Chương 45: 44. A Very Refined And Composed Eldritch Horror

"Yes. Yes sir, they're all here. Yes. I understand." Maria hangs up her cellphone, looking grim and disappointed. We all knew it was coming. We've only been staying at Emily's place for a few days, but war stops for no one.

"I take it we have new orders?" I ask.

"Yep," Maria confirms.

"Back to base, first thing tomorrow morning. Which basically means we're heading back tonight, because I don't really wanna drive there at five AM."

"That would suck," Peter commiserates.

"Damn, I can't believe they're calling us back already. Isn't it way too early for another big battle? You think they'd still be desperately trying to secure St. Louis from all the wandering xenos."

"No rest for the wicked, and all that," Christine groans.

"Aww! But we only just barely got through the second season!" Anastasia complains, and I have to admit I'm a little disappointed myself. Ana's favorite children's show is surprisingly good.

"There will be more time to watch it later," I promise her.

"Aw, come on, don't throw up death flags for the kid," Christine groans.

"You should know better."

"What? Flags?" I ask.

"Superstition thing," Emily explains.

"Doesn't actually affect the odds. Don't worry about it."

"Huh," I say.

"Alright."

"Saying the death flags don't matter and won't affect anything is also a death flag," Christine warns.

"Christine, my one thing is knowing what does and doesn't increase someone's chance for death," Emily says.

"Even if Julietta's right and I've got my probability heuristics wrong, that's still how the power works. You know I've seen it in action."

"... Yeah, alright, tasteless joke on my part," Christine concedes.

"You gonna be okay while we're gone, Em?"

"Even I'm a little worried about leaving you alone again," Peter adds.

"If that doesn't tell you how serious it is, I dunno what will."

"I… may be willing to admit that I ended up in a bit of a depression spiral," Emily scowls, scratching her cheek awkwardly.

"And I was pretty rude. Sorry. It was nice having you all over, though. I'm gonna see about holding down a decent job to have something to do."

"I was hoping you'd be in a good enough position to potentially adopt Anastasia," I admit.

"I won't be able to do it since I'll be, y'know, fighting. But making the family official has a lot of advantages for her."

"... Geez," Emily grumbles.

"I guess I can see it. Not being a ward of the state is always good. But does it really have to be me? Way to put the pressure on getting my act together."

"That's kinda what she does," Christine commiserates.

"I just wanted to be sexy and stay in bed all day but no, she just had to force me to keep putting effort into things like some kind of loser."

"I do not see what could possibly be attractive about doing nothing," I say.

"Either in the context of a partner or in general. Besides, you seem a lot happier nowadays."

"Well, I am a lot more comfortable nowadays," Christine admits.

"I will admit that competence does wonders for confidence. Knowing that I am almost always the most dangerous person in any room is genuinely helpful for my anxiety."

"That makes sense," I nod.

"Well, I'm glad to hear it."

"Yeah. Uh, thanks, by the way," Christine smiles.

"For all of that."

"Of course," I nod.

"Like you said, it's what I do." And it's times like these that make it just a little bit worth it, that make me glad I've spent my entire life learning to understand, pick apart, and manipulate people. The skill isn't exactly something to conventionally take pride in; it is, after all, most commonly associated with evil, with the sort of person that considers others to be pawns and tools fit only for whatever molds that person desires.

Culturally speaking, it would be a death sentence to publicly acknowledge my own propensity to look at someone and decide how best to modify my own behaviors to push them in a particular direction. People hate that kind of shit, and for good reason. The fact is, however, that some people need repeated kicks in the ass. Or, if you want to frame it a kinder way… everyone needs help. Everyone. But most people are bad at giving help and worse at receiving it.

If you just walk up to someone and say 'hey, you need to improve at this, let me tell you how' they're just going to tell you to fuck off. It takes more than an itemized list of complaints to get people to change. And change is important. Change is how you improve. And for some dumb reason, it's easiest for humans to change when they don't even notice it's happening. So you guide them into it. You move them with whatever levers happen to be oiled, by pulling on them all and seeing what works.

And—if you're doing this to actually try and help someone—you spend the entire time desperately hoping you do it right, and that your arrogance isn't about to make you irreparably harm them instead. Because it is arrogance, to do this. I know that. The very idea that I can help someone improve is inescapably predicated on the assumption that I know better than them, that I have both the capability and the right to encourage a specific kind of change within them. If that sounds at least a little fucked up…

good, you're not a sociopath. This is exactly the sort of thought process, consciously or otherwise, that abusers believe in to justify their abuse.

'I know better than them. It is right and just for my vision for their life to be made reality.' You have to believe that if you want to change someone else. What separates the people who are thanked and loved from the people who are reviled and hated is not the degree of manipulation, or the presence of good intentions. Those things are important—you have to at least be trying to help others if you want to be a good person—but ultimately, the only thing that matters is whether or not you turn out to be right.

If I fuck up and hurt someone, it is completely irrelevant whether or not I meant to. Abuse is not a matter of what the abuser wanted to do, it's a matter of what actually happened to the victim. Full stop. That's the risk I take when I insert myself so completely into someone's life like I have with Christine. That's the risk I take when I pour blood, sweat, and time into micromanaging her, guiding her into forming new habits all the while.

I'm not some perfect grandmaster manipulator capable of making anybody do anything I want. I'm not even close. There was always the chance I'd get caught on the wrong strategy, focus on the wrong problem, or get too self-obsessed over my needs and completely fuck Christine up. But I didn't. And now I get to see her smile. In the midst of war and death and horror, I get to see her smile. That's what makes it worth the risk.

No matter how arrogant, no matter how manipulative, sometimes you just have to devote yourself to helping someone.

"Ugh, look at you two being all sappy with each other," Emily groans.

"I get it, okay? I'll try not to obsess over my power too much. I think you're underestimating it, but you're right that I'm miserable and something needs to change."

"I'm glad to hear that," I say, "but I do want to point out that's exactly the sort of thing I'd expect your power to tell you to tell me."

"Oh my god, so what?" Emily says, throwing her hands up into the air.

"It's not a lie! I'm not lying! It's also optimal, who cares? What do you expect me to do, just turn my power off? I can't! I'm always going to know the consequences of anything I try to do! This shit doesn't just go away!" I stare at her, trying to figure out the best words to say. It's hard to argue with someone that isn't wrong, after all. But that's what makes her situation so fucked, isn't it? She has no good options with that kind of knowledge in her head.

It's crippling, and just like I did that means she has to learn to walk anew. So instead of saying anything, I step forward and pull her into a hug.

"Wh—!? Julietta!" Emily squeaks, wriggling under my grasp.

"Somehow or another, that's still me," I confirm.

"Wh-why are you… you're not usually a hugger," she mumbles, though she at least gives up on struggling as well.

"Well, I used to have a nerve disorder that made me unable to feel how nice they are," I admit.

"Followed by several weeks of constant overexposure to stimuli caused by suddenly having that cured. Also, I didn't trust most people to not knock me over."

"And now you're one of the most physically capable superheroes in the world," she says.

"Convenient, isn't it?"

"Unexpected, certainly," I agree.

"Jarring. I don't know about convenient, though. Honestly, I really fucking hated it for a while there. Some parts of me still do. I won the lottery and I'm mad about it. Weird, right?"

"I guess?" Emily says.

"Why are you telling me this? What is your angle here?" I chuckle, squeezing a little tighter before breaking away.

"You always did understand me best," I smile.

"This time, though, my angle is just that I don't know how to say goodbye without seeming callous, so I figured the best I could do to show you I care is to be honest about something I've never really articulated out loud before."

"So you're signaling that you want me to be more honest by modeling that honesty in an emotional enough situation that it pressures the group into adding it to our expected social dynamics via the human reciprocation instinct."

"Sure, but like, in a way that says 'I love you.'" Emily sighs. My smile widens.

"Come here, you dork," she grumbles, pulling me back into the hug.

"Tell me your stupid story."

"Well, I don't know if it's a story, per se," I answer.

"It's more that… my disability was important to me. It did nothing but cause me grief, sure, but so much of who I am is because of that. It feels weird to say, but I was proud of being disabled. If you had asked me at the time I would have told you that my pride stemmed from overcoming that disability, but… well, you can't overcome something that isn't there in the first place, you know? Everything I accomplished felt like starting ten meters back from the other racers and still finishing first.

How could I not have been proud? Having that ripped away from me was hard in ways I didn't want to admit. I mean, I was supposed to like not being disabled, right? That's what everyone would expect from me. It's certainly more convenient for them." My tentacles wind through Emily's hair, my chin resting on her shoulder. Letting her hold me up.

"Walking without a cane is still weird," I admit.

"I don't think about it as often anymore, but sometimes it just hits me and every cell in my body panics like I'm about to fall."

"It sounds a little spooky," Emily admits.

"Oh it definitely is," I say.

"I'm just trying to act normal and all of a sudden part of my brain just screams 'what the hell are you doing, you idiot!? We're going to die!' I think it's probably the closest I can get to understanding what it must be like for you to stop listening to your power for a few seconds." I hold back a flinch as Emily belts out a sudden, loud laugh into my ear, a burst of mirth so unexpected that it seems to surprise even her.

The laugh just keeps building and building, to the point where she has to break away from the hug to try to gasp in a few extra breaths. She laughs and laughs and laughs, and it's really nice to see… at first. But slowly, between breaths, it starts to be less funny. The first thing I notice is her eyes widening. That change in expression, from happiness to fear, is a subtle one. Her eyes start to water, but that's fairly normal for laughter this intense.

There isn't much difference between laughing and crying, when you get down to it. At a certain level of intensity they end up looking and sounding almost identical. And this particular fit of emotion is so intense that Emily can't even speak.

"I—" she gasps out.

"Wan—""I'm here," I promise her, gently grabbing her hand and subtly empowering my sensorium to look for danger. Can never be too careful. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"D-d-d-don—" she chokes out between gasps for air. It's a little terrifying to watch, but I've seen it before plenty of times. I'm sure Christine recognizes what's going on.

"Breathe slow, if you can," I tell her calmly, guiding her to sit on the couch.

"If it's urgent, point in whatever direction you want me to run." She shakes her head repeatedly, allowing me to sit her down. Well, that's good. I was pretty worried, given the suddenness of the panic attack. She works on breathing deeply, the inhales often cut off by sobs but slowly getting more and more consistent. I sit down on one side of her while Ana sits down on the other side, Christine heading to the kitchen to fill a glass of water while Peter and Maria stand awkwardly off to the side. Which is fair.

There are only so many things to do, and it wouldn't be good to crowd her. Christine brings the glass of water and sits down on the other side of Anastasia, leaning into her for a bit to reassure her. Emily looks at the glass of water like it shot her dog for a few moments, but as her breathing starts to slow down and even out she eventually grabs it and starts to drink, coughing a bit when she finishes. A few breaths later, she manages some comprehensible words.

"Sorry," she croaks. It's a start.

"You've got nothing to apologize for," I assure her.

"No," she insists, which… well, not much I can say to argue with that. What just happened, anyway? Like, she had a bit of a panic attack, but she doesn't look scared anymore, she just looks miserable and embarrassed. The transition from laughing to crying was so sudden. Just a big catharsis, maybe? She's probably been repressing a lot. Nah, it's Emily. There's more to it.

"I… wasn't supposed to be laughing," she mumbles.

"It wasn't even funny."

"Ah," I say.

"How badly did it hit the odds?" She shrugs, the question seeming to make her even more miserable. Or maybe… embarrassed? Hmm. It probably wasn't much of any change, because why would it be? It's just a laugh. Yet it still freaked her out this badly, because… what? Emily is nowhere near a good enough liar to fake all of her reactions just now, so I don't think this is just some elaborate set of power instructions to engender her to me.

That wouldn't even make any sense; there's no way I'm going to abandon her, no matter how stubborn or annoying she gets.

"Are you doing better?" I ask her.

"I don't think you understand how hard this is," Emily says.

"I'll agree with that," I concede.

"I don't. But I'd like to understand."

"The more I think about it, the more I know you're right about one thing," she continues.

"A god of failure would love me. If powers really do come from something like that, that's the perfect one for me."

"... Emily," I reassure her softly.

"I can almost always figure out what I should be doing," she says.

"But that doesn't mean I can do it. I just have to watch, helplessly, as I fuck up over and over and see my chances slip away. You're not asking me to do anything I don't already do. You're just asking me to do it on purpose." Oh. Yeah. Her powers tell her what to do, but they never help her do any of it. It's always on her to make the attempt… and often fail. It's almost a perfect power, from the perspective of her horrible god.

And I've been poking at that stress by trying to get her to take care of herself physically and emotionally; this moment, when she couldn't even control her own laughter, was just the straw that broke the back of the camel I'd been sitting my fat ass on. The panic of not being able to do the 'correct' action finally smashed through her mask, and then just compounded because crying and hyperventilating weren't her optimal moves either, but she couldn't stop.

It was a panic attack about mortality that, throughout its entire duration, taunted her with that mortality dripping ever-closer. I am suddenly quite glad my god has beef with Failure. I don't think I can respect anything that doesn't anymore. That thing is nothing more than a fucking demon, whispering hateful exaggerations in my sister's ear in a gleeful attempt to drag her down to hell. Fuck that. Fuck that. I won't stand for it. I'm gonna figure out if gods can die.

"Damnit I'm so fucking embarrassed right now," Emily groans, the silence seeming to have gotten to her.

"Ugh! You just got me feeling all emotional and shit and it all came out at once. This is stupid and it's your fault!"

"Blame accepted," I smile.

"Your emotion balloon just overinflated and popped," Christine shrugs.

"It happens."

"Not to me!" Emily snaps.

"Not to normal people!"

"You're not normal people," I remind her.

"You're about as far away from normal as you can get."

"You know what I mean," she grumbles.

"I'm just… I got upset when I shouldn't have. Quit crowding around me, this isn't a big deal." She pushes us away and gets back up, grabbing a tissue from a nearby tissue box to blow her nose with.

"Y'all have somewhere to be, right?" she says.

"Get out of here, focus on that."

"Hold on, Emily," I say.

"We're not in that big of a rush. I want to make sure you're settled first."

"I'll be fine," Emily insists.

"I don't want you to focus on me."

"Well, that's going to be a little difficult if you kick us out right after having a panic attack," I tell her bluntly.

"I care about you. Let's at least take a minute to calm down a little more, alright?" Emily groans, blowing her nose again and wiping away a couple more stray tears.

"I'm not going to act like you don't have a point," she admits, irritated.

"I'm miserable. I need to try something new. If that means confronting my own power, maybe I have to do that. But that's not going to happen today, and you have more important things to be worried about. Specifically, you need to be worried about her." She points at Maria.

"If you think you can beat fate, great. Fantastic. Good for you," Emily says.

"But you'd better put your fucking all into it. You're not going to get away with a fancy speech like you gave me if you fail to follow through. It's not going to be easy, Julietta. Don't you dare let her out of your sight. When that crisis has passed, then you can come back here and worry about me. I'll be fine until then." I hesitate, staring at her intently to try and determine if this is something she's genuinely worried about or just a deflection tactic. But unfortunately, I think it might be the former.

And she's right; Emily will be able to handle a few months of me leaving her alone and making sure Maria doesn't die.

"Alright," I concede.

"But try not to give me any more reasons to worry about you, alright? Take care of yourself while we're away."

"Who do you think you're talking to?" Emily asks, plastering a smirk onto her face.

"Looking out for number one has always been my best skill."

"Fair enough," I allow, but the joke doesn't fool me for even a second. We switch to more lighthearted topics of conversation while everyone finishes packing, not that any of us have many belongings to pack. Sooner than I'd like, we're all back in the huge car driving towards base.

"Well, um," Maria clears her throat, "you certainly have an interesting family."

"Don't I know it," Peter butts in before I can respond.

"Julietta is such a freak."

"Fuck off, Peter," Maria and I say at the same time.

"Fine, fine, I'll be serious for a second," he says.

"Emily is not usually that much of a bitch. She was really struggling there. She's usually good at hiding stuff like that, but whatever she's been going through lately has really messed her up."

"Yeah," I agree.

"I got the impression she didn't like me very much," Maria says.

"She was surprisingly cool about the whole 'more than one of me' thing, though. It was kind of a weird combination."

"Somebody doesn't like you, but not for the reasons you think they shouldn't like you?" I summarize.

"Yeah, that's always a little weird. I think she was just frustrated I told you about her. Please don't tell anyone, by the way."

"We won't," Maria sighs.

"Pretty sure helping a supervillain stay out of the military is a felony, though."

"Fortunately, I don't have enough respect for the current government administration to care about their definition of crime," I answer.

"It doesn't matter if something is illegal or not. It matters if it's the right thing to do or not. If the two don't match up, all that changes is whether or not you have to do the right thing in secret."

"I wish I had that kind of confidence," Maria admits.

"Don't worry, Julietta has enough confidence for all of us," Christine deadpans.

"Hey! I'm confident!" Anastasia insists.

"Julietta and Anastasia have enough confidence for all of us," Christine corrects.

"I have confidence," Peter says.

"You have arrogance," Christine says.

"That's not the same thing."

"Sure it is," I say.

"You have to have confidence to have arrogance. Arrogance just means you don't deserve it."

"Exactly!" Peter agrees happily.

"No one has confidence down better than the arrogant!" That earns a couple of chuckles throughout the car, to Peter's smug satisfaction. Never let it be said that he can't take what he dishes out.

"What do you think they need us all for, anyway?" Maria asks.

"Maybe it's just platoon training," Christine says.

"That seems overly optimistic, though."

"It's the base we trained at, so maybe they just need us to guard the newest batch of baby superheroes," Peter suggests.

"But there hasn't been another new incursion or moonfall since around the time Chicago got attacked," I point out.

"There might be a couple new supers just from random chance, but probably not enough to require all of us as guards."

"I hope they didn't find out about Emily," Anastasia sighs.

"We'll be in big trouble."

"I'm pretty sure she would have said something if that's what we were going back to," I point out.

"But at the very least, we should practice good opsec on the way home. Emily has no powers, I'm not Julietta, so on and so forth."

"Yeah, alright," Maria nods. Ultimately, the drive back to base isn't that long, and we're parking before we know it, checking in and getting our sleeping quarters assigned for what will almost certainly be a long day tomorrow. I finally get my new gear requisitioned—we'll see how long it lasts this time—and we have a nostalgic dinner in the mess hall before turning in for the night. The next morning, we head to the meeting room we were told to report to and wait.

I decide to wear an old body, since I actually have a uniform to wear again. It's mostly Lia standard, but with my preferred tentacle-hair, a few extra senses, and several internal optimizations. Not long after us, the other supers in our platoon also show up: Afterimage, Degreaser, and Ed. Or Leonidas, I guess. He'll always be Ed to me.

"Hey, welcome. Glad to see you all made it," I greet them.

"What, did you not bother to check if we survived earlier?" Degreaser smirks at me.

"I'm surprised you're still here with the rest of us," Afterimage says.

"With everything I heard you did in the battle I figured they'd have promoted you straight outta town by now."

"Yeah, you'd think three Angels would be worth a pay raise, wouldn't you?" I hum.

"I'm starting to suspect that they don't like my attitude."

"Wait, three Angels? Are you serious? Jesus," Afterimage swears.

"I knew you were scary, but fuck. That's… fuck."

"I might be scary, but there's no need to be scared," I shrug.

"If anything, I hope it's reassuring. We are in the same platoon, after all."

"She'll eat anything that tries to hurt you," Christine tells him.

"Or anyone."

"Thanks Christine, I'm sure that's very reassuring," I deadpan. Afterimage, of course, does not take the joke as well as I could have hoped, but there's no real time to attempt damage control. The door opens soon afterwards, revealing someone I had hoped to never see again.

"Well look at that," Commander smirks, stepping towards the front of the room.

"You sorry bastards actually managed to become soldiers."

"We weren't exactly given a choice," Christine points out.

"We never get a choice of who we work with or what we do," Rafflesia grumbles, stepping in afterwards. She's looking directly at me when she says it, because of course she is. The obvious thing I notice is that her tentacle-arm is missing, and in its place is nothing at all. I can't help but frown at that. Complete bullshit. There's no practical reason to forgo a useful limb like that. The only reason is social— having a tentacle arm would disturb most people and immediately mark her visually as having superpowers.

The sensitivities and prejudices of other people are the primary factor here, and sometimes? Sometimes that's okay. There's nothing wrong with valuing the comfort and happiness of others. But this is robbing a woman of an entire limb. That's not kindness, that's just bullshit. … Maybe I'm overreacting, of course. There could be other reasons. Perhaps the tentacle was causing her health problems. I mean, it clearly wasn't, I checked, but something like that. I'm just very annoyed by this sort of thing.

Society never stops demanding homogeny. Outliers are always punished, even if the outlier happens to be the sort of person society is ostensibly trying to help. I can already imagine countless people around her staring and acting uncomfortable and asking over and over 'are you sure that thing is a good idea' as if they knew better.

"Rafflesia, you're going to be responsible for these kids. You should try to make a good first impression," Commander says.

"Seraphim was on my wing ripper squad for a few hours," Rafflesia says.

"We're previously acquainted. She asked if she could eat the stuff I make with my powers." Can people please stop making me out to be some ravenous psychopath for five minutes?

"Technically, I only asked if they were edible," I correct, smirking to try to turn this whole thing into a joke.

"Not if you'd let me eat them."

"I watched you eat an Angel, Sera," Rafflesia says.

"Don't act like you weren't salivating over my freaky meat plants."

"Please don't call me Sera," I say.

"And I do not salivate over things. I am a very refined and composed eldritch horror with a sophisticated palate." That earns a snort of amusement from her, meaning the bit is successfully over and it's time to transition back into professionalism.

"Anyway, given that you're here, I'm gonna guess we're getting trained for anti-supervillain work?" I ask. The rest of my platoon seems surprised, but Rafflesia just huffs and nods.

"Got it in one," she confirms.

"Most of you have powers well-suited to my usual work, or you have other, more physical advantages. The number one difference between fighting Angels and fighting supervillains is that supervillains live among other people—meaning you're almost always going to be fighting them in places civilians could potentially get involved.

The number two difference is that Angels don't tend to need much coaxing to come out of hiding and fight you, but supervillains will usually do everything in their power to avoid confrontation and sneak away. As such, our best method of taking them out is always going to be surprise: gather information, track them down, and take them out before they get a chance to respond. You've all got roles to play in that."

She glances around the room, standing up straighter as her normally casual demeanor is replaced with that of a proper officer.

"Seraphim is the most obvious: she can look like anyone, and potentially look like she belongs anywhere. Leonidas and Vermillion, similarly, don't look like normal soldiers and are easier to position around a target without tipping them off. Afterimage and Titania both have excellent powers for scouting, Nemian is largely immune to traps and other impediments supervillains like to use to slow us down, and both Degreaser and Breakdown can use their powers to capture targets. That's the basic idea, anyway.

Your group is a lot larger and broader-focused than most anti-supervillain squads, but it is what it is."

"For the next month, all of you will be training under Rafflesia's supervision to gain the skills necessary to overcome standard supervillain tactics, including hostage situations and combat in public areas," Commander informs us.

"It is currently unknown whether or not you will ever be deployed in this capacity, but while we consolidate and solidify our territory in preparation for the next assault on the aliens, we'll make sure the lot of you are still being put to work. Is that understood?"

"Yes ma'am!" we all answer back.

"Good. I knew you were all too smart to look forward to any extended breaks. Good work in St. Louis, all of you. I'll leave the rest to Rafflesia." She nods and departs, and Rafflesia relaxes back into her usual attitude again.

"Okay then," she says.

"Let's get started."