Wake of the Ravager - Chapter 208

Imagine time as a slimy hagfish, an eel with no beginning or end. Every time you poke the future, it squirms on you, changing the result, so in order to achieve a very specific outcome, you have to manually pin it down, checking on it time and again, forcing the wriggling, slimy hagfish to lie still in the spot you want it.

But time is an infinite hagfish, and pinning down one small length of it makes the rest of the eel wriggle like crazy in indignation. When you’re too focused on achieving one thing, other, less desirable outcomes can sneak into your future.

I learned that the hard way.

Light touches are best when dealing with time. It makes the wiggles less dramatic.

The great Seer, Kala Entredez

***Elliot***

Alright, as long as one of those sub-brains gets away, my consciousness will get drawn straight into –

A blonde-haired sorceress – Charlotte, Elliot realized –  stepped out from behind a nearby building and targeted one of his sub-brains with a spell, and in a fraction of a second, they were all turning to ash.

“Ah, what the fuck!?” he shouted in outrage.

“I gotta say,” Elliot said, dodging numerous spells, swords, bolts, and eldritch curses to the best of his ability. “I’m feeling a little ambushed here!”

“Elliot, give Calvin back his body or we’ll have to take extreme measures!” Kala shouted from the fortress, her voice nearly lost among the din.

“I’m more amazed than angry, you know!” Elliot said, weighing his options. “The logistics of this must have been insane!”

Can’t use Llortan as a shield, they don’t care about him. How about Learner? Nah, she’ll be fine no matter what happens! Shit, what about the dark skinned flier lady? No, only her group would stop because of that threat.

Kala? Elliot glanced over at the Gadveran princess who was totally surrounded by a shield-wall.

Goddamn it. I need to at least get some distance.

There was ocean a few miles to the east. Elliot didn’t need to breathe.

That might work. I can at least change the scenery to favor me.

“He’s running!” Kala shouted.

“Oh, come on,” Elliot sighed, putting on a burst of speed as he flew toward the ocean to the east.

There was a twinkle of light in the distance, then one of Calvin’s Elite Nadias – one of the ones Calvin’d left in the city with Chained Spirit – was floating in midair in front of him, the wings on her waist humming to keep her there.

“E tu, Nadia?” Elliot demanded. “I gave you Popcorn, and soda, and fifty shades!”

“We all talked it over,” Nadia said, crossing her arms across her chest. “And we all prefer to have Calvin in charge.”

“All of you?” Elliot demanded. “Were we the only people who didn’t know what Kala was planning?”

“Well, you and Baroke, but yeah, pretty much.”

“Son of a bitch.”

Elliot fired a gigantic tumor at Nadia and reversed course as he regrew as much of his body as he could with the small amount of Bent available to him. he was running on fumes at this point. The simple, energizing task of slapping around Harbinger middle-management had become a life and death struggle because Calvin’s bottom bitch had decided to pull out all the stops.

He had an inkling that there might be some resistance, but this was getting ridiculous.

He needed to get to the ground. If he could plant a spore through his heel, he could have it gestate for a few years, Cell style. Then he could come back, regardless of what happened to his body.

Oh no, I’ve begun comparing my life to DBZ!  God help me!

Elliot began growing a worm-like projection off his heel, packed with all the information it needed to create a new receptacle for his soul.

Elliot slammed into the ground, heel first, trying to drive the spore as deep as he could.

Ow! Upon closer inspection, the dirt was covered in a thin layer of white smoke that coalesced around his legs and began peeling off his armor, including his backup grub.

“Sonofabitch!” Elliot shouted an instant before Llortan caught up with him, slamming into him from behind and driving more of his body into the misty trap that was attempting to peel away his armor.

Elliot flipped over and whapped the closest approximation of where he thought Llortan’s face would be.

The Harbinger caught the fist in midair and shoved Elliot back down into the smoke.

Pop! A bit of Elliot’s armor was severed, reluctantly detaching from his skin around his thigh.

“Where’s your sadistic sneer now?” Llortan demanded, his other hand grabbing Elliot’s face and shoving it into the ground, where tendrils of smoke began to pick it apart.

Elliot giggled, hooking his foot behind Llortan’s knee and curling up like a shrimp to force the Harbinger to topple forward.

Elliot shed all his armor at once, giving him just enough lubricant to slip out from under the alien like a seed squished between a man’s fingers, following the maneuver with a vindictive kick to the face. Elliot wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of Harbingers in general.

Llortan looked surprised when the clinging tendrils in the smoke clung to his arms and legs, tearing away at his tough skin and holding him down.

“Did you think you weren’t their enemy for a moment just because you were fighting the same guy?” Elliot sneered, giving him the finger.

“Don’t think you can –“The Harbinger’s words were cut off as Learner speared him through the brain, her crystalline forearm blade reminding him of terminator two. The last good one.

She looked up at him, face set in stone.

“Ah, crap,” Elliot turned and looked for a direction to fly away, but Nadia was obviously hovering above him, her presence serving as aerial deterrent, forcing him to the ground and limiting his options.

Fighting someone who can see the future suuuucks. Elliot thought, scowling as the streets were filled with Christmas cheer…just kidding, they’re filled with soldiers.

Gadveran Veteran soldiers, one and all, peppered with Kala’s mercenary Legends, led by the Royal Seer herself.

“Dick move.” Elliot said, exasperated, scanning the surrounding army. There were legends in every primary direction, and Learner guarding his back with her indestructible The Thing-esque abilities. He was boxed in.

“Give up please,” Kala said. “I have no wish to damage Calvin’s body any more than I have to.”

It was at that moment that a torrent of Warp was unleashed from the dead Harbinger, crashing over them like a tsunami.

The Veterans knelt down and began vomiting at the sudden heightened poison in the atmosphere, but the Legends continued watching Elliot with steely gazes, despite the sweat forming on their brows.

Elliot could feel it too, the queasy feeling like he’d just gotten food poisoning. He was going to Break again, and whoever was still conscious while he was out would put a spear through his brain and call it a day.

Kala met his gaze, eyes narrowed, sweat beading on her forehead.

She’s using the same tactic as last time! Elliot realized. That bitch!

Elliot’s heart would be pounding out of his chest if he weren’t undead, searching for some way to escape. Anything.

“How is this fair!?” Elliot demanded, pointing an accusing finger at her. “You can see the future!”

“I don’t…feel so good,” Learner muttered, a second before collapsing behind him.

Kala’s eyes widened in surprise.

Here it is! With the fractal Mimic out of play, the only ones behind him were the sick Veterans.

For being someone who could see the future, Kala’s reaction time was too slow, trying to envelop him in white smoke an instant after he’d already leapt over Learner and Llortan, brushing past the puking Veterans with ease.

Not home free yet, Elliot thought to himself. I’m gonna have to hide for a moment in one of these houses and set up backups before my main body makes a run for it. Once I get out of sight, I’m back on a level playing field.

Elliot slammed through the house behind Learner and juked to the left as he formed a backup grub out of his palm.

Alright, all we gotta do now is drive this sucker into the – hey wait, why’s the world spinning?

Suddenly the house he’d ducked into began flipping violently around him, until the floor finally jumped up and smacked into his face.

When the room stopped rolling around him, Elliot could see a huge, blonde woman standing above him with a grim expression, leaning on a bloody sword. Elliot’s body twitched just behind her.

Ah, decapitation.

“Ah Karen, It’s been too long.”

“Elliot.” She said, nodding.

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to spare me because I look exactly like your adopted son?” Elliot asked.

The only answer he got was a sword between the eyes.

I should expect no less form the woman who used her baby as a shield. Or maybe she’s still sore about Andrew. Or her friends and home country. Idunno. It’s hard to tell with women.

Elliot fell, hard and fast, tumbling through the black emptiness like a man thrown from a cliff, until he hit the floor of the black room, all the wind knocked out of his lungs.

“Ugh…” That was supposed to be a gentle landing. I think Calvin being here already kept the room and the gravity effects loaded while I was out. Why didn’t this happen to him? I’ll have to see what bug is causing us to share the same cell.

“Hi there,” Calvin said, leaning over him. “Have a good time?” Calvin offered his left hand.

“Not really,” Elliot said, accepting Calvin’s outstretched hand with his left. “Your girlfriend is scary.”

Calvin pulled him to his feet and sucker-punched him with a right cross, hand tightened over his own to stop him from blocking.

“Ow,”

“That’s for trying to steal my body.”

“To be fair, you were already dead. It was totally up for grabs.” Elliot explained, massaging his jaw.

Calvin sucker punched him again.

“That’s for trying to kill my best friend.”

“Ow. You know we can’t actually hurt each other in here, right?”

The teen punched him again, rocking Elliot’s head to the side.

Punch me three times, shame on me. Still, it was probably a good idea to let him vent. Sudden untimely death can be difficult to process.

“And that’s for not getting rid of the kill-switch.”

“Oh, no, I got rid of the kill switch.”

“Eh?”

“Yeah, the only way to get rid of it would be to delete our identity from the System and reboot. I did that part.”

“You didn’t do it before!”

“Couldn’t do it before. The System had to ask for an organic administrator to solve the problem, and the problem could only show up after you’d been killed by the failsafe.”

“How does that help?” Calvin demanded.

Elliot grinned and gave his alternate personality a thumbs up. “In your next life, you’ll be totally safe from Harbinger intervention.”

“Ugh,” Calvin dropped his hand and began tromping back to the front of the room, glancing up at the black screen. There was no more way to see the outside world now that the body had been killed.

“So now what?” Calvin demanded, rounding on him. “Do we just…move on, or something?”

“That…might take a while,” Elliot said, briefly considering it. “We’re locked in a sort of…digital afterlife that Chained spirit uses to hold onto the souls of those you’ve consumed. It’s almost like a pimple on your soul, a foreign growth, if you will. When your body fully decomposes until there’s nothing left of your original body, the System shears those foreign growths off of you, then sends your soul on it’s way, and the extra souls on their own way.”

“Wait, how long is that gonna take?”

“Takes a while for bones to become soup. Decades. Centuries under the right conditions.” Elliot said with a shrug. “After that, you’ve got bigger things to worry about, because the System is going to identify you and me as foreign and split our consciousness off from our soul before jamming us into some unknown squalling alien infant. Assuming we don’t, you know…dissolve in the process.”

“Anyway,” Elliot said, bringing a smile back to his face. “Since we got time, you wanna play uno or something?”

He conjured a deck of uno cards and began shuffling them, waggling his eyebrows.

“No, I want to finish my godsdamned kingdom, live a long time, have many brats and die a fucking legendary wizard king! Get on that magic wordbox there and get me out of this stygian nightmare!” Calvin said, pointing at the computer.

“Sorry to tell you this, but I can’t do jack about our state from here,” Elliot said. “The only reason I could hop into your body the first time was because it was transitioning from human to undead and the system was assigning a primary identity. There was a window of opportunity. Now, not only is the body in a fixed state, it is dead-dead, beheaded and mutilated. There’s nothing I can for either of us.”

“What about me?” Nadia’s voice came over the Intercom.

“Nope, you’re just as screwed as the rest of us.”

“Damnit,” Nadia’s voice growled through the microphone.

“Wait a minute!” Elliot shouted, holding up a finger as a sudden realization occurred to him.

“What is it? Can you work something out?” Calvin asked, visibly getting excited.

“Indeed,” Elliot said, brushing past Calvin and sitting down in front of the computer, entering his amazing password.

B-a-g-e-l-L-o-r-d-6-9

“If you try to bolt again, I’ll knock your teeth in,” Calvin said, holding onto Elliot’s shoulder.

Elliot snorted, bringing up the menu for the holding cells, and with a few strokes of the key, he enacted his master plan.

The wall on the far side of their room disappeared, revealing Nadia sitting on a bean bag, her feet indolently thrown up on the table, devouring a bag of nacho chips, her bountiful cleavage catching a pool of crumbs. She was wearing some kind of extra-loose T-shirt with a scoop neck barely hanging on, her legs bare and splayed wide on the table above her.

“There, now we have three players for Uno. We’ll go mad a lot slower now!” Elliot said with a grin.

Nadia’s eyes widened, and she choked on a chip, coughing violently and yanking her feet off the table before sitting up straight and wiping crumbs off her chest in a cascade of orange bits of flavored corn.

She cleared her throat and put her nacho-stained fingers through her hair a couple times, before facing them, her skin-tight leather outfit returning.

“Ahem. You should’ve warned me you were going to do that, I could have…made myself ready for you.” She said, posing provocatively.

“Nice save.” Calvin said.

“Drop the act, traitor,” Elliot said, waving his hand dismissively. “We’ve already seen you at your worst.”

“So, no living again?” Calvin asked.

“Not from here, anyway, if any of us come back it’s entirely in other people’s hands now.” Elliot said, standing and dragging the table over to the middle of their shared space.

“You gonna get in on this?” Elliot asked, sitting down at the table.

“Agh, fine, how do I play?” Calvin asked, approaching the table, dragging a seat behind him.

“Wow, I never would have known if I hadn’t seen it firsthand, but you two are so similar it’s kinda creepy. You could be father and son.” Nadia said.

“The abyss we are.”

“No way in hell.”

***Kala***

It was done.

Kala heaved a sigh of relief. Year of planning, gathering resources, months of checking and rechecking this same event, over and over, all to make sure it happened exactly the way it needed to happen. Elliot was wily, and he kept finding ways to escape one after another. It wasn’t enough to play him and the Harbinger against each other.

She had to locate someone who could hard-counter each and every one of his grotesque, amoral magicks, arrange them in their places without getting Elliot’s attention, and run back and forth in the background non-stop.

It had been a heroic undertaking, but the path forward was brighter for it.

The Harbinger wouldn’t return for years, his soul lost in the shuffle of whatever had caused the System to temporarily stop working.

All that needed to be done was send Calvin’s remains to Ella and…let her do her thing. Ella was too integral to the plan to riske her in the fight. Thankfully no one died, but if Ella had been killed, there would be no hope for Kala. No one else would do.

She hoped it was the same Calvin and not just a copy of him, but there was no real way of telling. If her visions were to be believed, they would find a way to truly bring him back to life in a matter of years, but for the moment, he would have to accept being Ella’s Chained spirit.

They’d have to keep it secret from the world at large, but only for a few years.

Almost done now, Kala thought, collapsing to the ground as she turned her attention towards the future.

“Are you alright, Princess?” One of the Veterans asked, an older man named Hugar with a growing cancer in his lungs. Not enough to kill him, yet, but his days were numbered. He’d jumped at the chance to live the rest of his life in battle.

“I’m just tired. Let me be selfish and rest a moment while everything gets sorted out,” Kala said, pulling out her pipe and loading up her proprietary Future-Seeing blend. Hugar nodded and turned away.

She inhaled deeply, then exhaled a thin trail of hallucinogenic smoke, turning her thoughts toward the years to follow.

…Nothing? That didn’t seem right. How could there be nothing?

There was a sharp pain in her back that caused all her muscles to seize up, forcing a soft grunt out of her mouth. Kala glanced down and saw a bloody blade jutting out of her chest. She tried to speak, but her lungs were paralyzed.

“A little bird told me you can see the future?” A woman whispered in her ear. A hand grasped her shoulder and pulled her backwards.

Rather than collapsing to the ground, the stone beneath her acted like a liquid, swallowing her up in an instant. The last thing she saw before the stone flowed over her eyes was Hugar lunging toward her.

After that, everything went black.

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