2 October 2017. Justice City. New Industrial Park. NovaTech Industries Headquarters.
“Yes, Steven. I am here right now in front of NovaTech Industries. As you can see, even though one month has already passed since the Power Surge, angry citizens continue to mass in front of the company and manifest their anger over the events which caused widespread chaos and hundreds of deaths across the city.”
The reporter marked a pause and addressed a calculatedly grave look at the audience through the camera pointed at his face. Behind him stood an imposing checkpoint gate, completed with two guardhouses and surrounded by protesters. Two pairs of guards were keeping a stern watch on the group. The four men weren’t heavily armed or acting threatening in any way, but the subtle implication of “everyday people versus powerful corporation” intended by the reporter came well across to the viewers.
In the distance on the other side of the gate and further beyond a large parking lot, the low building housing NovaTech Industries was reflecting the graying sky of October in the large bay window covering its entire façade. The sight differed much from the one nearly a month ago, when broken glass had littered the ground below the empty metallic frames of the windows.
In the rest of the city, the supernatural shockwave had caused only minor direct damages, mainly affecting people and disrupting the electricity grid. The destructions and deaths throughout Justice resulted first from countless citizens fainting in the dark, at their jobs or behind the wheel, and later from the subsequent after-effects of this literal surge of power. Many people had woken up far less normal than when they had fallen unconscious.
NovaTech Industries, on the other hand, had been hit by the brunt of the wave. Nearly everything made of glass had shattered. Electronics had melted. Several so-called “magical artifacts” had flat out exploded in storage. Out of the few people who hadn’t evacuated the building before the incident, only two had survived, namely Morgan and Merlin Pendragon. That last information, NovaTech, of course, kept from the public.
Having satisfied his flair for melodrama, the reporter resumed.
“To this day, the truth behind the incident remains unclear. Last week, NovaTech’s spokesman Johnny McLay claimed a malfunction in a new experimental energy source and I quote ‘the incident was purely one of human origin and all the measures have been taken to ensure such tragedy would never happen again’.
“The company’s repeated inability to provide any accurate details on this supposed energy source and its failure have been feeding the suspicions that the company was in truth conducting illegal experiments on parahumans. The enhancement of powered individuals has indeed been a dream of corporations and governments alike for decades past, with little headway so far. I remind you that Power Surge resulted in dozens of reported awakenings—and presumably several times as many went unreported—as well as the strengthening of many known parahumans’ abilities.
“Some go further and denounce a secret agreement between NovaTech and city authorities, with the goal to monopolize this presumed new power-enhancing technology. This would explain the apparent leniency towards the incriminated company. However, no proof of these allegations has been brought forwards as of yet, even as the lawsuits continue to pile up against NovaTech.
“The prolonged absence of their flagship heroine, the power eraser Nemesis, has also been raising questions. NovaTech’s young parahuman protégé and her rapid rise to fame had shocked the world with its unprecedented momentum. Some would say suspiciously so. Accusations of foul play have always been around nearly since the heroine’s very first appearance, a little more than six years ago. This incident brings a new wind to NovaTech and Nemesis’ detractors who…”
* * *
“…Nemesis!”
Morgan almost jumped out of her seat. Startled by the sudden shout, she also nearly choked on her canteen-issued penne Bolognese, but she managed to cough out the overcooked pasta without stabbing the inside of her mouth with the plastic fork she was using.
“Are you alright?” The same female voice that had surprised her asked Morgan with concern, but then she embarked upon a monolog without waiting for an answer.
“If you’re not feeling well, you should go home. Meningitis is a serious illness, you know? I caught it once, last year, around December I think—or maybe November—It was cold outside anyway. Girl, I couldn’t even leave my bed. And don’t even mention going to work. You only came back yesterday. If I were you I’d have taken at least another week off. You were already lucky not to be here during that awful power thing. But even if you only work part-time, you should take better care of yourself, okay? I care about you, Ginny. I don’t want you to end up like Melany Cartridge who collapsed last week because she didn’t keep her anemia in check. I always said it to her, she…”
Morgan relaxed when it became apparent the woman hadn’t been explicitly referring to her—Morgan Pendragon—when she’d mentioned Nemesis. With a sigh, the heroine tuned out the voluble account of Melany Cartridge’s anemic fits and lowered her eyes to the white sleeve of her shirt. It was now marred with red-orange sauce. She clicked her tongue in annoyance.
Fucking great. I just took that thing back from the cleaner.
She glared at her tablemate. Although, really, Morgan was the one at fault for not listening and letting herself be startled in the first place.
In her defense, she’d spent a week in a coma after the Surge had hit her at point-blank and she still hadn’t fully recovered. She tried not question whether she would ever fully recover, or what she was even recovering from since nobody could tell what exactly that was.
She’d been having trouble focusing ever since she’d woken up. Her meningitis was obviously a lie, but the symptoms were very much real. Headaches were plaguing her in waves. She was especially sensitive to sudden loud noises and flashes of light. Those cleaved through her brain like a chainsaw. At least the sudden vertigos had receded. She had managed not to drop unconscious for no apparent reason for the past two days and hoped it would continue that way. She also had stopped puking all over the place. A definite improvement to how she’d been two weeks ago.
With her feeling human again, and also in dire need of a break from all the people fussing over her like she was some sort of crystal statue about to shatter from the faintest breeze, she’d decided she was well enough to return to work. Not beating up bad guys of course. She wasn’t completely thoughtless. She’d returned to her official job, that of a marketing clerk.
In this day and age, heroes were legalized and remunerated. In practice, they did not need any other job to make a living. However, for a bunch of bureaucratic reasons, they still typically had a “normal” job tying them to their employer. The Secret Identity Act of 1998 regulated this. The jobs were never very demanding, by necessity. In many cases even, the hero would do nothing at all. Someone else would officiously take care of their workload.
However, like in many areas, Morgan insisted on doing things differently and on working herself. She had her own reasons, number one being that it took her mind off other things. She needed it and didn’t have any hobby that could fulfill that task. As for her social life, rocks were liable to have a more exciting one than hers.
“…and I knew they would break up eventually. He didn’t deserve her.” The seemingly inexhaustible well of gossip suddenly had to pose for breath and Morgan jumped into the lull.
“Britney, I don’t really care about Susan What’s-Her-Name’s third boyfriend twice removed,” she dropped flatly. Although she did idly wonder how the speech had evolved into this direction. Her trained habit to listen to one thing and think of something else completely unrelated was being severely impaired by the incessant thumping in her temples. “What were you saying about Nemesis?”
The look Morgan received from the dirty blonde sitting across from her was one of stunned disbelief. Though Britney’s overacting made it as fake as it got.
“…What?” the heroine sighed.
“Did I just hear the Morgan Pendragon, Miss ‘I don’t have time for those super idiots in spandex’, that Morgan, show the slightest bit of interest in one of this nation’s heroes? Oh, girl, you must be sicker than I thought. How’s your fever?”
Morgan swatted away the manicured hand reaching for her forehead. “Knock it off, Britney. I’m fine,” she lied. She was feeling like crap and no amount of Advil seemed able to save her from her own skull. But she’d endured worse. She could handle this level of a headache. “I can’t really ignore it when it’s all over the news.”
No more was needed to launch Britney on another rant.
“Right!? How can they say all this crap about her! Of course, she’s not out fighting crime right now! She rushed into the building just before that explosion… Well, not really ‘explosion’, but you get what I mean. But who knows how much she was hurt?! She had just stopped Arsenal and that horrible dragon… man…thing and she didn’t even stop to take a break before rushing here. And then—Well—I mean, people died!! Like Susan from accounting. That janitor, Lucas—or was it Lucius? Then also Paolo, Marc, and Henry from the fifth security team. And… Gosh, I can’t place the two others…”
Morgan had to repress a grimace. She couldn’t even name one of the people who were with her that day, even though she’d worked with them before in the case of the security guards. In fact, she probably didn’t know more twenty people working for NovaTech by name, and that included the heroes, the directors, and Britney.
The blonde was something of a friend, she supposed. They never did things like going out in the city, shopping, try out the holo-cinema, or whatever Morgan imagined female friends did together these days. They only ever spoke at work. Even then it was mostly Britney speaking and Morgan contributing with grunts and the occasional deadpan comment.
She wasn’t even sure why the blonde bothered with her. Britney’s background check had come out cleaner than the Virgin Mary. Nothing worse than minor pilfering in beauty shops and an admittedly impressive collection of traffic tickets. So she could reasonably be crossed out as a spy. And as far as she was aware, Morgan had never shown any indication she enjoyed the other woman’s company. Although she secretly did, and thus had never asked for Britney’s reasons, exactly because she was afraid she’d stop talking to her.
If Morgan had to honestly describe Britney, the first words that came to her were “naturally plain” and “not very bright”. It sounded harsh even in her mind, and every time she’d thought about this for the past weeks, she couldn’t help but remember her brother’s accusations. Did she truly keep close people she considered inferior, just so she could feel better about herself? At a level, she did think of the blonde as below herself, at least on the matters of smarts and looks. It was difficult not to when everyone kept putting her on a pedestal.
“Right!” Britney suddenly snapped her fingers, startling the heroine. “Michael and Paul!”
Morgan blinked. “I’m sorry, who?”
“Michael and Paul. Of the security team.”
“Oh… Did you know them well?”
The blonde sighed sadly. “I shared coffee twice with Marc. He was such a nice man.”
To others, it might have sounded like they went on a couple dates, but Morgan knew her friend meant they had crossed path by the coffee maker exactly twice. The fact Britney even remembered the guy’s name from those brief encounters was beyond Morgan.
And that was another thing about Britney. Every time Morgan started to question whether her brother might have been truer than she’d liked, she remembered what truly shone about the other woman.
Britney might not be the girl with the greatest intellect or beauty, but she was supremely likable and had an innate talent to use what she had to the best of her abilities. She got her work done, could look good with the help of a little makeup and her exquisite fashion sense, never came out as an airhead, and was the social butterfly Morgan could only dream to be.
Mushing dispassionately on her lunch, Morgan considered the woman in front of her, who was still animatedly talking.
From an objective standpoint, she was the one who had it all. Money, looks, fame, even IQ, Morgan lacked nothing. Although the fame was really Nemesis’, but that was beside the point. The only real dark spot in the heroine’s life, the only thing she had any right to complain about, was her brother. And even that she didn’t know how long it would last. Merlin still hadn’t woken up since whatever he’d been attempting had apparently gone wrong and blew up in everyone’s faces.
Demented brother aside, Morgan had everything most people could want out of life. Britney on the other hand, was just your average office clerk, with at most a small promotion to look forwards to in the future. Morgan knew this. Then why was it she felt privileged whenever Britney came sit with her at lunch, instead of the no-doubt countless other more agreeable people the blonde could have chosen from?
She would ponder about those question another day—when her head didn’t feel as if her brain was attempting a jailbreak.
“And those stupid reporters!” Britney was still going on, unaware of her companion’s inner musings. “Saying stuff and accusing her of all those things without even knowing what she’s like! The galls of those bastards! Like she didn’t save this city several dozen times! Like when…” She then launched into a vivid enumeration of all of Morgan’s, or rather Nemesis’, past achievements.
On top of everything else, Britney was also a hero buff, a living encyclopedia of heroism from the glory days of Justice Man—whom the city had been renamed after—to present day. She was of course quite biased, and in her mouth, many of Nemesis’ “exploits” turned out much more noble and heroic than Morgan herself recalled them. But it did feel good to hear someone defend her so vehemently.
Yet, she couldn’t help an acid quip.
“Oh, because you know what she’s like?”
Britney interrupted her monolog to cast her a weird look.
“Well, not personally, but, obviously she’s someone who cares a lot about justice and helping people.”
“Uh…” Morgan shrugged and took another bite of her pasta. “She always sounded like a haughty bitch to me. I bet she doesn’t even like helping people. How much do you think NovaTech pays her for offering morally acceptable softcore porn to half the city?”
“You’re always so cynical! But I’ll forgive you because you obviously don’t feel well.”
Morgan had to admit her headache was dragging her mood in the mud. But it was also true she always felt a twisted sense of satisfaction in criticizing her alter ego.
“I’m not cynical, I’m a realist. You shouldn’t worship someone just because they can punch holes through concrete.”
“Nemesis can’t do that, Ginny.”
“You’re missing the point.” Morgan waved Britney’s argument off. She was about to add something—she wasn’t sure what but probably something overly self-abusive—when a third voice interrupted her.
“I kind of like Nemesis myself. I’m sure she’s not the bitch she makes herself out to be.”
Britney beamed at the newcomer for the sole reason he had rallied her opinion, while Morgan repressed the urge to slam her head into the tabletop.
“Hi! You’re… Clinton? From I.T.?”
“It’s Killian, but yes I’m from I.T. You’re Britney, right?”
“You know me?” Surprisingly, the blonde sounded genuinely surprised.
The young man burst into good-natured laughter and Morgan finally shot a glare his way. Killshot, because of course, it was him, in his civilian identity, was wearing sneakers, bright red long shorts and a tee-shirt printed with a cartoon character sporting a straw hat and picking his nose. NovaTech had a rather loose dress code for its employees, but even then Killian’s outfit flirted with the limits of those few lax rules. His chin-length chestnut-brown hair was tied back in a short ponytail and, lately, he had decided to grow a goatee.
“Everybody knows you, Britney. And didn’t you know me yourself? Though you got my name wrong. But it’s okay. I forgive you—because you’re pretty.” He sent them a boyish grin that made the blonde giggle and the raven-haired heroine’s scowl deepen. She didn’t hate Killian, on a better day she might even call him a tentative friend, but right now she was far from a state where she was willing to endure his usual antics.
Unfazed by the aura of hostility Morgan was diffusing, he slid into the seat next to her and turned to face her. “And how are you? Careful, if your frown gets any deeper, you’re going to get stuck.”
“You know each other?!” Britney was nearly glowing. Sometimes Morgan suspected her friend was, in fact, a parahuman who literally fed on gossip.
But of course, she knew it wasn’t the case. Every employee at NovaTech had to agree to blood tests aimed at detecting parahumans. It made human’s and parahumans’ rights defense groups cringe, but it was a necessary precaution, and not necessarily for the reasons people first thought of. Unchecked destructive powers were an issue obviously, but what NovaTech feared most were mind readers who could literally pluck company secrets off people’s heads. The only thing worse was a mind controller, which was why mind powers were strictly controlled.
That said, after the Power Surge, they’d had to conduct a new round of tests in an emergency. Morgan told herself she would have to get her hands on Britney’s results.
“I’m a distant cousin on her father’s side,” Killian answered casually.
“A very distant cousin,” Morgan added curtly. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Why? Am I interrupting some top secret female meeting that men shouldn’t intrude on penalty of death by emasculation?”
“In fact, ye—”
“No! Of course not!” Britney directed at Morgan a meaningful wide-eyed stare, whose meaning the heroine completely failed to catch.
“Thanks, Britney. But, I do actually have a reason to be here, aside from the charming company.” He winked at Morgan, who in turn wondered how fast she could punch him without her costume’s boosters. Answer: still pretty fast. A shame they were in public. Britney, of course, giggled up a storm.
“Then stop wasting our time. Spill it.”
“Santa’s looking for you, Ginny.”
Morgan swore silently. Of course, he had to hear the nickname Britney had for her. But she ignored it for now. She had more pressing issues to deal with, apparently.
“Why didn’t the director just send me a… Aw fuck.” As she replied, she took out her cellphone and noticed she’d let the battery go flat. She was really out of it. Maybe she should have done as Britney said and rested for another week. Still, she grabbed her paper cup and cutlery and stood up. “I have to go. See you, Britney.”
“Bye!” The blonde sent distractedly before reporting her attention to Killian, who showed no sign of leaving.
A step away from the table, Morgan paused. She couldn’t ignore a summon from the Marketing Director. But the idea of leaving Killian alone with Britney really didn’t appeal to her. At all. It was like abandoning an oil container next to a blazing fire and hoping they behaved.
Eventually, however, she had no choice but to walk out of the refectory, thrusting the rest of her meal in the bin as she passed by, a little stronger than necessary.
* * *
In a dimly lit room, deep underground, emerald green eyes fluttered open
Even the relative obscurity proved too much to endure however and they immediately shut again. A month of total darkness had left the man’s retinas overly sensitive. His other senses weren’t of much help either. All he could hear was a rhythmic, high-pitched and inorganic beeping noise that was already grating on his nerves. Everything else—smell, touch, taste—only reported back a jumbled mess he couldn’t make head nor tail of.
Moving also seemed out of question. Although, he knew not whether the issue laid with his control or something else.
He focused his slowly waking mind inwards. He was conscious of the flow of magic gradually resuming within his body. For now, it only trickled strenuously out of his soul, in amounts barely noticeable, but there nonetheless. This was what had roused him up. The seal he’d put on his soul had finally broken. That much he’d expected. Such a weak and haphazardly carved seal wouldn’t have lasted long. The question was if it had nevertheless lasted long enough for his soul to recover. The whole point of forcing himself into hibernation was to allow all the magic left within his soul to focus on healing.
A quick peek relieved him. The worst of the tear had mended. The result was far from perfect, a good physical comparison would be an ugly red scar made of still tender skin. But as long as he remained careful, he was confident this level of damage could be handled. Being alive was already no short of a miracle. He had shredded a part of his soul after all.
Reassured he was in no immediate danger of dissolving into nothingness, the man returned to assessing the state of his body.
At first, what he sensed only confused him. Everything felt deeply, intimately wrong. He remained stunned for a short while.
Then, as the haze still lingering in his mind progressively cleared up, he started making sense out of the chaos. He remembered and understood, his body felt wrong simply because it was not the one he’d grown accustomed to. Although, what exactly he was supposed to be now, he knew not for sure. He assumed human from the glimpse he’d gotten, right before falling unconscious, but confirmation would have to wait until he was able to fully examine himself.
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He stopped relying on his memories, and instead decided to approach his constitution like a foreign object to study. Quickly, outlines and patterns started to appear before his mind’s eye, still confusing, but not nearly as incomprehensible.
He chose to disregard the inner workings of the more complex organs for the time being. This pseudo-meditative state he was in allowed mages to examine their own bodies in great details, but in a normal situation, the mage would already have an inmost understanding of the magic flow within themselves, having lived their whole lives in the same envelope. He didn’t have such luxury. For the current him, this felt more akin to trying to piece together a strange puzzle, with for only information what he could perceive of the purpose of each part.
Thus the large cluster of slimy, twisting and pulsating flesh that occupied most of the core of this new envelope and was vastly different from Meria’s original organs quite exceeded his comprehension. He could vaguely identify some. After all, Meria had eviscerated too many creatures to be that ignorant. But seeing bloody parts spilling out of dead or dying things didn’t compare much to feeling them work together within your own body. Unsurprisingly, he was very partial against opening himself up to have a look.
For the moment, he resigned to categorize the whole lot as something that kept his body alive and moved on. He’d come back to it later.
The muscles felt more intuitive. While not completely identical to the one he’d had before, the similarities were numerous enough. All he needed to know was contract and relax. Nothing transcending. He also noticed his nerves and the impulses coursing through them, commanding the motions, and the circulatory system entangled with those nerves. The bones were another obvious parts he needed not think too deeply about.
Retreating a metaphorical step back, he scanned the whole ensemble, how everything worked together and the overall shape it took. A very faint unintentional smile played on his lips.
Apparently, he’d been able to remain humanoid in this new life. This was a weight off his shoulders. Without the hassle of new and foreign limbs, he trusted he’d be able to control this new form in no time. He’d have to get used to having five fingers on each hand instead of four, idem for his toes, but at least he was spared having to, for example, learn how to walk with three legs. Altogether, he considered himself quite lucky. Given the odds of coming back to life at all, he’d had as much chance of being reborn as a squid. Fortunately, that had not happened.
There was, however, one detail that slightly bothered him.
Is this body…male?
He could not pretend to be an expert in human anatomy, but there definitely was no mistaking that limp excrescence between his thighs.
Not that Meria had ever been “intimately acquainted” with this part of the male form. Her tendency to rot everything she’d made contact with, understandably had severely impeded her sex life. Even she hadn’t been so twisted as to enjoy fucking a decomposing corpse whilst it fell apart in her grasp. In fact, the mere thought had repulsed her—and still did. Thusly, for a large portion of her life, the demoness’ experience with intercourse had been mostly limited to watching demons getting raped by other demons, a situation she’d stumbled upon every now and then.
That had changed after she’d met Sheila, a couple decades into her conquest of the Demon Realms. The succubus clan hadn’t been difficult to subdue. Their only strong point was their mind magic, devastating against weaker opponents, but less so against powerful ones, and completely inefficient against the likes of the self-proclaimed Demon Queen.
It was mostly on a whim that Meria had spared the life of the succubus leader, but she’d never regretted that decision. Sheila, on the other hand, had been utterly appalled… by the abyssal sexual knowledge of her new mistress. At least, it could be called abyssal from a succubus’ standpoint. The dethroned seductress had thus taken it upon herself to educate her liege. And she was pretty resourceful.
As it had turned out, even if the death mage couldn’t touch anything directly, a good pair of enchanted chainmail gloves went a long way. The Queen’s “practice partners” would end up dying after a while despite the precautions, but they’d always find more “volunteers” amongst the many prisoners whom Meriataneesh’s growing army had been accumulating during her march through the realms.
I wonder how she’s doing.
Shaking off the memory of his former self, the ex-demon let his mind drift to the people he knew—had known. His soul had spent an untold amount of time in that dark void. Certainly, high demons such as succubi and vampires had extremely long lifespans, and human mages also had a decent one, but they were not, despite appearances, immortal. They might already all be dead. The chances he’d meet them again were slim at best, even on the off chance he still was on Zarath. And somehow he doubted that was the case.
He knew other worlds existed, or at least he knew of one other mortal plane, the one heroes were summoned from. Although to his knowledge, none from Zarath had ever traveled there, he had a gnawing suspicion this was precisely the place he’d been transported to—or reincarnated, depending on the interpretation. The low level of ambient magical power definitely matched the accounts of past heroes being surprised at how spells worked on Zarath.
However, he would need to confirm the phenomenon wasn’t just a localized anomaly. And for that, he’d have to leave the place he currently was.
Wherever that might be.
As far for the matter of his sex change, ultimately he didn’t care. A body was a body. Meria had never been too attached to hers anyway. It had been strong, certainly, but magic had always been her main weapon past her first century. The same applied to her gender. She’d grown up in the wilderness, and by the time she’d had enough contact with civilization to understand gender dissociations, she’d been already far too powerful for anyone to dare ask her to conform to any given societal norms—or talk to her in general.
So, yes, from his previous life he might be more familiar with the female form. But beyond that, the distinction really didn’t matter to him. He would continue to do what Meria had always done before, and that was whatever he damn pleased. He knew not what the future held and perhaps events to come would change his mind. But for now, he was actually a bit intrigued with the perspective of testing his new “equipment”, since hopefully in this life his touch wouldn’t carry death and decay to every bloody damn thing.
Ironically, Shadow had once complained that the only way he could see to get rid of Meria’s curse would probably be to get herself a brand new body.
…Uh.
That thought gave him pause.
Why did we discard that idea anyway? I’m sure we discussed it. Soul transfer is risky, but it’s not unfeasible. So why… Damn, what did that dumb reptile say again? Something about monks and fishing… No that can’t be right.
A sudden noise broke the monotony of the incessant beeping before he could remember anything more. The footsteps barely registered with him, however. Immediately they were overshadowed by the crushing magical pressure that came with them. For the first time in a small eternity, the reincarnated being felt fear from the simple presence of another.
Resurging from a distant past, when Meria had still been a child surviving in an environment where everything had surpassed her in strength and had been trying to kill her, his first instinct was to hide his own presence, by quieting the flow of magic within its body in order to blend into the ambient power. It wouldn’t make him invisible, but it was better than nothing.
To his surprise, he succeeded easily. This was something he hadn’t done in centuries. Not only because there’d been no reason for the Demon Queen to hide at all, but also because she couldn’t. By the time she’d sat on the throne of the Unified Demon Realms, her power had been so overbearing even she had lost her ability to precisely control it. A suitable comparison would be to say not even the greatest martial artist could use a war hammer with the subtlety of a stiletto.
This realization brought another and he abruptly realized his error. Like when he’d first inspected his new body, he’d failed to remember he couldn’t apply Meriataneesh’s old standards anymore. This wasn’t Zarath—probably. He wasn’t the mighty demon he used to be. And the ocean of magic he’d once possessed had dwindled to little more than a flimsy pond.
He rectified his perception and the truth became quickly evident. The pressure he felt from the new arrival wasn’t because they possessed overwhelming strength. It was him who’d become far too weak.
As paradoxical as it might seem, that sobering epiphany caused him to instantaneously relax. If he wasn’t up against a boundless deity like he’d first assumed, but just a decent mage, at least his chances of survival weren’t completely null.
As long as even the slimmest most remote possibility existed, he would fight. If his body refused to move, he would crawl and bite. Pride? Honorable death? Only worthless notions. In a fight, only mattered being the one left standing. Pride could wait after all your enemies laid motionless in a pool of their own blood. Winners wrote history and would spread tales of their heroic deeds if they so wanted. The dead were always in the wrong.
...Ah.
Only when he’d finally set his resolution did the thought occur to him that, maybe, the newcomer wasn’t hostile. He felt slightly silly, but not much. In a situation where he was essentially defenseless, erring on the side of paranoia was definitely the safest option. Like Zephyr always said, better overcautious than dead. A saying Meria had often laughed at, but that the man she’d become now wholeheartedly intended to put into practice.
“I know you’re awake. You can stop pretending.”
The footsteps had stopped, and so had the beeping, when a voice cut through the relative silence. His eyes were still closed, but from the sound of these words alone, his mind conjured up the portrait of a sharp middle-aged woman, probably with angular features, narrowed eyes, graying hairs and a few wrinkles. A pair of glasses too, for good measure.
She would be someone used to giving orders and expecting to be obeyed without question, with also the strength to back up those expectations. A natural leader. But her voice also lacked the raucous undertone that came with frequent yelling, which probably excluded a position of field officer within an army and suggested a quieter working environment.
Allowing himself a little leap of logic, he imagined her as either a military strategist or a scholar with a sufficiently high position within some guild. Other options could have fitted, but he also took her magical presence into consideration. By Zarath’s standards it was barely passable, but given the level of ambient magic around here, this woman’s level of power might, in fact, be quite commendable. Strength was relative after all. A dwarf was a giant amongst pixies. And no one got that tone of voice by being only “passable”.
He also had once again received confirmation that his soul had most likely not returned to Zarath. Meria had learned about any dialect worth knowing, and yet he had not understood a single word of what that woman had just said.
He could guess, though. He recognized an order when he heard one. Although honestly, he had much more experience in dishing them out rather than receiving them. It made sense. Who would dare to order the Demon Queen around? Nobody had that kind of death wish. Or almost nobody. Only one person had tried and lived to tell about it. And that woman became the Empress of Mankind.
Elise…He’d only been conscious for a few instants that already longing was gnawing at him.
He forced his mind to focus on the present. Considering his current condition, the only thing the woman could reasonably expect of him was to stop feigning sleep. So very likely she had commanded him to do just that. However, not one to take useless risks, he still waited to see if she would leave when he showed no response, but she didn’t. Instead, she repeated her order, although with many more words.
“Merlin, open your eyes right now. I’m really not in a mood to deal with you, and I’m probably the person least irritated by that stunt you pulled off. All the data I got from the few sensors that didn’t melt was worth years of research but hardly compensates for all the damage you caused. Now look at me, or I let your sister in. And I’m sure you don’t want that.”
The end sounded like a threat. He very much disliked to be threatened. Sadly there was little he could do at present. He opened his eyes—if only to get a good look at whom he would need to teach her fucking place as soon as he got somewhat back in shape. The light didn’t aggress him so harshly this time, but he still had to blink several times before he started seeing anything besides blurry blobs.
Half of his vision was obstructed by a translucent mask covering his nose and mouth and he was staring up at a white ceiling. A failed attempt at moving his head, then sitting up confirmed what he had suspected. He was restrained. He cursed under his breath. This was not a weight on the “not hostile” pan of the scale.
The question he asked himself was whether those restraints meant his captors knew about him taking over this body, or if the previous owner had done something that warranted his incarceration. In either case, the former Demon Queen was royally screwed.
In fact, the answer to that question was neither those options and a little bit of both at the same time. Merlin’s failed ritual had indeed earned him the undying hostility of NovaTech’s management, but it was really Meria who had caused the shockwave that had resulted in them wanting to lock up the wannabe summoner.
But of course the current occupant of Merlin’s body had no mean to know that, and neither did anyone else. Possession by an overpowered demon from another reality was, after all, fairly low on the list of potential scenarios anyone could conjecture. As for the man at the origin of this debacle, body, and soul, he simply didn’t have a clue what was going on, beyond that he was weakened and immobilized at the mercy of some female mage more powerful than his present self. “Royally” didn’t even cut it. He was imperially screwed.
At least he finally got a glimpse of the female in question, who stood by the bed he supposed he was laying on. His mental image of her was pretty much spot on. The details he hadn’t been able to get solely from her voice was that she was human—or at least she looked the part—and that she was wearing a white coat as well as tight fitting black gloves.
Her lips lifted in a smile, but there was no warmth about it. She narrowed her pale gray eyes shielded by a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, and her gaze shone with a calculating glimmer.
“So, Merlin, I will now remove that breathing mask. Then I will ask you a few questions. I’d like your answers to be quick and to the point. As it is, you’ve already wasted heaps of everybody’s money and time, especially mine. Not that I care much about the former, but others will and I’m sure they won’t be as amiable as me. In fact, think of me as your best friend within this company right now. Do we have an understanding?”
With little else to do, he blinked. The woman seemed to take that as an affirmation.
“Excellent. Let us start.”
* * *
Morgan frowned as she peered through the thick one-way mirror. The room beyond was bare, containing only a bed and the necessary medical equipment to monitor and keep alive a comatose patient. Objectively, it looked like a special prison cell rather than a hospital room.
That assumption wouldn’t be too far off, although not completely accurate either. Contrary to many urban legends, NovaTech did not, in fact, conduct evil illegal experiments on parahumans, and thus very much lacked any need for a dungeon. They’d had to repurpose a small laboratory of the eighth basement floor, originally designed to hold volatile components, in order to contain a man they considered very volatile himself. Understandably so. After all, as far as they were concerned, Merlin Pendragon had nearly blown up the whole city with nothing more than a bucket of paint and a glowing rock. Of course, this was a bit of an oversimplification, but the point stood.
Inside the room, dimly lit though still brighter than the corridor Morgan stood in, said the potentially dangerous man was currently being questioned by Sonia Harris, Director of Research and Development at NovaTech and also renowned technopath. She’d been chosen for this task in virtue of her being the only one who really understood anything about what Merlin’s catastrophic light show had been about.
However, the interrogation didn’t seem to be progressing well—if the narrowed eyes and pinched lips of the female executive were any indication. Merlin also hadn’t said a word since his sister arrived, only staring at the Director with a vaguely bored expression sometimes broken by a faint chuckle. In fact, that was all he’d been doing even before Morgan showed up.
The heroine wondered if he didn’t understand the situation he was in, or if he’d simply given up caring now that his supposed apotheosis had so spectacularly failed.
Or did it? Deeply she felt something was amiss.
“Did he really lose his power?” she asked.
“All the tests came out negative.” The answer came from a rotund middle-aged man standing beside her.
He was clad in an impeccable business suit strained almost painfully over his protruding belly. If buttons had possessed the ability of speech, no doubt the distressed cries of his would have been audible from miles away. A full white beard sat comfortably on his chest and countless small facial wrinkles told the story of someone who liked to smile and laugh. However, his expression at the moment was far from merry.
He was also bald and, for a while now, Morgan had been debating whether or not to point out the paperclip sticking, apparently by itself, to his hairless scalp. She couldn’t decide which course of action would be less disrespectful.
Klaus Hoffmann was the director of the marketing department, and also the man in charge of supervising the hero team, making him doubly Morgan’s superior. Given his name, appearance and usually jolly character, it came as no surprise that most of the staff had taken to calling him “Santa”. He didn’t mind. He liked having a good reputation amongst the employees. That said, Morgan knew there were no nice kids on this Klaus’ list, only stockholders.
“Could he have messed with the results somehow?” she inquired again.
“While in a coma?” He raised a hand to scratch his scalp. “I really doubt—Dammit!” His fingers had found the clip. He tried to pull it off, but the small coiled wire refused to budge. “Oh, for the love of—How do you people deal with this?!”
“With practice, Director. And technically you are now part of ‘us people’ too.”
He sighed. “I’m too old for this.”
“I respectfully disagree. Even if awakening mainly happens in teenagers, people of all ages have been recorded to manifest powers. There’s no such thing as ‘too old’ in this case.”
“Save me your smartassries, Pendragon,” he snapped back, but without bite. Then he started mumbling to himself. “Why couldn’t I awaken something useful instead of turning into a fridge magnet? I’ve been dragging office supplies everywhere these days. At least if I could use this for anything consequent, but I can’t even lift anything bigger than a stapler! Damn this Scheisse!”
The Power Surge had awakened magnetic powers in the Director. But to his dismay, and most of everyone else’s amusement, those powers were extremely… mild. And he still hadn’t them fully under control.
He gave another tug before dropping his arm. “Could you?”
Almost without thinking, Morgan let out a short localized burst of her power. The paperclip fell to the ground.
Looking down at the small item, she let out a small sigh. The media would have a field trip knowing that Nemesis’ ability had indeed evolved like they suspected. She still couldn’t choose whom she targeted within her range, but now she possessed some level of control over said range. It wasn’t all improvements, though. Keeping her power active for too long now tended to trigger debilitating headaches, something that had never happened before. There also didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to how long the headaches took to manifest. Never under fifteen minutes, but beyond that, the timing was completely up in the air.
Like Morgan and the Director, there were many people whom the Power Surge had affected, causing awakenings or strengthening preexistent supernatural abilities. The only one who seemed to have suffered the complete inverse effect was her brother.
Whatever the true nature of the Surge, it had thoroughly roasted Merlin, who had been sitting at its very epicenter. At first, everybody had thought he was going to die, but then his healing power had flared into overdrive, restoring his wounds despite them being way beyond what he’d been capable of before, and at an astonishing rate.
It had made everyone quite nervous. The only other recorded case of parahuman with such a fast regeneration rate was a self-proclaimed vigilante nicknamed The Immortal. “Self-proclaimed” because that person had been very much a serial killer, although only targeting other criminals.
Vigilantes were globally notorious for their wanton ways, but even amongst them, The Immortal held the place of some sort of bogeyman, counting hundreds of victims all over the States, both normal people, and parahumans, including many other vigilantes.
The numerous clashes between Justice Man and the bloodthirsty regenerator were famous for their violence. Their last battle, in particular, had marked the minds of a generation, as one of the very few times the acclaimed “Greatest Hero” hadn’t successfully subdued one of his opponents alive and had had to put them down. Definitely. The fact Justice Man had retired less than a month after that ultimate fight also added to The Immortal’s notoriety. Speculations were still running wild as to what kind of wounds the hero had received to force him to step down.
So, knowing Merlin’s temperament, that parallel, no matter how farfetched, had understandably gotten everyone on edge.
However, the tension had quickly waned and been replaced with perplexity. Even after his body had fully healed, Merlin hadn’t woken up and instead his power had completely vanished. It hadn’t just gone dormant either. No amount of testing could find even a shred of parahuman DNA within his body. It was as if his ability had burnt itself out with that last stunt that saved its wielder’s life.
All of this had been explained to Morgan after she’d come out of her week-long coma. But even with her testimony to complete the fragmentary recording retrieved from the fried remains of her helmet’s memory card, nobody still had the faintest idea how this unprecedented case had occurred.
“A peek at the untapped potential this world has to offer,” her brother had claimed. She couldn’t help but wonder, what potential? Had he been referring to some supposed “magic”? Nobody was able to spark off any reaction from neither the runes he’d drawn nor the shards of the necromancer’s stone. Was this really magic? Morgan refused to believe it. Magic was fairy tales stuff, for the ignorant and children. If magic was real, what was next? Would dragons suddenly start walking the streets? Hah! Ridiculous.
Yet Morgan had certainly seen the glowing patterns. She’d felt that nauseating pressure. And she couldn’t convince herself she’d imagined the creeping cold and that stench of death.
Then there was the Power Surge itself, which no one could plausibly explain. Energy did not simply appear out of nowhere, more so in such quantity. It would completely defy the laws of physics, and not even all those so-called “supernatural” abilities could escape those laws. It might sometimes look like they did, but in ninety-nine percent of cases, a little bit of critical analysis sufficed to reveal at least some scientific logic behind any power.
The remaining one percent was to be chalked up to humanity’s still very incomplete understanding of the world, and not on some ridiculous hocus-pocus. Morgan firmly believed this. Ironically, her own power happened to belong to that one percent.
What did you do, Merlin? What did you fucking do?! AH!! I can’t even think with those fucking headaches!
Morgan groaned and brought a hand to her right temple, drawing small circles against her skin.
The Director noticed. “You still have headaches?”
“I’m fine,” she replied, trying not to sound too curt. She couldn’t go snapping at a Director.
“That’s not what I asked…”
The man’s comment had been mumbled low enough that Morgan could pretend to have missed it without seeming rude, so she did exactly that. Focusing back on the room where the fruitless interrogation was continuing, she redirected the conversation away from her.
“How is he, physically?”
Hoffman cast her a meaningful glance but didn’t pursue. He too turned back towards the tinted window, then let out a scoff.
“Physically? He’s the healthiest post-comatose twenty-nine years old on the planet! In fact, even removing the ‘post-comatose’ he could still be amongst the top ten, not counting parahumans. I don’t have the faintest bloody idea what his power did to him before bowing out, but it’s like he’s been rebuilt entirely. Hell, even my three-year-old granddaughter doesn’t have a bloodstream as clear as this asshole! Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“No. It’s okay. He really is.” An asshole was in her opinion the best way to describe her brother. Something stinking, shameful, better kept out of sight and that could do nothing but produce more and more crap every day.
She already knew about his condition in fact. She’d read the reports, all of them. She felt responsible for what had happened. She’d just asked because she had trouble believing the Merlin she was seeing right now truly was in such pristine shape. Bluntly speaking, he looked like someone had clad a skeleton in human skin with only the smallest layer of muscles as padding, then added eyeballs and wig. Except, his skin tone and hair had a healthy shine to them she hadn’t seen on her brother in more than fifteen years. She found the contrast extremely weird and disturbing. And that wasn’t all that disturbed her.
Trying to steer her thoughts away from the unidentifiable feeling of unease gnawing at her, she refocused on Director Harris, who was visibly about to lose her cool from Merlin’s obstinate silence.
Why isn’t he saying anything?
An idea suddenly crossed her mind.
“Could it be… amnesia?”
“What did you say?”
Morgan hadn’t meant to speak out loud, so her voice had been quite low. She turned towards Director Hoffmann and repeated herself more clearly.
“Could Merlin be amnesiac? We’re not sure what his power did to him, apart from cannibalizing his body fat and nearly all his muscles. And from what I’ve read nobody was able to do a proper MRI before he was half-way through healing. If his brain was as fried as the rest of his body, wouldn’t it be so strange if his memories had been erased? Could he have lost the ability to speak too? Can amnesia do that?”
The older man’s hands shot up in an irritated helpless gesture.
“Don’t ask me! I’m no brain doctor.” He frowned and looked pensively into the room. “I’m no doctor, but I know of people. Tell me, girl, does that look like the face of someone who’s lost all his memories to you? Does your brother look even remotely lost and confused?”
Morgan swallowed, nervous. She didn’t want to look at her brother’s emaciated face. She’d been avoiding doing exactly that since she’d gotten here, in this dark hallway, peering through a tinted window like a witness identifying a murderer from a lineup. Because that was what her brother had become. A murderer. No matter if he never went to trial and never judged guilty. All those death during the Surge were on him. And on her too, she thought, for failing to stop him. She still had trouble coming to terms her brother could fall so low.
Then she forced herself to look at that skeletal parody of her brother’s face, bound to the bed with straps designed for patients with head trauma. Merlin’s emerald green eyes, so similar to her own, where fixed on Director Harris, unblinking. And indeed she could see no confusion or uncertainty in his expression. His stare was intense, focused, and the corners of his mouth were raised slightly with a hint of condescending amusement.
Now, she was used to seeing her brother smirk like he knew something everybody else didn’t. He went through life looking down on the world he thought couldn’t understand his own greatness. But there was something different here, a calm confidence that Merlin, so afflicted by his delusion of persecutions and his fervent need to prove his worth, had never possessed.
But was it really confidence, or resignation, Morgan couldn’t tell. At the very least, she had to agree with the Director. This was not the face of someone who’d suddenly woken up in a strange place without his memories.
Suddenly, as if sensing her gaze on him, Merlin’s eyes shifted to look at her. Not just in direction of the one-way mirror she was hiding behind, but directly at her, straight into her own green eyes, as if he knew perfectly she was there, watching.
His half-smile broaden for a fraction of a second. For an instant, Morgan’s heart forgot how to beat. All her senses were yelling at her not to move, not to make a sound, not to breathe. Avoid anything that might attract the attention of the beast before her. She was insignificant, a non-entity, certainly not a threat and even less of a worthy prey. She was nothing. She wanted to hide. To run away screaming. To collapse to the ground in fetal position and cry in despair. But she didn’t, she couldn’t, unable to move a muscle, rooted into place by the gaze of the predator like a deer caught in the headlights.
Then he looked away, his eyes passing dismissively over where the Marketing Director stood, and finally returning to the woman talking to him. The spell broke and finally she could breathe again. She stumbled a step backward, a hand clutching her aching chest, ignoring the concerned calls of her superior beside her.
What was THAT?!
It took a while for her to regain her cool, taking slow breaths while blood thumped in her ears. She persuaded herself the feeling just now was nothing more than the compound of her recent lack of sleep and her paranoia acting up. She had not, she repeated herself, she had not just been terrified by a casual glance from her brother. He wasn’t even looking at her, only in her general direction. He couldn’t see her. There was simply no way.
And the cold chill embracing her whole being was just her imagination.
* * * * *