Atlantis, 66666 BCE
The cambion is amusing himself, as he always is. And why shouldn't he be? After all, the Empire Endless (it's getting so hard to say that with a straight face, nowadays...) is a place where labour is performed either by constructs or by lesser clay monkeys, when it's performed at all.
The Atlanteans may be overgrown fish apes, but they know what's good in life. He can't wait for the moment they choke on their pride and joy.
The cambion has not chosen a name for himself, yet. Not a permanent one. Today, he is Kemuel. Mocking his grand bastard just by introducing himself is always good for a laugh-he knows the old hypocrite won't intervene unless he does something utterly outrageous, and he is not aiming to exert himself today...or ever.
The cambion is pale and tall, covered in lean muscle. Ivory goatlike horns rise from a mane of hair in every colour of the rainbow, while his eyes blaze like the star they will one day name his uncle after.
Honestly, he is bored. There is only so much eating and drinking and maiming and killing and fucking you can stomach before you satisfy your inner animal's petty urges, and he is reaching the limit. Coincidentally, he has learned that he prefers women. Or, at least, castrating men who attempt to be on top, then feeding them their own manhoods. Several times.
He is able to rewind excrement into what it began as. Truly, he could easily go down to be worshipped by the dust-eaters, make himself feel like a god. He will, one day.
But, at the moment? He is looking for more cerebral pleasures, not that the things who built this floating land can be attributed anything approaching intelligence. They just clumsily ape it, like ants. Like the monkeys they are.
He has beaten every Atlantean game master, including some inventors of their own games. He has talked hundreds into humiliated suicide with a smile, and killed dozens himself, before erasing all evidence of their games. And if other players had to go for them to be truly forgotten? Well...Atlantis believed in might makes right. If you were weak or stupid enough to suffer, you deserved it.
Kemuel sits back and smiles. The whore in whose lap he's sitting-kin below, but she's a whale on legs; he supposes she's shapely and beautiful by the standards of the morons who'd fuck a mound of shit if it had a hole, but she's too large for him, and he's not shifting size for such a dull experience-smiles back.
The one who will be Merlin cringes. He's seen apes baring their blocky teeth, and they're always uglier than usual, but this? The needle teeth look like someone smashed the fat bitch's face in a sewing kit.
Disgusting. What's he even doing?
Kemuel pushes her away with a finger, caving in her chest. She-why is he assigning her a gender? Tools aren't gendered-hurts, oh she hurts. But the wound heals in seconds, and her heaving breasts are back.
Atlantean women are naturally flat, but this one went to a fleshsmith after Kemuel vaguely implied he wouldn't want to fuck a board. The change hurt her even more than the wound he just dealt her, and was more expensive than this session, too.
Kemuel isn't paying the prostitute, of course. His expression at the suggestion had her paying him to take her, and hopefully not kill her.
Such stupid fears. As if fearing something you can't control or affect helps.
'Forgive me. How did I offend His Lordship-' she begins, gingerly cradling her healed chest, before he stomps her head into the floor, shattering her jaw. That will heal, too.
'Your petty worries and wants are battering at the walls of my mind. Shut up, woman,' he says tiredly. He knows far more about her than he'll care to remember in the following minutes. How she wants to be a mother, but is considered unreliable and untrustworthy due to her profession. Some rougher patrons have even tried to break her body, permanently.
It's dulling even the so-called skills she should have employed to entertain him.
'You want to give birth? I'll give you all the spawn you could have,' Kemuel promises, and warps her flesh with a thought. Withing moments, she's both bloating and thinning, her body consuming itself as it is wracked by sudden, monstrous pregnancy.
She still lives long enough to feel the unnatural spawn eat their way out of her, before breaking out of the room to do the same to the brothel's other employees and patrons. Her dreams of motherhood were devouring her focus. It's only fitting to make it literal.
As Kemuel walks out, whistling, he telekinetically whisks a gaggle of landwalking slaves, cowering around behind their Atlantean master, as if the narrow-minded worm could protect them if he wanted to.
'I saved you,' the cambion begins, and fuses their mouths shut at their stupid smiles and insufferable mewling. 'To show you how stupid your beliefs are. Do not misunderstand-I don't actually give a damn what you think. You're just good props to amuse myself with.'
The pimp is speciesist, like all his kind, as if they aren't all hairless apes. The future Merlin can't help but laugh at such ideas. He is a numinous being, human only in the appearance he can change with a thought; those who have accused him of hypocrisy have been told these words, before being made to beg for Hell.
As such, Kemuel warps his body, twisting and spreading it, fusing it with the six women's bodies. They all have different skin colours, some of which will not survive the next few millennia. Their owner had a diversity theme, something about all landwalkers being equally inferior. Bringing so-called superior beings to the level of their lessers is one of Kemuel's pleasures.
He knows of a species of fish, with females much bigger than the males who stick to their bodies, being consumed until they become nothing but a pair of testicles on their mate's body. The Atlantean being much bigger than the landwalkers, this fusion is quite...different.
But at least the women all have male and female organs now, or at least fractions of the former. They also have the man's scaled skin growing over and under theirs. Clearly, they are now part of the superior species!
'You should call yourself the Halfbreed Harlots.' Kemuel flashes them a grin as they either go catatonic or fall to the ground, writhing in uncomprehending pain...oh. The spawn are going to reach them, too.
Well, at least they got to feel Atlantean purity for a few moments before being eaten, and were taught a valuable lesson by him: all apes are worthless in the eyes of the powerful. And yet, their screams do not sound like cries of joy.
Ungrateful bitches...
***
Above the waters, 6000 BCE
'You must stop, cousin,' the one who will become Vyrt says.
'You are going to end up below at this rate, and not on a throne,' the one who will become Vykt adds.
'The Halfbreed Halkfin, moralising? Why do you even believe that's true? Did the bitch who shat you out after being tricked by a demon and an angel make sure you landed on your heads? Not you, Vykt-you look like the pile of putrid waste you are.'
Vyrt sighs. 'I am not going to try and force you to see things my way, cousin. We are equally powerful, and equally stubborn. But Vykt might succeed.'
'Have you ever thought about the pain your playthings feel, spellslinger?' the amorphous, rot-green cambion asks.
'I have felt it, too. Don't tell me you're planning to "redeem" me by sharing their pain with me, like that cosmic puppeteer did with the last fishlings. I know you're stupid enough to be that unoriginal, but stupid enough to believe it will work?'
'Why are you so damned proud?!' Vyrt demands, unable to rein in his temper, like they're not all hundreds of millennia old. Honestly...
'It's the parent problems, brother,' Vykt burbles. 'Poor cousin doesn't know whether mommy died at birth or just abandoned him-and this hurts his pride, too, for he should be able to learn whatever he wants with his clairvoyance. As for daddy? Showing him and eeeeeeveryone that they were wrong did not help.'
Merlin grits his teeth. His father is a member of Lucifer's court, one of his favourites. After taking his mother with disinterest, and leaving her, he was offended at the thought of a hybrid son even comparable to him. He tried to drag Merlin to Hell, and use him for breeding until his body and mind shriveled, and his freakish power was thinned out.
Merlin utterly humiliated him in front of his court and lord, and felt absolutely nothing at such an easy triumph. He could have easily done to his father what the demon had threatened to do to him, even reshaped him into a female and raped him himself, but...that would have implied it was worth the effort.
'Get to the point,' Merlin growls at Vykt. 'What are you going to try, slime?'
'Did you know that, in the end, so very few of your victims hated you?'
The other cambion's body opens, and the remains of long-dead things, once human or supernatural, crawl out of it, swarming over Merlin.
"Such power, used for evil? Why?"
"Oh, One God, I care not that you torment me. Through your power, I have enough to feed my family..."
"He could be a good man, I know. He just needs guidance."
"I am sorry for whatever loss made you this way."
The voices are not stopping. They're growing louder. Beneath the waves, Merlin imagines he can see the hollow eyes of the dead, looking up at him with joy; he is beginning to understand how he is seen.
Merlin, tears-of rage, he tells himself-running down his face, looks at Vyrt's pitying expression and Vykt's vindicated one, and cannot face them. He flees.
***
Logres, Southeastern England, 470 CE
'Why do you want to be king, lad?' Merlin asks softly.
Uther's boy looks at him so earnestly, his heart almost breaks. The youth does not know the mage before him helped with his birth, having foreseen the future he would-had to-shape.
'I am sorry for our land, because none of these great men,' Arthur-not Pendragon, not yet-says, gesturing at the gathered lords, who are fuming after failing to pull the Sword from the Stone. 'With all their skills in ruling and warfare alike, seem to be worthy of the Sword's blessing. It is strange to me...and yet, if I happen to succeed, I hope I will have advisors to guide me through my callow youth. Men like them. Or you.'
Merlin has already sworn an oath to him, before his birth, even. Men like Arthur will become-men like Gilgamesh, like Theseus, like Romulus-have taught him inhuman power is, sometimes, not even needed to bring mankind's worth out into the light.
Arthur is the Once and Future King. He will succeed.
'Is that why you seek the crown? Pity?' Merlin asks with feigned harshness, as if he doesn't understand.
'No!' Arthur shakes his head, mop of blond hair swaying, blue eyes wide. 'Our land is plagued by bandits, invaders and monsters! With this sword...with this Sword, I can...' the boy gulps, not meeting his eyes for a few moments. 'You might call me mad, but the Lord God came to me in a dream, a fortnight ago, and told me I could save England, if I...'
Merlin sees it as a sign of growth that lying and being called "God" do not bring him pleasure any more. Neither does mocking his grandfather, even unintentionally. What is the world coming to?
Perhaps, the cambion thinks as we watches Arthur pull out the Sword and lift it overhead, to overjoyed cheers and disbelieving curses alike, a brighter future.
***
'You are placing a great burden on him,' Nimue mumbles into his chest some time after. They are in one of her manses, and not needing to breathe is very helpful. For surviving underwater, too.
His friend is drawing shapes on his chest with one pale, slender finger, and Merlin groans inwardly. It's either going to be a mortifying question, or an outrageous request.
'I know,' he says gruffly. 'What do you want this time?'
The Lady smirks up at him. 'You know, I have something of a son myself...'
Ohoho, it's one of the headaches. Luckily, he's prepared for this. 'No. Sorry, Nim. I know you love him and, for some reason, think he's the greatest thing since me,' kin above, but even her eyerolls are...focus. 'But we don't need a lecherous simp-'
'Lancelot is not a simpleton!' Nimue argues heatedly, suddenly in his face. Normally, Merlin would be all for this, but right now, he just wants to smack her upside her pretty head until she listens.
'I'm using a future word,' he explains. 'Means he'll be liable to do what women want, even if...never mind! Look, in all the futures I've seen, he and Arthur tear the kingdom apart after your boy sleeps with the latter's wife. And every time I try to intervene, I die. Do you want me to die, fairy?'
His face is horrible for pleading, but she bites her lip, seeming to reconsider.
'The future isn't set in stone...' the Lady finally says, sounding unsure.
Of course, by the end of the night, she's convinced him what a wonderful idea it would be to introduce their surrogate sons to each other. They'll be like brothers! Like Cain and Abel, or Romulus and Remus, or...
Sadly, none of these examples come to mind until it is too late. This is the first great folly Merlin agrees to for Nimue. It will not be the last.
***
'I am sorry, teacher.' She actually sounds like she is, too, which just makes things even worse. Not as bad as the fact she's saying "teacher" the way that makes him feel like an old man, but still.
Merlin smiles drily from within his prison. Nimue had clearly been planning this for some time. How long, though? 'Can I at least ask why?'
'Power.' She shrugs, a dress made of blinding white mana rippling with the movement. 'Knowledge. I wanted more, and had nothing to lose by going to the easiest source. But understand, Mer: this is for your good, too. Everyone's, in fact.'
'Oh?' the cambion asks dangerously, and she steps back. Even now, even now, it hurts to see her scared of him.
'You have always been led astray by your lust,' the Lady says curtly, then her sapphire eyes soften. 'For example? You were so eager to distrust your instincts for me. What do you think someone evil could do after your instruction?'
'Imprison an old, gullible fool?' Merlin sighs. 'Please...civil war is coming, if it hasn't already. We failed, everywhere. The marriage and the brotherhood are broken. The incest child is rampaging, green eyes on the throne. Try...try to preserve as much as possible. I couldn't stop it from coming to be, but...'
She closes the distance, and they kiss. 'I promise,' Nimue says softly, one hand on the chain around his neck. The position is familiar, though the context is not. 'I do not know if I will ever feel safe enough to free you, or whether I will even be able to. But know that this is an act of love. I do not want to hurt you, Mer. I never have and never will hate you.'
'I love you, too,' he says, perhaps not even lying.
***
Oregon, 1888
Darren Clyde is riding. For the first time in his life, he is not riding into danger, but away from it.
Darren didn't have one of those twisted childhoods that left people all monstrous-like inside. He was a good, happy kid. His parents were fur trappers, and he was never cursed with siblings, so he always had their attention, right up until they passed away. Daddy's wounds from the War Between States (just one of the many names being flung around these days) finally dragged him down, and after he got on a train to jump state, mommy stopped responding to his letters. He didn't know if she was dead or didn't give a damn because he'd refused to continue the family tradition in order to enforce the law, but God will put things in order. Darren knows.
Darren actually used to have a firm view of the world. He knew what was wrong and right, possible or not, and though his moral compass ain't broken yet, he's fairly sure his brain is.
The thing that's chased him halfway across America had seemed like some unhinged fuck at first: someone stealing negro kids and usin' 'em for...well. Even before the War, there had been some limits.
The thing, looking like a bald, red-eyed gray man, casually tugs at his horse with one hand, dragging the poor beast down and crushing Darren's legs. He doesn't cry out. Instead, he aims his pistols and fires, hitting it square between its piggy scarlet eyes and doing nothing.
"Do you want to go to Heeeeeell~!?" It coos. Up close, it looks less like a man, and more like some gray, fanged fetus. Its limbs are tiny, misshapen things, and its bulbous head sways on a neck that looks like it should break.
"Ohoho~you do, don't you? You are just too shy to ask!" It nods to itself, breaks his crippled horse's neck with a twitch. The horse falls limp, then, impossibly, stiffens, rising to its hooves and dragging Darren along, suspended by his tangled, broken legs. The thing cuts him free of his leather bindings, then makes the wight-for that is what all things killed by vampires, unless bitten on the neck, become-trample his legs, then his arms, breaking them too. It makes the wight do other things, too: to Darren, to it. At one point, it turns into an identical horse, so Darren doesn't even know which one is tormenting him any more, except when they both are.
"You are still alive? Still sane!?" it says through an elongated human mouth growing vertically across its horse head. "Let me teach you something, you illiterate toy: Hell is other people. One of its great lords once said it. And you? You are already in Hell." Its smile softens, a disgusting sight on such an unnatural visage. "Thank you for rekindling my faith in mankind. I honestly thought you would break from this..."
"Why do this?!" Darren wheezes. "Who...what the fuck are you?"
The vampire lowers itself to whisper into his ear. "I am the true face of God's love~"
It draws back to see his reaction, and receives a wad of bloody spit in its grinning mouth, which quickly twists into a frown.
"What? Not gonna drink it, vampire?" Darren grins mockingly.
The vampire leaves soon after, taking the wight with it. Perhaps it is afraid of the Lord's wrath, or perhaps there are people out there who hunt things like it.
Darren is found by a group of hunters soon after, who take him to their lodge, giving him food and excitedly listening to his story.
Until he begins insisting it happened. Then, it becomes an endless succession of insane asylums, where he sees the human mind at its lowest, limbs healed but numbed by medicine and experiments. When the electric shocks come in, he's just happy for the change of pace, honestly.
Eventually, he begins lying, even to himself, saying he imagined it, and everyone else is right, and so kind for suffering his ramblings...
When the Great War comes, he goes to fight, no longer with fisticuffs, knives or pistols, but from afar. The sniper can't stand people touching him any more. By World War 2, his kill count is in the hundreds, and his circle of friends nonexistent. He's either mad or cold, depending who you ask.
When the Shattering comes, turning him into the living archetype of the gunslinger, Dust Devil welcomes it. His bullets can hit target in any location or moment in time, or change their power and makeup at his whim. He becomes a boogeyman, helping found FREAKSHOW while gunning down anyone opposing the status quo-both the mundane and supernatural ones, which are slowly but surely melding.
By the end of the Long Watch, Clyde can say he has more American blood on his hands than any single Red; he often jokes about being redder than them.
***
??? Residential School, Canada, 1900
Migizi defines his life by what he knows, and what he does not.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
For example: he knows his name means 'eagle' in the language of the parents he has never known, who lived 'somewhere around the Great Lakes'. This answer used to be spoken with derision before he wised up enough to stop asking.
Migizi has heard some people define their lives by what is good or bad, lawful or unlawful, practical or useless. Good for them. He is honestly happy other people have enough freedom to think in such ways, and hopes they will never share his fate.
Migizi has never stayed in a home, or even a single place, for a long time. He and some of the other problem children (they are all problems, he knows, those children who refuse to or can't kill the Indian inside them) have been moved across Canada, between different schools, for as long as they can remember. Not because the teachers, sisters or caretakers particularly care about them, as Mizige doubts anyone would make a fuss if they were killed and thrown into a lake, but because the schools want to compare methodologies.
Migizi has heard and seen the other children being beaten with sticks for speaking their native language. Those were the lucky ones, in his opinion. There are some who were given medicine until they fell asleep and never got up, or started smiling and never stopped.
Migizi does not want to ever become that tired, or happy.
The woman they are with now is called Nana-that is, she insists they call her that. She is not anyone's grandma, or at least Migizi hopes so, or he'd be very cross with his friends, and very sorry for himself.
Nana is here to help them forget.
'Like the medicine?' one of the girls, Angela (she's already accepted her proper name, and is getting fewer beatings) asks.
'Exactly!' Nana smiles toothlessly. She is a corpulent woman, with a severe grey bun, who wears thick brown dresses covered in beige flowers. Migizi thinks she looks like a fat, hairy pig, but he keeps his mouth shut.
Nana is pretty bad, but nobody gets too tired or happy. Some go on walks and never come back, though.
Nana helps them forget their languages and names by filling their heads with new things. Horror stories, mostly. Like what the Indians did to the poor settlers. Migizi does not want to believe his ancestors were such cruel, perverse, murderous slavers, but he does not have evidence against it.
'You must let go of that ugly name, yes dear? Eagles are not nice birds. They kill all the pretty, singing ones, and people name bad things after them. For example-have you ever heard of blood eagles'
Migizi has not, nor does he understand the meaning of the story after Nana finishes reading it. Those people were punished because they were evil, lying thieves, like the Indians, the woman says, smacking him with the book.
When the boy wakes up later, bleeding head wrapped up, a nice old lady is by his bedside, asking him if he knows what "Migizi" means.
'Is that...a word?' the boy asks sluggishly, as if he is chewing mud.
The woman-his nana-shakes her head. 'Oh, it's just some nonsense I read in the paper...confused little old me. I thought a clever boy like you might now, but it seems we're both stumped.' Nana slaps her knees with a self-deprecating smile. 'Until you feel better, do you want to learn more about your name?'
'Yes, please!' Leon Gilles says.
He never remembers his parents, or his heritage. When the Empire goes to war, twice, he fights alongside the men who will become Dust Devil and Randy, Dharma and Fixer.
But, for the time being, they are just Darren, Raj and Ned. Randy stays the same, but that is not a surprise.
There is one night that stands out, though...
Leon is limping around in front of his tent, his squad smoking and playing dice and cards. They're all natives, like he apparently used to be. He has the skin tone, yes, but...
He remembers the time they tricked the jerries by throwing rocks into the trenches, then switching back to grenades. Left them in stitches, it did.
'Sarge? D'you see that in the sky?' one of the men, called Dam because he swears like a sailor and looks like a beaver, asks, pointing at the night sky. Leon is pretty shit at remembering the constellations, but...hold on.
'Ain't a plane...its wings are beating.'
'Bird that big? Here, this close to the ground?'
'I heard the gases call to them...like, they make this sound we can't hear...'
'Shaddup 'bout that,' Leon barks, craning his neck to get a better look. Just then, one of the camp nurses-Becky, with her red hair and eyes so blue they're almost black; she's sweet on many of them-comes to see what the racket is about. It's a slow day, given they're gawking at...birds...
'Holy shite...' Leon gasps, seeing the lion-like body attached to the eagle head and wings, before quickly learning why you should keep your mouth shut while looking up.
Moments later, he's sputtering and cussing, Rebecca is laughing her sweet arse off, and every moron in the squad is joking about what a pottymouth he has.
Leon cusses them out, too, but the creature never leaves his memory. One day, he goes searching for it, drawn by some irresistible impulse, and is mauled to near-death. Becky does not expect him to return home as a weregryph, but he's always been good at surprising his wife. Whether this will be good or bad will depend on whether she lets him in bed or sends him to the couch.
Well, Leon thinks to himself, in full gryphon form, as he perches in one of the maples on their ranch. This is awkward.
Of course, once Becky is turned by a werefox, and they can go at it like animals anywhere, anytime, any awkwardness disappears.
***
Osaka, Japan, 1910
The problem with living in Osaka, Kenji mutters as he stomps his way through the streets, is that everyone was a greedy arsehole, which means he barely ever gets anything, and nobody is put off by his attitude, which had helped scare off some kids, at least, in the towns he and Ren had previously lived in. Even bigger ones!
Ren is his big brother. Not by blood, but he is an older family friend, so, to the preteen, he might as well be.
Ren is like some kinda samurai stepped right outta the stories. He's strong and smart and isn't afraid of anything. He took Kenji in and has been raising him for as long as the boy can remember. As to his parents, his father might have been anything from a yakuza, to a would-be smuggler who had attempted to play both sides in the war with the russkies, to an octopus-fucker.
The last, Kenji does not believe. He can't fit in buckets or under doors, and he's tried. There's no way his mom was an octopus. Besides, Ren told Kenji she slit her belly after learning who his dad was, so she must've been human. Octopi might have been able to hold blades, but they didn't have bellies.
And, according to his big bro, they had both been good people.
Ren looks fondly at him as he storms into their house, grumbling about jackasses everywhere. His bro favours every moment together, because he knows, in his blood, that it won't last much longer.
Ren used to be an orphanage kid, and, according to himself, used to lead a pretty shitty life, which Kenji finds unfair. The gov shouldn't just be able to put you where they want just 'cause you don't have parents!
Ren laughs such comments off, and tells his little brother not to get into too much trouble.
Then, a few years later, Ren goes to war, and returns a changed man, to find Kenji a delinquent. They drift apart as Ren praises discipline and patriotism, declaring they saved his life, while the younger man scoffs, claiming his bro has turned lame and is stifling his spirit. No brawls, no booze, no girls-what?
At one point, Kenji gives Ren a black eye, and the former soldier doesn't hit back. Kenji is shocked, because he never expected such spinelessness, and screams for whatever yokai is wearing Ren's skin to give his brother back.
When Ren tells Kenji to get a job or move out, the teen rages at the perceived betrayal of their formerly-shared carefree ideals. He waits for his big bro to return home from his police patrol, and demands he stop acting like a dog, or they'll stop being friends. Ren laughs at the perceived joke, so that he misses the brick aimed at his head.
He wakes up a simpleton, good for manual labour but little else, remembering only that Kenji is his little brother, and they've always been together.
The brothers are separated, for a time: one goes to prison, the other to a madhouse where he almost dies. When Kenji returns to take Ren back home, he tearfully prostrates himself at his confused brother's feet, and swears to take his place.
Then World War 2 comes. Kenji goes to war, venting his anger on the incompetents under him, the schemers around him and the gaijin in front of him. He doesn't take pride in what his men do, doesn't give a damn how many babies they use to drill with bayonets, or how many Chinese and Koreans they take as comfort women. He just wants to kill people without having to think about the aftermath, and the universe indulges Lieutenant Yamada, for a time.
In the end, they lose. The Germans Shatter the face of the world, and every story comes true. Hirohito is burned alive by Amaterasu herself, and his entire line is disowned by the goddess, for their cruelty and incompetence. Japan is in turmoil as Generals and Admirals become warlords, exploiting the chaos to carve out fiefdoms, fighting against yokai or alongside them.
Kenji just wants a country to return to, really. A nice one, where he and his brother can live in peace. But for that, he needs to rebuild Japan, and cure Ren.
He forms a mercenary group, with himself as the only human. The yokai, he names himself. Because they're always laughing at or looking down on him, he gives them simple names. Rai, the oni, is a house-sized wall of muscle, with grey skin, an electric yellow mane, and tusks that wouldn't shame an elephant. As Kenji sees in several pocket and parallel realities, he can turn continents to clouds of steaming dust with a strike or summoned storm, or burn them to ash with lightning.
Kage, the tengu, has a manlike body, but the feathers, wings and head of a raven. Always wearing green trousers and red sandals, the tengu can slip through shadows to emerge through other ones, as well as throw things through them. He can even become and create shadow, and his blades ignore mundane matter. Or, at least, no moon, planet or star has stopped them yet.
Yuki, half of her species' name, is physically and metaphysically cold, and speaks little. That is good. The pale, blue-haired woman is not here to talk their targets' ears off, but to freeze them and however much of their country is necessary to win.
The kitsune's story is longer, not unexpectedly. Her kind grow a new tail, jumping immensely in power, every century. By the time they have grown nine, they must ascend to Heaven. So have things been, since time immemorial.
The Heaven-Spurning Elder, who has more tails than some countries have citizens, remembers when Earth looked like Venus, and vice-versa. She liked the material realm, and messing with her lesser, conformist kin, too much to leave. By the time the gods felt the need to press the matter. She was already a match for ant of them-any ninetails could destroy stars or move across the galaxy in seconds, never mind her. And their kind could also copy the powers and appearance of any other being, which, coupled with the omniscience that came with their ninth tail, made them exceedingly dangerous.
The Elder broke every record, of course. Who knew kitsune could eventually copy multiple beings at once? Amaterasu conceded to give the whimsical Elder her freedom, on the condition of sending any ninetails to Heaven herself, if they wouldn't leave. The old kitsune happily agreed.
Yua, as Kenji named her in a moment of sappy mockery, was, as some Americans said, stacked while in human form. The tiny woman, with her turtlenecks and round shades, was all but unnoticeable, except for her golden hair, and the fox ears rising from it.
(Did she have human ears too, while looking like this? A mystery, Rai said one night, to Kage's sagely nods)
There were, of course, the eighty-eight million tails unfurling from her metaphysical self, but those were not for everyone to see.
When Kenji returns to Japan as leader of the Nippon Five, he subjugates the country. With a fox who can crush the universe like a snow globe and cross it like a street without using her most dangerous power at his side, no one can deny him. For long, anyway. He builds his company to sell weapons to foreigners, then to provide security forces to them-mercenaries, trained by him and his inner circle.
All the while, he searches for a cure for Ren, something that can not only heal his friend, but raise him beyond what he had ever dreamed. For Kenji is a greater man now.
And so, one night, on the wall of Plato's cave, he finds the spirit of Bushido itself. Many of the bodies he creates and controls, by means of magic, tech or chemistry, are sacrificed to drag it into the material realm, but he succeeds, and Ren gets back his wits, his love for his country, and power to match any god's. Bushido is born, and joins the Nippon Five, who become the Six.
Amaterasu recognises Kenji's dedication, his humility in fighting for foreigners and his desire to protect his family, then recognises him as her heir and steward in front of the country.
Now established, if not content, Kenji guides his country into a better future. And, to prevent him from becoming a smug, boring old man, Yua begins hanging around him longer and more often. The Yamada CEO barely has time to realise their wedding isn't a dream, nor a nightmare. And, decades later, they have a delightful, if dense grandson, named Ritsu, who joins ARC's Goetia division after binding the Sake-Drinking Lad's spirit to himself.
The less said of their children, the better.
***
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Fixer is a cheery fellow, really. When you're a composite of yourself, you can't help but feel the vibe.
He couldn't, in the youth of his human self, the Ned he remembers as "himself". That Ned grew up to be a helpful man, always fixing things 'round the neighbourhood, or trying to. Dunwich in the early nineteen-hundreds wasn't exactly used to negros helping without demands, ulterior motives, or attempts at stealing.
He did better in the Royal Army. Sure, he had to swallow the jokes about his ears being big enough to read braille through echolocation. Or that time one of the blokes saw some monkeys when they were fighting the Nazis in Africa, and the Sarge congratulated him for finding Ned's family. They even brought one of them to him that night, in a dress and makeup. To keep it in the family.
Where was he going...? Ah, yes, the Wars. That time in the trenches with John was memorable, if only because Somme was too damned long and bloody to forget, and the bloke was always talking about what he'd write. To think they both made Lieutenant...
Fixer was happy when John stayed home for the second War. They had been orcs enough in the first, he had said.
Fixer had been there when they'd stormed Berlin, and the Yanks quickly changed their mind on where they'd drop the Bomb. Once to burn the monsters, once more to cleanse the ruins. Ned helped capture the Thule Society, and decades later, Emil and his...hmm...Hex and Nacht helped make him who he was.
From the earliest hominid craftsmen to the most eldritch alien technicians, they were all facets of the "helpful" Archetype in the Outer Void. They were all him.
Because Ned has to be helpful. His parents hadn't been, and look at them-always hanging out, in the wind, dead to requests.
Sometimes, he feels like he is in that bunker again, during the Blitz. The only one who knows what to do and sees what is happening. But now, all of reality is his bunker, and mother, they are dropping stars, not bombs.
Sometimes, Ned regrets he cannot not do more to help without tilting the balance too much, allowing the Crawling Chaos and its ilk to retaliate. Then, he remembers what happened after gaining his powers and deciding to indulge himself.
***
Ned stares at nothing as he broods on his throne.
The multiverse he is in is an exact copy of the original: infinite realities surrounded and separated by the aether.
He has made his every dream reality. Parents alive, happy childhood? Check.
Squad mates obliterates and recreated endlessly, the pain getting worse every loop? Check. Meshed well with the reality were the whites were the oppressed race. See how you like monkeys now...
Britain victorious alone, heart of an Empire spanning infinite realities? Check.
And more. Equilibrium, in a world where opium doesn't exist and her descendants don't go to war, where a misfit Sergeant doesnn't have to rescue her from the Japanese.
A multiverse where every being is united in shared love and understanding, one where they all adore him as their god-king, every action and thought a prayer, another where they do that, but also live in constant heart-stopping fear and teeth-grinding pain, just because...
So much power. No challenge. Why...
'Why do I feel so empty?' he whispers, tears streaming down his face.
'Hey,' a voice comes from his right. He doesn't look, but he knows: it's the old man from the nrighbourhood. The one...from every neighbourhood his selves had lived in. 'Why don't you help that girl?'
Fixer slides back into mundane reality, to see the Twofold shily shifting her weight from foot to foot. The recruit is adorable, really; the fact she isn't insane or possessed, instead merely struggling to tap into the demon's power, is incredible. She is untrained, after all.
'Agent Faith?' he says gently, putting a steady hand on her shoulder. Christine's eyes water as she looks up at him, bit she purses her lips. 'Do you want to learn how to handle multiple trains of thought at once? I'm afraid some of your Goetia colleagues have lost touch with their, ah, single-minded selves.'
She punches his arm at the joke, then realises her mistake, stepping back with wide eyes, and it takes all of Ned's willpower not to hug her and tell her it's alright, he's not mad. That would be condescending, and probably misogynistic too.
By the end of it, she's leaning against the training room's wall with a roaring headache, a wolfish grin, and Xelkhe's illusions at her command. She tries to wrap up Fixer's eldritch form in a hug, and kisses what she thinks is his cheek-he awkwardly constructs a face made of something resembling matter-and he hugs her back.
'Thanks, sir,' she says, thinking that he didn't have to do this, and she doesn't have much to give as thanks. But he can feel the love-it's platonic at this point, and will flare up into more before simmering down again-and gratitude, and that? Brings a smile to his face.
***
Ah, right. Fixer grins, remembering that honest smile, and the joy at regaining self-control in Christine's eyes. That's what I'm fighting for.
And then, he looks at the shapes circling that small, precious warm bundle of reality, feels their jagged thoughts and confusion at one like them opposing its kind while thinking like a dimensioned being. Why? Why is he stopping them? Why does he not join them? Why does he care? Why does he not stand aside?
'Sorry, gribblies,' Fixer's grin widens as he spins an appendage like a certain burly sailor. 'But my heart bleeds, so that theirs never will.'
Hey, Fifi? Are you watching me? I'd hope you succeed in your own mission, but...I already know you will.
And, David? Everything that hurts you is reshaping you into what you need to become. I am not sorry for nudging you along, but would be if you broke. And I wouldn't be the only one. Hold your head high, my boy.