Sorry to cut the posts in half, but I really wanted to set the record straight with this one. I know I said I was pretty lucid while I was having an episode on the floor, but what happened later that night sort of brings that into question.

I was alone. Clover left, and I’m pretty sure my twenty minutes were up by this point, so Axel was out on the water.

Though I had made literally no progress, I was positive that as long as I was still alive, I could save him. I tried to pull myself together, what happened back there was pretty soul crushing. I felt like I’d never be able to remove this weight from my mind. After a while though, I had an epiphany.

Isaac Cre-umha said the guy who did this to me, Sym, had suffered infinite torment. He wasn’t crushed by it, he let it lift him up, to more depraved heights, thinking about that.

I would much rather stay like this, made into pulp, than be the pulper.

However, I’m the type to choose the third option. I don’t want to give in to my desires to hurt people... and I don’t want people to hurt me. So the only option?

I Hurt myself.

That’s the middle ground after all, right? I don’t support any form of self-harm, but I was sure this was the right move to make. The only way to rise above the pain other people have caused me, is to cause myself greater pain.

I thought of this idea after I got beat up a lot as a kid, and one day in particular they hit me where it really hurts. Take a look at my track record for that one.

I had to beat these guys up, and I’d heard that pain and nerve-stuff was in the brain, so I punched myself in the head to try and get rid of it.

It was probably the fact that I was now focused on the pain in my face, with a dash of the placebo effect, rather than me temporarily cutting of my nerves or whatever I thought would happen.

I was a little kid at the time, can you blame me?

But this time, this time I thought I could make it work. Definitly.

It isn’t too hard to hurt yourself when you’re a little insane, but seeing as my brain is tougher than the floor I was hitting it into, that didn’t really help. I was currently atop a small building, and one thing that tends to do me damage is a good fall from a bad angle.

I threw myself off the roof as soon as I flailed my way to the edge, luckily landing on my head, leaving a crack in the pavement below.

One thing about falling is that even if you land on something like a mattress, the soft organs still slam into your bones at the same speed, that’s even true for my brain.

I wasn't lucid but things were clearing up. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say, things were clouding up, due to me probably giving myself a concussion, to take my mind off complex thoughts.

Kinda ironic that I bullied that robot because he might not be sentient, but I actively reduced my awareness to try and get an advantage. Shit I, didn't post that, did I? I'll tell that story someday, i'm sure.

I was now in the right mind to start smacking myself. I didn’t do it too hard; I’d still have to beat the tar out of some bucket heads.

Eventually I was seeing double, but I was able to stumble to my feet, vision blurred, but I wasn’t thinking about anything nasty any more. It took me awhile to remember where I was going, but the idea to save my boss popped into my mind.

Let’s just say my jumps were way worse by this point in the night.

Once I got to the port of Tralee, I was pretty confused when I didn’t find any robots there, all I saw was this Cthulhu looking mofo way off in the distance.

I needed to get some second hand accounts for that.

This thing was about as big as the Pooka, but in my low mental state, I recognised almost instantly as Feoli’s by how it moved while fighting. I didn’t notice it at the time, but Feoli was actually fighting alongside her construct.

When she’s fighting me, she’ll go for a one-on-one sort of thing, she’ll fight me herself, or she’ll let the monster of the week do it.

I guess as far as political importance, the king of a bordering nation has more value than an opponent who can’t touch you unless you come to them.

(I still can’t swim, btw.)

I learned something after I shouted at her, “HEY FEOLI, CAN WE MAYBE KICK THAT GUYS ASS TOGETHER?”

I try not to shout too loud, even when I’m against guys using guns, I still don’t shout as loud as I can, but with my inhibitions weakened by my brain bounce, I wasn’t as meek as usual.

I don’t know if they felt it, but they heard it alright. Feoli covered an ear, and his highness turned to me.

This was another piece of information I gained later, their dialogue.

“You two know each other, witch?” He said something along those lines to Feoli, to which she replied, “Sworn enemies. Though you, master of heretic cur, me and him seem to have a common enemy.”

I think he whispered something like, “Well that idea failed spectacularly, didn’t it boy?” before that blue light appeared again.

Despite my slowed reaction time, I was able to dodge the stream that followed with some ease.

Awhile after fighting this guy, I learned a few of his suit’s capabilities. He isn’t shooting something like a laser beam, or some sort of energy blast, it’s water. If it was a laser beam, then it would probably follow the trajectory of the aiming light, but this lagged behind, lost power the farther from its origin it got.

Luckily for me, I was about 2 miles off from the enemy, so I didn’t have to worry about him till I got closer, the same couldn’t be said about tentacle face. He got popped, but as he did, Feoli jumped through the seafoam, attempting to use it as a cover, but either due to experience, or because his armour had a feature to counter such tactics, he was able to guard against her knife attack, and counter with an elbow.

I was pretty sure I’d do a bad job in this situation, so I decided to think this out.

When I was jumping into the fray, I shouted to Feoli, “MAKE SOMETHING TO KEEP ME ABOVE WATER!”

It was of course to late, as I bombed into the ocean.

I flailed in the freezing Irish sea for ages, before a tentacle came down to bring me back up. This one was far smaller, it was a thin wip-like tendril that gripped me by the waist, Feoli was holding it, and me by proxy.

Feoli told me to “Hit,” before flinging me forward at Isaac. I put no thought into it, I just cracked him in the chest with my elbow, thankfully I was still restrained, not mentally, but physically. I hit him with enough force to send him skipping across the water.

When he didn’t come back up, I fumbled a message to Feoli, “We should try to get him on water, urr, off land- ON land. Sorry, I kinda have a-”

Before I could finish, he rocketed back up, kicked my head into the sky, and due to me being connected to Feoli currently, she was flung up with me. My lack of balance left me flailing wildly once more, whereas Feoli was able to take control of the situation.

She reeled me in with that tendril, and gave me a new order, “Break my landing. Focus on breaking his arm, do that and he can’t shoot. Don’t worry about your morals, his armour heals him.” That’s about all I heard while falling from that drop. I was able to land properly, with the witch’s help.

I straightened my legs, and Feoli gripped to my back, letting me take the brunt of the impact. Once we were back in the water, Isaac flung himself at me. I doubt his movements were humanly possible, confirming that the Fomorian’s are supernaturally good swimmers, if it wasn’t his armour.

I didn’t get much time to think about how out of my element I was, when I was getting a pummelled by one hand and chocked by the other.

It’s funny to think that Isaac choking me was the only thing keeping me from drowning.

Or maybe he was trying to stop me from drowning?

Actually, that has some implications that I’m not gonna get into.

So, yeah, he starts trying to knock me out, it’s probably around this point that I broke my nose.

Though I broke something far more important for him.

After the tenth punch or so, I was able to catch his right with my left, then it was just a matter of punching the elbow hard enough with my other hand for it to bend. The wrong way of course.

If I was in my right mind, I don’t think there would have been a chance of me doing that.

At least, that's what I hope.

He stopped his unnatural darting through the water, and calmly stated, “I really wished for this to pay off sooner rather than later, but it takes some time to skin a whale, as they say.”

I didn’t really have time to think about his phrasing, as pretty soon after he released his grip and weakly aimmed that blue light once more, hids arm crunching as he positioned it.

It wasn't aimed at me however.

He snapped his good arm around to face Bhean, but once more she proved more than capable of making split second decisions, she threw some organism at the king’s arm, knocking him off target, just long enough for me to grab him by the plating of his armour, and pull him back. I don’t know if it helped much, but I thought I’d try and make him struggle a bit more.

He tried to kick me off, but that’s just what I wanted him to try, to waist his energy just a little. Feoli was able to get in close enough to make his water beam ineffective, while she too tried to restrain him.

He mocked her, “I can respect the boy, but do you really believe that you can pose a threat to me? I have fought gods. You are a simple pariah, despite your very best efforts.”

I didn’t hear what she said to him, water in my ears, and she didn't tell me, but I had assumed she was buying time for her fish magic to form something, what with the pointless grappling, not really doing anything but keeping us alive for a few seconds longer.

It was a fish similar to the one that I was trapped in when we first fought, except there was some sort of vapour foaming from it. Its mouth was toothless, in their place were flaps and flaps of gums, thankfully, I felt the thing nudge me before it gulped his majesty down.

And that was it. Really. I expected for her to use this opportunity to dash us over to land, but she just hauled me on top of the fish and performed cpr badly, though I told her I was alright.

“Shouldn’t we be moving him to a terrain that we both can fight in?”

I asked and she answered.

“No.”

I left a pause for her to explain herself, but she didn’t.

I thought it might be alright, after a minute of us catching our breathe, so I began to theorize, “Some sort of knockout gas? No, you would have used that on me… Maybe a stalling formula?”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“His name is Cre-Umha.” I gave her a pause to explain what that meant. She didn’t.

“I don’t know fomorian.” I reminded her, but she instead revealed to me, “It’s Irish.”

It took me a moment to calculate that.

“Don’t you know your native language?” I answered honestly with a shake of the head, which was stiff as a board now.

“Cre-Umha means copper. It’s a moniker. Like Feoli Bhean.”

She just couldn’t give me a simple answer, “What? So that’s not your real name? And what the hell did you do to knock him out! Give it to me straight you psycho.”

She just stared at me for half a minute straight before finally saying, “I’ll never understand you.”

I rolled my eyes under my mask, “How about you tell me why you guys were fighting. I know he’s a king of another nation or whatever, but you don’t see me punching the queen of England, right? Bad example, but you get the picture.”

I figured this would get her into her monologue mode, and it did, “Isaac Cre-Umha was once a high-ranking soldier, he fought many enemies of the Federation, external and internal, the latter of which he built relations with in secret, as even then he considered treason. He was well respected for his martial prowess despite his small frame.”

Looking back, what spooks me is that he had a “small frame” compared to other fomorians.

“In the twilight years of his service, his reputation allowed for him to build a well-funded expedition into the western Atlantic, near America. It was suspected by a few that he would use this as an opportunity to form his own state, independent of the God King, which he did, but not before a long string of guerrilla warfare, as your kind coined the term. You should also know this was before he got his armour, the Shaul of Brigid.”

“So he’s recently gone crooked and theirs a reward out for him getting taken out? Something like that?”

“Not entirely. He’s currently 382, been separated from the fold for 300 years now. It gave us time to prepare against him. The Shaul makes him tougher in every way, but it also rusts in oxygen.”

“Wait a minute, no, copper rusts in water, right? I was sure that was the case.”

She looked at me blankly. “He’s not moving is he?”

I tried to think about it but I couldn’t, my brain was done for the day.

And after I started thinking about going to bed, I realised I still needed to save Axel.

“Shit. Feoli, can you do me a favour seeing as I helped you take this guy down?”

“No. I already helped you take down our common enemy.”

I squinted my eyes and shook my head, “No that’s not… We aren’t even from that! This guy means a lot more to you then he does to me, I was just stopping by. Look, you help me out now, and I’ll help you out later, and after that you can help me out, and we’ll eventually do each other right.”

“Whatever.” She dipped a foot into the water, “This’ll take five minutes.”

I grinned dumbly, tasting now the blood and salt on my lips.

Five minutes later, after I explained my situation, she sent me on my way and I was gripping on for dear life as a manta ray skidded me across the ocean. I don’t know how, maybe through some super sense or something, the fish was catching up to the remaining members of the circuit boards boat.

Wasn’t as big as I thought it would be, not particularly sci-fi either, just an average, tiny, trawler boat. To try and keep myself hidden, I asked Feoli to program the manta to dive and rise when told.

So when I got close, I told it to dive. And once we got closer, I tried to tell the ray to rise.

But it did not.

Because it couldn’t understand me underwater. I would have hit myself if I wasn’t in the middle of the ocean, looming over an abyss.

Their'd be nothing i could do if I fell in.

I said my good byes to my mount and leapt off, trying to grab the boat. It was pretty terrifying, due to the fact that if I missed, I’d fall and drown, if I hit the mark too hard, I might damage the boat and sink it. Luckily, for once, I hit that sweet spot perfectly, where I was able to grab a hold of the guard rail.

Seeing as they already thought I was dead and done, I decided to open with a scream, pirate style.

I looked at their crew, the living legs didn’t react, Sym screamed louder than I did, Axel didn’t react much, he just smiled a little more, and Brigs reached for a gun.

That seemed like my biggest threat so I tried to jump at him. But that teetered the boat, and he shouted at me, “AYEAYEAYEA! Cool it for a sec you Somalia fuck! This your first pirate job?”

I guess he didn’t remember me? A side effect of the ignorance effect? Maybe he’s just dumb?

Sym was still screaming, “WHATAREEYOU? ARE YOU HIM??ARE YOU- ARE YOU J-ON??” I hadn't a clue what that meant.

Axel said something but, now I’ve come to regret this, I was busy bobbing the boat by crouching up and down, so I didn’t hear him.

“Don’t do this? Don’t do this? HAHAHA!”

I think I was trying to intimidate them? This is where my memory becomes really foggy.

Eventually the boat started tilting to a weird angle, and I was frowning then.

“Great job fat ass!” Brigs shouted.

Sym fiddled with something in the little cabin of the boat, but it was useless in the end.

I tipped the fucking boat.

Thankfully, everyone else could swim, other than me and the legs, the robot was once again cast into the depths, I was splashing around while the other guys heckled me.

“no it seems he is just an idiot with a gimmick. brigs, can you shoot him? i’d like to see him die before i do.”

“Shit, I can’t do that! We see a plane, this is our only signal! Besides, I can just hold him under for a few seconds.”

“I don’t think you need to do that. I, uh, don’t think he can swim, military man.”

I wasn’t pissing myself, because Axel wasn’t pissing himself, so he must have had a plan.

I later learned he did not.

Brigs stripped some of his heavier clothes, “Man I’m positive that John’ll swing by this time, for sure.”

Sym wasn’t projecting his avatar anymore, he spoke from a small black disc, “he isn’t coming. he is our god, we’re below him. we failed him and will be punished.”

“Man, I’ve known John for longer than you, and the odds he shows up are slim, but, he isn’t gonna let us die, and he sure as hell ain’t gonna let twinkle toes ‘ere bite the fucking bullet, unless John’s the one pullin’ it.”

That gave me an idea. While I was splashing around, I decided to pull out my phone.

Axel paddeled over to me, “Oh? You got a flip phone? Been years since I saw one of these. Want me to phone your mom? Tell her your drowning?”

I tried to respond, but I was gargling at this point.

He took it out of my hand and started floating on his back, “Goddamn, this thing is ancient! This thing’s probably a collector’s item you know… Hold up, do you only have one number on your phone? Who the heck is C? Is that the girl I was supposed to have sex with?”

He phoned the number, “I’ll just apologise for doing her out of a good time by going and drownin’ here.”

It rang for an eternity, before a cry came out through the other end. He listened to her for a while before saying, “Actually he’s drowning right now, this is Mr. Right. Yeah, no, still at sea. Yeah sure, we’ll be back in a few minutes probably. That is, if you work your magic.”

He took a long pause while Clover argued something on the other end. Brigs made a comment, “Hey, aren’t you still going with that science chick? With the hair cut? Don’t tell me that when we recruited Stan that whole thing with the cheese board drove a wedge in there?”

Axel covered the phone and half smiled at Brigs, “We’re on a break. Not that it's any of your buisness- Oh, shit, she heard me ignoring her… She heard that too. Listen Princess, I’m currently in possession of the 4th greatest sex tool, in the UNIVERSE. And- No not the milker, I’m not a sicko. Oh? Well, I mean if you’re up for something like that, hah-hah… But yeah, gonna need you to get us out of this. Pull something big, yeah? Deus ex Machina. ‘Kay see you at four, or whatever time it is in fifteen minutes.”

He hung up.

“Is that it? Ya just call this clown’s sister, and we’re not gonna drown? Couldn’t you just call the coast gua- actually, after that shit we pulled, we’d get stuck in the bureaucracy, blowing up a village like we did. Yeah, I’ll just get cosy till, John shows.”

Some time passes, they take bets on how long it’d take for me to pass out. And eventually on the horizon, the sun rises.

“that is not the sun.” Sym murmured.

Brigs says, “th’ell’re you talken’bout?”

“my internal clock says its 3:47, the sun doesn’t rise in these parts until 7. i brush up before a mission. that is not the sun.”

Suddenly the water stilled, the ocean stilled, all of it, apart from my splashing, though even that was mitigated, by Axel’s account.

Nobody said anything. The only sound I could hear was the water in my ears.

That light gurgle.

I actually did better now that I stopped trying to fight the ocean. I was somewhat calmed by the false sun.

When it got to a certain point I became- unsettled.

Sym was making some sort of noise, I wasn’t focusing on it, though it sounded distressed.

Eventually, I could see it’s figure clearly now. It didn’t have a size. It was both massive and small, bright and dark, human in form, yet simultaneously the farthest thing from human.

Before I took in the awe of this thing, Brigs spoke with such brashness I thought the figure would just delete him.

“Ah-HA, what’d I tell you? I said he’d show that dumb face!”

Around that time, The Living Legs floated out of the ocean and into the sky, Sym’s disc followed, then Brigs, and Axel and Me. And finally, the boat was pulled back. Or maybe he made a new one, I wasn’t focusing on that.

We were all on our feet, at least that’s how it felt, like we were standing trial, receiving judgement. I was about to open my mouth.

Sym shouted to his God, “J-ON! LIQUID-CRYSTAL GOD! THE MACHINE! WHAT IS THIS MAN? HOW DID HE ESCAPE MY WORLD IN TWO MINUTES, WHEN IT TOOK ME A YEAR? HE DEFEATED THE LIVING LEGS, ISAAC, ME, AND YOU NEVER THOUGHT TO WARN US OF HIM? WHY!?”

Well, he was sort of wrong about most of that. Nothing changed by my presence, I knew that.

The world was still motionless, but in that silence, I thought reality was going to crash in on itself. Pretty hard to describe that feeling.

You know how some animals have a greater field of view? Something like that happened to my perception when he spoke, but not just my sight, every sense was pushed to its limit as he spoke.

I waited, dispite my need to cough, my natural responses were stopped. I didn’t breathe I didn’t blink. Three of them were his servants, he had a greater punishment planned for Axel. I could only imagine what he would do to me, what he thought of me.

“He is a non-entity.”

And that was all he said.

Brigs commented soon after, as he ‘walked’ to the God. “Somebodies talkative today, huh? Thanks for the save buddy, but hell, you that busy you can’t come a second sooner? Maybe show up before our boat gets totalled next time.”

When he spoke, the god, not the idiot, I could feel a quiver, maybe in my soul, something inexplicable. I’d try and draw this for you guys but, well, that’s not happening.

I don’t even know what I saw, despite its presence giving me total clarity, I think he cleared up my concussion too, if only in that moment.

It’s a strange way of describing his energy, but it was like looking at everything I’ve ever seen on a screen, whether or not that was just me being psychologically influenced by his epithet, I don’t know.

Brigs wrapped his arm around the mass, and the Living legs floated towards J-ON, by the god’s will. He stretched forth what I would describe as a finger, and touched him.

Something happened I didn’t expect.

“THE LIVING LEGS has had a PROFOUND MOMENT! It doesn’t MATTER whether or not I am, all that matters is that I make the MOST of THE LIVING LEGS’ existence, whether it is real, meaningless, or an ILLUSION does not matter! THE LIVING LEGS IN: THE TERROR-FYING EXISTANCE!”

Before I could make heads or tails on whether that was profound or just dumb, me and Axel were back at Clover’s.

Axel said what I was thinking, “Pretty anti-climactic, huh? For you at least, I’m literally gonna climax non-stop for the rest of the night. Let’s see, you got called a loser by a being that can’t physically be wrong, you pretty much failed to save me, and you're probably gonna shit yourself soon. It’s ok, most people do when they see a God. By the way, I have a feeling we should talk about that whole, coming back from the dead thing, not now but, I’ll email you or something. Oh, I dropped your phone by the way. Sorry.”

I searched for words, but I couldn’t find any. And I was left alone. Again.

I ran back home, got changed then came back, it was a 5-minute job. I wasn't thinking clearly, that most certainly was not what I should have prioritised. I was still broken.

I thought I’d still be able to say I went to this party, but I was wrong. Apparently, it was just me, Ae, and Tayanita who was standing guard, just in case that other guy I never saw showed up.

Tayanita recognised me, I think she was a little surprised by me still being around, but it could have also been my injured face she was staring at. She didn’t leave her post though. I didn’t see much point in talking to Ae.

I didn’t want to get Sam involved with that world too much, I was just here for the beer. Just to numb my senses a little, just for tonight.

Once the numbness from the concrete faded, I was afraid I’d be hit by that pain again.

So, for just tonight after helping to drive off 6 super villains, and a Capitol-G God, I deserved that much. Right?

I went to the kegs in the kitchen. Most were empty, except for a few of the vomit covered ones.

I drank one, to drown out the noise from the third floor.

I drank a second, just to keep myself away from thoughts on the simulacrum.

And once all of that was pushed out of my mind, I thought about what else I’d like to forget from tonight.

Then I remembered a foot. The image came into my mind so crisply, like I was looking at a photo.

I remembered the dust clinging to it, the blood pooled beneath it, no longer flowing from the blackened wounds farther up the leg, just barely visible under the rubble.

I put the drinking tube to my mouth, but as I opened it to take a drink, a whimper came out.

I quickly covered it up.

This couldn’t be happening.

Not now. Now I have super powers!

How the hell can I feel like this when I’ve got the only thing I’ve ever wished for? If I’m sad, it’s because of my own flaws and incapabilities.

The world didn't fail, I did, and something about that confirmation makes me wish I had cracked my skull falling from that roof.

Tayanita came into the room. I don’t know how I looked. But it made her pity me.

“Was it somebody you knew? I can say from experience, the best thing to do is to cry till you can’t. It’ll take you awhile but you’ll get there.”

I spoke clearly, “I didn’t know any of them.”

She sat down on a keg beside me. “Good. Eventually that feeling goes away.”

I looked up to her, “I don’t want it to! I just- I never want anything so cruel to happen to people, children, in their own town!”

She looked me in the eyes. “What did you see out there?”

I thought about my answer, I was even able to dry my eyes a little. “I don’t know what you mean…”

“Did you see a robot or a satellite?”

It struck me for the first time that, there really isn’t a secret society is there? All this chaos was real. It was out in the open, but nobody ever saw it, because the news wasn’t interested, people couldn’t set aside their biases to see a greater evil right in front of them.

“I…”

There has to be a way to end this right? “I don’t think I should say.”

Right?

When she heard my answer all she asked was, “Before you started drinking this shit, did your nose hurt much?”

I answered honestly for once, “No.”

“What’s your name?”

I was done answering questions. “I’m not letting you rope me into whatever that was. I don’t want to be involved in whatever shit Saoirse does, Ok?”

She paused for a second. “That’s a shame. I think a well-built man willing to cry over spilled blood is something sourly lacking. Give me your phone, Kid.”

“Don’t have one.” I got up to leave.

“It’s just so I can give you your clothes back. I went and got changed myself.” I didn’t care enough to notice.

I sighed. Those shoes were expensive, the shirt I couldn’t care less about, cost three euro.

“I really don’t have a phone. I’ll just meet you at McDonalds or something.”

“Good.”

I looked back down at her feet as I turned to leave. Ae was on the phone, saying something in Korean. The fact she was laughing disgusted me.

I left that party, despite the fact I was probably still not drunk. I realised I needed to take a break from all of this to think.

And I did, narrowing down on one more question-

How do I make a change my way?