_ _ _Bim

Her vessel was stood amidst the churning mind behind Celio's dream. The mercenary operations center was roiling with barely directed chaos in a disturbingly fascinating way. Bim likened her observations to descriptions she'd read of skewered cephalopods, their tentacles writhing as exposed nerve endings were salted prior to consumption.

Bim had only a passing familiarity with the concept of tactics, it was a unique occurrence to this physical realm of matter, time and deception. Faint though her understanding was, Leeroy appeared to be expertly versed on the subject. So she watched and studied and stood in a trance as he attempted to direct his operational collapse into a more palatable degree of failure. It could have been a game, the way he moved between radios ordering his will upon those he commanded. From this single room he marshaled and arrayed his forces to confront the unknown. It was impressive— for a human.

Another report came in, automatically updating one of Leeroy's projections. Another pawn was out of lockstep. One more loose end plucked astray as the whole unraveled in his hands. One less tool at his disposal and one more problem he needed to solve. Leeroy let out a grunted growl, shuffled his priorities and adjusted his orders.

"We don't have the manpower. Aivery, grab Nye then Knight as planned. After that circle back here. I'm cutting our loses on the eastern agents."

The order made logical sense. The objective was to retrieve and preserve the fighting strength of his command. Expending his forces in the name of preserving them was counterintuitive. Yet the decision seemed to pain him. Three black dots disappeared from the operations center's main screen, three less problems to solve. Three pawns who would have to rescue themselves or die trying. Which still left seven on the board.

"Clancy, give me some good news." Leeroy stated, as if to ask would have invited the opposite.

"Mechanized team is almost suited up. We will be departing inside of twenty minutes."

"I'll be down in fifteen, get my armor on board. I'll suit up while we're en route. I'm prioritizing our smash and grab on the holding camp. The west city stragglers will have to make do on their own."

Again, the order made logical sense. He was concentrating his available force where it could attain the best results. There were four rescuees being held in the same location, the other three were scattered. Committing one raid with the highest probably yield was best option available to him. That didn't make it a good option. Bim found his decision to be intolerable.

Hiiro was represented by one of the scattered dots, one of the loses to be cut.

"You decision is unwise." Bim stated, inviting Leeroy to ask her counsel.

"I'm working with what I have." Leeroy answered, ignoring her in favor of his screens.

"You failed to mobilize ground assets. You have deployed less then half of your available troops and less then ten-percent of Celio's auxiliaries."

"They're needed here." Leeroy growled the words.

"Unlikely. This estate isn't under attack-"

"Isn't it!" Leeroy snarled, finally looking up from his datastream to lock eyes on Bim. "In the past six hours I've had eight different agents report troop movements and equipment mobilization with no idea where it's all going. Three hours ago, half of our field team went dark and I don't know how many of them are dead or just missing. The agents I'm still in contact with were swept up in mass arrests and not one fucking hour ago, the entire city went under martial law!"

Bim was aware of these facts, she'd been in the operations center with him since they the first indications of trouble arose, however she'd failed to correlate the plethora of intangible information into actionable intelligence. When considered with the idea of a single antagonistic force orchestrating these actions—much like how Leeroy was coordinating against them—it seemed entirely probably that the destruction of their intelligence gathering capabilities was only the opening maneuvers to a larger hostile action. She'd had all the information Leeroy did yet she failed to see the larger picture as he had.

"These event's may be unrelated…" Bim offered meekly.

"Maybe. Probably some are, but maybe they aren't. Either way, I intend to be alive in the morning when we can know for certain."

"I was under the impression you human's stood together in time of crisis." Bim said coldly. "You are condemning-"

"You think I don't know what might happen to them?!" Leeroy demanded in a roar. "To my people? I'm saving who I can for now. The rest will have to wait." He turned back to his screens and maps before adding in a whisper. "I don't have the manpower. I can't be everywhere at once."

Bim understood the sentiment all too well. Would that she could grant him a fraction of her former omnipotence beyond the constraints of a single mortal vessel enthralled to the ever present Now. Better yet, that she could remove the restraints imposed upon herself. It was maddening to be as weak and powerless as these humans around her.

And yet… weak though they were, they still fought. Even in their ignorance they sighted upon a single goal and pressed forward. They rebelled against the logical certainty of their inevitable ends by being slaves to the moment. They were slaves of time. As was she.

"Send me to rescue him." Bim said.

"What?!" Leeroy looked back up from his charts.

"Send me to rescue Hiiro." Bim repeated, enunciating her words clearly.

"Of course you only care about him. No."

"Why not?!" Outrage had found its way into her words and Bim felt no need to temper it. Leeroy dismissed her from his attention, returning it to his charts.

"Can you shoot?" He asked irreverently.

"I could try-"

"Can you drive a car, sail a boat, fly a plane?"

"Those are not skills I've attempted-"

"Can you even throw a punch that could take someone down?"

"…That seem's unlikely."

"So you can't get to the fight and even if you could, you would be useless when you got there. No, I'm not sending you out. End of discussion."

"Stop treating me as if I am useless!" Bim commanded.

"What can you actually do that would make any difference?" Leeroy asked exasperated.

As she was now, bound and crippled in this weak human facsimile, her options were limited. The knowledge of just how powerless she had become was yet another thing she wished to have never learned. The human's around her were all responding to crisis in their inept, simpleminded ways and she couldn't even do that. It was maddening. Weak though they were, the human's could still fight the inevitable. That she was even less than them sent a portion of her mind spiraling in impotent rage. As she was now, she was sub-human.

"I am a devil." Bim answered, defiantly stating the fact as if it would change anything about her current situation.

"What can you actually do that would make any difference?" Leeroy repeated, speaking slowly, clearly. Much like how humans spoke to small children.

Bim could find no answer to sway him. What could she do? She was powerless and rage though her mind might against the fact, it was fact. The realization awakened something primal in her, it manifested as a trembling of her vessel's limbs. She was too weak to make a difference. She had no control over events to come and the most probable outcome had her mind brushing against a precipice of despair she wasn't certain she could overcome.

Danger was closing in and much like the pathetic weakling frail humans she'd elected to mimic, Bim had no natural weapons to fend it off. She couldn't even find solace amongst others of her kind as they did. In a world of millions, Bim was so utterly alone. She was powerless and scared and alone. It was an experience that defined what it meant to be human. Being human, Bim decided, was a terrible thing.

"If I wasn't bound by this damned collar, I could make all the difference you need." Bim snarled, partially from bruised pride, mostly because it was true.

Leeroy didn't even hesitate. Three long strides and he closed the gap between them, one meaty hand outstretched to tear the torc from her slender neck. Treu materialized between them, arresting Leeroy's arm in a gargantuan fist.

"If you touch that collar, it'll be the last thing you ever do." Her tormentor said. His voice was its usual flat icy malice, but Bim detected an unexpected undertone. Delight. The prospect of violence had her tormentor purring under his breath.

"Well aren't you so fucking helpful all of a sudden! How about you, Treu?!" Leeroy sneered the name with disgust, snatching back his arm. "Any suggestions!? You want to tell me how to do my job too? Or maybe, if you so fucking deign, would you be so kind as to suit up and actually help out for a change!"

Treu flicked his eyes each way, one sizing up Leeroy, the other looking down on Bim. He smiled his cold predatory grin, allowing an aura of malevolence to ooze from it.

"I will act as I see fit." Treu said. "A handful of lives mean nothing in the grand scheme of things."

"Then what the hell are you doing in my ops center? Make yourself useful or get out of the way!"

In that moment, Leeroy seemed to lessen, to somehow become smaller without reducing his volume of mass. It was a curious sight, one her past self would have logged for later detailed examination. Now however, time was against her and she was powerless to fight it. Leeroy once again cast his eyes over his screens, maps and charts searching for something he had missed. Suddenly, he smiled a thin bitter grin.

"And here I though you'd happily let me send her into the meat grinder. Worst case, they both die. As I've just stated, it's not much of a loss to me. Two less names on the roster, and then you have no reason to stick around either. Best case, the rescue goes off without a hitch. Again, no skin off my back. But there is one messy scenario worth considering, if she gets there only to find out that he's already dead— wouldn't that be a shame…"

Treu locked both eyes on Leeroy and there was this tiny little twitch just under his left eye that Bim wasn't entirely sure she'd even seen. Her mind was reeling at the possibility throw so blatantly into focus.

Until now, Hiiro's wellbeing had been a theoretical abstract. He was neither alive nor dead but some quantum state of both until observed otherwise. The longer that state continued, the longer he stayed out of her sight, the more likely his death became though it never reached to point of certainty. Once more, her past self would have been intrigued. Her present self was slipping into mania as the precipice of despair grew wider. Lost in the din of her roaring consciousness, Leeroy continued.

"You might just get what you really want from her. Then we could be rid of each other as well."

"Well played, cousin."

The ever-present Now commanded her attention once more. Treu was standing over her, a cruel smile on his face.

"Devil, it would seem we have a deal to make."

"Partially unbind this vessel long enough for me to rescue my Hiiro, we may 'lawyer' additional terms once I have ensured his safety." Bim responded instantly. Every second wasted could be the difference between rescuing Hiiro or recovering his body.

"I require a guarantee."

"I swear it upon my life that I shall honor these terms in good faith."

"Your 'life' has far less value than you think. I'll need more than that."

Bim had little else to offer. Treu held no love of trinkets or money nor even the otherworldly knowledge at her disposal. Repulsive as the vile thought was, Bim considered offering her body to him but in so far as she could tell, the pleasures of the flesh meant nothing to her Tormentor. He lauded the agonies he could inflict on others, it was betrayed in the tender purr in which he'd threatened Leeroy. The only thing she could offer of any value to him was to be a victim of his cruel ministrations and there was only one degree of submission which she knew he would accept unconditionally. It was a steep price. If the circumstances hadn't been so dire, if she had a few minutes to think of another way… But she didn't. Hiiro's life neared its termination every second she spent dithering. No matter what agonies she was forced to endure at the hands of her Tormentor, Hiiro's life was worth it.

"Then I shall swear it to you upon my immortal soul and upon my name." Bim holds out a hand to shake on it. Treu smiles a predator's grin, then shakes cementing their covenant.

"Deal."

In an instant the dampening torc was off her throat and Bim transcended the mortal weaknesses of frail humanity. Her vast mind unfurled beyond her vessel like an expanding nova, obliterating the constraints of self. She was one yet that one was beyond multitudes. Reservoirs of sense flooded her mind, brushing aside the human ignorance of sight and sound and touch. Her pseudoflesh was an instrument of cosmic power bent towards a single purpose.

I must save my Hiiro.

He was alive. His soul was a beacon amidst a million sparks. His mind, a pale engram of her own thought processes. Rudimentary, archaic even, yet undeniably her's. He was in pain. He was suffering, but he was alive.

Bim willed the distance between them to lessen and it did. The suggestion of gravity attempted to object and she brushed such weak protests aside. Hiiro was her's. No mundane force could stand between them. Nothing in the entirety of this fragile reality could deny her.

Bim flicked strands of her consciousness across the multitudinous minds beneath her, selecting those on the threshold of expiration and rending them bare of anything she couldn't use. In a span of seconds, she'd experienced lifetimes dwelling in the city streets. She pieced it all together in a blink, creating a single mosaic of understanding from the shattered minds of fifteen-hundred and eighty-three dying mortals.

She superimposed her mental mosaic over the flood of information she was sensing. Hiiro's flagging mind was located deep underground, in a provincial compound that she used to work in. She had been a secretary there. No, she'd been a soldier, no an officer. Several of her had been inside. She had decades, no centuries of experience to draw from. One of her grandfather's had been on the engineering team that had designed it. A courtyard foyer that started as a cliffside encampment guarding an underground stronghold which only grew as the years passed by. The edges around this one shard of her mosaic blurred.

She was remembering it all concurrently. Lifetimes of human experience demanding her attention, one memory sparking off another into a cascade of bygone youth and longing wist. The human mind became a dreadfully nostalgic thing as it brokered with death. Had she been free of the constraints of time, navigating her new memories would have been trivial. Within time however, the onrushing horde assaulted her consciousness with the force of a tsunami. Gravity became law once more. The multitudes inside a single vessel fell as one, the nighttime air clawing at their skin like the spirits of the damned.

Who were they?

Fifteen-hundred and eighty-four answers came to mind, each one shouting to be heard over the wind roaring past their ears. They were falling towards a city, angels cast down from Heaven. Some of them found this observation amusing and poetic, others blasphemed the superstitious nonsense. Yet one of them screamed.

"I am a Devil!"

Their fall was arrested midair with a terminal force that would have splattered a human. The tsunami of consciousness collided with a mountain of willpower. The two sides, the hundreds and the one, all they were shared a single conviction.

I am real. You are all nothing but memories.

They were they, and yet… there was one above none. Hundreds of lifetimes of evidence were thrown into focus, drowning out any semblance of perception. This is me, I lived! They all cried out. The one above none weathered this storm of experience, seining placid minds from the surging tempest of bygone perceptions until they could regain some semblance of external awareness. Their vessel was hovering in the air a half-kilometer above sea level. They were confused by this discovery. The tsunami broke, leaving hundreds of individual streams of thought to pour down the mountain of her resolve. Her resolve.

She was the vessel of a creature called Bim.

How much time had she lost? Minutes. She couldn't afford to lose a second and she'd lost minutes. Inexcusable. It could NOT be allowed to happen again. With great savage swipes of thought, Bim seized up the wayward minds she'd captured by the hundreds and broke them down to a collection of facts. No personalities, no memories bleeding one into the next, just the raw data of human consciousness. Those minds too weak to resist her were spared her desolation. Instead, she isolated them; each meek, servile, placid consciousness was locked in a lightless void deep in Bim's pseudoflesh where she could interrogate them individually at her leisure.

Hiiro was close now. Bim circled once around the compound, scanning it as much by eye as she did by mind and memory. The compound was jointly operated by the civil militia and municipal police forces— or it had been when she used to work there as a man in her youth. Bim tore through her memories in a blink. She had been a man, a lowly soldier. Her name had been Pablo Martinaz and she'd been stationed here at Fort Liberty as part of the 3rd Mountain Regiment. She had been stationed underground, burrowed into the cliffs like an ant for months at a time. She had seen the twinned suns only in the brief instances between police actions. In every flash of memory she saw soldiers, thousands of alert soldiers engaged in a never ending war on crime. She recalled her fear of being buried alive and the thrill she'd felt when dealing death. Then, she remembered that she was not Pablo Martinaz but instead the vessel of a creature called Bim.

I must save my Hiiro.

Partially unbound as she was, Bim felt confident she could endure whatever inconsequential harm they could inflict upon her. Bullets and shrapnel tearing through her meant nothing since her pseudoflesh was composed of nothing remotely resembling a vital organ. She was a demigod in mortal guise. When she reached for the power of the cosmos, it answered… though in a lesser magnitude than she desired.

Her Tormentor still had his claws lodged in her flensed soul. The cursed sigil embedded in her vessel was so cold it burned. Her Tormentor held her existence in much the same way she had crushed those minds rebelling within her. On a whim, he could destroy her and she had gave her oath that she would not resist.

A fragment of her mind weighed the odds. As she was now, a sliver of a fraction totaling perhaps one five-hundredth of the available force she'd first arrived in this dimension with, Treu still outclassed her. And that was to say nothing of the massive handicap she'd imposed upon herself in Hiiro's name. Without the sigil… perhaps, but as she was now, no.

She had power beyond what most human's dreamed of and it wasn't enough to resist her Tormentor.

Would it be enough to rescue Hiiro? She may have been impervious to what harm may come, but he wasn't. Could she protect him long enough to get him to safety? She lacked the knowledge to make such an assertion.

Bim lowered her vessel, hovering five meters above Fort Liberty's primary motor pool. Her arrival did not go unnoticed, yet the response was underwhelming. Bemusement, confusion, disbelief. None of these reactions provided her with useful data. Bim lingered there for a full thirty seconds, yet the desired response never came.

These mortals were wasting her time and that was an inexcusable sin.

Bim unfurled a sub-strand of consciousness, instilling mortal terror in every fourth mind it chanced upon. With another, she collected the ambient photons within forty-five centimeters of the ground and converted them into a dim red glowing aura centered on her vessel. Lastly, she located something believed to be durable and protective—a massive, multi-tonned command vehicle—and she destroyed it in spectacular fashion. Bim flicked a finger and sent the vehicle flying end over end in a green fireball of burning chemical accelerant.

She had created a hellscape of dread for these mortals, one that drew their focus unto the wrathful demi-god in their midst. Their deaths were a certainty. The only question remaining was if they could slay the vengeful deity before they perished. At long last, the mortals surrounding her thought to defend themselves with lethal force.

A torrent of bullets flew through her vessel to little effect. Each rare shot that managed to connect with the thrice-damned sigil embedded within her vessel sent a arc of agony jolting throughout her vessel. Agony, she could endure. It was pale comparison to what her Tormentor had already inflicted upon her. The skin of her vessel was blasted through, revealing the churning black-gold mass of undulating pseudoflesh beneath. Men went berserk at the sight of things beyond their mortal ken, all sense of self preservation cast aside. They knew nothing but the instinct to kill this creature that should never have existed.

Bim began her experiments in earnest.

Slow-firing, single shot weapons were simple enough to block with a kinetic shield. Unfortunately, slow well-aimed shots weren't the only kind coming her way. From the overwhelming hail of gunfire, she was able to 'catch' exactly eight-nine bullets while the remaining sixteen-thousand and change torn through her. Over a minute of experimentation, Bim was able to deflect, destroy and otherwise neutralize less than two-percent of the massed fire hurled against her. Such results were hardly promising

Much easier, she concluded, to extract Hiiro once the fort had been neutralized. Bim swept her arms overhead, dispelling the hellscape she had created. Her assailants didn't falter in their assault, instead redoubling their efforts. Heavy weapons, rockets, even the turrets of partially crewed vehicles pounded the air. A curious weapon of condensed light strobed into her vessel, superheating some part of her for nanoseconds at a time. It was a unique suffering compared to the rest and portions of her relished the anguish— the futile resistance of the inevitable was almost endearing. However the majority of her mind found it annoying.

Bim drew in a breath and focused two vector lines of force into the cliffside overlooking Fort Liberty's entrance. Gravity handled the heavy lifting for her. Hiiro was still alive buried deep in the heart of the mountain she was cutting to pieces with every breath.

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rubble came crashing down on to Fort Liberty, crushing the surface encampment in seconds. She cleared boulders far larger than Celio's palace with an idle thought, throwing them irreverently aside and paying no heed to where they landed. A memory that wasn't her's surfaced— a massive dog tearing at a foxhole so it could sink its teeth into the beast hidden within.

With a flick of thought, Bim located the next fault line she'd strike. Hiiro was her fox and she would tear this entire mountain apart until she could hold him in her arms. This vessel of a creature called Bim was a calamity in mortal guise. The devastation of a natural disaster committed to removing an iconic landmark. She was an apocalypse driven by a single thought.

My Hiiro still lives and I will save him.