Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  “Testing. Testing.” It was a young woman.

  “I’m here, Tattletale,” he spoke, letting his power alter his voice.

  “Lines went dead. We just got camera and audio.”

  “You’re going to lose it again soon. He’s coming back.”

  “The test is done. It went about as bad as we could have hoped against, but it’s done. There’s no need to fight.”

  Eidolon thought back to that conversation he’d had with Doctor Mother, six months ago.

  Going out in a blaze of glory.

  “I have more things to try. I’m reasonably confident I can survive. Glaistig Uaine is here too, but I don’t know how committed she is to the fight.”

  “You’re talking to the negotiator,” Glaistig Uaine observed. Eidolon nodded.

  “Whoops. My bad. I do not get this system at all. Got you on the line, magnificent Faerie Queen.“

  Glaistig Uaine nodded once, confirming.

  “We’re not going to second guess you two. If you think you can try some stuff that might maybe possibly theoretically work, I’m thrilled. We’re reeling. Lots of dead, morale’s rock bottom. Just going by what I’m getting from my power, more than half the people who were on board before this are running scared. You want to buy us time? I’m not complaining.”

  The light was fast approaching.

  “I’m guessing we’re going to go dead. If you guys want to kick some ass, put on a show, it’d do a hell of a lot for people’s confidence, keep more soldiers on the battlefield. We’ve got a lot of ground troops who wouldn’t have been so good in this last test run, Lung and a few others. If you do well here, might mean we can keep them from changing their minds, yeah?“

  Eidolon could feel his power shift in response. Same power, but different application. “Perhaps something more dramatic, if the opportunity allows?”

  “Make it dramatic enough that they can see from a distance, or stay alive so we can get the logs off the cameras you’re wearing.”

  “I’ll try to oblige,” Eidolon said, his voice dry. His eyes were fixed on the growing golden light. His power was already obliging, had been before he asked the question.

  “The-“

  The line went dead.

  A moment later, Scion attacked. A flash of light.

  The light penetrated the bubble, and Eidolon was gone, a quarter-mile away.

  Reactive teleporting. He felt the bubble form around him.

  Eidolon focused on Glaistig Uaine. She responded by creating a spirit that formed a construct of metal, like a dragon the size of a small island flowing from a point the size of a grapefruit.

  The metal construct grew faster than the laser tore through it. It slammed into Scion.

  He physically tore through it, and Glaistig Uaine maintained the assault until the last second, before teleporting to join Eidolon once more.

  Still cloaked in the shifting garments, Glaistig Uaine was breathing just a little harder.

  “Just you and me left,” he commented.

  “No, High Priest,” she said. She composed herself. “There are others.”

  “Others?”

  “The wounded, who could not walk through the portal of their own will. Some down there. A meager few.”

  “I see.”

  Glaistig Uaine formed her garments into a shell around her. Eidolon followed suit, drawing his arms in front of his face.

  “And there are the dead as well,” the Faerie Queen’s voice echoed from within her cocoon. “We mustn’t forget the dead, High Priest.”

  Eidolon thought of Alexandria.

  Scion struck. An indistinct attack, striking everything he could see at once.

  Eidolon reeled, flying through the air, momentarily berift of his flight. The remains of the structure toppled before he even reached the apex of his trajectory.

  Glaistig Uaine caught him once again.

  The explosion had afforded Scion a chance to close the distance. It would be harder to dodge, harder to time defenses.

  Eidolon, for just a moment, imagined he could sense Scion’s distaste. The Faerie Queen was between the two of them, but Scion ignored her in favor of him.

  Eidolon used his matter creation power. As with the Faerie Queen’s monster of steel, this was derived from a single point, an expanding creation of matter. In this case, however, it was an explosion. Carbon unfolded from a single point. Eidolon chose Scion’s right ear canal as the center point.

  The carbon expanded as a sphere, and there was a glimmer of Scion’s reaction as the orb expanded until it was a hundred feet across. A distortion, golden flesh stretching.

  Blood?

  The sphere dropped towards the ocean like a comically large cannonball, and Scion advanced. Intact, unhurt.

  Does he heal, or was my mind playing tricks on me?

  Scion lashed out, fifty-foot blades of golden light extending from his wrists, and the bubble was once again penetrated. Eidolon teleported a distance away.

  His pulse was pounding, his attention focused.

  This is my focus, this is what I’m here for, he thought.

  A repetition of the last attack. A charge, another laser prepped.

  He moved to create the same sphere of carbon. A crevice was best. Scion’s mouth was closed, but his nose-

  Eidolon didn’t choreograph his attack, didn’t move his hand, didn’t act, but he placed the next sphere of carbon in Scion’s left nostril.

  Scion shifted direction at the last second.

  He’s adapting, learning.

  Smug, superior. The feelings mingled with the faint sense of disgust that Scion seemed to radiate. Confident. Amused.

  Another attempt, another miss. Scion’s reaction was faster.

  The bubble was breached by a narrow golden beam, and Eidolon reactively teleported again.

  Scion followed up with a blast of golden light, again, radiating in every direction.

  The bubble hadn’t reformed, and it wasn’t strong enough. Eidolon’s crystal exterior cracked and wore away. The attack wasn’t letting up, the crystal wearing down.

  He could drop a power, but which? To lose the crystal exterior would end his life before another power was on board. The teleportation? He’d be a sitting duck. Losing the offense, when it was something that almost worked, no.

  He held tight to each of them, grit his teeth as the light dug into flesh.

  He felt his flight leave him. An effect of the golden light?

  No. Something else had caught him.

  Scion let up, leaving Eidolon to desperately cast aside the crystal exterior and pray for regeneration.

  His flesh began to heal, forming bone ridges where flesh met flesh. It would take him some time before the bone fell off, but it was the fastest regeneration he had available.

  A trio of objects moved towards the alien from the fallen rig. Spheres.

  They detonated, each one exploding a fraction of a second after the one before.

  Glaistig Uaine. She had four spirits with her, and three were working in concert. One to form raw materials, two to fashion them into objects, a telekinetic to manage it all by holding Eidolon immobile in the sky while launching the bombs in Scion’s direction.

  One bomb was creating spaces of alternately accelerated and decelerated time. Another was distorting space to the point it was painful to look at.

  Eidolon banished his powers, keeping only the offensive one. Could he afford to draw Scion’s attention?

  No.

  But he did anyways. He focused on the other ear canal.

  Scion shifted to one side, whirling around to face Eidolon.

  I’m not strong enough.

  ■

  June 21st, 2011, two years ago

  They gathered where they had met innumerable times in the past, but they were quiet. There was no confidence, no assurance.

  Legend stayed by the door, not taking a seat at the table.

  “Bound to happen eventually,” the Number Man spoke
. “The odds-”

  “Don’t,” Alexandria said.

  The Number Man shut his mouth, turning his attention to his laptop.

  Eidolon pulled off his mask, brushed at it to clean it of the slime from when he’d been swallowed and then vomited back up.

  He stared down at the opaque pane.

  “We’ll need to think,” Doctor Mother said. “What does this impact? The next Endbringer attack, at the very least. We can’t afford to lose a fight at this juncture.”

  “The Protectorate,” Alexandria said. “We’ll lose members. Critical members, no less. We’ll retain others, but the tone of things will change. I’ll need to step down, but I can effect some change before I do.”

  “It changes a great deal,” Legend said. “Forgive me for asking, but are you sorry?”

  “Not in the slightest,” the Doctor said. “What we’ve done, it’s always been with a singular goal in mind. We knew it would be ugly, but-”

  “You created the Siberian,” Legend said. “The Siberian killed Hero. Every action has effects. Stupid, mindless arrogance, and look at what it cost you. Hero’s death spelled the end of our best years, countless members of the Wards and Protectorate were disillusioned.”

  “One could argue,” the Number Man said, “that his death spurred others forward. He was a martyr.”

  “I’m sure he’d be comforted by that argument,” Legend said. His voice was hard. Days of pent-up anger were now being given a voice. “You told us this would be a net gain for the good in the world, more heroes.”

  “It has,” the Number Man said. “Less than we hoped, but a net gain nonetheless.”

  “Gray Boy? Siberian? Human experimentation?”

  “Yes to all of the above,” Doctor Mother said. “I won’t lie to you at this juncture.”

  “I’d ask to see this testing facility, but I’m not sure my conscience could withstand it,” Legend said. “My god. What have I done?”

  “You unknowingly participated in our greater scheme,” the Doctor spoke. “If it’s any consolation, your conscience was strong enough that there wasn’t a good way to bring you fully on board. Whether we’re branded as the heroes or the villains of history will depend on the outcome of this war.”

  “I’m not sure I can believe that,” Legend said. He ran his hands through his wavy brown hair. Beads of sweat stuck to the strands. “I have to go home. Look my husband and child in the eyes. Are they- will they know?“

  Contessa spoke, stepping forward. “Alexandria handled the situation masterfully. We can curtail this information with some swift action and discouragement. A few weeks of activity and people will stop trying so eagerly to spread the word.”

  Legend stared at her, uncomprehending. When he spoke, his voice was level, out of alignment with his expression, his narrowing eyes. “Two questions.”

  “Please,” she responded.

  “First of all, who the fuck are you, to decide? You’d go after heroes who’d want to spread the word, why? To try and silence them?”

  “I would succeed.”

  He shook his head. “And my second question… who the fuck are you? All this time, you’ve been lurking around the Doctor. You’re more than just a bodyguard.”

  “I’m the person who would succeed,” she said. She glanced at the Doctor. “At whatever she needs me to do.”

  Legend shook his head again. “You’re all so cavalier about this, so mechanical. It means nothing to you?”

  “It means a great deal,” Alexandria said. “We lost a great deal of power, leverage, trust. The heroic organizations are going to be sundered by this knowledge. Try as we might, we can’t erase their memories.”

  “No,” Doctor Mother said.

  “Unless you wanted to use the slug?” Alexandria mused.

  Doctor Mother shook her head.

  “The slug,” Legend spoke. “I was wondering how the case fifty-threes came to lose their memories. Not something of Manton’s, because he wasn’t involved in making them. It’s yours.”

  “It and others,” the Doctor said.

  “Aren’t you ashamed?” Legend asked, his voice rising.

  “I’m ashamed,” Eidolon murmured.

  Heads turned.

  “I failed. On many levels. We lost this fight.”

  “We’ve lost before,” Alexandria spoke.

  Eidolon looked up at her. “Can you look at me and tell me we wouldn’t have won this, years ago? When I was new to the game?”

  She met his eyes.

  He let go of all of the powers he held, waited for others to take root. “I’ll know if you lie to me. You can control your body language, but I’ll know.”

  She lowered her gaze.

  “Yes. I’m getting weaker. We’re slowly approaching the moments where we need to be strongest, the most critical battles, where any one Endbringer attack could mean a chain reaction of loses, the world being too weak at the end… and I’m getting weaker.”

  “And you worry you’ll be too weak to contribute in the final days,” Alexandria said.

  “Yes.”

  “Final days?” Legend asked.

  “We know who ends the world,” Alexandria said. She met her old leader’s eyes. “We know what ends the world. Scion.”

  Legend’s eyes widened. “And you haven’t told anyone?”

  “It would be disastrous,” Doctor Mother said. “Disastrous and premature. Especially now, with morale already critically low. We’d hoped to wait, to time things. Everything we’ve done this far has lead to this eventuality, but we need all of the organizations across the world on board, we need assets, ones we’ve developed thus far and ones we’re going to work on shortly, and… we need Eidolon.”

  Legend glanced at him. “For his strength?”

  “He’s an anomaly. We can only guess, but he’s an outside case. A deviant case that isn’t deviant in anything but execution. He breaks rules, and that’s something we can use against the enemy who decided the rules this game would be played by.”

  “But I’m weaker,” Eidolon said. “Too weak. My powers are slower to arrive. I use one power too much, and I lose it. I can’t tap it again. I can’t choose what powers I get, so my agent reaches for those which serve double uses, and when they get spent, I’m left less versatile. Even then, the powers aren’t quite what they were. Fire doesn’t burn as hot, lasers aren’t as focused, ranges aren’t as great. If I couldn’t beat Echidna-”

  “Then we have to find others. More experimentation,” Doctor Mother said. “We’ll have to hope for another Eidolon.”

  Eidolon set his lips in a grim line.

  “More experimentation,” Legend said, stunned.

  “Contessa will explain,” the Doctor said. “If you’re willing to hear her out?”

  Legend hesitated.

  “Fine,” he said.

  Being replaced, Eidolon thought, a tool to be used by others. I agreed to it, but…

  ■

  Scion cast out another shaft of golden light, and Eidolon was flung across the sky by Glaistig Uaine, his powers still taking hold.

  Not strong enough.

  He created more matter. Scion avoided it for the third time.

  Despite Eidolon’s desires, the matter-generation power began to recede. His agent had apparently decided it wasn’t sufficient.

  It hurt Scion once, hadn’t it? Or had he wanted it to so badly he’d seen it?

  He began to glow, a brilliant azure.

  Eidolon took on the form of a living field of distorted space. Air ignited on contact with him.

  Scion lashed out, and he danced around the edges of the blast, closing the distance to swamp Scion.

  There were abrasions where Legend’s finest lasers had cut. He drove his new body into them, expanded.

  It was working.

  Up until Scion radiated golden light. Nine tenths of Eidolon’s body was destroyed. The remainder was cast out across the sky.

  Too far apart to pull himself tog
ether.

  The Faerie Queen did it instead, using the long-ranged telekinesis, bundling him together.

  His senses became a haze as he traveled, indistinct and incorporeal. He found other powers, and he painstakingly rematerialized.

  He was beside Glaistig Uaine, and the world around them was gray, shrouded in thick mist. Scion’s beam pummeled some unseen barrier.

  “A reprieve,” Glaistig Uaine spoke. “I thought you’d need one.”

  “You’re more powerful than I am,” he said. The words broke him a little.

  She shook her head.

  “No?” he asked. “Or is this a faerie riddle? It’s not really your power?”

  “It’s mine. Ours. But you’re stronger than I am. I can see it. The issue, High Priest, is that you need to open your eyes.”

  “My issue is that the well has run dry. I can’t tap it for power anymore. My best abilities are gone, and I’m spending the remainder with every minute I fight.”

  “Refill the well, then,” she said.

  “It’s not so simple, but I’ll take any suggestions.”

  “I’ve given it to you several times. I’ll tell you again, open your eyes, High Priest. You weren’t given your role on purpose. You took it, understand? Now you need to wrap your head around your duties.”

  “What are my duties?”

  “Those of the High Priest.”

  He almost swore out loud. “Less riddles, more answers, please. Unless you’re interested in dying here.”

  “Death is inevitable. Life is too. Even if Scion succeeds, there will be some who remain, because they hid well enough, because they aren’t interesting or different enough to kill. Life, death, a binary.”

  “This isn’t constructive.”

  “It can be, but I won’t repeat myself a third time. Binaries. Everything represented on the other side of the mirror. Not perfect reflections, but reflections nonetheless.“

  “What’s my reflection, then?”

  “You should know,” she said.

  “You?”

  “Mm. No. But I could be, in a small way. Like I said, the reflections are distorted.”

  “Your power is death, my power is life?”

  “Not so overt, but you’re thinking along the right lines. I am alive as the faerie queen, I collect the dead, I tap them for my strength, to better shepherd them. You are the High Priest of the stillborn faerie, but you could tap the living for strength.”