Entry 45: Day 89
When W told me that I had doomed the Sarkaz, I just sort of…shut down. Because she was right.
My arts only work because I can do two things: rip originium out of people, and then burn it. My healing arts are completely ineffectual without originium: I can’t use them, and Lucia’s proved that no one can, because when she tries, she ends up passing out or just unable to use the arts at all.
Exusiai can’t learn the healing arts. She’s tried. We’ve tried with Sora, and I just tried again with Hibiscus. She couldn’t learn anything. She can’t learn to suck it out, either, I’m willing to bet. Sora couldn’t, even with Exusiai showing her.
But it’s over. If I doom the Sarkaz…then I’m a monster. Worse maybe than Priestess. W was right. They’d enslave the Sarkaz and turn them into sponges for oripathy. People have proven they’ll do horrific things to one another on Earth. If you could cure, I don’t know, cancer by giving it to other people…the rich would find a way to make the poor take their cancer, or they’d find some ethnic minority to do it…fuck.
I’m exhausted, and in pain. Lucia is past the point where she can cry. We’re stuck in this dusty tent, and I can hear the shouts from outside. At least there’s no explosions.
Exhausted, and mind numb, I fall asleep. It’s all hopeless. Maybe I can teach the Elders and Ancients to cure their oripathy…but what about the Sarkaz? Do I doom them to save the others? Fuck.
I wake up, and I don’t hurt anymore. That shocks me. I stand on steady legs, and look at my hands. No scars. No lesions. When I look up, there is a broken black sun setting into a golden sea. Wait, I can see, and this is all-
“Not quite right? It’s an accurate recreation of Cygnus IV, after the terraforming projects finished. Though I suppose you’ve never been there.”
My heart just about drops out of my chest, and I whirl to find the devil in silver slippers behind me. She smiles, her oddly pupilled eyes glowing slightly, a clipboard in the crook of her left arm. She’s got on a lab coat with an ID card in a language I shouldn’t be able to read, but can.
Director Priestess
Project Originium, Terra II
“Huh. Thought you’d be taller,” I blurt. I tower over her. She’s not tall at all, barely 5’4”. She smiles up at me and laughs. It’s a girlish laugh, and she brushes her hair to one side as she does so.
“I am just an ordinary linguist, Dr. McCoy. Not a monster, as you seem to believe. I do wonder…do you know how you traveled to this space time? I sensed your arrival in the originium. It’s why I woke up.”
“Just take my heart and trample it, why don’t you?” I muttered, shaking my head. So, it’s my fault that Kal’tsit is dead, and Rhodes Island is gone.
“It’s important to have realistic expectations and grounded understandings of reasonable outcomes. Which is why I amso glad you are here, Dr. McCoy. You are quite the confounding variable. It’s time you were fully incorporated into the model,” Priestess says, coming to stand beside me. We’re atop a bluff with tufts of grass growing in sandy soil. Behind us is a forest of odd, feathery ferns that are purplish more than green, with undergrowth that is a bruised brown color.
“How about you go fuck yourself,” I growl, and fold my arms over my chest, glaring down at her.
Priestess sighs and shakes her head. “Ah, crassness. The first refuge of the dimwitted and uneducated. Please, Dr. McCoy. We both know you have the education and intellect to communicate more thoroughly than that. Even if your education was by cruder means than even the current methods the Terran natives employ.”
“Hey, UCLA is a good school,” I grumble.
“UCLA…hmmm, I am afraid I don’t actually know that term off the top of my head, but…ah, yes, there it is. The University of California, Los Angeles?” Her eyebrows shoot up. “My my, Old Earth? You are even more antiquated than I thought. Tell me, what did you reckon your epoch to be? I am most curious.”
“What’s it to you?” I demand, determined to give this bitch as little as possible.
“Parameters. Explaining you as a variable will answer a great many questions and make incorporating you into the model far easier,” Priestess says, and smiles at me. I glare back, and she sighs, then shrugs. “Very well, you are determined to be difficult. Fine. Then let me explain the benefits to you of cooperating with me and allowing the model to fully complete, and this project to achieve success.”
“You mean turning everyone into orange goop, or in this case, black crystals, and killing all life on Terra,” I growl.
“No, Doctor McCoy. I mean preserving Terra, and allowing it to persist. Do you even begin to grasp the purpose of Project Originium?” Priestess asks, smoothing her hair back again as she turns to watch the black sun sink.
“I don’t give a damn about your war with the Observers,” I stated, folding my arms over my chest. “I’m not letting you turn everyone into foot soldiers so they can die for the Empire or whatever.”
“Goodness, your understanding is both remarkably astute for one of your origins, and also fundamentally flawed. Fight for the Empire?” Priestess laughs and shakes her head. “I suppose ‘empire’ is a fitting name for pan-humanix before the Incursion, but the reality is it was split between half a dozen major interstellar powers, and hundreds of minor stellar polities. Why, some star systems were home to as much as half a dozen independently ruled states.”
I do my best to feign indifference, but this is actually super interesting. Priestess has a calm, soothing voice, the kind that would get huge views on ASMR videos, and it’s almost hypnotic to listen to.
“But I see I am boring you,” she says with a smile that says she knows she is not. “Regardless, the Incursion happened millennia ago, and indeed, almost a thousand years before I ever arrived in the GX-731 system, or the G type star, X class, which is the highest rating for a planet suitable for humanix life with little to no terraforming.”
“...what was the Incursion?” I ask, despite myself.
Priestess glances at me, then looks back at the black sun, which has begun to dip below the horizon. “The Apocalypse. At first, we thought it was just a wave of silence. We had known about the Observers, though most thought they were bad data, or a myth. Then, they started cleansing our worlds. After a few decades, some messages leaked out, a few ships of desperate survivors.
“We began to fight back. Or try. We thought ourselves the masters of the universe. Humanix had spread beyond our arm of the Milky Way, conquering most of the galaxy. We used stars as fuel, and black holes as weapons. Expeditions had been set out to colonize galaxies in our local cluster. Perhaps one of them stirred the Observer’s ire. Perhaps they simply saw us as pests, and were cleansing their garden. We didn’t know. We only knew that we began to go extinct.
“In the end, all of the projects designed to fight the Observers failed. Oh, we had some minor victories. We even ‘killed’ a few, or at least, destroyed the forms they use to interact with our dimension of space-time. But it was fruitless. Pointless. I saw that. So did others. Especially the Oracle.
“We instead focused on survival. We identified what it was that was drawing the Observers attention. Certain bands of radiation and energy usage seemed to upset them the most. Or, perhaps, were simply our most important industrial hubs, and thus the most valuable military targets. Even I, the foremost linguist to ever live, who studied the Observers and their ways for hundreds of years before the Incursion began, am still baffled by their silence. There is so little we know for sure.”
“Wait,” I said, trying to keep up with her. “You were centuries old before this all began? And it lasted how long? I mean, you look…” I trailed off.
Priestess laughs and then suddenly turns, drawing a hand across my cheek, a mischievous grin on her face. I flinch back, but she laughs and withdraws her hand. “Attractive? Desirable? Do not worry, I know you have chosen a mate, and that your culture still is monogamous and wed for life, and that you have a chosen spouse. Lucia is quite charming, and much of her data is already here. This is what I wished to speak to you about, truly.”
“No, wait, hold on. So what the fuck even is Project Originium?” I demanded, trying to not get distracted from the issue at hand.
“The solution. The Observers have already won. There is and was no victory against them. Not in this cycle,” Priestess said, turning back to watch the black sun vanish, the waters turning from brass to bronze, to dark copper. “And so, I solved this problem: We will not attempt to defeat them this cycle. We will emerge first in the next, and claim the universe for ourselves.”
“Wait, cycle?” I asked, my mind scrambling. “What are you-”
“Ah, I am sorry, let me put this more in layman's terms. How to put it…” Priestess tapped her chin with her finger. “You understood general relativity, and had the concept in your time, I think, you called it…the Big Bang, yes?”
“Oh, right, but I’m a doctor, not a…” I trailed off, and Priestess grinned, pounding her fist onto her leg.
“Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not an astrophysicist!” she laughs.
I groaned. “Fucking Trekkies. Even in the future…”
“Originium is the sum total of all humanix knowledge. From our primitive ancestors in your time, to the evolution of Old Earth biology and melding with Terran lifeforms here. It is all encoded in my linguistic model. And will be ready to emerge and propagate once the Universe contracts, and is reborn in the next ‘Big Bang’ in…hmm, 19 billion years? Give or take.”
I stare at her for a few moments, then shake my head. “That’s fuckin’ crazy.”
“Mmm, you really must choose your words more carefully, Dr. McCoy. Otherwise, based on your previous comments on my psyche, I might come to the conclusion that you are prepositioning me.” She leans in close, standing on her tiptoes to whisper in my ear, “-and I might just say yes.”
I flinch back, horrified, and she laughs again as she steps back from me, her odd iris’s dancing with delight. “Ah, never fear! Once you all get a taste of immortality, you’ll come to understand that no relationship can withstand the millennia. Not even the Oracle’s and mine. I know there are jokes in your little game about me being his ‘ex-wife’, and I assure you they are far more accurate than the quips about AMa-10.”
“What did you do to Kal’tsit!” I snarled, suddenly focused on something important.
“What did I do? Why, saved her, of course. She attempted to kill me, taking her own life in the process. But she is here.”
She holds out a hand to the side, and there, naked and curled up in the fetal position, is Kal’tsit. She’s tiny, and clearly unconscious, but she’s there.
“She’s alive!?” I gasp, and reach for her. The bubble pops, and for an instant, I’m overcome with horror.
Then, Priestess laughs again. “Oh, don’t worry, you can not harm her. Not here. Not even you. She is preserved, but kept in isolation and stasis for now. Do you wish me to free her? If you agree to my terms, I shall. Her form is mutable as well. I’ve looked over your pornography collection: she featured quite prominently. You wish to have her as a lover? She can be yours.”
“I’m getting fucking married, you crazy bitch!” I snarl, taking a step back.
Priestess takes a step forward, and her grin is there, small and knowing. “Oh, I know what males, especially primitives such as you, truly wish for. You wish to have Lucia Sussurro? Lemuen Exusiai? They can all be yours. Of course, you could have had them in this life. So fascinating.”
“What the fuck are you on about?” I gasp, scrambling back as Priestess sways forward.
“You have used your abilities so poorly, James McCoy. Absorbing and burning originium, simply to ‘heal’ the sick? Remarkable. You’ve destroyed more data than the entirety of Terran civilization has ever produced, and you’ve done it to prolong a scant few lives. You could have done so much more. Do you realize what you had? Complete Administrative privileges over Originium. I haverevoked most of them, of course. Only the crudest remains to you. You could have remade reality to suit your whims. Forged your body into that of a god. Bent minds to your will. You wish for peace and safety for your friends? You could have manifested that. You wish for a home? Forget palaces, you could have built worlds. And you traded all that for a few cheap tricks. It’s almost sad.”
“You’re talking about mind controlling people, raping them and-”
“Tsch,” Priestess stops her slow advance and shakes her head. “So primitive. You go straight to the most vulgar of prospects. No, you poor, uneducated barbarian. They would have given themselves to you willingly. You had the sum total of humanix achievement at your fingertips. If you had been a tad more daring, you could have created a utopia. I would have still been disappointed in your lack of foresight, but I’d at least have understood if you had ended war, poverty, crime, and discrimination on Terra.”
“I, what? Lady, I could give myself super cancer and heal people! I spent my time doing organ transplants and curing cancers! What the hell do you even want?” I demanded. I won’t lie, I was more than a little hurt and offended. I’d given myself as a living sacrifice to save as many as I could. Didn’t that make me a good person? And yet…evidence said I was a monster. And an impotent one at that.
“What do I want? That is not what I am asking. I am asking what you want, Dr. McCoy,” Priestess says, and raises a hand.
The black sun suddenly envelops everything, crystals growing around us. I twist and turn in panic, but Priestess is calm, walking forward, on hand trailing in the crystal storm that swirls around us, her odd iris glowing purple. “Look, Dr. McCoy. See what you could have had. What you can still have. If only you accept my model.”
The storm resolves, and I find myself in the O-Ward on Rhodes Island. I gasp and look around me, but something is…off. Where are all the patients?
“Oh, there you are, Dr. McCoy. She’s right this way.”
I spin, and find Myrtle grinning at me. Only, not at me, but another me. This me is striding confidently down the hall, back straight, clipboard in one hand, Sussurro at his side, talking quietly to one another. He doesn’t have any of the crystals in his arms or face that I knew I did. Only, wait…there, on his palms, some small crystals.
And…and Lucia…she’s obviously pregnant. At least seven months along, she looks like she’s smuggling a basketball under her shirt, and waddling along at my side. Somehow, I know the child is mine, and I swallow, feeling sick and nervous. This is the future I could have had? Happy, healthy, and with the woman I love?
I watch myself and the false Lucia step into a patient room with Myrtle. I sigh and follow. “Alright, let’s get this Charles Dickens shit over with.”
Inside, my heart skips a beat. I’ve never seen the woman on the hospital bed in the flesh, but I recognize her all the same: Eyjafjalla, also known as Adele. Her horns and ears mark her as a caprinae, with long brown hair, and a gentle face. Her eyes, though..they’re clouded, and sightless. Much like mine are. Not me has to half shout for her to hear him, cocking her head to one side and squinting.
“-the last one in the O-Ward,” I, he, whatever, is saying. “We’re glad the team was able to find you, Eyja. Now this might hurt, but it’s for the best.”
“I trust you, Savior,” she whispers, her voice raspy, vocal cords probably damaged by originium.
For the first time, I get an outside perspective of what it looks like when I heal someone. Or at least, the simulation of it. This seems…cleaner. Neater. I remember a lot more blood. But the originium is extracted from Adele, and her body remade by my powers. Myrtle cheers when I’m done, and Lucia gives the crying Eyja a hug.
“Thank you, thank you so much!” she sniffles. “W-when I fell into that crevasse…I thought it was over! I hadn’t been able to see well for weeks, but my vision was totally gone! Now, now I can see again!”
“You’re welcome,” I tell her gently, and she clings to my hand.
“Hey, hands off my husband,” Lucia grouches, and Eyja hastily lets go, only for Lucia to laugh. “No, it’s fine. But if you want to thank him later, you’ll have to get on the approved list, after some testing.”
Not-me coughs and looks mildly embarrassed, and I glance at Priestess suspiciously. Approved list?
“I’ll make sure to apply. They told me about it! I want to do what I can to help spread the cure!” Eyja says.
Not-me excuses himself and walks out, and I follow, only to be surprised to see a pregnant Exusiai waiting for him. Huh, I guess her and Odda-
Then, the Exusiai copy kisses the not me. They share a tender embrace, and not-me puts a possessive hand over her womb. What the fuck.
“How’s my guardian angel?” not me says.
“Fatter every day, oof. This is your fault, you know,” Fake Exusiai says, and now I feel really sick. And, well a bit turned on.
“Ok, so I could have had a harem. Not. There’s no way Lucia would have allowed it,” I say, glaring at Priestess.
“Hmm, not to your liking?” She asks, with a small smile. “We will see. I do have all the data on your device. Now who was it you referenced the most? Oh yes.”
Not-Exusiai led Not-Me down the hall of the O-Ward, which seemed to have been remade. At the end of the hall, she posted herself by the door. Inside was a large, king sized bed, in a room with mood lighting and lots of cushions, and on the bed, a woman looking nervous, and dressed in lingerie.
“It’s good to see you, Gu,” the Not-Me said, even as not-Blaze got up and came over to me.
“I, I just got the test results back. I…I can still have kids, and…and I want to contribute. It’s your line that will cure Oripathy,” Blaze says, and the two embrace.
“Yeah, fuck no. This is disgusting,” I say, and turn around and walk away, Priestess striding along at my side.
“Really? Well, based on your profile, I would have thought you would at least be intrigued. If you would like, I can dismiss the copy, and you can simply make love with ‘Blaze’ yourself. She would have given herself to you willingly, it’s not rape, or mind control. Your blood really does contain the cure for this ‘oripathy.’”
“Don’t you hate that!? Isn’t it the opposite of your goals, to absorb everyone into Originium?!” I demanded hotly, whirling on her.
“It does, but this is what you have so crudely labeled the ‘Matrix.’ A reference to some pop culture artifact from your time. Whatever I desire is real here. The same can be true of you,” Priestess says.
“Well, I don’t give a shit about it! And I’m going to destroy it,” I snarl at her, stabbing my finger into her chest and trying to loom over her.
“Physical intimidation? How quaint,” Priestess chuckles. “But if that’s the way…”
The world is consumed by a crystal storm again, and I can’t help but gasp and flinch back, even as Priestess closes her eyes, and spread her arms.
“There were other things on your device. And men often wish to be a hero. Very well. Let me show you how you could have been a hero. Still could be.”
The storm vanishes, and we’re standing on a broad, flat, snow-covered plain, the sun high overhead, but providing little warmth. I shade my eyes against, and find that we’re atop a slight rise. On one side, I see dozens of Ursus troopers, driving bikes or on foot, pursuing a frantic band of mostly Sarkaz. I recognize the uniforms from personal experience. The Infected Patrol.
As I watched, a stream of crossbolts flew, catching a running Sarkaz girl in the back. She went down in a spray of blood, but wasn’t dead, still struggling as they advanced.
“You can save her. Them. All of them,” Priestess said, standing next to me, her hair blowing in the frigid wind.
“I, what!?” I demanded.
“You have power over originium. You can mold and shape your own body as the crystal wills. The error is that your original body is not stored in originium, as you are immune to oripathy. That is the failsafe I put in: It will not modify and absorb my own genotype, what you call Precursors, though we can control it. What you have is a similar, but not identical, condition. And you can save them. Be a hero.”
I felt it, then. The power. I resisted it, but it was like someone else was puppeting my body. I hurtled forward, growing stronger muscles, using the immense power of originium to actually fly.
I hit the snow between the Infected Patrol and the wounded Sarkaz girl. She looked to be in her mid-teens, and was struggling weakly, red blood staining the mud churned snow.
I healed her with a casual touch. She looked up at me with awe, and I smiled at her, then turned to the Infected Patrol. Their bolts flew at me, but they had traces of originium on them. I knocked them aside easily. I could sense the originium in their vehicles engines. I detonated it, screaming in horror internally at the destruction.
“You could simply kill them,” Prietess said, appearing beside me, serene and untouched. “But that is not your way. So. Let me show you.”
She smiled, her eyes flashing, and the originium in the Infected Patrol’s blood suddenly multipled at an incredible rate. All Terrans have some amount of originium in them, save for physical gods like Emperor and the like. These Ursus soldiers hadn’t been infected…but they were consumed by Crystal. I could feel their souls, their information, download into the crystals.
“There. They are not dead. But their physical forms are…contained. You can rebuild them later, of course, if you wish. It is tricky, but you are a doctor, are you not? It is what you have been doing. Turning originium into flesh,” Priestess mused.
The girl, she was actually kinda cute, got up, a look of worship in her eyes.
“Savior…” She gasped.
The other Sarkaz, Ursus, and some perro and liberi, came to kneel before me. “Savior!”
“Is this what you want? To live out a…what would you call it? A superhero fantasy? This can be yours as well.”
I turned to her, finally back in control of myself. “Get thee behind me, Satan.”
Her expression went blank, the small smile fading. “What did you say?”
“I think it’s from the Bible. You know, the religious text? I think it’s from when Jesus got tempted by Satan. He told him to fuck off. So get behind me, Satan.”
“You are an ignorant philistine!” Priestess hissed, her teeth gritted together. “That is not from the Temptation of Christ! That fable is in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke, in chapter 4! Your quote, you overly verbose, underevolved cretin, is from Matthew 16:23 and Mark 8:33! It more properly fits you in this situation! For it is when Yeshua of Nazerath tells his disciples that his time is not yet come to proclaim him, and Simon Peter attempts to rebuke him! For Peter had his mind set not on the things of God, but the things of man! Can you not SEE!? THAT IS YOUR FOLLY! You see only this temporal world, that will pass away, or be devoured, now that these ignorant children have broken the cradle that preserved them! It is only MY model, MY work, that can save you! I offer you SALVATION, Eternal Life! But you seek only the things of this world!”
I frown at her, and fold my arms over my chest. “That wasn’t in Veggie Tales.”
She throws her hands up in disgust, a snarl on her face, and I smirk. “Oh, very well! We shall do things your way!”
The dust swirls one more time, and I find myself standing over a white city. It is carved of elegant marble, with broad, clean streets, and states of angels holding guns in poses of prayer or meditation. Flocks of white, well, fowlbeasts, but they’re doves or something like them, flutter through the air.
We’re atop a tall spire. An impossibly tall one, actually, that stands on a hill at the center of the city.
“Here! The New Jerusalem! Laterano!” Priestess says, sweeping her hand out. “This is no vision, Dr. McCoy! This is real! I stand now in this city with you! There, my newest Bishop! One who featured prominently in your pornographic collection!”
It’s like my visions zooms, and I gasp as I see a pink haired woman with angel wings and a halo, dressed in clerical robes, strides through the city. Where is her sniper rifle? Her patron? This is Lemuen, Exusiai’s older sister. “Wait, where’s her wheelchair?” I blurt.
“I have cured her of it! I have cured all the wants of the Sankta, and brought order and peace to this city!” Priestess says, spreading her arms in triumph. “You wish to preserve Terra and its people? Very well! I give them to you! Be their pimp, their god, their martyr, I care not! This is UTOPIA, Dr. McCoy! Heaven on Earth! There is no sickness, no suffering! There is toil, yes, but only to a purpose and for the good of all. Here, all the nations of the Earth will be brought, and made Holy in my eyes! They will be given the halo and wings, and then, when all are united in the Empathy of the Personality and Cognitive Synchronization System, they shall be added to my model! Oh, you can play with them for a century. A millennium! Have your little utopian paradise. And then, when your life is spent, you and all the others will be uploaded into my perfect model! To be preserved until the next iteration of the Cycle!”
Priestess turned, looking out on the city. “Don’t you see it!? A new world! A new universe! With perfect, harmonious laws! Laws that are a language! Built on solid principles of communication! A universe where we triumph over the Observers! A universe where everything, and everyone, is perfectly logical and accounted for by my model!”
“Wow. I mean, you’re really playing the part, aren’t you?” I say, and clap politely.
Priestess stiffens, lowering her arms and glaring at me. I can see the rage smoldering in her eyes.
“Look, I’m not Jesus. So, just what do you want from me?”
“What you took from me!” Priestess snaps. “Your administrative permissions should never have been granted! You are some sort of aberration! A memory in the originium that manifested as an error!”
“Harsh. But sure. Let’s say I believe you, since I didn’t see any god or spirit granting me cheat powers when I was isekai’d,” I said with a shrug, putting my hands in my pockets as the wind buffeted my lab coat.
“There have been miscalculations in my model. Largely, errors stemming from you. Now, the project could face serious setbacks, issues that will cause untold suffering amongst the Terrans you love so dearly. Pain you caused in your ignorance and hubris,” Priestess states, her voice full of cold anger. “You will return those permissions to me, and help to fix these errors. Then, the project will be put on a corrected course. This world will be properly incorporated, and the model will fulfill its purpose.”
“And by that, you mean you turn everyone into orange jello and upload their minds to the Matrix,” I said.
Priestess takes a deep breath, obviously forcing herself to calm. “If you must put it in such childish terms, yes. Though this is not human instrumentality. Those taken in will retain their own wills and personalities.”
“Hmmm. You make a compelling case,” I mused.
Priestess glowers at me. She can tell I’m being sarcastic. I pat my pockets. “Wait, I found your answer!”
I pull out my hand, which has the middle finger extended. “Since I fucked up the biblical reference, how about this? Fuck off, and fuck no.”
“Fine. I offered the carrot. Now the stick,” Priestess makes a gesture, and there is a swirl of dust. I hear a cry of pain, and I recognize the voice.
“Director! Kal’tsit!” I gasp, watching as the swirling dust shows me her profile.
“Please, make it stop!” Kal’tsit weeps. “It hurts, it hurts so much!”
“You’re torturing her!” I accuse, hands balling into fists.
“AMa-10 is undergoing defragmenting and error correction,” Priestess says, her eyes glinting maliciously, originium symbols glowing. “At the end of this, my irksome former assistant will be returned to her original self and purpose. Namely, implementing my model and helping me finish Project Originium.”
I close my eyes, and let myself cry.
“You can put it all to an end. The suffering of the Teekaz. Oripathy. AMa-10’s pain. Simply surrender your admin privileges. Do not protest that you do not know how, I will show you. It is a simple process. Agree to help implement the model, and I will grant you whatever your heart desires. Even preserve the life of Dr. Sussuro, and the child she carries.”
My eyes snap open in horror. “You, you wouldn’t!”
“Children die in this world every day. I would put an end to that. I do not threaten your own child to hurt you, Dr. McCoy. Only to help you to understand that you can either save them, or damn them all. I am not Lucifer here. I am the Messiah, you but the Anti-Christ. I am the Priestess of the new way. And I will let nothing disrupt my model. Not even you,” Priestess says, and I find myself on my knees as she looms over me.
I get shakily to my feet. “You know, this has taught me something?”
“Oh?” she raises an eyebrow, obviously doubting that.
“You’re afraid. Of me. Of Rhodes Island. We can beat you. So let me reiterate: Go fuck yourself.”
Instantly, the light vanishes. My leg gives out, the nerves deadening, muscles stiffening as crystal infuses them. I cry out and fall, unable to see. Well, not quite. I can see the purple horror floating there, standing in the void, her lips curled in disgust.
“This is what you would be without me, Dr. McCoy. You will kill yourself. Try to cure one more lost soul, and damn all the others. I would save millions. Billions. Numbers beyond counting. You resist my model because you, in your barbaric simplicity, cannot grasp it.
“I do not have to torture you. I will simply leave you, here, in Laterano, to suffer and die of Oripathy, as your friends wage fruitless wars amongst themselves. They will kill one another: the power you unleashed is worth killing for. The Sarkaz will slaughter, and be slaughtered in turn. Ursus will grasp for power. Yan will unleash the Sui and other horrors to dominate. War greater than any that has engulfed Terra yet will sweep across the land. The Seaborn will swarm from the oceans and devour all. What you call the Collapsals, the memetic parasite organisms, will pour out of the north, corrupting and blighting everything. It will all end in pain and death.”
“Or…” Priestess kneels, and extends her hand. “Or, you can take my hand. And together, we can treat this sickness. There will be no more war. No more oripathy. No more racism. My model is perfect. Please. Just give me the chance to show it to you.”
My palsied hand trembles, then I reach out, and grab the offered hand.
But not Priestess’.
“Bones! Hold on!” Amiya cries. “I finally found you! Please, you have to pull! Pull with everything you have! Return to your body! We’re all here! Lucia is here! Exusiai! Texas! We’re here, Bones! Come back to us!”
I’m trying! I try to shout, but something has its claws in me. It’s Priestess. She’s gripping my other arm, a snarl on her face.
“He is mine, hybrid! You stole the Oracle from me, you and that Teekaz harlot! I will not let you take this from me as well! The permissions are mine!” Priestess hisses.
“Bones isn’t just permissions. He’s a person. A doctor. And an operator of Rhodes Island!” Amiya snaps back, the black crown burning with dark power on her head. She makes a gesture, and the originium all around us surges against Priestess’ control.
I desperately try to go with Amiya, somehow, but I don’t have the strength. Amiya and Priestess are pulling me between them, and I’m hanging there like a lifeless doll. I feel like they’re going to rip me in half, and kill me.
Then, I see other shapes appear with Amiya. Exusiai. Lisa. Ingrid. Sora. Texas. Odda. Mostima, and Fiametta. And then Mudrock and Surtr? Well, shit, if we can just Surtr it, this problem is licked. They’re all tugging on Amiya, pulling her and me away from Priestess like a human chain. And, wait. Is that Kal’tsit, too, with her hand on Amiya’s shoulder, smiling at me?
Then, right next to me, Sussurro appears. She’s spitting mad, tail bristling, blue eyes glowing with fury. “LET MY HUSBAND GO YOU BITCH!”
She grabs the hand Priestess has, and there’s a flash of power. Priestess is driven back, and the next thing I know, I’m falling over onto Lucia. The darkness is back, only…why can I suddenly see everyone? The room’s still dark, but I can see everyone, all splayed out on the ground, groaning around me. Texas, Lucia, Ingrid, Fiametta, and Lisa are all blue, while Sora, Mudrock, Surtr, and Odda are glowing red. Though, the brightest red, almost too much for me, is Amiya, who gets to her feet, and smiles down at me.
“You’re back with us, Dr. Bones,” she says, and helps me up.
“What…what happened? How come…how come I can see everyone, now?” I said, looking around the darkness.
“Amiya showed us new arts!” Exusiai cries, jumping to her feet, a huge grin on her face. She’s still purple, like Mostima, who is the only other bi-colored person here.
“New arts?” I say, confused.
“The other half of the puzzle. The Sarkaz aren’t doomed!” Odda laughs, slapping me on the back. “We should have known! You threw originium at the Blade, as well as sucked it out! We can do both, too!”
“I am afraid it was necessary to Infect everyone. At least, for now,” Amiya said gravely. “There was no other way to counter what was happening to you. I absorbed a great deal of the originium in you, and redistributed it. That helped to break the hold Priestess had on you. Then, I used the spell Civilight Eterna, that is, Theresa, showed me, and was able to commune with the Originium, bringing the others with me to retrieve you from the spiritual plane you were on.”
Everyone was grinning at me, even Texas, though hers was more of a small smile.
“I…wow. Thanks, guys,” I said, feeling choked up. I hugged Lucia fiercely, and she pressed her face against my chest, crying softly. “You…you saved me, Lucia.”
“W-we all did,” she blubbered, smiling up at me, her eyes red, snot leaking from her nose. She’d never looked more beautiful.
“Yeah, but it was mostly you,” I tell her. I frown, then focus on her abdomen. I can’t see anything there, but… “I think…I think you’re pregnant.”
She gasps, and there’s a lot of exclamations of surprise.
Mudrock comes over, placing her hands over Lucia’s womb, and closing her eyes. She sings a gentle lullaby, swaying softly, and after a minute, opens her eyes and smiles. “It is early yet. A few days only. But yes. You have conceived. The Earth senses the new life within you, and sings in joy.”
Lucia and I are both crying now, hugging one another tightly. Everyone congratulates us, and there’s a general atmosphere of a party.
Then, the tent flap is ripped away, and a furious cockroach steps in. “Alright, what the fuck is going on in here? You might have a fancy crown, but I haven’t recognized you as king yet, ears! Hurry it the fuck up! The clans are half a step from tearing out one anothers throats! Fucks sake! This is NOT a baby shower!”
“Yes.” Amiya turns and nods. “It is time. Assemble the Clans, Speaker. It is time for my coronation.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Wiš'adel spits, hawking a loogie and glaring at Amiya. She peers at me, frowning slightly. “What’s up with the Traitor, here? Wasn’t he more infected earlier? Fuck me, Amiya, you didn’t suck out his originium, did you? That’s the last fucking thing I need!”
“All will be explained. Now go. It is time the Sarkaz had a king once more,” Amiya says firmly.
Wiš'adel grunts, then turns around. “I hope you know what you’re doing, ears. This had better not be a naked power grab. I know how to deal with mutinies.”
“No, Wiš'adel. It’s hope. Come. As you wished: First, the Sarkaz. Then, the other nations. It is time that Kazdel was the light of the world, showing the way to hope and victory.”
“Nice words. Let’s see if you’re a fucking liar,” Wiš'adel says, but she sounds…wistful.
I’m loaded into my wheelchair, even with less of an originium load, the damage has still been done.
“We need to talk,” I whisper to Amiya as I’m wheeled up a slope. “I saw Priestess. She told me things. She’s definitely in Laterano, doing something awful.”
“Yes. Time for that later. Now, I need to unite my people,” Amiya says grimly as she walks at my side. “After all, to fight a war, one needs an army.”
I swallow, but nod.
Somehow, I feel like my time as Protag-Kun is over.
Which is good, because I am dog tired.
I just want to enjoy what’s left of my life with Lucia.
But somehow…I don’t think it will be that easy.