Witch (A Rewrite)

[Shujin]

Hi. If you read the original, I'm sorry. Witch wasn't really a project, so much as the plot bunny collection, and that did it a disservice. It really showed at the end that I had no idea what I was doing. I wanted to fix that, but that couldn't be done without at least some rewrites. So here we are. The Fair Lady has her fan name back. More worlds, more settings, more mythology goodness. Let me know what works for you and what doesn't. If you read any other stories of mine, do ask about E.L.F. It's next to get an update, but I can't say when.
​

Origin Story: Awakening​

In the Age of Ancients the world was unformed, shrouded by fog. A land of gray crags, Archtrees and everlasting Dragons. But then there was Fire. And with Fire came Disparity. Heat and Cold, Life and Death, and of course, Light and Dark. Then from the Dark, They came, and found the Souls of the Lords within the flame. Nito, the First of the Dead, the Witch of Izalith and her Daughters of Chaos, Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight, and his faithful knights.

And the Furtive Pygmy, so easily Forgotten.

Even as he never Forgot.

The tip of the flaming sword bit into the ash.

The blade shone. It shone with a bright, white light strong enough to cut through any shadow. Dimmer, silver light in the center of the blade - like sunspots on the surface of a star - formed dancing, flickering letters no man alive could read. Hungry, bloody orange flames burned along the edges. Were one to look closely and carefully, they would see the distortion wafting off the fire. Created from the heat. Created from something else.

One could look and see into the scorched edges of time.

These pale, faded embers were all that remained and still they hungered.

This was a sword for a God.

The blade ground deeper into the ash as more weight leaned upon it. A crown tumbled to the ground beside it. It was a resplendent circlet of gold with tall peaks and gently curved valleys. It was devoid of any other decoration, but evoking the sharp shapes of a sun's rays of light. It was a heavy, cumbersome piece not designed to be worn easily. Simple. And yet proud.

The crown of a King.

Matted hair caked in ash fell free, almost obscuring clouded, sky blue eyes. They were rimmed with angry, red welts and burnt skin as heavy brows shadowed them. The skin had dried to the texture of leather. Age lined the face with uncountable years. The pupils were wide, all seeing and seeing nothing, for all they were capable of seeing was a world of ash. These eyes would have wept for a dying world, had they but the tears left to cry.

These were the eyes of a Man.

"Quel," the Man breathed out from burnt lungs in air so dry, he was forced to cough. He struggled to clear his throat. Spittle black with soot stained his beard. "Quel," he said again. "Please."

"Gwyn," the Shade replied with just enough warmth to keep its tone from being as harsh as it was cold. She looked much the same she had in life; without flaw save for the scar that cut across her upper lip. It had long since healed, leaving only pink skin, a divot and lingering resentment.

It had healed poorly.

Russet hair in curls was tucked underneath a dark hood and eyes of molten gold dispassionately examined the Man.

"How far you have fallen."

The God was incensed with wounded pride. The Witch had never shown the proper reverence, and he knew she never would. He fought and bled and burned, but it would never be enough. The God would never see the world as the Witch did, and for that alone, he bore her disdain. The rest of her hatred, he understood. He had earned it.

As well as she had earned his.

The King set his emotions aside with practiced ease. Former rulers of former nations both were they, and he had learned the Witch's ways long ago. The Witch and the Dragon loathed one another for being too similar, which made them useful in keeping the other in check.

The Man was tired and ashamed.

"Yes." His hand fell away from the sword. It made no difference if he was holding it or not. He felt the ever present burn in his soul just the same. "Yes," he murmured, much quieter as he slowly knelt in the ash of the kiln. "How very far we have all fallen."

She made no response.

The girl was still.

The Great Kiln was a quiet place, the Man realized. Some when between the roaring sounds in his ears, the crackling and snaps of a hungry flame, he had failed to realize how very quiet it was in truth. The noise that accompanied life was absent. No rushing water, no whispering leaves. Just the sound of a cold wind through rusted metal.

How long has it been?

He reached out with trembling fingers, grasping ragged torn skin steaming with molten blood. The stink of burning human waste was strong. Experience as a leader of men in war told him that the wound was fatal, eventually. Even for one such as her. The blood burned him. It hurt, but he was used to that pain. Slowly, carefully, he pulled the wound closed. Fire, just fire, he knew to be inadequate. Her spared the girl a look and was both pleased and saddened that she had yet to completely lose consciousness.

She had a knight's grit.

This would hurt.

The God's hands lit with the heat of a dying star and the Man did not flinch when she screamed. He burnt the wound closed from the inside out, pinching together rubbery tubes and rendering waste to sterile ash. He was no healer or physician. He knew his solution was harsh and crude.

"Will she live?" He asked, unsure if he truly wished to know the answer. He remembered little. Rage, yes, he remembered rage. An unthinking haze that guided his strikes and as always, he struck true. He remembered this girl and how she hadn't fallen. The taste of rust and salt as humanity burst between his teeth. The sudden lucidity. "Quel."

"The tree," the Shade said with a distant gaze. "In the stump, quickly and she will."

The Man lifted the girl in his arms with less care than he should have due to haste. She gasped. Heated, trembling fingers twisted themselves into his faded robes, tightening with each movement. She was light, barely a feather with a soul heavy laden with borrowed flames. Hot tears steamed on his collar and he could hear her stifle cries.

The King ignored the fleeting impulse from the Man to apologize. It was pain she must endure so that she would live. To apologize for the necessary was wasteful and weak.

The remains of the Archtree was a sad sight, much as the kiln was. It was mostly ash now, the cold coals of a once great flame spilling over the hollow trunk onto charred, dead roots that broke apart beneath his boots.

He set her within a hollow between two thick roots thinly scored black, but she refused to pry her fingers loose.

The Witch let out a bark of laughter. "Unhand the man, child."

Child.

The Man paused as her fingers snapped open, releasing him. And he stared down at a pale, drawn face. The gods of Anor Londo were all tall and fair. Their blemishes had long since burned away in the sunlight. The Witch's daughters of Chaos had been much like their mother, all as beautiful and terrible as the sunset.

Short, pale gold hair with singed ends contrasted sea blue eyes. There was an old scar in her hairline, unevenly bleaching strands white and another along her collar bone. Her nose had been broken once. Newer scars and marks was a patchwork of angry red welts and puckered skin, telling a tale of imperfect healing. It was curious. The only scar he had ever seen on a god was the one on the face of the Witch of Izalith. Perhaps it had been because he had given it to her.

Flame against Flame.

The unevenness of the girl's features glared out at him. Her left eyebrow was higher above the eye than the right and too small ears. The fingers that had held him so desperately were long and delicate, contrasting the almost brutish body shape. She was short. Too small. Far too small.

Child.

Barely more than a child.

The girl was too flawed to be anything other than human.

Her blood told the tale that she was anything but.

"She's ugly," the God said in surprise.

The girl and the Witch snorted in unison.

"Yeah?" The girl hissed underneath hot agony. "Well," She drew in a harsh, fortifying breath, as if preparing to deliver a message of great import. "Fuck ...you too."

The Shade tutted, drifting closer.

The girl's teeth ground together as more of her burning blood dribbled down her sides and smoldered in the smooth, bone white bark of the giant Archtree.

"I know," she spat and groaned as the effort pulled at her stomach. "I know," she whispered.

The Shade knelt by the tree and made slight, wispy designs in the ash about the girl's feet. She made no comment on the girl's flawed nature. Perhaps it did not merit one.

The Witch was no stranger to having monsters for children. "Be strong," the Shade murmured affectionately. "For a little longer, child."

The Man marveled.

He had long since known that it was the Witch's soul that burned as warm as any hearth.

Not her heart.

Death treated her well, he supposed.

"Strong, for what?" The Man asked.

The Witch spared him a glance. "You have not considered why she would risk herself so, to save you from your own mistakes, have you, Gwyn?"

The King hurriedly buried the memories of pain.

"And you know not to try my patience."

For a long moment, the Shade simply stared at him. Her gaze was heavy and lasted just long enough for him to begin to wonder when the familiar, cruel smirk flitted onto her face.

"You were not entirely wrong," the Witch murmured. "I was not interested in saving the Flame. Not as such. Not as it was."

The King remembered. He remembered the arguments, only growing fiercer and crueler as the years past as they clashed trying to answer simple questions: What can be done? What should be done?

What should they not.

The King had looked towards the Flame in the Kiln, convinced of a righteous calling. Nito had resigned itself to the fate of the world, for the First of the Dead knew that all things must eventually pass. The Witch had looked inward, and had been invested in answering completely different questions. It did not surprise him to see her here, even if it should. For she who had delved into all matters of the perpetuation of the Lord Souls, he half expected her death over a thousand years ago had only been a temporary setback for the Witch of Izalith.

She was that kind of woman.

The King remembered a boy. A small, misshapen, hideous brute of a babe, bleeding lava through open sores as it whimpered and squirmed maimed limbs. He had recoiled in horror, a curse on his lips.

A failure, he remembered the Witch saying. For what, of what, and why, she didn't say. Just that she had birthed the boy, and he was a failure.

The child that started a war.

The Man swallowed his pride. "You...were right."

It had taken eons of agony to realize it. After centuries of toil, and decades of sacrifices, the good King refused to stain his hands any more. And when he took up the divine, and felt it scorch his very soul with empty, mindless, desperate hunger, he knew.

He hadn't been saving anything.

Just delaying the inevitable.

For no meal was infinite. Even the most frugal of consumers would eventually devour it all.

"You were right," the Man said again.

The Shade looked down at her child with a mirthless chuckle. "Gwyn, you old fool." She sighed and leaned forward to brush golden hair from a sweat soaked forehead. "We were both right."

He understood.

"This time," the Shade said. "Trust me this time."

The God raised a hand, and called his blade to him. From where it had fallen, it burst into a shower of silver embers tinged bloody red, and reformed in the palm of his hand. The fire lining the edge thrummed with its hunger. The girl could tell. Her blue eyes pried open, bloodshot with pain. Her gaze was steady. Afraid, but brave.

"Her name?" The Man asked.

The Shade hesitated. "Lord Gwyn, this is...Raan. My youngest, my daughter in every way that matters."

The girl's eyes widened with surprise and...grief.

Her youngest.

Quelraan.

Child of the Inferno.

Born to be sacrificed.

"She's ready."

His blade struck true, piercing the heart and pinning the girl to the sad remnants of the once great Archtree. She tried to scream, opening her mouth only for molten blood to drown the sound. The pain would fade. It would be subsumed by a different, enduring kind of pain that would haunt every waking moment and every sleeping nightmare. It would be there when she spoke, when she laughed, when she cried. When she hated, when she loved. She would taste the agony on her very breath.

The God would know.

He could feel when the Flame of Disparity realized it had an offering. It abandoned him. One moment, he remained the Lord of Sunlight, even if it was simply cinders. The next, he was lord of nothing but barren ashes. A cold void bloomed in his chest and numbed his fingers as the girl choked back a cry. The embers of divinity rose up to burn underneath her skin. Seared down to her bones. Hungry flames began to lick at her very soul.

Souls.

The God felt them.

The Lord Souls.

"You have them," the God whispered as he stared through the flames at the child. An old fury smoldered, tired.

Frampt.

All of the Lord Souls taken from the Flame were there, burning within the girl. The cold, pale flame of the First of the Dead. The bright, shining long thought lost shards of his own, of Sunlight. He stepped forward, driving the blade deeper as he stared into the girl's eyes.

"My knights," he snarled and the Witch laughed.

"Burned, of course." Her smile was wide and mocking. "What did you think would become of them, when you offered your Soul to the fire?" Her question shook him. The tremor rang down the sword arm. "Did you imagine the Flame would spare a single morsel?"

"Seath," he tried and rejoiced as her smile fell.

"Your pet lives," the Witch sneered. "It will live for a long time."

The Man grunted in acknowledgment, and turned his attention back to the child at his feet.

And finally, the burning soul of the Izalith.

But. There was, perhaps. One other.

M̡ͯ̀ͬ́̾ͦ̏̊̂̓̋̋̂ͧͪ̍͆̍́̕͏̘̝͇̦͔̠̠͇̘͓͈͓ȧ̵̧̨̞̗̗̘̘̠̠̥͗̓͛̆̾̄ͯ̓͝͡ņ̸̷̵̩̳̺̙̘̳͇̰̩̘̥̩̓ͫ̎̃̓ṳ̶͈̻͉͉̳̥̋̿ͨ̓ͭ̄̐͑ͫ̆ͤ̚͞s̨͎̪̬̩̃ͭ̇̎͑ͤͭ͗̋̀̀,̴͓͙̪̦̥̲̯͔̜̖̻̻̱̳̜̗͓̎̿͒ͥ͜͠͝ ̷̫͇͖͖̮̮̤̬̥̲̹̳̮̘̦̝̘̠̂̒ͭ̌͑͒̿ͭͫͭͩ̈͑͒͜T̀̿̓ͣͥ̽ͨ̌̈́̋͛̾͋͌̈́̄͡͏̝͉̬͖̳̲̠̗̤̩̗̬̺͕͙̞̥̹́̀̕h̸̞̲̥̺͈̘̗͇̮̲̤̦͚̺̞͎̬̞̒ͪ̽ͭ̾̂̀͢e͂̎̂̂͗͌ͭ̄̃ͭ҉̵͔̝̻̲̤̝̳͔̺̜̝̪̀ ̵̤̗̗̟̤̥̙̞͎͚̙͍̉ͧͫ̾͛̓͗̀̕͟͢P̡̆ͦͩͦ͑ͦͮ͏̮̻̙̗̣͜y̷̥̖̥̻ͫ̃̑͂͑̈͊͌ͧ͛͐̔͛ͭ̑ͥ͂̀̕͢ġ̵̼͕͖͕̜͗͐ͩͧͤ͂̐ͮ͌̈̋ͦ̐ͭ͋̚͞m̧̜̤̖̼ͭ̿̾̋ͨ͋ͤ͊̑̈ͩ͂ͨ͒ͮͭ̆ͬy̧̖̮̤̘̺̠̙̮̳̼̣̗͈̲̓̾ͮ̅̽͌̏͝​

The Gravelord's image manifested first as a large shadow with a multitude of gleaming skulls locked in perpetual rictus grins. The skeletal bodies were shrouded in its dark, tattered robe. The curved blade it held was rusted and snapped. It looked much as it had in life, except, it seemed, tired. The Gravelord's ghost hung in the ashen air of the kiln, silent as a tomb. The God barely had time to whisper "Nito" before the soul became as dust.

The Shade was clutching her daughter's hand. "I'm sorry and I'm proud of you."

"Your…" The girl struggled to get the words out. Every syllable was tight with pain. "Daughter?"

"Yes, in every way that matters." The Shade leaned in and tenderly kissed her daughter's forehead. "Which is why I must apologize."

The child knew what was coming.

Her eyes darted towards her mother as she gripped the hand tightly. "No," she moaned. "Don't go." Fingers slick with her own burning blood slipped off the dark silken sleeve it tried to grasp. "Please. Please, don't go!"

"Izalith is Aag's to rebuild." The Shade smiled a smile that did not belong to the Witch of Izalith. "Aan must never regret her compassion and Ana. It was not her fault. And if she will not accept it, then I forgive her."

It belonged to a mother saying goodbye.

The girl shuddered. The Flame had begun to eat through her skin as tongues of white-orange flame wafting off her in a bright silhouette. His blade rusted through and with the slightest pressure, snapped off at the hilt. The Man let it fall. The wound it left was slowly closing, molten skin sealing a brilliant light inside.

He raised fingers to his own heart and the jagged scar.

It was cold.

"Will you tell them?"

The girl couldn't speak. Her eyes shone like a torch lit in darkness through her eyelids as she cried silver tears.

The slightest nod.

The Mother trailed ghostly fingers across the girl's brow.

The Shade became cold embers.

Then it was just the two of them. The Man could feel the divine flame eat through the many shards of his splintered soul. He had little to say. All of his goodbyes had been spoken eons ago, when he first came to this great kiln and grasped his destiny.

His children were not here and the Man despaired.

"You are very brave," he told the girl. Sweet smelling smoke had begun to gather as the Archtree burned. The kiln would reprise its role. The Witch did not have him place her there to save her life, he realized. His smile turned bitter.

How long has it been? He wondered idly. How long had he been attempting to hold back the fate of the world with his own two hands?

How long had he been running from death?

And yet here he was, passing his duty and righteous calling, to a scared, mortal child of his former enemy. His feet refused to move. His arms shook. He had lost his crown somewhen, but his head was still heavy with its burden.

He would laugh, had he the inclination.

He would cry, had he the tears.

The Man was simply tired and ashamed.

"Very brave, indeed."

With a quiet exhale of breath, the God let go. The King abdicated and the Man rested. He felt his body become as the soft, warm light of Dawn. The cold fleeting for a precious moment. The the light faded.

And then there was one.

And it would not go quietly into that night.

For the Four Lords were the Four faces of Disparity, the forces of change the Fire brought to the world. For in the Age of Ancients, the land had been unformed, shrouded by fog. A land of gray crags, Archtrees and Everlasting Dragons before They came.

Lord Gwyn, Lord of Sunlight, was the Light against the Dark. Quel, the Witch of Izalith, the Heat against the Cold. And the Gravelord Nito was Death after Life. But there was another face of Disparity, so easily forgotten. It moves subtly, unseen and unfelt, but its effects now known to all.

Time.

A desire to survive was a Want that became a Need powerful enough to trap the girl in a twist of Time. One Want grating against another. A hand of twisted fingers tipped with human eyes tore itself free. The apotheosis was interrupted.

The girl must ascend. Or she will die.

She did not want to die.

In this, she and the divine Flame of Disparity were in complete accord.

The great, ancient Archtree burnt to cinders. The smoke billowed upwards as the ash settled and the embers smoldered in the ruin.

One soul screamed.

And another awoke.​

The kiln was empty once more.

 

[Shujin]

Origin Story: Awakening​

It began with the ignition of a spark.

A spark only one in a million sentient beings had the potential to possess. And of those, only one in a million would ascend. Half would fade immediately, the cold darkness all too eager to swallow them whole. Half of those remaining would be snuffed out in their first steps. Such a flawed, incomplete awakening should have ended in oblivion.

For this weak, fractured and fragile flame knew nothing. Of itself, nor of the wider reality it found itself in. It lacked power. It lacked experience. It was not talented, nor wise. It was nothing. It was an empty vessel, bleeding heat.

The Witch had been more right than even she knew. This hollowed soul had been born to be sacrificed.

And so the journey began, with the ignition of a spark.


The bullet bit through the air towards his head.

Or rather, where his head had been a split second ago.

Miss, he thought. A clean one, he could feel the air pressure whinge past his right ear, but still too close. Miss, he thought again, but it was not a statement. It was a command as he willed himself to move. To make the shots miss. His perception of time slowed. He ignored the crude three pronged iron sight, trusting his own eyes to make sure that he didn't.

The 10mm HV nail crunched through thick kevlar with enough force to lift the clone off its feet. One. He hit the exposed concrete pillar with his right shoulder, ignoring the grating, grinding pain of the dislocated joint. Used the momentum to spin past brushes of air - neck, shoulder, spine, spine, kidney - to lay eyes on the next target who was already turning to confront him.

Too slow.

"Contact!" The shout came in a deep, warbling timbre. Distorted. "We got him! We got him!"

Two shots. One under the chin up through the base of the skull, a second through the left eye, just to be sure.

He darted forward, throwing his gun to the side to catch the body. Twist behind it and crouch, painful impacts shuddered through the warm corpse as it caught bullets. He unclipped the grenade from his belt. From the angle of the shots, pincher. Left and right. Left was above. He recalled the layout of the room.

Oval. The angles of a rectangle softened by debris and a collapsed wall. Hole to the outside street, exposed. Hole in ceiling, three story building over fifty years old. Asbestos still in the walls. Gas mains? Abandoned, but lights were on. Generator. Decision made he pulled the pin and began to count down.

Four seconds.

But time was deceptive like this.

The edge of his vision was narrowing. Difficult to see in the poor lighting. His entire range of sight nearly swallowed by the black helmet and darkly tinted visor. He could just barely make out the identical features.

Low quality, his training told him. Second, maybe third generation. Susceptible to cancer. Harsh, cheap treatment left them bald and covered in sores. It didn't matter, they could operate through the pain. They were built to survive getting shot. That's what mattered.

Five.

He angled his wrist. Past the body, missing the pipes, to bounce off the broken door. He saw it in his head.

Six.

He let himself relax. The headache was immediate.

Seven.

He knew as soon as it left his hand that it was a good throw.

Now, again.

"Gren - " He grit his teeth as his head pulsed. Stand, palm pistol, sloughing the body off to the right to slump against the radiator.

" - aaaade!" Footsteps echoed through rotting floor boards. Standard five man squad. Missing one. The clone on the floor above was scrambling backwards in slow motion. He felt the sneer form.

Right into the blast radius.

Low quality.

Three.

He brought the pistol up. Just behind the boarded up door, a black barrel peeking through a gap in the barricade. He could visualize the posture, the angle of the gun, the black helmet. He'd seen it enough.

They were all alike.

The bullet crunched through the wood, a sharp cracking sound as it hit the armor. He was already grabbing his gun up from the floor. It's heavy weight was comforting, the sound of the nail gun spitting its 10mm flechette more so.

Four.

Silence.

"Theta squad, confirm your position! I repeat, confirm your - " The radio crunched under his heel as he picked his way across the room. Ears straining. Head aching. It would fade, eventually.

The side of the building was open to the streets of Auburn. Past the molding wallpaper, gutted light fixtures and mildew stains was the hint of what it might have looked like thirty, forty years ago. The smell of smoke mixed with the smell of rot. The place hadn't aged well.

He put his back to the sturdy side of the gap and carefully leaned in to look at the buildings on the other side of the street.

Movement.

He pulled back, annoyed.

Building to building shootouts were not his favorite thing in the world.

He inhaled a quick, sharp breath and felt the pain in his head blossom anew. He spun out into full view, using himself as bait, watching the clone react slowly. It barked something too distorted to make out and -

The burning woman appearing in the middle of the street didn't phase him. He had enough time to realize her hair was blonde, not black, before the sound of her scream hit him.

It cut right through his head.

It was as if he had been in a dark room for years, only to be blinded by the sun. The sudden, eye-gouging pain seared from temple to temple. He could feel himself seize, thrown into an icy pool of water that numbed all his limbs. His gun clattered as it fell from his fingers out the gap, clanging against the wall on its way to the street. It was hard to think.

It was hard to breathe.

The bark of a rifle shot pushed back.

In the quiet, he could hear the dull thud of a body crumpling to the cracked asphalt. He grit his teeth. Think later. The clones can operate through the pain.

This time the thunder going off in his skull nearly knocked him out.

But he just needed one second.

He heard the sound of the bullet leaving the barrel. Flash of light off the scope. The fraction of time between one pump of the finger and the next.

Miss.

Jerk of the recoil, bark and all that was left was a body.

Breathe.

He ducked back under cover. No sense in being sloppy. He closed his eyes and waited for the pounding to fade. He half expected to see him when he opened them, but there was nothing. Nothing but corpses. Five he made, one that didn't belong.

His hands were shaking. There was a buzzing in his head, the low hum of a wary swarm by his right ear. Before he could talk himself out of it, he leaned around the wall to look down at the street.

She hadn't disappeared.

She lay where she had fallen, face down and with a twist to her body that told him the off center shot had caught her completely off guard. The fire was out, but her skin was still steaming. Bumps like insects or fingers crawled around her back. Bullet wound in the back of her head was black, little blood. He frowned then, narrowing his eyes as he tried to catch more details.

No blood.

The buzzing in his head was louder.

"Run." An unfamiliar voice rang out from inside his head.

He quickly took stock. Pistol. Three grenades, two frag, one incendiary. He spun on a heel, stalking over to the nearest body and divesting it of its G2A2. He hefted the assault rifle, familiarizing himself with the weight again. He took position in one of the windows. The sill was rotten all the way through, making the wood soft. A hard tap with the butt of the gun knocked out the remaining glass.

A limb burst from the woman's back. Hard and chitinous, the leg of a crab or spider and covered with human eyes.

The pull of the trigger was automatic. Loud staccato beats burst through the air. They echoed back to him as sharp cracks against organic armor.

No damage.

Every eye swiveled towards him.

"Run!"

He ran.

_______________
​

"Holiday!" The comm screeched. "Holiday, come in god damn it!"

"Holiday, reporting in," the captain barked back before his voice turned wry. "That's the sound of our medvac being cancelled, ain't it?"

He picked his way through dilapidated corridors, stepping over trash and debris from caved in ceilings and broken walls. At some point, everything here had been boarded up to keep out vagrants. Large orange letters spelling 'Condemned' scribbled on walls did nothing to distract from rust red and black stains smeared in pools on the floor. The odd skeleton or two among the rats. The whole place had seen some shit.

And that wasn't stopping anytime soon.

"You bet your ass it is! Pack Jin up and get out of there, ASAP!"

Holiday let out a snort. "Easier said than done. Central, what's going on out there?"

"We're getting reports from damn near all over, Replica forces enroute to your location. The sooner you get out of there, the better."

So they heard it. The scream.

He heard it.

"Distance does not matter, only sensitivity." In the corner of his eye, there was the shadow of a woman. Piled up, broken furniture in a crude barricade blocked the - with loud screeching of metal on old linoleum and rotten wood, the passage cleared. "Left now."

There was a hitch in his step, but he grit his teeth and turned into the room. It led out into a foyer, where there used to be a wall with a door separating the two. A hole in the floor, about five feet wide. After a cursory sweep with the gun mounted flashlight, he lowered himself down. Second floor, an open window led to a back alley. He could use this.

His head was a popular place to be, it seems.

That earned him an amused snort.

"Jin's in no condition to be moved, and even if she was, it's going to be hell on my leg to do the moving!"

"We don't have much of a choice, captain. Med is going to have to go straight through Replica forc - we got a visual, put it on screen!"

There was a beat of silence.

"Holy Mary Mother of God...what is that?"

The ghost he picked up sighed. "A containment failure, is what it is." The chain link fence in front of him tore a hole in itself. "A metaphysical contamination in the aggregate soul structure, several contaminants oscillating off each other in a chain reaction - "

"Are you seeing - all forces, get the hell out of Auburn! I repeat, get out of - "

Static.

He stopped walking, a warning growl in his throat.

His ghost held up a hand. "You and yours leave the area. Leaving these 'Replica' with Nine-oh-Seven - the creature, and hope nothing stupid happens. Does that sound like a solution to you?"

He glanced at her silhouette out the corner of his eye.

"This situation is my responsibility, but I will need your help." She paused. "As a show of good faith…"

His eyes widened.

Four aquamarine eyes gazed back at him from an elfin face highlighted by long ears and thick, black hair that looked more like thin feathers than strands. He didn't have words for the clothes she wore. It hadn't been in his training, but he noted that there were stiff sections of armor beneath the loose cloth colored in blues and whites.

The strange hallucination bowed her head.

"You are speaking to the 76th Adjudicator Shard of the Resplendent Warring Dawn, but for simplicity's sake, you may call me Llamin." She smiled. "And I am a planeswalker."

 

[Shujin]

Thought I posted this yesterday, apparently not. My bad!

Origin Story: Awakening​

He knew English.

He'd been rated on his ability to comprehend orders in four languages, English was one of them. So he knew what, individually, each of those words meant. They just didn't make any sense together. He was left giving his hallucination a blank look, not even sure where to start.

All four of her eyes rolled in different directions. "I am a shard of - never mind, it isn't relevant. You are familiar with the concept of a solar system." It wasn't a question. "A plane is like a world. As each world in a system has its own gravitational pull, composition and orbit, so do each plane."

He was following so far, but he wished he wasn't. The concept itself was far above his pay grade, and promised to make everything more complicated.

"Yes, well - " She looked away from him for a second. "I will explain as you go."

He looked away, checked the ammo in his pistol and listened to the wind.

The urban decay had bitten deep into this apartment complex. The last one had at least looked like it had been living space once upon a time. The trash of things too inconvenient to move when you wanted to leave in a hurry, trash of things too inconsequential to take and trash of things forgotten piled up in rotting heaps. This one? This one didn't have trash. It had the occasional showroom, uncomfortably stiff couch in a corner showing off a living room to buyers that never existed. Most of it was rubble. Dirt. Plaster dust and plywood shavings.

The walls didn't have holes. There were walls and there were holes. Holes with boards sticking out like an exposed rib cage. Just from the look of it, it was unclear if the building had ever been finished, a construction project building homes for the dwindling number of people. Maybe the money ran out, or whoever commissioned the project realized they were dressing up a hole in the ground.

Auburn had been a bustling, busy industrious place once. From a bird's eye view, the entire thing had been built outwards from old military compounds in the center. Once condemned, twice closed down. When Armachan closed down, it took the life of the city with it. When the company came back, growth was sluggish.Stock portfolios flat lined. Hiring all the time. Sucking down money into the red digits no matter what they did.

Looking at this mess, he wondered why they tried.

"It's theoretically possible for one to move between planes. Practically possible, if the planes are close enough, but what separates them isn't something as simple as percentage of oxygen or ammonium in the atmosphere." The ghost's form clipped through a corner, exposed pipes and wiring disappearing behind ghostly folds of cloth. "It's reality. Each plane has a different reality rule set. Gravity works how it works here. It may not the next plane over."

That sounded like a tactical and logistical nightmare.

"Yes." Her smile was wry. "Then believe me when I say Nine-oh-Seven was created to burn through planes."

He stopped walking.

"Not just your nations and oceans," she continued. "Not just your planet. Not just your solar system. Your reality. Your entire reality."

He had never been very familiar with the concept of overkill. He heard the term a few times from other units, enough to piece together what it meant. He was meant to be deployed in missions where there was a reasonable expectation for a need of solo, high ability combat units. Overkill would be deploying a squad of units of his caliber in missions he could complete alone.

It was a hypothetical term. They didn't have a squad of units of his caliber.

If extreme measures were deployed, it was because the situation called for it. That was what he was taught. The line between 'too much' and 'not enough' often came down to the wire. Lives were wasted when the superiors tried to walk the tightrope.

"A pandemic," she began. "A disease so virulent, it can spread through any vector of exposure. Gas, liquids, solids. There is no incubation period and a one hundred percent infection rate of every organic being. Plants. People. Amoebas. Bacteria. Viruses." She said it quickly, rapid fire. Clinically. "One in three will die. The remainder will...turn rabid. There is no known cure."

Super-ebola, he thought. Or rabies.

The blonde screaming woman had been on fire.

Burn the plague out?

Where did the spider leg covered in eyes come in to the picture?

"Containment failure." His hallucination drifted in front of him, scanning the alleys with a frown. "Implant, imprint, stabilization, initialization. Steps one and two were completed as directed."

Which meant step three was the cause of the recent SNAFU.

"Situation normal, all fucked up?" Her head tilted, like a cat or a bird. "Appropriate."

The mission had been fucked from the first five minutes..

'What is your earliest memory?'​

He grit his teeth. It didn't get to him. It shouldn't have gotten to him. He was trained not to let it get to him. He shook his head roughly.

It was the quiet, he thought. After hours of fighting through clones, it was quiet.

That was what was getting to him.

He rounded the next corner gun up, finger on the trigger. He knew the objectives of the other squad, in case at some point the situation developed to where their purposes crossed. He was in involuntary radio silence, but the last he heard was a call for retreat.

But he had objectives.

"And I will help you." The boards crisscrossing a door in his path shattered themselves to large splinters.

Yes, but then. She would want something in return.

"Is that so wrong?" she asked. "My problem will become yours, if it's not already."

It would be outside mission parameters. He had not been trained for anything remotely nearing that scenario. No one was. It was not his call to make.

She scoffed with very real disgust. "Soldiers."

He picked his way through the building, following a mental map. Nothing stopped him. No Replicas. No ATC.

Just silence.

He opened a red door cautiously, heart so far up his throat he could feel it beating. He could choke on it.

At first all he saw were rusted metal shelves lining the walls. The back wall had a large hole in it, a shortcut to the next room over. He put his back to the left wall, just brushing the shelves and crept forward just enough to see into it.

Alice Wade laid crumpled in the corner, surrounded by a pool of her own blood.

Fear and anger both screamed, a torrent of chaotic, raw emotion felt like it would burst out of chest. Then it was gone. Numbed. He swallowed something bitter. His grip on the pistol was steady.

This would not affect him.

Blood was rushing through his ears.

He was trained to not let this affect him.

"Focus!" The hallucination snapped at him. "I need you to concentrate!"

He blinked slowly.

Focus.

Bullet wound to the head; frontal bone, glabella. Exit wound, occipital bone. Shot angled downwards towards spinal column. Held down, kneeling? Didn't move, couldn't move. No other visible marks, bruises or scratches. Clean.

"Exactly. This can be reversed."

He let out a long, slow breath.

Reversed.

Death.

Now he knew he was crazy.

There was a loud, screeching sound as the rusted metal shelves in front of the hole slammed itself to the side. Some part of his brain said 'localized psychic phenomena,' but it had happened to many times in his favor for him to believe his ghost wasn't doing it. How was a question he wasn't equipped to answer.

He shuffled through the hole, the iron smell of blood wafted up to his nose.

Reversible.

He honestly didn't know what he would do if that was true.

Alice Wade's blue eyes were still open. She looked terrified.

"Very recent, good." His ghost crossed in front of his line of sight, stepping lightly around the body. "This might sting a little."

That was the only warning he got before his entire body seized in pain. His nerves were being peeled open one by one for molten lead to be poured in. His head throbbed, one half at a time, fire racing between the lobes. White light burned his eyes. Dimly, he heard a shot going off, but he couldn't tell he even had fingers.

It flared long enough that when the pain finally left, there was a void where feeling would have been.

At some point he'd fallen. His vision blurred badly, black creeping in on the edges.

"Active psychic potential." The voice was clear, and rough. It grated on the inside of his skull. "And yet ability to channel mana nigh completely atrophied." The voice tutted. "Careful, careful. New plane."

Shapes. Shadows.

"Don't waste assets."

Then nothing.

 

[Shujin]

Origin Story: Awakening​

Getting res - resurrected wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Her brain tried to say 'resuscitated.' Because she knew that could bring people back when they weren't breathing, or their heart stopped.

But not when their brain was splattered against the wall.

The faded words of 'Pendleton Inc.' stared back at her on top of the dilapidated warehouse building. She couldn't tell what color the paint was, as if she wasn't seeing through her own eyes. The rusted pipe with flaking paint felt strange under her palm, like it was fragile. Like it would break if she leaned too hard.

Everything was wrong.

Everything was wrong and she honestly didn't know if it could ever be right again.

Nothing was the same. She had been here, not that long ago. Passing through, too preoccupied with investigating where the chemical pollution was coming from to notice the skeletons of industry. Nothing but the ghosts of old newspapers on the wind and the shadows of large machinery left. It made her feel like she was haunting the place. A specter. Like she never came back, or like she came back wrong.

The hum of industrial air intake fans sounded off, like they were a note too low, or the timbre had changed. The usual creaks and groans of old warehouse buildings didn't sound like they belonged, like there were echoes underneath she could barely hear. The nighttime breeze felt rough on her skin, like sandpaper. Her sense of balance had taken a turn for the worse, leaving her tripping over her own two feet more often than not. Like her right knee was giving way, or like her legs were numb.

Her clothes were heavy. Sticky. Her shirt smelled like iron, constantly clogging her nostrils and drowning every other smell out. She tried not to think about it.

She had a headache. Right between the eyes.

Don't think about it.

Don't think.

The alien brushed past her through the open garage door. The woman felt like air, a slight pressure on the skin and that was it. The soldier was still unconscious, floating behind. Without the black face helmet thing, he looked both older and younger than she expected. She thought her would-be rescuer would have been a grizzled, salt and pepper combat veteran on an elite black ops team.

Only the best for Harlan Wade's daughter and all.

What she got was someone who couldn't be that much older than her, but the stress lines on his severe features cut deep into his cheeks and forehead. It said he lived through a lot, maybe too much. It aged him by a good decade, like stress did her father. He was frowning in his sleep, troubled.

She told herself it was just to check on him, when she reached out and ghosted fingers over his neck.

A pulse.

He was warm.

Alive.

He felt alive.

Then he was past her too and her hand was cold. She felt her own neck, again, searching for that beat. Cold skin on cold skin. Dead skin, her mind whispered.

Come on.

Come on, come on. Where is it, where is it?

The small, almost imperceptible pulse under her fingertips made her shudder, falling against the frame of the garage door.

Weak. Weak, but there.

"Be happy. Be happy. You got a second chance." Alice couldn't help the small laugh that stretched into a groan as she gingerly probed her forehead for the bullet hole she knew should be there. She could almost still feel it, the metal fragments in her brain. The phantom exit wound at the base of her skull felt like it was radiating heat. Venting. When she stood still, the crawling sensation of warm liquid dripping down her back returned.

"I am not handling this well," she hissed to herself. Honesty, right? She could be honest with herself. The Wade household had made a big deal about honesty, starting when she was a little girl having terrible night terrors. Dad had kept a journal. Any dream, big or small, he wanted to know about.

This wasn't a dream.

She wished it was.

"That goes away. Eventually." The soldier's floating body gently settled down in the bed of a pick up truck.

Alice crossed her arms, gripping them in her hands and feeling her nails dig into her skin. It didn't hurt as much as it should. She had time to get used to the idea of four eyed people. Not a lot, admittedly, but having been dead bothered her more.

"Eventually?"

"Eventually," the alien woman affirmed without a shred of consolation. "Figure out how to close that door, would you?"

Alice nearly leapt to obey, spinning on her heel as she searched for that big red button switch, already feeling that sense of rightness establish itself.

She made herself stop. Careful. Watch that.

Good old American values made her stiffen her spine. It gave her the strength to talk back.

To the person that literally pulled her from the grave.

Maybe it wasn't strength.

Maybe she was just stupid.

"C-can't you do it?" Her voice trembled. "Psychically or whatever?"

She nearly jumped clear out of her skin when the door made a loud, screeching noise as it started to descend. Goosebumps were raising all over. Her head swam, like she was going to be sick. There was a small stack of spare tires to the side of the door and she staggered over to it.

Sit.

Breathe.

"Alice."

"Yes, Mas - " She bit her lip, hard. She swallowed the urge to scream. "What?"

If the alien was offended, she didn't show it. She didn't show much of anything. Alice didn't know how to read her face, something about the four eyes kept throwing her off. It was those exact same eyes that told her she knew even less than she thought.

"The man who killed you."

She flinched. The fragile scab over those memories began to bleed.

When everything went tits up, people going crazy and men in Armachan armor storming the building, her father told her to stay where she was. To stay safe. To hide.

He said Paxton Fettel was dangerous.

She hadn't understood it, hadn't fully realized what he meant when the Replicas escorted her at gunpoint. Some part of her couldn't comprehend, couldn't cope. All she had known was that he had volunteered to be part of some old project, one of many the company had started up decades ago. Something happened, the details were scarce, but the project went bad. People died, and it was discontinued. It happened sometimes, that's what Dad said. They followed all the precautions, but they can't foresee every eventuality.

That was all she knew.

She didn't realize how much she didn't know. How much Harlan Wade hadn't told her. Not until Paxton Fettel was in front of her, screaming. Raging. Picking things up to throw them at the wall, punching concrete until his knuckles bled. Scratching at his face, tearing at his ears and lips. Biting at his wrists.

And then he just ...stopped.

For a few long seconds he did nothing, exhausted.

'She has a new toy, it seems. And you're not it.'​

He lifted the gun.

"I see," the alien said.

"Do you?" Alice snarled back. The woman was in her head again. "How could you ever?"

Instead of replying, she held up a hand. "Welcome back to the light."

The soldier tensed, and then grudgingly sat up. He had dark eyes and they were moving, taking in the abandoned garage and lingering on some things. The gas cans, the forklift, the first aid station on the wall.

"Right holster," the alien said randomly.

His hand drifted there, and Alice could see a bit of tension drip out of his shoulders as he pulled out the pistol.

A shudder ran down her spine.

She had a headache.

Right between the eyes.

She had to look away from it.

"Follow."

Alice risked a glance and found the alien slowing moving a finger back and forth in front of the soldier's face.

"You had a seizure during the operation - " Alice could easily see the alarm blaring through his body language. "It was simply to correct an oversight. Your genetic modifications are...crude."

Gene mods? In spite of herself, Alice felt her curiosity prickle. Genetic modification was an elite industry. There were only a few names the military trusted, and Armachan was one of them.

Well, used to be one of them.

She wasn't sure their name would be worth more than dirt now. Losing control of a psychically directed army would do that to a company.

"The body follows the soul. The other way around - " The alien hesitated, before shaking her head. "You will never be a mage, but what little I have access to shouldn't kill you either."

"Shouldn't?" Alice couldn't help herself.

"Well, there is a risk of his spine dissolving."

Both humans just stared.

"I'm joking. Mostly." She shrugged. "Complete nervous system breakdowns are rare." She shot the soldier an irritated look. "Rare, thank you very much."

There was a burst of squealing static, slightly muffled. It probably came from the small, black two way pinned to the collar of his body armor. He'd given her one when he first came to her rescue, but when she...left. It - Fettel had crushed it. There was a crackling for a few moments, before the bark of a male voice filtered in.

"-ointman! Pointman! Where the fuck have you been!?"

Pointman? Alice wondered. Must be his callsign.

The soldier raised his eyebrows, looking towards the four eyed woman with what looked like skepticism. In response, she magnanimously waved her hands, as if granting him permission.

"You completed one objective, did you not? This is in good faith."

He huffed, a side of his lips curling up in a look that could have been amusement or disdain.

"Alice, I will apologize in advance."

Wha - ?

She felt her throat stiffen as that sense of rightness came over her again. It meant she couldn't panic when her mouth pried itself open as her heavy tongue moved, and a voice not her own came out.

"Hello? Is this...Pointman's superior?"

"Commissioner Betters," the voice snapped, stepping one notch below pissed off. "We weren't informed of any other VIPs on site, name?"

"Project Union oversight, department head Leah King," the voice coming from her mouth smoothly lied. It was said so confidently, it took Alice a moment to even realize it was a lie. Which was crazy, she was the one saying it.

"Fuck," Betters eloquently replied. "We don't have a lot of options for extractions, look, where are you?"

"Alice and I are holed up outside the Rammelmeier Indus-"

"Fuck! You gotta - wait, Wade is with you? Never mind, ma'am, get the fuck out of there."

A cold tension was seeping into her rib cage. The voice took on a hard edge. "What is the situation?"

"Unidentified bogey from hell comin' your - "

The numbness in her throat swiftly crept over the rest of her body. Alice turned, head already craned upwards towards the catwalks overhead. Her knees bent slightly, and then she was soaring, six, seven and then eight feet into the air. Her arm snapped out and for a moment, she thought she saw wisps of white light seep from her fingertips before her hand crunched around a metal railing.

The warehouse was one of the newer ones with a rough mostly made out of giant angled glass sky roof. In a single bound she was by the wall, looking out at a dark horizon. The numbness left, and all the panic, and hysteria, and fear she hadn't felt before finally came screaming in.

"Oh god."

It was covered in eyes.

It had too many legs. Too many segmented limbs on one side digging into the side of apartment complexes and office buildings as it dragged itself forward on a giant, twisted arm. The center of its body looked as if its spine had broken in half backwards, an exposed, gaping rib cage clawing at the sky as a vertical maw slit across its belly gnashed at the ground. Its skin smoldered with glowing embers, turning the very air around it hazy.

From beside her, the alien flickered into existence. The four eyed woman took one look outside.

"Blood of agekch." She said it like a curse.

The creature flung out its arm, maimed hand outstretched and went still. Alice stared into the eye on its palm, the eyes on its fingertips.

Alice knew it was staring back.

"Me? Is it - is it following - "

There was a pulse.

Like the moment just after a bomb went off, the shock wave of pressure. Something passed through her. The world went grey for just a second. Outlines blurred. Shadows darkened. There was a sound, like a puff of static from a very distant radio as something...touched her mind.

Faintly, she could still hear Betters over Pointman's radio. "What the -" static "- loving fuck was th-" static.

"No," the alien mused. "Not me, something else. Someone else."

Kill them, a little girl whispered. Out of the corner of her eye, in a dark corner there was a small silhouette. Small, bare bloody feet were exposed by a sliver of moonlight.

'She has a new toy, it seems.'​

Fettel's voice, from just before he killed her, floated through her head.

Kill them.

Kill them.

Alice turned to face the corner. There was a pop, like a bubble in her head collapsing, and instead of a dark corner in an old warehouse, there was bright metal and dense concrete of a military bunker.

There was her father, a look of intense regret and fear on his face. His eyes wide behind his circle glasses.

And then his flesh began to boil off.

Kill them all.

The bark of a pistol slapped Alice across the face. She gasped, gulping down air, feeling like she came within an inch of drowning. The vision disappeared. The gun kept sounding and she turned in time to see several dark holes in the air below her slowly dilate open like wounds in reality.

They vomited nightmares.