I didn’t choose my powers.

Not this time. Not for this. This was too important. I couldn’t afford to fuck up.

So Fortuna chose. Never knew she could path me like that, never thought she could, but, somehow, she managed. And I obeyed. Followed her every command, everything. Down to the very last, most minute details. Like I always did. Like I always had.

The first power maintains my flesh.

Atmospheric Aliment. As I fall apart, it knits me back together. Slowly. Painfully. Plaits the very air around me into blood and bone. Soft tissue and telomeres. A constant itching in my marrow that I can never scratch.

But this is a science facility.

A laboratory deep, deep underground. Hermetically sealed. Huge, but finite. The air supply won’t last forever. And the words I could once read easily on the walls before me have begun to look, of late…

Blurry.

Still, the first maintains my flesh.

How long has it been? I wonder, sometimes. I don’t really know. I can’t recall the color of the sun, can’t remember what outside smelled like. The first three centuries were easy, when the consoles still kept my time, but they’ve long burnt out by now.

There’s no sound in here. No motion. No life. Even the most resilient corpses wasted away long ago. I am older than sin, yet somehow, the only one left. How long, since I saw the sun? The sky? Since I saw anything but this room?

The second power maintains my mind.

Neuron Subnet. The first doesn’t fix anything in-between the ears, so this was necessary. It bridges new connections between failing dendrites, reroutes around rotting myelin sheaths, cleans toxins and detritus from each nook and every cranny.

It keeps me sharp. Keeps me alert. Keeps me focused. Keeps me clean. That I might remain awake, eternal. And it’s good, too. Haven’t had a wink in over three hundred years.

Good, but not perfect.

It doesn’t create; just optimizes. A finite supply of neurons means it has to prioritize. To choose. Which parts of my mind are necessary, really? Which are redundant?

How does an alien decide this, I wonder? How could something inhuman ever know?

It doesn’t touch my critical thinking, my planning, my sanity. Gives a wide berth to my respiration, my heart rate. Keeps all my autonomic processes running strong. Needless to say, it maintains my corona.

But senses?

To my limbs, my lips, my body?

Those are unnecessary, it decides. Outdated. Downright vestigial. At this point, they’re more for decorative purposes anyway. So they go first. They last me centuries. But, eventually, even that space runs out. Eventually, it’s got to choose from somewhere else.

I don’t catch it right away.

How could I? No. No, it’s a subtle thing. Creeps up on me. I just recognize, one day, that I can’t remember my father’s name. My mother’s face. My first kiss, at that ice cream place, down the road and across the corner from my home.

Blank, no matter how hard I try.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

And then I start to realize.

I start to realize what it’s done. I start to imagine the consequences. Which memories will it choose tomorrow? What will I forget? Is its oblivion by design, or is the parasite just picking at random?

I admit it.

It scares me.

It terrifies me.

I’m…losing myself.

I’m becoming a husk. A shell. A zombie. A mindless puppet, piloted by my own corona.

But, what choice do I have? What can I do? The holocaust of all humanity writhes within my grasp. I can’t just let go. I’m a hero.

And so, the second maintains my mind.

I am entombed within this place. It will be my grave. No longer do I doubt this, I know it in my bones. Something primal, something ancestral, something buried deep, deep down in my eroding mind promises me so. I no longer sleep, or eat, or shit, so, in a way, I guess I’m dead already.

There’s no time for self-pity. No time to dwell. No time to lament my ebbing humanity, my ever-dwindling self. No time.

No time at all.

All time goes to the third.

The third power, that maintains the lock.

Personal-Domain Temporal Exchange. It maintains the center of the room.

Alexandria and the Warrior.

Locked in eternal combat.

Frozen in time.

It doesn’t work like Clockblocker’s. It’s stronger, much stronger. The ultimate trump card. Scion doesn’t even know he’s frozen. It blocks his access to the Shardspace, to the network. As far as he’s concerned, five hundred years ago might as well have been five seconds.

But there’s a price. Always, a price.

Time.

It exacts my own to keep it running. Drains my vitality. Makes me older, weaker, infirm. On its own, I’d be relieved my life in hours. But with the first two, I can keep this up for years. Centuries. I can keep this up forever.

Forever, the third maintains the lock.

Yes.

Yes, forever, that’s the key. Everything starts with forever. All wells dry up. All fields grow barren. All powers run out, even mine.

But not these. These extract a price.

These demand something of me, something from me. These recoup their interest, or lose little enough as to make meager difference. Yes, I can keep this up forever.

Which means she lied.

The fucking bitch, she lied.

She knew. She knew everything. This was supposed to be temporary. She told me so, promised me so, swore to me. It was all going according to plan, everything according to plan, everything falling right into place, we’d have him right where we wanted him, right where we needed him, the fucking whore, the fucking bitch, she promised me.

She took everything from me.

Everything.

I was the world’s strongest.

She lied to me. She knew there’d be no regroup. No rally. She promised me, but she always knew we’d lose. She planned for me to suffer.

But what can I do?

What can I do? What can I say?

There is no justice, here. No deliverance. No hope. No one is coming to save me. No one is coming to help.

There is no restitution, here. No damages, no recourse. No object for my wroth. She died alongside all the rest. I saw it happen. I watched her rot.

There are no choices, here. No alternatives, no escape. Even in death, I dance her tune. To protest, to revolt, to lax my grip, even for a moment, would mean the end of everything. I know it. I can feel it.

I can feel him.

His rage, breathtaking. His will, even frozen in time.

He fights against me. He chafes at the bit.

He struggles against the chains, my chains, somehow, a ceaseless pressure, a drilling in my skull, a pounding in my temples, ever patient, ever seething, ever waiting.

Ever waiting for me to slip.

It’s impossible.

Scion is a monster. A monstrosity. A machination of crystalline machinery, a masterwork of alien engineering. His true form dwarfs the planet. I need to win against him constantly, every second of every day. Hundreds of years. He only needs to win once.

We were fools, all of us. Fools, to stay. Fools, to fight. Fools, to resist our end.

When I die, the Warrior will be free once more. Tricking him won’t work a second time. He’ll erase what remains of humanity.

The first will fail, then the second, then the third.

Then, the end.

Tell me, Fortuna, if you can hear me from hell.

Was this really our Path to Victory?

-Eidolon, High Priest of the Dead God.