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[>>Now replaying: Log 1.65.20 - Twenty. The Aeon. Judgement.]
Date: 8.9.175 AA / 4404 LTC
Location: The Bunker at Haven-Of-Progress // Zephyro’s Domain
//Rise and shine//
//—the woman of your dreams. And then you know what happens all of a sudden? Trumpets! That’s right ladies and gentlemen, trumpets! Oh my god did that take a nosediv—//
[>>DATA CORRUPTED]
E2 %Yeah, sorry, Tin. I’m not a very good storyteller.%
E1 %I mean, do you even want to go on, Pina?%
Something—either the calm glimmer of Logic, or Zephyro’s battlecry—blew the memory away like petals on the wind. For a brief moment, I wanted nothing more but to stay there, to forget everything that had happened after that.
It would have to wait until we were safe. At least it wasn’t much longer now. I almost laughed. Felt like I had been telling myself that for months. Finally, allowing Stax to rest, I made my way down into the crater, trying hard not to remember the last time I stumbled down a slope much like this one.
Whenever I closed my eyes, I could still see him lying there—
I was losing it; I knew. Had been for a while. Perhaps I had already lost it, and this was all just some weird fever dream while my brain died, overloaded with information and divine energy because Chris and I had done stupid things to it.
Or perhaps I’d sprout a cybernetic arm in a second, and it would tell me it wanted to be a road in Idaho, and that we should get a tattoo together.
Forever and ever.
Just like we had sworn to each other, all thirteen of us, on that cliff, our hands on the Torch.
> “It’s what we owe everyone.”
All the apostles flashed in front of my mind’s eye. Patti, so endlessly calm and stoic. Stax, with his soft lips and graceful movements. Lorelye, who always smelled of lavender. Chris, intense in whatever they did; architecture, tech, love. Olre—
Fuck Olre.
I arrived at the bottom of the crater and inhaled sharply
{INCOMING LOGIC - 204 LB}
{AVAILABLE LOGIC - 552 LB}
I cursed. He couldn’t have let me have just 48 LB more?
> “It’s your own fault. You and your damn indecisiveness. You’re going to fuck it up again, Sam. In the end, you will always hurt those that love you most. So go on. Get out there and fight and rage and kill. Kill us all, one after another. Earn your name, oh great Tyrant Divine.”
I flinched. The memory of Olre towering above me was so damn vivid, not a whisper of his gentle nature remaining.
Grunting in frustration, I rubbed at my face to wipe the memory away. Enough was enough. Patti, Chris, Stax, and all the others I might allow to live in my head rent-free, but not him. Never him. Not after what he did. Besides, he was wrong. Not all of them were dead. Chris was still there. And even if it still felt heinous to think, because no one could replace my friends—my apostles—ever, Zephyro and even Shellslinger depended on me, and I couldn’t let them down.
I looked up and found the two of them fighting a menagerie of nightmares in my stead. Zephyro yelled something, wildly swinging his magically enhanced sword. Each strike descended with enough force to make the ground shake, but either he was also running out of steam, or he was preserving his power, because none of his attacks came close to leaving craters like the one I stood in.
I was wondering how he knew where to strike, or if he just blindly swung at a target-rich environment, when I noticed a bunch of strange markers floating in the air. They looked a bit like colorful spotlights with large letters hovering inside them. It hit me then that Zephyro wasn’t directly swinging at the Ferals, he was swinging at the markers, listening to well-timed shouts from Shellslinger.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Where’s our raidlead when we need her to mark stuff? I am bad at multitasking!” the Elf yelled in my direction, and somehow, that made me laugh. It was so absurd, so irreverent, and yet it almost made me forget how dire our situation was. For a second I was back with one of my teams on earth, celebrating the launch of a feature that would place us firmly on the map. Despite the exhaustion, the fear and the pure horror undulating above us, the mood was the same. Elated, driven, collegial.
Friendly.
Zephyro laughed, too.
His devotion to his people lived in every single one of his actions, and his determination to do right by them had driven him to the edge of hell itself.
> And who do they worship? A spiteful bitch ridden by her anger, who abuses them until they are no longer useful. And yet, they cling to someone who took a bit of divine power and uses it to build weapons and weapons only. Someone who wreaks destruction and lures more and more enemies to their doorstep.
> Curse you, Torchbearer.
> In the end, you will always hurt those that love you the most.
Olre was right. Zephyro didn’t deserve someone like me as his Sultana.
He deserved someone better.
{[Arx, A Saint’s Terrified Embrace] IS NOW ACTIVE.}
> “See how they celebrate, Samantha?” Patti says, pointing at the city below. “How they’re celebrating us?”
> “Yeah, and I hate it.”
> “Why?”
> “I don’t know. Because it feels like I set the bar, you know? That I always have to be like this, and can’t fail once.”
And yet, they’d all kept looking at me like that, even after the celebrations were over. Did they not know what it meant to carry all of these expectations? Did they not care? Did they not see what would happen if you dropped even a single one?
> “Well, who do you want to be, Sam?” Patti asks, as usual.
> I roll my eyes. We’re sitting in a recently finished park on a cliff with a beautiful view of Novus Apex, stealing a few minutes behind the construction cordon where no one can find us.
> “You know the Answer, Patti,” I say.
“I just don’t fucking know,” I said with a grimace, hands clenched into fists.
> “Well, if you could paint a picture of the greatest leader in the world, what would it look like?”
> “Kind, I guess. He’d be wise, and smile a lot and never frown. And anyone, no matter how old, could come to him and he’d guide you on how to fix your own problem, because he’d be patient beyond belief. He’d be committed to his people, and brave enough to never abandon them, no matter how rough shit got. And he wouldn’t lead with his sword or his magic, but with courage and respect, but be the first in the breach when the walls fell.”
> “And why can’t you be that person, Sam?”
I was panting, and it had nothing to do with my CPU temperature.
> “I just can’t.”
> “Why not?”
I wanted nothing more than to stop thinking about this memory, with Patti and I sitting on that hill, looking over Novus Apex, and the people celebrating its founding down below. She’d dug deep that night, and it had been absolutely terrifying.
I wanted to run, to fight, to do anything but think.
But the memories kept on coming.
> Her hand on the back of my head as I hyperventilated, pulling me in.
> “Why not, Sam? Tell me, what would happen if you could be that person?”
> “I can’t…”
> “You can.”
> My hands balling themselves into fists, crunching up her shirt that’s already ruined, drenched with my tears. The words burst out of me as if she had ripped them from my chest.
> “THEN I COULD HAVE BEEN HER ALL ALONG!”
> I scream and it echoes over the small hamlet and the people celebrating within. For a second, I fear they heard me, and that everyone knows now, but the celebration continues unabated.
> “I could have been better, but I wasn’t, and so I failed.
> I failed them all by not being good enough.”
I had to clench my teeth to stop myself from shouting the words once more. They hurt so much to keep inside.
It was the same again here. I should have been up there, helping Zephyro and that crazy elf with the bird guns. Instead, I was down here in the crater, on my knees like trash, because I was useless.
A leader, afraid of leadership.
A waste of divine energy.
I looked up. Zephyro and Shellslinger were getting pushed back.
{CPU Load: ▼ 32%}
{Core Temp: ▼ 67° C}
{AVAILABLE LOGIC - 552 LB}
My anger offered itself again, but I knew now that it wouldn’t take away the pain. Instead, it would make it far, far worse, because it would turn me into someone I didn’t want to be.
Again, my thoughts flashed back to that night at the celebration of Novus Apex. I’d just told Patti everything I knew about myself, everything that I was, and I’d felt ugly and naked and terrified.
Just like then, I held my breath to stop the tears.
> “Ah, so that’s the Sam you were hiding under all that anger!”
> The words hang in the air between us, and with each second, a hundred regrets cross my mind. I should never have said anything, never opened up, never made myself sound like a failure in front of this endlessly wonderful woman. Any second now, she’s going to say words that leave me alone again.
> I say nothing, devote myself to this frozen soap bubble silence that holds infinite futures, praying it will hold forever.
> But Patti’s smile is as wide as the clear blue sky.
> “Nice to meet you, Sam,” she says. “I’m Patti.”
> And with those few birdsong words the silence is broken, and only one future survives its collapse.
> A future endlessly cruel in its promise of solace.
> I am ravenous for certainty when our lips meet, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
> Later, while I’m putting my armor back on, she’s still wearing her bluesky smile and nothing else.
> “Hey Sam. Answer my question!”
> I am so confused, all I can say is “huh?”
> She laughs.
> “Who do you want to be, Sam?”
My breath shuddered as it fled my lips, carrying my Wish into the world.