Chapter 24: Truth Hurts
My name is Lois, and I have recently just broken up with my significant other.
The wind howled around me, hurling sand against my armor like an unrelenting wave. The Ebony Knight armor was a work of marvel, deflecting every grain with ease. It was designed to accommodate my powers perfectly, to make me unstoppable. But no armor could shield me from the heartache I carried inside.
I tried to focus on the path ahead, but it was nearly impossible to forget. My power—amplifying self-memory—made it so. It was the reason I’d achieved such a level of self-mastery, but it was also the curse that kept every memory, every emotion, painfully vivid.
It didn’t matter that I began with a clean slate.
I knew better than to try to push the thoughts away. Instead, I let my mind splinter into a hundred parallel threads, each one hyper-focused on something different. It was the only way to keep moving forward. The sandstorm raged on, but I was steady, my steps measured and deliberate.
Finally, I reached the cave I’d been searching for, the entrance barely visible through the swirling sand. The map on my visor had led me here, and now, standing at the threshold, I couldn’t help but feel a strange mix of relief and dread. I was alone, and I had chosen this path.
Now, I just had to see it through.
What was love? It was a chemical reaction emitted by the brain, and I’d touched it, and felt it in a way that blurred the lines between the past and the present. The old me had touched it, too, just as the current me did now. But the way I had made Tom my object of affection felt so abnormal, so calculated, that it scared me.
Imagine a switch for falling in love in your head: it was that kind of creepy and scary.
No wonder it was so easy to fall for him. The same must have been true when it was just the old Lois. Was this why I left him? No. My reasoning wasn’t so fickle. With my power, I could mold myself into any ideal, and with it, I’d tasted the forbidden fruit that made a superhuman so painfully mortal it could lead to their downfall.
Falling in love had been the greatest bliss of all.
Imagine being able to feel that hit at the center of your brain of falling in love 24/7, and then suddenly taking it away because you wanted to love the other person in the right way.
“I am an idiot for leaving him… but this is for his own good.”
I lay back against the cold cave wall, staring at holographic copies of my journals, each one divided into three-year increments. I had done such terrible things—things that haunted me at night. I left Tom with a journal chronicling my three years in Kane, maybe so he’d remember me, but I was foolish. I should have torched everything. Maybe it would help him forget me.
It was honestly so… perfect. The old Lois had dreamt of a normal life and saw her savior in zero-zero-one-three, in Tom. With Tom’s power to make people oblivious to his existence, he could choose ordinariness above all. I hated the other Lois—she only wanted to use Tom so she could have the perfect ideal life: a loving husband, a family, and then more. I saw right through her psyche as I read her journals, connecting the bits and pieces of how smitten Tom was and how fast their relationship grew. It wasn’t beyond my powers to bewitch someone the way a mind controller would.
And I just did that to Tom.
The first time the old me must have seen Tom, I reckoned the first thought that crossed old Lois's mind was the endless possibilities of how she could achieve that normal life she desired. But after that miserable accident that robbed me of my memories, I woke up with a different perception. And then after I acquired those journals, I was then awakened to the cruel truth that I was a bad person. And it hurt.
I couldn’t just walk away from my past.
My guilt felt like lead in my bloodstream as I reread my journal, imagining the unthinkable things I’d done under the orders of the Union and the Guard—and then there was Tom. I had endangered him. No matter how powerful Tom’s abilities were, he wouldn’t be able to hide us forever.
I’ve been selfish, but no more.
“It just hurts too much.”
***
My name is Thomas. I had just exhausted every tear and bit of negative emotion that had burst through at once. Thankfully, I never went beyond stage zero of superpowered psychosis, or it would have been terrible.
I activated my power, detaching myself from emotions, and began to investigate methodically. I walked to the hideout and headed straight for the library. Lois had told me she found one of her hidden personal journals here.
After six hours of searching, I finally found what I was looking for. There was a hidden compartment in the corner of the library, where a few desks and chairs were clustered together as if hiding something. There were marks and traces—enough to make me reckon there had been a couple more journals than the one Lois left me.
I wondered why.
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“She most likely burned the hard copies of her journals, leaving only digital versions,” I mused. What could have driven her to bring along those excess journals she didn’t want to share with me? It was peculiar, especially since all those journals held nothing but... scary stories.
I wouldn’t claim to understand the human psyche or the intricacies of the heart, but motives—those, I could grasp. People always had something to gain, and that was true for everyone, regardless of class, skin color, or anything else.
What did Lois stand to gain by leaving me?
Rather than gain, what had Lois lost? For one, she lost someone to vent her emotions. For two, she lost access to my power, which provided relative invisibility to ‘society’ in general. And then there was her desire to attempt superheroics. When I thought about it, I didn’t have much to offer after all in the grand scheme of things.
This was turning out to be a more normal breakup than I’d initially thought.
Of course, the emotional part of me wouldn’t agree with that assessment. To put it optimistically, Lois likely ran away because she didn’t want to incriminate me.
I looked around the apartment and noticed something odd—my stash, worth millions of credits in bills, was missing. She’d robbed me, and that didn’t exactly paint her in a good light.
“I don’t understand.”
From an unbiased perspective, Lois seemed to run away to pursue her dream of being a superhero. But there was a contradiction: wouldn’t she be able to pursue that vocation here on Planet Mol? Using a portal to jump worlds was extreme. Portals were for last-ditch efforts or emergencies.
Perhaps Lois was running away from me.
“I see… so that’s it.”
Faced with the truth, I realized that maybe we couldn’t have made it work after all.
“There’s no advantage to me chasing after her.”
It was quite conclusive.
I released the hold of my power, allowing the emotions I’d been suppressing to flood back in. Surprisingly, I was calmer than I’d expected. “It doesn’t matter, I guess…” After all, I’d achieved what I wanted by falling in love—I became more invested in this world.
It was a cold and cruel way to put it, but I guessed I’d truly moved on from my past life. Going insane over it wasn’t worth it.
“It’ll take time for me to move on,” I thought, considering Lois.
I’d been aware of her bewitchment, and I’d let myself fall for her even deeper. Was it wrong? I wouldn’t know, but it felt good, and it felt real enough for me. In essence, I used Lois to cope with this world. I knew her powers like the back of my hand. I knew she could tweak her pheromones to make herself more attractive, endearing, and likable.
I turned on the TV, catching the news anchor retelling the story about the meteor and the earth-shattering fight between Ivory and Heartstopper. The chaotic scenes played out on the screen, but I barely registered them. With a sigh, I turned the TV off with the remote and slumped back on the sofa.
“I should try working out in the gym,” I muttered to myself, needing something—anything—to take my mind off things. "And maybe finished what I started with Ivory..."
***
My name is Chris, and I was feeling particularly annoyed.
I carried my wife in my embrace, the love of my life, currently asleep. Reanimating the dead had once been an impossible feat, a boundary no one dared to cross, but with enough training and willpower, I had achieved the impossible. I had brought Steph back to life—or rather, unlife.
I remembered the day she died. We were young then, full of hope and dreams. Now, we were old, yet not a wrinkle marred our features. The passage of time had become irrelevant. “Sleep now, my love,” I whispered, knowing she’d need the rest. Confronting Ivory had drained Steph’s charge, leaving her depleted. It was up to me to recharge her.
I held her close, carefully removing her clothes, our bodies pressing together: skin to skin. Small sparks of bioelectricity spread between us as I fed her the energy she needed.
Tsk... I clicked my tongue in annoyance at being reminded of the unnecessary fight with Ivory. My intel said she was only here in Mol to do propaganda work, so it never crossed my mind she'd actively pick a fight with me. I've always done my best to appear inconspicuous and non-threatening after all.
It would take a week before Steph was fully recharged before I could puppet her again. Until then, I was vulnerable as a sheep.
The word "puppet" felt disgusting on my tongue. It revolted me. I knew I could never truly bring back the woman I had fallen in love with. My obsession with Stephanie was wrong. It was a twisted indulgence I couldn't let go of.
I frowned at the sight of her pallid skin, the coldness of her touch, the perpetual look of pain on her face. It should have been impossible for Steph to feel pain—she was already dead. Yet, that look, the anguish etched into her expression as she unleashed the pillar of light that destroyed the meteor, made me think that some part of her was still alive.
I pulled her closer, a morbid fascination overtaking me, my hands roaming over her lifeless flesh, my lips lightly brushing against hers. I had sinned, and I knew I would continue to commit more.
The truth cut deep, leaving invisible scars that would never truly heal, but only get numbed with time. I liked to think I understand the human heart—after all, I built the Dead Whore on that very premise. My criminal outfit thrived on vice, drugs, sex, and gambling—everything that draws people to their basest instincts.
“Boss,” Gina entered the room, her short dark hair framing a sharp face. She was dressed in a suit, her presence calm but charged with the kind of control that came from years of mastering her abilities. “The Kane Chaplaincy is almost ready.”
Gina was no ordinary subordinate. As a high-level mind controller, she could bend wills with just a touch if given enough time. It made her indispensable for what I was planning.
I looked at Gina. She had a burnt scar on her cheek, something I branded on her as a symbol of her indentured servitude. I could trust Gina. She was an important chess piece to me.
The Kane Chaplaincy was one of the four dominant gangs in Kane City, alongside Dead Whore, Masters of Steel, and Devil Fish Clan. But the truth was, the Chaplaincy was more than just a rival gang—it was a front, an organization I had carefully built from the ground up, separate from Dead Whore, for one purpose: to prove myself to the Order.
I had big plans. Plans that would eventually grant me a seat at their table, where I could leverage their resources. Everything I did was for that single goal—to resurrect my wife. No matter how twisted my methods had become, it was all for her.
“There’s no turning back from here, boss,” Gina said, her voice steady but laced with an undertone of finality.
I nodded with my gaze fixed on her. “You’ve been a wonderful employee, Gina.”
She smirked slightly, her usual cool demeanor unshaken. “Thank you, boss.”
“Begin the experimental launch. Activate the packages.”
This was it—the culmination of years of planning, manipulation, and calculated risks. How was I going to prove myself to the Order? By taking over Kane City for good, of course. And after that? Well, maybe then I’d start thinking about World Domination.
Only then would my path truly begin.
I knew taking over a single city-state wouldn’t be enough to force the Order’s eyes on me, so I had to eventually claim the rest of the world. There was no going back now. The pieces were in place, and the game was about to begin.