One of the feeds on Drim’s tablet went blank, scrambled with static. Using a feature of the Gizmicros that had remained dormant until that day, the boy had been able to see through the eyes of Jaid and Creti, both who had been previously injected with the invasive, microscopic devices.
The man who’d had no stake in their fight had been watching the entire time—not just through the feeds, but also perched on a water tower right near the bunker. Drim had been there since the wee hours of the morning, well ahead of the CP’s main force, but not before their advanced party. He immediately recognized the dotted line of the ability called Perimeter, knowing all the facets of Hickedy’s Curse thanks to Phon.
Drim always could have used Hand Guy to circumvent the effects, but was surprised when he was allowed to pass right through like an invited guest. It seemed Chorus’ plan to alter perceptions had been working as intended. If even a child sheltered by the Central Peace saw a friend in him, what could the rest of the world think? But after making a clean pass into the dangerous warzone, he scouted around until he found his ideal vantage point.
The water tower was old and rusted to the point that the boy was amazed that it hadn’t collapsed in all this time, but it was still the perfect spot. In fact, he’d had such a good line of sight from his perch that the Slayer’s bow had been drawn ever since Above snuck into their secondary shelter, aimed directly at Creti’s head.
But now he lowered the bow and relaxed the tension of the string. He’d have no further use for his weapons that day. Though instead of stowing the nocked arrow and dismantling the bow back onto his bracers, Drim let both of them flop to the tower’s walkway, and then the arrow rolled off and skewered the ground a hundred feet or so below.
The boy pulled off his own protective visor, since he no longer needed it—having no more use for anyone in the world. Drim slammed his hand down, shattering the visor against the railing, and let the fragments slip from his fingers. He then whirled around and smashed his fist into the water tower’s tank.
“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! DAMN IT!” Punch after punch he smashed his fist into the metal, each one building in ferocity. The reverberation echoed around the entire suburb, surely causing confusion and commotion amongst those in the area, but he didn’t care.
With one mighty final blow, Drim’s fist punctured the tank, causing his venting to come to a rest. No water gushed out, long gone after decades of abandonment. But a slimy sludge did slowly ooze and cover his hands. It was surely highly toxic and filled with radiation, but he didn’t care.
The boy turned back around, slumping down onto the walkway, tears streaming down his face. “Cosdamnit… I couldn’t do it. I knew what he was going to do, I knew he was going to kill her, but I still just couldn’t do it. It should have been me. She was my failing, my responsibility, my duty to put an end to her misdeeds, but I still couldn’t bring myself to kill her. How am I supposed to save the world if I can’t protect it from one single Fiend?”
“Hey, it’s not your fault,” Drim’s ghostly mother slid out of his body and put her hands on his shoulders. “For all you know, her power was affecting you too. It seemed to be manipulating the rest of them in some form or another, even with their protective tech. Plus, you were distracted at the crucial moment.”
“You took it upon yourself to save those other three. So when you looked back, it was already too late.” She did make one valid point in that regard. From his vantage point, Drim had watched the fog of the three Above members drift out of the ruined building. And then he watched as they flew towards Hickedy’s perimeter.
The boy could almost feel their anxiety and panic when their movement came to an abrupt halt, splattering against the invisible wall, trapping them with nowhere to run. Maybe Creti’s power really had gotten to him, or her plea was just so convincing, or maybe it was just his own kind heart, but he found himself wanting to fulfill the girl’s last wish and see them to safety, to freedom.
Drim had asked Hand Guy to deliver them far away from this place, somewhere they’d be able to rest and recover without fear. Even the requestor had no idea where they’d been taken, or even his invisible helper could even deliver fog. But sure enough, every last wisp vanished from sight. And when he returned his attention to the tablet…
“No, you just don’t get it,” Drim argued back. “I still could have done it, and I won’t hide behind excuses. There was enough time, and the shot was lined up perfectly. I wouldn’t have even needed to use my Curse to adjust the arrow mid-flight. But I froze.”
“And because of my hesitation, now there’s another Cosdamned Fiend in the world.” His eyes drifted to one corner of the tablet’s screen. Creti’s feed had cut away on its own since it no longer had a signal, and now the view from Jaid’s eyes had taken over the whole screen. She and a few soldiers had cornered Tusmon in one section of the room, all with their weapons drawn. But he was cooperating and answering their questions with his hands in the air. The radiation burns on his face had already started to heal.
“I still don’t quite understand how that worked,” Eleen studied the new Fiend. “The detective should’ve had no real connection with Creti. So why did it trigger a Fiend birth when he killed her? Hell, he was a Lesser to begin with, so the death wasn’t even the trigger. So that meant he gave up something very important at that moment.”
“It’s not that complicated,” Drim reasoned, his voice a bit more calm from the distraction of his mother’s question. “Creti’s Curse. Tusmon had no protection from it, so at that point, he was fully under her spell. With how scared she was, its influence must have been at its maximum power. Without a doubt, she meant everything to him in that moment—his whole world.”
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“But Detective Fallacy Tusmon isn’t like most humans, is he?” Eleen caught on. “His mind is so messed up that he thought the best way to save her was to kill her, am I right?”
“Yes, I think you’re spot on,” the boy agreed. “To stop her from harming anyone else, to keep her from turning into even more of a monster, that would be Tusmon’s definition of saving her. Really, there was no one worse in the world that she could have asked for help. And since he was deeply devoted to her, that’s what turned him into a Fiend.”
“Seems we’ve got another anomaly on our hands too,” the astute woman pointed out. “The lavender eye is new, but the other eye… stone-blue was Creti’s color, right? And he even got her dirty-gray hair. If you kill a Fiend to become a Fiend, I guess you get part of their traits. Now I wonder if that’s affected his power as well. Quite intriguing.”
“Yes, it’s something we’ll have to look into,” Drim noted, “but it never should have come to that. I should have stopped Tusmon when he came to us in the first place. Damn it, I should have known this would happen if they crossed paths, but I just let them go ahead with it…”
“I think I know why I couldn’t kill her. Jaid was right. A part of me was still trying to save her. But for whatever reason, I couldn’t commit to that either. The other three, that was a no brainer, pure instinct to save them. But why is it that when it comes to Creti that I just can’t stick to my convictions? Can’t even save her properly… I guess I failed at that too.”
With those words, Drim had quickly been spiraling back into depression, but something snapped him out of it. His mother’s cold hands had become unbearable and freezing, and they squeezed his shoulders with aggression and annoyance. “Get up!” She demanded, her order as icy as her touch.
Her son couldn’t help but comply, if only to escape that frigid hell. The ghost then got right up into his face and spat, “As your mother, I was trying to help you through your grief. But as a leader, someone who understands what it means to be in your position, I can’t stand your whimpering any longer.”
Eleen jabbed an icy finger into Drim’s chest. “You didn’t save her because she didn’t deserve to be saved! I can’t sense morality the same way you can, but even I could feel the evil radiating off that little wretch. Did you see how she tried to manipulate Tusmon at the very end to save her own skin? And right after she gave that heartfelt speech to her companions. That part may have been genuine, but her sacrificing herself for them was a load of zjik. The girl never had any intention of letting herself be captured.”
Another finger forcefully jabbed into his heart, into his soul. “So you need to figure out where you stand. It doesn’t matter if you kill someone or save them, as long as you hold to your convictions. But you won’t be able to save this world until you accept that not everyone is worth saving. Sacrifices will need to be made, and Creti was one of them.”
Several more prods as the woman’s anger and passion grew more in tandem. “To achieve your goals, you can’t let anyone stand in your way. If you try to take another step forward with half-baked ideals, then you’ll only stumble, and your plans will fail. This is it, Drim, the moment that will define whether or not Project Fiendless succeeds. If you let that girl's death weigh on you, it will crush you before you reach the finish line.”
“You can lament your mistakes when this is all over, but for now, you need to hold strong. Stop whining. Stop second guessing. No more ifs, no more buts. There is only the way forward, and you chose your path long ago. Mark my words, you’ll fail if you keep refusing to stain your soul. So are you ready? Are you really ready to commit?! If not, it’s time to give up!”
Her pokes and prods had pushed him back step by step until he was pressed against the railing, his back arched over the edge. One more solid nudge would be all it took to send him plunging down to Rathe. Eleen didn’t even seem to notice what she’d been doing, that her passion had been applying solidity to her anger.
But instead of possibly sending her son to her doom, she grabbed him by the collar and whirled him back around, slamming him against the still-leaking water tank. “You told me yourself, that for this to work, then you’d need to be the villain. So, my son, it’s time to start acting like one!”
Drim didn’t say anything at first as he sat there looking depressed and ragged, his eyes shadowed by his hair. But when he looked up, the green fire burned with a ferocity that Eleen had never seen before, ablaze with determination. “You’re absolutely right.”
The man stood up and picked up his bow. He dismantled it and reattached the blades to his bracers. After reconfirming their functionality, he extended one and slowly walked around the circular walkway. He crouched down next to their guest who had joined them for the majority of the raid.
Bunchy the buzzhound; When the beast began attacking soldiers, Drim had shot a few arrows into her back to draw her away. Once the monster had gotten close enough, the man had restrained her with vines and pinned her to the water tower.
When he raised his blade, the beast whimpered for its life. She cried out in pain, but not from any attack. Drim pulled the protruding arrows out of her back and then sliced through the restraints. “See that she’s delivered to Kada’s monster sanctuary please.”
“As you request,” Hand Guy was as compliant as always. “Would you like me to deliver you back home upon my return?”
“No thank you,” Drim refused, “I’ll find my own way.” He returned to the front and looked once more at the tablet. The man observed the screen for a brief moment as Jaid watched Creti’s corpse be covered up. He then turned off the screen and stowed away the device, ready to depart.
“And that was it, my last act of grace,” the man exhaled, his words resolute. “No more holding back… I may not be like you. I can’t just kill civilians and write them off of casualties of the cause. But that doesn’t mean I can continue to turn a blind eye. Those who deserve death and those who stand in the way of progress will receive no more mercy from me.”
“And I’m counting on you to hold me to that conviction. If you ever see me hesitate again, I ask that you push me forward. If my hand shakes, I give you permission to take the shot. The path ahead terrifies me, but I’ll be relying on your experience to help guide me through.”
“Yes, my son,” Eleen smiled. “We’ll see this to the end together.”