"We're s- so very small, in the the end."
The sky burned above, a thousand flickering flames in a velvet storm. It was the only thing I could see anymore. The rest of my vision had gone dark. Only the stars remained.
The passenger was slowly taking over.
I could feel it growing, just as my own thoughts slipped away. Things I couldn't remember, places I couldn't place. Faces had turned into blurs, and names became words with no meaning. I couldn't make the connection between them. I couldn't…
Maybe it was better this way. To just...disappear, slip away into that vastness, and embrace oblivion head on. It was so very hard to fight. Harder with every passing second.
My eyes were wet, my face pointed at the stars. My thoughts wandered. Memories of the fight were growing dim, but I could still vividly see the reaction my efforts had garnered. The collective horror, the fear, the disgust. All I wanted was for them to stand together, fighting as one, without the divisions and strifes and everything else that strove to splinter our race into a thousand vulnerable fragments.
I wanted them to live. And in the end, I hadn't given them a choice.
Arguably, I had saved them, but that had sealed my fate. In their eyes, I was a monster now. I wouldn't deserve to live. Is that what my legacy would be, I wondered? Reviled and feared as another endbringer? Or would I simply be forgotten, traces of my existence meticulously wiped out so that no one could follow down the path I'd gone?
Assuming my passenger wouldn't destroy them all.
It didn't matter, in the end.
I was fading, quickly now. The stars faded away; all that remained was the void. That great emptiness between galaxies. So cold. So emp- empty.
Not empty.
The thought was a tiny flicker in my conscience.
Not. Empty.
I frowned, and that felt distant, like it wasn't me frowning, but someone else. But the thought remained, persisting and lingering, like the last coals in a dying fire. The void...wasn't empty. It was where they had come from. The entities. There was more of them out there, I knew.
And if they had come once…
...Then they could come again.
I blinked.
There was a dampness on my cheeks, but I didn't brush it away. It felt fresh, reinvigorating. I could suddenly hear the sounds of the forest, the wind through the trees, a bubbling brook. Things I'd discarded as non-important.
The Fairy Queen had spoken about anchors. I could dimly recall mine. My parents. My home. Friends… which ones? The dog girl. And the other. What was her name? My heart pounded. Blond, I recalled. Mischievous eyes, a sly vulpine smile. Tat- Tat...
Tethers to my sanity. All ripped away, cast down in the fight.
But I had a new one now.
Maybe it spoke something about my character that it wasn't friends or family that made me snap back. That it was the threat of conflict. I had always thrived in it.
Well there was one hell of a conflict still to be. Because sooner or later, maybe tomorrow, or maybe in a million years, more entities would come, and they would consume us. Humanity, everything we...everything I had fought for would be gone.
We needed to be ready. And that meant I still had a part to play.
There was some feral sound in my throat. A low growl. I shut my eyes, facing a deeper kind of darkness then the one spread over my head. My passenger.
I couldn't let it win. It wasn't...smart. It was powerful, in a way a bear is powerful. It was instinctive. It reacted. But it wasn't human. It was the monster everyone feared, and if I let it assume control, then it would just cause a different kind of end for our race.
It was still pushing into me, clouding my memories, my mind. But I had a reason to fight now. A flame in my soul, burning bright and strong, giving me faith. I used it to push against the darkness. To plead. To bargain. I couldn't get rid of the passenger, I knew that. It was a part of me. But conversely, that meant I was a part of it. And maybe we could a find a balance there. Or maybe I just needed to hold it off, just long enough to ensure that humanity had a future.
I don't know how much time passed, but when I opened my eyes, I was covered in sweat. I was filthy, and there were a million pains wrecking my body. My hand gone, bruises, aches, built-up stress and fatigue weighing down like a mountain. By all accounts, I should be near death.
But the horizon was gold.
The night had passed during my battle. The sun was rising. And when I struggled up, clumsily using my remaining good arm for support, all I could think about was how beautiful the world was. How priceless.
The others would be coming for me. Most would want to kill me, some would exploit. A select few I could trust. It was funny, in a bitter sort of way: I couldn't even remember their names or most of our interactions, but the feeling of confidence I had in my friends was overpowering, secure, like a blanket. And it would have to do, because reaching out wasn't an option. They would be watched. Monitored. Even the slightest hint of a connection to me would place them in immediate danger. I had no choice. I had to let them go and walk away.
Again.
Somehow, after everything, that was the biggest hit in the gut. They were the only ones who had grown to accept me. To love me even, I guess. I wanted their company more desperately than almost anything else in the world. Especially now, when I was so alone.
I leaned down, unstrapped the flight pack from my shoulders, let it drop to the ground.
And then, wiping the tears off my cheeks, I took off at a run.
. . . .
Eighteen months later
. . . .
The convoy was hit just before dawn.
Ellie was sleeping in one of the ancient cargo trucks that the Department of Relocation had scrounged up from army depots when she heard the explosion. She jumped up, narrowly missing a stack of crates with her head. They were packed full with provisions and supplies, things to help the settlers weather the winter.
Ellie had settled at the very back of the truck, where the crates had been moved aside to create a little niche. She had fit snugly, tugging around the blanket she'd been given as part of the settler package. It was high quality – one of the few high-quality things the Department of Relocation could provide – and conserved just enough of her body heat that she could fall asleep without shivering despite the low temperatures.
It was late-October, according to the local calendar. Generally, settler parties were sent into worlds where winter was ending and it was early spring or at least summer, but things were getting pretty desperate on Earth-Bet. People were frantic to escape, and planning had become a luxury too few could afford. The DoR was opening gates and hoping for the best. People went through anyway.
Another explosion. Heart hammering, Ellie fumbled her way past the boxes and jumped down to the ground with a splash. Fuck, she thought. The drizzle that had started sometime during the night had transformed into a full on downpour, and her worn sneakers were almost instantly soaked in a mixture of mud and icy water, sending trails of shivers up her spine. Cursing softly, Ellie took three quick steps to peek around the corner of the truck.
What she saw was chaos.
The convoy had been parked for the night, giving the tired settlers a chance to rest. They slept side-by-side, fitfully, whole families packed together under the canvas tops of the cargo beds. Now, those trucks were surrounded by flame, burning high despite the rain that drenched everything around. She could hear screaming. Someone was firing a gun.
Ellie quickly ducked back behind the cover of her truck. When she raised her hands to brush a waterlogged strand of hair away from her face, she realized they were shaking – but whether from cold or fear, she couldn't say. Probably some combination of the two.
Six months, she thought wretchedly. Six months of desperation, of hard travel, perpetually hungry, cold, scared to death of running into one of the gangs that were resorting to cannibalism, that backed away only from capes… And then, finally: the Station. A temporary DoR checkpoint. A convoy, almost ready to go, into a world that had been opened just a day prior to her arrival. Not the best world, not with winter just a month away, but it was better than the alternative.
Better than Earth Bet.
The fact that Ellie had managed to get a place in the departing caravan was a stroke of blind luck. Supplies were thin and settlers were chosen based on a strict system. Many – the weak, old, and infirm – were rejected outright or placed into queues for the next caravan, tearing families apart. Everything was done to maximize the odds for a new settlement. Doctors, craftsmen, farmers, and engineers were high in value. Accountants, lawyers, and execs were not.
It wasn't surprising that tempers ran hot.
There had been an altercation. Several men wound up dead, opening precious spots in the convoy. Ellie had been picked. She was a good candidate for it: fit, single, young. Guant, too, but there were few who weren't. Child-bearing age. Third-year in vet school. Well, had been. Scion put an end to that.
Another explosion snapped her back to the present. She exhaled sharply and then heaved herself back into the bed of the truck, thoughts running a mile a minute. Guns. Her goal was at the back, near the nook where she'd been sleeping, where a stack of crates housed weapons for the new settlement.
And right now, she needed a weapon. A good one. The dagger at her hip wouldn't do.
After that…
Ellie carefully made her way past the piles of crates until she reached the one she needed. Prying open a lid revealed a stack of Remingtons. Ammo took a little longer to find. Three rounds in the magazine, a handful in her pocket.
Before Scion, Ellie had never touched a gun. Her dream was to be a vet; to heal, not maim. Now, the weight of the rifle felt comforting.
When she descended from truck once more, she found the sounds of the battle to be absent. The screaming and shooting had stopped. Only the flames were still burning, angry-orange and weirdly stationary, hissing back at the rain that was powerless to douse them. They ringed the trucks with the settlers, neither advancing nor retreating, just standing still, creating an effective barrier that no one could pass.
Which could only mean one thing.
Capes.
And given by their aggression, Ellie highly doubted they were heroes.
Ellie cursed. The weapon in her hands was mostly useless now. There was a possibility she'd get a lucky a shot, but the odds were low. And the penalty could be severe. If she was lucky, it'd be a quick death. If not…
Clutching the rifle in her arms, Ellie quickly ran through her options.
If the villains had come for murder, then she had precious few. The capes would tear through already defenseless convoy like bullets through canvas and nothing could stop them. Any refugee that escaped the slaughter would inevitably perish from a combination of hunger, wounds, or exposure. They were sufficiently far from the portal that a trek back would be deadly.
But maybe this wasn't a massacre. Maybe it was a simple heist. It wasn't that outlandish of an idea. Capes needed food too, and with Earth Bet undergoing rapid ecological collapse in the wake of Scion's attack, food had become a scarcity. It was possible that this was just a shake down or maybe even a show of force. It wasn't unheard of capes joining convoys or settlements, demanding a tithe for protection. Quid-pro-quo.
Ellie gulped. That option wouldn't be so bad. It was something she could manage.
And if these were just plain thieves, then maybe it was worth joining the group. Capes equalled power, after all. And power was all that mattered in this new, broken world. Power gave you food and clothes and a higher chance of survival. Ellie knew about survival. She'd lived through Scion's attack, and the catastrophic year that followed, and then made the trek to the DoR checkpoint.
Billions hadn't.
And so she was willing to pay the price for even a touch of stability. Anything the capes wanted. Her skills? Her body? She'd give it up. Once, even the glimmer of such a thought would have been revolting, but morals, chastity, and virtue meant precious little when you were so hungry you could barely stand. When your body perpetually felt numb.
When you bashed in someone's head with a rock because you needed that bag of chips more than they did.
Looking back, Ellie knew the real answer behind her survival: compromise. When it became obvious that social order was collapsing, that the silt and dirt in the atmosphere was there to stay, and that within several years, most of earth's landmass would be coated under thick glaciers of ice, Ellie compromised everything that could hold her back. Her morals, the values her parents had instilled, compassion, even decency...those things held no value in the new world.
And so now, as she quickly and callously analyzed the different consequences to her actions, a part of her was horrified, and a part simply didn't care.
It was law of the wild.
Of course, the danger with joining capes was the inherent unpredictability. Ellie's roommate in college had once likened them to Roman gods: capricious creatures often driven by whim. A normal person couldn't torch you over a perceived slight.
A cape, on the other hand…
Ellie gripped the rifle harder in her hands and inched forward. The flames provided steady illumination, giving a glimpse of two shapes that were converging on the trapped refugees. The pair moved deliberately, with purpose and no fear. These were people who knew they couldn't be hurt.
They were well aware they hadn't captured everyone, but it didn't matter. Ellie could see their tinker-made armor glinting in the firelight, something chrome with spikes at the shoulders and knees. Impenetrable to bullets, no doubt.
Thunder clashed overhead. The rain was still pouring, a brewing storm, plastering her hair to her face, running in chilled rivulets down her skin to reach under her coat, but also muffling her footsteps as she snuck closer. The trucks were parked close together, and she used their frames as cover, moving forward in quick dashes. By the time she neared the flames, the duo of capes had already passed through.
She paused, biting her lip. The fire was burning only ten feet away, but any sounds from within were masked by the storm. What was happening? Were the capes voicing demands? The convoy couldn't spare much in terms of supplies; almost nothing at all, really. Rations were tight as it was and winter was coming. People would die.
But still, there was a slim hope of cooperation. It would work in everyone's favor. With capes, a new town could defend-
Her thoughts broke with a scream. She recognized the voice: Cale, the convoy's leader, and right now he was wailing in a shrill, inhuman tone that made her blood run cold.
Shit.
Ellie turned on one foot. There was nothing she could do. The capes were either sadists or motivated by pragmatic reasons – either way the convoy was dead. As if to echo her thoughts, more voices rose from flames, begging, pleading; a chorus of despair. She retreated from them, running back along the length of the truck she'd used as cover, turning sharply at the rear only to go sprawling as she ran into a third cape.
Shit, shit, shit.
Gasping, Ellie desperately reached out to the gun she'd dropped. A sizzle of electricity made her jump back, scrambling to face the figure. Lightning flashed overhead, giving her a brief view of a seven foot tall behemoth dressed in the same type of armor as the others: spiky and chrome. The helmet was molded into the shape of a snake, with a visor coming down to just above the mouth. His lips were twisted in a wolfish grin.
She scrambled away, coming to a halt when her back pressed against a wheel. The cape laughed, but she didn't hear the sound over the rain, just witnessed his lips moving. Somehow, that made it more terrifying. She looked around for something, anything, but there was only mud. Mud and water.
She wasn't going to trigger. She knew that. If she was a potential cape, it would have happened ages ago.
Her mouth curled downwards. She didn't want to die. All her struggles, making it out of Earth Bet, it couldn't have been for nothing. It couldn't.
The figure raised a hand. Blue sparks flew along his armor, converging at the glove.
Ellie whimpered, pitiful and wretched. The blue lighting had formed into a sphere now, and she closed her eyes to avoid looking at it. Her lungs shuddered.
There was an explosion to her left.
She snapped her eyes open. It took her a moment to understand, to parse through the baffling reason of why wasn't she dead? The cape had been aiming right at her.
Now, however, his grin had been replaced by a growl as he stomped past her, nearly stepping on her feet. She was able to tuck them in at last moment, watching in bewilderment as he shot another ray of blue lightning into the muck a good twenty feet away, leaving a scorch mark on the ground.
"You want to playy?!" he roared over the rain, furious.
Heart racing, she waited for him to pass and then scrambled to grab the Remington. Her hands shook so much she dropped it on the first try. She didn't understand what had happened. Had she triggered? Was it possible? Some sort of invisibility?
She didn't feel any different. Scared out of her mind, but…
...The shape appeared out of the rain like a phantom. A woman, Ellie realized: slim and tall, walking briskly, almost at a jog. She had mismatched camouflage-colored armor that covered her entire body but didn't seem to fit together and a helmet that fully concealed her head. She gave Ellie the briefest of glances before speeding up, following in the villain's footsteps. She turned the corner and disappeared from view.
For three heartbeats, Ellie sat frozen. Her breaths fogged the air, coming shallow and fast.
Then she jumped up in pursuit.
The villain was ahead of both of them, chasing after something she couldn't see. He slipped into the flames without hesitation, but the woman held back, skirting the edge of the fire.
Visibility was much better here, near the flames. Ellie quickly assesed the scene and then hopped onto the hood of a nearby truck. From there, she climbed, slipping and sliding, onto the roof of the container and settled down in a prone position. The adrenaline from her near death experience had dissipated somewhat, leaving her chilled to the bone.
Thankfully, she didn't have to wait for long. There was series of blasts from within the flames – all prompted by that same crackle of electricity that had almost seared her – and then the fires abruptly went out.
The sudden darkness left her blind. Blinking away the spots in her eyes, she stared ahead, waiting for her pupils to adjust. Slowly, the unfolding scene below came into focus.
People were fleeing, running in every direction. She could see their shapes, indistinct and grey under the rain, as they raced away from their recent prison. Some were hobbling, some helped carry others. Behind them, Ellie saw the three villains – the two that had went in first and the one who had almost killed her – fighting...each other. 'Her' villain had a second one pinned down, bashing the cape's helmet with his armored fists as the third shot globs of acid into his back. It was...bizarre to look at.
Trying to ignore the rapid chattering staccato of her teeth, Ellie shifted her gaze towards the woman. She had moved forward and was now positioned near the fighting group, hiding behind the cab of a truck only a dozen feet away. It seemed like her attention was fully absorbed in the trio, which rapidly turned into a duo as the tall villain finished off his victim and turned to challenge the acid-thrower. They converged on each other, flashes of power illuminated by the lighting above.
It was during one of these moments that Ellie suddenly saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Her vantage point allowed her a wide view of the battlefield, and she used that to her advantage, constantly looking back and forth, checking for any additional hostiles. That was why she noted a sudden change in color behind the woman; something that looked off. She peered closer, but whatever it was seemed to avoid direct examination, making her eyes slide away from mysterious spot, looking anywhere but at it.
She felt her blood go still, again. Another cape. Sneaking up on the woman.
The woman that was obviously saving the convoy. Her, included.
Ellie didn't pause to think. She hefted the Remington, aiming for the place that was strange, and fired.
A clash of thunder covered her blast, but the shot must have hit something, because the woman started to turn, frantically lifting her hands in a defensive motion. She was knocked off her feet a second later. Ellie took a breath, trying to ignore the pain from the recoil, and fired again.
Then, the strangeness and the woman seemed to meld together, leaving no chance at a clear shot. Instead, Ellie shifted the muzzle of her gun back towards the duo. The acid-thrower was shaking his head, like he was coming out of a stupor. His opponent lay at his feet, half-melted in a grotesque blend of armor and flesh.
Ellie promptly fired a third time.
The villain staggered, fell on his knee.
Again, she pulled the trigger. Click.
"Shit," she swore under breath, frantically reaching for her pocket. She spared the villain a glance just as she grabbed a few rounds of ammo. He was already back on his feet, looking for the source of the attack. Ellie felt her heart speed up.
The bolt on the rifle snapped back, and she tried to fit the bullets in but her hands were shaking so hard she missed. Another glance at the villain showed he was looking straight at her. He raised his hands, calling forth his power.
Ellie managed to place only a single bullet when she realized she had to move. She rolled away at the last second, the steel sizzling harshly where her body had just been. The rifle fell out of her hands, sliding along the slick metal. She tried to catch it, missed, and watched it fall over the edge.
The villain was already prepping for a second shot. Ellie cursed and dove after the rifle. Getting off the roof of the container was tricky; the metal was slick with rain and her fingers felt frozen through. She tipped herself over the edge, holding on as firmly as she could, but her strength failed her only seconds later. With a brief yelp, she fell towards the ground, landing in the thick, sticky mud with a splash. Pain shot up her torso like lightning. She whimpered softly, scrambling along the ground towards the gun. It wasn't far, just out of her reach, and she sent up a small prayer of thanks for that.
The cape appeared just as her fingers wrapped around the gunstock. One bullet, she recalled, turning her sight on the villain. That's all I have.
The man, for his part, looked beastly. He panted heavily, standing under the rain, his armor burned and bent, the flesh below colored a steaming pink. Despite the obvious pain, he was grinning savagely. She could see his expression through the broken mask, and there was something completely unhinged about it, something mad and alien, and it scared the guts out of her. He swayed slightly, a green shimmer steadily growing over his form.
Building up for another shot.
Ellie didn't give him a chance. The gun went up in one quick smooth movement, and then a fountain of blood erupted from the man's jaw. He almost looked surprised for a moment, frozen for a drawn-out second that seemed to last forever, until his knees slowly bent and he toppled into the muck.
Ellie exhaled.
She hadn't realized she was holding her breath, and now her lungs burned. She gasped suddenly, chest heaving, and staggered up to her feet.
The woman. Where was the woman?
She had to pass the fallen cape in order to get to her. She thought about spitting on him, or maybe kicking his corpse, but then figured it wasn't worth it.
The clearing where the settlers had been caught smelled of smoke. She could see a few dead bodies on the ground, mutilated beyond all recognition, along with the two villains that had turned on each other.
The woman and the cape were still fighting. The woman was losing. The Stranger-type villain had pinned her under himself and was now searching for weaknesses in her armor. It was just a matter of time till he found it.
Time he didn't have.
His power must have deactivated sometime during the fight, because Ellie could see him clearly, and she slid her dagger right into his neck. He hadn't even noticed her approach. He grabbed at the weapon, gurgled, blood streaming from his mouth, and then collapsed, making loud rasping sounds that quickly faded away.
After that, it was quiet.
The rain had stopped, Ellie realized. She looked up, dazed. The clouds were parting. How had she missed that?
Her moment of introspection wasn't meant to last last. The woman-cape pushed her attacker's body off her and screamed.
Ellie rocked back. The sound was so full of desperation, defiance, and unyielding fury that it was almost haunting. It unnerved her, and was still ringing in her ears when the woman–
Girl, Ellie suddenly corrected herself with surprise. She doesn't sound any older than me.
–when the girl heaved herself up, clutching at her head with her arms. She was whispering something very quickly under her breath, but Ellie couldn't make out the words.
"Are you–" Ellie coughed, clearing her throat. "Are you alright? Injured?"
The girl's head snapped up, like she'd just realized someone else was there. Ellie caught the final part of a word: "–ale," before she went quiet.
The two girls stared at each other, one with a tired and puzzled expression, the other's hidden behind opaque glass.
"Ellie!"
She turned her head towards the call, distracted, and that's all it took.
The girl took off.
Feeling a growing ache in her bones, Ellie watched her go.
Overhead, the sky was turning blue.
The storm had finally passed.