Chapter 18: WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY

The first thing the other members of the Rockborn Gang noticed was that Edilio's morph was the darkest shade of black any of them had ever seen. He absorbed all light, or very nearly so, which rendered the contours of his body invisible. Vantablack. He looked like he was cut out of a sheet of black construction paper, like he was only a shadow of a shape and not the shape itself. It only became apparent that he was still a three-dimensional creature when he moved. His soft brown eyes seemed to shine from the otherwise empty void of his face, a face that was too tall, not quite the right proportions to be a human face.

He was still the same size, and roughly the same shape, as he had been. His was small, for a morph. But sturdy-looking, with thick limbs like tree trunks. And his legs and feet sprouted stiff, knobby tendrils, which looked a bit like roots.

But the group only had a fraction of a second to take in Edilio's new appearance, before everyone's attention was suddenly pierced by a shrill, tortured, inhuman screech. It was a sound of pure agony, a sound created within the white-hot core of a raging tornado of pain that no human being could ever hope to endure.

Malik!

Shade was quickest to recognize the source of the sound, and turned her head just in time to see Malik crumple to the ground. But this wasn't the Malik she had become used to seeing. This was not his too-perfect, not-quite-real morph of himself. This was the real Malik. The Malik who had long-ago been burned by steam and lava from the beast that called itself Napalm. This was Malik, the horrifying slag heap of molten flesh clinging to a char-broiled skeleton.

"Morph, morph, MORPH!" Shade screamed at him. "Oh my God! Are you crazy?! Why on Earth did you de-morph?!"

She, almost reflexively, did what she had learned to do in any life-or-death situation, what had become instinct after many, many battles: she morphed. Or, more accurately, she tried to morph. But it was like there was suddenly a wall in her mind, a solid and unyielding barrier cutting her off from the part of her brain that allowed her to change her form.

She couldn't morph! What was happening?

She glanced frantically around the room, trying to find the source of the mental "wall." Whatever had done this to her was clearly also doing it to Malik, and if it didn't stop, very soon, Malik was going to die. Through her panic, she only slowly realized what should have been obvious from the start.

Shade's eyes landed on Edilio at the same time as Astrid's did. It was him, the two of them both realized at the same moment. Edilio had morphed at the same moment that Malik had de-morphed. His morph must somehow be blocking anyone else's ability to morph!

"De-morph, you idiot, DE-MORPH!" Shade screamed at Edilio. There were tears in her eyes, even though her expression was one of pure rage.

Astrid, more gently, said, "Edilio, you need to get human. Quickly!" She mostly managed to keep her voice calm, but still she urgently snapped the last word.

Edilio, desperately focusing on his human form through his growing panic, obediently de-morphed. His human form was pale and shaking. "That was me? I did this?"

The screaming had stopped. Malik was morphed once more, but still lying on the floor, sweating and gasping for breath. The fresh memory of all that pain was more than enough to sap every last ounce of strength he had.

"Yeah," Shade answered Edilio coldly, through gritted teeth. "That was you."

"Hey, I told you, all of you, that I never wanted anything to do with ANY of this!" Edilio suddenly shouted. "I never wanted powers! I did everything I could to avoid this exact situation! I never even took the stupid rock!"

"Exactly," Astrid said gently. "You wanted nothing to do with powers. And so, now you cancel powers."

Edilio wanted to apologize to Malik. But he knew that anything he said would sound flat and empty. He had almost killed Malik. A few more seconds of hesitation, and Malik could have died. What could he ever say to make that okay?

"I'm sorry, man," he said anyway, and it sounded just as empty as he knew it would.

Malik still couldn't quite manage to speak. But he nodded weakly, an acknowledgement of Edilio's apology. And, perhaps, an acknowledgement that Malik knew Edilio was not to blame. The forgiveness hurt much worse than anger would have.

Edilio was quiet for several minutes. Not even able to form his thoughts into words, as his mind scrambled to catch up with what had just happened to him.

But then, a thought struck him. Edilio had power. That which he had escaped for so long, had finally found him. And if he had learned anything from people like Sam and Dekka, it was that power this great could only be used for something greater than himself. It was for protecting people, especially those who could not protect themselves. It was a heavy and terrible responsibility. But it was a responsibility that he must now accept.

He was vaguely reminded of an old superhero movie quote to that effect, something about power and responsibility, but he didn't quite remember the exact quote. But whoever had written it, well, they had clearly known what they were talking about.

"As soon as she gets back to this dimension, I need to talk to Francis," Edilio said, with shaky determination. "I'm going to need her to take me to the real world. There's something there that I need to do."