Out of the Shadows (version 2.0) – Part 2
A "Shadows of Destiny" Revamp Fic
(Shadows of Destiny is copyrighted to Konami)
By
Deborah Brown
A slender blonde walked through the streets of Lebensbaum, his long green coat hanging around his slim body. Behind him a shadow lurked, small, childish but with malice in its heart. Something flew out at the man – aimed for his back.
Once again Eike Kushe died.
Stupid. How could he be so stupid? He should just create the boy without so many memories. Or use Wagner himself again. Don't try to be clever. Don't let him try to be clever. Just… He sagged. Just one more time. One more try. It can't hurt anymore than everything else has, can it? He wondered what it was that was driving this hope. Hope hurt. Hurts so much… He ought to just let it go and go back to those old, known, ways. Still, what's the worst that could happen? The plaintive thought echoed through his tiny world.
"How do you feel?"
Eike sighed. How many times was he going to have to go through this? A faint frown crossed his face. How many times had Homunculus gone through it? He wanted to demand the creature tell him what had just happened, why he'd been destroyed in the time stream like that. He controlled time, surely. How could it kill him? Instead he went ahead with the usual pattern. Try try again, I guess. Without any help to get it right.
He was back in that time again. That time outside of his own existence. So quiet without the boy's raging human feelings and occasional thoughts scattering through his mind. Unexpected, that. He'd formed the connection between them that last time – to keep the boy under closer watch and he was not sure now if that was such a good idea. It had been quieter, easier to bear, when Eike had been Wagner made young. When the fool hadn't forced his destruction. Missing him? Not possible. Not possible. Don't be the kind of stupid, sentimental, fool he is. Then why was it he waited and listened for Eike's presence? Why did he watch his window into time with desperate concentration. Why did he want him back?
Once again in the middle ages, in a time he felt was safe from Homunculus' interference, Eike considered the problem again. Taking Homunculus to this time didn't work. Eike didn't understand why, but time travel – at least the sort provided by the digipad – would kill the created being. All right. That failed. What else can I try?
He puzzled over the question, examining his memories. Scrutinizing the bits of knowledge he'd gleaned through the many time-loops he'd experienced. The memory of lying down in the middle of the town square, only to be run over by a car… That was stupid. So very stupid. But I don't understand. Why so many versions?
Something Homunculus had said came back to him. "I've played through this history a few times…" How many? He counted endings in his head as best he could remember. With the addition of his last effort now, eight – and this one would probably be the ninth. Three certainly isn't the charm, now is it? He shoved the weak joke aside and pondered those endings.
If Hugo is the one who created Homunculus, then those endings where he died – or was destroyed, whatever – would be paradoxical. Hugo being removed from the time line too early in his life to create Homunculus would mean everything else would fall apart. For that matter, even if he hadn't created Homunculus, his creation – in old age – of the time machine he'd used to follow Eike wouldn't happen either. And it seems time is simply not going to permit paradox to exist.
As for those rare two times when Hugo didn't die… paradox could still occur if the events he'd experienced in the future had made him change his mind. Let's assume that's the case for a moment. If it was true, then perhaps, by trying all those histories, Homunculus was trying to work out a pattern that time would permit to continue… Or is he? There's not that many different possibilities and I have this feeling I've repeated them hundreds of times. As if he's trying to keep the paradox going. Why? It forces him to start at the beginning too, doesn't it?
A thought occurred to Eike. Perhaps there was something that was going to happen in the future? Something that Homunculus didn't want to face, didn't want to reach. Perhaps he was using the paradox to ensure he never did? Sourly, Eike wondered exactly what that meant for the rest of them. What right does he have to drag us through this? he wondered. This whole thing has to stop.
All right, so if there was something in the time ahead that Homunculus feared then it might well prove an ally. "Forward," he ordered the digipad, once more marked with a pentagram to control it. "Forward past the end…" He'd never seen that time, he realized, as the time passage formed and carried him away. He wondered what it would be like.
The boy's next time jump left him breathless and puzzled and NO. Not glad… He's a tool… just a tool to keep things going… Isn't he? It awed him, really, how Eike managed to control the digipad so well and still have so little understanding of time. And what was he going to do there? Not that it really mattered. There was nothing the boy could do in this time to interfere. Was there? He felt uneasy, but could not put a finger on why.
What the future was like was, apparently, something he wasn't going to find out. Eike stared, watching himself and Hugo talking in the square, Hugo's raging fury almost palpable. This was just the end of the loop. Why couldn't he get any further, he wondered.
Maybe it was time to ask some questions. "She knows a lot more than she admits," he determined. The Fortune Teller, Helena's bound spirit he reminded himself. An ally was needed and she was at least on his side – or seemed to be. More, something about her had bothered Homunculus. He set off at a dead run, knowing that there couldn't be much time between that moment and the final stages of the loop.
The scent of incense was thick in the air as Eike opened the door and walked over to the chair, finding a seat. "I already know Homunculus is a djinn," he told the figure across from him. "That you're Helena. Can you tell me anything more?"
The false image of a woman enrobed in silk started slightly. "There are changes in you, Eike. You are not the Eike I have seen in other timelines…" As Eike's emerald eyes blinked at her, the spirit sighed. "He destroyed you… the you he always used before… in the past. Now I see how he resolved it. But – at long last – he has erred. Given you too much memory, let you realize the truth of your circumstances."
"What… what do you mean?" I'm not going to like the answer, am I? I know it. Oh man do I know I'm not.
"In other times you were my husband, Wolfgang Wagner."
Dead silence.
"I am sorry. This must be a shock to you." The spirit seemed to regard Eike with gentle concern. "Poor boy. You've gone through so much and now…"
"If I was Wolfgang and he destroyed me, then… what am I?" Eike wrapped his long arms around himself. "WELL? " He hated the plaintive whine in his voice. So like Hugo's. If he had been Wagner once, that explained why, but he didn't have to like it.
Helena's spirit sighed. "It seems you are a copy. A creation of that… creature's." Hate filled her tone. Hate so thick Eike thought that it would have destroyed him if he'd been its target. "Don't be afraid, Eike. It is not your fault. All his. Using us, all of us… to ensure his birth… his creation."
"Then we have to stop him," Eike said firmly. "This can't go on." He sensed a smile of agreement from the woman. "Do you know what it is he fears? What lies ahead of this time that he's trying to avoid?"
"Yes. Me." The bitter hatred was still there, still palpable. "I was able, in two other – long ago - timelines, to capture him. The memory is not mine, but I can see the marks of those patterns of time in the void. They are distant, nearly washed away by other patterns, but I see them. I was able to bend him to my will. He is bound to come to me by the force of those other times. Only the never-ending loops that he has created prevent this eventuality. Break the loop, Eike, and he will be mine once more. And this time I will never let him go."
The boy was up to something. Something he thought was clever. The trouble was the few thoughts Eike had had on the subject had all involved secrecy. Secrecy so close that he wasn't even daring think about the matter. It involved that woman, though. That terrible woman. He was becoming afraid but dared not interfere just yet. Not until he knew the plan. They didn't understand how much power he had. What he could do. They would learn, however. They would learn. How bad could it be, fool? I have a feeling I'm going to find out.
Eike thought through the long established pattern, choosing what path he'd take carefully to ensure Hugo's survival and his own. Before he did, however, he had one more thing he had to do. Choosing a time before Homunculus' re-creation by Wagner senior, he took Hugo aside for a long talk.
"Listen. Things are going to get really strange in the future. Your father's going to disappear and it's going to be because of a creature called Homunculus."
Blue eyes stared into his puzzledly. "I don't understand…"
"You're smart enough to create a time machine based on one view of mine," Eike replied, bothered as ever by the slight whine in the boy's voice. "You're going to have to do that… and one more thing…"
Hugo frowned, "What?"
"Create Homunculus." Carefully explaining his plan, but avoiding telling the boy what he would do to his mother's spirit, he drew in the dirt in front of them. When he was done, the blue eyes blinked for a long moment and Eike could see the boy's mental gears turning. You know, I think he's smarter than I was… or rather Wagner. The fact that he was a copy of the alchemist rankled. Yet another thing to pay Homunculus back for. "You have to do both. Your future self will need to bring the time machine back to the day Homunculus is freed and give it to you in the now… Then you'll have to try and kill me. Don't worry, I'll have a way to keep you from getting me. Homunculus will see to that because he needs me."
Hugo considered the plan for a long while. "All right. I'll do it," he agreed. "I just wish…"
"Yes?"
"There was a way to get him back to this time and save mother, instead. You say he has all that power…"
"Don't try. It creates another paradox. One we can't afford." Eike got to his feet and checked his time. "Gotta go, Hugo. I don't dare make him suspicious."
Over again. He watched the pattern end with curiosity. Surely the triumphant feeling of certainty Eike was exuding had a purpose. Going to kill me, little one? Go ahead. I have my ways of dealing with such a problem. He waited for the young woman and her brother to leave to find out exactly what Eike planned.
At last he'd reached the end of the pattern. Hugo and Margarete were just returning to their own time and Dana was there with him. To Eike's relief, Hugo gave him a quick wink as they left the square, telling him the boy remembered what they'd talked about before and would follow through. Good enough… Now for Homunculus.
As he'd done so many times before, he tried to get Homunculus to understand the wrong he was doing. Not that he expected any positive result from that. Homunculus was what he was and if what he was wasn't an evil djinn as Helena thought, he wasn't a very nice creature either. Cruel, manipulative. And going to pay, Eike thought as he handed the creature his digipad. His digipad with the tiny pentagram inscribed on it.
The created being accepted the device, reabsorbing it into himself, "Thank… ahhh…" His sharp frightened gasp was strangely flat, missing that faint echo that Eike had long grown accustomed to. The ruby eyes widened and the slender body stiffened into immobility. "What… have you… done?"
"Put a spoke in your wheels for once and all," Eike replied coolly. I hope. "Now be quiet and wait. Dana? Do you mind if I take a rain check? Homunculus and I have to go see an old acquaintance."
The girl wasn't terribly happy with him, but accepted the request after a certain amount of grumbling. I'll have to make it up to her… tomorrow… if there is a tomorrow for me. He wasn't certain of that, even now. Homunculus was a slippery customer. He might still have a trick up his sleeve, even if this wasn't a path he was accustomed to.
Turning to the slender man standing silently on the steps of the town hall, he examined Homunculus carefully. No movement, eyes watching him without emotion. Or was there a flicker of something raging in the depths of those blood tinted orbs? "All right," he told Homunculus at last. "Come with me."
Long legs carried him over the pavement quickly. He wanted to get this over with and his anxiety over whether this new plan would work drove him to hurry. Homunculus followed at a more sedate speed, but fast enough that when he caught up with Eike he was moving clumsily, stumbling over small dips in the pavement, like a child reaching the end of its strength. "In," Eike said. It was obvious he'd tired the little man out – just by that short trot – and that Homunculus was still walking only because he was forced to. Such a fragile body… So terribly weak. Eike forced away sympathy.
Ruby eyes glanced his way and they were so filled with despair that – had Eike not steeled himself – the young blonde might have relented. They were the eyes of a man going to the executioner. Then, still silent, Homunculus walked in, followed by Eike.
He struggled against the geas. So this was the little one's plan. A bargain with her to bring him here. A vision of time in the past showed him something else. He was being created. By the very Hugo who had fought to destroy Eike. Thus creating a loop that could, given no interference, mean this path would remain stable. Given no interference, of course. You still don't understand, do you, boy… Don't understand my power any more than you understand my limits. All right. Play it out. Let us see what the boy does with the knowledge. He could bear it. Could bear the pain about to be inflicted. Can't I?
Inside the Fortune Teller's house – once Wagner's – things had changed entirely. There was only an empty room, charred walls grey and ancient. "Did you think to escape forever?" Helena's voice asked softly. "Come to me, Homunculus."
Homunculus didn't move, standing at the entry way with silent resentment like a cloud around his thin form. "Go," Eike said roughly. "Do as she says. Everything she says."
It was obvious from the way he moved that Homunculus was fighting every step of the way. The geas of the pentagram that he'd taken back into his Self, however, kept him from escape. He stopped in the middle of the room, head down, body looking very small in the looming shadows.
Why am I pitying him? Eike wondered. This man had made such a mess of his life that Eike didn't know if it would ever untangle. If it could ever untangle. Yet he was standing at the room's center, at the center of Helena's attention, in a posture of utter and complete hopelessness. The waves of hatred, the pressure, Helena's will was putting on him was enormous and growing. The hatred of 500 years of entrapment, pouring out on a single, helpless, target.
Eike swallowed, glad not to be the focus of that attention. He could only imagine what was happening to the man who was. Homunculus wasn't moving, wasn't breathing hard – if at all, but Eike could sense anguish, desolation… total and complete misery. He didn't know why, but he moved forward, to a position where he could see Homunculus' expression, the ruby eyes wide and lost in the pale face. Oh god… This went against everything he felt he believed in. Against all the kindness he naturally felt. He might kill a serpent trying to bite him out of self-preservation, but he wouldn't torture it first. What are we doing? What have I done?
"Do you know what we've done?" Helena asked, echoing Eike's internal query without the shame that the young blonde felt. "Speak."
"Don't…" Homunculus' voice was soft, a faint edge of the torment he was enduring making the tone ragged. "Let… me… go…"
"ANSWER ME!"
"I know." A faint, bitter smile accompanied the words. "It won't work."
"Why not? You can't break free by ending the loop. Hugo will, or has, created you and the time device. There is no paradox for time to wipe away."
Homunculus managed a shrug and Eike had a feeling the movement had cost him horribly. "There is if I don't recreate Eike, don't give him the memories he needs to accomplish this. You hold me here only in this point of time. The part of me not so bound will simply change the past and prevent this future." The soft voice was sweet, mocking even in this moment of agony. "No pentagram can hold me entire, Helena. Not when I exist as a single entity throughout these few short centuries." The words drove Helena's spirit into a frothing rage. Eike felt it tower around the tiny figure, felt the wave break and crash upon him.
God, Homunculus, can't you show a bit of weakness, even now? She won't stop until she has you down. The harder you resist, the harder she's going to beat on you. He had to wonder what drove the man to fight so hard. Misplaced pride, or something else? Something deeper, closer to the bone. A need for self-command, for self-mastery. For self-respect in a world that used him and left him fallen by the wayside when the need for him seemed over. Eike wondered how he knew that and – unnoticed – clenched his fists.
For a time Homunculus endured, still wearing that sweet, superior little smile, though his eyes showed the effort it took to stay standing. For a time he seemed able to take against anything Helena threw at him. Then, shaking, his hands raised to his temples. "Stop…" he whimpered. "Oh please… stop…" His body was trembling under the force of her anger.
Eike saw a non-corporeal hand form out of the darkness. A hand that reached out and into the skull of its victim. Now Homunculus did scream, body convulsing under that touch and collapsing in on itself to lie quivering and shuddering on the floor – her hand still clenched within him.
He'd fought the agony as long as he could. Played along as long as he could. No real changes here, then, though she was being kinder than those other times – Eike's presence holding her back, perhaps. Still, no change. No resolution.
The pain was too much and that part of himself in the past took steps to ensure that Eike would not be able to form this unholy alliance. It was all he could do. His body was going into convulsions still, mind half ripped apart by what was being done to it. Far too fragile flesh and the spirit it housed could not take much more. He was literally cracking under the stress. Even the knowledge that it didn't matter, couldn't matter, would be over soon enough didn't make the pain any easier to bear. The physical pain was matched by the simple humiliation of being unable to stand up to the abuse, the shame of having allowed his captors know how badly they were hurting him.
"Helena! NO! Stop it!" Eike couldn't stand it any more. "Helena, please!"
"Why?" the woman's 'voice' was easily heard despite the moaning, gasping sobs that her victim was emitting. "You know what he's done. Why let him get away with it? Even if he's right, if he can wipe away this loop, we still have time to make him pay…"
"Helena… I…" Eike shook his head. " This is wrong. He hurts us, we torture him… Where does it end?" Some sense of comprehension was hitting him. "God, Helena… this isn't you… I may not be Wagner anymore, but I saw you in the past. You weren't cruel. I know 500 years is a horribly long time to be caught here, but that – at least – was never his fault."
Slowly, Helena slid her hand free of her victim and regarded Eike. "And what do you propose we do?"
Eike considered the options. "We have to make him go back into your time, before you died. Make him cure you." He frowned. "But it's not possible with the digipad. Homunculus… listen. You want your freedom? Use your own powers and do what I just said."
A soft, agonized, chuckle escaped the creature's lips. He was still curled around himself, face hidden in the crooks of his arms, only the elegant tips of his pointed ears visible beneath the tousled hair. "How many times… do I have to… tell you? Not… possible… Honestly… you lot… could drive a saint to homicidal mania."
How many times? Eike stared at the man, slow comprehension rising. Hugo created him for that purpose, hadn't he? But with all that power over time it's still impossible? WHY? A thought that was not, could not, be his echoed in his mind. Son, Father, Mother… This child… All one thought in their mind and no comprehension of the difficulties involved. No comprehension of what I can and cannot do…
"Do it!" Helena's voice made her victim shudder and flinch. Aside from that, however, he didn't move.
"Can't. Can't can't can't! Not all the demanding in the world can change that. I CANNOT GET INTO THAT TIME!" It obviously took an effort of will far beyond anything Eike possessed, but he sat up straight and glared at the nothingness around them.
Oh god… what's happening to him? Beneath Homunculus' skin were myriad cracks, an antique porcelain beginning to shatter from inside, a ruby glow – lurid against the pallor of his skin – limned the cracks as if the fire within his body was trying to escape.
Seemingly unaware of , or not caring about, the way his body was self-destructing, Homunculus continued. "No amount of coercion can make my power other than what it is!"
Eike had never seen Homunculus in a rage before, though he had a strange moment of deja-vu that told him Wagner had. He didn't pull back, though, confident that there wasn't much Homunculus could do to him right now – that, even if he could, it was about to be wiped out. "I am bound by the times in which I exist," the created being practically spat at him, "You saw what happened to me when you tried to drag me to that when. Only the fact that you or a close enough version of you, exists there allows you to make the jump. I left you that memory so you wouldn't try it again, you thrice damned fool!"
"SILENCE!"
Eike shook his head at Helena's interruption. "No, let me talk to him. Don't interrupt." He looked at Homunculus, saw how the pale flesh was cracking – flaking away – and wondered how he was managing to stay in one piece. "You switched the babies," he protested.
"I lied." The words were simple. Direct. The truth, Eike knew.
"I don't understand… Please. Won't you explain…"
"What is this? Bad master, good master?" Homunculus demanded mockingly. "Do you think to get on my good side? I have none left. After thousands of years of this damned eternal looping I… HAVE… NONE… LEFT!"
He wouldn't ordinarily allow himself such emotional excesses. The fire within was barely manageable as it was. Required a constant balancing act in Realtime to prevent it from burning out of control and shattering the fragile time-resistant shell that contained it. Only the knowledge that his salvation was on its way, the shifting wave of paradox flowing up the timestream, allowed him to let the rage of millennia spill free. So many years being used and abused. And he thinks he has troubles? Too angry to think. Too angry to listen to the boy's inner voice, all he knew was the raging fury that driven his existence for so many years.
"Does that mean you had any to begin with? Any human sympathy, any comprehension of what your endless looping is doing to the rest of us?" Eike shook his head. "No, don't bother trying to answer that. I know what you'll say. You're not human. You don't understand human feelings."
"Don't you dare lecture me, Eike. You have no idea of the force with which you play!" Ruby eyes regarded him and there was a flash of such agonized hurting at their depths that it hit Eike through the heart with almost physical force. "Time isn't a game. You can't just pick up the pieces and go home if it doesn't flow the way you want it to."
Truth again. Bitter, agonizing truth. Still, there had to be a solution. Had to be an answer. An idea was niggling at him, trying to burgeon into a full-fledged thought. "We can always change the loop one more time. Your stone survives the trip. Hugo can create you, you can…" He paused, forced himself to choke out the words, "you can create me then become the stone. I'll take you into the past and tell Hugo he has to create you in the future, then use the stone to heal Helena." He could see a problem with that, not so much in the loop itself, but in what it meant to Homunculus.
The way Homunculus' face seemed to – well it couldn't pale any further, but – the way it tightened in on itself, confirmed his thoughts. "Oh, really…"
"And to keep it all under control, I can tell Hugo to put a geas on you to keep things going that way."
A faint sob of breath escaped Homunculus' throat. "You can't…"
"I'll find a way. You've done us enough damage. It's high time we returned the favor." Eike forced his voice to stay hard, cold. "Look at it this way. You'll get to live for a little while, anyway." His anger makes him honest. I need the truth he's hiding behind his pride.
"Am I supposed to thank you? To be grateful? For what?" The ruby eyes narrowed. "For the privilege of a few short hours repeated ad infinitum, ad nauseum? Been there, did that. I'm not – ever – doing it again."
Been there… did that… He tried, didn't he, tried to cure Helena, to satisfy his creator… Only to watch it all fall down when the paradox hit… That's the answer… the paradox… He can't break it because they wouldn't… won't… listen…
Perfect lips curled into a sneer, but the voice… it ached with despair. "We can't win, Eiche. We can't break even and we can not quit the game."
Eike seemed to feel a surge of something pouring towards them at a high rate of speed. About to be wiped out again. Just as I'm beginning to understand. Damn it all to hell!
"Stop it. Now!" Helena growled from around them, seeming to sense the approaching wave as well. "Keep this time going or I'll find a way to twist your life into a living hell!"
A faint, sour, laugh. "You mean it isn't already? You seem to think I like this…" Homunculus shook his head, the tiny cracks widening, fire beginning to seep between like lava around a volcano. "No hope to stop it, Helena. Rip my mind out by its roots if you like. You only have a minute or so left and it won't change what my past Self has done."
Eike 'listened' to the approaching change, like a freight train coming down on us, and took a deep breath. "Homunculus… one more chance. Please. One more, that's all I ask. Let me make this work. For all of us… For you…" He had an idea. Of all the blessedly worst times, he had an idea. "Please!" Let me remember. Please let me remember this. Remember my idea. Let me…
Then the wave, and oblivion, hit.