There is… a feeling you get.

When you realise that everything you’ve done, every moment of happiness, every horrible thing that has happened to you, when you finally realise that the world doesn’t, nor should care about any of that…

I’d say there comes a clarity. It’s like, I’m at rock bottom again, not much else can go wrong. It’s balanced out by the crushing lonelyness.

So what does that leave me with?

A melancholy.

Once I got away from all the white noise and spacial sink holes, it gave me a clear moment to think. I don’t matter. That’s true.

Doesn’t that mean there’s nothing holding me down? No expectations? If the bars set as low as possible, then with a little effort I can get over it. Well, I’m not exactly book smart, I’m bad at working out, I resort to violence more often than not, I have tenuous relationships with my family, I’m poor, unpopular, probably smelly.

But nobody cares. All of the disgusting qualities that I now see in myself, they don’t matter.

Beyond the grey buzzing in the sky, beyond the death that this month brings, I can find peace.

This time, I am free, I can do anything. Without Tayanita or Clover over seeing their operations, I can wreck them, maybe even dismantle them if their luck is blocked off too. I don’t have to be afraid of people like the Internationals or the Mountain sneaking up on me. Responsibilities like Feoli are probably gone too, though I should still check them out.

I started patrolling as soon as the grin crossed my face. I moved with enthusiasm in my jumps, more so focusing on trying quirkier ways of moving in order to further build upon my primary power methods.

I gave it some thought, and whether I smell or not doesn’t really matter, not in the light of what I learned about my SP2 in Irminsul.

I’ve said before that I’m not afraid of dying, but I am afraid of lowering the bar.

If I keep relying on ‘cheating’ then I can hardly say I’ve denied the odds. The idea that I might become the sort of person who will take the easiest, the cheapest way out, that’s not my idea of a ‘hero’.

I don't care what the Woman Wearing Shamrock said

A hero is someone who… a hero isn’t someone who’d sacrifice someone else. That’s the sort of feeling I get from that power, that every time I use it, it isn’t costing me, it’s costing others.

I won’t use it, not until I know that I am not being a danger to others. Not until I have clarity.

I found a few faces I recognised, druggies, their lives deemed insignificant like mine. They were half way down an arched alley when I jumped down at the other side.

“Hi.” I grinned wide but I doubt they could see, the few who knew what I was tried to run, the others froze up.

I really wanted to try something on them, the roof of the arch was about eight feet high at its peak. I could easily dash at them, close this gap in a second, but that’s nothing new.

The walls were made from brick, the cement between them around half the width of my finger. My shoes had no way of gripping to the wall, that slowed me down a bit, made my movements more clunky.

I know I’m ripping Parker, but I’m trying to learn how to climb walls.

Yes, I can jump high, but there are heights and situations where it’s dangerous to do that, like if I had a passenger or I’m trying to be sneaky. While there are plenty of places for me to train up in the mountains, I’ve been meaning to try some sea face cliffs when I get good enough.

I want to see if this is useful in the field first.

I was slow to climb onto the roof, when I got off the ground the others started running. I suppose its freaky seeing a dark figure climbing around the ceiling. The longer I did it the faster I got, all the while thinking to myself, I’ll have to look into getting whatever shoes or gloves mountain climbers use.

I didn’t catch them in that tunnel, obviously, but I got them squealing, and I was able to catch two of the group of six after a while.

It’s funny though, these are the sort of guys who’ll question why horror movie characters don’t just fight back. They’re the type of people who haven’t had to live through those sorts of experiences, and I’m not talking about fighting the undead, or a serial killer, I’m just talking about being afraid of the guy you’re facing down.

I said I recognised some of them, that’s not just because of my hero work. One of them has an older brother, around my age. Usually, I was the one who started fights, whether it was because they were picking on somebody else, or because they were saying something I didn’t like.

Remember now, I was a little kid, I didn’t have as healthy an outlet as I do now. Wait, no what I’m doing now is probably worse…

Anyway, he started it. Maybe I did something to annoy him, I don’t remember, but at least twice a week for about three months he’d beat the tar out of me. Of course, we were like six, it was never too serious, a bloody nose and bruises. I tried to talk to him, ask him why he was hurting me, he just called me things that a kid under ten shouldn’t hear, let alone say.

He did jujutsu, so I guess the weird skinny kid who doesn’t play gaelic would be antithetical to everything he knew about being a normal person, a man, what he’d been taught by his parents and peers.

I guess that reliance on others bit him in the ass later on. Sometime during high school, he dropped off the map. He tread just a few steps further than his little brother, and who knows where it took him.

I couldn’t help him, I wasn’t physically capable or experienced enough with that sort of situation to do anything, even as I saw him around town, hiding his face from either the garda, his ‘friends’, or both.

I’m Shamrock now. I won’t make the same mistake. It feels like I say that all the time, that I always make promises and never keep them, but still, I mean it, I won’t let the past repeat its self.

“Come on Walsh, give it over.” I had him dangling.

“Ahh fuck yee!”

I laughed, “People have done worse. Be thankful I’m out here making sure you don’t know what I mean.”

After getting some vapes and cigarette roles off of him, I let him go.

I was more than happy, he was underage, sure, but at least I wasn’t catching him with weed anymore.

I brought it to a dump and tossed that crap away.

This was my routine for the first week, while the sky was unintelligible, and all the people I’ve been socialising with might be dying, I was running around three times as often, working out, practicing my moves, aforementioned wall climbing, but also new flips, and experimenting with kicks.

Then the weekend came. I went to Dingle as normal, not because I thought I’d find Feoli there, but because I thought it would worry my granny if I didn’t show up after that weird call.

I wanted to stay in Tralee, I felt good for the first time in so long, I had all the positives of super powers with none of the negatives.

For the week.

When I got to Dingle, I found monsters waiting.

Looking at them, they seemed to be a strange mix between sea life and everyday animals, like cats and dogs. They were unexpectedly docile. I probably would have beat the smack out of the first one I saw-

If it didn’t start to speak.

It was meant to be a dog, I think. It had the eyes of a fish, teeth like a shark’s, a scaley nose, and its hair wasn’t hair, it was some kind of wet material that had been stretched out from the central mass, as if it was mimicking hair.

“G-go- GoReen… Go… Go to the Kayefcee… T-the beach is gone…”

This was my first time talking to something that didn’t look human, or rather the first time something like it had spoken to me.

“Uhhm, ok…” I was guessing who this things creator was now, “Where is ‘Kayefsee?’ That Irish for something?”

“Gu- Green man… G-go t-to Kayefsee.”

I wandered around town, finding more of them, they varied in size, car to van in scale, at least from what I saw of them. I finally realised what Kayefcee was, jumping into the restaurant.

She was the only person there, apart from the employees, I shouted at her, “What, you think I’m gone, so you take over the town?”

She looked at me and got up from her seat, grabbing a bag walking over to me. I repositioned my weight so that I could dodge to the left, and hit her from an angle, but before I moved, she told me, “I don’t have any money.”

“And?” I obviously needed more information on what all this was about.

She lifted the bag, “I want to buy this.”

I shook my head, “Usually you pay before they cook the food.” She starred at me, her gaze a little less frosty than usual, just a little.

Without her saying anything, I paid for it, 12 euro.

We sat at the docks, the fishermen there were the least startled by her.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

I gritted my teeth as she said that, the irony in her words clear, but not to her.

“Everything? The monsters, the chicken nuggets, buying the food?”

She thought about it for a second. “That beach is gone, so I went to the first place that came to mind when I thought of you. While I was there, I wanted to test recreating some of the creatures on land. I’ve decided to use the empty month to experiment. So, I ordered something. They gave it to me.”

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I told her straight, “You're insane.”

She turned to me, stopped eating, “What’s wrong with me?”

I leaned away slightly when I saw her gaze. It had thawed, there was something there now. What had changed since the last time I’d seen her? I’d been fighting her monsters every week for the past few months, but the last time I actually spoke to her face to face like this was in February.

“You’re a murderer. A homicidal maniac. The fact you can’t see that’s wrong is ridiculous, ergo, insane.”

She re-aimed me, “People look at me with horror. What’s the difference between me and them, apart from the obvious.” I looked at her arm.

“The knives? The armour? I’ve said this before but look around, you won’t find anyone carrying weapons openly, I don’t even do that.”

She continued my statement, “Nobody has a fiacla. Why? That’s what I want to understand.”

She leaned in, closing the gap I’d made, “I want to understand.”

I was shocked. Out of everyone I’ve met, I thought she’d be the farthest away from any kind of redemption. Clover had killed, and I’d cut her more slack than she deserved, why hadn’t I done the same for Feoli? Because I caught her in the act? Because it was senseless? I asked myself if there was a chance I didn’t give her a shot because she was different from me. I’m not just talking about her being blue, I mean the alien culture she comes from.

“Where is this coming from? You disappear for months and now you want to ‘be where the people are'? What the hell have you been up to?” She closed her lips, leaned away, looking out to sea.

I rephrased my question, “What do you want?”

She was thinking about it, I gave her time before I thought of something she would need.

“Well, I can’t keep buying you food, and the average person doesn’t scavenge their own food. Before you say yes, remember, this is a world completely alien to you, it’ll be a difficult task-”

She looked at me with piercing eyes, “I can handle it.”

.

.

.

The sea creature was shaped like an octopus, but was shelled like a crab, it’s eight limbs locked stiffly at its joints. Its head was big, round with a few blunt spikes to make it look ‘evil’ while stopping it from being dangerous. Well, it was programmed to be dumb, docile, to follow routines we’d planned out.

I say planned, but the only thing we sorted out before this was getting a couple large tubs of water to the kid’s house, Feoli figuring out the mechanics of her monster, and negotiating a price for the job with Adonis.

I was really afraid of this whole situation.

I don’t know what I was thinking, actually letting her do this party. I mean, they don’t know she’s a murderer, that’s a pretty big thing to leave off the CV. Adonis knows, though he seems a little detached from the whole super situation, despite being a second worlder. There was his dismissal of the gods, his satisfaction with the Circuit board seven just leaving, it isn’t out of character for him to trust me to have a handle on a situation I have no control over.

I’d describe him as laid back, but not in the cartoonish way that Axel is, Adonis cares. If not for the uncontrollable things in life like cosmic threats and terror attacks, then for his girlfriend.

That was another thing I was worried about.

The woman in the second ‘Given’ world? Yeah, it was her.

This was my first time encountering her in the real world, I was more ashamed of facing her than anything else.

I made that world. That was brought to the forefront of my mind by how I feel about her, so at least for me it was awkward.

Thankfully, my mind isn’t made for embarrassment, it’s made for fighting first and foremost. There were plenty of ways I could beat this monster, it was about as tall as a door, slow as a slug, and incapable of harming me.

Ironically this forced me to get creative with how I fought, in order to drag out the fight, to make myself look cool, as I dodge eight swings at once. I bob and weave, hold back my punches, do some unnecessary flips at the right time.

When I started to get a little sore in my joints, I decided to finish things. “I think we’ve had enough of you, Bottom-feeder, I’m here for your boss!”

I grabbed a tentacle and spun it around before tossing it into the sky. Feoli had built it to burst when it reaches a certain velocity, not the regular piffle either, he went off like a firework. I looked over to Feoli who had emerged from behind the shed in the corner

Would that thing have done that if I’d accidentally burst it? Was that dangerous? She’s never used that against me.

“Good job, Shamrock. You beat my strongest minion.” I left a pause for her to continue.

She forgot half of her lines and was horrible at acting, maybe my enthusiasm made it stand out more.

“It’s over, Sea Stalker! You’re out of monster water, you can’t beat me on your own! Please, stop this madness! There is still time to undo the damage you’ve done!”

“No.”

Then she dashed over and hit me in the face, I flung back three seconds after it connected. Never mind forgetting half her lines, she forgot her final monologue!

I flipped and landed on my legs, she took advantage of my silly movements, she was brutal, taking advantage of every opening. This part was a little less planned out, and it was clear she hadn’t listened to the part we did plan.

One of the twenty little kids sitting on the grass with their legs folded shouted out, “I thought she was a witch, why’s she kicking his fucking ass.”

Like I said, foul mouthed youth. Where the fuck they get that shit from I’ve got no goddamn clue.

I was about to fill in that part of the plot, where the sea witch reveals that she drank the monster water, when Feoli answered, “A real fighter hones every aspect.”

So, the sea witch just worked out?

After getting my ass kicked for too long, I decided to prematurely end the show, “I didn’t want to use this attack, but you’ve left me no choice!” I began to charge my final move, grasping my fist in my other hand, before yelling as I threw a fake punch, “Fwwwwaaah!”

She flopped to the floor.

The kids clapped. The parents were a little weirded out.

It was a while after the show, we were still on for fifteen minutes. We spent most of our time giving five kids at a time piggyback rides.

The only thing of note about this gig?

…

I realised that I’ve changed for the worse since being in Irminsul.

“How much did that cost you,” The girl started, “I mean, the show was a little… but the practical effects for the monsters-”

Adonis interrupted, “Does it matter? Zane seemed to like it.” She smiled looking over to the wheel chair.

“Yeah… but you still shouldn’t be spending all this money. I don’t know, I kinda feel like a gold-digger…”

He joked, “I’m not with you for your looks, if that’s what your worried about.” She wasn’t offended by the joke, but still made an angry face for fun, Adonis continued, “Maybe I did it for you, or maybe I did it for him. What type of person would I be if I sat on my wealth? I would be the type of guy who dates gold diggers. This is the least I can do.”

She stifled a smile, and said something I didn’t hear over a kid screaming. Eventually they parted, the girl from my art class attending to one of the guests, while Adonis was talking to Feoli, probably about her pay cut.

She made a surprised expression talking to him, I guess she was trying to act more like a surface dweller or maybe he said something to catch her attention.

It doesn’t matter. At least, it’s not the thing shaking me to my core.

I’ll tell you exactly what I was thinking after putting on a show for a little paralysed kid.

That’s the kid? The one who can’t move? Ugh, right, so all of these other kids showed up to his birthday party? They’re supposed to be his friends? What 9-year-old is going to honestly be friends with someone like that? I know kids, either their parents are making them go (corroborated by the fact theres so many parents here), or they’re here because they’re in his class and pity him. If I can’t make a single friend how the hell is this little-

NO! Holy shit! What the hell was that? There’s no way I just thought that! Not even for a second! But I did. God so help me, I did. It- it must be a result of being in Irminsul for so long, never encountering a single flaw in any individual.

I was also projecting a little, I was thinking about how lucky this kid is to have anybody show up at his birthday, I was jealous.

Or, I guess you can say, I deserve it. Why can’t I get a grip on the small things in life? Give me a party, give me a girlfriend, now that I’m thinking about it, why can’t I have a girl, huh? It’s not like I’m asking for a model, I’m asking for this random girl in my art class! She’s supposed to be in my league, right? So why the hell is she thanking that rich asshole, huh? I’m the one who put on this show, I’m the one who’s been through shit- shit that’s way fucking worse than being in a wheel chair! Aren’t you going to thank me? Aren’t you going to acknowledge me? Why can’t you like me? Why can’t you just give yourself to me!

I was smiling, but under my mask my eyes were just as wide as my grin.

“Adonis!” I called, “I think I’m going to go now. Feoli, I’ll wait for you at that place.”

I carefully let the kids down, and walked through the back gate, and down the residential estate.

I don’t know how far I got, it felt like it was as soon as I was out of sight, but I know it wasn’t, the area was different.

I was looking down at a puddle when I stopped feeling a disconnect between my mind and body.

I was sick, figuratively, and literally.

I heaved it out of me, like I was trying to remove it from myself, those second long thoughts.

I didn’t believe any of that, not even for a second. But they came to mind, like that evil thing, it’s creeping around in my head. Invasive, intrusive, wrong.

But in the end, it’s just me.

I looked down at my shoes, bent over.

It’s just me. That’s all I’ve got. That’s what I’ve got.

“What’s wrong with you?” I turn my head slowly, taking my hands away from my face.

Feoli was standing there, as if she’d been following me the entire time.

As it turns out, she had been.

“We were paid to attend that gathering for a certain amount of time. You leaving is a breach of that pact.”

I wipe at my face, “Since when were you of lawful alignment?”

She looked down at me for a moment before starting a speech, “Always have been. Oaths should be kept strong; allegiances should be maintained. This is a world that will erode away someday. Look to the sky, and you might tell yourself it’s today. If it isn’t, then it’s someday after. Flesh, bone, monsters, seas; they will fade.”

I decided to get up by this point.

“-You’ve upheld your promise, you’ve protected these people from me for months, so you should understand that if there is anything in this world that is unbreakable, it’s honour and will, things that you can’t touch.” Her gaze wasn’t cold.

“You’re wrong,” I said, “people aren’t static. Even if you face down every hardship there’s no saying that the person or idea you made that promise to won’t change, if you yourself don’t change first.”

I’ve realised that now. It’s naïve to think that you won’t have to make compromises. I’d broken a man’s arm, gotten rougher with normal people, at what point do my actions become unjustifiable? I hope that when the time comes for me to go over the last line, it’s for a good reason.

“Again, you’re joking.” I turned to walk away; she didn’t move from the spot, “Even if the body, soul, and mind is eroded away by the currents of time, that moment will always live on. The promise that was.”

I thought she wasn’t going to follow me, she was four metres behind me. Just standing there.

“What is wrong with you?”

I turned and talked back, “What the hell-” She was pointing at the puddle.

I thought about it for a second, “I’m sick.”

She interrupted, “You didn’t seem physically hindered.”

I shook my head, “I really don’t expect you to understand, but-” I remembered why I had done this job in the first place, calming down a little “Well, to put it simply, sometimes when surface dwellers get a strong feeling of disgust, they vomit.”

She looked at me like I was an idiot, “I’m biologically human, Shamrock, Fomorian’s are capable of this as well.”

I was about to ask her how I was supposed to know that, she can breathe underwater, that’s a huge biological distinction, she interrupted me before I could ask.

“It’s more common in the upper class, but it’s believed that regurgitating can remove a sickness of the soul, in the same way it removes bodily ailments.”

That encouraged me to walk back over to her.

“I’ve heard about soul sickness, I think. Isn’t that when your soul… shrinks or fades or something?”

She shook her head, “A sickness of the soul is as complex as the mental or physical. Yes, a soul that has suffered an attack or has been reduced by a lingering spirit, is a type of soul sickness, but there are also-”

I shouted, “What about having somebody else’s soul for a while?” She answered robotically, “Yes, that would cause changes in your body and mind, but the world is big, it will vary depending on the nature of the attack on your soul.”

I didn’t want to tell her I was in Irminsul. If I recorded Grey’s words properly, Balor is another Dark God, and just so happens to be the God that Feoli follows, her king.

Lechoslaw warned me not to tell anybody about the nature of his powers, so I won’t. If I’m being honest, I’m afraid of him coming back. Don’t get me wrong, I want to see him again so I can kick his ass, but my best chance is to do at my own discretion.

“My mind was in another body, another soul, could that affect my thoughts?”

She answered instantly, “Yes.”

That woman did tell me, I was ‘being changed, purpose diluted’ and all.

“Who’s life?” She asked.

I mumbled out a response, “My own. A better version of my own. A couple versions.”

“Why did you leave? If your mind has been affected so heavily by that soul that it would be disgusted by it’s true body, then how did you consciously escape it?”

I didn’t.

“I don’t know.”

Feoli stared off into the distance for a while. I thought about moving her on, we were standing in the middle of a street, it was lucky enough that nobody had seen us.

She got down on her knees, grabbing most of her hair and holding it back, “I know what your sickness is. What makes your resolve quiver.”

She forced her other hand into her mouth, as I was once again disgusted.

She gagged, vomited.

I rushed over to her as she was catching her breathe, getting her to her feet.

“What’s wrong with you!” I scolded, keeping my voice low.

“It’s a dream,” Feoli started, “-a pleasant dream. You go to sleep and find yourself in a world where everything is comfortable, yet strange in many ways. It’s not what you pictured paradise to be, but there is an abundance of food, miraculous sights, and individuals that contradict your understanding of reality and logic. But dreams end. It’s important to make a distinction between the imaginary and the real. Truth and lies.”

“You need to get up,” She finished. I had a feeling she wasn’t talking about me when she said all of that, though I’m sure it could be interpreted that way.

My stomach tightened, “That doesn’t explain-”

I stopped myself, looking at her. She was standing a foot taller than me now. I winced.

“Get up. And if at all possible, try to make that dream of smiling, well-fed children real. This is the perfect time for it.”

She pointed up to the sky, as it jittered and buzzed down on us.

“I want to understand the logic of the dream. Whether there is anything right and true about it.”

And with that, the real 'training' began.