Just played the Evil Ending of IF2… brilliance. Epic brilliance. And don't give me crap about how he killed everyone close to him. The characters are bytes and data and images on a screen. If you lose perspective on that, it isn't my fault. So don't flame me for being a tad callous.

So, this is my take on inFAMOUS 2.5, Evil Edition. Enjoy!

I stood in the ruins of Santa Maria, NM. It was mostly smoking craters, though it had been clean and gleaming this morning. All thanks to me. Original population: an even 75,000 people. Men and women, children, people with histories and futures and dogs and bank accounts and dorky relatives. Over half of them had been crippled by the Plague. Now, we had 750 new followers. Whether from gratitude or respect or fear, 750 newborn Conduits had joined my cause.

Perfect. Just perfect.

If I'd had any idea just how much work it was to head up a crusade, I'd have given using the RFI some serious thought.

I had a few thousand people behind me by this point. Every one of them looked up to me for food, leadership, and guidance into this strange new world I had made for them. I had to organize camp, manage scout reports, comfort the seriously freaked out (which was just about everyone), teach "Powers 101" to everyone from moody, contrary teenagers to grouchy, contrary grandparents, break up fights (which seriously sucked when everyone involved had a superpower), plan our next assault… the list was endless.

To say nothing of the shit I had to deal with on my own time.

Was it really possible that, just 3 months ago, I'd been worried about the best route to run a package through the streets of Empire? It seemed like years ago. A lifetime away.

No wonder John had given this up. I was barely a month in, and it felt like I was juggling propane tanks. Flaming propane tanks. The size of buses. I was running all over the place, trying to keep track to two trillion things at once, while one slip-up would blow everything to hell.

Case in point…

"Cole!" Kuo materialized right next to me, her expression as focused as it always was. We'd gotten a bit closer since we'd both decided to team up with John, but it was nothing like the easy flirting I'd enjoyed with Nix. I was a friend that she knew from work, nothing else.

I took one look at the annoyed grimace on her face and knew what was wrong. "Don't tell me: Marcus and Siobhan." She just nodded. I sighed. Then I flickered.

My version of the teleportation that Kuo, Nix, Kessler, Sasha… basically every other major conduit I'd met had wasn't its own power, per se. It was just a really twisted application of two of my old powers. I cast out a line forward, tugging me forward like my own personal zip line. At the same time I pushed myself forward with static jets coming out my feet instead of my hands. When I overcharged both with the near-limitless power that belonged to the Beast, I was almost as fast as Kuo. I hopscotched the few miles to the city's edge and our camp in less than a minute.

Camp was a haphazard affair at best: some tents, a lot of sleeping bags claiming any open space, one or two power-specific shelters made by those with more constructive powers. Kuo had been trying to establish some of the straightedge order of the NSA and the military to the chaos, but with the steady stream of new recruits, it was slow-going. Most of the camp just hung out around the cooking fires, where most interesting things tended to happen: dinner, my speeches, and, of course, fights.

In a group this huge, there was bound to be a few people who just didn't get alone with each other. It was just my luck that two of them happened to be the two most powerful and most important Conduits next to Kuo and me.

A ring had formed around the two fighters, both of whom were trying to kill each other with a disturbing amount of skill and enthusiasm.

Siobhan was a red-haired, green-eyed Irish beauty, taller and prettier than most women could ever hope for. Her temper was in the same league, and it showed. She was screaming out a string of words that would have mortified most sailors as a mutant cactus sprung fully formed at a wave of her hand. She'd taken to life as a Conduit like a fish to water, and worshipped me like her own personal Messiah. It might have explained why she was aiming a turret-style hail of cactus quills at the other Conduit.

Marcus looked like Hitler's wet dream, all pale blond hair and bright blue eyes. His whole family had been involved with the Militia. He hadn't exactly been trusting or supportive of the cause, but he stuck around because he had nowhere else to go. He dealt with it by being a world-class pessimist and constantly insulting my every decision. Kid didn't really bother me (he was young enough to still be in high school), and we definitely needed his powers, but he really got under Siobhan's skin. Likewise, he took her steadfast devotion to me as a personal insult.

He held out his arm, metal pouring out of his skin like water, coalescing into a shield that stopped the needles cold. I tried not to notice how much it sounded like bullets hitting a steel wall. At the same time, Marcus threw out his other hand, flinging a knife that hadn't existed a second ago straight at Siobhan.

"Enough!" I flung an arm at each of them. I still couldn't get over just how much more powerful I was after John's parting gift. I never ran out of juice now, and every single power, including all the variations, was now exponentially more powerful. I restrained the two of them and healed the gash left by the throwing knife on her arm while I was still a hundred feet away.

The rumbling of the crowd silenced the instant I landed in the middle of the ring. I knew exactly what they were thinking: the same thoughts that had bothered me for a month now. To these people, I was a god. I was both destroyer and savior. My powers were almost limitless. How could they not think like that? It didn't bother me, really; what really bothered me is that I couldn't tell if they were wrong.

And that was damn frightening. It was one thing to be beyond human; everyone here was more than humanity could ever hope to be. But had I gone even further? Had John's gifts driven me as far beyond Conduits as they were beyond mankind? I didn't know. It was a heady thought, but also a terrifying one. Like a bottle of absinthe, the idea of that much power both drowned and burned me. Would I always be the different one? Had I lost any connection to anyone around me? Was I doomed to be alone, omnipowerful but unknowing, uncomprehending of even the people closest to me? It would drive me insane.

Maybe it already had.

I shook my head. I couldn't afford those thoughts, not in front of everyone. I had to be strong, I had to be fearless. These people had given up everything, family, home, normality, to follow me. I could not for a second seem unworthy of that.

"Well, this is a wonderful new impression to make for newbies, isn't it? Take everything they have to save them, and then act like a bunch of rabid dogs. Yes, that's very welcoming of us." I never really tried to be uber-dramatic or especially charismatic with my troops. If they couldn't follow the real me, they couldn't follow me at all.

Siobhan visibly wilted under my sarcasm. Literally. Her powers involved all things plant, from growing to manipulating to mutating. Her body followed the same rhythms as the things she tended. She never needed food, living off the sunshine and water, but she could wrinkle up and brown like nobody's business when she was upset.

Which was something I tried to make happen as little as possible. She was the one reason all of us weren't starving by now. We'd been living off super salads and wonder fruit, all at the peak of ripeness, with a little meat thrown in and whatever we could raid from cities before the 'cure' destroyed them. She was the key to our survival.

Marcus rolled his eyes, but didn't talk. He was just as important, but more in the long-term. The metal his body produced was harder than titanium while being lighter than lithium. Most of our tools wouldn't exist without him. He was also going to be the one to eventually rebuild the cities we torched. It took a bit of the bite out of the idea of a post-apocalyptic world, the thought of having your own home in such a world. He was a major source of morale to the others for the promise he represented.

The released the two of them with a flick of the hand. "Get back to your jobs. You got a few thousand people depending on you. Try to act like you can measure up." With that, I walked into camp, the crowd parting like the Red Sea around me.

I liked to take walks through the camp. Seeing the people I'd saved interacting, making friends, eating, getting on with their lives… it reminded me why I was doing this. Without me, they'd be six feet under right now. The Plague was going to destroy everything it touched, and I was the only one who could do anything about it. The cost was almost worth it when I reminded myself of the lives I'd already saved.

Almost.

I eventually reached my tent. It wasn't anything special; I'd lifted it out of a store back on the East Coast. There wasn't anything inside, but it could call it mine. I slipped inside and lay down on the polyethylene floor, trying not to think. It'd been a long day; maybe I could get away with a nap before the next crisis.

But the thoughts crept up just the same.

Trish. I could still remember the look on her face, as she died, one of utter disappointment and contempt. I'd been arrogant and selfish, thinking only of keeping her safe and with me rather than what she really would have wanted. I tried to think of a world where I'd made the choice to be like her, to sacrifice what I wanted for what others needed. I couldn't. I was too far down this road to see the fork back at the start.

Zeke. Best friend. Brother. The only guy I could ever talk to about anything, the one who always had my back. Another casualty of the Plague, his humanity his only damning aspect. He'd tried to stop me. Tried to stop the genocide of ordinary people that was all my fight looked like to the rest of the world. In the end, I'd chosen my life and the lives of people like me over his. And I took the last bit of advice he'd ever given me.

Nix. Damn, why did I have to kill her? She'd been just my kind of girl. Fiery, passionate, freaky, she threw all she had into those she cared about. Hatred and love were two sides of the same coin, and she felt as intensely for one as the other. She loved her swamp monster 'babies' as much as she hated the man who killed her family. And she could have loved me. We could have been together. Two partners in crime, burning the world, burning for each other. But I sided with the one that destroyed whatever substitute for family she'd made for herself. She'd died rather than let the death of her children go without retribution.

I looked down and sighed at my body's reaction to the thought of Nix. Survival and sex were as joined at the hip as love and hate. And I'd been fighting to survive since the Blast back in Empire. I was starting to have cravings that my hand just couldn't satisfy.

It wasn't like I didn't have options. There was any number of women grateful to me for their survival. But I was too wired, and would be for the next few years at least, to settle for a one-night stand. And if I started to work through the camp, it would be just the thing Marcus and the few dissenters like him would need to prove that I was just a selfish bastard who cared for no one but himself.

Kuo… no. Even if she weren't given me the cold shoulder, no pun intended, we just didn't click. We'd destroy each other, like the ice and fire that we controlled. And Siobhan was too much a powder keg. She'd burn out like sparkler if I got anywhere near her, given the way she viewed me as is.

God, it was just my luck I'd killed the one woman perfect for me. And there was no way to bring back the dead.

I felt Kuo coming before I heard her. That was another side effect of being the Beast. The powers of those near me grew exponentially when I focused, but they also progressed naturally if they stuck around long enough. That was another reason we were all unstoppable: even if I couldn't destroy something, and that was unlikely at this point, my army was getting nothing but stronger in their own ways.

It was a good ten degrees colder anywhere within fifty feet of Kuo these days, though she could reign it in if she tried. She had learned and perfected every power the Ice Gang had made of their copy of her base talent. Then taken it a step further. She'd actually taken a page out of my book and copied my mass drain attack; only she reduced the temperature of everything around her to absolute zero instead of eating up bioelectricity.

It was generally a good thing, given that we were working our way through the Southwest. It also helped out with my 'problem' at this moment, so I was doubly grateful. I was presentable by the time she reached my tent door, which I unzipped.

"One of the fresh Conduits is rocking himself to pieces and jumping if anyone moves near him. Thing is, he didn't strike me as mentally unstable. I think he's a psychic, and he needs to get a grip on his powers fast. You need to help." She looked sympathetic of how short a rest I had, but you know what they say about rest and the wicked.

"Alright, I'm on it." She nodded, then did her little pirouette in the air and vanished. Deciding to take the scenic route, I didn't flicker after her. I jumped, and let the classic version of my static thrusters have some fun. They were strong enough that, with a good jump, I didn't need to land for a good mile; though judging by the fact that Kuo had walked, I didn't need to go that far.

I found him a hop, skip, and jump away from my own tent, barely two or three of Kuo's 'jumps' away. He was tall, but thin as a rake, though I had trouble telling both given how curled up he was. His clothes were at least a size too small, and his mud-brown hair hung to his shoulder in shaggy curls.

I landed a good ten feet away, afraid that any closer would freak him out. He did look a bit loopy, curled into a ball and making little whimpering sounds. I'd have a better idea of why once I figured out his power.

I closed my eyes, focused, and let out a pulse of energy into my surroundings.

At first, I could only detect other sources of electricity besides myself, and any enemies that were nearby. John had let me see the Plague and Conduit gene. Now, the Beast let me know the powers of a Conduit.

So I knew immediately that Chris was a channel.

His powers laid in communicating with dead people. While this would eventually make him a very good spy, if he worked it, it also meant that he was probably going deaf from all the people who had died to save him alone.

No way. There was just no way things could work out that well. I could not have everything.

But that same pulse told me about Michaela, another fresh one, who had the power to manipulate biomass. She could make clones, if I could amplify her powers.

Suddenly, life didn't seem as bad as I thought it was.

Evil cliffy, gonna be a two-shot, feel free to ignore, buh-bye!