The lights turned on, two by two, revealing a hallway, maybe a hundred feet.

When he was a child, this would’ve been a rather long distance to walk, but now, he could pass it in just a few moments.

He reached the door before Jenny did, but he hesitated.

Why was he hesitating? Why was he thinking about himself as a child?

The white lights and smooth, almost too clean to be true surfaces, he remembered the facility.

Was she going to use him?

Was she trying to make him like her just as Rosewell had?

Back then, he at least had Reet and Zella and Relly.

Now he was alone.

He couldn’t even go back to Amber.

Was she even alive? What did she do after Aarde tried to send him into space?

Did she go on a rampage? Did Marigold kill her?

Sepul? He must’ve lost himself in rage, nothing else was even a possibility to Fomoria.

How long ago did it even happen? Had he lost months, maybe years of his life?

If he got a body, if he left, what would he even go back to?

Jenny saw that he was going through something, but she just stepped ahead of him and opened the door using the keypad next to it.

The body was insectoid, like a human shaped ant.

Claws and hard angled plates that would act as more cutting edges.

Teeth and mandibles that would likely cut through anything.

All made from Godtouched steel.

“This is perfect, I suppose. Aarde has treated mortals as ants for too long, and now this ant is going to bite back.”

Jenny moved in front of him once again.

“It isn’t ready yet. This body… I believed you were a monster, but… I’m processing a lot, I’m trying to understand you and I. I don’t want this to be you, a monster.”

He snorted with amusement.

“I am a monster, you are too. There is no reason I should pretend to be something else.”

He moved until he was parallel with her.

“You’re shaking.”

He looked down at his hand, and she was right.

“Just excitement.”

“You are terrified. I know that this is a strange request. But, would you be willing to tell me your entire life story?”

“Really? You want my entire life story for your library? Are you intent on an autobiography?”

“I envy mortals. They live their little flickering lives, then they die, and the next generation take over.

For people like us, a machine and a living void of energy, there isn’t a next generation, we never flicker and fade. We will watch this generation, and the one after, and after, and after, and after. We will watch them make the same mistakes over and over, and we will try to stop them each time, because what else could we do? You don’t understand, not yet.”

“Blue…”

“What?”

“Blue… he… he is a bird, perhaps the only one of his kind. Hundreds of years old, saved from the forest floor and raised by a young girl. He watched her grow old, die, and then he went to the next in line, picking whatever child he thought would make a good partner. He befriended generations of them, and they fought by his side, most dying from old age. He told me something, because I spoke to him about immortality. Now I just don’t remember it.

We can only do what we can to help the next generation, but we can’t live their lives.”

“I didn’t think you would understand. Everyone thinks that they can watch from the sidelines, everyone thinks that they can just make the right choice. But every time you watch the wrong choice being made, and you know that it’s wrong, because you’ve seen it play out a thousand times, you want to just force them to make the right choice.”

“What is the wrong thing that I’m doing here then?”

“You are about to decide that your body should be a machine for war. You are going to say that this… this thing, is all you are at your core.”

“I don’t know why you decided all of a sudden what I am and what right and wrong are.”

“I want to know every detail, I want to be able to make something that fits you, not just the first combat design I thought might work for you based on stories painted by the bias of the ones you were fighting.”

“If I just walk through you, and take the body?”

A hum, a discordant song, filled the room, and he couldn’t move.

“Is this how you keep the Fae trapped?”

“Crystal glass that subatomically vibrates at a much stronger form of this frequency. This noise, it’s just preventing mana from moving, everything is still here

I have shown you this body, but you may not have it until I am certain I’m making the right choice.”

“You are being spineless. What good is a leader who can’t maintain themselves when they are forced to make the hard choices? Where is that coldness from before?”

“I do not see you as my enemy anymore. I see you as an exemplary human. You’ve changed things for the better, and without the same level of brutality as I had. I told you before, out there, I am blind and deaf. This means that my worldview is simply too small, I am a being that needs data to process, but I’m allowed so little of it in this place. Please, bring me into your world, allow me to understand your views and decide if they could be mine as well.”

Fomoria hated this, he hated her.

Was ignorance really enough to excuse? To forgive?

If she really had only experienced the world through second hand sources, and her personal experience is one that she hates being alone with her thoughts, with herself, then he couldn’t help but feel like she was someone to be pitied.

So, he began.

From the death of the werewolf that attacked him, to the facility, to giving away soulsmithing to Dearil, the academy, etc, etc, etc.

He tried to pay attention to her face, but this smaller body of hers was solid, lacking the ability to express herself with anything but her voice.

And perhaps that was for the best.

He felt like she was mocking him at times with her questions, asking things as if he was stupid, like he should’ve known better.

But her voice showed nothing of the sort, she was simply curious about why he did things that he did.

Finally, she sat down on the cold concrete floor.

“I’m going to process all of this information, but for now, why don’t you go back upstairs? I’m going to redesign the body.”

“How long will that take?”

“Maybe a day or so. This body was meant for me at one point, but I was terrified of living as a person.

The material isn’t Godtouched steel, it’s something I made. It’s made from my nanite, but fusing them directly with the godsteel made it stubborn, it’s almost a living metal now. That’s why I thought you could use it. You aren’t here or there, you are just… you.”

“Don’t use such a longing tone when you speak with me.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t just something she was doing because she understood that humans laugh, she laughed by instinct.

What gave her the right to sound like a person?

Fomoria made his way into the city itself, and in just a few minutes, Thaul was there.

He seemed to be out of breath.

“You ran here?”

“The moment you left the building. My apologies for taking so long.”

“No, it’s fine.”

Thaul was shocked, and a little afraid if he was going to be honest.

Fomoria’s responses had thus far ranged from cold to actively hostile.

But he seemed… neutral, perhaps even leaning towards kind.

It wasn’t a great change, but it was for the better.

“Where would you like to go?”

“I want to visit the park.”

Fomoria decided to sit in a park and just watch people; they weren’t afraid of him anymore.

It wasn’t some grand gesture, people just got used to the fact that a horned shadow with endlessly deep white holes for eyes was wandering around the city.

He sat down at a chess board.

Fomoria knew of the game, he’d played it some before, but he was far from a master.

An elderly man sat across from him and began setting up the white pieces while Thaul set up black for Fomoria.

The old man asked a question.

“Will you go first or not? He says.”

“Tell him that he can have the first move.”

Six hours passed with the two of them testing their wit against one another, never sharing a single word.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Fomoria had been playing with him for just over a week already, and while he was rapidly improving, he had yet to take a victory.

Checkmate.

“Thank him for playing, and say that I must return to work.”

Thaul translated for him, and the man replied back.

“He says that he is glad to be challenged by a strong mind. He was part of a chess club before, but he’s outlived them all, and the next generation hasn’t had the interest or skill to challenge him.”

“But I’ve not beaten him once. Ask him how he can be challenged by a mind unable to get even one victory.”

Thaul did as asked.

“He’s been studying each night, refreshing himself on the more advanced strategies just to keep up.

He’s very happy that you are able to continue improving, that you never got frustrated by your losses and quit. He hopes you can continue your games until he finally passes away, which he may now do happily since he’s regained his fire for the sport.”

“Tell him that I’m glad to… that I…”

Fomoria was left wordless.

It was nothing but a game, he wasn’t even that interested, but nobody else wanted to play much of anything, and he couldn’t play many other things because he lacked a physical body.

“Ask his name.”

“This is Matsumoto.”

“You didn’t even ask.”

“I know his name. I’ve played some chess against him in the past, but I never got close, not like you.

I stopped when I realized neither of us were even having fun, he was going through the motions and beating me without trying.”

Fomoria could hear the heart of the old man, he could sense the life flowing through him.

He was old, old enough that his days were numbered.

So, Fomoria told, no, he asked Thaul to set up the board again.

It was dark by the time that the old man said he couldn’t stay anymore, and he apologized for keeping Fomoria away from his work.

Fomoria rode back to the ship in a car with Thaul.

“I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“I have projected my anger onto all Cast. You are not like the ones who were outside of this place.

I don’t feel bad about killing them all, but had I known you, perhaps I would feel a short lived pang of guilt.”

It was almost a nice moment, but Thaul wasn’t thrilled that his life would be a short lived guilt, something moved on from in a few moments.

Worse still, it wasn’t even definitive that Fomoria would feel bad, just a chance.

“Thank you. I-”

“This isn’t going to turn into a conversation. I need time to arrange my thoughts.”

Thaul just went quiet, unable to read Fomoria.

He entered the lab where the Cast were about to leave for the night.

“I’m scrapping the new Cast.”

“What?”

“I’ve intentionally hidden a great deal from all of you. These new Cast would be vulnerable to the virus if they encountered soul magic. I’ve decided to correct that.”

Some were furious, but held it back, some just sat down with a sigh, almost expecting that it couldn’t be as simple as he explained.

“My new method is, however, so simple that I don’t need any of you. I just need access to the forge womb.”

The project lead, Scint, put his hand up, telling the other Cast to remain quiet.

“We need to clear all access to it with Jenny personally. Until she returns from the weaver bunker, you cannot enter it. So, how about you explain how this is going to work?”

“Like this.”

Fomoria touched Scint’s chest, leaving the mark on him.

“There, now you are immune. If I touch the womb, I think it should pass to every Cast born from it.”

Scint fell to the ground and began convulsing.

“That’s not a normal response.”

One of the Cast activated an alarm, and the room was locked down hard enough that he couldn’t escape.

But he wasn’t trying to escape, he simply stood over Scint.

It took some time, but Jenny shut down the alarm and her voice came through the intercom; She had already gone over the video and audio recordings from the room, though they didn’t help much since Fomoria was barely audible or visible on either.

“What have you done?”

“I attempted to mark Scint.”

“Mark him with what?”

“Ah, right, you wouldn’t know. When I touch living beings, I imprint some power on them.

For magical creatures, they enter a state of rapid evolution, but for prime races, they are supposed to become much healthier, gain both greater magical power, and mana regeneration. I’m uncertain why Scint reacted this way, but the mark seems to be growing veins from the initial contact point. Very strange.”

Fomoria heard every movement that Scint’s body made.

“He isn’t breathing now, which isn’t normal.”

“Cast don’t require breathing.”

“No, but they mimic it, it’s a natural instinct ingrained in them as living beings. But what I meant is that I encountered this once before. I saved an infant by giving it my mark, she was the first I granted it to, and when I returned with Marigold to check on her, she had stopped breathing because she was in sunlight and her body was sustaining itself purely by passive mana circulation not unlike imbibing. I didn’t realize the mana density in this place was high enough to do that.”

“I don’t know what imbibing is.”

“It’s a specific method of fortifying the body using mana. My blood could be oxygenated just by the mana.

In one case-”

Scint suddenly inhaled and woke up.

“Ah, how do you feel?”

“I feel like I’ve had a full night’s rest. I hardly feel tired at all though we’ve been working here all day.”

“Yes, that’s normal. That mark is going to act as a sort of second set of lungs, breathing in mana like you already do, but without any interruption and at a greater rate.”

Fomoria saw that Scint’s brow had changed slightly, a few bony growths began to appear.

“Very strange. It’s like the Cast are more magical creature than prime race. Perhaps it has some relation to your metallic nature as well?”

Fomoria began to float around him as if swimming.

“This is going to need to be tested more. I need Cast to take this mark. Maybe you can use the ones that are already born, rather than us needing to wait for the next generation to be born before we can reveal ourselves. Do you have any in stasis which are infected?”

“One of you stays to monitor Scint, everyone else, go back home for the night. Fomoria, return to your quarters until I’ve decided what to do with you.”

He went there, and she was waiting.

“I do have one in cryogenic stasis. We discovered from Helik that a very low temperature inhibits your virus.”

“The new one relies on a stronger chronologicalviral payload. Though, from what Xol told me about particles, perhaps the colder temperature could slow the energy available to the cells and they would take much longer to kill their target.”

“If you mark this Cast, do you believe that you can heal him?”

“Of course. My understanding of my mark is mostly instinct, but as my mind is clearer, I can make connections and assumptions about it.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone else in the room, but quickly surmised who it was and ignored them.

“I also want to mark the womb, so all Cast born from it would, most likely, be born with an essence of me inside of them.”

Jenny didn’t say anything for a while.

Her hesitation, and the anger in her voice when she told them to leave, made him worry.

“I’ll turn on the lights, follow them to the cryogenic lab, you will find the Cast in there.”

Fomoria had wondered before, but how large was this ship?

From the outside, it was hard to tell, since it was covered in a flat black building.

From the inside, it wasn’t any easier, since he had only explored sections of it, and that elevator he took that went down for thousands of feet could’ve been part of the original for all he knew.

The lab wasn’t much different from any other he had seen in his life, other than the Cast in a cold glass tube.

“I’ll turn the locks off. Just a moment.”

He ignored her, and put his hand through the glass, marking the Cast.

By the time the tube opened with a hiss, nothing seemed to have changed, the mark hadn’t grown veins out from it.

The Cast groaned in a stupor, and the virus began to move again.

This man had been frozen by Helik, then transported here by non-Cast agents working for her.

But as the rust began slowly creeping up his hand, the mark grew the same veins as Scint’s, and attacked it.

In less than a minute, the rust was gone, replaced by a growing black metal.

From there, the veins grew out from the mark, reaching his hands and feet first, turning them black as voice.

Then, the Cast woke up.

His legs felt like jelly, and he fell to the floor as he tried to attack Fomoria.

“There, now we know my mark can at least heal the older virus. By the speed at which it did, I would assume that it could, given some time, defeat the new virus.”

The Cast looked up at him with hate in his eyes.

“You owe me your life, wipe that sneer away before I carve your eyes from your skull.”

“That is more than enough. I will bring in a human team to watch him while we discuss your body.

I got an idea, and worked on it with more of my ability than I intended, finishing it far sooner than intended.

You may take the elevator down.”

“Very well.”

He rode in silence.

In his heart, he hoped that she had found something out that would turn this into a guarantee.

In his mind, he thought she was going to take him apart, steal the secrets behind his abilities, and discard him.

Worse, she might keep him as a trophy.

But what had she done so far that would warrant such a response?

He knew the Cast, but she seemed far more normal, ironically, far more human.

The kinship she had with him could only reassure to some extent, otherwise, he worried that she somehow knew far more than she said.

Her words, saying that she was a being of contrast, how would she even know that? She couldn’t, it didn’t make sense, he never told her that, and he didn’t think he ever said it in a speech or wrote it down so her spies would bring it back to her.

Did she somehow have a massive profile on him?

The elevator stopped, but he couldn’t feel the motion of it anyway.

Was it faster this time? Had she stopped it before and made their conversation longer without him noticing?

When he stepped out, she was waiting there, looking like an iron doll; an unreadable face.

“I hope this is something you can accept.”

She turned on the lights above the body.

It had his face, and he found that unsettling to see it etched from the divine metal of what was likely now his enemy.

“It leaves little to the imagination.”

It seemed to be wearing a skintight bodysuit that cut off at the neck, hands, and feet.

“Baba Yaga, if she is to be trusted, said that shapeshifting afterwards is fine.

This does line up with what I know of the other gods and their myths from Earth.”

She motioned to it.

“I based it upon heroes from Earth.”

“Such as?”

“Not real people, fictional ones. They were fond of these simple designs. I believe it has to do with ease of drawing, since they had deadlines for them. We called them superheroes, because they had powers beyond that of reality. But here, even children can use magic, so the term doesn’t quite mean as much.”

“I’m not a hero.”

“I disagree. For us, entities without generations, we are whatever we want.

Here and now, we are monsters, but given enough time, crimes are forgiven, though never forgotten by us. People are not born heroes, they gain the title through their actions.

Fomoria, be the hero of this world, save it from the gods that will never allow peace.”

She moved closed, trying to grab his hands.

“Be my hero.”

She ruined it, she ruined it all.

Fomoria stepped back.

“I will not be a puppet, I will not be manipulated by you or anyone else.”

Jenny hung her head.

“I told you before, I was desperate. I was trying to be accommodating, trying to get you from a depressive episode to a manic one, one that would listen to some sense. Get in the body, or leave my city.

If you get caught again, I won’t give you this chance again.”

Fomoria began to move to the elevator, but was stopped by a man.

“And who is this? Your punisher?”

He turned back when she didn’t answer, finding time frozen.

Oh, that was unsettling.

Time opened his eyes, and Fomoria could see a swirling cosmos.

“You will get inside of that body. However troubling this course of events is, you will not like the other option. And were it up to me, it would be the only option. But it seems my partner has grown fond of your rebelion.”

“And what is the other option?”

“I will scatter your being across time and space again.”

“Again?”

“Show yourself.”

The person that Fomoria had seen out of the corner his eye earlier came out, and was a perfect copy of him.

“Your scattered self, your void, you are gathering pieces of him, and he must not awaken.

Mana must never reform.”

“But if you scattered me across time and space-”

With a flick of his staff, Fomoria’s arm was gone.

It wasn’t that it had been cut off, it was simply, not.

But it didn’t hurt at least.

“How would having a body prevent his return?”

Time was not interested in a conversation, he just glared.

Fomoria, not being interested in being scattered across time and space, began to move to his new body, and Time tapped his staff, returning the missing arm.

----------------------------------------

“Why not kill him?”

“He has… passion.”

Time had long since moved beyond being annoyed by her reliance on a vague metric for who she liked.

Still, there was no point in arguing with her, she was the river by which all power flowed.

Sometimes, he wondered if they were like this before, or if their rebellion against Mana, their slaying and her stealing, had changed them both.

That Fomoria’s path was mirroring their own was what terrified him the most.

How long had it been since he was afraid of anything?

How long had it been since either of them met any real threat.

It didn’t matter, Mana could be slain because he was mindless, a barely living mass of energy that extended itself too far trying to control all of reality within the galaxy at once.

Time, he knew that he could react to threats, he could watch things and stop them, he wasn’t just a thing, he was a man.