"It has to stop at some point, Eidolon. I have to draw a line in the sand and say that, at some point, you're going to have to adjust. That giving a formula to someone else for that one-in-a-thousand chance we get something we can use is better than having you be marginally stronger."

"It's my career, my life. It's my legacy. Some have children, flesh and blood to carry on their name and their memories. I went without, for your sake, for the world's sake. I didn't have children because I wanted to save lives more than anything else, and if I made peace with that, it was because I told myself this would be my legacy. I'd rather die in a blaze of glory than wither away."

The man did not want to die as David.

He couldn't remember when the downward spiral had started. Only that it was steadily growing worse. Any Endbringer attack could mean a chain reaction of loses, the world being too weak at the end… and he was getting weaker. Use one power too much, and it's gone. New powers took longer to take hold and build up to full strength. 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.

Slower, less versatile, weaker.

Anger forced his powers to shift. A perception ability, an offensive ability that would let him move objects violently along strict paths that were dancing across his field of vision, and a future-sight ability that was making the world change colours, identifying points of high future stress and danger like stains across his vision. The passenger never listens.

The well was running dry, and there was nothing he could do to stop that. In the beginning, he had clung to the belief that his lost power is still within reach. When he truly fought, there was something there, just beyond his reach. Reserves yet undrained, or a fresh well. It is something, but it is there. But it is very rare that he got to truly fight and even then, it is too risky to try. What if he died? How many will die against the Endbringers if he fell? If it was just his life on the line, he would have taken the chance, but he could not do that with the lives of others.

The well needed to be refilled, but how? If only he could understand how his power worked-

Eidolon breathed out and tried to empty his mind of all of the other needs and wishes and fears. There was nothing to lose, so why not try? The worst that could happen is more disappointment.

Flight, telekinesis, intention reading.

He cast them aside, an endless array of powers whirled inside him like some kind of impossible kaleidoscope.

He'd dug deep while fighting Endbringers, the Blasphemies and other great threats, but it had been for something offensive. Something safe in its own way. To dig so deep for something mental, it was scary. Something he'd explored, but not like this.

But a leap of faith was nothing if he took it with something holding him back.

Then, a sensory change, different from the rest.

He could see the passengers light up, a blinding array below him, where the prisoners were held. Another shift and his own power stirred, pushing outwards like grasping tendrils.

He understood what it was trying to do, what the well beyond him was. Their reserves would become his own, and they'd lose their abilities, be rendered weaker, possibly even die. But did that matter? He was easily worth a hundred other capes. If he could return to his prime, destroy the endbringers, it would be worth it.

But he wouldn't be a hero anymore.

His power slowly withdrew, denied its meal. There must be another way.

He dug deeper, focusing on his own power.

A mosaic, a stained glass window of interlocking scenes, flowing into and through one another. He could see how they flowed into and through him.

Deeper.

A vast network, broken. A galaxy torn asunder, the debris cast from some calamitous event. Clusters flickering and pulsing. One in the heavens, another beneath the earth and a third submerged. Seventeen others slumbered.

The centrepiece had been shattered to pieces. Dead. It should not, cannot be repaired, but if he could just-

The garden of flesh stirred.