C'est La Vie (Worm/MtG) #04.4
A/N: Ugh, there, its done. Well uh... I did say "a bit" didn't I? Good news is I have Ch.5 outlined and it doesn't look like there should be too many sticking points with that one (knocks on wood). But seriously, since this one sets up one of the mana applications... well, wanted to get that right. Anyhow, enjoy and please let me know what you think!
Many thanks go to my betas for helping me with corrections and brainstorming through the tedious course of finishing this thing.
—
With satchel in hand, and a wool blanket held under my stump, I ducked out from under the fallen radio tower and my back twinged.
I started up the slope behind the bunker, my calves burning as I made for some of the few trees within the fenceline.
My ribs pulsed in time with my breathing, an ever-present throb.
Ignoring my weariness I kept climbing. Just a bit further.
Getting everything up here had only taken a second trip, but it'd taken far, far, too long to haul everything up the mountain. It drove home the need for a better system. Or, a heavy lifter that could easily traverse the mountain; I needed to get working on enlarging a Hercules beetle. A new Atlas.
Moving in among the trees, I went in far enough that I was in the shade and threw down the blanket before carefully setting down the satchel. I stood there for a minute, feeling the aches and pains; my ribs, stump, legs, back— I was tired, but what else was new.
Pulling out a half-empty canteen and upending the remaining water over my head I luxuriated in the relief from the heat. Idly, I reached up to comb my fingers through my damp, greasy hair, pulling at few knots and untangling the locks.
I need a comb. An absent thought about a small thing, but it was one more thing I needed to find or make.
Of all the things Artur's people had brought, a simple pocket comb hadn't been one of them. I supposed that was a perk of having short hair, it would certainly be one less thing they'd have had to worry about here. Meanwhile, my thick hair was a barely managed mess, the only thing keeping it from becoming a frizzy birds nest was my judicious attention and its greasiness. The less said about my scalp, the better. The thought of cutting it though, I couldn't— I gasped as I pulled out a particularly bad tangle.
I sighed and pulled my hand away, relegating a number of orb weavers to hand the mess.
It would be one less thing to take care of and make living here easier, but I couldn't lose one of the few things I had left, that last bit of mundanity.
Tilting my head back, I was left staring up at the canopy squinted against the sunlight. My arm hung hanging limply at my side and for a long moment, I stood there, gathering my thoughts and pulling myself together.
Then the moment passed and bending at the waist I touched my toes and went through several basic stretches. They hurt, but nothing like it would later on if I skipped. It was a good, familiar pain. Mostly.
Kicking around leaves and debris to level the ground, I spread out the blanket, eased myself down, and pulled a radio off my belt to thumb the transmit button twice before setting aside.
I was pulling off my boots when Artur emerged from the radio bunker and headed for the gate.
For a few seconds I followed him with my eyes, then through the ants placed on his person and bugs in his surroundings when he passed out of sight.
He was walking fine, for now, but stepping off the road and onto the mountainside he touched at his thigh and slowly curled the leg a few times. Maybe 'fine' was stretching it, but he was going out to gather firewood regardless, keeping himself busy.
I sighed as I looked back to the bunker.
Mold. Of all the things I had to deal with, it was mold. According to Artur though, dealing with it was just a matter of burning it out and that'd be the end of it.
Shaking my head, I pulled my satchel over and began to unpack my testing supplies.
Easy. Sure.
Good thing my little hideaway was built from concrete and steel; it would survive being turned into a makeshift oven.
So it wasn't a problem, regardless of the time and resources, it was going to take to make it work. True, I had wanted him to get me wood at some point, but this wasn't quite what I had had in mind.
I'd wanted a surplus of firewood, not ashes and charcoal.
That wasn't to say those things weren't going to be useful, but in the quantity I'd be getting them? It was going to take a lot of wood to get the bunker hot enough. I suspected the mountain was going to be running low on kindling by the time he gathered what he needed.
This wasn't something I needed to get worked up over though, it needed to be done so it was being done.
Besides, he was the one out doing the heavy lifting, while I was up here keeping watch and correcting my failure to properly investigate the Green. It was a hiccup, but everything seemed to be working out alright.
Although, while the firewood depletion reinforced the idea that I might need to move around the island, I also had to take into account that wherever I relocated to was likely to have the same problem with mold. The Visitors Center had been well off overall, its general condition notwithstanding, but it had been fairly well ventilated barring the rear halls.
I couldn't assume it would be the same with other places if I was seeking shelter for an extended period of time.
An inquiry from Artur drew my attention and directing him to some trees with dead branches, he threw a strap around the trunk, secured it to his waist harness, then started climbing.
I sighed as I watched him hack at a narrow branch with a folding saw.
He was getting started with his distraction, hopefully, things would go as smoothly with mine.
Pulling my notebook out, I flipped to a fresh page and listed out the selection of items and materials I'd set out for the testing. Simple things, for the most part.
A cup of water and another of dirt, a bowl with a short vine shoot and another with sticks to light a small fire in were my 'elemental' standings. I had spools of steel and copper wire, as well as a diamond,-encrusted gold ring (the hunters) to test how it effected metals. A scarab beetle was flown in for the Blue, and to give the selection a bit more variety I'd gathered a few different types of rock, a small wrist compass and a clunky Rolex (again the hunters). Once I went through those with the Green, then it would be time to what the Blue could do.
My eyes gravitated to the vine as I set the notebook aside.
No matter how the testing turned out, I would still have the vine to look into.
It was an oversight: my focusing on the Green's potential to augment my swarm. A mistake brought on by the thought that it could bring me that extra bit of security, the possibility that I could create a new Atlas. If I hadn't, I might have realized that this new power was more than just a little odd and discovered the Blue or other applications with the Green a little sooner.
Shaking my head I sat up and pushed the regret into the back of my mind with all the other 'what if's'.
It was pointless to worry over what could have been. I just needed to make sure I covered my bases from here on.
Bringing over the glass of water, I reached inward to the green marble at the back of my mind and draw out a fraction of the Green. As soon as the luminescent smoke took form around my insubstantial fingers I knew I'd named it wrong.
Before leaving for the Visitors Center I wouldn't have noticed the difference, I had no other frame of reference, however as soon as the luminescent smoke took form I knew what I had wasn't strictly 'Green'.
Oh, Green may have been the predominant color, but there was something else affecting it. A similar situation to how the lab had been affecting the visitors center, I suspected.
I tentatively tried gathering the Green into a single point as I had those nights I ventured out into the jungle and it resisted. Violently. As soon as the smokey energy began coalescing it came apart like a rubber band snapping.
The remaining Green dissipated as I tried processing what this meant and quickly enough my teeth were grinding.
Before I left for the Visitors Center, I'd been operating under the assumption that the Green I had was all there was. I had a sample size of one, it wasn't the wrong assumption to make, but after finding the Blue I knew that wasn't the case. Only now was I really realizing just what that meant though.
There were the Green and the Blue, but what else? And that was an issue, there had to be more because whatever was mixing with the Green here definitely wasn't the Blue.
As much of a revelation as that was though, that fact also meant that the results I'd gotten with the Green from here were skewed.
"Fuck."
And the worst part was that if I had to guess where a 'pure' Green might be, then it probably would've been the small jungle clearing out by the Visitors Center.
I'd only been a few minutes walk from the area for days, and now it was halfway across the island. Worse yet, I'd gone out to it twice.
I was grimacing as I looked inward, considering the impression of the tree covered mountain that overlooked the jungle below.
In retrospect, it was obvious: comparing how the Green had felt in the depths of the jungle by the Visitors Center to the Impression, it was clear the two weren't the same. The Green was still the primary component, that was a consistent detail besides the effect it had on bugs, but, in contrast to the easily workable, diluted feeling of the Blue-affected Green, the Green of the mountain was resistant to my efforts.
Why though?
The mixture of the Visitors Center was due to the lab, but what was affecting the Green here? It stood to reason that there had to be something, but what could be the cause? This was a mountain, but except for the bunker there was nothing up here and after spending a week in the place I could confidently say there was nothing special about the place.
I may have been wrong, maybe there wasn't anything and this was a similar situation to my assumptions about the Green, but if I wasn't there had to be something.
I couldn't discount the idea that I was wrong, but to make sure I wasn't being oblivious I grabbed the radio and told Artur to remain calm, closed my eyes, and focused on my swarm.
As one, just over a billion bugs rose up to scour the mountaintop.
I searched everywhere, above and below ground, beneath every rock and rotted log, but there was nothing to find. Except for discovering that the bunker's plumbing and septic tank was more intact than I'd thought, there was nothing up here I hadn't already aware of.
It wasn't proof one way or another, but...
Biting my lip I sat there and tried not to run in circles.
It was clear enough that something was affecting the Green here, but what? The Blue had been coming from a section of the Visitors Center, a clearly delineated location where the Blue-affected-Green ended and Blue began. Furthermore, the area the Blue occupied hadn't stretched far beyond the building; the energy had been concentrated, easily locatable, but there was nothing like that up here.
Could something else be the cause? Maybe, I just didn't know and it was as simple as that.
Taking down my thoughts, I moved on to theorizing what this new information meant for the power testing—beyond the results being skewed, of course.
Although… Maybe it wasn't as bad as it seemed?
Absently spinning my pen with my off hand, the scarab beetle came over to turn the pages for me while I skimmed through all the notes I'd taken up until now.
A short while later my lips thinned as I paged through my notebook; making notes in margins to amend my observations where necessary.
It was mixed news. There were three sources of the Green that I knew of and each was different in how they operated, but while that was the case they all appeared to be in line; just more or less difficult depending on what they were mixed with.
The influence of the Visitor Centers Blue and Green mixture on the unknown Green mixture from here had made it easier to work with.
Conversely, the pure Green out in the jungle had let me flat out brute-force the whiptail's enlargement through instantaneous saturation. All that had been required from me was to direct the actual process.
Meanwhile, the mystery Green mixture here required firm control regardless of how much of was used.
It was like… a stable reaction versus an unstable one. No, more like whatever was mixing with the Green here was making it more volatile.
Putting the problem in those terms didn't quite fit, but it was close enough and if that comparison was right, then that meant whatever was here was making it more difficult to work with.
After reviewing my notes: Yes, that was exactly the case.
There was nothing inherently wrong with taking the more difficult option, it was working with the Green here that had helped me refine my control that the Blue and Green mixture had been as simple as could be. However, regardless of the benefits, it was irking finding that out only after the fact.
It was all so very… typical, though. Of all the places I figure out how to use this stuff, it was in a place that makes it more difficult.
Nevertheless, added difficulty or not there was little I could actually do about it. Trekking back to the Visitors Center or hiking down to the surrounding jungle and hoping I would get lucky was an option, but not a practical one.
It wouldn't be perfect, but for the time being, I was limited to working with what I had. With no realistic way of addressing the problem, I was left with taking into account that the results of this testing would be skewed until I could confirm them.
I sighed and cracking my neck tried not to dwell on the complication. All said though, it wasn't too bad. Besides, I was already off to a good start. I was learning about this stuff, and I was figuring out just how little I actually knew!
With a small smile, I reached inward again and drew upon the impression.
Time to see what else it could do
-I-
Taking down all I'd learned from testing the Green and Blue should've been more satisfying than it was. Hours of repeated, careful, application of the mixed Green, and I had discovered the effects the colored energy on anything inorganic could be summed up as: 'not that much'. It wasn't much better with the Blue.
To water the Green did nothing. To dirt it did nothing. To fire, nothing. To various metals, nothing. Compass, nothing. Rock, nothing.
Rolling my aching wrist I checked that I had everything, little that it was.
Out of everything I'd gathered from testing it, only in applying the Green to the vine had I gotten a substantive reaction and I'd already known about that application.
Part of the issue was almost certainly a matter of volume, but I only had so much to work with.
It was a small re-assurance though.
I would need to do more dedicated testing to confirm the results, but in short, it appeared the Green just didn't effect anything that wasn't alive.
A bit disappointing that, but informative regardless, and it gave me a workable baseline of what the Green could or couldn't do. I could focus my efforts on what I'd learned.
All the same though, it was a bit frustrating that it had taken significantly depleting the impression to reach that conclusion. The results were worth it, but it would have been nice to follow up on them.
I looked over to the vine with a satisfied smile pulling at the corner of my mouth. What had once been a scraggly shoot, a stem barely thicker than my pen was now a decent facsimile of a bonsai tree.
A bit of moving the Green here, concentrating it there, and that was all it had taken to get the vine to grow and fork. Compared to working with bugs, manipulating the plant was fairly simple even with the Green mixtures volatility. I already had an entire page of ideas I could apply it to and beyond the practical applications of a passable wood substitute, even one that could be shaped on demand, I suspected I'd found a solution to future food problems—at least where foraging was concerned.
It was curious though. The bugs had been relatively simple to enlarge because they were just that, bugs. I had an innate connection with them through my passenger, but plants?
Another thing to look into.
Regardless of the ease in working with them though, I still needed more practice if I wanted to do half the things I had in mind. Also, there was efficiency. I'd been wasteful in saturating it and suspected that if I concentrated the Green only where I wanted the vine to grow I could make the process more efficient, and I would need to conserve as much of it as I could.
Only a relatively small amount of the Green had actually been needed to make the vine grow, but it had only been a vine; a plant type more prone to rapid growth than most. I had no doubt that large-scale growth or other, more woody, plants would require quite a bit more.
It was another note to the growing to-do list and I made another about searching for a source of Green while away from the mountain. If the mixed Green could do that, then could a pure Green do something on par with the whiptails enlarging?
I flipped to a new page to document the results from testing the Blue.
As limited as the Green but just as effective was the best way to describe how the Blue testing had gone—and fortunately, it had only been the Blue I'd been testing, the local energy hadn't become a factor. Whatever process had drawn on the Green-Blue mixture at the Visitors Center and the Green out in the jungle just hadn't triggered.
I made a note to look into it.
As the Green had done to the vine, it had only taken injecting a small measure of the Blue into the glass of water to get tangible results; a pale blue mist had fogged over the surface, while the water itself absorbed the Blue and took on a pale glow. More than that, I'd been able to feel the water the Blue had mixed with; in my swarm sense it had appeared as a vibrating mass, as if it were an incredibly dense swarm.
Feeling and understanding it were two different things though, it was just… there, in my swarm sense, I couldn't make out constituent elements and the mass was more a single thing made up of smaller bits. Aside from that curiosity though, from there is had taken no effort at all to move the Blue infused water by pulling on the vibrating mass, which I'd assumed was the energy. It had been slow moving at first, but quickly picked up pace until it was circling the inside edge of the glass and creating little eddies on the surface.
I had only used a little bit of the Blue though, and it was quickly used up, but it had been more than enough to demonstrate the potential in the application.
My immediate assumption had been that it was some limited form of hydrokinesis. The Blue was acting as a medium and interacting with the water rather than the water being something I was controlling directly.
Attention-grabbing as that had been though, I hadn't let myself have a repeat of the bug enlarging and moved on.
The rest of the testing went much as the Green did, with the Blue having little effect on the various samples. When it came to the beetle though...
I brought my pen up and swallowed, unsure how much I should write on what had happened with the beetle, whether or not I wanted to follow up on it. The sensory enhancement had potential, but… I put the pen back to the paper and recalled the simple code I'd used in my cape journal so long ago; it would take me consciously translating it to read it.
When it came to the beetle, I didn't know what had happened to it.
One moment I was injecting the Blue into it and its senses were getting sharper, clearer—what it'd been seeing and feeling through it was easier to process. For a few moments, it had stood out in my swarm-sense as the Green-enhanced insects did and I'd been looking through a set of eyes that saw the world in an entirely different way. Then it was all but dead.
The bug was still alive, technically, but only because I was making it breathe; not even that instinctive act had remained. Where normally I directed my swarm and the bugs obeyed, this was just… puppeting.
The bug was little more than a shell now. There was no consciousness or will, no instinct, and I'd been the one to make it like that.
I didn't know what frightened me more: that I might have broken what little a mind the insect had had, or the possibility that I might be able to do the same to a person. I wasn't sure I wanted to find out, whether or not I wanted myself to have that capability.
A small part of me wondered if a human would end up the same as the beetle, empty and nothing more than a puppet to my power, but I quashed those thoughts before they could bring back half-remembered memories of the monster I'd become. Maybe it was possible, but I didn't want that power, not again, and definitely not like that.
The following tests went more sedately, much of my enthusiasm sapped by what had happened with the bug. I hadn't repeated any of the Blue tests though, even with the impression having energy to spare. No, I had done that and missed out working on the vine, not this time.
I went back to the glass of water.
Perhaps I was rushing into this too quickly, but I would get something out of this that wasn't monstrous.
Flipping to a new page, I hastily scrawled out "Blue+Water" in the margin and set it aside.
Tapping into the impression of the lab, Blue mist wreathed my missing forearm and I reached out. Holding my spectral hand over the cup and rolling my missing fingers, streams of the glowing mist poured down to sink into the water; diffusing through the liquid like a luminescent dye.
I gradually became aware of the water as an irregularly shaped vibrating mass appeared in my swarm sense. After a few moments, I reached the amount I had used the first time, just a fraction of what was in the impression. I added more.
Mist poured off my immaterial fingers, more and more, not stopping until the water shone like a star and the glass glowed a pale blue that lit the green blanket it was resting on. I used enough that by then the impression of the lab had dimmed a little bit.
With the extra energy, I could now feel all the water in the glass, and the cup gave the vibrating mass a shape instead of amorphous blob it had been during testing.
With just a little bit of the Blue, the movement of the water had been sluggish, but with this much… I began by pulling the Blue infused water along the inside of the glass and it responded instantly.
The water was slow at first, but in seconds a gradual counterclockwise turn quickened as it gained momentum. With speed it became easier to move, more reactive.
After ten seconds it was as if there was a miniature whirlpool in the glass. I had to hold it between my knees while I watched the water, getting a better feel for what was happening.
I added a bit more to replace the blue as it was used up while I observed it. More was used where it was moving the water, less where it was moving slower, and almost nothing was lost where the water was stationary. Curious. Was the water able to act as a suspension medium? Also, oddly enough, where the water had picked up momentum it took less energy to keep it moving.
Letting the water go still, I took down the observations with a note to try and properly measure the rate of energy usage to the volume of water being moved.
As interesting as controlling the water was though, what I was doing now was still limited to the confines of a container.
Ridiculous as the comparison may have been, the first thing to come to mind was Leviathan and how he'd use it to swim, but it wasn't a bad one. With my arm as it was, there was definitely something to using the Blue as a swimming aid.
Swimming fast hadn't been Leviathans power though, he'd been the hydrokinetic, water was his domain. I stared at the glowing cup of water.
Memories of the lopsided figure crashing through groups of capes were replaced with the endbringer throwing itself against Scion, water flowing through the air around it.
Again, the comparison was ridiculous, but it did give me ideas: If I was moving the Blue and not the water, was a container even necessary?
Moving the notebook well out of the splash zone, I focused on the glowing water quickly picked up speed until it was brushing the rim of the glass and I pulled.
Immediately the question that came to mind was why would this work? But I immediately countered that with why wouldn't it?
First, a drop, then a sliver, then a thin stream of water rose from the glass and rapidly coalesced into a spinning marble.
My lips spread into a slight grin and I watched the marble grow, watching it spin and faster and faster, growing larger as if it was reeling in water from the cup as it spun. I was entirely focused on it, watching the water spin in place; getting a feel for what was happening.
More of the Blue was being used, a lot more, but where the Blue was used up the water was still being moved, either surrounded by water and just… carried along in the current?
Was as if the water was sticking to the infused water?
Concentrating on the glowing sphere, I waited until it was the size of a baseball before severing the flow of water through the umbilical to the sphere. With that the mass was now two vibrating masses; one, a churning sphere, the other a pudding cup.
Keeping hold of the Blue I waggled my 'hand' and the ball was rock steady. The Blue was also disappearing faster and faster. Too fast. A dribble of water fell from the ball to the glass.
I had an eye on the impression of the lab as I put a bit more Blue into the water to compensate and it grew just a little bit dimmer as the water grew brighter.
From the center outwards I gradually slackened my hold on the blue until only the very outer surface of the ball was holding it up. It worked, and a few interweaving currents within it kept the water moving with minimal loss, though it wasn't entirely necessary.
Was surface tension all that needed to be maintained?
Observing how long the Blue lasted, stopping the currents and restarting them a few times, that seemed to be that case. But it could be better. The water was weighing down on the lowest point, so if I removed that weakness… As the water began moving within the ball, creating currents that cycled out blue infused water on the surface, the energy loss lessened to a quarter of what it was a minute ago.
"There we go," I breathed, my eyes narrowing at the glowing, churning ball suspended in mid-air.
I let it spin in place for a short while before pulling at one of the currents. Opening a gap in the surface, blue infused water shot but I keep it together as I sent a twisting stream of water over the back of my missing hand before reconnecting with the sphere.
Momentum and surface tension then. Was that really all there was to it?
Experimenting with its shape I pulled at the spheres equator while bringing the poles together, spreading it into an ovoid, then a saucer, then a round-edged disk. I stretched it thinner and thinner and thinner, but it retained cohesion so long as it was held together and in motion.
For a few minutes I just sat there and played with it; pulling streamers this way and that, testing how long it took to lose cohesion without strong surface tension, how long the Blue was lasting and the timing to keep keeping it topped off, it was just so… simple. There was no resistance, a blank slate. It was fun.
Moving a fly into position I pulled again and a stream of water shot out to hit the fly. There was barely any pressure to it, the squirt only comparable to a water pistol, but it was something and the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
There were so many applications. Working with the surface tension had promise, but what did it take to keep it together in general? To just… keep it stationary, suspended in mid-air.
For a few seconds, I considered the churning, vibrating mass before taking a breath and stopping it in place. The sphere rippled as the currents suddenly stopped moving, but the surface tension held, and within moments of watching for it the Blue to started disappearing.
The consumption was minor at first, but with every second the strain grew and I had to apply a constant stream of Blue to keep it, and the water, suspended.
It was going as expected though, at this point keeping the water suspended was just a matter of keeping the Blue locked in place, so that was a success. The Blue was still vibrating though, if only so slightly. What would happen if I stopped the Blue completely?
For the next few seconds, I kept slowing the mass and considered stopping; it was taking more and more Blue to make incremental progress. The mass was slowing though, and keeping at it the blue kept slowing until the vibrating mass stopped.
In that same instant, the water went opaque and the ball vanished from my swarm sense. On reflex I grabbed for the falling ball, but it fell through intangible fingers and water splashed onto my legs.
I stared through water drops on my glasses at the ball of ice floating in the cup.
"Well... isn't that something."
My eyes didn't move from the opaque ball, not even when I removed my glasses to wipe off the water.
Liquid to solid. A phase change. That was a molecular level interaction.
Using the Green to enlarge my insects was one thing, that was familiar enough, but this?
I poked the ball. It was cold. Definitely ice.
The first question was the why, but that was easy enough: It had happened because I'd stopped the vibrating. The how though…
The vibrating mass. The Blue had bound with the water, what if… If those were water molecules I'd been feeling or the Blue that had bound to them, then basic chemistry would explain how it had happened. The exact specifics were still up in the air, like why it would bind with the water on that level, but the fact that the Blue could interact with water on a molecular level... If that was the case, did that also mean I excite the Blue infused water and bring it to a boil?
I stared at the glass of ice water, the frozen ball bobbing and clinking against the cup.
That the answer wasn't just 'maybe' was... exciting. So many possibilities, so much I could do with that.
Reaching out to the vibrating mass, I ignored the spherical displacement caused by the ice and shook.
It took more of the Blue than was available to make it work, to fuel the movement, but when the water started steaming and the ice began to shrink I knew I had my answer.
A slightly hysterical laugh burbled out as once more I was left wondering what the hell this power was.
Energy from locations? Places having feelings? The impressions? Cellular and molecular level interactions?
What was the common thread?
I bit my lip and sat back as all the details I'd noted came together into a bottomless chasm. Trying to make sense of it didn't work, because it didn't make sense. It was outside my frame of reference, I was in the dark.
The Green and the Blue were obviously two variants of the same thing, their traits and effects predicated on the location, but what was the common thread?
Green let me enlarge bugs a thousand fold, make plants grow and manipulate them like they were silly putty. Blue, meanwhile, turned bugs into vegetables and bonded with water. And to top it off, both were interacting with my passenger in some way.
My lip hurt as I bit hard enough to taste blood.
Above all the others things, it was that interaction that scared me.
How did my passenger play a part in all of this? Was this new power some side effect, or mutation, of what Amy had done? Was it something that came about from being shot in the head, or a result of having been connected to so many parahumans?
So many more questions that arose with every detail I uncovered. Thing power, was like an onion, peel away one layer and there was another.
I sighed and looked inward at the impressions, the dim mountaintop and the faintly shining laboratory. But I didn't try tapping into either, I just… I let it go.
I slowly breathed out. I'd done enough for today, and it was getting late. I could consider all everything after I'd had time for it to assimilate.
Taking control of the whiptail where I'd had it resting after it had hung my costume to dry after washing it, I directed it to the row of steaming pots near the bunker entrance and gave the dyes simmering within a cursory check. The giant spider may not have been able to see the colors, but I could check the water level which was nearly boiled away, the dye concentrated and plant material little more than mush at the bottom. A few empty bottles and it would be ready to go.
A sharp clack! Echoed through the bunker and Artur emerged from within the generator room, tapping a long, straightish stick against the ground, having just unloaded the latest armful of wood.
In the time he'd been working, he had swapped the full face mask with a clean foot wrap and shed layers. At this point, he was only wearing pants, unzipped and only held up by suspenders, and a striped undershirt that clung to him. He pulled the cloth off and wiped his face.
Looking through the whiptail's eyes, I took a moment to observe him as he emerged from the bunker; slim, or lean rather, more of a swimmer or runner's build than a fighter's, though still well built. Working muscle.
Wiping his neck Artur noticed only then that the whiptail was looking in his direction. He paused to stare for a few seconds but didn't stop cleaning up until he tucked the cloth into a back pants pocket and took the stick in hand. Tapping it against the concrete, he looked to the whiptail, then the pots and moved to a pile of twigs and bits of wood he had deposited beside the door to keep the fires burning beneath the pots.
I had the whiptail hold out a leg and he stopped, stared at it for a moment, then looked to the pots. Turning around and approaching, the whiptail scuttled away to give him room and peering into the each of the pots in turn, he looked to the spider and nodded.
"No moore. Unterstand."
His neck and back cracked audibly as stretched in place for a moment before tapping it against the ground a few times and looking up the slope the bunker was built into. I raised my head to look back at him.
Arturs mouth opened as he looked back to the whiptail, but then it closed and his hand came up to slowly scratch at the stubble on his cheeks before he shook his head and began ascending. He used the stick as a walking stick, limping ever so slightly at times and leaning on it once he reached the top to stand over me.
His eyes scanned over my arrangement, unphased, though I noted his gaze linger on the glass of ice water.
I allowed myself a small smile and proffered the cup to him, the ice within clattering against the glass. "Ice water ?"
He stared at the ice for a second before blinking. "Ah… no, ma'am. No zank'you"
I smirked a little at his response. The absurdity of it, me offering him ice water with the situation we were in? A moment later though my lips were twisting into a grimace.
"Ma'am?"
I set the glass down and sighed, suddenly weary of the address. I could understand why, though that didn't make it any more comfortable. "It's alright to just call me Taylor."
Artur shifted and looked into the distance, lost in thought.
I stared at him as the silence began to draw on and sighed. "So, are you sure this is going to kill the mold? Going through a lot of effort otherwise."
He looked back and blinked at the non sequitur, staring for a moment before tapping the stick into the dirt and looking back down the slope a few seconds before nodding. "Da, am con'feedent. Granvather and I, ve do before. See'milar sit'youaytion."
Gesturing in the bunkers direction, he rested the hand atop the other and leaned on the stick.
The man stared into the distance before turning back as he began speaking. He wasn't looking at me, though; his eyes were far away, lost in memory. "Ve find Soviet peellbox, use it for root cellar on many hunt. Sometime use as shelter in vintar. Dooring vone summer eet..." He paused, eyes narrowing. "Ferment is best vord I know. Mold veery deeficult clean, boot easy to cook."
I nodded along. It was sound, in theory. Most things couldn't withstand being exposed to high temperatures for long, let alone an hour—or however long the wood kept burning and the time it took for the air to cool.
"It's just going to be a matter of reaching a high enough temperature then."
"Da. Do know where we go? Vould not be good idea to stay. Animal coold be… drawn by smoke, smell."
I hadn't really thought about it, but I did have a good idea of where I wanted to go. I told him and he shrugged, saying it would be nice to swim a bit.
The trip though… eyeing the improvised hiking stick, I caught his hands tightening around it for a few seconds, knuckles going white. "How's your leg doing?"
"Eet is fine, Ma'—"
"No, it's not," I snapped.
He was quiet for a long moment and glancing up I saw him staring at me, though he was looking at something far away.
"It vil alvays 'urt, doktor say. Muscle vil heal, boot nurve vas damaged. Baedly. Leg is better, slow and reg'youler movement is vine, but much run'ning is… difficult vor now. Can do, can't do. Depend on day. Weather."
And I'd led him on a merry chase through the forest. "I see, I'm sorry."
He shrugged with the self-depreciation of someone inured to their inability to change something. "Eet is how eet is. Eet does not bothar much." His eyes shifted to my right side. "Does eet bothar you?"
My arm? I shrugged and he snorted.
The casual, relaxed, reaction put a small smile on my lips and I absently rubbed at the rounded end of the maimed limb, feeling the slightly sensitive scab I had gotten evading his shot. "I'm still getting used to being it gone. Sometimes I… I can still feel it."
My fingers stretched out and I made a fist.
For a second my arm was there again, mutilated flesh disintegrating into golden motes before being burnt away while two sets of eyes stared at me from the flames: one golden and sorrowful, the other dark and proud. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and when I opened them the vision was gone.
"I see." Artur was quiet for a long moment. "Eet 'as 'ealed vel, baetter zan most I see. No scar."
"...Yeah."
What else could I say? How could I tell someone who'd be feeling an injury the rest of their life that I'd had my arm mangled, amputated, cauterized, healed only hours later, and that it had only been two weeks since then?
I blinked.
Two weeks. Was that really how long it's been? Was that all?
What had it been at the end? Days at most? It had all happened so fast, one thing after another, and then… we won. Scion was dead, I'd been losing the last shreds of myself, and now all I had worked to preserve was lost to me. The price of winning.
I blinked away the wetness in my eyes. "It hurts," I said, the words just spilling out.
Artur glanced to me then looked away. "Da."
He turned to look out over the island, the mountains and valleys stained bloody and gold by the setting sun, and exhaled slowly. "Is nice view from up here," he said quietly.
I looked at his back, then back out to the island. It felt like he was waiting, giving me a chance to speak, that someone I barely knew was offering was offering me that though… I don't know. Maybe it was a good sign, but I couldn't bring myself to say anything. Eventually he left, giving me a sidelong look before slowly making his way back down to the bunker to prepare dinner.
I managed to hold out that long before my breath caught.
I swallowed against the block in my throat, choking as my eyes grew hot until it released in a broken sob.
The demons lurking at the back of my mind rushed forth to stab deep.
The questions Artur had answered on the rooftop had confirmed fears I'd superficially considered but never acknowledged.
This wasn't Bet, Aleph, Gimmel, or anywhere that we'd known of. It wasn't one of the Earths with Parahumans, involved in Scion's rampage, or somehow even part of the same timeline. There was no one that knew who I was, no one that knew what I'd done. But what that meant?
Everyone I'd known, they were gone. Everything that I had been and worked for, gone. Everything that I'd cared about, gone.
And home… a strained, hysterical laugh leaked from my throat between hiccuping sobs. Home? Brockton Bay was gone, shattered. There wasn't a home to return to, for what little it had been one.
And everyone... my friends, Lisa, Brian, Rachel, Dragon… with the state I'd been in at the very end, they had tried, but at this point they must think I was dead if Contessa didn't tell them. It was probably better that way, but dad, I didn't even— if he was, did he even know…
Don't go there.
No, it was one more thing I didn't want to think about, that was one thing I didn't want to know either way.
In this world there was nothing out there for me, no expectations, no burdens to bear.
I was only Taylor here, no one else. Not Skitter, not Weaver, not Khepri, just... Taylor. I was me, whoever that was.
I had gotten what I'd wanted, but I hadn't wanted any of this. Though could I really complain when the alternative was being killed like the rabid animal I'd become, Contessa doing what I'd asked her to?
A voice told me it would be ok. My own voice. A memory of better times. I wanted to believe it, but…
Hugging my stomach I bent double, hot tracks ran down my cheeks as the sun set on the horizon, gold streaks disappearing as red faded into black.
—