I didn't choose my powers.
Not for this. This was too important. I couldn't afford to fuck up, like always. So Fortuna chose. I didn't think she could path me, but somehow, she managed. Managed everything. Down to the last detail. Like always.
The first maintains my flesh. Atmospheric Aliment. It mends my telomeres, converts the very air around me into flesh and blood to knit my decaying frame back together piece by piece. A constant, bone-deep itch. But we're in a science facility. Hermetically sealed. Huge, but finite. The air supply won't last forever. And the words I could once read easily on the walls before me have begun to look blurry. Still, the first maintains my flesh.
How long has it been now? How long since I last saw the sun, the sky? How long since I saw anything but this room? After 300 years, the consoles burnt out. There's no clock in here, no visitors, and even the most resilient corpses wasted away long ago. I am older than sin, yet somehow, the only one left.
The second maintains my mind. Neuron Subnet. The first does nothing for my brain, so this was necessary. It bridges new connections between failing brain cells, rerouting around rotting myelin sheaths, cleaning toxins and detritus from every nook and cranny. That I might remain awake eternally. It keeps me sharp. Keeps me alert. Keeps me focused. And focus is key.
But it's not perfect. It doesn't create, it just optimizes. A finite supply of brain cells means it has to prioritize. Which parts of my mind are necessary? Critical thinking, planning, sanity, check. Respiration, heart rate, autonomic processes, check. Corona pollentia, definitely check. But senses? To my limbs, my lips, my body? Those I don't need at all. They go first. They last me centuries. But eventually, that space runs out too. So it has to take from other places, the only ones left. Memories.
I don't catch it right away. It's a subtle thing. But one day, I realize I can't remember my father's name. My mother's face. And a tingle runs down my spine as I imagine the consequences. Which memories will it choose tomorrow? What will I forget? The thought of losing myself entirely, becoming a husk piloted by my own corona, paralyzes me with fear. But I have no choice. And so, the second maintains my mind.
I am entombed within this place. It will be my grave. I know this. I no longer sleep, or eat, or shit. In a way, I'm dead already. But I don't have time to consider my mortality. I don't have time to be depressed, to despair. All my concentration, all my effort, every scrap of my being, is devoted to the third.
The third maintains the lock. Personal-Domain Temporal Exchange.
It maintains the center of the room.
Alexandria and the Warrior, locked in eternal combat. Frozen in time. Quite the tableau.
The power doesn't work like Clockblocker's. It's much stronger-the ultimate trump card. Scion doesn't even know he's frozen. It blocks his access to the shard network. As far as he's concerned, five hundred years ago might as well have been five seconds. But, as with all these fucking powers, there's a price.
Time. It drains my own to keep it running. Drains my vitality. Makes me older, weaker, decrepit. It would suck to have this power on its own. You'd barely be able to keep it up for an hour before it killed you. But I can keep it up forever. Forever, the third maintains the lock.
Forever, that's the key.
You see, at first the powers didn't make sense. A brute power that doesn't work on brains? A thinker power that corrodes my own mind? A shaker power that drains my fucking life? But now I get it.
She had to choose ones that wouldn't run out.
All my powers, if I overuse them, they run out. Need downtime, need to recharge. But not these. These all extract a price, demand something of me, get back as much energy as they spend, or enough to make little difference. She knew. She had to choose ones with a price for this to work. She knew.
She knew there'd be no regroup. No rally. She told me it was temporary, that we'd have him right where we wanted him, but she knew we'd lose.
She saw this, the fucking cunt.
So now I suffer. It's a fitting punishment. After all, I was the strongest. It was my job to stop him. It was my failure, my loss. And what a punishment. I can feel him, it, fighting against me. Every day, every second. A slow, constant pressure. Drilling into my skull. Pounding in my temples. Waiting for me to slip. It's impossible. Scion is a monster, a grotesque machination of crystalline machinery that dwarfs the planet. I need to win constantly, never let up, for hundreds of years. He only needs to win once.
We were fools to think we could kill god. And when I die, the Warrior will be free once more. Tricking him won't work a second time. He'll erase what remains of humanity.
The first will fail, then the second, then the third. Then, the end.
Tell me Fortuna, if you can hear me from hell.
Was this truly our Path to Victory?
-Eidolon, High Priest of the Dead God.