I didn't choose my powers.
Not for this. This was too important. I couldn't afford to fuck it all up. Not this time.
Not…not like always.
So Fortuna chose. I never knew she could path me, never thought she could, 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 blood and bone and soft tissue. Knits my decaying frame back together, slowly. Painfully. Piece by piece. A constant itch that plagues me to my marrow.
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 started to look…
Blurry.
Still, the first maintains my flesh.
How long has it been, now? I wonder this, sometimes. I don't really know. I can't seem to recall the color of the sun. I can't seem to remember what outside smelled like. 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.
How long has it been since I saw anything but this room?
The second maintains my mind.
Neuron Subnet. The first doesn't fix anything between my ears, so this was necessary. It bridges new connections between failing dendrites, reroutes around rotting myelin sheaths, cleans toxins and detritus from every neural nook and cranial 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; just optimizes. A finite supply of neurons means it has to prioritize. Has to choose. Which parts of my mind are necessary? How does an alien decide this, I wonder? How could something inhuman ever know?
Obviously, sooner or later I find out.
It doesn't fuck with my critical thinking, my planning, my sanity. What little remains. Makes sense, I guess. Maintains my respiration and heart rate, too. Keeps all my autonomic processes running strong.
Needless to say, it maintains my corona.
Smart alien.
But senses? To my limbs, my lips, my body? Those are unnecessary, it decides. Outdated. Downright vestigial. Those I don't need at all. So they go first. They last me centuries. But eventually, even that space runs out. Which means it has to take from somewhere else.
And wouldn't you know it.
There's only one place left.
Memories.
I don't catch it right away, of course. How could I? Not like I fucking speak Shard. No. No, it's a subtle thing. Creeps up on me. No, one day, I just recognize that I can't remember my father's name. My mother's face. Blank, no matter how hard I try.
And I start to realize.
I start to realize what it's done. I start to imagine the consequences. Which memories will it choose tomorrow? What will I forget? Is its oblivion by design, or is the damn thing just picking at random?
I admit it.
It scares me.
Hell, it terrifies me. The thought of losing myself. Becoming a husk. A shell. A mindless puppet, piloted by my own corona. If I could still move, it'd paralyze me with fear. But what choice do have? What can I do? The holocaust of all humanity writhes within my blind, deadened grasp. I can't let go.
I'm a hero.
And so, the second maintains my mind.
I am entombed within this place. It will be my grave. No longer do I doubt this. I know it in my bones. Something primal, something ancestral, something buried deep, deep down in my eroding mind tells me so. I no longer sleep, or eat, or shit, so, in a way, I guess I'm dead already.
But I don't have a choice. I don't have time to dwell. To lament my lost humanity, to fear my ever-more-pressing mortality. In fact, I don't have any time at all.
All my time goes to the third.
The third, that 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.
This 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 Shardspace. As far as he's concerned, five hundred years ago might as well have been five seconds. But there's a price. Always a price.
Time.
It drains my own to keep it running. Drains my vitality. Makes me older, weaker, infirm. It'd be some fucking joke to have this power on its own. It'd suck you dry in less than an hour. Hardly a favorable exchange.
But I can keep it up forever.
Forever, the third maintains the lock.
Forever.
Forever.
Forever.
Yes.
Yes, that's the key. Everything starts with forever.
See, at first nothing made sense. Not at all. At first, I didn't understand. 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. I do.
She had to choose ones that wouldn't run out.
All my powers run out, see. All of them. The more I use them, the faster they go. They need downtime, time to recharge. But not these. These all extract a price. Demand something of me, something from me. Get back as much as they spend, or enough to make little difference.
She knew.
She knew. She knew everything. She knew there'd be no regroup. No rally. She told me it was temporary. Told me, told me we'd have him right where we wanted him. Fucking bitch.
She told me, but she always knew we'd lose. She saw this.
So now I suffer.
Can't complain, though. Not really. Let the punishment fit the crime. I was the strongest. It was my job to stop him. My failure. My loss. But what a punishment.
I can feel him.
I can feel it.
Every second of every day. Fighting against me. A slow, constant pressure. A long war. Drilling in my skull. Pounding in my temples. Ever patient, ever waiting.
Waiting for me to slip.
It's impossible. Scion is a monster. A monstrosity. A machination of crystalline machinery, a masterwork of alien engineering. His true form dwarfs the planet. I need to win against him constantly, every second of every day. Hundreds of years.
He only needs to win once.
We were fools, all of us. Fools, to stay. Fools, to fight. Fools, not to run.
We thought we could kill God, when we didn't even understand him. 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.