By the smell of you, this is your first time too. Guess neither of us are as tough as we seem.¡± ¡°I can take anything. Anything,¡± I spoke with someone else¡¯s voice, I looked to the shadow looming over me, like I was in a dream, like I was staring through a telescope at some distant threat. I grabbed at the dirt. She grabbed at something else. ¡°Stop,¡± I gasped, ¡°Stop, stop... Stop.¡± Tayanita backed off, ¡°What? What did I do?¡± I just told her to ¡°Stop¡± again. Tay played a teasing lull, ¡°Come on, nobody¡¯s here babe. What are you afraid of?¡± She went back for it and I managed to crawl out from under her, ¡°I won¡¯t. I¡¯m not doing that.¡± ¡°Rori,¡± anger was building in her throat, though for her it could have easily been embarrassment, ¡°I¡¯m the one opening up to you for fuck¡¯s sake. I''m offering you something better than this- this-¡± I wasn¡¯t listening, I grabbed my shirt, and pulled myself to my knees. Gurl was right, this was a mistake, a dumb experiment. ¡°RORI!¡± Tayanita shouted at me as I pull up my shorts. I stopped, breathing for a second. What now hero? What¡¯s the fucking plan? I ran my hands through my hair- it wasn¡¯t my hair. My hair¡¯s long and messy and choppy, the thing on my head was- it was a disguise. I pulled a hand down to my naked face. I¡¯m such a fucking moron. Why do I have to lie and sneak around? Why couldn¡¯t I have told Clover the truth and just visited her? Why didn¡¯t I just beat the shit out of all those fuckers in that shitty bar? Why don¡¯t I just take control of this crappy island, properly? Tayanita was shouting, and I trudged away, trying to escape her and the ringing. Why couldn¡¯t I have just saved them, Clover¡¯s friends and Adonis? Why did I have to kill that man? Now I know it was the same reason I had to be a hero. I¡¯m afraid. I opened my eyes, teeth chattering numbly. Tayanita¡¯s car was in front of me, it¡¯s light glaring in the dark... but there was another. If I hadn¡¯t adjusted to the dark way over on that hill, I might not have noticed the faint red glow just off in the tree line. ¡°Rori,¡± Tayanita repeated, urgency in her voice. If she said anything more, it was blocked out by the ring. When I was in Korea, I could hear crickets from the balcony. I could never tell where exactly they were calling from, but it was just there, a part of me said, not far at all. The ringing was somewhere in my ears, but it was also in the trees. The red light was getting brighter, it was casting shadows across the earth now, long black arrows pointing out at me from the tree line. My phone buzzed along with the hum. Before I could answer it, I was somewhere else. My body ached all over, far worse than the few punches Thomas got in. Something smashed into my face like a freight train and I was flying through the air. As I crashed to the ground and turned to see what just hit me, and again, I was somewhere else entirely, now pinned to the ground, something glowing splattering my into the earth, my vision to blurred to make out anything more than that. I hadn¡¯t a clue what was going on, but none the less I punched up. The thing took it solidly. I wasn¡¯t repressing any power. I blocked a couple more slams from the thing¡¯s arms before I was somewhere else again. I guess I was running, because I went tripping over myself into a tumble. I whipped my head around to find the thing, and again I blanked out. I was laying in the middle of a bonfire, every inch of my body aching. My SP2 was in effect, so I wasn''t burned by the red flame roaring around me. I grabbed blind and dizzy, my hands finding metal. I pulled myself out from the fire my body crunching onto the gravel, even this two foot drop felt like hell in my current state. I threw an arm about weakly, fighting off whatever shadow had done this to me. But it never came. An animal urge told me to keep fighting and clawing against whatever it was, it was silenced by the pain. I croaked over, taking the foetal position. My head was worse than ever, and I was having trouble closing my lips. I wiped a knuckle across my face, and it simply slipped over. I was bleeding profusely. I felt the rest of my body over, my top long gone. When I reached my gut, my insides screwed up, and I felt a warmth in the back of my throat. Creaking my neck out, I looked at my stomach. I¡¯m being literal. I looked at my gut. A hole. Oozing with every breathe. I winced at the sight, there¡¯s nothing more I can say about it. I cried with a groan. My words were nothing more than a drear exhale. ¡°Wha¡¯ the... Fuck...¡± I strained up, edging to my feet slowly. I stood up like a clumsy toddler, one foot sorer than the other. I grabbed out for the metal, more clearly the crushed and scorched remains of Tayanita¡¯s car. Without question, I broke off the roof post. Though it was scorching hot, I was able to negate it from heating my hand. I slowly looked around for Tayanita, not seeing her. I¡¯d have snickered at the irony if I wasn¡¯t screwed, I''d been looking for an excuse to get away from here, and one came out of the forest. I did my best to prepare myself, sucking in air. I pinched my stomach together tight, and stuck the hot metal in. There was a hiss as it melted my flesh, before I threw it away and decreased the temperature of the burn. It sealed well, though I couldn¡¯t be certain how my insides were doing, at least nothing was coming out anymore... Thank god I¡¯m such a cockroach. I limped around without any real aim. I remembered my bag, the ear piece was in there, last, I thought. I turned back around to Tayanita¡¯s car. Oh, yeah... With that out of the picture, I thought about running over to Gurl¡¯s house, luckily, she called me. A burner phone lay ringing a couple metres from the wreck. The thing was in the same condition as me, the case cracked but still working. I answered and said nothing. ¡°Listen, it¡¯s in the forest, Tayanita slunk off. It¡¯s scared of fire, I think. Get the fuck out of there, it¡¯s doing shit, leaving gaps in our memories, it¡¯s wh-¡± she stopped suddenly- ¡°Sham? Where¡¯s the monster?¡± I repeated, ¡°Wha¡¯ the fuck...¡± I looked over to the forest. ¡°Gurl, you said it was in the forest, can you find it again?¡± She was very clearly freaking out, ¡°You fucking lost it? How the hell- it¡¯s a seven foot tall winged monster!¡± Maybe it was just that the thing had given me the beating of a life time, maybe it was because it hadn¡¯t left me many memories to go off of, but I was dazed. ¡°Find it Gurl. If it¡¯s a monster and I might have nullified my scent to make it go away,¡± I raised an arm, sniffing, ¡°Or maybe it really is afraid of fire.¡± ¡°Fuck,¡± she garbled through the phone before an electronic screech, ¡°We¡¯re fucked!¡± I made way for the forest, squinting to try and find the same red light. ¡°Geez... calm down, it¡¯s not a big deal this used to happen to me all the time.¡± That was sort of true. I¡¯d been in this sort of condition before, but never in a couple flashes. As always, I was thinking this wasn¡¯t a harder problem to solve than the rest, it was just different, I¡¯d need to make a plan. I had time for it, Gurl would have told me if lives were in danger earlier. This wasn¡¯t the same as Valentines or Babel. I pulled my lip, checking my face was still attached. ¡°You¡¯re ribs are broken, your lungs are fucked, you still have a hole in your stomach, and the rest of your organs are a mess! Holy shit-¡± I cut her off, ¡°Don¡¯t look at me, look for him,¡± I hobbled on, before changing my mind, ¡°Actually, where¡¯s the ear piece? This phone makes my head hurt.¡± ¡°It¡¯s in your fucking pocket shit heel. I should have gone to the Mountain, egyptian ghosts are better than- than-¡± ¡°Gimme something to work with,¡± I slipped the ear piece in. Gurl¡¯s voice came through all right, I was more concerned with her trying to communicate whatever features this thing had. The monsters I''d faced could be likened to some animals, but it would be an over simplification to call the Pooka a fox, or that giant blob a pig head. ¡°I found him, he¡¯s- I found him, he¡¯s... Found him-¡± At first I thought the audio was bugging out. ¡°Gurl.¡± ¡°Found him, he¡¯s over... Got him, he¡¯s- I found it, ba-¡± She was stuck in a loop. Looking at this thing was doing something to her. ¡°Gurl!¡± ¡°I found him, he¡¯s- God, he¡¯s eating his own vomit-¡± ¡°Gurl, don¡¯t look for it,¡± I was both pleading and commanding, eventually I got her out of it. ¡°What? Make up your damn mind,¡± I interupted, ¡°If you saw it, what would you do next Gurl?¡± She stammered, ¡°I¡¯d- I¡¯d zoom out, get an idea of the area, look back at you to see the distance-¡± I ordered, ¡°Just don¡¯t take your eyes of that thing, don¡¯t even blink, just block everything else out.¡± She pieced two and two together, ¡°It¡¯s been looping me. How do you know looking at it isn¡¯t the problem? Are you seriously going to risk my life-¡± I told her to ¡°Shut the fuck up for a second.¡± I put a hand to my head. ¡°You lose the memory of seeing it- or at least, sometimes you do... I need your help to figure this out quickly, before I get into another fist fight with the flying monkey, whatever it is.¡± She was quiet for a second, saying with finality, ¡°Got him.¡± ¡°Good,¡± I hovelled over towards the dark forest, my shadow stretching long where it met the foot of a pine tree. ¡°Uhm,¡± she was struggling to put it into words. I told, her, it¡¯s alright if you can¡¯t perfectly describe it, just give me the rundown, you can do this.¡± ¡°No, I know what it is,¡± she said with confidence, ¡°It¡¯s just- I''m not sure you¡¯ll get what I''m talking about.¡± I rolled my eyes, ¡°I read comics religously, I''ll get just about any reference. Besides, it¡¯s nearly my monster hunting anniversary, I think I''ll get it.¡± There was an empty buzz from her side. ¡°It¡¯s tall, insect wings that wrap around it¡¯s body. It has gorilla arms, and legs, and a ton of insect arms, and- and tendrils I guess. It¡¯s got an insect head and it¡¯s vaguely humanoid.¡± I tried to think of what it was, scrunching up my face. ¡°It, uh, has giant glowing red eyes.¡± I stood That did it for me. ¡°Holy shit,¡± I whispered, realising what it was, ¡°That¡¯s Mothman.¡± Clout 8.05: I took the scenic route. It was like getting thrown out with a blindfold on after spinning around a couple hundred times. I was stumbling over roots and stones- or maybe just myself- as I explored the forest. ¡°It¡¯s not that big an area, I gave it a glance when Tayanita pulled up.¡± Gurl¡¯s voice made my head ring. ¡°How much longer,¡± I asked aloud, though it was a question meant for myself. Gurl gave me the only answer she could, ¡°I don¡¯t know. I¡¯ve got an idea of its distance from me, but as for you, I have no idea.¡± Over the last month I might have become too reliant on Gurl¡¯s aid. She was excellent at directing me to warehouses and stashes and criminals that were getting away, but that was when she was able to survey the area. Right now, I needed eyes on the Mothman. I tripped clumsily, shouldering a tree, ¡°What¡¯s he doing?¡± ¡°Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Apart from recycling his own vomit. Even then, he¡¯s just standing perfectly still, his proboscis is the only thing moving.¡± She tutted, ¡°Fuck it, I know I say this all the time boss, but I say we ditch this one. You¡¯re panting, honestly, you sound pathetic. Well, you¡¯ve never sounded anything sounded impressive, but back when we were butting heads you gave me shivers when you were on the end of the rope, now-¡± ¡°We take it out now. Monsters are too unpredictable.¡± She was right, however. I was out of practice, blind, and I''ve never been good at winning fights under those conditions. ¡°The cops¡¯ll be here,¡± I reminded her, ¡°If they find this thing... ¡®resting¡¯, then they might stir up trouble.¡± She paused, thought about it. ¡°You¡¯re forgetting Tayanita. We forgot her. I should have looked for her first. If she finds that thing, there¡¯s a chance she¡¯ll blow it to high hell, or, it¡¯ll crush her.¡± ¡°The latter is our only option.¡± She hummed, ¡°Is it?¡± I paused wiping sweat from my forehead, ¡°She doesn¡¯t deserve to die.¡± It was a couple seconds after I said it that I realised my voice had come out gruff, harsh. ¡°You¡¯re being defensive. Boss.¡± I frowned. How much longer? Something like this seems to happen every month. I final settle down, get a chance to ease off and feel good about myself, then low and behold, something pops out of nowhere to screw with me. Maybe it¡¯s a god, or a wizard or a witch, an ultimate lifeform, a monster, a shadow, or just one great big bell-end. It¡¯s always me too. I have to go chasing after the bad guy, I have to stand in front of him. If it was just... if it was just a quarter of the work, I might be happy. I had to go through Irminsul, alone. I had to kill Belfast. I know other people don¡¯t have it easy, but I know that if I just went through all this with a team, things would have been so simple. ¡°I¡¯m not your boss, G.¡± ¡°You pay me.¡± ¡°Clearly not enough, how much would it take for you to stop hurling abuse at me?¡± ¡°It would cost me my dignity. I¡¯m for real, if I think you¡¯re pathetic, I''m going to point and sneer, nothing better for it.¡± I grinned slightly, ¡°Alright, alright, before we get into all that, give me an x-ray of Mothman. Any weird organs I should be worried about? How dense is he?¡± ¡°Damn it Sham, I''m not a doctor! What the fuck do you think I''m going to find exactly?¡± ¡°Weird stuff, obviously.¡± She paused for a minute, making a choke noise, ¡°Nasty is what it is. It¡¯s got stuff coiling into its muscles from outside in, I¡¯m sure it¡¯s got ¡®magic¡¯ backing it, but under normal circumstances that thing¡¯d never support its weight, let alone fly.¡± I nodded, ¡°Did¡¯ja catch any of my fight with him? Did I throw a Rock at him?¡± She made a confused sound, ¡°Excuse you? Did I forget to check your head? Is your plan really just to... throw a rock at him really really hard? That¡¯d knock a person out, splatter their skull at worst, sure-¡± ¡°No, no, no,¡± I crunched over branches, getting used to the terrain and my own dizziness, ¡°I mean, did I throw a Rock at him?¡± Gurl quietly imagined I had developed some disassociation. ¡°You know, a Rock!¡± I threw a feint, as if to show her. I have to confess; I was losing some lucidity. ¡°I should have gone with Clover,¡± she said, ¡°Feoli would have taken me.¡± My arms went limp, realising I''d never explained this to her before. I¡¯d never even said it out loud before, and with good reason. ¡°It¡¯s my ¡®special move¡¯. I use it on monsters and walls, basically, I use a combination of precision, speed, and power to punch through a target.¡± Gurl did not reply. I could hear all the sounds of the forest, birds cawing, the wind in the trees, the not-so-distant suburban area- and my own choked breathing. ¡°So... what you¡¯re saying is... your ¡®special move¡¯ is that you punch them harder?¡± I thought it over then corrected, ¡°There¡¯s speed and precision too.¡± ¡°Yeah, that sort of goes without saying. That¡¯s just a punch Sham.¡± I gave one final effort, mumbling ¡°It makes something like a ¡®rock¡¯ sound when I do it too.¡± I faintly heard a squeak on the other side of the line, ¡°Wait a second, I thought you called yourself Shamrock just because you were irish, did you actually have the second braincell necessary to make the connection between the fact you are tough and that a ¡®rock¡¯ is tough? Do not tell me that you call that shifty cheat power a ¡®Sham¡¯.¡± ¡°No,¡± I muttered, ¡°I call it super power 2.¡± Again, judgmental silence. ¡°I was scared for a second there. Man eating monster on the loose, you know? It¡¯s reassuring to know that a simpleton¡¯s going to deal with it.¡± Simple? Maybe, but I still had the brain power for one more move. ¡°You¡¯re probably going to lose these memories, right? Guess I can be honest for once. I¡¯m terrified. Of this thing, sorta. That I''m going to die, not so much. You¡¯re up your own ass gurl. You say people should be free to do what they wanna do, but in the same breath you put people down. You¡¯re a pasty girl with a couple hobbies, you were stupid enough to trust Belfast as much as you did, so you clearly don¡¯t have brains going for you. You think because your small, weak, and have some emotional baggage to get through that it means your own cruelty is just breaking even.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not. It just makes you a big bully. I know, because I got thoughts like that. Just this once, I¡¯m not going to tell you to be better, because I don¡¯t know what better looks like. You know why I went for ¡®Shamrock¡¯? Yeah, I¡¯m Irish. I''m sturdy like a rock. But I''m a goddamn sham. I¡¯m never going to be a hero.¡± I was breathing heavily and my head was swimming. Honestly, I don¡¯t remember if those were my exact words to her, but it doesn¡¯t matter, that¡¯s what I wanted to say, and it¡¯s not like she remembers I said it. Quiet again. ¡°I think you... you do the best you can. I think that¡¯s the only thing everybody has in common. I let my greed and my pride swallow me up. You know what the worst part about Adonis going was?¡± I thought I knew, ¡°You blamed yourself.¡± She sighed, ¡°That¡¯s part of it, but not the worst. I blamed him. Honestly, I was angry when I found out he was dirty, I felt like I had one really good thing in my life back when I was normal, and then it just... it disappeared. It was like an illusion being lifted.¡± ¡°You, boss? You¡¯d blame yourself; you¡¯d gnaw on your teeth and get angry while the rest of us fall apart.¡± I wanted to tell her that wasn¡¯t a good thing. If I could curl up and cry, I would. My heart just doesn¡¯t go there anymore. I¡¯m so angry. All the time. It¡¯s a tension between hope and despair, a constant struggle that I''m simply not built for. ¡°Gurl-¡± Twigs snapped; metal buckled. I snapped my neck around looking for it. Tayanita was unaccounted for, and we still didn¡¯t know the limits of this ¡®Mothman¡¯. Facing the direction of the noise didn¡¯t do me any good, I could just faintly make out the trees in the moonlight. They were dark pillars against a darker night. And in the middle of them was a pole that didn¡¯t go much higher than I stood. I wasn¡¯t afraid, not of dying. The unknown made me freeze. Water trickled, and it burped. I still didn¡¯t move. ¡°Tay?¡± I tried to hide the fear in my voice. A nonchalant voice, simply grunted. ¡°H-hello?¡± ¡°Man, shut the fuck up, I¡¯m pishing.¡± The shock loosened me. What were the odds? Out of all the places in this town to spend his Halloween... ¡°Mullet?¡± I asked. ¡°Kirk?¡± He asked in turn. ¡°No, it¡¯s- it¡¯s uhm...¡± I didn¡¯t know whether to say Shamrock or Emmett, or to try and lie. He zipped up his trousers and rebuckled his belt, ¡°Listen man, I¡¯ve been smokin¡¯ the same grass as you, and I can speak perfectly good, hell¡¯s up with your voice?¡± He hobbled out and put a hand on my shoulder, ¡°Come on mate, let¡¯s get back to the spot, the boys probably got that fire going.¡± This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. ¡°Mullet,¡± I decided to at least act like a hero, ¡°You need to get your friends and get out of here. There¡¯s a monster on the loose, I¡¯m hunting it down.¡± ¡°Man, you been on something stronger?¡± ¡°Alright, there¡¯s a woman with a pension for shooting on sight out here, get out or get shot.¡± ¡°Haha, dude, I know It¡¯s Halloween, but-¡± I rolled my eyes, half shouting, ¡°The cops are coming, you idiot! Get the others and go!¡± He listened to that one, stumbling back a step, ¡°You serious Kirk? Don¡¯t screw with me man.¡± ¡°It¡¯s Shamrock you dumbass!¡± He acted stupefied, and I was a little surprised myself. It had been a while since I''d made that declaration. There was a wait, like the words were struggling to enter his ears. ¡°Jeeesus Chriiist,¡± he moaned, ¡°I¡¯m dense. Dense as horse crap. You sound identical. You know, like, two puzzle pieces in my brain, trying to click together, but, like, I was tryna push it in sideways or something. Like...¡± He went on for quite a while, slowly crouching down to try and take it all in, forgetting that he¡¯d pissed in that spot not too long ago. ¡°I wasn¡¯t joking, Mullet. A fight is going to break out here. You need to get your friends and go.¡± He stood up shaking himself off. ¡°Listen man, I know it¡¯s going to be tough, but you should know I¡¯m still here for you bro, I don¡¯t go back on my word, not even when the guy I''m talking to is a two faced liar- I''m goin¡¯ to find a compromise, I¡¯ll hate you, and I''ll be your guy, hell, this might make it easier, you¡¯ll be interesting now.¡± I pinched my head. AI didn¡¯t have time for his high ramblings, or time to decypher them, not when Gul was- Gurl. I didn¡¯t tell her what was going on. I turned away from Mullet, pressing my ear piece, ¡°Gurl, I found some civilians, I had to handle it- have to handle it. If the monster is stationary, then I''ll-¡± ¡°Found him, he¡¯s moving- Got him he¡¯s going- It''s heading- He''s heading north-¡± I was freaking out now. ¡°Mullet. Run.¡± He was coming up now, ¡°Who were you talking to? I screamed at him, ¡°Leave!¡± I was getting angry- I remembered every time I¡¯d been in this situation before. Grey, Adonis, it seemed like every time I was put alongside a normal person- just one- I failed to protect them. Those pillars that had been black slowly grew redder and redder, I could make out Mullet¡¯s expression finally, that¡¯s when I shoved him, and turned to the source of the light. The second I saw it my mind was chopped into pieces again. I occasionally caught glimpses of an arm, or just the pitch black of my eye lids, either way I could feel the pressure and stress of this creature, hear it¡¯s chopped screeches and whirrs. Of this... I was not afraid. I would find myself screaming and lashing out against it. It was battering me, twisting my limbs. I did the same. Blind moments of rage jumping between points of action where I was either getting my face smashed or I was landing a punch. There was a word on my mind, or rather, I could feel it through the entire struggle. A comic. For a moment it felt like my life was simply a mashup of the best panels and shots. A simple and cathartic experience... one that wouldn¡¯t last. I had it in a hold, something wet and slimy was running up or down my arm, as I grabbed at its face. I was on its back, my hand gripping its shaggy neck-less head, stopping it from turning. The first thing I realised was that I could ¡®see¡¯ it just fine, I remembered seeing parts of it. I asked myself, what I hadn¡¯t seen? It¡¯s face and its wings. It was trying to turn its head around, like an owl. That, and the strange glow told me that it was the eyes. Maybe I lost my grip on it because of the jarring shift in mentality, or maybe it was because I stopped acting like a wild animal, started thinking, strategizing. I called Gurl a bully. Is that what I''ve been looking for with this ¡®Rori¡¯ thing? With the easy jobs taking care of drug houses... Am I just looking for some way to... to vent? To escape myself? My mind jumped forward again, smashing through a tree and rolling in the dirt. It gave me a second to think. What would be my plan A in this situation? Use his blind spots, go for his back. I had surely tried that in the moments I don¡¯t remember. But there would still be moments where his memory alteration took effect. Plan B, wasn¡¯t good. It¡¯s what I went with. I felt around for my shirt as the red light shifted over the trees, finding some tatters. It took zero effort to strip them off, even if there was no super strength at my disposal. They were crusted with blood, viscera, and ash. I wrapped them around my head messily, tying it with a couple knots at the back. It was loud in its approach, leaves bustled and branches splintered as it came in. Above it all, the sound of my own breath rang loudest in my ears. I squared off. A fist bigger than my head smashed into my face rocking me to my core. I didn¡¯t have to see it to know. My feat held strong, and after reflecting on Gurl¡¯s info, I hit him square in the face with a crack. I heard a groan, then felt him grab my arm, and again we were rolling and fighting, only now I wasn¡¯t afraid of much more than the damage already done to my body or some power I hadn¡¯t seen yet. Something wet and slimy lashed out, striking me for the throat. My hands were preoccupied, so I had to leverage my elbow around its ¡®tongue¡¯ and tug it it out and away. I was looking for a way to cause some serious damage, and Tayanita came to mind. First I thought of her guns. Then I thought about kissing her. I brought the Mothman¡¯s tongue back near my face and it was searching for flesh to pierce. I leaned into his face, feeling some sort of mandible scratch my cheek. I kissed it. And then I pull it¡¯s tongue out with my teeth, with a sound like retching. For a change, the monster was startled by me. For a moment it lost its grip, and I smashed right through his face. I felt the same mandibles break against my fist. It fell to the ground with a thump. There was silence and my own impossibly loud panting. My heart was rocketing out of my chest, and I wasn¡¯t sure what sort of damage had been done to me. I reached for my mask- When my fingers touched it, I stopped. ¡°Mullet? You here?¡± There was no answer. ¡°Call Gurl...¡± I pushed my fingers into my ear, looking for the piece I used to talk to her, she¡¯d find him in a heartbeat. It wasn¡¯t there. The sound of my laboured breath was less calming now, the silence deafened it. Then I heard fireworks. Something like it. At least. I felt it collide with my torse and then- There wasn¡¯t a boom from the projectile itself, the only force I felt from it was in my ribs alone. It was like a bubble of pain, one that SP2 did little to curtail. And I do mean ¡®curtail¡¯ I don¡¯t know exactly what I was able to block from it, probably not the pressure or force, but the heat of it might have been negated at least. It was still going when I heard her voice, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. That little lamb made it back to his flock.¡± The miniature explosion dissipated and I fell. To say this was the nail in the coffin would be an understatement. It was more like shooting an old crippled horse. ¡°Who¡¯s this ¡®girl¡¯ you were talking to? If I read the file right, there was a Unit that went unaccounted for in Belfast. Right of conquest, huh? You kill Belfast, she and his equipment are yours.¡± I grabbed at my head with one hand, pulling. As torch light peaked into my eyes, I left the mask on my face. I was the pull of a trigger away from death, and yet all I could think about was how wrong it would be to rip the mask off now. Tayanita¡¯d been hunting me, for who knows how long. She let me square off against the moth, as she put it, ¡°Prey is weakest when it¡¯s hunting. I¡¯m glad you didn¡¯t die up north. This¡¯ll be your final honour, die with dignity.¡± Stall. I heckled at first, ¡°You gonna hit me with that peashooter again? Taytay... you¡¯re a horrible picker. When the shotgun didn¡¯t do much, you upgraded to just a tier below what you needed to...¡± I started coughing. I heard her weapon click and flinched a little as she put it together. ¡°You¡¯re right. That was a 1kmS chipped shell. Enough energy to blow a quarter of this town to hell. I guess it¡¯s fitting that I kill you with 5kmS,¡± I heard a ticking sound, ¡°after all, you¡¯re the spirit of this godless town.¡± I coughed something up, grinning as best I could to keep up appearances. ¡°Taste in men,¡± I choked, ¡°You know what that Rori kid pulled tonight?¡± She snorted at that, ¡°It¡¯s time to die.¡± ¡°The cops have your entire operation surrounded, they¡¯ll be here... five minutes, less. He¡¯s been playing you, Tayanita.¡± It was a gamble. I offered Rori up in exchange for Emmett and Shamrock. ¡°Die,¡± she reiterated. She said that but hadn¡¯t shot me yet. I couldn¡¯t make any sudden movements, in fact, I could barely lift myself from the ground. It might sound a little unheroic, but I was waiting for the cops to get there. Any interruption would¡¯ve sufficed actually. ¡°Did you ever see him handle drugs? Did you think he was being cold in some vain attempt to be masculine? You never met anyone he knew, never went to his house, and you thought he¡¯d run away with you?¡± That stopped her. ¡°How do you...¡± ¡°Sea-Threw Gurl. She was x-ray vision, and I had her learn lip-reading. You were talking about how me inspiring people was pointless... I don¡¯t care that I don¡¯t have the ¡®honour¡¯ of finishing this operation... Rori did it for me.¡± ¡°You¡¯re nothing but a liar, an empty creature!¡± ¡°Sure,¡± I smiled along, ¡°that¡¯s the type of man you like, isn¡¯t it?¡± I raised a hand, slowly. The muscles in my legs were finding some life. In my head I was considering two options, one, I take of my mask and show her who I am. Or two, point and shout ¡®what¡¯s that!¡¯ I was about to go for option two, when an arm wacked into my face, and I felt a rush of air. Not dead I realised. For some reason that gave me a boost. The moth had its hand around my head, lifting me. I immediately threw a fist into him. I was blind so there was little affect. I thought he was just lifting my up at first, but then there was a gust of wind, and we launched into the air. The rise whipped the mask off my face, and again there were cuts in my memory. It wasn¡¯t battering me, that much I could tell. I think it was looking to store me, in a man-sized nest or something, who knows. Maybe it went docile earlier because it thought its prey was charred to a crisp, maybe it had given up and forgotten about me. Now that I was limp all over, it thought I''d make an excellent meal. I elbowed it as hard as I could, but there was little point. For all my anger, and discontent it wasn¡¯t enough to destroy this monster. I opened my eyes. The wind and clouds were rushing by in a freezing mist, but I just felt like I was sinking. No, it was a sinking feeling. Not the same as what I needed for SP2. It was like an epiphany welling up deep inside me. I suddenly realised the absurdity of a giant moth man carrying me like a baby. I felt like I was seeing for the first time after entering that forest. I¡¯d blindly reacted to a man pissing in the bushes, berated a girl over the phone, and then bargained for my life with another. It all moved by so fast, with only short moments of peace with a sense of normality. ¡°Hey, Mothman... you can totally eat me. If you¡¯ve got the stones to replace me... in my crappy life.¡± It didn¡¯t reply, the sound wasn¡¯t even audible. I looked up at its wings. They were built like a bug¡¯s, shimmering silver on the underside. They hardly ever flapped, it just sort of glided higher and higher. It was cartoonish. His wings were only slightly bigger than his arm span and yet we were going fast. I looked down. On the ground, I could see the newly installed fluorescent street lights sprinkling the black beneath me. I noticed that orange lights spotted the town as well, the lights from people¡¯s homes. I thought it was beautiful. It was like taking the scenic route for once. I wheezed out a laugh, thinking that I didn¡¯t really want to kill this thing anymore, after all, it showed me soe thing like this, saved me from Tayanita. Then I remembered Belfast. I wanted him dead. Something in me changed in me then, a step had been taken that I can¡¯t untake. I, Emmett O¡¯Hara, comic book nerd and sewing enthusiast, am a vengeful murderer. I can try and say that I did it so he wouldn¡¯t kill again, I can justify it as a heroic action in my head because it stopped him from ever hurting innocents again... That doesn¡¯t make it anything more than murder. I think of every heartfelt moment I''ve had with somebody, every complement I''ve received, ever joke about wieners and butts or whatever crude little thing might have made me smile... And I compare it to that side of myself. What if neither Shamrock or Emmett is my true self, what if I''m someone worse than Rori? ¡°Just drop me.¡± I said it with defeat on my tongue. ¡°Drop me.¡± I looked across all of Kerry, though there wasn¡¯t much to see. I found it to be beautiful. I slammed a mad fist into its wing, ¡°Drop me ya big bollocks!¡± It didn¡¯t listen, but as if by my will, something shot up from a patch of darkness in that patchwork quilt of dim light and black. It left a semi-blue trail as whizzed up and into the moth¡¯s wing, the creature catching on a small airy blue sphere that brimmed tightly with energy. The Mothman squealed out as it¡¯s wing jittered and we tilted. I glared at the light for a while, realising that it was burning a line through the wing, as if an ¡®arrow¡¯ were boring through it. We began our fall to Earth. With the turbulent conditions, he let go of me, flapping to save himself. I¡¯m sure, like me, he could have survived the fall with his durability. It must have experienced some primal fear of falling. I wasn¡¯t afraid. Pulling myself close to its shaggy body, I flet hundreds of little arms just beneath its oily hair. I held onto its giant torso with my legs, and looked right into its eyes. I don¡¯t know why, but I could see it in that moment, really see it. Maybe the moth wasn¡¯t using its power, or maybe it¡¯s because I didn¡¯t take my eyes of him until we were done. I tried to find my strength, to draw out whatever was at the core of my being. I started hitting him from left and right in the chest, just generally thinking about all the unpleasantness in my life as we spiralled around in a red glow. I thought of Lechoslaw Limorilow, the Gator, and all the other petty sadists that have tortured me. Of Belfast. That fist didn¡¯t go as far, and I stopped for a bit. My eyes winced, something was welling up, finally. I started hitting him quicker, as I thought of Clover¡¯s friends, Adonis, Grey, the people killed by the Circuit board, the people who died in B-city, I thought of my dad, and I tried to think of Sam, coming up short. I wasn¡¯t hitting any harder, but I could feel my heart beating at least. I thought of everyone I¡¯d met so far, all their oddities and issues, and the good in them. I thought of everyone I still had to meet, everything I still had to do. Every fist that hit that monster altered his trajectory. I was no longer wincing, its red eyes flickered, I was rocking it to the core of its alien being. I reared back my fist, waiting, breathing, I could feel my heart in my throat along with sentence. ¡­ A metre from the ground I rocketed my fist through the monster''s head, popping one of its enormous eyes and lodging forearm through its skull and into the earth. The light faded from its other eye slowly, and some colour returned to the world as I looked around. Suburban housing lined the road on both sides, it must¡¯ve been a good neighbourhood, because the Halloween decorations were really impressive. I heard another sudden sound like Tayanita¡¯s R.O launching, gazing back up at the sky. An orange light from the firework filled the sky, then it was joined by another, all sorts of colours and shapes filled the sky. Every inch of me was broken. I could only smile. Clout 8.06: I dressed up for halloween. I hobbled up to a door, ringing the bell. I¡¯d have knocked, if I felt like raising my arm. Someone was there nearly instantly, ¡°Oh, wow! A zombie! You look really scary.¡± Tonight was the night for weirdos coming to your door at unreasonable hours. I nodded, ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m nearly twenty, is Gurl home?¡± It was her mother at the door, ¡°Gurl?¡± ¡°TGFMACJ, I need to talk to her real quick.¡± She bit her lip with a bit of a smile. Gurl¡¯s mum was one of those forty-year-olds who looked and acted twenty. It might sound mean, but the Gurl I knew inherited neither her looks or spirit. She called down the hall, ¡°Baby-bee, there¡¯s a boy here to see you.¡± For a second, I thought I had the wrong house, but she came out in a fluffy hoodie and pyjama bottoms. Her watery eyes froze on me. ¡°Mom, I¡¯ll be back soon.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll stay in the kitchen, you two can talk as long as you want. Just answer the door, ¡®kay.¡± I took a step back from the door, ¡°No, that¡¯s alright, I just needed to ask TGFMACJ-- where someone is.¡± TGFMAC came out quickly, reacting the same as I might if something from this supernatural world eddied its way into my life. Without bothering to change, she stormed out past her sunny mum, ¡°I¡¯ll be back soon,¡± she reassured, herself more than her mum I think. Her mom peaked out the door for a while after. Gurl was freaking out. She waited until we walked out of her drive way and down the street a bit. I remembered the time I''d been the entertainment in her brother¡¯s birthday party. As she threw up on the street, I muttered to myself, ¡°That makes three of us.¡± She couldn¡¯t look at me, not directly, it was perhaps too real. ¡°You¡¯re fucking crazy. You can¡¯t show up in front of my mom like that- Jesus, what if my brother had been home?¡± I tugged at my cheek, ¡°I¡¯ve been worse. I still have my face on, don¡¯t I?¡± ¡°Most of it,¡± she prodded at my four head with her eyes closed. ¡°Your stomach¡¯s open, your ribs are shattered, the muscles in your arm are strung or swelling-¡± ¡°You really should think about becoming a doctor.¡± ¡°And there is a giant bloody hole-!¡± I looked down at where Tayanita had shot me. ¡°Huh... I¡¯ve seen holes, this is more of a ditch.¡± The bones where showing, bleached clean. I did the only thing I could do, I shrugged it off and told myself, ¡°I might have some rebirthing foam I can rub on it. Though I should probably seal my stomach first.¡± Gurl was in disbelief. I tried to get her back on track. ¡°I¡¯m changing the current mission objective. Forget about the Quarter for a second. I want you to find Tayanita and to keep an eye on the sky, look west, as far as you can easily survey.¡± ¡°For the mothman?¡± She gasped, flinched her arms up, ¡°It¡¯s still-¡± ¡°No,¡± I grabbed, her hands, put them down, ¡°He¡¯s dead. I need you to look out for the Ints.¡± She looked up, at least a little intrigued by that, ¡°Because of what Tayanita said?¡± I nodded, walking on, ¡°That¡¯s part of it. The others intuition,¡± I looked at my scarred arm, ¡°or maybe hope.¡± The adrenalin was keeping me going, but pretty soon I was going to feel all of this. ¡°When I was in America, I was crossing country. I might have gotten the mothman¡¯s attention then. Or maybe... It doesn¡¯t matter when, only that the ints didn¡¯t stop it.¡± She seemed mortified, ¡°Negligence is a crime? Is that something you want to go to war over? The Ints seem tamer than the Mountain, if you got their help-¡± ¡°The Ints have biotrackers,¡± I explained, ¡°This thing- I''m almost certain it¡¯s from over the water, something about seeing the thing with its lights out reminded me of Tlaloc, though I can¡¯t quite recall, I¡¯ll have to check the old posts...¡± I was blabbering. I promised TGFMACJ, ¡°If the Ints come, I won¡¯t be the one who starts a fight. They¡¯ll come looking for one. I¡¯m sure of it.¡± She was thinking it all over. She turned about, walking in a circle, and stopping half way around. She¡¯s south, near the old dumping ground. Go south until you get to the hardware store, then, take left turn.¡± I nodded, ¡°Right, she¡¯d go back to her car, go looking for Rori. It¡¯s all coming full circle.¡± Gurl continued as I thought about what to do next, ¡°The cops have finished up at the Quarter, they¡¯ll be sending a group to check out Tayanita¡¯s location. If you¡¯re quick, you could... no you¡¯re not gonna make it there before them. Not like this.¡± I nodded along absentmindedly. ¡°Boss, it¡¯s serious. She¡¯s rounding up hostages.¡± ... It was a walk and a half to the construction site. If I''d been jumping, I''d have made it in a second, but as I was, that wouldn¡¯t work. In this situation, it wouldn¡¯t be a very good idea either. Where before it was a dark little corner of an unsuspecting neighbourhood, now the construction site was the focus point of a five flood lights. I hobbled towards them, the garda. They had cars parked at the entry way, and I''m sure there were more surrounding the site. The first guy saw me from a distance, and told me to move on like every other civilian. His eyes went to my head. He remembered what night it was, blinking a couple times and using his body as a secondary barricade. My body was slick with blood, and I was still too powerful for him to push back. I called out, ¡°Who¡¯s in charge here.¡± Heads turned, they shouted at the cop that greeted me, and then tried to escort me away. I didn¡¯t budge. ¡°Let me talk to her,¡± I ordered generally. They looked between themselves, eyes going back to one man in particular. ¡°You, let me through.¡± He was young enough, studying me up and down before focusing on my face. I was short on fabric, so I had to make do with the first thing I could get my hands on. I turned a pumpkin upside-down, staring out of its jagged mouth. One of them shouted for them to get me out of there but the leading officer stopped him. From a distance he announced, ¡°It¡¯s him. He¡¯s the one who sent the texts, the photos. He¡¯s John-¡± This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I tripped forward, near buckling over myself. I had to fix my head. ¡°This is the last time I¡¯m going to say this so listen,¡± I straightened, made it clear, ¡°My name is Shamrock.¡± The officer¡¯s face seemed to become grimmer after I declared myself, like it was of great concern. He took a couple steps forward, extending his arm, seeming to regret the decision as soon as he made it. ¡°Sergeant Dorian. Your compliance would be much appreciated.¡± It took me a moment to splay my fingers, to shake his hand. He didn¡¯t seem entirely pleased by it. ¡°How was the raid, Sergeant?¡± ¡°That¡¯s not to be made public knowledge at this time.¡± ¡°I could tell you how many crates of cocaine were in the sub floor of that building, seeing as I''m the source of the garda¡¯s knowledge concerning this situation...¡± He swallowed, pulling his hand away from mine. It was a tight grip, perhaps ¡°Four of our men injured. Half a hundred arrests last I checked.¡± ¡°Any dead? How many injured suspects?¡± One of the cops shouted for me to take off the pumpkin. The Sergeant seemed to tense and pale at that, ¡°I don¡¯t know. You won¡¯t hear that number from me.¡± ¡°Then tell me how many hostages she has.¡± ¡°Four, unrestrained, one at gun point- or, well, we¡¯re having some issues declaring it a firearm-¡± ¡°She ask for me?¡± I was going to take the silence for a yes. ¡°That depends on whether or not she calls you Rori.¡± I nodded, thanked him for his work, and approached slowly, and with my hands up. There were some objections from the police, but they soon faded out of my focus. ¡°Tayanita!¡± I looked past the smouldering remains of her car to see her with her back up against a pile of gravel, three faces I recognised as guys Mullet hung around, and on Tayanita¡¯s right, with an R.O kept two feet from his face, Mullet knelt with his arms above his head. I kept mine as high as I could. ¡°Not another step. You¡¯re friendly with this one. If I recall, he was one of that little bitch¡¯s friends. It seems a waste to use an R.O on him. I guess you were right, I don¡¯t know how to pick the tools for a job.¡± I noticed the armed forces left and right of where I stood, ¡°Then trade them for me Tayanita.¡± She looked me up and down, and I analysed her too. She had an ammo strap over one shoulder, and goggles on her brow. Despite the cool weather she was sweating. ¡°Either you think I''m stupid, or you don¡¯t see how that¡¯s a fair trade.¡± ¡°I¡¯m the one you want dead. Face it, there¡¯s no way you¡¯re shooting your way out of this one. By bringing innocent people into this you¡¯re only making things worse.¡± She snickered, ¡°You¡¯ve almost got it, green. You know what the problem with trading you for them is? One. You¡¯re stuck here either way, your pride won¡¯t let you leave. Two... The pigs want you gone, shit-heel. If it was you,¡± she jerked the gun at Mullet, ¡°they¡¯d rush me, or their boys in the bushes would take me out, shooting through you. If they were able to.¡± ¡°Then what do you want? If you know this¡¯ll end badly, why are you still here?¡± Tayanita grit her teeth in a snarl, ¡°I want Rori. You¡¯re going to find him, bring him, and he¡¯ll tell me the truth.¡± I swallowed. If it came to it, I might get away with showing her my face. Letting her know Rori was her enemy was always an option, just not one I liked. I looked around, trying to take in my surroundings. There was the car fire on my left, and a pile of dirt on my right. Tayanita was just over five feet from where I stood. I tried to place where the snipers had stationed themselves, not seeing them. I never realised the flood lights are meant to blind their target, I''ve always thought about it from the other side. I tried to find a compromise, an easier way out of this. ¡°Rori lied to you, he¡¯d lie again. I¡¯m not going to sugar coat it Tayanita, if they or I brought him, he¡¯d say whatever we tell him to say to get those hostages.¡± ¡°Lies,¡± she tasted the word on her tongue, ¡°You finally admit it. You¡¯re supposed to tell me what''s true and what¡¯s false? What¡¯s right and what¡¯s wrong? Bullshit. You¡¯re no different from the rest of them. You¡¯re not special, you¡¯re no different than any other animal on this goddamn earth.¡± I let slip some honesty, the exhaustion accentuated every word, ¡°Then why do we have to fight?¡± She seemed taken aback, as if it was something I wasn¡¯t allowed to ask. ¡°You started this! You lowered my area¡¯s status enough for Clover to move in, you attacked Clover when I gave you the chance to walk away-¡± ¡°And then you pulled together an armed squad to take me out. Maybe you think I''m a hypocrite, but the way I see it, this has always been self-defence.¡± ¡°You¡¯re a monster! What more did you need? You had power, but your damn pride- you needed territory, wealth and respect.¡± She was in the middle of her own adrenaline rush. She¡¯d asked for Rori, but had soon forgotten about him in favour of a couple cheap shots at a Unit. She was acting sporadic, uncoordinated. Horrible things for a woman with a gun. Knowing that I wasn¡¯t the only person picking up on that fact, I checked over my shoulder, the squad behind me... would they move if things looked bad enough? ¡°Am I wrong?¡± She waited for a reply. I turned back. ¡°Yes. In the start I didn¡¯t care about any of that. It was always about the people. You grew up on the streets, so some part of you knows what it¡¯s like, inside and out. People end up dead, even if nobody lays a finger on them. I had to fight- had to try and stop it-¡± I choked, on my words and the bile building in my throat, ¡°But things have changed,¡± there was a roughness in my voice. ¡°First it was Clover, and she told me there were hundreds of Units out there. It¡¯s stupid, but I was one part excited to meet them, whoever they were. Then came Feoli who wanted to kill me at first too. Then I found out there were monsters. Then I realised it wasn¡¯t just my life at stake when the Gator fell. There was hardly a break between it all, but I¡¯d be lying if I said it was always getting worse. I saw better sides of people, like you... It¡¯s just- It always comes back to the fighting. It¡¯s like- like working out. It hurts, but you push through, and you keep pushing until the pain feels good. You can¡¯t push on forever though, I know. I¡¯ve tortured myself for just a chance of something more. When I finally got a change, it was because I choked the life out of somebody. By then I didn¡¯t feel anything.¡± Her eyes looked dark. She seemed to have calmed down. I blinked, realising I''d helped her compose herself. ¡°I¡¯m right then, you admit it. You¡¯re corrupt. You would do anything to get what you want-¡± I took a chance. I took a step forward. ¡°I¡¯m human Tayanita. That¡¯s all. There are entities out there that see us as game pieces or fodder, and you would hold innocent uninvolved people under the barrel of a weapon that should be used to protect them. I won¡¯t call you names, not now, but I¡¯ll point out your hypocrisy. This isn¡¯t your home. You handle the tools of oppression for a tyrant, the invader-¡± ¡°Enough,¡± she finally said, prodding the side of her firearm, it beeping in response, ¡°You won¡¯t change me. I¡¯ll give you five seconds to radiothat ¡®girl¡¯ and give me what I want.¡± Mullet¡¯s eyes widened, his nose flared, but his mouth stayed shut. ¡°What¡¯s one less hostage? Maybe those pigs will take me seriously.¡± ¡°Taytay,¡± my hands were shaking, pain wracked every inch of my broken body. My fingers trembled over the surface of my pumpkin head. I thought about the cops surrounding us. Her hostages were looking down, bar Mullet. I didn¡¯t lift it high, just high enough. Over the ridge of my nose was enough. She¡¯d only ever seen the lower half of Shamrock¡¯s face, and not often. She¡¯d seen Rori¡¯s more than enough times to recognise it, though bruised and bloodied as it was. It stopped her, stupefied her. I brough it back down, and said something that had taken me a long time to realise. ¡°I didn¡¯t want to do this. I¡¯m sorry. Things have to change, and talking was never going to do that.¡± I limped closer, one foot dragging. I swerved by the pile of gravel on my right. Using it as support, I pushed off it with my right hand, moving forward another two steps. ¡°How many times did ¡®Shamrock¡¯ tell you to stop? How was I supposed to just stay content with breaking your toys and knocking over your sand castles? You don¡¯t deserve this, but those kids? They definitly don¡¯t. You are a victim of circumstance Taytay, they¡¯re just victims. I pitied you for as long as I could. It wasn¡¯t enough. Just as I tried to understand the Storm in the North, that man was a lost cause.¡± She was blinking, there were tears in her eyes. Under different circumstances I''d have felt bad about this. Now I felt assured that all of it had been necessary. ¡°You- you¡¯re bl- It''s-¡± I stood at around two metres from her, ¡°I¡¯m hearing a lot of ¡®you, ¡®you¡¯re¡¯ and ¡®you will¡¯. Blaming others. I suppose that¡¯s another side of working with a group. Someone like me has to shoulder all the blame and misfortune on their own. Tayanita¡¯s face rested on a frown, at that moment it was pushed to its absolute limit. ¡°It¡¯s a lie! You¡¯re a demon! A devil from below, straight from the heart of this-¡± She jabbed the R.O at me with one arm. ¡°I¡¯ve hated myself for a while now. I¡¯m sure I won¡¯t feel much different after today. I learnt something, however... And that¡¯s the code I''m going to live by for now on. I killed a man, and I¡¯d do it again if I had to. Be thankful that I''m handing you over to the police. Just be thankful that you''re dealing with me, and not Belfast.¡± I took a deep breathe, my hands still above my head lowering to my sides... then I threw a pebble at her. I didn¡¯t have the luxury of aiming, whether it hit her in the brow or the eye I didn¡¯t care, I stumbled forward, grabbing her weapon and tilting it up. She fought against me, much like the first fight we¡¯d fought, again, her strikes were lacking. I knocked her down flat, the R.O still in my grasp. The hostages tumbled away from my feet, I had to bolt past them to get at her. I heard the cops shouting, as I looked down at her. Blood was running from around her brow, the right side of her head. No, when I inspected her face closer, it was lower. Tears crusted around one eye, while the other festered with blood and dirt dust. There it is, I thought. The pity. What was that worth though? I just deformed someone, and yet it was the ¡®right¡¯ thing to do? A cop came up from behind me, trying to wrestle the gun from my arms, another came up with handcuffs. ¡°What a joke,¡± I said to myself, shouldering away from Tayanita. That Sergeant Dorian must have called for them to stop, someone was shouting at them at least. I looked back for a moment, seeing Mullet. He was looking after me. He tilted his head, mouthing something I couldn¡¯t make out. If I were to mark it down later, I''d say I spent my nineteenth Halloween as a Jacko lantern. Clout 8.07: I filled my stomach. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Left 9A.01: An observation on the doctor. She noted the roads. She could have gone over her questions, or information on the subject, but she felt that the roads were more important than the Akecheta¡¯s history. She wasn¡¯t driving, she had been provided people for that. She could still look out the tinted windows, to the side or ahead. Worse, she could feel it. Potholes and generally uneven ground rocked every wheel of the jeep dangerously. This was an out-of-the-way road, but they were all the same, like country lanes bar the highway. It reminded her of home. Rather than dwell on the past, she diagnosed. The pavement has fallen into serious disrepair, and it¡¯s been like that for a while, as seen with the regularity of ditches and wear. Her driver was gripping the wheel fractionally tighter, he¡¯d changed his posture, looking over the dashboard to try and curtail the incessant rocking. He was irritated. One might think that the locals would be numb to it, but they¡¯re human, their minds are the same as any other. They may not be irritated by it, but they will become irritable. Driving this road day in day out, going to work and then home, work and then home... there hadn¡¯t been many leisure activities on the road, at least not from what she could see. Where would that irritation go? Perhaps towards their family, strangers. Where did it belong? It was a symbol of sloth on the governments part, any man could tell you that. A local government official could easily make the calls to fix these holes, but they choose not to. She knew that wasn¡¯t true, there were budget cuts made for health care, education, the military, but most irritable people to not think too deeply on the holes in the road. Regardless of their thoughts, they will feel discontent concerning their government, specifically what their government asks of them. Pay taxes, obey the law... younger males will grow to resent these things, because why should they respect them? She would like to know the religious beliefs of such individuals. Atheism, or more accurately, a resistance to religious indoctrination, is a clear indicator of how trusting a person is, in their government, their social circle... ¡°Ma¡¯am, shouldn¡¯t you give the Akecheta¡¯s file another look?¡± She looked to the young exterminator, some hotshot with a boorish name. ¡°No.¡± Robert sat up in his seat, flexing some childish pride and superiority, ¡°The doc knows what she¡¯s doing Hunter. She¡¯s planned this trip for months, that¡¯s the type of body you¡¯re guarding.¡± Bob scoffed, ¡°She¡¯s not like Greem, she actually thinks.¡± Attrition raised her eyebrow, ¡°I don¡¯t need you to speak for me Robert, especially if it¡¯s negatively on a dead man.¡± Bob flushed around the nose, barely getting out a sullen ¡°Yes ma¡¯am.¡± Hunter smiled to himself. ¡°Driver, how long are you going to drag our asses ¡®cross the dirt for?¡± ¡°Not long at all,¡± Attrition sighed, ¡°There¡¯s a large clearing up ahead, and given it¡¯s irregularity, it must be our destination.¡± It only made sense. Ireland was a small country, they would have few prisons and fewer for women. One or two large facilities. Bob practically licked the window, ¡°You¡¯re right doc, I see it now! There¡¯s the genius of our life time!¡± Hunter scoffed, ¡°She just told you to stop babbling on like a cook.¡± Bob turned in his seat, wearing a false hard face, ¡°I¡¯m still allowed to talk you up, right Ma¡¯am?¡± Attrition flexed her eyebrow, narrowed her vision, turned away, and smiled. ¡°It would be egotistical of me to speak of myself in that way, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± She reflected fondly on her time with Robert Parker and felt a pang concerning current events. Poor Robert. He had been working tirelessly in his own way, to convince her and the deployment committee that he would be an asset in the founding of City X. He had her convinced, she backed him, all he needed to say was that he, better than anyone else in their organisation, knew ¡®Shamrock¡¯. Dr Attrition had not told him about the plan A for handling the boy, it was just something to tie over the other department heads. She hadn¡¯t expected it to work anyway, Attrition planned for failure, always. ¡®Winning¡¯ was always a futile task, a poorly defined objective. She¡¯d always believed there was no way to ¡®win¡¯ life, a philosophers take as an old friend had once joked. Here they were, preparing as best they could for the meeting with the sole (or souless) lord of Ireland. Bob would stay with her to handle the boy, the exterminators would be there to guard Right¡¯s life if this activity attracted any unwanted third parties. Of course, if Robert or the red-ties failed, then there would always be backups. If monsters wiped out their small armed force, then Axel Right would have his own Geckos to back him up. If the boy proved to be as rebellious as she expected and Bob failed to guide him into compliance... well, then she¡¯d have to wipe her proteges ass again. An electrified gate opened ahead of them with less than a flicker from the driver. They parked the car and got to walking. It was cold here. Not as cold as the Midwest this time of year, but it was still a gloomy environment that reminded her of the old farms. She was looking back on someoneelses memories, that¡¯s what it was like now. She left and joined the organisation in her twenties, if she remembered correctly. The last time she¡¯d gone home, the last time, was in her forties. It had been over a decade but it was so clear. For a time, she thought that event had brought some catharsis, but over the years she came to realise that though she had finely treated the wounds they left her with a scar would always remain. Cults are good for that. Parasocial symbiosis. It was a bubbling curse- ¡°Ma¡¯am?¡± The Exterminator brought her back to reality. She wasn¡¯t there, she was with them and her father. They were dead. She was living presently. ¡°Excuse me. Robert isn¡¯t as right as I''d like. It¡¯s like Howard¡¯s been saying lately, we¡¯re getting old.¡± She walked ahead of her guards through the front door. A blast of warm air blew against her coattails as she came into the main building. It was as she expected, minimum security at the door, perhaps at a medium level for a first world prison. There was a sticky white-grey paint across the grainy square walls, the turns never ending. The guards, men better off sitting than standing gave her no opposition as they checked her credentials. She wasn¡¯t sure on the law concerning prison visitation, regardless, she¡¯d sit with the last of the Akecheta on her terms. Bob was checking the halls and walkways with superficial glances, ¡°Doc, are you sure you wanna go it alone?¡± She shrugged, speaking loud enough for the prison officer meeting with them to hear, ¡°Yes. She¡¯s just a child. Though I want you waiting at the door; don¡¯t go wandering and don¡¯t press your noise up against the glass, they hate to feel like their being studied.¡± It was airy. There were netted windows that made the site feel more open than it was. This Attrition was a fan of. Architecture was a personal interest of hers, how buildings were drawn and designed by human minds for an express purpose had impressed her as a child. Barns for animals and storage, homes built around culture and life style... Attrition regretted not meeting with the original architect of the cities before his death, wondering if the buildings he spawned were from his mind, or something else entirely. ¡°Please refrain from physical contact with the prisoner,¡± said the man loosely patting her down. The doctor didn¡¯t respond. A buzzer sounded as she entered a wide room bathed in dim white light. There were no other visitors, no other prisoners, only the girl. Dr Attrition looked at her from across the room, her simple t-shirt and hoody slightly different shades of grey. It wasn¡¯t a uniform, it seemed the prison system here resisted the urge to dehumanise it¡¯s inhabitants. More stricking was the medical eye patch over one over her left eye. Charity remembered the footage, the file. She lost it in the brief scuffle with the boy. It could still be regenerated with foam. With a small amount of help. The Akecheta snickered, then looked past the doctor, ¡°Forget it,¡± she shouted, ¡°Matt, take me back to my cell.¡± Dr Attrition paid no her no mind, sitting adjacent to the patient. ¡°Good afternoon Tayanita, my name-¡± ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter, ¡®doctor¡¯, you¡¯re fucking outta here.¡± ¡°May I ask why?¡± The girl laughed with a mocking surprise. To Charity, it seemed to contrast the restless bags beneath her eyes. Tayanita leaned forward, ¡°I don¡¯t talk to women with cocks, and wearing that damn tie is cocky as it gets.¡± A lot of foul language. Attrition guessed whether that spoke to her general character or just her disposition towards the organisation. She guessed both. ¡°You look just like Sequeyah, was she your aunt perhaps? Lord, she might¡¯ve been you¡¯re great aunt-¡± ¡°The fuck are you mouthing on about? I don¡¯t know a Sequeyah, but I do know that you¡¯re not getting shit out of me.¡± On the contrary, Attrition thought to herself, ¡®shit seems to be the only thing I''ll get from you¡¯. She didn¡¯t say it, that wouldn¡¯t make any progress. ¡°No, you wouldn¡¯t know her. Your numbers were thinning when she died, and then the rest of them followed. Still, you have her eyes, her nose... I suppose that¡¯s what living in such a small, closed community does to a populace.¡± Tayanita flared her nostrils, ¡°Are you calling me inbred?¡± Dr Attrition raised her eyebrow, with a hint of inquiry. ¡°No. I¡¯m just speaking from experience. I grew up on a farm, one that didn¡¯t mingle with outsiders, one that kept a particular way of thinking. When I finally found the strength to leave, your ranch was one of the first places I came across. It was like looking at myself. We were so similar and yet different in such a foundational level. I lived with them for a time, and we were warm, despite me being affiliated with the ¡®men in black¡¯, and despite me being opposed to their beliefs.¡± After she was done, Tayanita hissed in, ¡°Don¡¯t think for a second that you can tame me with stories.¡± ¡°Oh?¡± the eyebrow raised further, ¡°You don¡¯t like stories?¡± Attrition pulled a file from the inner pocket of her coat, brushing a white hair away from her eyes and squinting. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I¡¯m an old woman. All I have stories.¡± Attrition looked at the page for a while, reading up on the subject, who seemed amused in the same way a hyena might, ¡°Then are we done butcher?¡± That perked the doctor''s ears, ¡°Ah, so you do like stories, you just don¡¯t like how I tell them. Did your father tell you that one?¡± If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. There was rage in the hunter¡¯s smile, ¡°The only person who could have.¡± Attrition thought of how to broach the subject. ¡°You... are not Akecheta, you are an Akecheta. Just as I am an individual from my organisation, you are, albeit the last, a member of yours.¡± Charity looked the hunter, this girl up and down. Her hands were clenched in fists. ¡°I do not represent anyone other than myself, that¡¯s what I said to Sequeyah and it¡¯s what I''ll say to you.¡± She drew a breath in, ¡°I¡¯m sorry for what happened to your people. For how it was handled. Beyond that, I''m sorry that we didn¡¯t finish the job.¡± The phrasing was purposeful. Tayanita¡¯s eyes widened, in another second, she¡¯d be wrenching against her handcuff, ¡°The Beast,¡± Attrition clarified, ¡°we failed to kill it.¡± She put a creased page on the table, ¡°The Sky Beast. It was once human, once an Akecheta. It used your blood against us, it was bonded with magic to every part of your being. It fed on their souls, it broke their bodies, and it warped their minds. I was there, but I didn¡¯t issue the order. That mistake was the old guard¡¯s.¡± Remembering the stories that her father hammered into her head, as Charity expected, made the girl sullen, ¡°Yeah? Same CEO though.¡± ¡°His orders were to eliminate the beast. It was to be done at any means necessary. It threatened the world long before it started using the Akecheta. The old head of research believed that eliminating your people would weaken it, deprive it of conscious thought- instead it grew more powerful, brought another Beast into the battle.¡± A corner of the dark faced girl''s lips raised, ¡°And you killed that one.¡± ¡°Not me, my contemporary. I give him hell for it every time I see him. Which isn¡¯t often. Not anymore.¡± Attrition gestured to the red text at the bottom of the page. She would have liked to know exactly what her subject was feeling at the time. Anger, disgust, sadness, but what else? ¡°You¡¯re fucking useless,¡± Tayanita spat. Attrition made eye contact, ¡°That, I¡¯ll take.¡± This girl was so close to Sequeyah, just a sliver of dark difference on her face, behind her eyes. ¡°Tayanita, you served the Mountain in Egypt, cleaned up our mess. You did good work, collecting that monster head count there.¡± ¡°Five¡± ¡°Four monsters,¡± Attrition corrected, ¡°a number to put any Unit to shame.¡± ¡°Are you one of them?¡± Tayanita asked. The doctor lied, ¡°No.¡± She carried on, ¡°My predecessor was wrong, we could not stop the sky Beast by waging genocide, and you, in your thousand-year history with the entity, failed to fully destroy it, just as we did.¡± A cloud passed by the window. Charity put her hand atop Tayanita¡¯s weak fist, ¡°Give up on hate. You¡¯ll never find peace on that road.¡± She smiled, ¡°Join up. At last for as long as it takes for us to set things right.¡± The girl pulled her hand away, balling it tight to her chest, ¡°Is that all?¡± The doctor dropped her smile, drifting away herself. ¡°Yes, Tayanita. That is all I will say concerning you. Now, let us move on to the reason I am here.¡± The subject had been prepared, broken into. Just a little more work... ¡°I¡¯ll cut to the chase. A strange zone is forming here. We want it. Thankfully, your old employer has pulled out. Sadly, he is still here.¡± Tayanita¡¯s eyes turned spiteful again, ¡°Ah, enemy of my enemy.¡± ¡°You called him ¡®Rori¡¯. Do you have a second name? An address?¡± ¡°No. Not like I''d give them to you.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± Attrition feigned tired surprise, ¡°you wouldn¡¯t? The footage was fuzzy, but I could have sworn that was distraught on your face-¡± ¡°Shock.¡± Tayanita shook her head, ¡°Don¡¯t kid yourself, I¡¯m not a pussy.¡± Charity spoke softly, ¡°But there was something more, yes? I met with your subordinates, the one who got you put away especially quick. You want to speak of ¡®cockiness¡¯, then perhaps you should look to that portly fellow that decided it would be a good idea to take his helmet off in enemy territory. He was lucky that it was Belfast¡¯s cameras that shot him, and not his men. He was very helpful concerning ¡®Rori¡¯, he said many unpleasant things about the boy, and told me you were quite close with him.¡± Tayanita tried not to give any indication, ¡°I heard there was a Chinese spy, a woman that slept with half of congress. She had average looks, was unassuming... do you think any of the men who fucked her loved her? No, those men wanted to take the edge off after or during work.¡± She was deflecting. ¡°You¡¯re not a member of congress. You¡¯re a girl. A girl who despite her experience raising little syndicates and militias is completely alone here. I don¡¯t know how long you¡¯ve been in Ireland for, but I do know that you lost the only family you ever had, and that workers are not a substitute for people who love you.¡± Tayanita opened her mouth to say something but got caught in the line of Attrition¡¯s eyes. The gaze held for a moment on the girl¡¯s lone brown eye. Tayanita seemed to change what she wanted to say. She looked down, leaned back, ¡°You know, I¡¯ve had a lot of time to think. I realised how stupid I am. I¡¯m not talkin¡¯ about the fact I never went to school, I mean- I thought back on the first time we hung out, me and Rori. I gave him a fake name, just to keep my distance a little. When Clover left, he came back into my life, stuck around. I thought... Doesn¡¯t matter what I was thinking, it¡¯s just so dumb that I gave him a fake name and expected him to give me a real one. To be real with me.¡± ¡°You trusted him,¡± sheets of paper were still in the doctors hand, ¡°you feel he betrayed you. You see the irony in that. Why would you want to defend a person like that.¡± Tayanita took a second to think about it. ¡°I don¡¯t know whether I''ll kill him when I see him, or if I''ll forgive him. Whether or not he¡¯s Rori, I want to decide, I want him to be alive for me to decide.¡± ¡°Alright,¡± the patient''s tone was getting agitated, ¡°alright. What about the night of the raid, how was your last meeting with ¡®Rori¡¯?¡± ¡°Humiliating. I asked him to leave with me, tried to... engage.¡± Attrition smiled, ¡°Yes, I understand. Concerning ¡®Shamrock¡¯ then, what would you say was different about him?¡± She answered almost immediately, without a second thought, ¡°He¡¯s working with another Unit, someone called Gurl.¡± The doctor nodded along, making note of everything, ¡°This ¡®Sea-Threw Gurl¡¯, that¡¯s very interesting. Perhaps a sign as to the current nature of this nascent strange zone... personality wise, how is he doing?¡± ¡°He babbled less. No incessant jokes. Showed his face. Before, he¡¯d have bitten your hand off to keep you away from the mask. He had venom in him that night...¡± Dr Attrition gave her room to speak, but was disappointed when she said nothing more, ¡°Nothing else, Tayanita?¡± The Akecheta blinked twice, pursed her lips, ¡°No. I haven¡¯t seen him in a while. He was out of town. Next time I see that green mask... next time I see Clover, either of them...¡± She was disconnecting quicker than Attrition would have liked. ¡°Then that¡¯s you done dear.¡± She reached out, touching the poor girl¡¯s hand. With the other hand the doctor reordered her files. ¡°Your mind has no physical form. It¡¯s a basin of thoughts, memories, and ideas. Unlike the body which is grounded in reality, and your intangible soul, the mind can be easily moved, it¡¯s a simple way of changing oneself. Imagine the basin that is your mind. Imagine it as a sink with a facet and a drain.¡± Attrition spoke kindly. ¡°Open the drain Tayanita. Let it go. The loneliness you¡¯ve felt for so long. The fear you learned so young. The humiliation Rori caused you. The hate. Let those foundations of your mind, so close to your soul and heart, let them wash away. Now, the memories, trickling specks of dirt that once clouded your mind like an ever present dust... Rinse them away. Let a new, clean water wash away that boy¡¯s face, the monsters, the ranch you grew up on, cleanse yourself of all the things you know to be foreign. Something at your core, something innately human, wants to ignore the strange and horrifying things you have seen. Trust it.¡± Tayanita¡¯s jaw slaked. Micro expressions that the doctor had learned to recognise twitched and pulled almost imperceptibly at the girl¡¯s blank face. Attrition smiled, sadly. She brought her hand away from the girl¡¯s hand and fixed her jaw back into place. It would be unbecoming if the patient started to drool. As Charity pulled her hand away from the girl¡¯s face, she brushed past her hair. Fixed it away. If only she¡¯d said yes. If only... This was the part she hated most. Reading off the document. The head researcher fumbled for her glasses and drew in a short breath. ¡°Clog the drain. Remove the chain from the plug. Clog the drain. Refill the pool with these thoughts Tayanita. Forget what was flushed away, you cannot recover it on your own.¡± The core of the Doctor¡¯s being didn¡¯t like doing this. She knew it was immoral. ¡°You¡¯re name is not Tayanita. You are not a monster hunter. Your name is Sarah Brooks. You¡¯re from Wisconsin. You moved to Northern Ireland in October of 2023 to pursue an interest in... business management. You¡¯re currently working at a bar to save up enough money to enrol in a succinct buisness course at Belfast university...¡± Dr Attrition listed specific dates and address that would soon become engrained in the subjects mind. She filled her head with anecdotes so she could integrate seamlessly into her new life. Stories and more stories. She took no joy in describing the time ¡®Sarah¡¯ cried from joy at her ninth birthday, when she broke her knee playing in the back yard, when she met Brad Pitt in the subway... She came close to the end and was frowning herself now. She checked the girls face. Still quite limp. Still as it was supposed to be. Still like Sequeyah¡¯s. Still that of the girl¡¯s. Foolishness is what Charity called the sore feeling in her chest, the feeling that made her brush another strand of hair out of the girl¡¯s face. The doctor forgot the script that the designers of this girl¡¯s life had written for her, studying her patients face. ¡°You... are friendly. Out going. You¡¯re the type of person that can get along with others without having to change much about yourself, in fact you pride yourself on that fact. You¡¯re an affectionate person.¡± Now the doctor¡¯s mouth was hanging open, ¡°You have hope for the future, though, not to the point of naivety.¡± The Doctor silently gathered her sheets, regretting her personal interference. She attempts to analyse herself. Why did she do that? Nostalgia? Regret? Or maybe, just maybe she wanted somebody to have a happy ending in this little misadventure. Lord knew the boy would wind up worse off than her. Thing¡¯s never went as expected, things always turn out worse than expected. Life is about excepting that. Part of her knew. A thousand sins... why not one neutral deed. ¡°Sarah,¡± Attrition said suddenly. The girl blinked, shaking her head. There was a tiredness about her. The mind was processing the terrible shift. ¡°Wha?¡± She looked around, pulled against the hand cuff trying to stand, and her eyes started to widen. ¡°Sarah?¡± The girl reacted well; Attrition smiled. ¡°You will not remember anything concerning prisons or doctors. When you get to your apartment, you will quickly fall back into your regular life, and this will have never been. Your friend will rectify any issues of memory.¡± The new girl was rightly confused and afraid, as Attrition waved at a door and guards came in to escort the innocent away. The doctor stood there in the light for a moment. Then turned her mind and body back to the current objective. She met with Robert and the rest of her own escort. ¡°Doc, are we really just going to leave her here? She¡¯s associated with the Mountain, she could draw their attention...¡± He didn¡¯t know. Robert was still trying to protect the boy and his secret. Though the girl was likely to escape, given enough time to observe her surroundings and overcome her withdrawal, unbeknownst to Robert, the bud had just been nipped. ¡°The Mountain is never coming for her,¡± this too was true, ¡°she and the rest of them have outlived their usefulness to the crown.¡± The blonde upstart exterminator snickered. He must have been amused by the fact she was sparing the cleaner from the cold truth. Charity would never admit it, but she took comfort in Bob¡¯s innocence. He was good. ¡°Anything on the kid?¡± Robert asked, unaware of what happened within that room besides questioning. ¡°Nothing really. She seemed to know less about him than I do. Besides the fact that in recent history he¡¯s been drawn thin, and that he has a poorly documented Unit on his side. Gunther, I want you to beef up my document on a Unit by the name of ¡®Sea-Threw Gurl¡¯. Sea as in the ocean, threw as in to throw.¡± ¡°Hunter,¡± the young man corrected hottily, ¡°and that¡¯s more a job for Bob. I have a duty to protect the VIPU.¡± Attrition raised her eye, ¡°Do you seriously think I would have brought you with me here if there was any danger to that little egomaniac?¡± Hunter¡¯s lips did not move. ¡°He has a Unit guarding him, and an amicable relationship with the sole being in this Country who poses a threat to him.¡± Bob was the one to take a hard stance, to contest her, ¡°With due respect doc, Right has more enemies than I have fingers. The Circuit Board just for starters, they¡¯ve had a presence here before, and we still need to find their base of operations in this area.¡± Attrition stopped dead in her tracks. She whiped her arm out and checked the watch on her wrist. Why was she checking her watch? She seemed to be working something out in her head as my String watched. What is she thinking? ¡°I suppose I can say now. It won¡¯t make a difference.¡± She did not look back at any of her companions. She searched the pristine white corners of the hall, finding a beady camera watching her. ¡°You see Robert, we made an effort to find the Circuit Board before this project commenced. We have their location. And the raid has begun. It¡¯s almost like clockwork really.¡± She finished addressing my String, guessing it was watching her, and turned back to her underling, ¡°It¡¯s poetic. That as you and I visit his home house, our co-workers should visit the lair of the Liquid-Crystal gods disciples.¡± The last thing my String heard from the doctor as it refocused itself on the surrounding area of the hideout, was ¡°Afterall, they¡¯re anathema to each other.¡± My string searched every camera, every cellular reception every possible outlet it could find... but everything was normal. The footage on the cameras was bare, the cell phones it found to be nearby were that of the regular dock workers, and so there was nothing to suggest that they were being observed, let alone raided. It wondered whether it was all a lie, an elaborate ruse. Did she simply want to scare us? Did she want to dissuade us from trying anything during her time with the maker? Or was she trying to goad us into doing something? Into interfering? Of course, the only threat she posed was psychological that went without saying- Breach detected in sub-lain 1. Breach detected in north wall, primary entrance and secondary. Breach detected in roof of stage area. I looked at it with my own eyes then, as they descended on my workshop. From a rope line, they launched explosive charges down on my work, upon my mobile tank, the tug boat, the rows and rows of inventions I had made from the unfinished work of deceased Units- They destroyed it all. I raised my arm, paralysing a bomb before it made contact with me, tossing it back to the roof. Little black twigs fell in a charred mess, and I could better see an R.O carrier up above. It soon moved on, and I was free to hear the rest of the building collapsing. I wanted to destroy them for this. These insects, whichever Unit was leading them in the field, and the Doctor. When the game is mentality, a psychiatrist can be more dangerous than a god. Right 9B.01: I made Lunch. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Right 9B.02: I got a blast from the past. ¡°That junk with J-on didn¡¯t screw you up, right?¡± I was up front with him, ¡°I hardly ever think about it anymore.¡± Axel nodded, turned on his swivel chair, and had some holographic screen projected in front of him. I was drowning in the silence of the conference room, the sterility of it gave me the creeps. The fact that he¡¯d found a conference room for us to tool around in didn¡¯t give me any comfort. It was like he¡¯d already invaded. He ignored me. I didn¡¯t know what to say. ¡°Geeze, you''re a lot less fun when you''re not in that costume,¡± he said at last. I felt so stupid with that helmet on my head. ¡°I¡¯ve got a different one now. I¡¯ve changed a couple times; they keep getting destroyed so I have to remake it.¡± Axel nodded. Silence again. He swiped. That stupid picture of me from Black-hole projected from the middle of the table. ¡°I haven¡¯t made any big changes to the design.¡± ¡°Uh-huh.¡± He left it there. I finally asked, ¡°What have you been at?¡± I didn¡¯t want to talk about myself anymore. ¡°Phew, let¡¯s see. Gynomorphs, that took a lot of my time. I¡¯ve been doing stuff with the Ints, but you know half of that already. Oh, there was something else... I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll remember, anyway, are we cool? Sometimes I have trouble catching the vibe.¡± What did I say to that? ¡°Yeah, I think so.¡± ¡°Cool cool cool, it¡¯s just, you seem kinda bummed. Lemme guess, the Doctor? Holy shit, I shoulda told you about that, she was psychoanalysing me, pulling up shit with my ex. You know that Cleaner you''re in contact with? My ex¡¯s boyfriend. I think he¡¯s kind of a weirdo.¡± I wondered if Bob had flashed him too. ¡°Bob¡¯s alright. I met Charlie in Babel.¡± He looked up from himself, ¡°For real? I knew you were over there, but... What was she up to? I mean, I can¡¯t imagine her really coming out of her shell to you, no offence.¡± ¡°No, she seemed to be doing alright. She¡¯s got a new contract with the Ints.¡± He nodded. Moved past it quickly. ¡°The Mountain girl moved, huh? Too bad, this shit hole¡¯s gonna be super dull without a fuck buddy. Don¡¯t suppose you could hook me up again?¡± I clenched my teeth. ¡°Nope. Sorry.¡± He leaned back in his chair. Then jumped out of it, ¡°Are you like, even the same guy? I know it''s been a while, and I sorta showed up out of the blue with these suits in tow, but goddamn!¡± I read some old posts of mine. God, I don¡¯t even recognise myself. ¡®Trauma¡¯ is such a bad word. Yeah, at this point I suppose it fits, but I don¡¯t like thinking of these events like that. It¡¯s like one big thing every month and then me dealing with the in-between. Sometimes, I¡¯m just licking my wounds, living day to day just waiting for the... the... okay, now I¡¯m sounding like my old posts. Axel was talking about the me who¡¯d make up songs on the spot about having a fat ass, who¡¯d laugh off getting flashed by a thirty-year-old. ¡°Alright, listen Axel, I¡¯m still a little out of it from my last fight.¡± ¡°What, the guy in Belfast? Wasn¡¯t that months ago?¡± ¡°No, Mothman. You know, that¡¯s when I admitted to murder.¡± He remembered, or maybe acted like he did, ¡°Yeah, yeah!¡± Then he grew serious sitting on the edge of the table. He said nothing except, ¡°Right.¡± I was as annoyed as him. For some reason I could neither lie and say I wanted to work with him, nor could I tell the truth. In computer terms, I couldn¡¯t put in one or zero, so I just couldn¡¯t... compute. I don¡¯t know computers. ¡°I don¡¯t know what we¡¯re doing.¡± I chose to be honest in the end. ¡°Right? I wanted to touch base first, but this is like talking to a guy you knew for one class in high school.¡± I took a shot in the dark, ¡°Did you see the latest MCU thing?¡± ¡°No. They really lost their focus past ¡®infinity war¡¯. Don¡¯t get me wrong, there¡¯s some good stuff every now and again, it just doesn¡¯t feel necessary, unrelated. It¡¯s like adding a bunch of new characters in the third half of a movie after killing the original cast.¡± I shrugged, ¡°I¡¯d probably check it out, but I can¡¯t afford Disney plus.¡± ¡°Damn, you¡¯re that broke?¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯ve seized a ton of drug money. But I can¡¯t pay a subscription with that.¡± ¡°Uh-huh. So... are we gonna fight to the death or...¡± I squinted my eyes and threw my arms up, ¡°We just started talking!¡± He wagged his finger, gave me a coy eyeing over his newly donned sunglasses, ¡°Art of war: take not only your enemies by surprise but also your allies.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s in there.¡± He smiled. If he¡¯d told me one of his powers was supernatural charisma, I¡¯d have bought it. When I think about him, yeah, he¡¯s a scummy billionaire who''s responsible for seven super powered terrorists wreaking havoc on humanity. But he can control the mood. ¡°It¡¯s just that, recently you¡¯ve gained a bit of a track record. You haven¡¯t been at this for a year and you¡¯ve already claimed your turf. You man handled that group in Belfast and the Princess, while doing your super shtick on the side! Sorry if I¡¯m, you know, intimidated.¡± He¡¯s trying to butter me up. Knowing that I was worth buttering up buttered me up on its own. ¡°I¡¯m not happy about you being here, honestly. I watched the presentation, don¡¯t know if I buy it. I¡¯ll admit, it¡¯d be nice if you delivered on all that stuff.¡± He let out an exaggerated ¡°Meh,¡± and then stood up again, swiping. ¡°Listen, my corporation isn¡¯t the greenest or most ethically sourced, but it¡¯s not like we¡¯re the real problem. You might have heard that the US produces way les gas then say China or Russia, but that¡¯s not what I¡¯m talking about.¡± He brought up a digital map of Ireland, hot spots decorating it like a Christmas tree. Kerry was worst of all. ¡°Don¡¯t ask me how because it¡¯s not my field, but this tells us your country is turning into a ¡®Weird Zone¡¯. You know that means people are gonna start noticing your ¡®activities¡¯, but that¡¯s not all. Typically, Zones follow a sort of theme. The cities have that whole ¡®tomorrow land¡¯ feel with the corporate skyline, there¡¯s the black forest in Germany which is chalk full of fairies. Like, the fugly kind. What sort of place is this gonna be?¡± I straightened myself, ¡°A comic book.¡± This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Axel smirked condescendingly. He swiped. A face I hadn¡¯t seen in a long time showed on screen. ¡°Ints caught this one before Valentine''s Day, guess it''s a sort of fairy too.¡± It was just the separately jarred body parts, fingers and feet and putty and eyes. ¡°The Pooka.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not calling it that. In fact, I¡¯m not going to call it a fairy either. This ¡®resident of the forest¡¯ has been here for God knows how long doing God knows what in service to who knows what God!¡± I wanted to tell him it was just an animal, but really, I¡¯d never found out for certain what it was. ¡°This place becomes your weird zone, what does that mean? Maybe a couple of people will start popping up and calling themselves super heroes or villains, or maybe, after you¡¯ve made it abundantly clear that this land is yours and yours alone, the universe is gonna start turning up potatoes for you laddie.¡± I folded my arms. He took the hint. ¡°Monsters, is what I¡¯m saying. Mindless threats that you can shut down day after day without any moral dilemmas. You mentioned Mothman, didn¡¯t you? After you beat it, this whole buzz started up again.¡± I didn¡¯t know if he was telling the truth. Sure, I don¡¯t feel very persuaded, but if this was a fact? Then I¡¯d be bringing a lot of trouble in for myself, Gurl, and everybody else in the ¡®Weird Zone¡¯. ¡°Right now, Ireland is an egg, like in a woman. It¡¯s fertile, it¡¯s waitin¡¯ to make a baby. Which sperm¡¯s gonna reach it first?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be gross.¡± ¡°I get where you¡¯re coming from, you and I aren¡¯t gonna see eye to eye. I¡¯m brains, you¡¯re brawn. And you know, maybe I shouldn¡¯t be in charge of shaping the world.¡± He crouched, assuming an American football position. ¡°Here¡¯s my pitch: instead of just you or me taking over, we merge.¡± He swiped. A graphic depicting a two headed sperm cell came up on screen. I cringed, he nodded surely, tossed something at me. I instinctively flinched at it. ¡°You and me: pioneering this Zone together. We¡¯ll locate the monsters, put ¡®em down, and we¡¯ll rebuild. Put on the shirt if you''re on board.¡± I looked at what he¡¯d tossed me. ¡°I¡¯m not wearing a shirt with semen on it.¡± ¡°It has your name on the back.¡± I turned it around. It said Shamcock. ¡°I¡¯m not fitting this over the helmet.¡± He gave me a look, ¡°You only get to keep it if you¡¯re on board.¡± ¡°Axel-¡± He smacked himself in the head. ¡°Shit, I remembered the third thing I was doing recently! Sort of two things, but in my brain, I put it under ¡®Ireland prep¡¯. First off, you wouldn¡¯t happen to know anything about a super ancient outergod¡¯s temple by the coast, would you.¡± All joking stopped. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ve been trying to pinpoint its exact location for a while, sort of a big reason I¡¯ve started coming over here. Eh, well I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll help me find it, if not, you might be able to hook me up with someone who can.¡± He was talking about Gurl. Considering what he and Clover did, his use of the term ¡®hook up¡¯ made me doubly uncomfortable. ¡°Also, figured I¡¯d save the bad news for last. This is kinda my fault but also yours. Well mostly yours. Do you remember when you came to my hotel room and met all my robots and one of them scooted on by you yelling ¡®free¡¯, ¡®free¡¯, and I told you it¡¯d be fine so long as there weren¡¯t any nuclear reactors nearby for it to feed off of?¡± ¡°Maybe?¡± He glared at me seriously. ¡°Welp, apparently, it''s still operational. A guy hacked my systems awhile back, he¡¯s got control of it.¡± I frowned. ¡°I want to say, ¡®it¡¯s the size of a toy train what¡¯s there to worry about¡¯, but...¡± ¡°Yeah, it got bigger.¡± He offered a hand, ¡°Wanna go smash it together?¡± I looked at him, his hand. I sighed. . . . Somehow it made it all the way to Navan. ¡°SEXY TWENTY-FOUR YEAR OLDS IN LIMERICK WANT TO MEET YOU!¡± I wasn¡¯t really in the mood for any of this, my side still ached. Luckily, Cam was keeping it in the barren mountains. The Centi-train kept spouting nonsense and advised us to invest in something or other. It was comprised of scrap metal, how it managed to piece itself together like this I have no clue. It didn¡¯t seem to be gravity tech, more like magnetism. ¡°Green, the original body is a cart segment up from you, get there and start digging.¡± Axel was in a nearby station, observing while I crawled across the behemoth. It was as wide as two trains beside and on top of each other, I couldn¡¯t see the end of it currently, metal pincers were trying to keep me down. It wasn¡¯t hard to fend them off, the real issue was keeping balance as this thing barrelled down this mountain. Cam was engaging the head with his eye guns, occasionally battering it onto a better course with its grav-tail. The two robots couldn¡¯t come too close however, both because of the Centi-train''s integrative properties and the various viruses the hacker had uploaded to it. I was getting closer and closer to the central worm, I could tell from how tightly packed the metal was, and the fact that this cart had a lot more fire power than the rest of the train. It had makeshift artillery cannons, which shot a couple dozen fat rounds before falling to pieces. For the most part, the caterpillar was a jagged mess of welded metal and refuse, the part of it that seemed to be of any real purposeful design were the electric pylons towering out from its body, electric arcs flying out to strike invading organisms. I¡¯ve been thinking about how I¡¯d handle electricity since Babel, should I use SP2 to reverse the direction of the current or nullify it completely? I read some stuff on google to try and wrap my head around AC and DC and volts, but none of it made any sense to me. Luckily, I wasn¡¯t the one drawing the attention of the lightning towers. Cam, Axel¡¯s building sized military grade bot had been fitted with sophisticated electrical equipment and a heat-resistant body. I don¡¯t know the specifics of how it resisted the attacks, but his metal body acted as a conduit and diversion while I made my approach. The whole thing made me feel like a flee. The giant caterpillar, giant chameleon, and the wide-open mountain range all served to make me feel tiny. I didn¡¯t wholly believe Axel had told me about this rogue AI because of an obligation to clean up his mistake, this was to make a show of how useful an alliance would be. A mouth opened in a segment between me and the last point, swallowing me by the legs. Cam took down a electrical tower with his machine guns, then landed above me. His body seemed to light up as an electric whine grew louder and louder. He tore at the metal teeth grabbing at me, slicing me free with his molten hands. I could have gotten out on my own, but it was in the AI¡¯s mission to save me. Unlike the rest of Axel¡¯s creations, Cam didn¡¯t speak, so I assumed he was personality-less. ¡°Green,¡± Axel said, ¡°It was trying to draw you into its wires, you¡¯d have gotten a nasty shock if Cam hadn¡¯t blasted that tower.¡± I didn¡¯t respond, there were clearly more important things than Axel¡¯s alternative motive. Cam backed off from the train, electrical arcs following him. I drove a fist into the slag metal, burning my hands for just a moment, before jumping low and straight. There was a sound from the core, constant and buzzing. Like the general announcements the train made every now and again, the whispering consistently prattled on about hot milfs in my area, free sex, and penis enlargement machines. I don¡¯t know how or why I listened out for the nonsense of this worm beneath, the constant metal chatter, the deafening scream of the thunder and lightning. I stuck my hand in, and found the original worm, and remembered it. It was like a rotten choo-choo train in my hand. The colour had long since faded to black on its hull, having driven pointlessly around the bogs and marshes of Ireland until it was no longer the same machine. It reminded me of myself. I put it out of its suffering. The train crashed. I tumbled about; crushed and battered by lifeless steel I waited patiently for it to go still. I found myself between a rock wall, a little stream, and a mountain of metal. I let it weigh on me for a moment, and then I got up. The mud and stone gave before the steel, but in the end it all moved for me. I reemerged to find Cam had helped move the train. You might think I¡¯d be thankful, but I wasn¡¯t. I was far stronger than this hulk of blue-pink steel towering above me. I did not wonder what I¡¯d have done without the machine, somehow, I just knew it would have turned out alright anyway. I wondered, was I too strong for Axel? Maybe he really was afraid of the man who¡¯d killed Belfast. ¡°Woo! Good job out there Shamrock! You low on HP? The Ints aren¡¯t far, they¡¯ve got rebirthing fluid free and ready for your poor sorry ass.¡± I looked around the mountain''s curves, seeing them nowhere. I could deal with Axel, but not the Ints. I nodded. He laughed on the other side if the earpiece. ¡°Aright, so you''re opening up, huh? What about you and me ¡®John Ireland¡¯? I think we made a pretty good team.¡± The most useful thing he¡¯d contributed was the intel, concerning the location and capabilities of the threat. Whether or not he¡¯d be as succinct concerning Ireland¡¯s natural monsters, who could say? ¡°Yeah,¡± I said, ¡°I think we can work together.¡± Cam lowered in a hunch, his massive figure head with its searching machine eyes inspected me. I wondered if it could tell I was lying, that I had no intention of letting this mega billionaire move in. ¡°Alright! That''s a good turn around. We can do a lot of good Sham, not just killing things either. You''re a better guy than me, your smart enough to know that things have gotta change around here or it''s just going to go to shit.¡± I¡¯ve almost been doing this for a year. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve improved the lives of ordinary people at all. I¡¯ve saved lives, I know that, but have I made the world a better place? If I had never existed, what would Ireland look like today? Samantha Burrows would still be alive. She¡¯d never assumed the role off Negative God in... in my stead. If what Sam showed me was real, then I¡¯m really not supposed to exist. I¡¯m supposed to be rubbing quasi-fourth-dimensional shoulders with Irminsul and J-on. What does it mean that I¡¯m not? If the truth is that I¡¯m the epitome of a negative existence, then what does it mean for me to be alive? From a factual standpoint I shouldn¡¯t be. I put my hand out for Axel, for Cam. The machine reached down with a warm hand. I said, ¡°I¡¯ll trust you.¡± I knew that the moment Axel slipped up, I¡¯d rip the rug out from under him. Hopefully, that would be enough to get the Internationals on my side. I hadn¡¯t much faith in either party, to be honest. Left 9A.02: An account of the International raid. th Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.