Chapter 55: The Alps are Glowing.

While we didn’t have a GPS to tell us how fast we were going, I was pretty sure we were making good time. Granted this was relatively subjective assessment based on how many smaller insects were being splattered against Buddy’s face membrane as we whizzed past, but I was relatively certain it was accurate.

“You know, I really do love how beautiful and serene this landscape is!”

“What!?”

I shook my head in disappointment. Switching to [Message] without any real effort.

‘I said, I love how beautiful and serene this landscape is.’

Dusty grunted.

‘Don’t know what you find so pretty about it. It all seems grim to me.’

‘Huh? What do you mean? This place is lovely. Look around you and see the flowers. The rolling green fields, the way other animals are going about their business in peace.’

I thought about waving a hand over all of it, but reconsidered after taking my own balance into account. Yet, she must have seen it all as well. It was obvious to anyone with eyes to see.

There were wild poppies in stark shades of red, wild sage in soft hues of blue, pink clovers and white marguerites. All of them criss-crossing in chaotic meshes throughout the fields, without any guidance from human gardeners.

Honeybees buzzed around them constantly, moving in steady patterns within my fog. They would land amidst colorful petals and bathe in the pollen before taking flight once more. Their minds simple in their contentment. Repeating simple emotions inside their simple minds. Beautiful, in the way they didn’t consider eating us.

There were other insects as well. Things I was relatively sure weren’t normal animals. Such as the lobster. The, uh, car-sized lobster. Currently fighting with a hermit crab over territory a couple of kilometres to our right. The hermit crab that was wearing an actual car frame as a shell.

Overly mutated? Yes.

Horrific in the implications they brought to the table? Of course.

Potentially homicidal? Absolutely.

Yet, I hesitated. A group of people, actual people that is, were sitting by while the two behemoths fought. Not caring too much that the two monsters were snapping at each other.

‘Maybe it’s a local custom? Dusty did say there were expeditionary forces that went outside to hunt and fight. Maybe these guys ride the crab and the lobster around.’

Regardless, the humans were not in danger, so I didn’t have a reason to care.

Instead, I indulged in all the other minds floundering about.

Three or four villages were located deep below the earth, each with about five hundred people or so. They were, just there. Living their lives.

Some were hunting in the peripheries, some were growing giant mushrooms or fermenting those same self fungal growths into beverages. Some were laughing. Some were crying. Some were stuck in a rather ugly confrontation about who had allegedly slept with who.

Typical French behaviour I supposed.

It was gratifying to sense them. To know that humanity was not quite done for in this world. In fact, there was a new beginning waiting for them in the surface, as herds of wild cattle still grazed the plains. Protecting their young and weaker members from prowling wolves.

Untamed horses roamed around under the sun while birds of all shapes and sizes flew overhead.

A few were very clearly mutated, but less than I would have thought. They wildlife had clearly adapted to the radiation far better than humans had.

‘Dusty, I, I don’t know how you can be so glum. Look around you. At the flowers. At the way they stretch on forever. At the way songbirds are perched on trees. Nurturing young and signing out into the air. I, I can’t express how alive it makes me feel. How much happiness it summons.’

‘Its all an illusion.’ She answered in her mind. ‘All this peace is only possible because your sword and the spirit inside of it are draining the death from the air. We would’ve died ten times over without a Geiger Counter if we didn’t have them. That, or the fireflies would have swooped down to rip us apart. If you want proof, you need only gaze out into the nearby strip of concrete. Look at all the rusted cars, the empty shells that used to be houses, the broken roads and the streams that run over them. This is a graveyard and it will remain a graveyard until we kill the Luminescent Parade. They, and all the other Great Devourers.’

I could only give her a sad smile in return. Hugging her closer and allowing more emotions to flow through [Message].

‘I find it heartening that you care so much, Dusty. It speaks to your character. It shows how good of a person you are.’

She stumbled. Almost crashing into the ground before catching herself mid-fall. Slab’s own mind sensed her thoughts. He said nothing.

I chuckled to myself at the cute display.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll make it all better. I’ll destroy the monsters. All the ones that hunt humans. I’ll make it so that your world is safe for you and everyone you care about. I won’t rest until its done. Then, when I’m finished. I’ll tell everyone how important you were. How much your presence helped. How I couldn’t have done it without you. Everyone will know how strong and brave you were. You deserve the acknowledgement.’

Her heart was thundering inside her chest now, the reaction bringing a smile to my lips.

‘Man, this is fun.’ I thought to myself. ‘I wonder how far I can push this?’

It ended up taking us two hours to see the mountains.

Not bad considering the rapidly growing density of mutated fireflies along the way.

They had made wax nests atop the canopies of sky-scraping trees. Floating around them as if patrolling. Bright thoraxes visible from the ground, even with the sun shining overhead.

Their presence had warped the bark beneath them, causing glowing lacerations that looped and spiraled down the length of their arboreal homes. Pestilent greens infecting the normal brown bark.

The extermination had been easy at first. Simply waltz in and [Dominate] the bugs within my fog. Ordering them to hunt down and kill the few specimens that managed to escape by being away at the time or flying above my range.

However, that pattern started changing rather quickly the closer we got to the Alps. The bugs that nested closer to the mountain range would be flying high among the clouds. Too far for my fog to reach. Furthermore, the were clearly exercising concerted efforts against their mind-controlled brethren. Luring them higher and higher before swarming all around them to, well, it was hard to see what was going on from this distance but I figured they were dismembering their former comrades. On account of all the limbs raining down below the battles.

I didn’t think much of this at first.

They were intelligent to some degree but so what? Gnomes had been intelligent too and that all their plans and coordination had barely slowed me down.

That viewpoint started changing once the rocks began to fall. Big boulders that sent shockwaves through the empty plains and the ruins of old French towns as we continued our approach. Dropped from far on high, above the range of [Sense Thoughts].

‘Which means that something ordered them to pick up heavy stones from far away and to then fly those stones to an altitude that rendered them immune from my control.’

It was a solid tactic, given what resources they had to work with.

“Dusty, you mentioned earlier that the mutants here don’t have Telepath powers, right?”

“That’s right. It’s the main reason so many communities managed to survive the original onslaught and why some heroes still bring the fight to the Great Devourers. They cannot use them and they are extremely vulnerable to them.”

“I see. Then this coordination must be coming from another kind of ability.”

“There are pheromone-based abilities on the Shifter Boards.” Boris pointed out. “It could be the source of these developing tactics.”

‘That was as good a guess as any.’ I reasoned. ‘Yet it begs the question of what to do about it. An ant colony or a beehive will be more or less done for the moment you take out the queen and kill the larvae. But normal fireflies don’t have hives or colonies. These mutant ones might have multiple queens or strategic fallback positions for all we know.’

“We might have to go back to Paris after we’re done here. Those folks could use a healthy blast of [Insight] to keep them going until we get summoned again.”

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“That’s a wonderful idea!” Slab answered. “I cannot begin to imagine what a clan could do with a fresh injection of Telepaths. Not to mention a new wave of warriors coming out from normal civilians. You’d be saving the entire western half of the continent if you kept doing it.”

I nodded. Determining to follow through as soon as we were done here.

Another boulder fell then. Much closer to us than the previous ones.

“Their aim is getting better.” Monique quipped. “Its actually impressive they can make those shots from all the way up there. I sure can’t.”

“I might have a solution for that.” I said.

Turning to my sword and to Cherub’s wings emanating from it.

“Hey Cherub. What’s the maximum range of your attacks?”

‘I don’t know. Depends on how much of my realm manages to slip into yours. I don’t think I can reach the bugs up top as I am now, but I might be able to reach it if you put more Psy in the air.’

“You got it.”

I pressed more energy out of me. Letting it flow out from behind my eyes and saturating the atmosphere in unreal hues of gold and purple.

The changes that my actions brought were, unexpected.

First, all of us ran faster. Much faster. As if I’d been boosting my hums far past what I was already doing. It was, as if their effects were redoubled in an environment that made it easier for them to affect my friends. At the same time, their own abilities were flowing much faster. With less friction pushing against the natural order of the world around them.

“(Gnome). That packs a kick. Why have you never done that until now?” Charlie inquired. His normally composed voice trembling slightly.

“It has interesting side effects.” I answered. Not quite able to fully describe what destabilizing the veil between reality and a realm of pure Psy could do.

“I mean, imagine the normal interactions you have with the world, right? Like normal gravity. You throw a pebble and it falls. If it hits a pond, the impact sends ripples along the surface. That’s not a guarantee with [Unstable Reality]. You never really know what’s coming. Sometimes it makes things heavier or lighter. Sometimes you see Intruders manifesting and sometimes you don’t. What it usually does is make abilities more effective and make them cost less Psy. It also makes summoning Intruders easier and makes them stronger while allowing them to regenerate Psy faster. I haven’t used it much during training because I was afraid of what an empowered hit of gravity manipulation might do to me. That, and it’d be, unfortunate, if an Intruder manifested under me while I was running or doing push-ups. Speaking of which…”

‘I’m ready.’ Cherub confirmed.

I grinned. Drawing him and Slasher from the belt Buddy had fashioned out of himself.

Raising the blade over my head with an unsteady hand while my other hand clung on for dear life.

“By the power of Yellow Skull! I have the power!”

No sooner had I said those words, than Dusty and I collapsed in a heap. Her legs becoming entangled in a patch of grass that shouldn’t have been difficult to traverse, but that now whipped and lassoed its surroundings like a living length of rope.

Slasher, did not fall with us. Instead, she hovered in mid-air. Shining triumphantly as music began playing out of nowhere.

Then, the laughter began to ring. Spreading out in all directions until the sounds seemed to emanate from the very air that we were breathing in.

The others stopped in their tracks, coming over to help. Dusty was grunting, ripping at the green blades sticking to her legs while more and more of them rose up to envelop her.

I used [Domination] on the plants. Commanding them to release her. An order that was promptly followed, but not before a boulder crashed into our position.

It didn’t leave a mark. Any mark. No craters, no fractures along the earth. Not even so much as a dent.

Instead, it began to hover next to Slasher. Melting like candle wax as Cherub made his way outside.

One big eye surrounded by violet ribbons that swirled and burned around its orbit. A body was chiselled out of the melting stone. Pooling beneath him like wet clay and shaping itself to his whims. Six fiery wings sprouted from the body’s back. Growing some ten metres in a second and fifty metres in two.

Their surreal silver glow lit up the grassland, reflecting off the beads of dew found among the blades.

His arrival caused the music to rise in a fever pitch. Gregorian chants coming in fast from above and below.

“Cherub? You okay?”

Cherub took Slasher into his hands before his voice boomed across the plains.

“PURITY COMES FOR YOU!! VERMIN!!!”

The rest of my team joined me in staring. All of them unable to get a word in.

“Uh, Cherub? All I need is for you to kill the fireflies above us.”

“FIRE TO THE UNCLEAN!!!!” He roared. Beating its six wings so that a whirlwind billowed around us.

Level Gained: +500 Maximum Psy. +12 Ability Points.

Ability Evolving: [Unstable Reality] 7 has grown to [Unstable Reality] 8

He shot up. Like a cannon shell or maybe a surface-to-air missile. Splitting the sky in two until it reached the same altitude as the fireflies. Then he exploded.

Bursting apart like a watermelon hitting asphalt. Blotting out the sun for a fraction of a second.

It began to rain after that. Droplets of boiling ichor descending all around us. Staining the grass a paler shade of greenish yellow.

Monique and Charlie both brought up [Force Walls] above us. Neither of them saying a word, though both turned to look at me.

“What? It worked, didn’t it?”

I turned to face Boris.

“Do you want to be irradiated?”

“No, Sully. I don’t want to be irradiated. Your creepy arson ghost did a good job.”

“He’s an Intruder, not a ghost.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Intruders were never human. Ghosts were human once. Also, Intruders can affect our world using Psy. Ghosts can only wander about. Howling occasionally.”

They were all looking at me now. Faces blank and devoid of emotions.

“Why…” Dusty began, before biting her lip.

Slab found his courage and finished for her.

“Why are you speaking about ghosts as if they were real?”

“Because they are real. Obviously. Oh, don’t give me that face Slab. I know how it sounds. I didn’t believe in them either. It’s a side-effect of [Unstable Reality]. Places where lots of people died are, stained. A bit of Psy containing emotion covers the ground and air, even if the people killed there weren’t Espers. I first realized it when Cherub manifested. He was affected by the remains of the zombie apocalypse in that world. Their struggles were still playing out beyond the veil, in the place where Intruders originate from. I saw a few after using [Insight] on a group of survivors but it wasn’t a big deal. It still isn’t.”

He was horrified. His stony visage twisted into a mask of shocked awe.

“Look, if you don’t believe me, then use your own [Unstable Reality]. You’ll start sensing them in your fog. Whispers at first. Then voices screaming or pleading. Or, you could wait until you get it to a higher level and have them show up. Here, I’ll show you.”

I forcefully fed more Psy into the string. Hundreds, then thousands worth of points. Causing it to twist and turn. More and more of my senses were being doused in the raw energy. Ethereal winds bringing voices where there hadn’t been any.

The spectral outline of a town began to rise up from the meadow. Buildings conjuring themselves into a future where they didn’t belong. Within and around those buildings, were people. Or, what little remained of them in the immaterial realm beyond objective reality.

“See? Its not an actual afterlife or anything. More like, an imprint of…”

“STOP!” Charlie screeched. His voice frantic and uneven. Filled with an indescribable desperation that consumed all reason.

“Make it go away!” He pleaded once more, almost on the verge of tears. “Please! Make it go away! Make them go away!”

“Its fine. They’ll only stay as long as I’m feeding Psy to my power. They’ll go away on their own in a couple of days.”

He started crying. Actually, weeping. Hysterically.

“I don’t want to see them! I don’t want to be near them! Take them back! Take them back! Please!”

“Okay! Okay! Geez! No need to burst my eardrums man.”

I still had five extra points and used them to bring up [Stable Reality] from one to three.

It was the first time I’d thought to do so, since the effects on the environment went away by themselves and, if I was being honest, it seemed like a bit of a waste.

Still, I’d never seen Charlie so, disturbed before. So vulnerable.

‘I guess we all have our phobias. I shouldn’t hold it against him.’

I pressed against my own handiwork using the newly-upgraded power. Feeling a new wave smoothening out crinkles in the fabric of reality. Like, pressing a shirt. Yes, that was an apt description. There was an unstable sphere of influence around me that was like a crinkled shirt and this new ability smoothed out the rough edges. Making it presentable again.

Only, the sphere resisted. Spreading out further still, over kilometres of empty fields. The ghosts were gone though and that was enough for Charlie.

He knelt on the ground, face drenched in sweat. His own Symbiote, which had been shaped to resemble a welding suit for protection, now parted. Exposing his upper torso as he heaved and struggled for breath on all fours.

“Hey man. It’s all good. Like I said, they’re not really classical ghosts. They’re probably not even aware that they’re dead. Its like, a shadow that stays on a building after the person casting it leaves.”

Charlie brought his face up.

If looks could kill, this would count as multiple homicides and at least one count of crimes against humanity.

“Sorry. My bad. Won’t do it so long as you’re around.”

“No.” He protested. “You have to promise. Not to do that ever again. Under any circumstances. Ever.”

I scoffed.

“Come one man. You know I can’t promise that. Honestly, between ghosts and radiation I’ll definitely take the ghosts any day. You and Monique can’t figure this stuff out yet so Cherub has to take care of things. Its for humanity. For the common good of the people left in this world. Dusty and Slab have some serious collective trauma regarding these super mutants. Think of how many lives we’d be saving by making them disappear.”

I shook my head.

“Again, I promise to keep it on the down low when you’re around. That’s all I can say for certain.”

His fists clenched. Gouging patches of dirt and plant matter from the hard-packed soil beneath him. He was shaking like a leaf. Threatening to topple over.

He swallowed. Hard.

“Fine. For the people. Let’s keep going.”

“Excellent.” I said, patting him on the back. “Don’t worry about it too much. It’ll be fine so long as I avoid showing you these powers. I do the same with heights. Oh, maybe you should try drinking. That helps me immensely.”

Slab placed a hand on my shoulder, drawing my attention. His face was also ghastly pale. His jaw clenched so tightly I feared his teeth might shatter.

“We have no time to waste.” He managed after a few seconds of ragged breaths. “Leave him alone for now. It’ll pass.”

“Sure thing.” I agreed. Stepping back and giving Charlie some more breathing room.

“I’ll just be over here waiting for Cherub to come back.”

I stood there for ten minutes.

Waiting and waiting for the only means we had of dispelling the radioactive landscape as we dashed through it.

Cherub never showed.

At least, not openly. I felt my abilities being used on his end. His own constructed body calling on my own Psy. I kept feeding the link, though I could not talk to him at all.

“What’s taking so long?” Dusty asked.

“I don’t know.” I admitted sullenly. “This hasn’t happened before. I’ve fed him over 100, 000 points of Psy and he’s still draining more. He must be in a fight, but it shouldn’t be taking this long to resolve. He’s got abilities he can use for free after all. I wonder what….”

A shiver, crept up my spine. A sudden weakness. As forty thousand more points were sucked out at once.

That’s when we saw it. The flash coming from the mountains.

Level Gained: +500 Maximum Psy. +12 Ability Points.

Level Gained: +500 Maximum Psy. +12 Ability Points.

Ability Evolving: [Unstable Reality] 8 has grown to [Unstable Reality] 10

For the briefest of instant, the light coming from the peaks eclipsed the sun itself.

As it dimmed, we felt a staggering rush of air that knocked us all on our backs. Even Slab and Dusty with their superhuman frames and Enhancer levels.

A cloud rose up from the jagged outlines.

No.

Not a cloud.

A pillar. Made up of mewling, weeping, ecstatic faces. All of which laughed and laughed and laughed.