Her stomach was burning. Her eyes couldn’t focus. There was no way Capacity was Other Devon. A fucked up trick courtesy of Jeavell. She’d tell him that, that's what she’d do. “The reflection put you up to this. This is all fake.”
”But your heart rate isn’t”, Other Devon said.
He took a step forward, Devon gave up the ground. “I can hear your heartbeat, Devon. Mine was 35 resting. Yours has to be quadruple that right now. Does it take that much effort just to stand? My body… what are you doing with my body?”
”It’s not fucking yours!!” Devon lashed out with Adam, aiming for Other Devon’s cheeks. Her strike was delivered at 80 mph, her form so precise that it could have severed a single string from a cupboard wide tangle.
Other Devon grabbed her hand. His grip was like cold fire. “Ask Adam about the red laps in Shibboleth, or the Spire of Doubt that ate Kravensburg, ask him how he failed me, ask him why I’m no longer his user.” He sprained her arm and ducked away laughing.
“Give it up, you’re not her!” she yelled after him. He was running away, yet every few minutes he would look back with a smile to make sure she was still following.
Behind them the castle crumbled.
She jumped up and aimed for his head. He caught Adam in his teeth and shook him free from her hand like a dog before flinging him away. He clattered to the floor far in the background.
Rack-focus on Adam, then back to Other Devon. He opened his mouth wide and Devon swore she saw eyes back there, Calamity peering out from her puppet. He shoulder checked her, and then like the veritable abyss his open mouth consumed her vision and bit down hard on her nose.
She kicked him back a good ten feet and was relieved to find he hadn’t torn anything major. Adam fell back into her hand. She used him as a mirror and confirmed there was a new scar.
”That's one thing we have in common,” Other Devon said, crawling up slowly, “our history. We were both pawing at scraps in the beginning.” The crawl became an awkward trot, “we thought we were entitled to entitlement, like every beggar, but value is ever so elusive when your lineage can’t pay for shit.” He summoned his Remark, her Remark, the dead fish with her father’s eyes. His dueling stance mirrored hers perfectly.
Then he lunged.
The attack was all piss and no vinegar, her father’s pupil dilated to the point where his eye was the room but she was not afraid.
“We have it in common because we’re the same fucking person.” Devon blocked the attack with her arms. His Remark, her Remark, whatever it was it was so grand slimy. A miserable weapon to be attacked with. With a grunt her arms crossed each other into an x shape and she pushed forward, throwing him back until he slid to a stop and staked his Remark into the ground.
Giving her a smirk that felt achingly familiar, he asked, “Who are you to argue, Devon? Were you or were you not a desperate little orphan who threw their body down a magical river? You wanted to die down there.”
“Yeah but I lived and I lived and it’s your fucking problem now.” Devon didn’t catch that she repeated herself. If she did she would have cared. But adrenaline carried her to the point that even her expletives were on autopilot.
She attacked him again and again, but at the culmination of each attack she couldn’t commit. There was something in his trick, or maybe it was difficult to commit to butchering your own face. Your previous face. Was it taken from her or did she throw it away along with the bath water?
The landscape pulsed obscenely.
Other Devon spoke, “I have always been a being with the modus operandi of living. That's why we connected, I gave him life, he gave me a symbol, together we killed monster’s names and buried their history. The name Forthcoming Martyr Gabriel means nothing now. At the time, it could win you a fiefdom.”
He dodged another strike, Adam slipped out and he dodged, dodged, dodged again. Sliding off the black hill with style as the pulsing went from uncommon to the status quo (you could measure it out to a pulse a second at this point)
Devon followed afterwards, going slower and with less care. “Wow, what a in depth conversation you had with her, this is all clearly crawl shit and I’m not even gonna-“
“First Acolyte of Serach? An eyebrow raise at best. See, you’re doing one now!!”
No one cares. Through a quick jaunt to the Visionary she transported Adam to her other hand instantly.
Then it was stab stab stab your cubital fossa is gushing.
“I guess it is.” Other Devon looked down at his bleeding arm, the pink blood like a water spout. He blocked the next few jabs with his leg, roundhouse kicking her and effortlessly walking backwards at the same time.
It was effortless till Adam caught his leg. It broke with a snap and he curdled to the floor.
“It’s a shame that I can’t talk to Adam. You know what I’d say?”
”Shut up”
“Adam, it’s Capacity.”
”SHUT UP”
”Why is this child wearing my skin?”
”IT'S MINE ITS MINE ITS MINE” She threw Adam with such force she toppled to the ground. He disappeared in front of Other Devon, and reappeared behind him. He only had time to scoff before Adam was through.
Adam burst through his neck at the speed of a bullet. It looked like a pica flower blooming, for a second the blood was even in the shape of a radiating calyx. Other Devon's last expression was his mouth agape, frozen mid retort, pink dripping from his mouth. He blinked once, twice, then fell over like a free standing door.
Adam filled her head again. “Oh no.”
“What are you getting?” She was crumpled and in pain, each breath thin and labored. “I feel sick, I need… I need a lot of things to be fixed.”
“I’m getting you just went through something very traumatic. And the other Devon is dead… he tried to claim he was Capacity.” Adam hovered at eye length, keeping a respectful distance, “Devon there’s no way that's true.”
Around them, the black of the world shifted to a dreary green.
”Who was the first acolyte of Serach.”
”Her name was Uvula, but that's not import-“ He wobbled like a ship in bad weather, “How do you know that name?”
“She told me.”
The body of Other Devon was inert. She had expected it to disappear, or for him to come back to life and declare he could never truly die. Instead it laid there, clearly dead.
”Oh, I’m seeing that now. Jeavell must have read my surface thoughts and learned a few names. Did he actually tell you what any of these things mean, I think not.”
“Well no… he asked me to ask you. Like what the red laps of shibboleth were.”
Adam tried to account for the way the words shook him by pivoting to the left, taking a long swing of the air and passing by Devon’s head like a low flying mechanical skimming the sea. “Clearly he doesn’t know.”
“Well I would like to.” She said, getting to her feet as the pain receded. “I can’t access that info in the way you can.”
”Or she can.”
“Right.” Speaking of, Jeavell was nowhere to be felt. His rhythm either faint enough to be undetectable or as absent as it truly felt. And yet the world around them was brightening again, some hand was pressing down and applying pressure.
”It would be easier if we merged,” he said, “then you would know everything. It’s just… there is so much, and I’d be loath to share it without proper context.”
“Let's start small, answer one question and I’ll drop it for now.”
”Understood.” Neither a yes or a no. Would just have to work with that.
She took some time getting the question right in her mind beforehand. If Adam was eavesdropping mentally, he would at least appreciate the care she was taking.
“So, one of the things he mentioned was about how you and Capacity split up,” the sky and ground was now a light gray, the pulsing had stopped. “And I realized that I don’t actually know-“
”I killed her.”
“WOAH!” Devon braced to a halt like she had been hit by a cannon shot. “What the fuck?”
”I’m telling you this because you are worried that Capacity is out there still and that is not possible. I assume someone must have tossed her into the Shifting Waters, and that's how you received her body.”
“Why?? What happened?”
”Though perhaps that body you fought against was your corpse, but puppeteered by someone else or Jeavell. How it got here, I can barely fathom.”
“Why did you have to kill her?”
“Why do all empires end? She lost sight of our mission, became something I could no longer see as human. I will reiterate, this would be far easier if you agreed to total cell integration.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Total cell masturbation.” She said, “total cell palpation.”
“Total cell integration.” Adam corrected. “It would make everything automatic, we would be melded on a cellular level, instead of me popping in and out of your body’s nervous system when it’s convenient.”
”That sounds great.” She said with a wave, “activate that.”
She heard his all too familiar sigh. “See, this is part of it.”
Was it just her, in a mood made Machiavellian by the ever present terror (and the suggestion that there was so much more to experience) or was Adam starting to hate her?
While his rhythm’s pause made it clear he heard, he failed to assure her. She’d even take a dour confirmation, it plainly just sucked.
“Go on then, explain why we’re still separated.”
“Because if we merged, I won’t be able to keep Capacity from you anymore.”
Terror. Sheer, unbearable terror. Worse than fighting herself as Capacity.
“I… really really don’t wanna know anything about her. After all,” she tried to laugh, she just coughed, “she’s dead, right? Why would I even need to know anything.”
”Right”, Adam said, his tone vague, “she’s dead. Nothing about her matters.”
He hated her. It was so clear now. He hated her completely.
”Devon, that's an astoundingly illogical assumption to make. Consider that what you’ve just been through is exceedingly traumatic and that you’re still in shock-“
“Fuck off.”
All the adrenaline made her run. It was a random direction, just hoofing and panting her way to oblivion. She wanted to break her body so her brain couldn’t do any thinking.
“Please don’t run. That fight took a lot out of you, and It won’t be long till Jeavell shows.”
Devon snorted, annoyed but not at all surprised. “Let her try, and succeed, and kiss me as I’m dying. Then, since you’re such a special remark Adam, you can become his, and then Jeavell will always have a reminder of me.
Devon stopped running.
The words had come from a Reflection beneath them, keeping pace and acting as a sort of shadow. The voice was identical to hers, but her face was all wrong. The eyes were so big there was no room for any other features, the mouth more a suggestion that protruded from the chin, and the body
The body was carnivorous.
She felt sick. Her breath caught in her throat.
Something heavy hit her from behind. She collided with that face. The massive pupils grew till the eyes were two black pits. Spiderweb cracks soared in her blood. Her nose shattered on impact. Beneath her the reflection expanded and seemed to separate separate. Something new was wrong with her vision. Adam was talking but Jeavell was louder.
“You’ve really made tonight fun so far, don’t think I don’t appreciate that.”
Coarse green hands that flickered at the edges hoisted her up and threw her into the sky. The curtains came down and came close and began to whirl wildly, increasing and increasing in speed till it felt like she was in the middle of a giant contracting throat. It was even singing!
No wait, that sound was from her own ears.
She was losing a lot of blood.
“I have you.”
With a twitch of the eye her body was flooded with endorphins, pain temporarily masqueraded by a mania of focus. She fought back against the curtains even as they twisted and cajoled. Her hand was stuck. No problem, just grunt and pull. She had the forearm strength.
More pain than she had ever felt.
Her hand up to her wrist was degloved, the curtain retreating with its pound of flesh. Inappropriate name, degloving, cause now it looked like she was wearing a glove. A wet sticky pink glove. Boy she was glad Adam was here. She had never felt calmer.
”Devon, warning.”
Devon’s body seized up just enough to take the blow. Jeavell had their motorcycle, their motorcycle was part of their body, their motorcycle was named The Morrison. They swung the mess of corrugated metal into Devon and she went goodbye like the sun, straight into the open mouth of a grinning Devon. The room expanded impossibly, so that Devon never hit the other side of the wall, endlessly falling into her own reflection. It wasn’t the wall now it was the floor.
Shit. Rubbing an ear unnaturally wet, she yelled out to Adam. The floor below her mimicked her, a black hole where features should be, her body below tiny and foreshortened.
“Fly now, yes.”
Adam hovered, slowing their descent. She could get closer at her own pace now. She gripped onto him with her good hand. The other was already regrowing skin. Though at the expense of the natural anesthetic Adam was pumping in. She looked for Jeavell but she couldn’t see her in the maze of fractured faces. Some taunted her search, taking on features more evocative of Jeavell than her.
“Shit, we lost her.”
”lost her”
She looked up at two Adams, her vision focusing until they became one. “I don’t see you helping me here.” This fight was just an annoyance, the sugar running through her veins told her that.
He shook and lost some altitude, on instinct she grasped him with the other hand. No good. Heart still exposed flesh touching his sleek surface was sharp and sticky. She kept a firm grip cause she knew by the way her skin had begun to stick that trying to let go would only hurt worse.
”It’s hard to talk when I’m keeping you alive. This is all,” his voice stopped and started. “Left side watch out.”
Jeavell knocked her out of Adam with a swing to the gut. The ground rose up to meet her.
She hit hard and spit out blood. The reflections beneath rushed to her like fish at feeding time. Everything hurt now, she was free of that drug induced haze Adam had put her in. Lucidity wasn’t worth it.
”Adam!” She yelled, even though he had come right back into her hand (and right in her brain) “What's going on? Why does everything feel bad?”
Jeavell was in the distance, a black silhouette glitching with glee. He took wild jumps and crossed hundreds of feet with each step.
“Your hand takes priority, I am doing everything I can to stop you from bleeding out by growing you new skin. Three different internal organs have burst, do you understand that it would be bad to let that remain unchecked?” He said, the annoyance in his voice clear, “You are a machine and you are falling apart.”
It felt like he had been saying that for years. Without any of his help she dodged The Morrison as Jeavell landed. With a snarl went for another hit to the gut with the butt of the Remark.
Devon bit down hard with her teeth on a rubbery bit, and signaled Adam to fly the fuck the other way. Jeavell fell to the ground and ate a foot of concrete in a satisfying manner before ripping his Remark from her lockjaw. Seeming inspired. Jeavell used his Morrison arm to rip off great swaths of the concrete, all filled with a tableau of Devon, some of whom were now copulating. “Oooh baby, if this is the wedding, I can’t wait for the honeymoon.”
“You’ve accumulated too much damage. It’s a tax you haven’t paid.” Adam was professional even now, making minute adjustments to her appendages as he calmly stated why she felt so close to dying.
“Then what the fuck do I do??” She yelled, dodging blow after blow of laughing reflections. A chunk of concrete left a nasty bruise. The next chunk was her face, screaming, as a pair of eyes looked at her from within the gaping void. She kicked this one and muttered a curse cut short by a third chunk far too big to deflect. It was dodged. Barely. The bruise was hurting and Adam couldn’t numb it. “I don’t know how much longer I can last.”
”I go all night, baby!” Jeavell wailed, seeming only dimly aware of their convo. “Most can’t keep up for a second, I give you props for lasting a minute!”
Jeavell crested the horizon, his a private gravity. Devon got in a good punch. Jeavel’s face shattered like fine art, she held up a reflection right in front of his face. What a card!
Jeavell’s face reformed into a new blend of shapes and colors, each consecutive hit blocked by their weapon, the Melded motorcycle like Remark coming out of their arms. Devon couldn’t see herself in Jeavell’s features, even as the rest of the room was reflected through them.
JeavelI put his arms in a cross and slammed down. Chunks of the glass floor rose as neat cubes and sailed off to unknown shores.
Devon muscled up to one of the smaller cube as Jeavell’s taunts stayed behind on the ground. Collapsing in relief, a bloodsoaked hanky bidding her opponent adieu.
She was going upward now. She wasn’t alone.
Temples of Devon rose up around her. Deities explicit in their falseness, caricatures of her so carefully rendered, every detail so lovingly warped.
There was a version of her who could do nothing but cry.
A version of her in the process of a vivisection.
A version of her who had lost her head.
A version of her who had no eyes. She passed them by like steps as the cube rose up higher and higher. Each one she passed vanished from her brain once out of sight, so she breathed easier with every caricature that lost the fight to elevation.
That good feeling of not dying came back. Adam must have finally been able to focus some of his energy into a space in her body that had been long unused, she felt something make itself known. Her father’s eye, blinking at her. Her father’s body, wielded by a body she didn’t recognize. It wasn’t fair.
It didn’t have to be.
”Adam. Did you replace my Remark?”
”What?”
Jeavell was flying towards them. The abstract painting outer shell now like a coat of armor they wore, or a very cool cape. His Remark, the Morrison, held triumphant above her, boiling over with smoke and diesel.
“Did you replace my Remark?” She had to yell because beating her knuckles bloody would hurt too much. Jeavell swoop down like a zeppelin and skimmed the sides of the cube with her hand
”No, no! That’s not what I do. You have me in addition to…” His voice trailed off. She could literally hear the gears turning. “That could work.”
Feet apart, Jeavell suddenly dropped hard and heavy to the floor. As a consequence, Devon went up, the gravity playing hard to get and holding her hostage a few foot lengths above. Jeavell jumped, the Morrison sparking wildly as the Constant’s tongue spiraled out.
And Devon summoned her Remark.
You remember, the one that was a dead fish.
“Hah, what sort of pathetic decoy is that do you really think woah wait what is that?” Jeavell’s Morrison arm curdled. The reflections all disappeared at once.
A very confused looking Constant stared at Devon, staring at the massive fish Devon held as a weapon and the strange music it emanated. “What is that? What are you doing with it?”
Devon panted heavily and hoisted her true Remark. It was heavier than before, but she was far stronger. It was now like a greatsword made out of singtrout skin. Bulbous, grimy, and alive. She savored the way it pulsed, the little melody that perfectly complimented her grin, the way its crest was a blade. “It’s my Remark.” An eye on the larger end looked up to her with admiration, the pupil the same hazy green as her fathers. “It’s grown.”
Jeavell stared for a bit, it felt good to throw him off guard. He looked around, realizing suddenly that the effects of his Remark were fading. “How in the grand-“
A two pronged attack courtesy of Devon and Adam. She swung first with the trout, jostling Jeavell off balance and straight into Adam, who had positioned himself like a tack. Adam pierced her chest. He yelled and bled oil.
“Why the fuck did you wait till now to do this you dumb-“ Another hit, the wet smack comical but just as satisfying. Adam scooted through the hole he made. Impossibly Jeavell got up.
”Okay, you’ve had your fun.” Jeavell’s voice went dark again, his body joining in on the glitchiness that his face was already privy to. Devon went for another swing. He caught her fish and squeezed till the eyes bulged. “But I went last for a reason.”
Jeavell towered above her, her breath came out like steam in the look of grey pretzels. “I wanted them both dead, you cooperated, and now I’m head over heels for you. I love you.”
Adam didn’t seem with her, not in body or nearby. Someone heavy was coming but it didn’t seem important.
The Morrison was bigger than it had ever been, its agenda to devastate had never been more clear. “And baby, hate to say it, but I always kill the ones I love.”
There was a familiar snap.